Popdose: Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 2
terje
· 1 year ago
Alessi charted in the 1980s! Peter Allen!! I can't believe this. I have the 1982 Alessi album on vinyl, and provided a track for Jason to tear apart in Mellow Gold a year or two ago. And just a couple of days ago I made a soft rock'n'r&b mixtape over on muxtape.com (mellownsmooth.muxtape.com) containing BOTH Peter Allen's "Fly Away" and Alessi's "Oh, Lori" from 1977. What a coincidence!
And as a total music cataloging obsessive, your early cataloging efforts certainly resonates with me. Great entry!
jack
· 1 year ago
Wow, I guess this list speaks to the power of MTV in the 1980s (to alter your memories, not to affect the charts so much). I could have sworn that "Rain in the Summertime" was a bigger hit than "Sold Me Down the River" simply based on the fact that I've never seen the video for "River." And "I'm No Angel" is Allman's signature solo hit. Crapping out at #49? Shocking!
I always considered Big Country, the Alarm, and U2 to be the trinity of earnest, anthem-song singing bands. One became megastars, while the other two languished into the '90s. All three bands still exist in some form, but of course only U2 still has all its original members.
David_E
· 1 year ago
Alphaville. Yeah. "Fallen Angel" and "Summer In Berlin" were also great, and "Sounds LIke A Melody" was the song I learned I couldn't learn to dance to. (Damn you, 7th grade awkwardness!)
I tossed the album but after a year, though. Caught too much shit from friends who couldn't stop ragging on the L'Oreal band photo inside. These guys made Poison look like the freakin' Green Berets.
WHarrisBullzEye
· 1 year ago
I love love love Marc Almond's "Tears Run Rings," as well as the album from which it originates, "The Stars We Are." It has a great duet with Nico called "Your Kisses Burn." Okay, your mileage may vary depending on how you feel about her voice, but *I* love it.
singles whore
· 1 year ago
Thanks Dave for writing such a cool blog. I have been laughing at the small slices of your life you include. Being called a singles whore (it's ok) I prefer the top 80's but this is an interesting look back in a decade I am very fond of.
Brian
· 1 year ago
All Sports Band was a way-too-late attempt to rip off the Village People. Each guy in the band had a different costume/personality like the VP, except it was sports-themed: there was a baseball dude, a race car driver, a guy in a hockey mask, etc. The singles bombed so hard that the full length album was never released.
steed
· 1 year ago
Thanks for that info! Superman is just ridiculously bad.
drcastrato
· 1 year ago
oh my god, that song made me barf and laugh at the same time. Vomilaugh
JohnHughes
· 1 year ago
GAZE UPON THE POWER OF THE ALL SPORTS BAND AND THEIR DRUMMER IN A BOXING RING AND SHUDDER WITH FEAR!!
I have a problem and I am not ashamed to admit it. When you point a record out that I don't have, I have to go out and fill that hole in the collection. I had the 45s - but now i have the record. Just bought it - which I know is very sad since I'm saying it's one of the worst things I've heard.
EightE1
· 1 year ago
"Loose lips sink ships So climb aboard for a pleasure trip -- uh It's high tide, so let's ride The moon is risin' and so am I"
Pure fucking Shakespeare. My favorite AC/DC track, from my favorite AC/DC album. Thanks for brightening an otherwise shit night, Meester Steed.
Rob EightE1
Grant
· 1 year ago
Help! Do you remember these 80's tunes? One was Mind Over Matter by EG Daily and the other was a tune called Special Girl by a guy named Eddie Schwartz (a Canadian dude). I would really like to find these tunes but am having zero luck. Any ideas?
steed
· 1 year ago
Grant - the Eddie Schwartz song is on his '84 album Public Life. The EG Daily song is on the Summer School soundtrack. Both can be found on ebay right now on LP.
Breadalbane
· 1 year ago
Yes! The original non-remixed version of "Forever Young"! Not the stupid dance-y remix!
