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. Hot off the back of Thriller, Temperton worked on 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.
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’s 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 this extended version, despite his generally erratic solo career.
Released in June 1986, ‘Sweet Freedom’ reached #7 in the US and #12 in the UK.
Studio technology was blossoming fast and there was constant temptation (and pressure?) to come up with new sounds. Fairlights, Emulators, Synclaviers, gated snare drums: there had never been more ways to skin a cat.
But woe betide the ’80s popster who neglected the basic tenets of songcraft; the trick was coming up with memorable bits that fitted seamlessly into a track and bore repeated listening.
Thankfully, for every what-does-this-button-do novelty, there was a genuinely innovative, memorable pop moment, and some great instrumental solos to boot. So here’s a compendium of good bits from the 1980s, details that mark the decade out as a unique musical era. The rules: one artist per slot and every song has to have made the UK or US top 40 singles chart, or both…
40. Helen Terry’s backing vocals on Culture Club’s 1984 hit ‘It’s A Miracle’.
39. The spoken word bit in SOS Band’s ‘Weekend Girl’.
38. Nigel Kennedy’s violin solo on Paul McCartney’s ‘Once Upon A Long Ago’.
37. Greg Phillinganes’ synth bass on Donna Summer’s ‘Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)’, especially the ‘squelch’ at 2:53 below:
36. Lee Thompson’s sax in the second verse of Madness’s ‘My Girl’
35. Marc Almond’s spoken-word line in Soft Cell’s ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’
34. Mel Gaynor’s volcanic snare-drum fill after the breakdown in Simple Minds’ ‘Alive And Kicking’
There’s a similar eruption in ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’, but this one wins out for sheer audacity. I wonder what ‘anti-muso’ co-producer Jimmy Iovine had to say about it…
33. The fade of The Police’s ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’
32. The Middle Eastern synth riff in Blancmange’s ‘Living On The Ceiling’
31. Steve Jansen’s marimba solo on Japan’s ‘Ghosts’
30. Mark Knopfler’s lead guitar at the tail end of Dire Straits’ ‘Romeo And Juliet’
29. Martin Drover’s trumpet riff on Adam Ant’s ‘Goody Two Shoes’
28. The bassline enters at 0:20 of The Cure’s ‘Love Cats’
Phil Thornalley is a veritable Zelig figure in ’80s pop, but even he couldn’t have imagined that his superbly simple-yet-complex bassline (try playing along) could have had such an impact on this stand-alone UK top 5 single.
27. Martin Fry’s hysterical ‘You think you’re smart/That’s stupid/Right from the start/When you knew we would part!‘ at the tail end of ABC’s ‘Poison Ivy’
Pointing the way forward for similar outbursts from Jarvis Cocker et al.
26. The weird coda of Stephen Tin Tin Duffy’s ‘Kiss Me’
Just when you thought this slightly-annoying-but-effective UK top 10 single was all done and dusted, there’s that menacing little DX7 kiss-off…
25. Melle Mel’s laugh-rap on Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’
24. The guitar riff on The Pretenders’ ‘Back On The Chain Gang’
The jury seems to be out on whether Billy Bremner or Robbie McIntosh played this (answers on a postcard please).
23. Pino Palladino’s opening bass salvo at 0:04 of Paul Young’s ‘I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down’
22. David Williams’ guitar break on Michael Jackson’s ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin”
21. The jangling piano motif of Associates’ ‘Party Fears Two’
Who came up with this weird brilliance? For a generation of listeners, it’ll always be the theme to BBC radio’s ‘Week Ending’.
20. The post-chorus drum fills on It Bites’ ‘Calling All The Heroes’
Deceptively simple (leading with the left hand is not easy for a right-handed drummer), tasty fills from Bob Dalton, the Cumbrian four-piece’s sticksman.
