Category Archives: Pop

1980s Rock/Pop Acts I Should Like But Don’t

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Everyone knows a few: those acts that got great reviews, named some of your favourite bands as influences and sold a few records in the process, but there was just something about their music that you couldn’t hack.

Maybe it was their vocals, their outlook, their politics, their songwriting, or a mixture of all four.

Well I know some too. Here’s a totally subjective, wildly judgemental – no offence intended – list of 1980s pop and rock artists who leave me cold, despite most being critical and commercial successes. Believe me, I’ve tried. Like they could care less…

King’s X
My muso mates waxed lyrical about their tricky riffs and tight musicianship but I’ve never got beyond the guy’s not very good singing, their weirdly unmemorable songs and rather naff pomp-rock tendencies.

World Party
Perpetually spoken about in hushed tones of reverence when I was at college but their music singularly failed to grab, despite the Beatles/XTC/Prince influences, possibly due to Karl Wallinger’s rather wimpy voice. See also: Crowded House, REM, Waterboys

The Blow Monkeys
Somehow got filed under the ‘sophistipop’ banner courtesy of their flirtation with ‘slinky’ grooves and soul influences, but for me Dr Robert’s absurd voice and the lack of songwriting imagination never got them past first base. See also: Kane Gang, Simply Red, Johnny Hates Jazz, Black, The Big Dish.

Marillion
Decade-ending Season’s End had some brilliant moments but for me most of the Fish era was a succession of quite badly-played/badly-sung rip-offs of Gabriel-era Genesis. It Bites did it better and added some much-needed pizzazz and groove. See also: IQ, Jadis, Tony Banks/Chris Squire/Mike Rutherford solo albums…

Deacon Blue
I liked the soppier/poppier elements of their debut album Raintown but the game was up when the truly irritating ‘Wages Day’ and ‘Real Gone Kid’ swept the airwaves at the end of the decade. They took Prefab Sprout’s basic concept to the bank whilst shaving off the weird edges.

Paul McCartney
Sheer melodic brilliance time and time again of course, but for me his 1980s work generally flatters to deceive, outside of a few random favourites (‘Pipes Of Peace’, ‘Once Upon A Long Ago’). Yes, even the album he did with Elvis Costello (of whom more below…).

The Style Council
Only a musical moron would deny the power of ‘You’re The Best Thing’ and ‘Walls Come Tumbling Down’ and you have to admire Paul Weller’s songcraft, politics, guitar playing and ability to laugh at himself, but generally it was hard to shake off the naffness. Mick Talbot must take a lot of the blame…

Mick Jagger
He employed some of my favourite producers and musicians (Jeff Beck, Sakamoto, Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, Doug Wimbish, Simon Phillips etc. etc.) but failed to produce even one memorable or interesting single or album track during the 1980s. See also: Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Nick Heyward, Jerry Harrison

Pages
This yacht rock supergroup had a great singer (Richard Page) and sh*t-hot musicians (Vinnie Colaiuta, Jay Graydon, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather etc.) but the songs weren’t strong or memorable enough. See also: most of Toto, Mr Mister

Elvis Costello
Weirdly his ‘Less Than Zero’ was one of the first singles I loved as a kid, but his desperation to be a serious ’80s ‘artist’ fell on deaf ears despite the fact that he obviously knew a lot of chords and retained some of that new-wave angst (but even I couldn’t resist his fine run of 1990s form, from the superb ‘London’s Brilliant Parade’ to Bacharach). See also: The Cars, The The, Squeeze.

Van Morrison
To my ears his 1980s music is like Joni Mitchell and John Martyn without the melodic/harmonic/lyrical depth, apart from the sublime ‘Rave On John Donne’. People tell me he always uses great bands though, but they often barely register…

Todd Rundgren
I’m more of a fan of his 1980s producing work (Pursuit Of Happiness, XTC etc) than his solo music. Never bought into this whole ‘he’s a genius’ thing, save the wonderful ‘The Verb To Love’ – but that’s from the 1970s, innit…? See also: Lenny Kravitz.

