1984- Christmas (and other) Musical Memories

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by ricebear, Nov 24, 2014.

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  1. ricebear

    ricebear Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK
    1984
    30 years ago- no way!
    Just turned 14, and this was really the year that I became obsessed with pop music. I was obsessively watching videos and there just seemed to be so much great music on the top 40- I even started getting Billboard Magazine! The music of '84/'85 is my absolute favorite and holds a special place in my heart.

    Christmas of that year, I had a serious backlog of albums that I wanted based on videos or magazine reviews.
    I know my wish list was huge! I'm sure it had all of the following:
    Madonna- Like A Virgin
    Foreigner- Agent Provocateur
    Culture Club- Waking Up With The House On Fire
    Don Henley- Building The Perfect Beast
    Bryan Adams- Reckless
    Julian Lennon- Valotte
    U2- The Unforgettable Fire
    Daryl Hall & John Oates- Big Bam Boom
    David Bowie- Tonight
    Elton John- Breaking Hearts
    Steve Perry- Street Talk
    Dennis DeYoung- Desert Moon
    Billy Squier- Signs Of Life
    The Fixx- Phantoms
    Tina Turner- Private Dancer
    Spandau Ballet- Parade
    Thomas Dolby- The Flat Earth
    R.E.M.- Reckoning
    The GoGo's- Talk Show
    Glenn Frey- The Allnighter
    and on and on...
    Still love all these albums! Oh, and I received.... Pat Benatar "Tropico", Wham! "Make It Big" and the Kinks "Word Of Mouth"! ...and the Band Aid 12"!! All vinyl. Some of these were surely not even on CD yet.
    My friends actually thought the Kinks were a New Wave chick band from the album graphics!!

    What did you get musically Christmas of 1984???
     
  2. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Nothing - I was 17 and I bought all my own music by then! :)

    I did purchase my first CD player January 2, 1985. Bought my first CDs 12/31/84...
     
  3. The year of Band Aid in the UK that Christmas to raise money for famine in Ethiopia...

     
  4. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    Hollow Horse by the Icicle Works and Dave by the Boomtown Rats are two great songs I remember from 1984.

    Most people apparently stick with the music of their lives from approximately ages 15-21, and it sounds like the OP fits that category.
     
  5. OneStepBeyond

    OneStepBeyond Senior Member

    Location:
    North Wales, UK
    Wracking my brains over this, because I always got at least one album.... Then it all comes flooding back! I was coming up for 15 in January and I remember an elder brother getting me -

    [​IMG]

    It was the double cassette version and was called (wait for it) The Hits Cassette! :D So, why wasn't the one in the picture called The Hits LP? :confused: Out of the 32 tracks on here, there were maybe only 2 or 3 that I didn't like much. But that was no biggie, because that year I was also bought (by my parents) a Sharp boombox; this had a function called APSS on it - Automatic Programme Search System... a 'feature' unique to Sharp cassette machines (in name only, others of course had search systems.) It's either this model or about as close as you can get to it -

    [​IMG]

    I still see the above LP set on my travels (big seller - probably not as much as the Now album though) looking for used records but have no interest - if it were the cassette version, I'd not give it a second thought - even if I thought it wasn't much good now (which I do, it's got some decent tracks on, I think) then I'd get it purely for nostalgia.

    Full tracklisting - http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Hits-Album/release/385485


    I also got another casette... Ultravox - The Collection. I still think they're a great band and when I finally got around to buying Vienna a few years later, it quickly became a bit favourite; I've got the deluxe 2CD now and love it even more. I've got an LP of The Collection somewhere around here too.
     
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  6. greenwichsteve

    greenwichsteve Well-Known Member

    I'd turned 34 by then :yikes: so I don't remember what, if anything, I received in music terms. Whilst I can accept most of the acts on your list date from that time, it still gives me a jolt to see Julian Lennon there! Must be the Beatles connection. It still scares me that there have been some golden anniversaries with them in the last couple of years. Only 2 1/2 years to the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper!! Aaarrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  7. mc7t

    mc7t Forum Resident

    Wow.. That's brought back so many memories for me.
    My first ghetto blaster, taping various electro albums, Wham and Duran Duran cassettes.. Hair gel and streaks lol.
    I don't think I was even aware of a cd back then.
    Oh to be 14 again :D
     
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  8. BKarloff

    BKarloff Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I was 14 in 1984 too and really look back as it being a magical year. It was a time of real musical awakening for me and I was just absorbing everything. But for me the kings of 1984 were Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The remixes, the t-shirts, the attitude - I lapped it all up.
    As the last poster said - oh to be 14 again and experience 1984 once more.......
     
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  9. mc7t

    mc7t Forum Resident

    How could I have forgotten Frankie goes to Hollywood?
    And those were the days that Snickers bars were still called Marathon bars too.
    Was it really 30 years ago?
    Frightening how fast time flies.
     
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  10. BKarloff

    BKarloff Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    This might take you back :)

     
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  11. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I miss Opal Fruits and Pacers too!
     
