USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

REO Speedwagon – Nine Lives

Mom got it for me for Christmas one year. 82? 83?

Wanted Hi Infidelity, but she got the wrong one.


Definitely wouldn't have heard this as much as I did, but ended up liking it and now it's a touchstone album for that time in my life as I had a very limited music collection at the time.

Never did get Hi (in)Fi until much, much later in life as a nostalgia thing at a garage sale.

To be honest, this aged better.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Lingering in that era...

The Fixx - Reach the Beach

Another from my limited early 80s collection.


Can't remember the last time I listened to this. Usually grab Phantoms on the (very) rare occasion that I listen to the Fixx.

They were attempting some interesting stuff at this stage for sure.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Duran Duran – Self Titled

One could look back and be embarrassed, but I rarely am. I liked this stuff at the time as much as I've liked anything at any point.

I was getting the same sort of takeaway from the music, my tastes were just not quite as refined or mature as they would become.

LOVED Duran Duran for a while… until U2 came along and shattered my love of new wave and introduced me to post punk.

Honestly… without Men at Work, Duran, the Fixx, the Police and some others, not sure that I'd have gotten into The Cure, Smiths, Church etc.

Now doing Zenyatta Mondatta.


Looked for Rebel Yell and The Hurting, but don't have them with me.

I do have Let's Dance though and that may be next.

 

[rufus]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

But Duran Duran was after U2.

Even stations up here in the backwoods were playing I Will Follow when it first came out.

My friend who spent the summer up at UMaine and was working college radio claims he broke Duran Duran in the state. Can't be certain he was correct, but I really have no reason to doubt, either. And I actually saw them in concert, spring of 1984, my brother and sister just thought it would be fun to get a bunch of friends together and go see them. The most boring show I've ever seen in my life. The only even interesting thing about them was Andy Taylor on guitar. .

On looking this up to be certain of the year, I see there's an actual bootleg of this show available.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

But Duran Duran was after U2.

Even stations up here in the backwoods were playing I Will Follow when it first came out.

Not for me.

I didn't hear U2 till my sister brought home War and I wasn't overly impressed. Under a Blood Red Sky is what hooked me.

Starting in the early 80s, my radio listening days were behind me and I probably got most of my music until late high school from MTV.


I Will Follow was undoubtedly on XRT when it came out, but I wouldn't have known and likely wouldn't have liked it in 1980 as a 10 year old.


Now have moved a bit further into the 80s and did YES - 90125.

I was the rare bird that liked new wave>post punk and 70s progressive music equally at the same time.

YES was an absolute fav of mine.

Loved 90125 at the time and even now can look back and acknowledge some really good songs from it. Changes, Hearts (for the guitar work) and a few others.

Big Generator marked the end of my fanatical YES days although I did catch them a couple of times on the Union Tour (91) which was phenomenal, especially in the round at the Target Center. Haven't seen em since.

 

[Kepler]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

I was the rare bird that liked new wave>post punk and 70s progressive music equally at the same time.

Not rare at all. Post-punk was a logical place to go after prog -- it was aimed at smart, offbeat kids and the lyrics were interesting and complicated.

They were both oases in the vast, vacant desert of popular music.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

A little further into the 80s...

Hated Talking Heads coz Burning Down the House was on MTV all the time and was a jarring and abrasive song to be hit over the head with if you didn't have an appreciation for the Heads. Shock the Monkey was much of the same and made me dislike PG.

Then my sister brought home a cassette of Stop Making Sense and I heard Psycho Killer coming from her room and I'm like... "What's this?"


So...

Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense


Stole her tape when I could and binged hard.

Thankfully, they released the entire soundtrack eventually which is what I'm hearing now.

 

[The Rube]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Psycho Killer is an awesome, awesome song.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Not rare at all. Post-punk was a logical place to go after prog -- it was aimed at smart, offbeat kids and the lyrics were interesting and complicated.

They were both oases in the vast, vacant desert of popular music.

I definitely see the connection, but I didn't know many like me nor have I ever met many.

Most in each group that I knew over the years were pretty closed minded when it came to the other kind of music.


Of course my background in prog allowed me to transition to Floyd and Zeppelin which eventually allowed me to immediately get into the Grateful Dead at my first show and that led to bluegrass, jazz, a better appreciation of Dylan and the newer jamband scene.

Which led to...




Never stop evolving!


Oh yeah and post punk led to (UB40 first, but then) Sublime which led to reggae and all kinds of reggae hybrids.

Post punk also led to actual punk and eventually hip hop and hip hop hybrids.