Depeche Mode
Yes they’ve got a few pop hooks, the Mute Records cred and ‘edgy’ image but never been able to shake off an ineffable naffness for me. And despite being ‘synth pioneers’, they didn’t seem to push the sonic envelope much in the 1980s at all. ‘Everything Counts’ was superb though and I got on board later with Ultra. See also: Kraftwerk, New Musik, Visage, Ultravox, New Order, Howard Jones

Pink Floyd
If you want to put me to sleep, put on any of Pink Floyd’s 1980s work. Bring back Syd. See also: Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd solo projects, except Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports, which is brilliant…

Bad Brains
Dub/thrash/funk pioneers and a huge influence on bands I really like such as Living Colour, Fishbone and 24-7 Spyz, but their music seems a little amateurish to me and, again, their singer was not blessed with a great set of pipes (unlike the singers of bands above).

Housemartins
Fondly remembered until you actually hear those singles again – ‘Build’, ‘Happy Hour’, ‘Caravan Of Love’. Annoying, a bit puny, and apparently the more irritating side of the C-86 generation.

The Jesus and Mary Chain
Bowie summed them up well for me: ‘I tried the Jesus and Mary Chain but I just couldn’t believe it. It’s awful! It was so sophomoric – like the Velvets without Lou. I just know that they’re kids from Croydon! I just can’t buy it…’

10 Classic 1980s Singles Featuring Brushes

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Some brushes, yesterday

When you think of 1980s pop music, which drum sounds come to mind?

They’re probably pretty loud and the infamous gated snare possibly looms large: ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘In The Air Tonight’, ‘Hey Mickey’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘A Town Called Malice’, ‘Born In The USA’.

But there’s a whole alternative world of 1980s hits where the drummer played very quietly, with brushes rather than sticks. Stuff like Buddy Holly’s ‘Raining In My Heart’, The Beatles’ ‘When I’m 64’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ probably laid down the gauntlet, but you can’t imagine any producers or focus groups demanding that the drummer play brushes to create a hit (and when was the last hit that featured brushes?).

Here are some classic 1980s singles that somehow got away with it (all chart placings from the UK).

10. Echo & the Bunnymen: ‘Killing Moon’
Powered by Pete de Freitas’s subtle and unexpected brushwork, the classic single got all the way to #9 in early 1984.

9. George Michael: ‘Kissing A Fool’
The seventh and final single from Faith, written back in 1984, reached the top 20 and was initially mooted to be the title track of that 1987 album. Session player Ian Thomas, soon to play with everyone from Robbie Williams to Scott Walker, overdubbed some brushes on the snare after first recording a pass with sticks.

8. The Cure: ‘The Lovecats’
This stand-alone single was also the band’s first top ten hit, peaking at #7 in October 1983. Drummer Andy Anderson began his career with Hawkwind’s Nik Turner and Steve Hillage, then ended up on Robert Smith and Steve Severin’s The Glove side project. He found himself recording this song in Paris then joined the band for a year, playing on 1984 album The Top and playing brushes on another B-side, ‘Speak My Language’. He then toured with Iggy Pop throughout 1987. Anderson died in 2019.

7. Alison Moyet: ‘That Ole Devil Called Love’
This stand-alone single reached a heady #2 during March 1985, produced by ’18 With A Bullet’ singer Pete Wingfield. But who’s the drummer? Answers on a postcard please.

6. Robert Wyatt: ‘Shipbuilding’
Not much is known about drummer Martin Hughes, but he did a nice job on this classic single which reached #35 in April 1983.

5. Chris Rea: ‘Driving Home For Christmas’
Written in 1978, it was originally intended for Van Morrison. Rea first recorded it as a B-side to the 1986 single ‘Hello Friend’, with drummer Dave Mattacks playing almost with a country feel. But the most famous version features on Rea’s 1988 New Light Through Old Windows compilation album with drums by Martin Ditcham, best known for his percussion work.

