Prince - 1999 [2LP] - Vinyl

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1999 is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Prince, released on October 27, 1982, by Warner Bros. Records
It became his first album to be recorded with his band the Revolution
1999's critical and commercial success propelled Prince to a place in the public psyche and marked the beginning of two years of heightened fame via his following releases.

1999 was Prince's first top 10 album on the Billboard 200, peaking at number nine, and was fifth in the Billboard Year-End Albums of 1983. "1999", a protest against nuclear proliferation, was a Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit, peaking at number 12. 
It has since become one of Prince's most recognizable compositions. "Delirious" reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Little Red Corvette" peaked at number six, becoming Prince's highest charting US single at the time. "International Lover" was also nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance at the 26th Grammy Awards, which was Prince's first Grammy Award nomination. 

With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large audience. 
After delivering the sound-alike album, Controversy, Prince revamped his sound and delivered the double album 1999. Where his earlier albums had been a fusion of organic and electronic sounds, 1999 was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself. 

Naturally, the effect was slightly more mechanical and robotic than his previous work and strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. 
Prince had also constructed an album dominated by computer funk, but he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. 

The first side of the record contained all of the hit singles, and, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that contained the least amount of electronics. 
"1999" parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove much tighter than anything George Clinton ever did, "Little Red Corvette" is pure pop, and "Delirious" takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. 
After that opening salvo, all the rules go out the window -- "Let's Pretend We're Married" is a salacious extended lust letter, "Free" is an elegiac anthem, "All the Critics Love U in New York" is a vicious attack at hipsters, and "Lady Cab Driver," with its notorious bridge, is the culmination of all of his sexual fantasies. 
Sure, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence.


Side A
A1.  1999 - 6:15
A2.  Little Red Corvette - 5:03
A3.  Delirious - 4:00

Side B
B1.  Let’s Pretend We’re Married - 7:21
B2.  D.M.S.R. - 8:17

Side C
C1.  Automatic - 9:28
C2.  Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) - 4:02
C3.  Free - 5:08

Side D
D1.  Lady Cab Driver - 8:19
D2.  All the Critics Love U In New York - 5:59
D3.  International Lover - 6:37


Personnel
  • Prince – lead and backing vocals, all other instruments except as noted.
  • Dez Dickerson – co-lead vocals (1), guitar solos and backing vocals (2)
  • Lisa Coleman – co-lead vocals (1), backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 6, 8)
  • Jill Jones – co-lead vocals (1), backing vocals (6, 8, 9)
  • Vanity – backing vocals (8)
  • Wendy Melvoin – backing vocals (8)

While not performance credited for the studio recordings, band members Doctor Fink (keyboards), Bobby Z. (drums) and Brown Mark (bass) do appear in the music videos


Companies, etc.
Credits

Notes
Release:  1982
Format:  2LP
Genre:  Soul, Funk, Pop
Length:  
Label:  Warner Bros. Records


Pink Floyd - The Wall [2LP] (1979) - Vinyl

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The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 30 November 1979 by Harvest/EMI and Columbia/CBS Records.
It is a rock opera that explores Pink, a jaded rock star whose eventual self-imposed isolation from society forms a figurative wall. 

The album was a commercial success, topping the US charts for 15 weeks and reaching number three in the UK. 
It initially received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom found it overblown and pretentious, but later received accolades as one of the greatest albums of all time.

Bassist Roger Waters conceived The Wall during Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh tour, modelling the character of Pink after himself and Pink Floyd's former songwriter Syd Barrett
Recording spanned from December 1978 to November 1979. Producer Bob Ezrin helped to refine the concept and bridge tensions during recording, as the band members were struggling with personal and financial issues at the time. 
The Wall was the last album to feature Pink Floyd as a quartet; keyboardist Richard Wright was fired by Waters during production but stayed on as a salaried musician.



Three singles were issued from the album: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" (Pink Floyd's only UK and US number-one single), "Run Like Hell", and "Comfortably Numb". 
From 1980 to 1981, Pink Floyd performed the full album on a tour that featured elaborate theatrical effects. In 1982, The Wall was adapted into a feature film for which Waters wrote the screenplay.

