Day 25 - A return to the 1980s

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier
Another album I know quite well, having owned a copy on 12" vinyl back in the day. New Romantics ... barking mad, but good music! Hard to categorise, every song seems to try something new. In a way, despite sounding of its time (probably Adam Ant's voice ... perpetually locked in the 80s with classics like Stand and Deliver) it's a fresh recording, and feels like a real experimental, "Let's give it a go!" type of record. There are rock and roll influences, driving marching beats, great vocals (not just Ant himself), and not a smattering of rock guitars across the record. I'm realiably informed (by Wikipedia no less) that the drum sound is "Burundi", and its the defining style of the record and about the only thing that one song takes from the last one. Very enjoyable quirky album.
Standout Tracks: Antmusic, Killer in the Home, Magnificent Five, Jolly Roger


ABC - The Lexicon of Love
Excellent 80s fair again. I followed up A-Ha with this one, although I am not as familiar with ABC as the previous album (with the exception of the singles they released of course, although I do vaguely recall owning an ABC album at one point on 12"). A little edgier than A-Ha, and a lot more guitars over this one. Again, superb songcrafting - what was it about the 80s that produced so many great songwriters? Just a bit punchier than A-Ha, with those classic 80s guitar stabs, but with the addition of some sax and horns thrown in as well. ABC seem to be in a hurry on this album, is about the only way I can desribe the driving nature of the music. It's high tempo stuff, and pulls you through it addictively as it goes. Great little album, that aspires to higher things and often hits them.
Standout Tracks: Poison Arrow, Tears are not Enough, The look of love (of course!)


A-Ha - Hunting High and Low
Ah the 1980s! My favourite decade. Everything was so simple back then, and the only problem a teenage bloke needs to work out is which girl to chase after next. Things have got a lot more complex since then, but this music really takes me back to my carefree days. It's pure synth pop, and Morten Harket's voice - so woefully underrated due to his good looks and all that goes with that - perfectly counterpoints the keyboards. Beautifully crafted songs, and I can still remember all the lyrics having not listened to this in twenty years! Had a profound effect on me this album, even in those heady thrash days of the late 1980s (my music of choice), and listening to it again reminds me so much of my carefree teenage years. Just a pleasure to listen to. In fact, this is one album that will not be deleted when I finish up, but go right into my music collection and stay there for all time.
Standout Tracks: Seriously, all of them. This is an album you should not miss.


This was a great day for music! Sometimes I listen to a couple of new albums and I am left feeling rather empty afterward thanks to the music being a little too "out there" for me to enjoy, or just basically being crap. Not today though. It helped that the music was that of my teenage years, and brought back so many memories with smiles, but I honestly thing that the art of crafting a song reached a peak in the 1980s. Both A-Ha and ABC stood out for their sheer brilliance in songwriting, and Adam and the Ants was (as it always has been) wonderfully quirky and enjoyable.

There isn't the same "innocence" to the music as there is in stuff from the 50's, 60's and even the 70's as by now people are making music in the 1980s to make money as much as doing it for the love of making music, but there is a still an integrity to the music, particularly in the case of Adam and the Ants.

Tomorrow will be different ... some wierd world music to listen to. But I've often enjoyed that sort of thing in the past on this odd journey so who knows what'll happen.