4. Chris Isaak: ‘Wicked Game’
Kenney Dale Johnson played some very subtle drums on this classic single released in July 1989, going on to become a huge sleeper hit in the US and UK.

3. Elton John: ‘Blue Eyes’
Recorded at AIR Studios in Montserrat, this touching ballad was the lead-off single from John’s Jump Up! album, reaching the top ten in 1982. The very slow 6/8 groove was beautifully marshalled by Jeff Porcaro. See also Toto’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ and Ray Charles’ ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ for some classic Porcaro brushwork.

2. Fairground Attraction: ‘Perfect’
It reached UK #1 in May 1988 – is it the only chart-topper to feature a drummer playing brushes? London jazzer Roy Dodds did the honours on this.

1. Rain Tree Crow: ‘Blackwater’
Cheating a bit here. It wasn’t released until 1991 but was recorded in December 1989 at Chateau Miraval in Southern France. It was the reformed Japan’s only single, reaching #62. In the band biography ‘Cries And Whispers’, drummer Steve Jansen makes the remarkable claim that his whole performance was pieced together using samples. Weird…

Any other 1980s hits that feature brushes? Drop us a line below.

Gig Review: Nik Kershaw @ Shepherds Bush Empire, 16 October 2024

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As the male solo artist with the most weeks on the UK singles chart during 1984, it’s not surprising Nik Kershaw is celebrating that year with a lengthy European tour, playing his two top 10 albums Human Racing and The Riddle in their entirety.

He’s still able to command big audiences for his solo gigs, and with good reason – his vocals are if anything much improved since his mid-‘80s heyday and his songs are built to last, with their bold melodies, crafty harmonies and intricate arrangements. But then regular readers already know movingtheriver is a big fan.

So Kershaw’s back catalogue is an embarrassment of riches but also presents some potential problems for a five–piece ‘rock’ band – for a start, how to recreate those dense textures and sequence-heavy arrangements? Thankfully he generally didn’t scrimp on any of that, mostly using the same audio stems and keyboard sounds from the 1980s. There was little or no ‘reimagining’ during this gig, hugely enjoyed by a packed house.

‘Roses’, whose lyrics are still relevant today, was the surprise but effective first song, the band (all middle-aged white guys dressed in black, but then you don’t go to a Kershaw gig expecting bells and whistles) arriving onstage to the opening percussion loop.

‘Know How’ and ‘Wild Horses’ (a favourite of Miles Davis) sounded fantastic, benefitting from bassist Paul Geary’s beefy tone and Kershaw’s fluid guitar lines.

He delivered a great vocal on ‘Wide Boy’, while ‘City Of Angels’ – written about ‘a city I’d never been to’ – featured a lovely laidback performance from drummer Bob Knight, though at times during the gig he lacked the dynamics and smooth grooves of original Human Racing/Riddle sticksman Charlie Morgan.

Geary had his work cut out aping Mark King on ‘Easy’, but he did a pretty good job if somewhat lacking the Level 42 man’s precise percussiveness and syncopated slides. Impressively, keys player Phil Peckett seemed to take care of all the track’s fast sixteenth-notes in real time rather than relying on a sequencer. The whole band did pretty much the same on ‘Don Quixote’.

Self-deprecating to the last (he’s always claimed he’s just a ‘muso’ who was thrust into the limelight), Kershaw played down his Green credentials before ‘Save The Whale’, claiming it had been written as a last-minute ‘rent-an-issue’ song for The Riddle.

The excellent ‘You Might’ featured ‘too many chords’, according to Kershaw, while the first set closed with the album’s perennially popular title track, featuring tasty duel lead guitars though with a rather stiff ‘rock’ feel compared to the slinky sixteenth-note groove of the original.

Set two featured Human Racing in its entirety, and this is where the now rather dated zaniness of Kershaw’s early stuff became apparent, the superbly sung title track and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ aside, though the latter was played surprisingly early in the set.

