1981

                1981 is another year of consolidation without a great deal of innovation.  Metal, New Wave, and post-punk all arguably hit high water marks as commercial forms, but all are by-and-large just repeating themselves this year.  The only genres really moving forward are hardcore, which really emerges as a genre distinct from punk this year, and prog, which continues to revitalize itself by incorporating elements of New Wave & post-punk.  Otherwise, it’s a lot of consolidation, which is fun to listen to, but not nearly as exciting as that 77-79 run of rapid innovation.

                This is also a year where I’ve got a lot of music “on the margins,” made by artists off in their own musical world, disconnected from the rest of my music collection.  About 4½ hours of my digital music (out of 24 hrs) and a similar portion of my LP sides fit in this category.  Some of these are acts where it’s largely that my collection in that genre are weak (Waylon Jennings & Merle Haggard, for instance), but elsewhere it’s somewhat more idiosyncratic.  Zappa and French concept band Magma, for instance, are the sort of acts that never fit in with their musical contemporaries to a great degree, while the Grateful Dead have basically given up on any attempts to sound contemporary, and are just working their own take on folk-rock, spread, this year, over 4 LP sides of live music in two live albums.  (as an aside, Dead Set has been my favorite Dead album cover for as long as I can remember, which is almost as far back as the year of release).  Similarly, on a personal note, Count Basie has a couple of albums this year that could have been recorded in the 50s for all the modern influences, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the year I met the man (as an infant). 

                Metal is perhaps the clearest example of ’81 being a year of repetition rather than innovation.  Both Sabbath and Ozzy release albums that are veritable carbon copies of their predecessors.  In Sabbath’s case, the parallels run even down to the track-to-track comparison level.  And Ozzy’s is chiefly distinguished by the cheapest looking album art of his career.  Still, both are excellent albums, which I think I actually like better than their ’80 records, even if they suffer from being obvious copies.  One thing that is surprising in metal is the resurgence of Blue Öyster Cult, after years of utterly forgettable records as far back as ’77.  Probably not a coincidence that they, like Black Sabbath, were revitalized by bringing in Martin Birch as producer (formerly of Deep Purple producing fame), since they end up sounding not dissimilar.  They also both end up on the soundtrack to stoner classic Heavy Metal this year, where they, along with the incredibly incongruous Devo, are by far the highlights among a sea of mediocre mainstream hard rock.

                Which is as clever a segue as I can come up with for moving to New Wave.  In terms of sales, my understanding is that this is New Wave’s biggest year.  Certainly it’s the biggest year for the Go-Gos and the Cars, at least.  New Wave is starting to feel like a genre about to falter, though – it’s still good, and even innovative in places, but it’s starting to feel a touch played out.  In part, this may be because some of the big names are quiet this year.  The Clash and the Jam both only release a couple of singles, which are innovative enough to show why their absence is missed more generally.  The Stiff Little Fingers do, however, put out their finest album, showing themselves to be worthy Clash followers, not insofar as they sound especially like the Clash (although both reggae and the Clash themselves are clear influences), but in the way they fuse punk energy and ambitious songcraft.  And I think they actually do a better job of incorporating horns than the Clash.  Which, along with lyrics more focused on the minutia of everyday life, actually makes them sound like worthy Jam followers as well.

                There are also hints of the alt-rock that will ultimately supplant New Wave cropping up.  Some of these, like R.E.M. and Mission of Burma, still very much sound like post-punkers .  Others, like Midnight Oil and the Violent Femmes, are clearly moving to a new sound, both pushing music forward and sounding more trad (which in this context basically means downplaying synths in favor of more old-school songcraft).  It’s also a year where it becomes clear why Tom Petty managed to keep getting alt-rock radio play into the 80s and 90s.  Without really changing his sound, Petty already fits in with these new, Byrds-influenced alt-rockers as well as or better than he did with the New Wavers.  Which I guess is a sign of the timelessness of great songwriting.