The Wall is one of the best-known concept albums. With over 30 million copies sold, it is the second best-selling album in the band's catalogue (behind The Dark Side of the Moon), the best selling double-album of all time, and one of the best-selling albums of all time overall. 
Some of the outtakes from the recording sessions were used on the group's next album, The Final Cut (1983). 


Side A
A1.  In The Flesh? - 3:17
A2.  The Thin Ice - 2:28
A3.  Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1) - 3:41
A4.  The Happiest Days Of Our Lives - 1:20
A5.  Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) - 3:56
A6.  Mother - 5:32

Side B
B1.  Goodbye Blue Sky - 2:48
B2.  Empty Spaces - 5:36
B3.  Young Lust - 2:03
B4.  One Of My Turns - 1:33
B5.  Don't Leave Me Now - 4:22
B6.  Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3) - 1:17
B7.  Goodbye Cruel World - 1:05

Side C
C1.  Hey You - 4:39
C2.  Is There Anybody Out There? - 2:40
C3.  Nobody Home - 3:25
C4.  Vera - 1:38
C5.  Bring The Boys Back Home - 1:28
C6.  Comfortably Numb - 6:49

Side D
D1.  The Show Must Go On - 1:36
D2.  In The Flesh - 4:16
D3.  Run Like Hell - 4:22
D4.  Waiting For The Worms - 3:56
D5.  Stop - 0:34
D6.  The Trial - 5:16
D7.  Outside The Wall - 1:42



Companies, etc.

Credits

Notes
Released:  1979
Format:  2LP, Vinyl (Gatefold)
Genre:  Prog Rock
Length:  1:22:07
Label:  Harvest Records


Luther Vandross - Never Too Much (1981) - Vinyl

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Luther Ronzoni Vandross, Jr. (April 20, 1951 – July 1, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter and record producer.
Throughout his career, Vandross was an in-demand background vocalist for several different artists including Judy Collins, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Janet Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Ben E. King, and Donna Summer.
He later became the lead vocalist of the group Change, which released its certified gold debut album, The Glow of Love, in 1980 on Warner Bros. Records.
After Vandross left the group, he was signed to Epic Records as a solo artist and released his debut solo album, Never Too Much, in 1981.
The debut solo album from Luther Vandross featured one outstanding song after another. Vandross concocts a bouncy, vibrant flow on his up-tempo numbers and an intimate, emotional connection on his moderate grooves and his lone ballad.
The title track stormed up the Billboard R&B charts to number one where it remained for two weeks.
The mellow groove of "Don't You Know That," which checked in at number ten, was the second single. "Sugar and Spice" had less of an impact on the charts due to its short stay of six weeks. 

However, this feverish number gets all the juices flowing as does the unreleased "I've Been Working." 
Also featured on this set is the sentimental number "You Stopped Loving Me."
The song was written by Vandross but initially released by Roberta Flack; both versions stand tall. 
"A House Is Not a Home" is the only ballad, and an elegant one it is, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and originally sung by Dionne Warwick nearly 20 years prior.
Vandross orchestrates a contemporary masterpiece with this vintage number. 
Though it was never an official release by the label, it's a quiet storm jewel.   This is one of the better R&B albums of the early '80s.


Side A
A1.  Never Too Much  (3:51) 
A2.  Sugar And Spice (I Found My Girl)  (4:57) 
A3.  Don't You Know That?  (4:04) 
A4.  I've Been Working  (6:36)

Side B
B1.  She's A Super Lady  (5:08) 
B2.  You Stopped Loving Me  (5:15) 
B3 . A House Is Not A Home  (7:10) 


Companies, etc.