There was a lengthy tribute to and applause for producer Peter Collins who passed away in June before Kershaw closed up Human Racing with ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, rescued by the frontman’s lengthy Holdsworth-like guitar solo.

He seemed genuinely delighted by the ecstatic crowd reaction, signing off with a breezy ‘You’ve made an old man very happy’, before encoring with mass singalongs ‘When A Heart Beats’ (complete with superb note-for-note solo from second guitarist Adam Evans), should-have-been-a-hit ‘The Sky’s The Limit’ and ‘The One And Only’.

A great night of classy music and enjoyable nostalgia. Who knows – maybe Nik will amaze us with Radio Musicola @ 40 in 2026.

Bronski Beat: ‘Smalltown Boy’ @ 40

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40 years ago, gay artists weren’t just occasional visitors to the British pop charts – they were leading the agenda.

A famous top three of August 1984 featured George Michael at #1, Frankie Goes To Hollywood at #2 and Bronksi Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’ at #3.

Remarkably, the latter was also the Bronskis’ debut single, coming from debut album The Age Of Consent. And what a trailblazing/timeless classic it is, danceable and tearjerking, with a once-in-a-lifetime vocal performance from Jimmy Somerville and that winning chord sequence.

Bernard Rose’s sombre video (which has had 121 million YouTube views at the time of writing) was obviously a huge part of the song’s success, combining the ‘realist’ style of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach with a few poetic touches to brilliant and moving effect.

Producer Mike Thorne’s role on the track is often undervalued too – there was a touch of his ‘Tainted Love’ in his bass sound and extensive use of top-end on synths and drums, and he also gets a pat on the back for leaving in a few mistakes (check out the shockingly-played synth lead line in the first 30 seconds, a section that also seems to speed up a lot).

The legacy of ‘Smalltown Boy’ is rather sad though – writers/co-founders Steve Bronski and Larry Steinbachek have both died recently, deaths that seems to have been somewhat under-reported in the media.

Madonna @ The MTV Video Music Awards: 40 Years On

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40 years ago this weekend, Madonna stunned the music biz with her premiere performance of ‘Like A Virgin’ on the MTV Awards at the Radio City Music Hall, NYC.

Not a household name at the time, she sung live in full wedding regalia, perched atop a giant cake, before shedding her shoes and veil and ending up writhing around the stage, her underwear exposed.

In terms of landmark pop TV moments, some have compared it to The Beatles on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ or Michael Jackson’s moonwalking on ‘Motown 25’. Others saw it as summing up the coarsening of popular culture.

But Madonna’s stylist Maripol later claimed to Classic Pop magazine that MTV ‘tried to destroy her that day…they put the camera under her skirt.’ And it’s hard to see the performance outside the context of Prince’s highly sexualised ‘Purple Rain’ movie (released in the US two months earlier) and attendant live shows.

It’s also widely forgotten that this performance came a month before ‘Like A Virgin’ was released as a single, so this was the first time most people had heard the song (‘Borderline’, from Madonna’s self-titled debut album, was only just peaking in Europe in September 1984). Bravely, Madonna refused to perform either ‘Borderline’ or ‘Holiday’ for MTV.

Still, manager Freddy DeMann was reportedly furious with Madonna, believing the performance to be career suicide. But of course it was just the opposite, helping propel her to megastardom. Happy birthday to a groundbreaking moment of 1980s pop.

(Postscript: As for the MTV Awards, they’re still going strong – Madonna spawned quite a monster…)

Eight 1980s Stock, Aitken & Waterman Tracks That Aren’t Crap

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Joe Meek isn’t often compared to Stock, Aitken and Waterman but here’s an associate of the former speaking after his untimely death: ‘He was being ganged up on by the establishment. Nobody with any power in the business liked him because he was independent and successful.’

The same could be said for Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman. The always-deeply-unfashionable songwriting/production/mixing/A&R team, who had over 100 UK Top 40 hits and sold over 40 million singles in the UK (35 million worldwide in 1987 alone),  found their feet in the hi-NRG scene, then detoured into classy soul before emerging with a late-‘80s formula that combined both approaches and made superstars out of Kylie, Jason and Rick Astley.

