Apart from Steely Dan reaction videos on YouTube, my other mini viewing obsession over the last year or so has been ‘Columbo’ repeats.
You expect amusing performances and ingenious plotting from the classic Peter Falk-fronted show; you don’t expect music tips.
But there it was – a great piece kicking off ‘Columbo Goes To College’, the first episode of the show’s tenth season, debuting on 9 December 1990.
A bit of detective work revealed that it was Ambrosia’s ‘Poor Rich Boy’, written for the Oscar-winning ‘Arthur’ soundtrack, the one headed up by Christopher Cross’s US #1 ‘Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)’. I’d never heard of the band before but apparently they had some big hits at the tail end of the 1970s.
Co-written – like the rest of the soundtrack album – by Burt Bacharach (alongside band members David Pack – himself a hugely respected songwriter – and Joe Puerta) and produced by Val Garay (Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’), it taps into that great period at the dawn of the 1980s when yacht rock dovetailed with prog/AOR/new wave/whatever.
It’s mixed refreshingly dry, with barely any reverb, and features a treacherous arrangement that separates the men from the boys. It’s in 2/4 but has some very odd accents (especially in that deliciously long fade). Try playing along. Where’s ‘one’? There’s a nice use of the ‘flatted fifth’ in the verse and also a superb vocal by…who? Pack or Puerta?
The chorus lyric smartly lays out the film’s plot and concerns of Dudley Moore’s Arthur:
Life is more than time and money that’s easy to spend When you know that she’s out there Lookin’ for the girl whose eyes out-sparkle all of your gold And a heart that’s bigger than Times Square
‘Poor Rich Boy’ was released as a single in 1981 but didn’t chart. There was also a strange jazzy instrumental version played throughout the trailer (see below).
It’s a shame in a way but Ambrosia are almost ‘cursed’ for me now – I don’t want to hear anything else by them because I know it won’t be as good… Or will it?
Say ‘fusion’ to most music fans and it’s the classic early-‘70s jazz/rock of Miles or The Mahavishnu Orchestra that would probably come to mind.
But a decade later another kind of fusion was taking place, a mainly-American sound that drew on influences from R’n’B, jazz, pop, funk, AOR and MOR.
Yacht Rock was upwardly-mobile, multi-layered, widescreen, moneyed, beautifully-produced music, usually involving a string section, Fender Rhodes and/or horns, generally West Coast-originated, driven by the lush production style of the time and effortless brilliance of the musicians involved.
The Yacht House Band generally centred around a few key members of the band Toto: Jeff Porcaro on drums, David Paich on keyboards and Steve Lukather on guitar. You’d also have to factor in guitarists Jay Graydon, Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, keyboard players David Foster, Michael Omartian, Robbie Buchanan and Greg Phillinganes, drummers John ‘JR’ Robinson and Steve Gadd, bassists Louis Johnson and Abe Laboriel, percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, horn arranger Jerry Hey, string arranger Johnny Mandel and a whole host more.
These were the greatest ‘rock’ musicians in the world, brought up on The Beatles, Beach Boys, Hendrix, Miles, McLaughlin and James Brown, making up their parts on the spot with the studio meter running, embellishing the basic chord changes with their own unique feel and voicings and bringing to life jazz-influenced compositions by some of the great songwriters of that or any other era: Kenny Loggins, Burt Bacharach, Michael McDonald, Carole Bayer Sager, Rod Temperton, Fagen and Becker, David Foster, Jay Graydon et al.
All kinds of singers got sucked into this vibe, dialling down the operatics and dialling up the melody and behind-the-beat phrasing: George Benson, Patti Labelle, Michael Franks, Randy Crawford, The Four Tops, Michael Jackson, Manhattan Transfer, Leon Ware, Lionel Richie.
Even a few Brits got onboard – George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ and Cliff Richard’s ‘Carrie’ are great stabs at the sound.
With a few notable exceptions, it was all over by 1984. The technology started running the show. Everyone was looking for the right drum machine, budgets were slashed and the great session musicians moved into production and songwriting. Stanley Clarke/George Duke’s heroic ‘Atlanta’ was somewhat of a finale for this kind of music; it’s quite affecting in a way.
Of course this stuff is way too laidback for some, the sound of clock-watching session musicians producing aural cotton candy, too close to muzak for comfort. It would be totally understandable to reach for the Throbbing Gristle after a while. But if it’s your bag you can really get lost in it – it’s pure comfort music, and brilliant for headphones.
Here’s a selection of the finest 1980s Yacht Rock artefacts for your listening pleasure. Ahoy there mateys, and wishing you a smooth sail.
You’ve heard of a midlife crisis, but is there such a thing as a mid-music crisis?