Performers and musicians
  • Luther Vandross – lead vocals, vocal arrangements, rhythm arrangements (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7), backing vocals (1, 3-6), arrangements (4), song arrangements (7)
  • Nat Adderley, Jr. – keyboards (1–7), rhythm arrangements (1, 2, 3, 5, 6), arrangements (4), backing vocals (4, 5)
  • Ed Walsh – synthesizers (2, 4)
  • Georg Wadenius – guitar (1, 2, 3, 7)
  • Steve Love – guitar (3–6)
  • Marcus Miller – bass (1–7)
  • Anthony Jackson – bass (7)
  • Buddy Williams – drums (1–7)
  • Errol "Crusher" Bennett – percussion (1, 4, 5, 7), congas (4)
  • Bashiri Johnson – congas (1, 2), percussion (2, 5)
  • Billy King – congas (3, 5, 6)
  • Paul Riser – horn arrangements (2, 5), string arrangements (2, 3, 5)
  • Gary King – arrangements (4)
  • Leon Pendarvis – string arrangements (6, 7), horn arrangements (7)
  • Tawatha Agee – backing vocals (1–6)
  • Michelle Cobbs – backing vocals (1, 2)
  • Cissy Houston – backing vocals (1, 2)
  • Yvonne Lewis – backing vocals (1, 2)
  • Sybil Thomas – backing vocals (1, 2)
  • Brenda White King – backing vocals (1, 2)
  • Phillip Ballou – backing vocals (3–6)
  • Fonzi Thornton – vocal contractor, backing vocals (4, 5)
  • Norma Jean Wright – backing vocals (4, 5)
Technical
  • Producer – Luther Vandross
  • Executive Producer – Larkin Arnold
  • Production Coordination – Sephra Herman
  • Recorded and Mixed by Michael Brauer
  • Engineer – Carl Beatty
  • Assistant Engineers – Lincoln Clapp, Andy Hoffman, Nicky Kalliongos, Gregg Mann and Don Wershba.
  • Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound (New York, NY).
  • Art Direction – Karen Katz
  • Photography – William Coupon

Notes
Released:  August 12, 1981 
Format:  LP, Vinyl 
Genre:  Soul, Funk
Length:  36:50 
Label -  Epic Records


Queen - A Night At The Opera (1975) - Vinyl

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A Night at the Opera is the fourth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 21 November 1975. Co-produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, it was the most expensive album ever recorded at the time of its release. 

The album takes its name from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, which the band watched one night at the studio complex when recording.
The album was originally released by EMI Records in the United Kingdom, where it topped the UK Albums Chart for four non-consecutive weeks, and Elektra Records in the United States, where it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and became the band's first platinum selling album in the US. 

A Night at the Opera incorporates a wide range of styles, from ballads and songs in a music hall style, to hard rock tracks and progressive rock influences. 
It also produced the band's most successful single in the UK, "Bohemian Rhapsody", which became their first UK number one and one of the best-selling singles in both the UK and the world.
Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown hard rock masterpiece. 

Using the multi-layered guitars of its predecessor as a foundation, A Night at the Opera encompasses metal ("Death on Two Legs," "Sweet Lady"), pop (the lovely, shimmering "You're My Best Friend"), campy British music hall ("Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon," "Seaside Rendezvous"), and mystical prog rock ("'39," "The Prophet's Song"), eventually bringing it all together on the pseudo-operatic "Bohemian Rhapsody." 
In short, it's a lot like Queen's own version of Led Zeppelin IV, but where Zep find dark menace in bombast, Queen celebrate their own pomposity. No one in the band takes anything too seriously, otherwise the arrangements wouldn't be as ludicrously exaggerated as they are. 
But the appeal -- and the influence -- of A Night at the Opera is in its detailed, meticulous productions. It's prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics, and Queen never bettered their approach anywhere else.


Side A
A1. Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To....)  (3:42)
       Written-By – Mercury
A2. Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon (1:07)
       Written-By – Mercury
A3. I'm In Love With My Car  (3:05)
       Vocals – Roger Taylor
          Written-By – Taylor
A4. You're My Best Friend  (2:51)
       Electric Piano – John Deacon
          Written-By – Deacon
A5. '39  (3:30)
       Double Bass – John Deacon
         Vocals – Brian May
         Written-By – May
A6. Sweet Lady  (4:02)
       Written-By – May
A7. Seaside Rendezvous  (2:14)
       Orchestrated By [Vocal Orchestration Of Brass] – Roger Taylor
          Orchestrated By [Vocal Orchestration Of Woodwind] – Freddie Mercury
          Written-By – Mercury

Side B
B1. The Prophet's Song  (8:21)
        Koto [Toy Koto] – Brian May
          Written-By – May 
B2. Love Of My Life  (3:37)
       Harp – Brian May
         Written-By – Mercury
B3. Good Company  (3:23)
       Vocals, Ukulele [Genuine Aloha Ukelele], Guitar [Jazz Band] – Brian May
          Written-By – May
B4. Bohemian Rhapsody  (5:54)
       Vocals [Operatic Vocals] – Brian, Freddie, Roger
          Written-By – Mercury
B5. God Save The Queen  (1:13)
       Arranged By [Uncredited] – Brian May
          Written By – May
          Written-By [Uncredited] – Traditional


Companies, etc.
Credits
Notes
Released:  21 November 1975
Format:  LP, Vinyl
Genre:  Rock
Length:  43:!0
Label:  EMI Records


AC/DC - For Those About To Rock We Salute You (1981) - Vinyl

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For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) (referred to as For Those About to Rock on its cover) is the eighth studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC
It was released on 20 November 1981 in the United States, 27 November 1981 in the United Kingdom and 7 December 1981 in Australia.