                 One thing that is interesting to note is that both Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson release all-covers genre tribute records.  Earlier I mentioned that Count Basie sounded out of time, but that’s not entirely accurate.  This year Joe Jackson puts out a straight-up jump-blues tribute, esp. focused on Louis Jordan, while Elvis does a country-covers album.  As covers albums, they’re almost minor by definition, but still somehow Jackson’s feels slighter.  Maybe because it’s more obviously a stylistic cul-de-sac, and clearly backward-looking, while Elvis, at least in some cases, is covering contemporaries, and it feels more like a stylistic expansion.  Overall, I start to wonder if I’ve been taking Elvis Costello for granted.  In addition to Almost Blue, he also puts out yet another really solid record of originals, this time a return to the produced sheen he started working with on Armed Forces. (although he’s picked up some crooning tricks from last year’s soul tribute)  At this point, it’s fair to say that he’s had a longer winning streak than Dylan in the 60s, and I’ve always felt he was the better lyricist – Dylan too readily slips into potentially meaningless absurdism, while Elvis songs are always lyrically cogent. 

                I guess it says something about the quality of New Wave that such high-quality acts slip through the cracks.  I haven’t said much about the Police, either, but they’re a very solid group, who this year play down the punk-reggae elements and produce what I think is their best record.  Other big New Wave acts are also hitting peaks.  For the Cars, this is more commercial than artistic: Shake It Up is very good, but it’s more of a retread than the earlier albums, all of which pushed their sound into new places.  Devo doesn’t have a hit as big as last year’s “Whip It,” but overall are at least as good as they’ve been to date, and “Beautiful World” is probably my favorite of theirs, at least lyrically.  Oh, and their influence is being felt more broadly.  Pete Shelley has ditched the Buzzcocks to make Devo-eque electronic music; sadly, while the melodies are there, Shelley’s electronica sounds less like bold sonic innovation and more like he couldn’t be bothered to form a band. 

                Prince continues to deepen his own New Wave sound, fleshing out the Spartan Dirty Mind approach with something more full-band-based on Controversy.  The highs aren’t as high, but Prince, a Johnny-come-lately to New Wave, almost instantly becomes one of its most interesting practitioners.  It’s also exciting to hear someone actually bridging funk & rock.  A band like, say, Gang of Four or Elvis Costello, play funk or soul as an academic exercise, but don’t sound at all natural next to the real deal.  Prince, however, sounds as natural segued between the Cars and the Go-Go’s as he does between Earth Wind & Fire and Rick James.  Rick James, by the way, probably hits his peak this year, with his twin classics “Superfreak” and “Give It To Me Baby.”

                One big New Wave act that’s gone now is Blondie, but apparently New Wave abhors a vacuum, as no sooner are they gone than the Go-Go’s emerge to fill the girl-group-homage by band with punk roots role.  They’re very good, but as that lead-in indicates, not especially innovative, basically picking up where Blondie left off.  Like Blondie, they’re also remembered as a pop group, but they had some real credible punk roots, gigging with X, and actually playing with both Madness and the Specials.

                The Second Wave, by the way, is still going, but starting to break down.  Mostly this is felt in the Specials’ moody final EP, the impeccable Ghost Town.  It’s great, but also saddening in that it shows just how much potential the band still had.  Next year we’ll get the Fun Boy Three, and later the Special AKA, but neither are a patch on the original Specials.  So this is the last year we get music from all of the Big Three, but at least it’s all good stuff.  The Beat are sounding more rocksteady than ska this year, slowing their tempo and illustrating how, while Madness were more straight-up fun and the Specials had more to say lyrically, the Beat were the most musical of the three, and closest to the excellent musicianship of the First Wave.  Finally, Madness show more and more of their Kinks influence, especially on “It Must Be Love,” while the Kinks themselves also have a very good year.  Not at all ska-influenced, but sounding more like themselves than they have for the last few years of stadium-rocking.  To a degree this is quite literal, as on “Destroyer,” which lyrically cites “Lola” and nicks the riff from “You Really Got Me.”  But more impressively, “Better Things” is the most Kinks-y the Kinks have sounded since at least “Sweet Lady Genevive” back on Preservation.  And it sounds entirely natural next to Madness…

