New Wave Hits of the 80's (Part 1)

Well, I thought I'd put out a nice big, comprehensive, multi-part compilation for ya for the New Year...... This is a tricky one, "New Wave Hits of the 1980's".... OK, a few things.... one, this is not really my favorite of all music scenes, "new wave" was a fairly all encompassing term for stuff that was "edgy" (to ANY degree) in the late 70's-80's..... A LOT of this music here is of the layup variety, ie, EASY selections that most of ya probably have in your stash already, should you enjoy this kind of thing....... there are 17 discs here, and, trust me, there is a LOT of stuff you already have....... now, on the positive side, the obvious stuff IS really good, so if you are lacking in some of this stuff, here is the spot.

I guess what we'll do here is take a gander at each disc, maybe point out the gems on each, and even give a shout to the obvious material that is here, given that, while it IS essential, it is also, for the most part, REALLY great shit........

Well, let's look at Disc 1.... as I've said, there is some layup material here.....but, it IS , in fairness, GREAT stuff....... Graham Parker's "Local Girls", The Ramones "Rock N Roll High School", and Blondie's "One Way Or Another", while all CLASSIC songs, have been comped to death..... the gems here are The Suburban Lawns great "Gidget Goes to Hell", Tim Curry's fab " I Do the Rock" (from of course, the Rocky Horror Picture Show), and Normal's "Warm Leatherette"..... some good stuff there, most of these discs will follow that pattern......program as you wish, you can probably pare this down to maybe 2 discs of stuff you don't already have 20 different times.... I must be sure and warn you that The Inmates' awful cover of "Dirty Water" is here as well.

Disc 2 is similar, the filler stuff is GREAT (Martha & the Muffins "Echo Beach", The Boomtown Rats "I Don't Like Mondays",  "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors and more..... see what I'm saying? GREAT material, but who the hell doesn't already have it?   Luckily, we got stuff from Human Sexual Response, Fischer-Z, and Klark Kent, for those searching for some less-comped stuff...

Let us advancd to disc 3...... again, OBVIOUS (but still great)  tracks from XTC, Gary Numan, and The Romantics (I bet you can guess which tracks without my assistance), but the "lesser-comped" stuff is fab as hell...... my fave here is The Nails "44 Lines About 88 Women", but we also get "Are You Ready For the Sex Girls?" from the Gleaming Spires, and The Fools' "It s a Night For Beautiful Girls"...... this disc, with its combination of moderately obscure comp tracks and standout "obvious" material, makes this a disc that can nearly stand on its own.

And here we go to disc 4...... I've always LOVED The Kings' "Switching to Glide", don't know, honestly, how often it's been comped, but it's a fantastic tune, one of the most representative of the era and sound.  Bauhaus turn in a weird cover of "Ziggy Stardust", Duran Duran contribute another obvious-but-still-great track ("Girls On Film"), we also get some gems from The Motors, The Members, and the Monroes, among others, as the set starts to veer away from the big "obvious" "hits", and tries to go a bit deeper..... btw, if you are not familiar with the one-shot wonder "Switching to Glide", DO NOT miss it, to me it represents the music of the early 80's to perfection.

So, Disc 5...... hey, I LOVE Kim Wilde's "Kids In America", Gang of Four's "I Love a Man In Uniform", and Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy, but as I said before, do we all REALLY need ANOTHER copy of them?...... luckily, we are left with stuff like Pete Shelley's "Homosapien", Japan's "The Art of Parties", and Great Buildings "Hang on to Something".....there are also TOTALLY obvious throwaways from Toni Basil, Marshall Crenshaw (not well-comped, just always hated this song, strictly personal), and Frank and Moon Zappa's "not great" "Valley Girl"........ program as you wish, as I said before, I am but the middle man!

So, for today, we will wrap up with Disc 6...... first of all Golden Earring? enough said there, "People Who Died" is maybe Jim Carroll's weakest track, and, really?, Culture Club?....... well, anyway, it IS a representative cross section, be that good or bad, and they throw in some goodies as well, this time from X ("White Girl", an old fave of mine), Josie Cotton ("Johnny Are You Queer?"), and "Wot" from Captain Sensible....... a good mix of the obvious and the (fairly) obscure......

OK, hope you blokes like this stuff...... in the next few days, I'll get the rest of the set posted..... it's kind of infuriating that the obvious stuff is SO obvious it belongs on "K-Tel's New Wave Hits of the 80's", while some of the obscure stuff is both unique and wonderful....... on this one, I can't stress enough: program it as you wish to suit YOUR needs.

Check back the next few days, there are like 9 MORE discs and I'm sure you will find a few gems if you search..... while 80's new-wave is not exactly my FAVORITE genre, it WAS a great singles-medium, ala punk or power pop, or 60's garage psych, as it makes for FANTASTIC, comprehensive compilations, as (I have made this point before) it plays like a great radio show (does not work for, say Krautrock, stoner, metal, and other formats that don't exactly work in the singles format..... .love it or leave it, no one can argue that some great singles did come out of this format/era....

