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I ignored 1986 indie almost completely, and I still don't have an ear for it; I bought the C86 NME cassette and decided that the whole "movement" was a terrible mistake. But maybe it will surprise me, like 1981 punksnotdead.
The ones I bought at the time: Trouble Funk (12"), Georgie Fame (discounted 12" white label), and I had the Prince on Parade and the re-released Run-DMC on a Fourth & Broadway compilation from 1985. I loved the Trouble Funk immensely, so that's still the one to beat. I was a bit sniffy about Schoolly-D, as the NME hip hop brigade were all over him, and it seemed to me that they were too much in thrall to his nastiness.
― mike t-diva, Monday, 18 October 2021 14:44 (two years ago) link
oh my!
I love Musique Non Stop. I could Boing, Boom Tschak forever.
I also ignored 1986 indie almost completely but my roommate at the time was hugely into Wolfhounds and That Petrol Emotion and I did fall for TPE who actually were heading somewhere else musically entirely. I must have seen them live a dozen times; so good.
Love that Prince track though not as much as Trouble Funk and Run DMC, but way out in front about a thousand leagues ahead of the competition is Schoolly D, with PSK being thee track. i can safely say there probably hasn't been a month that has passed since 1986 that I haven't listened to it. I'll never tire of it. That reverbed 909 beat and his delivery + Code Money's scratching never ceases to slay me. That beat has been sampled almost as much as the Amen break.
I played Masters at Work's "Justa ''Lil'' Dope" at the weekend, perhaps the best Schoolly D beat stealing track?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4IFokU0nU
― stirmonster, Monday, 18 October 2021 17:01 (two years ago) link
The Great
Kraftwerk - Musique Non Stop
(Actually, this is new to me - Electric Café passed me by at the time, and I don't recall it being well received, in which case time has been kind.)
Schoolly D - Put Your Fila's On/P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?)
(OK, I get it now. In 1986, I was still more interested in hip hop as a branch of dance music, and you couldn't exactly call these club bangers. So when I saw the NME-types salivating over the starkness, I just thought: well, obviously you don't go dancing in clubs, so what do you know. Anyhow, these are well fierce and wicked, etc.)
Trouble Funk - Still Smokin'
(I was massively into go go, bought loads of it, loved Trouble Funk, and this one was one of my favourites. It still gets my vote.)
Duran Duran - Notorious
(It's a pointedly nasty review, but then nobody I knew in 1986 had a good word to say about Duran Duran; they were basically seen as the embodiment of everything that was wrong and bad about the Eighties. Oh, what blinkered fools we were. Nile Rodgers plays on the track, as well as co-producing it, and I've seen him perform it with Chic a couple of times, where it fits well with the rest of his set. It was also the band's release as a trio, with only Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor remaining, and having ditched Andy Taylor, there's now more funk to their funk-rock, i.e. it's light years better than the bloody Power Station.)
The Good
Prince And The Revolution - Anotherloverholenyohead
(Love Parade, but this isn't one of its stand-outs, and I don't think it makes an effective standalone single.)
Run-DMC - King Of Rock
("Rock Box" in 1984 absolutely blew me away, so when this first came out in 1985, I saw it as a bit of a diminishing-returns retread, whereas I wanted them to move on to the next amazing ground-breaking thing. Oh, I was quite the neophyte.)
Smiley Culture - Mr Kidnapper
The Turncoats - Motorball Meltbeat
The Servants - The Sun, A Small Star
The OK
Wolfhounds - Anti-Midas Touch
Mighty Lemon Drops - My Biggest Thrill
The Weeds - China Doll
That Petrol Emotion - Keen
(I can't get beyond my basic antipathy towards 1986 indie, and I can't quite explain why - there's just no connection with it all. I certainly find it too imitative, but so was Britpop - and I enjoyed Britpop, maybe because it was redeemed by a certain cheeky swagger - whereas this bunch just seem pallid and dour. That said, the Turncoats and Servants do rise somewhat above the pack.)
Georgie Fame - Samba
(In essence, it's SAW-do-Matt Bianco, and it's not actively ghastly.)
The Iffy
Aretha Franklin - Jumpin' Jack Flash
(She did a great version of Satisfaction in the Sixties, but this, even with Richards and Wood playing in it, was... ill-advised. I liked the Whoopi Goldberg movie well enough, though.)
Bob Geldof - This Is The World Calling
(His first release after Live Aid, which benefitted from continued public goodwill towards Saint Bob, but he only had one more hit, in 1990.)
The Garbage
Disco Aid - Give Give Give
(The whole Disco Aid (later Dance Aid) initiative was badly bungled - James Hamilton wrote about it extensively - but it didn't exactly help when the whole thing was saddled with this piece of crap. Note also the continued use of the word "disco".)
― mike t-diva, Saturday, 23 October 2021 17:30 (two years ago) link