                Elsewhere among the old 60s acts, both the Stones and Neil Young have minor but worthy albums.  Tattoo You, as befits an album of outtakes dating as far back as the Mick Taylor years, sounds largely out-of-time.  Still, this is the last of their albums to really be worth listening to all the way through, and it sure is nice to hear the Taylor-era Stones in action on a couple last tracks.  Unsurprisingly, the best song on the whole album is one of Taylor’s – “Waiting On A Friend.”  It’s a little sad that this is the last time I’ll really care about the Stones, but if nothing else, this project made me realize just how consistently vital they stayed all the way from ’64 to ’81.

Neil Young, meanwhile, will stay vital for awhile, but while last year’s Hawks & Doves was a limp, half-assed album, this year’s Re*Ac*Tor shows how to half-ass an album properly.  Properly punky, Young slaps together some fairly primitive rockers and gets  his damn fine garage band to bang them out.  Sure you could tag ”T-Bone” for being lazy (9 minutes, one repeated lyric of “got mashed potatoes/ain’t got no t-bone”), but what the hell, the band rocks hard, and they hammer that groove like a fence post.  Maybe it’s just easier to half-ass garage rock than country-rock.  Regardless, Young & co. show an almost surf-rock rhythmic sensibility, and oddly recall X, another band with deeper influences and deceptively talented musicians who show a strong affinity for rockabilly and surf rock.  I’d almost forgotten before this project just how great X were at pioneering the roots-punk sound which is really among my favorite sounds in all of music.

Elsewhere in punk, while the Ramones are still doing a worthy variant on their classic sound, the biggest news is the development of hardcore as a distinct genre.  As I’ve mentioned before, this is not my favorite style.  Much like the old early-60s NYC folk scene, the insistence on a narrow genre purity is just not that compelling, and lyrics and aggression only carry you so far.  Not that you can’t do quite well within those parameters, but it’s probably not an accident that few bands stay a hardcore band for long – they either mutate into something else Bad Brains/Black Flag/Minor Threat-Fugazi style or they break up.  Black Flag, however, do put out one of the classics of the genre, but crucially their sonic textures are as much metal as hardcore, and that probably makes the crucial difference.  Not that it sounds at all like the mainstream metal of ’81 I talked about above.

The last major genre activity to talk about in ’81 is post-punk, which like New Wave hits a commercial high-water mark, but perhaps not an artistic one.  This is a fantastic year for a whole clutch of singles, from one-hit wonders (Thomas Dolby), major post-punks (Magazine, actually lightening up a bit), and artists only tangentially related to the genre, like R.E.M. (who will never sound as post-punk as they do on the first version of “Radio Free Europe”).  Also among the Americans making waves are Mission of Burma, who sound at times closest to a more aggressive or martial Wire of any band you might name, but really just like their own prog-post-punk fusion.

Of course, the spectre that really hangs over post-punk this year is Ian Curtis.  His old bandmates take their first  halting steps forward, with New Order’s debut.  At times they hint at the jangly R.E.M.-style folk-rock they’ll play with from time to time, but most of the time they illustrate just what they lost in Ian Curtis.  Musically, they’re understandably very close to Joy Division, but don’t have half as compelling a frontman (or even just a vocalist, never mind charisma).  Not for nothing, but their first single A&B were supposed to be the next Joy Division single.  However, they’re easily outclassed by Joy Division’s own posthumous odds & sods comp, barring the piss-poor live half.  It’s not all a waste, though, as on “Temptation,” New Order offer their first glimpse of the sound they’ll make their own identity with.  It’s maybe not as compelling as Joy Division’s, but it is their own, and at least not so bleak that it only makes sense to listen to in the rain or at night.  By contrast, Echo & the Bunnymen were described in ”High Fidelity” as picking up where Joy Division left off, and that’s at least as true as New Order, although while they do a better Joy Division imitation, there are fewer hints of them developing their own musical identity.