DISC 1-1. Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi (3:01)/2. Normal - Warm Leatherette (3:23)3. Blondie - One Way Or Another (3:29)/4. Flash & The Pan - Hey- St. Peter (3:54)/5. Nick Lowe - Cruel To Be Kind (3:29)/6. D-Day - Too Young To Date (2:37)/7. Graham Parker - Local Girls (3:42)/8. Ramones - Rock 'N' Roll High School (2:22)/9. Knack - My Sharona (4:03)/10. Dave Edmunds - Girl Talk (3:27)/11. Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star (3:29)/12. Tim Curry - I Do The Rock (4:47)/13. Inmates - Dirty Water (3:04)/14. Tin Huey - I'm A Believer (3:15)/15. Suburban Lawns - Gidget Goes To Hell (2:03)/16. Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want) (2:32)


DISC 2-1. Klark Kent - Away From Home (2:57)/2. Motels - Danger (3:27)/3. Martha & The Muffins - Echo Beach (3:38)/4. Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (3:43)/5. Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays (3:49)/6. Split Enz - I Got You (3:31)/7. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart (3:27)/8. Kingbees - My Mistake (2:55)/9. M - Pop Musik (3:24)/10. Fischer-Z - So Long (5:01)/11. Tonio K. - The Funky Western Civilization (4:13)/12. Vapors - Turning Japanese (3:44)/13. Ultravox - Vienna (4:40)/14. Human Sexual Response - What Does Sex Mean To Me (4:54)/15. Devo - Whip It (2:41)/16. Beat - You Won't Be Happy (2:22)

DISC 3-1. Gary Numan - Cars (3:58)/2. The B-52's - Private Idaho (3:38)/3. XTC - Making Plans For Nigel (4:14)/ 4. Rockpile - Teacher Teacher (2:36)/5. Robert Palmer - Looking For Clues (4:58)/6. Humans - I Live In The City (3:11)/7. Pearl Harbor & The Explosions - Drivin' (3:44)/8. The Romantics - What I Like About You (2:58)/9. The Nails - 88 Lines About 44 Women (4:40)/10. Lene Lovich - New Toy (3:19)/11. Visage - Fade To Grey (4:04)/12. Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Stool Pigeon (3:47)/13. Squeeze - Tempted (4:02)/14. The Selecter - Too Much Pressure (3:51)/15. The Fools - It's A Night For Beautiful Girls (3:55)/16. Gleaming Spires - Are You Ready For The Sex Girls? (4:04)

DISC 4-1. Devo - Freedom Of Choice (3:24)/2. XTC - Generals And Majors (4:07)/3. Kings -
Switchin' To Glide (2:36)/4. Boomtown Rats - Up All Night (3:38)/5. Greg Kihn Band - The Breakup Song (2:51)/6. Motors - Love And Loneliness (4:40)/7. Magazine - About The Weather (3:27)/8. Phil Seymour - Precious To Me (2:52)/9. Duran Duran - Girls On Film (3:32)/10. Translator - Everywhere That I'm Not (3:51)/11. Altered Images - I Could Be Happy (3:33)/12. Members - Working Girl (4:10)/13. Monroes - What Do All The People Know (3:30)/14. Undertones - It's Going To Happen! (3:39)/15. Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust (3:15)/16. Soft Cell - Tainted Love (2:41)

DISC 5-1. Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy (2:47)/2. Waitresses - I Know What Boys Like (3:15)/3. Kim Wilde - Kids In America (3:29)/4. Haircut One Hundred - Love Plus One (3:40)/5. Marshall Crenshaw - Someday, Someway (2:52)/6. Great Buildings - Hold On To Something (3:49)/7. Jam - Town Called Malice (2:57)/8. Tommy Tutone - 867-5309 (Jenny, Jenny) (3:48)/9. Go-Go's - Vacation (3:01)/10. Frank & Moon Zappa - Valley Girl (3:50)/11. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away) (3:46)/12. Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf (5:16)/13. Gang Of Four - I Love A Man In A Uniform (3:35)/14. Japan - The Art Of Parties (4:12)/15. Pete Shelley - Homosapien (3:24)/16. Toni Basil - Mickey (3:26)


DISC 6-1. Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now? (3:24)/2. Golden Earring - Twilight Zone (4:53)/3.
Talk Talk - Talk Talk (3:25)/4. Josie Cotton - Johnny, Are You Queer? (2:49)/5. X - White Girl (3:34)/6. The Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died (5:02)/7. Code Blue - Face To Face (3:05)/8. Captain Sensible - Wot (3:20)/9. Bongos - Number With Wings (4:28)/10. ABC - The Look Of Love (Part One) (3:33)/11. Culture Club - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me (4:23)/12. Romeo Void - Never Say Never (3:29)/13. The Church - The Unguarded Moment (3:11)/14. Any Trouble - Second Choice (3:02)/15. The A's - A Woman's Got The Power (3:37)16. Sparks - I Predict (2:53)


HHHHEEEEEEY Now, come on! Your Uncle is laid off for a while, and has a bunch of ideas for
some upcoming posts......along with my team of wondersome contributors, the next few months on the blog oughta be pretty great...... this is a BIG project, 16 or 17 discs or whatever, but I DO like stuff like this, HUGE sets that attempt, one way or another, to give a comprehensive look at a sound/era......

GUYS, please tell me if you like this stuff or not.....a nd if NOT, what would you prefer? My mission here has ALWAYS been, for anyone who reads/participates/listens here to be able to construct, for him or herself, the PERFECT music collection.... there shouldn't, in this day and age, be ANYTHING out there that you wish to hear, and can't........ just let us know what you'd like and chance are good that ONE of the team just may be able to help you out!

Love to all, as always.......I think the Vikings have about as much chance of beating Seattle next week as I have of Drew Barrymore accepting my latest marriage proposal, but hey, ya never know......

Tune in the next couple days to get the rest of this "new wave" treasure-trove!