New Wave Hits of the 1980's Part 3 and OUT!

WHOA, just watched the Cincinnati Bengals (NOT my team, you know I am a Vikings fan) GIFT WRAP and willingly hand over a playoff game to a divisional rival, I REALLY don't think I've ever seen a game, especially a playoff game, have that type of an ending, I don't care what they do, but if I were running that organization, I'd say to myself, "How can YOU NOT fire a coach who cannot keep his team from acting like thuggish fools with 2 minutes to go in maybe the franchise's most important game in 20 years or so?"...... well, these things are not for ME to decide, and, tomorrow, after the Seahawks thump the Vikings, we'll all be in the same boat, but I HOPE the Vikings simply lose because they are the lesser team, not because they make a door-prize gift out of the game as did Cincinnati...... .that team should be ashamed of themselves.

Moving on, as this is not a sports blog, lets get back to this New Wave 1980's multi-disc set, we've been through 12 discs and we have 5 more to go, as I've made clear I have VERY mixed feelings about this set, I think it contains a bit too much "obvious" material (although, as acknowledged, much of it is very good/essential), however, I think there is a good bit of more esoteric material as well, all in all, I think it pretty nearly accomplishes what it set out to do, just curious as to the near TOTAL absence of much of ANY "punk" related stuff, I am assuming it was intentional.

So, let us advance to my much awaited views on the remaining discs.....Volume 13 leads off with, of ALL things, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's abysmal "Relax", but other than that, this is a pretty good collection. Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days' was a good one, we get a track from the WAY too rarely comped Bus Boys, plus Echo & the Bunnymen, Ultravox, and the Bangles are bands of the era that are certainly representative. (Confession: until maybe a year ago, I thought the lyric to "Dance Hall Days" was "we were cool on Christ", when it is actually "we were cool on craze".......fuck you.)

So , shall we investigate Disc 14? I always really liked (for SOME reason?) After the Fire's "Der Kommisar", we also get some Art of Noise, Colour Field, Let's Active....... all either good OR fairly rarely comped tracks, a worthwhile disc.

The final "regular" disc of the set is Disc 15 (hold on, there is more) has some good stuff on it (one would guess they had run out of "obvious" material by now, myself, I'd MUCH rather hear the lesser-known stuff than the stuff I already have on ten comps)...... I always liked "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves (shut up), and there is some fairly out there tracks on this one.....Strawberry Switchblade, Scritti Politti, Lords of the New Church..... hey, if you've hung out THIS long, you will probably be wanting this one, too, without any description from me......


OK, there are a three OTHER discs to this set..... aside from the "official" 15 volumes.... these "other" three discs DO contain some overlap with the previous discs in the set, but there IS (trust me) enough worthwhile stuff here that you'll want to investigate.....as I've said all along on this one, program as suits your needs! First up, I guess we'll call it "Volume 16", is "New Wave Women", of COURSE I am going to love THAT just for its title, but, check this out..... Berlin's awesome "Sex (I'm A.......)" (hey I know a lotta people hate that song. Fuck you it's great), The Divinyls wondersome female masturbation ode "I Touch Myself", The Eurythmics? Lene Lovich? The Pandoras? sounds essential to me........

Next up (we'll call Volume 17) is New Wave Xmas......... lotta good ones turn up here, DAMN I wish I woulda located this one a month ago, but there are still some great tracks here,  we get XTC, that bizarre David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet on "Peace On Earth"/"Little Drummer Boy", Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band's "Xmas at K-Mart", Squeeze, Throwing Muses, The Pretenders......... we can forgive a little bit of overlap for all THAT right?

OK, the final, 18th disc of this series is New Wave Halloween ....arguably the best disc of teh series (for some reason, this stuff melds really well with goth-type-stuff), it opens with "The Time Warp" from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show", which is wonderful, we get the fantastic (and NEVER comped) MX-80 Sound, as well as the great Ministry, we have Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dream Syndicate (IMO their best track, "Halloween"), Dead Kennedys and Roky Erikson & the Aliens.... if that isn't enough for ya you be on the wrong blog.

OK, wanted to get THIS set done, I have a BUNCH of ideas/drafts in reserve that I want to share with ya before I gotta go back to work....... really, been working hard to try to compile some things that I hope are of interest to you, and of course, as, always, I want to thank my guest posters, they are wonderful, and give the blog a more multi-layered personality, rather than just reflecting MY OWN (boring) personality.

Go Vikings........ a fan since 1969, WIN OR LOSE......... look out in 2016!

VOLUME 13-1. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax (4:01)/2 Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days (4:01)/3 Bangles - Hero Takes A Fall (2:55)/4 Nik Kershaw - Wouldn't It Be Good (4:14)/5 Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now (4:48)/6 Bananarama - Cruel Summer (3:36)7. China Crisis - Working With Fire And Steel (3:40)/8 Bus Boys - Cleanin' Up The Town (3:00)/9 Dwight Twilley - Girls (3:30)/10 Alarm - The Stand (3:17) /11Special Aka - Free Nelson Mandela (4:08) 12 General Public - General Public (4:27)13. Fiction Factory - (Feels Like) Heaven (3:33) /14 Ultravox-Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (4:11)/15 Icicle Works - Whisper To A Scream (3:48)/16 Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon (5:46)