Everyone from Sigue Sigue Sputnik to Donna Summer sought SAW’s hit-making fairy dust. But many ’80s pop fans hated them. You could argue that was more down to the procedural limitations of their later work – ie. refusal to use a real rhythm section – and formulaic productions than the songwriting (reportedly mostly by Stock, with the other two supplying lyric ideas and Waterman the final mix and marketing) which often adroitely mined Motown and Philly soul and featured some of the weirdest harmonic modulations this side of Nik Kershaw.

But have their best tracks stood the test of time? Here are eight SAW singles that are not routinely turned off by movingtheriver when they come on the radio:

8. Dead Or Alive: ‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’
Waterman boasted about making difficult records early in the trio’s career and this is one of their weirdest. Apparently their trick was to remove most of the bass from the mix and boost the cowbells, handclaps and sequencers to ‘trigger’ the interactive light shows, especially at ‘gay’ venues. It’s also interesting how long they wait before unleashing the first chorus…

7. Princess: ‘Say I’m Your Number One’
South London soul singer Princess – born Desiree Heslop – was a member of Osibisa before going solo in 1985. This tasty single, with its bizarre but brilliant harmonic hike into the chorus, settled at #7 as well as going top 20 in the US R&B charts.

6. Brother Beyond: ‘The Harder I Try’
Weirdly, this fine Motown pastiche was the FIFTH single released from their second album, but still made #2 in the UK.

5. The Three Degrees: ‘The Heaven I Need’
Yes it’s somewhat of a rip-off of Mai Tai’s ‘History’ (or is it? Which came out first?!) but this was the Prince Charles-approved trio’s groovy comeback after a five-year hiatus. Not much of a success though: it limped to #42.

4. Sonia: ‘You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You’
Bear with me here. Under the house-by-numbers groove lurks a cool take on Philly soul, the verses reminiscent of both ‘Stop Look Listen’ and ‘Betcha By Golly Wow’. 18-year-old Scouser Sonia Evans was a complete unknown when she recorded this. Maybe people assumed it was Kylie. Interestingly it was SAW’s final #1 single in the UK.

3. Rick Astley: ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’
Just a brilliantly weird sequence of melodic hooks, and another strange key change going into the chorus. Astley’s vocal phrasing is a treat too.

2. Donna Summer: ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’
Reportedly, this is SAW’s favourite of their singles and Summer’s beautiful vocal is surely a big reason why. It completely bombed in her homeland but made the UK top 20.

1. Brilliant: ‘Love Is War’
Killing Joke’s Youth and future KLF man Jimmy Cauty were involved with this great bit of post-Cupid & Psyche pop/soul, but it still stiffed in the UK.

Any other good SAW tracks? Deep cuts from Kylie albums? It’s unlikely but you never know (and no, ‘Roadblock’ is NOT a great single…).

Further reading: ‘Good Vibrations: The History Of Record Production’ by Mark Cunningham

Peter Gabriel: i/o

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Despite his reputation as a sonic groundbreaker and technological wiz, Peter Gabriel arguably hasn’t done anything much good on record since 1992, even as his live shows gain popularity.

1986’s So was of course the huge pop breakthrough, and that album has been the template for his subsequent, rather predictable solo career – he generally switches between atmospheric ballads a la ‘Mercy Street’ or ‘Don’t Give Up, ‘dark’, vaguely industrial rock tracks, and ‘funky’ one-chord grooves with poppy hooks and emotional lyrics, typified by ‘Sledgehammer’.

i/o is his first album of new material since 2002 and sadly it cannot reverse the trend, despite Gabriel’s always excellent, ageless vocals. It mostly meanders by in a fog of ugly snare drums, dry guitars and keyboards (some by Eno), digital treatments/loops pitched somewhere around 1998, and not much air at all. It seems the multi-layered triumphs of ‘Lead A Normal Life’ and ‘Family Snapshot’ are long gone.