19. The backing vocals at 1:45 of Quincy Jones’ ‘Razzamatazz’
Patti Austin’s kaleidoscopic overdubs on the Rod Temperton-penned single which reached #11 in the UK chart.
18. ‘Heeeere’s Grace!‘ on ‘Slave To The Rhythm’
17. ‘Science!’
Dr Magnus Pyke’s outburst on Thomas Dolby’s ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ still raises a titter, but apparently he quickly came to regret his contribution to this US #5 single.
16. The Emulator string stabs which close Paul Hardcastle’s ’19’
15. The spoken-word bits in Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s songs
Take your pick from: ‘Well ‘ard!’, ‘Are you flipping me off?’, ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan/Pleasuredome erect!’ or my favourite: ‘In the common age of automation, where people might eventually work ten or twenty hours a week, man for the first time will be forced to confront himself with the true spiritual problems of livin”!
14. Neneh Cherry’s cockney accent on ‘Buffalo Stance’
13. The Sweetbreaths’ backing vocals at 1:36 on Tom Tom Club’s ‘Wordy Rappinghood’
Tina Weymouth’s sisters Lani and Laura bring the silliness, interpreted by Google thus: ‘Ram sam sam, a ram sam sam/Guli guli guli guli guli ram sam sam/Haykayay yipi yaykayé/Ahou ahou a nikichi’.
12. Bill Wyman’s French accent in the chorus of ‘(Si Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star’
11. Stevie Wonder’s harmonica solo on Eurythmics’ ‘There Must Be An Angel’
Is there any musician in pop music history who has better communicated pure joy?
10. The ‘Hey!’ sample on Art Of Noise’s ‘Close (To The Edit)’
Not the Noise’s Anne Dudley apparently, but Camilla Pilkington-Smyth (Who she? Ed.). A song of good bits.
9. The ‘Oh yeah!’ sample in Yello’s…’Oh Yeah’
8. Eric B’s ‘Pump up the volume!’ on ‘Paid In Full’
7. That Phil Collins drum fill on ‘In The Air Tonight’
It’s always a bit louder than you think it’s going to be…
6. Roy Bittan’s flanged piano on David Bowie’s ‘Ashes To Ashes’
5. The banshee-wailing on The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’
It’s a close call between that and the haunting air-raid sirens at the end.
4. The whistling on XTC’s ‘Generals And Majors’
Real whistling or a synth? Who cares? Colin Moulding’s song has more great pop hooks than you can shake a stick at.
3. Abby Kimber’s cod nursery rhyme at the end of Bucks Fizz’s ‘Land Of Make Believe’
2. The synth riff of Human League’s ‘Love Action (I Believe In Love)’
1. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s funky piano on David Sylvian’s ‘Red Guitar’
14th April 1982, Westlake Studios, Los Angeles: the recording sessions for Thriller commence.
Producer Quincy Jones gathers his ‘crew’ – including mixing engineer Bruce Swedien, MJ and chief songwriter/arranger Rod Temperton – for a pep-talk. ‘We’re here to save the music business’…
It might sound a bit dramatic but the global recession of the 1980s was very much impacting a post-disco, pre-Madonna/Prince recording industry too.
The team-talk worked: Thriller – released 35 years old today – is by far the biggest-selling non-greatest-hits album of all time.
For some, it’s bland, over-familiar and inferior to Jackson’s previous album Off The Wall. For this writer it’s the last truly great example of song-led, musician-crafted, post-disco R’n’B, beautifully produced, arranged and mastered. And Jackson was absolutely at the top of his game and still relatively ‘normal’.
Thriller was the soundtrack to 1983 and 1984 in my corner of London, loved by geeks, sporty kids, BMX riders and B-Boys alike. But sometimes it feels so familiar that it defies analysis. Here are a few aspects that jumped out during a recent reappraisal:
13. Michael’s lyrics. These are disturbing, ominous visions. ‘You’re a vegetable!’ he sneers on opener ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’. ‘Billie Jean’ is about a deranged stalker, though Jackson claims she is a ‘composite’ of many obsessive fans. Is it any wonder he struggled with fame?