VOLUME 14 1 Art Of Noise - Close (To The Edit) (3:54)/2 General Public - Tenderness (3:37)
/3 After The Fire - Der Kommissar (4:06)/4 Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (4:05)/5 Til Tuesday - Voices Carry (4:23)/6 Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok (4:08)/7 Belouis Some - Imagination (3:35)/8 Assembly - Never Never (3:47)/9 Corey Hart - Sunglasses At Night (3:54)/10 Untouchables - Free Yourself (3:38)/11 Let's Active - Every Word Means No (2:53)/12 Truth - Exception Of Love (3:01)/13 Colour Field - Can't Get Enough Of You Baby (2:19)/14 Miracle Legion - The Backyard (4:03)/15 Rubber Rodeo - Anywhere With You (4:01)/16 Red Hot Chili Peppers - True Men Don't Kill Coyotes (3:38)

VOLUME 15-1. Katrina & The Waves - Walking On Sunshine (4:00)/2. Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels (4:19)/3. Men At Work - It's A Mistake (4:34)/4. Dream Academy - Life In A Northern Town (4:18)/5. Charlie Sexton - Beat's So Lonely (5:18)/6. Gary Myrick - Guitar, Talk, Love, & Drums (4:18)/7. Strawberry Switchblade - Since Yesterday (2:56)/8. Animotion - Obsession (4:04)
9. Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Endicott (4:29) /10. Scritti Politti - Perfect Way (4:06)/11. OMD - So In Love (3:31)/12. Arcadia - Election Day (4:34)/13. Paul Hardcastle - 19 (3:40)/14. Bronski Beat - Why? (3:58) /15. Belouis Some - Some People (4:01)16. Lords Of The New Church - Like A Virgin (3:49)

VOLUME 16 (NEW WAVE WOMEN)-1. Go-Go's - How Much More (3:01)/2. Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian (3:25)/3. Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (3:37)/4. The Pretenders - Brass In Pocket (3:06)/5. Berlin - Sex (I'm A...) (3:32)/6. Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy (2:47)/7. Divinyls - I Touch Myself (3:47)/8. Josie Cotton - Johnny Are You Queer (2:46)/9. Romeo Void - Never Say Never (5:55)/10. Animotion - Obsession (4:05)/11. Altered Images - I Could Be Happy (3:31) /12. Lene Lovich - New Toy (3:18)/13. Joan Armatrading - I Love It When You Call Me Names (4:24)/14. The Belle Stars - Sign Of The Times (2:54)/15. The Pandoras - In And Out Of My Life (2:54)/16. Laurie Anderson - O Superman (8:24)

VOLUME 17 (NEW WAVE XMAS)-1. XTC - Thanks for Christmas (3:47)/2. Squeeze - Christmas Day (3:48)/3. The Pogues / Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York (4:29)/4. Los Lobos - Rudolph the Manic Reindeer (1:56)/5. The Pretenders - 2000 Miles (3:33)/6. Throwing Muses - Santa Claus (3:45)/7. Miracle Legion - Little Drummer Boy (3:32)/8. Root Boy Slim & the Sex Change Band - Xmas at K-Mart (2:38)/9. David Bowie / Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth / Little Drummer Boy (2:36)/10. Captain Sensible - One Christmas Catalogu (3:57)/11. Timbuk 3 - All I Want for Christmas (3:21)/12. Wall of Voodoo - Shouldn't Have Given Him a Gun for Christmas (4:02)/13. They Might Be Giants - Santa's Beard (1:51)/14. The Buzz of Delight - Christmas (3:19) 15. Chris Stamey Group - Christmas Time (3:43)/16. Sun 60 - Mary Xmess (4:15)/17. Mono Puff - Careless Santa (2:15)

VOLUME 18 (NEW WAVE HALLOWEEN)-1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show - The Time Warp (3:19)/2. Ministry - Every Day Is Halloween (6:36)/3. The B-52's - Devil In My Car (4:28)/4. Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party (6:24)/5. Ramones - Pet Sematary (3:32)/6. MX 80 Sound - Theme From Halloween (3:21)/7. Comateens - The Munsters Theme (1:48)/8. Dave Edmunds - The Creature From The Black Lagoon (3:41)/9. Siouxsie And The Banshees - Halloween (3:42)/10. The Dream Syndicate - Halloween (6:10)/11. Sonic Youth - Halloween (5:08) /12. Dead Kennedys - Halloween (3:36)/13. Misfits - Halloween (1:50)/14. Mudhoney - Halloween (6:11)/15. Roky Erickson & The Aliens - Creature With The Atom Brain (4:10)

Hope you've enjoyed this big ol set, I have some more ideas for stuff I wanna do the next couple weeks, I hope I can get em all done....... I am the kind of person that "starts" 30 projects at once and finishes them....... well, whenever..... I do take a BIT of pride in the blog though, and I TRY to (along with my wonderful contributors), to keep it fresh, DIFFERENT, and something you can't see on every share blog.....believe it or not, I DO THIS STUFF FOR YOU GUYS, even those who hate me and call me names and don't even understand what I am doing here....AT LEAST I made them THINK, at least for a MINUTE, and maybe that is ALL i can contribute.

In a posting mood, don't be surprised if I post tomorrow and a few days next week, I have so many ideas I want to put out there....I  know Brian is working on a great project too, I won't tell you what it is, But WOW it's going to be badass when he gets it done.....

Come on VIKINGS........ just don't embarrass me and we'll be fine........ this team went 11-5 with maybe 9-7 talent...... as I've been saying all along, 2016/17 THAT is the target, not 2015...... should they lose to Seattle 56-0, as long as they make maximum effort to ensure the next couple of years, I, as a fan of the team, will overwhelmingly approve of the job they have done this season...... AND, imagine, by some chance, they were to WIN tomorrow? Doubtful, but it would be one of the biggest wins in the history of the franchise!