The U.K. 80s Singles & Albums Chart General Discussion Thread.

I am totally with you on that one.
Thats why I am more surprised when I hear some people say that Liverpool is actually their favorite album,
when not even WTTPD totally succeeded as an album (how could it have as a double ? - that would have been a miracle),
let alone Liverpool.

 

I mean they were very good musicians, Nick Beggs a very good bass player, just couldn’t sing, Limahl a very underrated singer, Jez Strode i think his name was .. a really fabulous drummer.
I actually loved White Feathers and i still think it sounds great to this day.

 

I actually don't own a copy of Blast. I know the three hits from it, of course. 'Love Train' is fabulous. I'm much less enthralled with 'Americanos' and 'Atomic City'.

 

Ouch! I thought Islands was great, and Nick's vocals were perfectly suited to it. I think even if Limahl had stayed, the album would have flopped (his solo records, the movie song aside, were doing terribly and the album kept getting shelved).

EG.

 

Heaven's Here is sublime. The closing ballad is almost Frankie-esque. But some of the rest is naff. Although I heard a couple of the album tracks in a 1989 episode of Bergerac the other week on DVD and they sounded quite good.

EG.

 

Very rare i do not agree with you Eric.
I thought Islands was plain awful, The Big Apple with Limahl on vocals would have been great, If you listen to how screechy Nick’s voice is on that whole album, i just hated the whole thing, he even admits it was a mistake.
I think the reason why they would have continued to have success was Limahl was all about keeping it pop but some of the band wanted a different direction.
I think Limahl was a great singer without a band and great songs, and they were a great band without a great singer.
Same happened to Haircut 100, that Paint On Paint album after Pelican West is a total disaster, the difference though was Nick was the only songwriter in the band so he could make one classic solo album after that band split, Limahl had everything needed the voice, the looks the teen idol appeal the rest of the band did not.
History is full of bands trying to do this and it always ends in tears. Bronski Beat the same!!!

 

Well.......we may disagree about the quality of Nick`s voice or the how well suited his voice was for those songs,
but I think you gotta say that the musicianship was taken a step forward on Islands.
Just listen to The Loop. That is one seriously good instrumental.

 

Surely those people are being deliberately obtuse? I mean, Liverpool isn't a follow-up disaster on the same scale as Waking Up With The House On Fire, but even the biggest Frankie fan would have to concede that it's just treading water.

 

I mean as a teen i heard nothing on Islands that appealed to me at all compared to the superbly crafted pop songs on White Feathers, now fast forward 35 /40 years im sure i would hear things now that i did not as a teen but i still stand by the fact they made a huge mistake dumping Limahl and had they followed a similar direction as the first album while still being able to express themselves musically but above all kept the damn singer, then they would have remained successful for a while longer.
Some people have star quality and are meant to be a frontman, that was Limahl not Nick Beggs, he was very much a background guy, I just remember hearing Big Apple for the first time thinking wow this is a great song, shame about the really poor vocal. Then again i am very much a vocal based music fan, so maybe i am over critical.

 

Bands often dislike songs that the general public love. Personally I think the chorus of "Shake The Disease" is perfect as it is. Another example is Duran Duran not being fans of the 7" "My Own Way" to the extent that it was left off of Decade. Again I love it and prefer it to the album version..

 

Duran also omitted 'New Moon On Monday' from Decade — and yet they decided to include 'All She Wants Is...' Mystifying, really.

 

Forget about the mummies what's going on with Howards hair!

 

He ran out of product by the end of the 80s (in more ways than one).

 

When you look at how many of Depeche Mode's contemporaries fizzled out in the mid to late 80's it's quite impressive that they arguably got better & more popular as the decade progressed. But then unlike some of those other artists they were coming from a lower base with all due respect to fans of Speak & Spell.

 

So two great singles left off of Decade. "New Moon On Monday" was eventually included on 'Greatest' from 1998 but "My Own Way" was ignored again. I'm surprised that they actually included it in the singles 81-85 boxset. And "Careless Memories" was ignored both times - was only a minor hit but one of their best IMO..

 

Just a quick not to let you know that I have just started a topic called "the other side of the 80s",
so if anyone here is interested in taking part of that discussion, please join me there.

The other side of the 80s

 

Nick's vocals are more of an acquired taste, I guess. I don't think Kaja were quite in the same predicament as Haircut 100 or Bronski Beat, but you're right that none of them ever scaled the same heights without the original singer.

I've got Paint on Paint but never had the nerve to play it! Truthdare Doubledare was okay in parts, but C'Mon C'Mon was dreadful. Killed whatever chances they had stone dead.

EG.

 

I'd forgotten how bad 'C'mon! C'mon!' was until I played the 12" single recently. It's a calypso nightmare.

 

Bronski Beat and calypso should never meet.

EG.

 

Holly was pretty much done with FGTH after Pleasurdome.
He held back what he thought were his best songs for a solo album, rather than use them for the second Frankie album.

 

I do not think any of the material on Blast would have been contenders for a FGTH album anyway.
They did make a real pop song once though, for some reason some early versions of the cd releases came with a song called Happy Hi. I actually really loved that song and even on the deluxe versions of the re releases it was left off.
But they could pull off pop music so who knows.
Love Train and Heaven’s Here are the only tracks on that album i like.

 

Happy Hi was first released on the Pleasuredome single/EP, "The Escape Act". That was Mar 1985. Around the same time, or just after, the first version of the Pleasuredome album came out on CD, and Happy Hi was listed. But it was still San Jose on the actual disc. I've so many versions of the album on CD that I forget where or when it was corrected.

Pretty sure the 2010 reissue (2CDs) had Happy Hi somewhere.

EG.

 

I actually do not see it on my cd version.
They did not include it, unless it had different track listing for other countries.
I have to rely on the 1985 cd version i have to listen to that song.

 

There's an early "CID101" CD pressing which has Happy Hi - that's my most recently-added version, got it last year. The later UK version lists it, but plays San Jose. The 2010 remaster has San Jose as well (Happy Hi might be on the bonus disc, would have to check).

EG.

 

Its not i already checked mine.