Elsewhere Tony Levin’s bass and stick parts are prominent but they can’t produce anything as immediate and catchy as ‘Sledgehammer’. ‘Four Kinds Of Horses’ sums up the problem – a fairly uninteresting half-time groove underpins a fairly uninteresting vocal melody, while a rather irritating piano loop burbles away in the background. It never should have left the rehearsal room and many other (mostly overlong) tracks replicate that formula.

But Gabriel does deliver a pretty good, harmonically-rich ballad – ‘Playing For Time’ – which some other reviewers have very generously compared to Randy Newman’s best work. It’s this album’s ‘Washing Of The Water’.

In conclusion, the main problem with i/o is that it sounds exactly like you think it will. Maybe Gabriel is working with the wrong people, maybe the wrong software. Maybe he needs to get back to recording ‘as live’, embedded in a really good five-piece band. Paging Bob Ezrin, Larry Fast, Robert Fripp and/or Hugh Padgham…

(postscript: I’ve recently invested in the definitive 2007 CD remaster of Genesis’s Lamb Lies Down On Broadway – it sounds absolutely fantastic and I feel 18 again…)

Gig Review: China Crisis @ The Half Moon Putney, 17 May 2024

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China Crisis in 2024

China Crisis in 2024 with Gary Daly (vocals) and Eddie Lundon (guitar), centre

It’s an interesting era for acts like China Crisis who were never massive but had significant singles success in the 1980s (five UK top 40 hits).

Though releasing only two albums of new music since 1994, they continue to tour successfully, playing both under their own steam and occasionally as part of big ‘80s-themed package dates such as Let’s Rock.

Now essentially a duo of Gary Daly on vocals and Eddie Lundon on guitars, plus Eric Animan on saxes and Jack Hymers on keyboards/programming, they remain a great live draw mainly due to Daly’s stage presence, pitch-perfect vocals and hilarious between-song anecdotes, plus the obviously excellent songcraft.

As Daly pointed out, China Crisis remain a singular, immediately identifiable band, completely different to other early ‘80s Liverpool acts (though they actually originate from nearby Kirkby) like Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

They specialise in willowy, intriguing melodies, haunting synths, clever rhythm guitars, obtuse lyrics and slinky grooves, and, of course, Steely Dan’s Walter Becker produced their best two albums, Flaunt The Imperfection and Diary Of A Hollow Horse.

Their sold-out visit to the venerable, reliable old Half Moon in Putney saw them plugging a new collection of re-imagined old favourites. It was movingtheriver’s first visit to the great venue for at least ten years, though I have fond memories of gigging there regularly in the early 1990s.

Coming onstage to a synth overture featuring some of their most popular themes, CC started with low-key, atmospheric ‘The Soul Awakening’ (with its neat nod to ABC’s ‘SOS’) and ‘Here Comes A Raincloud’, before Daly exploded into life demanding that the house lights be turned on, deadpanning: ‘If I’m gonna play these small f*ckin’ venues, I want to see you all.’

After more amusing greetings, including unprintable tilts at Bono and random asides – ‘Don’t get me started on Phil Oakey’ – he previewed the superb ‘It’s Never Too Late’, originally recorded in 1983 but for some reason relegated to B-side status, by rightly pointing out that it should have been a massive hit single and also claiming that it ‘f*ckin’ is too late or we wouldn’t be playing venues like this’, and there were airings of lovely early torch songs ‘Temptation’s Big Blue Eyes’ and ‘Red Sails’.

Daly paid tribute to Becker – ‘he changed our lives and our music’ – with a killer double from Flaunt, ‘Strength Of Character’ and ‘Bigger The Punch I’m Feeling’. Daly claimed the latter was somewhat inspired by ‘The Love Boat’ TV theme and also that it was a vague tribute to one of the most popular bands in UK singles history: ‘Shut your f*ckin’ eyes and think Hot Chocolate’.

