Comments on: I Want To Know What Love Is – Eighties Revisionism

By: a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit

a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:28:03 +0000

what a lot of commas

By: a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit

a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:27:03 +0000

i’ve argued elsewhere — and continue absolutely to believe — that part of the fear, of expansion in two simultaneous directions, towards the dark and arty and thoughtful on one side, in combo with the bright and funny and energised on the other, was the result, very directly, of ian curtis’s suicide, a signal emotional calamity that froze a key element in the key PoPu constituency in their steps; and ensured the advance was all on one side (which is to say, after a while no advance at all)

the ur-text re all revivals ever: the monkey’s paw by w.w.jacobs

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:47:45 +0000

It’s a pity that the wrong eighties were revived.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:45:16 +0000

Weird re-reading this and remembering that in 2001 an eighties revival didn’t seem as sure-thing a thing as it obviously turned out to be.

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:43:21 +0000

No it fucking wasn’t. It was a collective failure on the part of a cowardly and mostly stupid audience who just wanted the glitz and the bright colours and weren’t bothered about subtexts or changing anything (as the 1983 General Election results proved). No wonder certain prominent New Pop writers - notably a Mr Morley and a Mr Tennant - decided they needed to take matters into their own hands.

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:29:42 +0000

Waiting For A Girl Like You gets more astonishing with the passing years. Hard to believe it was such a huge hit (I think eight weeks stuck at no.2 in the US behind Physical) when the melody is (the title aside) little more than synth washes and the semi-detached reverb left when I’m Not In Love comes out of the tumble dryer.

Their later, bigger, hit also had that classic eighties move, the gospel choir; The Fall succinctly nailed that crass behaviour in the opening lines of The Classical.

The failure of New Pop - all down to over-adventurous sequel albums that splintered the balsa wood bridge linking ABC, Dexys and OMD? I think as a notion it was more than surface. Much as I love Public Image by Public Image, it was kind of a relief when the post-punks decided to reclaim melody from Lena Martell, Kenny Rogers, and the other duffers topping the charts in 79/80.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:30:04 +0000

“Waiting For A Girl Like You,” in contrast, is a hidden corner of 1981 magic with its Fripp/Eno drone all the way through - no doubt connected with keyboardist Ian McDonald (no relation) who used to be in King Crimson and also blew his brains out on sax on a regular basis on Bolan’s hits. It felt in tandem with New Pop.

Whereas it’s telling that Trevor Horn did the preproduction work on the Foreigner album from which “I Want To Know What Love Is” was taken - complete with unlikely Thompson Twins involvement - and perhaps this represents the other bookend; the ultimate failure of New Pop to change much of anything other than surface.