Category: 1980s

As a group, the Thompson Twins went through several permutations of their lineup, with the band’s membership count as high as seven in 1981. But before long they’d pared themselves down to a trio, and did terrible things to their hair, as so many of us did in the 1980s. Except me, but I’ve never been one of the cool kids, so.

 This week we’re taking a look at those early incarnations of one of the bands that helped define the Second British Invasion, and helped bring New Wave music from its post-Punk roots into the Pop mainstream. And that’s about the most Rolling Stone thing I’ve written.

I don’t know where you’ve been getting the show from, but the show is now available on iHeartRadio! You can see the whole thing here. So if that’s your thing, now you have a link to me there as well. Oddly enough, though, iHeartRadio is representing all of the shows’ lengths in seconds as minutes. So this 11:14 show is listed as being 679 minutes. Weird, and I hope that this gets straightened out in a bit.

If you’re using Podcast Republic, or iTunes or something else, you should already have the show in your podcatcher. If you prefer to listen online or to download the episode, you can do that here:

 

And yes, I know I mis-pronounce “bass” early in the show. I gotta stop recording after midnight.

Kim Carnes started writing songs at the age of four, and was a member of the New Christy Minstrels for a little while, before she got a publishing deal with Jimmy Bowen in 1969. A couple of years after that she released her first solo album, but it wasn’t until 1980, when she re-connected with another former New Christy Minstrel, Kenny Rogers, to sing “Don’t Fall In Love With A Dreamer”. Later that year she covered Smokey Robinson’s “More Love” and between those two tracks, Kim Carnes was “suddenly” a famous musician.

The following year, Carnes’ album Mistaken Identity was released, and the leadoff single, “Bette Davis Eyes” took over the first half of the Summer of 1981, after which Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” picked up and finished off the next ten weeks. Even Bette Davis herself was happy enough with the song that she wrote letters to Kim Carnes and songwriters Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss, thanking them for making her a “part of modern times. ” And when the song won two Grammy awards, Davis sent them all flowers to celebrate.

As usual, if you don’t have a podcatcher, or you can just listen/download by clicking on the player below:

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It was the biggest album of 1982, and the title track was the last Top Ten single to come from it. That’s seven singles out of nine tracks total.

Michael Jackson wanted to top not only the success, but the ambition of his previous album, Off The Wall, and I think we can all agree that he more than succeeded. Thriller remains the largest-selling album of all time.

What! you say, bigger than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Bigger than Dark Side of the Moon? Bigger than Bat Out of Hell? Yes, indeed. As of this week, the top 15 all-time sellers are:

Artist	Album Title	Year	Sales (in millions)
Michael Jackson	Thriller	1982	66
AC/DC	Back in Black	1980	50
Pink Floyd	The Dark Side of the Moon	1973	45
Meat Loaf	Bat Out of Hell	1977	43
Whitney Houston / Various artists	The Bodyguard Soundtrack	1992	42
Eagles	Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)	1976	42
Bee Gees / Various artists	Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack	1977	40
Fleetwood Mac	Rumours	1977	40
Shania Twain	Come On Over	1997	39
Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin IV	1971	37
Michael Jackson	Bad	1987	35
Alanis Morissette	Jagged Little Pill	1995	33
Celine Dion	Falling into You	1996	32
The Beatles	Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band	1967	32
Michael Jackson	Dangerous	1991	32

That’s THREE albums Jackson has in the all-time Top 15, and Off the Wall isn’t even one of them. (It’s way down the list, a spot or two below HIStory.)

Anyway. Today we’re looking at the title track, a song that started as “Starlight” and ended with Quincy Jones’ wife recruiting Vincent Price to do a little white-boy rap.

Per our Standard Operating Procedure, if you’ve got a favorite podcatcher, you should be able to hear this week’s show already, or you can just click the player below:

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And, as usual, if you were to go to iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts and leave a rating, and maybe even some feedback, well, that’d be nice too.

Before they were famous, lots of artists sang backup for other artists. But once in awhile, they’ll lend their talent to someone else because it’s fun, or because they owe someone a favor or maybe just because they were asked to.

This week, we’re going to listen in on a bunch of songs that have famous people singing backups. Some of them are pretty well known; others may come as a surprise to you.

Per our Standard Operating Procedure, if you’ve got a favorite podcatcher, you should be able to hear this week’s show already, or you can just click the player below to listen/download it right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:05 — 13.0MB)

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And, as usual, if you were to go to iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts and leave a rating, and maybe even some feedback, I’d be quite the happy camper.

Wait, Phil Collins did what?

He drowned a guy? Uh…no.

He humiliated a coward? No.

He shamed someone from his childhood? Also, no.

Many stories swirl around the meaning of Phil Collins’ breakout hit from 1981, and so many of them aren’t true. Collins was in a world of hurt following the breakup of his first marriage, and he channeled a lot of that energy into writing the Face Value album. This week I go into that a little bit (but only a little bit; it gets kind of tawdry), plus I talk about the sound that makes him instantly recognizable on so many records in the 1980s. And it’s a sound that’s making its way back into popular music these days.

With all the changes in the weather we’ve been having, it’s been playing havoc with my voice. So if I don’t sound quite right, there’s a reason for it. Here’s hoping I sound a little better next week.

Also: for those of you not in the know, that weird squeaky noise you hear during the Peter Gabriel clip isn’t evidence that I use a cheap office chair, although it’s true, I do. That sound is part of the Gabriel song.

As usual, if you haven’t subscribed via iTunes or your favorite podcast catcher, you can download the file or listen right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:30 — 10.5MB)

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And of course, I wouldn’t be especially upset if you went to iTunes and gave me a positive review. Even if that’s not your podcast catcher, every time someone says something nice about me in iTunes, an angel gets his wings. Right, Clarence?

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Links Department:

This is a great video from Vox.com that explains the concept of gated reverb in greater detail.

In the podcast, I mention my suspicion that gated reverb is making a comeback. Also from the Vox article is this Spotify playlist which confirms my theory. (I do hope I linked that correctly; if not then go to the Vox link and listen from there.)

Article from the Miami Herald from last year about Phil Collins finally opening up to the story behind the song.

But naturally, his ex is going to speak her piece. See? Tawdry.

I wasn’t kidding about Ozzy Osbourne.