Tag Archives: sade

1980s Albums That Always Appear In Charity/Secondhand Shops

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So it’s official: old music is hugely outselling new music. And vinyl is the most popular physical format again.

Go into a record shop and likely you’ll be stunned at the price of secondhand vinyl, not to mention new catalogue LPs that can cost up to 25 quid for a posh reissue.

All of which might amuse/surprise music fans of my vintage who kept hold of their record players through the years and spent the noughties digging around the vinyl discount stores, often picking up ‘esteemed’ albums for anything between 10p and a quid (the price of a postage stamp, for readers outside the UK).

So what were those 1980s vinyls that were/are ALWAYS in secondhand shops and, by extension, still ever-present in charity shops? And why were they always there?

Most smack of the impulse buy by people who get one album a year, or the ‘difficult’ follow-ups to a smash. Some are tainted by an almost ineffable naffness. Most were deemed surplus on vinyl once CD became the format of choice, and most are weirdly genre-less.

Stacked high/sold cheap, you’d think they’d be reissue-proof, never to be seen again. But not so fast: ‘deluxe’ editions of these are probably on their way to a shop/streaming service near you, or have already arrived…

The Beautiful South: Welcome To The Beautiful South

U2: Rattle And Hum

Del Amitri: Waking Hours

Bros: Push

Hothouse Flowers: People

Michael McDonald: Sweet Freedom (The Best Of Michael McDonald)

T’Pau: Bridge Of Spies

Foreigner: Agent Provocateur

Michael Bolton: Soul Provider

Meat Loaf: Dead Ringer

John Cougar Mellencamp: The Lonesome Jubilee

Enya: Watermark

Five Star: Silk And Steel

Arcadia: So Red The Rose

Sade: Diamond Life

Chris Rea: The Road To Hell

Phil Collins: No Jacket Required

Bryan Ferry: Boys And Girls

Genesis: Invisible Touch

George Michael: Faith

Tracy Chapman: Tracy Chapman

Fleetwood Mac: Tango In The Night

Wet Wet Wet: Popped In, Souled Out

Fairground Attraction: The First Of A Million Kisses

Paul Young: No Parlez

Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever

Michael Jackson: Bad

Tina Turner: Private Dancer

Lionel Richie: Can’t Slow Down

Alison Moyet: Alf

Patti Labelle: Winner In You

Howard Jones: Human’s Lib

Simply Red: A New Flame

Whitney Houston: Whitney

Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl

Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet

Madonna: True Blue

Tears For Fears: Songs From The Big Chair

1980s ‘Classics’ I Don’t Need To Hear Again (AKA The Bland Files)

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Noel Coward famously noted the strange potency of ‘cheap’ music.

There was certainly a lot of cheap, potent music around in the 1980s.

But as the nostalgia industry has grown, so has the dossier of seemingly ‘untouchable’ ’80s pop songs, tracks that are staples of daytime radio but, to many ears, lack distinctive grooves, beguiling melodies or interesting hooks.

If you were being cruel, you might say it’s music for people who don’t really like music. And, weirdly, it mostly comes from established, experienced campaigners who have a lot of other strings to their bow. But we only ever seem to hear one or two of their songs.

Here are those overplayed tracks that always have me reaching for the ‘off’ switch but have retained a weird grip on radio programmers for over 30 years. We consign them to Room 101, here and now, never to be heard again…

Dire Straits: ‘Walk Of Life’/’Money For Nothing’

Yazz: ‘The Only Way Is Up’

King: ‘Love And Pride’

Whitney Houston: ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’

Tina Turner: ‘Simply The Best’

The Beautiful South: ‘Song For Whoever’

Spandau Ballet: ‘Through The Barricades’

Dream Academy: Life In A Northern Town

Anything by The Proclaimers

Anything by Texas

Chris Rea: ‘The Road To Hell’

Sade: ‘Your Love Is King’/’Smooth Operator’

Steve Winwood: ‘Higher Love’

Mike And The Mechanics: ‘The Living Years’

Anything by Fleetwood Mac

The Cars: ‘Drive’

Mental As Anything: ‘Live It Up’

Soul 2 Soul: ‘Back To Life’

Anything by U2 apart from ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love’)’ or ‘The Unforgettable Fire’

Cyndi Lauper: ‘Time After Time’

Depeche Mode: ‘Personal Jesus’

Talking Heads: ‘Road To Nowhere’

Tracy Chapman: ‘Fast Car’

Anything by Tom Petty

Simply Red: ‘Holding Back The Years’

Prince: ‘When Doves Cry’

Womack & Womack: ‘Teardrops’

Anything by Duran Duran except ‘Notorious’ or ‘Skin Trade’

Anything by Bon Jovi

Culture Club: ‘Karma Chameleon’

Anything by Pet Shop Boys except ‘Suburbia’

Red Wedge 30 Years On

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The Red Wedge gang including Paul Weller, Jimmy Somerville and Glenn Gregory meet Ken Livingstone and Labour leader Neil Kinnock, 1987

Some might say that music and politics should never mix. But it’s less than two weeks to the General Election here in England. Looking at the music press or listening to music radio, you’d never know it.

Is politics just terminally uncool? Do today’s musicians not give a damn about who gets into power? It seems to be a mixture of both, though I was intrigued to see Paloma Faith hand-picking the writer Owen Jones to open some of her recent gigs.

The deafening silence (apart from a recent Jazz For Labour event at the Barbican) can’t help but beg comparison to the state of play 30 years ago when the movement known as Red Wedge got underway.

Formed in 1985 initially as a Labour-supporting group to encourage young people to vote and get Margaret Thatcher out of office, it arguably politicised a second generation of music fans a decade after Rock Against Racism and punk. Though I was too young to fully understand Red Wedge’s aims (and too young to vote), I certainly took notice.

Red Wedge officially started on 21st November 1985 when Kirsty MacColl, Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and Strawberry Switchblade were invited to a reception at the Palace of Westminster by Labour MP Robin Cook.

Major tours followed in the next few years leading up to the 1987 General Election featuring additional artists such as The Communards, The Style Council, Junior, Jerry Dammers, Madness, The The, Bananarama, Prefab Sprout, Elvis Costello, Sade, The Beat, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and The Smiths. In short, this was no Mickey Mouse setup.

Unfortunately, their efforts amounted to diddly squat; the 1987 election resulted in a third consecutive Conservative victory. But at least they tried and their message didn’t fall on deaf ears. And where is the new batch of protest songs and protest singers? Unfortunately the current crop of musicians are just like most of the politicians: bland, middle-of-the-road, lacking in ideas and desperate not to offend.