Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

One of my favorite pop tunes from the 80's. The whole album "Please" has some outstanding work on it, especially "Suburbia" and "Tonight is Forever"

From Wikipedia: "The first version of the song was produced by Bobby Orlando and was released on Columbia Records' Bobcat Records imprint in April 1984, becoming a club hit in the United States and some European countries. After the duo signed with EMI, the song was re-recorded with producer Stephen Hague, for their first studio album, Please. In October 1985, the song was re-released, reaching number one in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1986. In 1987, the song won for Best Single at the BRIT Awards, and Best International Hit at the Ivor Novello Awards. In 2005, 20 years later after its release, the song was awarded Song of The Decade between the years 1985 and 1994, by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters."

Ian's Site - Ian's Advent Calendar... Door 8

http://ianevans2.multiply.com/journal/item/342/Ians_Advent_Calendar..._Door_8?replies_read=2
Allow me to direct you to Ian's site, to hear one of the best anti-war songs of a past holiday season, Jona Lewie's "Stop the Calvary" from 1980.

It is worth it IMHO.

David Bowie - Absolute Beginners

With thanks to the Rev Kook and others, I refer you to the comments below for a clip from the title song and some scenes from the movie which features this and other jazz and pop songs.

For Valentine's Day, 2011: Madness "It Must Be Love"

This is one of the best songs on the original "Madness" album released in the USA. Very appropriate for Valentine's Day. I'd like to dedicate this one to Shirley and wish you all some Valentine happiness these coming days.

(Note: "doug's site" does not endorse playing electric musical instruments in
swimming pools, chlorinated or otherwise.)

From the ever useful Wikipedia site:

"The original Labi Siffre recording was released as a single in 1971, and reached number 14 in the UK singles chart. It also appeared on his 1972 album Crying Laughing Loving Lying.


"Madness' version was originally issued as a standalone single in 1981 and appeared on their UK number one compilation album Complete Madness the following year, and on many other Madness compilations since. In 1983, it peaked in the US Billboard Magazine chart at #33."


"The video mostly shows band members playing in a white room and standing over a grave. It also features guitarist Chris Foreman and saxophonist Lee Thompson playing their instruments underwater. Foreman appears at the start of the video warning viewers not to attempt the "very dangerous stunt" they are about to see, presumably referring to the swimming pool sequence. Labi Siffre makes a cameo appearance as a violin player."


"Madness' recording was re-issued in 1992, and this time reached #6 in the UK charts."

The Kinks - Destroyer (1981)

"Destroyer"-- The Kinks from the album
"Give the People What They Want"
released 1981 (Ray Davies)



From Wikipedia: "The track was chosen as the lead single from the album in the US ("Better Things" was the lead single in the UK), although it was released after the album in September. The single reached #3 on the Billboard Rock Top Tracks chart and #85 on the Billboard Hot 100."

Frank Zappa Dedication in Baltimore

The late but never conforming Frank Zappa was honored in his birthplace by a statue placed in front of a local library.


From the official Frank Zappa Website:

"The sculpture is a gift to the city of Baltimore orchestrated by three guys from Lithuania: Saulius Paukstys, Saulius Pilinkus and Arturas Baublys. It is a replica of the bust of Frank Zappa installed in Vilnius (pictured here), created by artist Konstantinas Bogdanas. The gift and location were approved by the Baltimore City Public Art Commission and sanctioned by the family.

"Legendary musician and composer Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore in 1940 and passed away in 1993, at home in Los Angeles. He is internationally recognized as one of the most innovative composers and musicians of the 20th century with a career spanning more than 30 years."



Frank Zappa composed many types of songs and controversial pieces of an alternative and uncompromising nature in the 1960's thru the 90's , and was a major influence on any number of mainstream musicians. His reputation in Europe was higher than in his native country. He also fought against music labeling warnings on albums, fearing it would lead to censorship.
In his later years, he also composed music directly for symphonies and choral groups.

More about the statue and all things Zappa here: http://www.zappa.com/whatsnew/

"Suburbia" by Pet Shop Boys

From their 1986 album, "Please". This is a song I could relate to while living in a suburb not without its rough edges,including pit bulls going about, the odd car-bomb going off in the middle of the night, people who drove cars too fast in school zones, and a general bit of increaed surliness and defensivness in people.

Californian sububria--the place of escape and peace in the 60's and 70's--became for many like me a place to be weary of staying in.

Of course, there were always good people and humor here and there, and there stil are, but it seemed at my particular patch of "the good life" like a good time to get out of metropolitan California. This song brings it back, even with the more docile English suburbs represented as well here.

From wikipedia:
"The song's primary inspiration is the 1984 Penelope Spheeris film Suburbia, and its depiction of violence and squalor in the suburbs of Los Angeles; in addition, the tension of the Brixton riots of 1981 and of 1985 hanging in recent memory led Neil Tennant of the duo to thinking about the boredom of suburbia and the underlying tension among disaffected youth that sparked off the riots at the least provocation.

"The various versions of the song are punctuated by sounds of suburban violence: rioting noises and smashing glass, as well as snarling dogs on the re-recorded single version (extended even further on the music video), which were derived from scenes in Suburbia."

Elvis Costello - "Peace In Our Time", part One (live 1984)

Here is Costello's 1983 song that takes the frame of Neville Chamberlain's short-lived 1938 Munich rapprochement with Herr Hitler and turns it nicely into a modern protest song about the omnipresent national security state that was growing up in Margaret Thatcher's Britain and Ronald Reagan's America---in the latter case Reagan's refusing to sit down with anyone from the Kremlim's "Evil Empire", the Gipper's anti-Nuclear Freeze policies, and his FBI's domestic surveilance of peace groups.

In the battle between freedom versus security, I believe the folks who govern us will choose the latter nearly every time if they can get away with it.
Looking back over two-plus decades to an era of security cameras all over big city streets like London and the endless paranoia some in America have over protesting some of the knottier parts of the Patriot Act, this song seems more relevant than ever.


"Peace In Our Time"
Out of the aeroplane stepped Chamberlain with a condemned man's stare
But we all cheered wildly, a photograph was taken,
as he waved a piece of paper in the air
Now the Disco Machine lives in Munich and we are all friends
And I slip on my Italian dancing shoes as the evening descends

And the bells take their toll once again in victory chime
And we can thank God that we've finally got
peace in our time

There's a man going round taking names no
matter who you claim to be
As innocent as babies, a mad dog with rabies,
you're still a part of some conspiracy
Meanwhile there's a light over the ocean
burning brighter than the sun
And a man sits alone in a bar and says "Oh God,
what have we done?"

Chorus

They're lighting a bonfire upon every hilltop in the land
Just another tiny island invaded when he's got
the whole world in his hands
And the Heavyweight Champion fights in the
International Propaganda Star Wars
There's already one spaceman in the White
House what do you want another one for?

Chorus