The album is a follow-up to their highly successful album Back in Black. For Those About to Rock has sold over four million copies in the US. It would be AC/DC's first and only No. 1 album in the U.S. until the release of Black Ice in October 2008. 
In their original 1981 review, Rolling Stone magazine declared it to be their best album. In Australia, the album peaked at No. 3 on the Kent Music Report Albums Chart.
The album, recorded in Paris, was the third and final AC/DC collaboration with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange.

AC/DC are the real thing, perhaps the purest major practitioners of hot and snotty rock since Led Zeppelin lumbered off the boards. 
Other groups, from Van Halen to REO Speedwagon, may base their music on similar elements, but they inevitably emerge from the studio sounding cleaned up and rather too eager for AOR airplay. 
AC/DC, from the start, have always left the rough edges in. 
The rough edges are the point, much as they were part of the point of, say, Little Richard in the Fifties or the Rolling Stones in the mid-Sixties.
Until recently, this bareknuckles approach has tended to obscure the fact that, beneath all those enormous guitar riffs and gut-wrangling rhythms. 
AC/DC is an unusually expert songwriting band. 
This became particularly apparent on last year’s Back in Black, the first LP on which the late Bon Scott, the group’s semilegendary lead singer, was replaced by the more expressive Brian Johnson. 

On For Those About to Rock We Salute You, AC/DC’s best album, the case for the band’s talents is finally made with undeniable force and clarity. 
You want anthems? 
Here, they abound, from the title track’s avalanche attack — complete with booming cannonades, of course — to “Night of the Long Knives,” a rousing singalong reminiscent of the classic mid-Sixties Anglo-pop tradition. 

All ten tunes are aimed straight at the group’s testosterone-plagued audience, but the music and lyrics transcend mere calculation. 
True, in “Put the Finger on You,” the helplessly horny protagonist’s sexual member seems to have a life of its own (“I can’t control it, can’t even hold it … I put it right on you”), but “C.O.D.” takes a more wizened look at the consequences of such inchoate lust (“It’s the curse of love”). 

This marginally broader lyrical outlook may again be attributable to Brian Johnson, who writes the songs with band-leader-guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young. 
Johnson’s relatively wide ranging tastes are also apparent in the nicely nasty “Inject the Venom,” in which he manages, rather charmingly, to sound like Lou Rawls with a beer gut.


Side A
A1.  For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) - 5:43 
A2.  Put the Finger on You - 3:25 
A3.  Let's Get It Up - 3:53 
A4.  Inject the Venom - 3:31 
A5.  Snowballed - 3:23 

Side B
B1.  Evil Walks - 4:23 
B2.  C.O.D. - 3:19 
B3.  Breaking the Rules - 4:23 
B4.  Night of the Long Knives - 3:25 
B5.  Spellbound - 4:28 

All tracks are written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson


AC/DC
Production
  • Robert John "Mutt" Lange – production
  • Mark Dearnley – recording engineer
  • Dave Thoener – mixing engineer
  • Andy Rose, Mark Haliday & Nigel Green – assistant engineers
  • Bob Ludwig – mastering at MasteRdisk (1981)
Notes
Released: 20 November 1981
Format:  LP, Vinyl
Genre:  Hard rock
Length:  40:10 
Label:  Atlantic Records


The Police - Ghost In The Machine (1981) - Vinyl

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Ghost in the Machine is the fourth studio album by English rock band the Police. The album was released on 2 October 1981 by A&M Records. The songs were recorded between January and September 1981 during sessions that took place at AIR Studios in Montserrat and Le Studio in Quebec, assisted by record producer Hugh Padgham.
Ghost in the Machine topped the UK Albums Chart and peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200. The album produced the highly successful singles "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", "Invisible Sun", and "Spirits in the Material World", with a fourth single, "Secret Journey", also being released in the US. Ghost in the Machine was listed at number 322 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
After having produced the previous album Zenyatta Mondatta within a tight deadline of four weeks under pressure from the record company to deliver an album to the market, the band had decided to loosen up more for a change when it came around to recording Ghost in the Machine. This time they spent six weeks recording at AIR Studios in Montserrat, which was, according to drummer Stewart Copeland, "a 12 hour flight from the nearest record company".