A time when music has lost its shine and you’ve heard it all before?
The new stuff sounds derivative and you’ve forgotten exactly why you took to your old favourites?
An antidote may be at hand, in the shape of Jamel_AKA_Jamal (Jamel Griffin), a YouTuber and music fan from South Central Los Angeles.
Born in 1980, he was brought up mainly on hip-hop but also a kind of shared American music heritage, so he’s familiar with ‘classic rock’ staples of the last 50 years without necessarily being able to identify bands or artists.
On his YouTube channel, he’s been seeking viewer recommendations for ‘reaction’ videos (put simply, he films his reactions to hearing a ‘new’ track, and responds in real time).
As far as I can make out, thus far the tunes have mainly been of a rockist bent (Rush, ZZ Top, Mr Bungle, Living Colour, Doobie Brothers), but then I came across his take on Steely Dan.
His spontaneous reactions reveal a shrewd interpretation of the lyrics and a rare appreciation for the music. He also reminds me exactly why I loved the band in the first place, bringing the joy and soul of a true fan. With added humour.
I’m now bingeing on his excellent Steely vids, but it all started here:
A triumph of solo guitar, and the only acoustic solo in this list, Bireli stunned the cognoscenti with this track from his 1988 Steve Khan-produced album Foreign Affairs.
36. Bros: ‘Chocolate Box’ (Guitarist: Paul Gendler)
Yes, Bros… Gendler had been a fully-paid-up member of New Romantic nearly-men Modern Romance before becoming an in-demand player on the UK scene, and he enlivened this hit with a raunchy, nimble classic.
35. REO Speedwagon: ‘Keep On Loving You’ (Guitarist: Garry Richrath)
Unreconstructed, huge-toned, double-tracked solo which revels in being almost out-of-tune throughout. Its sheer, brilliant in-your-faceness always comes as somewhat of a shock.
34. George Benson: ‘Off Broadway’
Slick, tasty solo from a truly great player, exploding out of the speakers from about 3:13 below. The tune is of course a Rod Temperton-penned, post-disco beauty from Give Me The Night.
33. Killing Joke: ‘Love Like Blood’ (Guitarist: Geordie)
This is ‘just’ a melody, but it’s a great melody, escalating in volume and intensity.
32. Phil Upchurch: ‘Song For Lenny’ (Guitarists: Phil Upchurch/Lenny Breau)
A couple of superb solos from a great, totally forgotten 1984 Upchurch solo album Companions. Breau stuns with his array of false harmonics and jazzy runs, while Upchurch brings the blues feeling.
31. Frank Zappa: ‘Alien Orifice’
It’s nice to hear Frank blowing over a few changes rather than his usual one or two-chord vamps. And he really gets a nice ‘flowing’ thing going here, right in the middle of one of his densest compositions. Starts at around 1:32:
30. Cameo: ‘A Goodbye’ (Guitarist: Fred Wells)
From the classic album Single Life, this solo goes way over and beyond the call of duty for an ’80s soul ballad. But it’s mainly included for its brilliant final flourish, spitting notes out like John McLaughlin. Who is Fred Wells and where is he now?
29. Rush: ‘YYZ’ (Guitarist: Alex Lifeson)
Hard to do without this flowing, creamy, Strat-toned classic on one of the great rock instrumentals of all time (though inexplicably it lost out to The Police’s ‘Behind My Camel’ at the Grammies…).
28. Kevin Eubanks: ‘That’s What Friends Are For’
A real hidden gem from the almost impossible-to-find Face To Face album, Eubanks lays down a short but beautifully-structured solo on a cool cover version, from about 2:45 below.
27. Steve Miller Band: ‘Abracadabra’
Good fun and totally unpredictable. Also notable for its lovely Spanish-style flurry of triplets in its last two bars.
26. Starship: ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ (Guitarist: Corrado Rustici)
Cheesy? Maybe a bit, but who cares when it’s this well-structured and performed. Add a great tone, nice string-bending and a lovely phrase at the end and you’ve got a classic. Starts at 2:58:
25. Queen: The Invisible Man (Brian May)
May played a lot of great solos in the late 1980s, mostly on other people’s records (Holly Johnson, Fuzzbox, Living In A Box etc) but this one was just a kind of ‘play as many notes as possible in eight bars’ solo, and it’s a killer. From about 2:30 below:
24. Lee Ritenour: ‘Mr Briefcase’
Rit found the sweet spot on his Ibanez many times in the early ’80s, no more so than on this single that kicked off the classic Rit album. The solo also sounds double-tracked too, no mean feat considering the crazy bunch of 32nd notes at the end of bar 10.