Add while American radio may not have played this, it was a hit in Canada, where 80s radio was a lot better. Not perfect -- sometimes not even very good -- but certainly a lot better than the American stations I'd hear coming over the border.
scrumble
· 1 year ago
re: Herb Alpert, it's safe to say that for every hip-hop station you've got today there was once an easy listening beautiful music one where Herb was king ... early-'80s Hot 100 rankings probably due to daytime airplay on the AM stations still around at the time, where you'd also hear Christopher Cross-related music for several thousand hours a day
deltablues2
· 1 year ago
As much as I LOVE teen idols, Alisha could never have been Madonna. Not even early Madonna. Never. Even Regina or Stacey Q would be better.
1Py_Korry1
· 1 year ago
And here I thought Simple Minds were "U1." With "Strength," me thinks The Alarm has grabbed that title for the time being.
twostepcub
· 1 year ago
Hey everyone, first off, Dave, sorry for being totally OCD, but thanks for that shot of AC/DC. Let's Get It Up is such an awesome tune, though I agree I don't remember the other one at all.
I have a little more affaction for Alisha, number one for stiffy Vanguard Records trying to get into the tween market, I think both "Baby Talk" and "Too Turned On" underground classics of my burgeoning dance days.
However that AllSportsBand IS the suck.
Herb Alpert could've afforded to put anything out as a single, and I admit to a liking of his stuff, especially "Route 101". At least it was a time where instrumentals had a slight chance to be played on the radio, where even now AC-land is all belting soccer-mom drivel 24-hours a day.
Amazulu remind me of living in Chicago, where I'd buy all the singles hitting the charts, and in 1987, that could be anything - either vinyl 7" (like Heart's "Who Will You Run To"), cassingle (like Bryan Adams' "Heat of the night", my first cassingle buy), or 12" record (Amazulu). At least it's fun, very very fit for vinyl.
And Mark Almond is awesome, ASB notwithstanding, if only for releasing his duet with Gene Pitney as a single...
Ok, now, the uber-dork's done :-)
Pete
· 1 year ago
Love this series of postings-keep 'em coming! Great work. (I'm not just saying that for all of the mp3s offered-I barely downloaded any of them.) It's nice to see Herb Alpert get some love.
And I did go digging for the full All Sports Band album online after reading this. Classicly bad!
All Comments
And as a total music cataloging obsessive, your early cataloging efforts certainly resonates with me. Great entry!
I always considered Big Country, the Alarm, and U2 to be the trinity of earnest, anthem-song singing bands. One became megastars, while the other two languished into the '90s. All three bands still exist in some form, but of course only U2 still has all its original members.
I tossed the album but after a year, though. Caught too much shit from friends who couldn't stop ragging on the L'Oreal band photo inside. These guys made Poison look like the freakin' Green Berets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpxf0Z9nAyE
http://recordrobot.blogspot.com/2007/01/all-spo...
So climb aboard for a pleasure trip -- uh
It's high tide, so let's ride
The moon is risin' and so am I"
Pure fucking Shakespeare. My favorite AC/DC track, from my favorite AC/DC album. Thanks for brightening an otherwise shit night, Meester Steed.
Rob
EightE1
Add while American radio may not have played this, it was a hit in Canada, where 80s radio was a lot better. Not perfect -- sometimes not even very good -- but certainly a lot better than the American stations I'd hear coming over the border.
I have a little more affaction for Alisha, number one for stiffy Vanguard Records trying to get into the tween market, I think both "Baby Talk" and "Too Turned On" underground classics of my burgeoning dance days.
However that AllSportsBand IS the suck.
Herb Alpert could've afforded to put anything out as a single, and I admit to a liking of his stuff, especially "Route 101". At least it was a time where instrumentals had a slight chance to be played on the radio, where even now AC-land is all belting soccer-mom drivel 24-hours a day.
Amazulu remind me of living in Chicago, where I'd buy all the singles hitting the charts, and in 1987, that could be anything - either vinyl 7" (like Heart's "Who Will You Run To"), cassingle (like Bryan Adams' "Heat of the night", my first cassingle buy), or 12" record (Amazulu). At least it's fun, very very fit for vinyl.
And Mark Almond is awesome, ASB notwithstanding, if only for releasing his duet with Gene Pitney as a single...
Ok, now, the uber-dork's done :-)
And I did go digging for the full All Sports Band album online after reading this. Classicly bad!