This album marked a change in engineer/co-producer, from Nigel Gray—who did the band's first three albums up to that point—to Hugh Padgham, best known for the drum sound he achieved on records by Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. In fact, for this album, Padgham initiated a technique in which the band were recording together in separate rooms of the AIR Studios facility: Andy Summers in the main studio with all his guitars and amplifiers, Sting in the control room with his bass directly plugged into the desk and Copeland in the dining room with his drums to get a "live" feel. This method would be repeated for the next album.

Ghost in the Machine was the first Police album to feature heavy use of keyboards and horns. Besides keyboards, the twenty minute section comprising “Hungry for You (J'aurais toujours faim de toi)" through "One World (Not Three)" includes many saxophone harmonies, while the opening to "Secret Journey" showcases the Roland GR-300 Guitar Synthesizer.

The band's frontman Sting brought in Jean Roussel to record the piano parts on the demo of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". However, the group could not better it with the equipment available at AIR Studios; they ended up using the demo as the backing track for the official recording, with drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers dubbing their parts on. Sting also played all the saxophone parts on the album. Summers recollected:
I have to say I was getting disappointed with the musical direction around the time of Ghost in the Machine. With the horns and synth coming in, the fantastic raw-trio feel—all the really creative and dynamic stuff—was being lost. We were ending up backing a singer doing his pop songs.
The album opens with "Spirits in the Material World", featuring keyboards dubbed over Summers' reggae-inspired guitar licks. 
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" features piano, a strong Caribbean vibe, and an extended non-verbal vocal solo at the end. "Invisible Sun" is a mixture of slow, steady verses, a bombastic chorus, and several guitar solos. 

"Hungry for You (J'aurais toujours faim de toi)" is sung mostly in French, with the bass and horns both repeating a single 8-note melody for the length of the song, while the guitar maintains a steady beat. "Demolition Man", the band's longest song—almost six minutes in length—features a strong bass line and saxophone, and was written by Sting while staying at Peter O'Toole's Irish mansion. 

The song was originally given to Jamaican singer Grace Jones, who released her rendition on Nightclubbing earlier in 1981; the Police then recorded a hard rock version for Ghost in the Machine due to their dissatisfaction with Jones' performance. 
A solo recording by Sting became a belated hit in 1993 as the theme song for the action film of the same title, starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. Manfred Mann's Earth Band also recorded a version—rearranged and with extensive use of synthesizers—in 1982 for their Somewhere in Afrika album.
"Too Much Information", "Rehumanize Yourself", and "One World (Not Three)" feature heavy use of horns. As with "Landlord" and "Dead End Job", Copeland had written both music and lyrics for "Rehumanize Yourself", but Sting rejected the lyrics and replaced them with ones he wrote himself. 
The final three songs, "Omegaman", "Secret Journey", and "Darkness", return to the darker sound which opens the album.



Side A
A1.  Spirits in the Material World - 2:59 
A2.  Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - 4:22 
A3.  Invisible Sun - 3:44 
A4.  Hungry for You (J'aurais toujours faim de toi) - 2:52 
A5.  Demolition Man - 5:57 

Side B
B1.  Too Much Information - 3:43 
B2.  Rehumanize Yourself - 3:10 
B3.  One World (Not Three) - 4:47 
B4.  Omegaman (stylised as "Ωmegaman") - 2:48 
B5.  Secret Journey - 3:34 
B6.  Darkness - 3:14 


The Police (all instrumentation uncredited)

  • Sting – lead and backing vocals, bass (all but 5), keyboards, saxophone
  • Andy Summers – guitars, guitar synthesizer, keyboards
  • Stewart Copeland – drums, keyboards, percussion

Additional musicians

  • Jean Roussel – keyboards (2)
  • Danny Quatrochi – bass (5), additional bass (uncredited) 

