My "off and on" has been more off than on... again... so I'm working on easing back into it. Let's see how this goes. How about some tunes that came back to my mind lately?
Africa, Toto. Possibly the weirdest left field, mainstream oddity to ever chart this successfully; nothing Toto ever did, before or since, quite explains the allure of this pulsating, midtempo jam, or the enormous success of "IV", the album from which it sprang. And lyrically... who knows? Something about midlife crisis, a changing relatioship and the African continent, though God knows how that's all supposed to fit together. And it does - the shimmering harmonies, the tribal beat, the loppy lines ("sure as Kiliminjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti" - it's not just descriptive, it's accurate) - all of it works quite beautifully, and surely helped expose a wide swath of pop radio listeners to exotic rhythms and instrumentation. That's one of the things about the misbegotten "eighties revival" - it's easy to miss the role of left field hits like this.
Shock the Monkey, Peter Gabriel. Among many - Sledgehammer and Big Time, fer sher - this one manages to straddle both eccentric exotic and slyly oversexed. If you don't know what it's about... I'll never tell what we theorized as kids, but then I always thought "She Bop" was more direct. I don't know if you can exactly dance to it - I think we tried in college, a lot - but once I hear it on the radio, I am tapping along. Monkey, monkaiee, monkey...
King of Pain, The Police. Zenyatta Mondatta is probably the more world beat of their albums, but Synchronicity hit a sweet spot of commercial success, owing considerably to the fact that The Police were early and enthusiastic adopters of the potential for music video. And plenty of the album works well, but nothing quite captures teenage angst like this ("there's a little black spot on the sun today... it's the same old thing as yesterday..."). Not quite as spare as Every Breath You Take (and not as stalker-ish, either), King of Pain is a great example of how the sound of the Police was constantly evolving and growing. Which is why liking them was both visceral - God they were hot - and cerebral (my third college roommate, a brilliant woman, was simply mad for Sting. A lot of it rubbed off). It's only lately, I think, that Sting has slowed down.
Rio, Duran Duran. Another example of the "right place, right time" argument for their success - video and early MTV surely catapulted Duran Duran to the top - that can overlook the substantive aspect of their music. The one-two punch of Hungry Like the Wolf and Rio was effective because nothing quite sounded like that up to then; the driving quitars, the screaming sax, the exotic rhythm, the wash of synths behind it. Combine that with a lot of sexy business (and more creepy stalking - "at the end of the drive, the lawmen arrive" - sheesh), and the whole thing is kind of undeniable.
Love Plus One, Haircut 100. Though much of the grief for Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" ("that little faggot is a millionaire") is about George Michael, it's also the case that the song was slamming successes like the far more obscure Haircut 100, who enjoyed a flurry of attention for this song. In retrospect, it was hardly worth the derision; they were indeed flash in the pan, one minor hit wonders. But gosh they were cute, and this song, loping along as it does, has its charms.
Too Shy, Kajagoogoo. Another example of the pretty, pretty boy bands that the Brit New Wave produced, full of exotic looks (Limahl, their one named lead singer) and sounds. And also, another overlooked gem of what made the eighties such a weird, wonderful time - for a minute there, the potential to have a hit and get on the radio seemed especially wide open, and the result was a lot of interesting, and rather ambitious music; I'd argue - and still do - that it was real renaissance moment for pop. And if today's music let's me down, it's partly because I grew up believing in a lot of the possibilities.
heard Love Plus One in the grocery today...so much depends on a sweatery album cover
Posted by: jinb | February 12, 2012 at 02:03 PM