 

[Kepler]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Post punk also led to actual punk and eventually hip hop and hip hop hybrids.

This happened with me, too. Actually your journey sounds very similar to mine with the exception of the Dead who I personally loathe but that's probably autobiographical because my brother was a Deadhead for 30 years and really still is.

The key is to take your music from anywhere you can get it. I love musicals, which most High Culture purists disdain, and I love swing which most punk fans regard as bourgeois, and opera which everybody thinks is pretentious (trust me, it's earthy as f-ck) except Wagner which sucks. Most classical music bores me to tears which marks me as a low-brow barbarian. Oh well.

Like what you like; don't worry about what anybody thinks about it.

As for finding people with shared tastes, that's not music it's everything, and it's the human / ape problem. We are awash in a sea of genetic navel lint and we are d-mn lucky to meet another actual human in any given year. This can't have escaped your notice.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

This happened with me, too. Actually your journey sounds very similar to mine with the exception of the Dead who I loathe, but that may be biographical because my brother was a Deadhead for 30 years and really still is.

The Dead never crossed my radar until I was -redacted- after bar one night in college and my buddies were getting tix the next morning and asked if I wanted to road trip. Said there was nothing like a Dead show.

I mean... I knew of them and HATED their song Touch of Grey which was also overplayed on MTV.


I said sure, why not? Sounds fun. The rest is history.

Saying yes to that was one of the most life course altering moments of my life.


Doubt I'd have ever gotten into them if I hadn't gone to that first show(s).

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Dang!


Making Flippy Floppy is such a great jam.

 

[rufus]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Didn't like Talking Heads at first. Too quirky for this mainstream rock backwoods Maine boy. Same with the B-52's. Kid on mmy floor had their first two records and played them a lot, and I was just, unhhhh. Maybe cause I sorta despised him and his roommate too, so..........

Year later, loved the B-52's. Heard Remain in Light and blew my little head off. Amazing the difference that a year, and college, can make in one's musical tastes.

Second best show I've ever seen was the Talking Heads on their Speaking in Tongues tour. Was over 90 degrees inside the arena, and you could wring out my T-shirt after the show was over. Danced my freakin' azz off.

 

[Kepler]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Heard Remain in Light and blew my little head off

Fear of Music. Heard it all the way through as a tenth grader at a friend's Sweet 16 party in 1979. I'd actually gone to the party to try to, well, you know (she was cute) but it turned out she had a college boyfriend who was a college DJ -- no competing with that -- so I stewed and drank a bit until he put that on. I instantly got way more interested in him than her.

There is nothing like having all your circuits tripped at once by an artistic experience when you are so young you have no regulator and you feel everything as if it will just keep mounting forever and ever. It must be how Keats felt writing poetry. I can still remember that feeling and it's almost 40 years ago.

 

[rufus]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Yeah, Life during wartime probably began the opening up of them to me, but Remain in Light was the first album of theirs I bought. And I was off................

 

[The Rube]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

I love the Dead, but yeah, Touch Of Grey was meh.

American Beauty is one of the best albums ever in music.

 

[Kepler]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Yeah, Life during wartime probably began the opening up of them to me, but Remain in Light was the first album of theirs I bought. And I was off................

Yes.

The world moves on a woman's hips
The world moves and it bounces and hops

World of liii---iight, she's gonna
Open'our eyes up

Not to mention the best pro-terrorist song ever written.

Oh, we were young.

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

I eventually burned myself out on Stop Making Sense and didn't pursue their studio catalogue until many years later.


Remain in Light floored me when I finally heard it. That's their apex for me.

 

[rufus]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Fear of Music.

There is nothing like having all your circuits tripped at once by an artistic experience when you are so young you have no regulator and you feel everything as if it will just keep mounting forever and ever. It must be how Keats felt writing poetry. I can still remember that feeling and it's almost 40 years ago.

The trigger for me was seeing King Crimson on this ABC Saturday Night Live copy called Fridays. Not the funniest of shows(though it did have Michael Richards in the cast), but the musical guests were top notch, at least that first year. The Clash, The Jam, Crimson, The Pretenders, Rockpile.

This edition of King Crimson was the bridge between prog and post-punk.

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFb1Vv-RbY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFb1Vv-RbY

 

[Gurtholfin]

Re: USCHO Music Thread 4: Songs She Sang to Me, Songs She Brang to Me

Got time for one more before quitting time.

The Cure - Head on the Door


Not my fav of theirs but was my entry point. I do like it though.


17 Seconds is my fav.