Production

Notes
Released:  1981 
Format:  LP, Vinyl
Genre:  Pop
Length:  40:45
Label:  A&M Records


The Waterboys - This Is The Sea (1985) (Vinyl)

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This Is the Sea is the third The Waterboys album, and the last of their “Big Music” albums. Considered by critics to be the finest album of their early rock-oriented sound, described as “epic” and “a defining moment”, it was the first Waterboys album to enter the United Kingdom charts, peaking at number 37. Steve Wickham makes his Waterboys recording debut playing violin on ‘The Pan Within’ and subsequently joined the band, appearing on the video of “The Whole of the Moon”. This Is the Sea is the last album with contributions from Karl Wallinger, who left the group to form his own band, World Party.

Mike Scott, the album’s principal songwriter and leader of The Waterboys, describes This Is the Sea as “the record on which I achieved all my youthful musical ambitions”, “the final, fully realised expression of the early Waterboys sound”, influenced by The Velvet UndergroundVan Morrison‘s Astral Weeks, and Steve Reich
Regarding the end of the groups sound being tied to “The Big Music” after completing the album, Scott stated, “I finished with that kind of music to achieve whatever it was I was trying to achieve with that album.

Mike Scott has said words to the effect that this, the Waterboys’ third album, marked a culmination point for the band of the “big music” he’d been writing and they’d been performing up till then. Listening to it now, I can see that it would have been easy for him to go all U2 and chase the stadium-rock audience that was obviously out there waiting for so many artists in the mid-80’s. 
Of course, as we now know, he took, quite literally, a left turn towards the rootsy, folky music of Ireland, losing Karl Wallinger to form his own World Party in the process and if I’m being honest, losing me a bit too. 
I can’t question his artistic integrity with his urge for change, but I definitely like the band better doing this style of music.

That music is certainly committed, ambitious, angry and often loud. There’s a sense that Scott is standing on the shoulders of giants as I detect nods and winks to the likes of Dylan, Lennon, Van Morrison, Springsteen and even Miles Davis but the end result still sounds very individual and personal, which isn’t something you can say about too many of the Class of 1980 onwards I was alluding to earlier.

Consider the opening to the album, as it starts off with an extended fanfare of trumpets before it crashes into the pummelling attack of “Don’t Bang The Drum” (sidebar – this album contains a song called “Don’t Bang The Drum” which has the biggest drum-thwack to it this side of Max Weinberg and another called “Trumpets” which is sung to a saxophone with not a trumpet in sight. Go figure!). 
As well as seeking out big tunes, Scott is seeking out big themes if sometimes ambivalently, with big words and phrases to match and if he occasionally trips over his own verbosity in the process, it’s not for the want of trying.

Scott strives throughout for the poetry to match his music and when it works, it can be magnificent. At times, he seeks to evoke the spirits of Yeats and Joyce with the power of his words, most obviously in the classic “Whole Of The Moon” with its “close up – far away”, if he’ll forgive a “Father Ted” reference, couplets, the afore-mentioned storming “Don’t Bang The Drum”, and for me the album’s highlight, “Old England” where Scott eviscerates the present-day England of Thatcher and traces its gradual demise down the years. 
It’s set to a rumbling piano motif, accompanied by blaring trumpets and ironically chiding bells, sounding like the Lennon of “Remember” and “God” from the “Plastic Ono Band” album and a lyric which sounds like a U.K. as opposed to U.S. inspired “Give Me Some Truth”. 
It’s absolutely magnificent and if you listen closely you’ll hear the echo of that old empire song as a snippet of “There’ll Always Be An England” is hummed as if from some old forgotten battlefield before he returns to the attack. 
Almost its equal is the epic album-closer “This Is The Sea”, where all the various tributaries of Scott’s work to date come together in one majestic outpouring of epic hypnotic, Morrison-like expression.