Among the other marquee post-punks, Gang of Four show signs of forward motion while still being not quite as good as last time around.  Gang of Four’s funk, like its politics, remain firmly academic (which is why they lose out to the more real-life politics of the Clash), but this year at least their groove loosens up a bit, and gets a bit more rubbery.  As Gang of Four get more loose and the Beat get more downtempo, they actually start to oddly recall each other.

Public Image similarly evolve while being less compelling, but definitely get credit for radically revamping their sound.  After bassist Jah Wobble was fired, they press ahead with no bassist at all, which given how bass-heavy their sound was is radical to say the least.  Moreover, they do so by emphasizing percussion in a hard-to-describe but unique fashion.  At its worst, it just sounds like vaguely rhythmic noise, but at its best it’s relentlessly inventive, if not offering even the vaguest hint of concession toward accessibility.

Talking Heads don’t have a record this year, but their influence hangs large over two of the major art-rock albums of ’81, both of which are basically attempts to work with the Remain In Light sound.  David Byrne & Brian Eno obviously can claim a lot of authorship of that sound, and their My Life In the Bush of Ghosts understandably draws heavily on their most recent opus.  It’s also even more hip-hop-influenced than the Heads, being one of the earliest sample-based records.  Not nearly as funky as, say, Prince Paul, but still both an early and excellent example of the cut & paste aesthetic musically.  Less pop than the Talking Heads, more abstract, but a worthy follow-up to Remain In Light.

Also borrowing heavily from Remain In Light are the re-formed King Crimson.  Much like Yes, Robert Fripp responds to New Wave by incorporating one of its architects, in this case Adrian Belew (who was already a sideman for Zappa and, like Fripp, for Bowie on the Berlin records).  More relevant, however, is that Belew was a guest guitarist on most of Remain In Light, and Discipline basically fuses the Afrobeat leanings of the Talking Heads, the percussive experiments of Public Image Ltd., and Fripp (and Belew)’s own fetish for making their guitars make odd sounds.  Much like PiL, this is music that’s easier to admire than to love, being so abstracted and focused on technique over feeling.  Compelling to listen to if you pay attention, but they’re sometimes too complex for their own good.  Remain in Light was endlessly inventive, but also grooved like hell.  You can’t really groove to a song  in 17/16 time, or one that’s constantly shifting in meter.  So easy to admire, fun to listen to, but hard-to-impossible to groove to, and Afrobeat is all about riding the groove…

Song of the Year:  “Ghost Town” – The Specials.  A requiem for a scene, a movement, a city, and very much a nation consumed by violence.  Fascinating musically as well as lyrically, creating a kind of downtempo ska that’s wholly distinct from reggae or rocksteady. 

Album of the Year:  Moving Pictures – Rush.  Rush remain the prog band best able to respond to the New Wave, and this is their peak not only of the New Wave years but of their career.  Esp. for Peart as a lyricist – check “Limelight” especially.  Also musically, as Dr. Krieger notes about instrumental “YYZ”, “Neil Peart stands alone.”  Apart from Moving Pictures, though, a year marked more by solid singles than albums.

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  U2.  I’d previously dismissed October as a weak bridge between the early post-punk of Boy and the later stridency of War¸ but it’s actually a really quality piece of post-punk.  Easier on the ears than PiL or Gang of Four, but inventive and more interesting than, say the early fumblings of New Order. 

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Minor Threat.  Hardcore is a limited genre, but Minor Threat are hookless, yelly, and get by solely on adrenaline and lyrical anger.  Important, I understand, but even within the limits of hardcore there are much more compelling bands (Black Flag, for instance).  I know I’m a bad Washingtonian to say such things, but in my defense, Fugazi (the Public Image to Minor Threat’s Sex Pistols) are quite good.  And I do very much enjoy DC’s own Bad Brains, but more on them next year…

Album List

ABBA - Gold

Bauhaus -= 1979-1983

Black Flag - Damaged

Black Flag - The First Four Years

Black Sabbath - The Mob Rules

Black Uhuru - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Blue Öyster Cult - Workshop Of The Telescopes

Blue Öyster Cult- Fire of Unknown Origin

Bob Dylan - Greatest Hits Volume 3

Bob Dylan - Live 1961-2000: Thirty-Nine Years of Great Concert Performances

Bob Dylan - Vol. 3: Rare And Unreleased, 1974-1991

Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Buzzcocks - Parts 1-3

Count Basie - Kansas City 6

Count Basie - Warm Breeze

David Bowie - Best Of Bowie

Dead Kennedys - Misc.