12. The African chant in ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’, stolen from Manu Dibango’s superb ‘Soul Mokassa’.
11. Paulinho Da Costa’s African percussion and cuica on ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’.
10. Jerry Hey’s string arrangements on ‘The Girl Is Mine’ and ‘Billie Jean’. He supplies superb horn parts throughout Thriller but his strings are often neglected.
9. Tom Scott’s Lyricon interjections during the chorus of ‘Billie Jean’, a contribution that has sadly been left off the credits of many subsequent reissues.
8. The brilliant rhythm guitar playing throughout from David Williams, Paul Jackson Jr. and Steve Lukather.
7. For me, ‘Beat It’ is the weakest song on the album by some stretch (despite the great guitar riff and brilliant solo), but intriguingly it was apparently Jackson’s response to a Quincy remark that Thriller needed a ‘black version of “My Sharona”’!
6. Rod Temperton’s compositions throughout, and also his superb vocal arrangements – check out how he uses Michael’s stacked background vocals.
5. Greg Phillinganes’ superb Rhodes and synth bass work, particularly on the title track.
4. Ndugu Chancler’s drums, enhanced by Bruce Swedien’s sonic mastery. Have there ever been better-recorded drums than on ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘PYT’? According to Swedien: ‘I ended up building a drum platform and designing some special little things, like a bass drum cover and a flat piece of wood that goes between the snare and the hi-hat’.
3. Steve Lukather’s gorgeous guitar counterpoint throughout ‘Human Nature’, particularly in the closing 20 seconds.
2. Michael’s vocals. On ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’, he sounds like three or four different singers. His backups throughout are also pretty special, and he takes ‘The Lady In My Life’ out.
1. Quincy knew that every song would have to be a killer, covering all styles. Around 30 compositions were considered. Among the many demo’d but scrapped included ‘She’s Trouble’, ‘Niteline’, ‘Carousel’ (only binned at the eleventh hour), ‘Got The Hots’ and ‘Hot Street AKA Slapstick’. These were all new to me until this week, but I’ve developed a particular liking for the Quincy/Jackson co-write ‘Got The Hots’:
Geffen/Warner Bros. Records, released 19th July 1982
6/10
It’s understandable that Summer was reluctant to take on Billy Strayhorn’s song ‘Lush Life’.
A morning-after portrait of a failed romance, it’s a remarkable composition for a 16-year-old to write, with elliptical lyrics, few repeat sections and a challenging, endlessly-modulating melody line.
Nat ‘King’ Cole, Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane/Johnny Hartman and Billy Eckstine all performed notable versions (Strayhorn himself apparently loved the latter).
But, coached through by producer Quincy Jones and keyboardists Greg Phillinganes, Herbie Hancock and Dave Grusin, Summer’s vocals are a knockout. Though the track sounds a bit rushed (Phillinganes would surely like another pass at his synth bass part), her work certainly paid off.
‘Lush Life’ closes Donna Summer, released 35 years old today. Classic singles begin the album and end side one: Grammy-nominated ‘Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)’ and an inspired cover of Jon & Vangelis’s ‘State Of Independence’, the latter featuring an amazing array of guest vocalists.
The problem with Donna Summer is that it’s three classics and a lot of filler. Formula-wise, Quincy seems to be preparing for Thriller – there are many songwriters and a variety of styles.
Springsteen contributes the slightly underwhelming ‘Protection’ and elsewhere there’s a bit too much LM-1 drum machine and a few less-than-memorable choruses.
The album didn’t quite deliver the big hit to propel Summer into the ’80s but reached #20 in the US album charts and #13 in the UK.
It’s always a nice surprise when a classic 1980s track suddenly appears on streaming services out of the blue.
Earworms: 1980s pop was chock-a-block with ’em. 
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