Also striving for grandeur but for me just lacking greatness is “The Pan Within” which failed to convince or move me either musically or lyrically. “Spirit”, of which I believe a longer version exists, seems almost like the kind of brief linking track the Beatles might have used on their later albums and again doesn’t make that big impression on me. 
“Medicine Bow” is better, a short sharp rocker kicking off with a rush reminiscent of “Born To Run”, but “Be My Enemy” for all its vitriol, in truth is nothing more than a rewrite of “Tombstone Blues” That just leaves the set’s only real clinker where Scott’s lyrical pretensions collapse in a heap. 
I remember once watching a TV dramatisation of Madox Ford’s “Journey’s End” where one of the characters very loftily and very sillily described love as being “like literature” but Scott runs that empty inanity close with an awful lyric with bonehead Bono-like lines like “Your love is like trumpets” and which for good measure gets no help from an empty, shapeless piano and saxophone melody behind it.

Nevertheless, in a decade where we saw the adoption of denim waistcoats and air-punching anthems as band after band went for empty bombast often coupled with equally empty rhetoric, Scott’s Waterboys went down a truer path, making some truly great music on this fine, if occasionally inconsistent album. That the path proved to be a dead-end ultimately sending him into Celtic retreat is a pity but he and his band did at least leave this enduring 80’s monument which for me still stands as one of that much-maligned decade’s best.



Side A
A1.  Don’t Bang The Drum - 6:42
A2.  The Whole Of The Moon - 4:55
A3.  Spirit - 1:44
A4.  The Pan Within - 6:08

Side B
B1.  Medicine Bow - 2:44
B2.  Old England - 5:28
B3.  Be My Enemy - 4:15
B4.  Trumpets - 3:34
B5.  This Is The Sea - 6:26


The Waterboys

With:

Production credits
  • Mike Scott (tracks 1, 2 & 8)
  • Mike Scott & Mick Glossop (tracks 5, 6, 7 & 9)
  • Mike Scott, John Brand & Mick Glossop (track 4)
  • Mike Scott, Mick Glossop & Karl Wallinger (track 3)
  • Barry Clempson, Felix Kendall, Graham Dickson, John Brand, Keith Andrews, Mick Glossop, Nigel Gilroy - engineer
  • Lynn Goldsmith - front cover photography

Notes
Released: 1985
Format:  LP, Vinyl
Genre:  Alternative Rock, Folk Rock
Length:  42:16
Label:  Island Records


Dire Straits - Love Over Gold (1982) (Vinyl)

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Love over Gold is the fourth studio album by British rock band Dire Straits, released on 24 September 1982 by Vertigo Records internationally and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. 
The album featured two singles: "Private Investigations," which reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart, and "Industrial Disease," 

Following the end of the On Location Tour on 6 July 1981 in Luxembourg, Mark Knopfler began writing songs for Dire Straits' next album. 
Alan Clark (keyboards) and Hal Lindes (guitar), who joined the band for the On Location Tour, would also be involved with the new album. This was also the last album to feature drummer Pick Withers.

Knopfler was inspired to write "Telegraph Road," the album's 14-minute centerpiece, after Dire Straits' tour bus drove for miles along Telegraph Road in Detroit:

I was reading a book at the time called The Growth of the Soil and I just put the two together...it's the same road, and it just went on and on and on forever, it's like what they call linear development, and I just started to think. I wondered how that road must have been when it started, what it must have first been...I was actually sitting in the front of the tour bus at the time.
Love Over Gold is an album that was very ambitious, but was successful in achieving an incredibly evocative sound and an impeccable clarity, even over the 14+ minute composition "Telegraph Road", the stellar centerpiece of the album. 

Then there is one of my favorite songs of the 80s, "Industrial Disease", one of the funniest takes on technology overload ever written (with a wonderfully infectious organ line and sly Dylanesque lyrics and rhyme scheme). 

There is also the dark "Private Investigations", and jazzy stylings of the title track. And Sting was not required to sing backup anywhere on the album.


Side A
A1.  Telegraph Road - 14:20 
A2.  Private Investigations - 7:00 

Side B
B1.  Industrial Disease - 5:50 
B2.  Love Over Gold - 6:15 
B3.  It Never Rains - 7:55


Dire Straits

Additional musicians

Production
  • Mark Knopfler – producer
  • Neil Dorfsman – engineer
  • Barry Bongiovi – assistant engineer
  • Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York, USA)
  • Peter Cunningham – photography
  • Alan Lobel – photography
  • Michae Rowe – sleeve design
  • Damage Management – management

Notes
Released:  1982
Format:  LP, Vinyl
Genre:  Rock, Pop
Length:  40:24
Label -  Vertigo Records