‘African And White’, with intricate new guitar voicings from Lundon, finally revealed the meaning behind the baffling chorus – ‘Life is a fever in Israel’ – another one for the misheard lyrics file. The big hits arrived with mass audience participation and general affection for this most likable of bands – ‘Arizona Sky’, ‘Best Kept Secret’, ‘Black Man Ray’, ‘King In A Catholic Style’ and ‘Christian’, Daly claiming the latter’s UK #12 chart position would have been much improved by a bagpipe solo.

He ended a hugely enjoyable gig with an impassioned speech paying tribute to the UK’s smaller, grassroots venues such as the Half Moon, and an attack on Tory attitudes to the arts and the North in general: ‘Levelling up, my f*cking arse’. China Crisis  continue to tour the UK during the rest of 2024 – don’t miss.

The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops 40 Years Old Today

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‘Every record should be compared to silence. Silence is perfect. What are you going to put on it?’
Paul Buchanan, Blue Nile co-founder/singer/songwriter, 1984

The Blue Nile’s debut album A Walk Across The Rooftops – released 40 years ago today – embraced silence.

The first minute of the title track was a case in point. Buyers all over the UK were wondering if their tapes and records were faulty.

In a superb year for debut albums, the Scottish trio stole a march on David Sylvian, beating his Brilliant Trees by two months (Scott Walker’s Climate Of Hunter came out a few months before A Walk).

Both Sylvian and Walker reportedly adored A Walk, as did Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno.

But how does my original Linn/Virgin CD (catalogue number LKHCD1) sound 40 years on? Fantastic. Seldom have acoustic drums and pianos been better recorded, the songwriting is solid and every electronic noise has its place.

‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ and ‘Heatwave’ would make for superb hi-fi testers. Buchanan’s voice is original and affecting.

Lyrically, his speciality seems to be life-changing realisations in ordinary settings. The title track, for instance, was reportedly inspired by the view outside his Edinburgh kitchen window.

A Walk only got to #80 in the UK on release but became a formidable sleeper hit and has apparently sold way beyond the band’s wildest expectations.

They waited five years to release followup Hats, an album many believe is superior to A Walk. Not this writer though. It was a great debut album in a decade full of them.

Michael McDonald: Sweet Freedom (Extended)

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It’s always a nice surprise when a classic 1980s track suddenly appears on streaming services out of the blue.

Michael McDonald’s ‘Sweet Freedom’, written by Rod Temperton and co-produced by Temperton, Bruce Swedien and Dick Rudolph, is one such single, but the only version currently available is the superb seven-minute extended mix.

It was a good period for McDonald (weird that he wasn’t involved with ‘We Are The World’?). Despite a now-very-dated 1985 album No Lookin’ Back, he had recorded fine duets with James Ingram, Patti Labelle and Joni Mitchell.

As for Temperton, hot off the back of Thriller he had worked on Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Color Purple’ soundtrack, then ‘Running Scared’, nowadays a pretty-much-forgotten Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines vehicle. Recorded at Westlake in Los Angeles, where most of Thriller was laid down, ‘Sweet Freedom’ was the movie’s key song and arguably Temperton’s final masterpiece. The verses owe a little to Lionel Richie’s ‘All Night Long’ and Temperton finally gets his ‘starlight’ motif into the middle eight (‘Starlight’ was an early title for the song ‘Thriller’).

The extended version is a brilliant little pop/soul symphony, with every performer getting a feature. Greg Phillinganes adds his special sauce on keys and there are some beautiful backing vocals from Siedah Garrett. The horn section (Bill Reichenbach, Chuck Findley, Jerry Hey, Larry Williams) contribute brief solos as does guitarist Paul Jackson Jr.

It would have been nice to have heard a real rhythm section (JR Robinson and Nathan East?) let loose on this but no matter. And people who say McDonald isn’t a soulful singer need to hear his performance in the second half of this extended version.

Released in June 1986, ‘Sweet Freedom’ reached #7 in the US and #12 in the UK.