Devo - Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology

Echo & The Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here

Electric Light Orchestra - Strange Magic: The Best Of Electric Light Orchestra

Elvis Costello – Almost Blue

Elvis Costello - Best Of

Elvis Costello – Trust

Fela Kuti - The Best Best Of Fela Kuti

Frank Zappa - You Are What You Is

Gang of Four – Solid Gold

George Harrison - Best Of Dark Horse 1976-1989

Gil Scott-Heron – Reflections

Iron Maiden - Misc.

Joe Jackson – Jumping Jive

Joy Division - Still

Judas Priest - Metal Works '73-'93

King Crimson – Discipline

King Crimson - In the Studio 1981-1984

Madness - Total Madness: The Very Best Of Madness

Magazine - Rays And Hail 1978-1981: The Best Of Magazine

Magma - Retrospektiw i - 2

Merle Haggard - Big City

Midnight Oil - 20,000 Watts R.S.L.: Greatest Hits

Minor Threat - In My Eyes

Minor Threat - Minor Threat

Minutemen - The Punch Line

Mission Of Burma - Signals, Calls, And Marches

Motörhead - No Remorse

Neil Young - Lucky Thirteen

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Re*Ac*Tor

New Order - Movement

New Order - Substance

New Order - The Peel Sessions

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary Of A Madman

Parliament - Tear The Roof Off 1974-1980

Pete Shelley – Homosapian

Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?: The Wall Live

Prince – Controversy

Prince - The B-Sides

Prince - The Hits

Public Image Limited – Flowers of Romance

Queen - Classic Queen

Rick James - Motown Legends: Give It to Me Baby

Ringo Starr - Photograph: The Very Best Of Ringo Starr

Roxy Music - The Best Of Roxy Music

Rush - Chronicles

Rush – Moving Pictures

Squeeze - Singles 45's And Under

Stiff Little Fingers - Go For It

Sugarhill Gang - Apache

Talking Heads - The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads

The Beat – Wha’ppen?

The Cars - The Cars Greatest Hits

The Clash - Clash On Broadway [Disc 3]

The Clash - Live: From Here to Eternity

The Clash - Super Black Market Clash

The Clash - The Singles - 14 - The Magnificent Seven

The Fall - 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats

The Go-Go’s – Beauty And The Beat

The Grateful Dead – Dead Set

The Grateful Dead – Reckoning

The Jam - Compact Snap

The Kinks - Come Dancing With The Kinks

The Kinks – Give The People What They Want

The Mekons - Where Were You?

The Police - Every Breath You Take: The Singles

The Police – Ghost In The Machine

The Ramones - Mania

The Replacements - Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash

The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks

The Rolling Stones – Tattoo You

The Specials - The Singles Collection

The Stranglers – The Gospel According To the Meninblack

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback I: The Big Jangle

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback IV: The Other Sides

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback V: Through The Cracks

Toots & The Maytals - Time Tough - The Anthology

U2 - October

U2 - The Best Of 1980-1990

V/A - 12 Classic 45s

V/A - Back In The Day Jamz

V/A - Children Of Nuggets I

V/A - Children Of Nuggets II

V/A - Children Of Nuggets III

V/A - Children Of Nuggets IV

V/A - Mp3

V/A - Old School I

V/A - Post Punk Chronicles: Left Of The Dial

V/A - Pure Funk

V/A - Snatch

Violent Femmes - Add It Up (1981-1993)

Waylon Jennings - Best Of Waylon Jennings

X - Beyond & Back: The X Anthology

X – Wild Gift