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  12. Sammy Waslow

    Sammy Waslow Just watching the show

    Location:
    Ireland
    As I recall, The Hits Album was so much better than Now! That's What I Call Music 4, which was out at the same time. My brother got The Hits Album and I got Now 4, both on tape. The latter had a lot of filler - a lot of songs I had no awareness of - and ludicrous things like the Arthur Baker remix of No More Lonely Nights, which bears no resemblance to Macca's original.
     
  13. OneStepBeyond

    OneStepBeyond Senior Member

    Location:
    North Wales, UK
    And Smash Hits magazine, with the lyrics to the latest chart hits in!

    It was usually LPs I got and I remember the next best one was '82 - two top albums I had then... Rio (had to mention that as you said about Duran Duran :agree:) and The Rise And Fall Of Madness. I cherished those records - I was a lot more careful than my friends were with theirs; wanted mine to still sound good, play after play! :) And I think it was the year before that when I got my first ghettoblaster/boombox - a Toshiba.

    CDs were just those things that played perfectly after spreading marmalade on - then treating to a quick wipe. :D Was that really Tomorrow's World like people say, these days - I though it was BBC Breakfast Time. That made them all the more magical to me and I never dreamed I'd own a player and discs. Two Christmases later, I had my very own and first and only disc - Level 42's World Machine and being in my first job, earlier that year (hifi, tv and video sales and repairs) I was sold on this 'new' format and very impressed by the lack of crackles and/or hiss between tracks!
     
  14. mc7t

    mc7t Forum Resident

    Oh yes Smash hits magazine.. Used to have that all the time.
    Do you remember No. 1 magazine?
    Also (which no one else I know can remember).. Flexipop.
    You used to get a free flexidisc with every issue :D
     
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  15. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    I was digging Flexipop magazine and spinning the free flexidisc. It was a very good year.
     
  16. digdug67

    digdug67 Hockley's Hits Here!

    Location:
    Hockley, TX
    I also really liked The Kinks "Do It Again", great when the video came on MTV. My younger bro got me the cassette for Christmas and I liked everything on it so it got a lot of plays in the car. Still have it! :righton:
     
  17. OneStepBeyond

    OneStepBeyond Senior Member

    Location:
    North Wales, UK
    No.1 - vaguely, but then there were many that were shortlived and that was probably one of those? :)

    Flexipop - YES!! I've got one of the old discs here still and I remember going into the newsagent's to try to find a copy but usually failing. I had the one with the Boomtown Rats flexi, plus Bad Manners, Genesis, The Pretenders - which might have had two or more artists on like the one I have now (Gary Moore, The Polecats and others.) That's all I remember having and these are to be found on eBay... every time I think about this, I find it quite tempting! :shh:
     
  18. OneStepBeyond

    OneStepBeyond Senior Member

    Location:
    North Wales, UK
    They used to have these things called Smax - biscuity smoky bacon flavour things. I want them to bring them back now!! I think they ended '82ish.

    And similarly, Fish 'n' Chips - but they've had a recent revival I've had to stop buying them... As we always say 'They're not half the size of what they were.'* :sigh:

    [​IMG]


    * I usually hear this applied to Mars Bars but not exclusively.


    Back to music and 1984, then... :shh:
     
  19. zen

    zen Senior Member

  20. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    I have no recollection. It was my first Christmas in NC, I was 16 and was primarily frustrated that my dad wouldn't let me get my license because I hadn't completed drivers' ed. It was a junior level class in NY, but a freshman class in NC, same with health. So I was in with a bunch of freshmen, and didn't get around to driving until 1985.
     
  21. JulesDassin

    JulesDassin Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    monterey,ca.usa
  22. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I remember Smax. Had a crush on them myself. I saw Fish n Chips back in the shops again, but they were never a favourite of mine. When I just started school in the mid-60s, they used to sell a snack similar to Smax called Shapes. They were in chicken and bacon flavours and were GORGEOUS! Made by Meredith & Drew, as I recall!
     
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  23. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I don't remember exactly what I had for Christmas in 1984... I was at work by then and serious presents had dried up! I recall buying a lot of LPs and cassettes in the last quarter of the year already mentioned here. The Hits and Now albums, Wham, Frankie, Culture Club, Bowie, Nick Heyward, Prince, Pointer Sisters were some of my purchases at this time. Wham's Make It Big was by far my favourite. I possibly wouldn't have admitted this at the time!

    Also remember a girl at work buying Smash Hits and Number 1 mags every Thursday. I was a Record Mirror man! Smash Hits was a pretty decent pop read at this time. I remember Neil Tennant used to work on it pre-Pet Shop Boys. He used to do singles and albums reviews amongst other things.
     
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  24. pig bodine

    pig bodine God’s Consolation Prize

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY USA
    I was 21 in 1984--I didn't get anything--maybe a card from my parents, and my girlfriend at the time was an artist and most likely made me something. 1974, however, I'm pretty sure I got Exile On Main St and The Beatles--I know this, because I wasn't buying double albums as an eleven year old, so that must be how I acquired them.
     
  25. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    Something else great about the 70s and 80s, double albums were an event. Only put out when the artist had enough strong material to fill it and was popular enough for the record company to agree to it! Now thanks to CD, almost every new album is a 'double' one in length. Looking in the shops yesterday, many of the new releases have upwards of 15 tracks.
     
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