Tag: 1980s

Welcome to the Pleasuredome

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Sticking with the 80s and some pop nostalgia with Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Its a very electronic and very 80s album. Nowadays you can see just how camp and sexual it was, but back then, I vaguely remember dancing to Relax at primary school…but I was very young and innocent too then.

Content wise, once you get past the very well known Two Tribes, Relax and Power of Love, you find some covers (including Springsteen’s Born to Run), and some more atmospheric spoken word tracks. But those big three tracks are key, bringing together the cold war, sex and christmas in that order, these are the songs that people remember. Which is a shame because when you listen to the rest of the album, it is a great album and very much a classic for the era.

RUN-D.M.C.

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Back to some old school Hip Hop and back to what, in my mind, Hip Hop should be, with the debut from Run D.M.C..

Great tracks on this album, good sense of beats mixing and scratching, laced with great lyrics, nothing overly violent or agressive in the content, just great rhymes with some political content, as you would expect. Nice and simple, I like this style much more than the more agressive rap style that came out later.

Obvious stand out tracks include It’s Like That, which was a classic before Jason Nevins got his hands on it to bring it back to a new audience.

Iron Maiden

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

So I knew of this album and the band (this is getting more into my type of music) however, I’d never listened this album before.

When I was listening to it, I realised that the vocal didn’t sound like Bruce Dickinson, and that’s when I found out that he wasn’t the original vocalist with the band, it was Paul Di’Anno. And that added a different layer to the album, one that I wasn’t expecting.

As much as I know Iron Maiden didn’t want to be associated with punk rock in the early days, this definitely has a punky feel, although maybe it’s more in line with the emerging speed metal scene than punk, as the songs are not overly political, like the punk songs of the time.

The 8 tracks flew by pretty quickly, there was a good beat in there as well that was driving the songs forward. The songs themselves were catchy, although I didn’t focus on the lyrics. The guitars pumped out nicely. The vocal was good, but I think because I’m so used to Bruce fronting the band, they just didn’t sit right with me. Paul’s good, but Bruce is better.

Licensed To Ill

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Ok, so I knew Beastie Boys from tracks like Sabotage and Intergalactic, so this was a good trip back into their older stuff for me.

I really enjoyed listening to this, it sounded a bit dated given the hip-hop/rap sounds that our out there these days, but it was also has a pure quality to it. I’m not sure how much guitars had been used in hip-hop before this, but it’s got a nice fusion feel from the rock guitars and the hip-hop beats and scratching. It is, as I feel real hip-hop should be, very minimalist in terms of instruments and tunes, everything is carried by the vocals and the rhythm. And it also has that old school feel with different MCs finishing off each others lines and speaking (is that the right term, should it be rapping, or in the case of the Beastie Boys, shouting) the vocal together.

This is definitely an album for when you’re having a bad day at the office. Pure shouty Hip-Hop, from start to finish.