23. Michael Jackson: ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’ (Guitarist: David Williams)
Not so much a solo as a suddenly-foregrounded riff, Williams became one of the most in-demand US session players after laying down this classic.
22. Pat Metheny: ‘Yolanda You Learn’
A marvellous, ‘singing’ guitar-synth solo from the First Circle album, rhythmically interesting and reflecting a strong Sonny Rollins influence, also closing with a cool quote from the standard ‘My One And Only Love’.
21. Frank Zappa: ‘Sharleena’ (Guitarist: Dweezil Zappa)
Frank’s son was apparently just 14 years old when he laid down this absurdly fluid cameo, at 2:05 below:
20. Eric Clapton: ‘Bad Love’
Nice to hear Eric pushing himself for once, delivering a striking solo played right at the top of the neck, demonstrating a mastery of string-bending and precise fingering.
19. Sadao Watanabe: ‘Road Song’ (Guitarist: Carlos Rios)
A classic rock/fusion solo, all the more impressive because it’s apparently double-tracked, from the album Maisha. Rios is still one of the most in-demand session players in Los Angeles (and one of the few leftie fusion players…), probably best known for his work with Gino Vannelli, Chick Corea and Lionel Richie.
18. Prince: ‘Batdance’
It’s the unapologetic volume and raucous tone, almost distorting it’s so hot in the mix.
17. David Sanborn: ‘Let’s Just Say Goodbye’ (Guitarist: Buzz Feiten)
Feiten seems a weirdly unrecognised figure in the guitar fraternity, but he contributed some great stuff to Sanborn’s seminal Voyeur album including this tasty break over a killer Marcus Miller/Steve Gadd groove. There are some lovely moments when Sanborn’s sax cuts in to augment his solo.
16. Paul Simon: ‘Allergies’ (Guitarist: Al Di Meola)
I love hearing ‘jazz’ musicians turning up on ‘pop’ records, and this is a classic of its kind featuring all of Al’s trademark licks in one short, tasty burst. It’s a lot more fun than listening to his solo albums, anyway… Starts at around 2:46.
15. Manhattan Transfer: ‘Twilight Zone’ (Guitarist: Jay Graydon)
At a time when he was getting much more into the production game, Graydon still found time to toss off a double-tracked showstopper on this hit single. All in a day’s work for the session genius who of course unleashed the famous solo on Steely Dan’s ‘Peg’. Speaking of which…
14. Steely Dan: ‘Glamour Profession’ (Guitarist: Steve Khan)
A mini masterpiece of precision and invention. Khan is given his head and takes the classic tune OUT in the last three minutes. When the chord changes, he changes. Stay right through the fade too – he plays some of his best stuff towards the end. Kicks off at 5:30.
13. King Crimson: ‘Elephant Talk’ (Guitarists: Adrian Belew/Robert Fripp)
Two great solos for the price of one on this Discipline opener. Fripp supplies the opening horn-like curio, then Belew adds some fire and a bit of famous elephantosity for good measure.
12. Living Colour: ‘Funny Vibe’ (Guitarist: Vernon Reid)
A classic modern blues solo from a modern master, adding excitement and elan to an already burning piece, helped along by Will Calhoun’s cajoling kit work.
11. Steely Dan: ‘Third World Man’ (Guitarist: Larry Carlton)
Another day, another classic Steely guitar solo, this one recorded in 1977 during the Aja sessions but not unleashed for another three years. Again, double-tracked for lasting power, featuring a superb mastery of tone and melody.
Sadly this is my only female entry in the list (more suggestions please), but it’s a fuzz-toned, anthemic treat, with shades of Santana and McLaughlin. From around 3:04 below:
9. The Police: ‘Driven To Tears’ (Guitarist: Andy Summers)
It’s the random, off-the-cuffness that appeals on this one. Summers sounds a lot more p*ssed off than usual, possibly reeling from yet another Sting jibe.
8. Steve Vai: ‘Call It Sleep’
Just a superb guitar composition from top to tail, but the moment at 1:22 when he stomps on the distortion pedal and rips it up is a great moment of ’80s music.
7. Propaganda: ‘Dream Within A Dream’ (Guitarist: Stephen Lipson)
Lipson modestly provided three or four extremely memorable guitar features during his golden ZTT period (not least Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’), but this one gets extra points for its infinite reverb and a dynamite fuzztone.
6. Orange Juice: ‘Rip It Up’ (Guitarist: Edwyn Collins)
Just a funny two-fingers-up to the well-made solo, and also a fond homage to Pete Shelley’s famous break on Buzzcock’s ‘Boredom’.
5. Frank Gambale: ‘Credit Reference Blues’
Just wind him and watch him go. It starts slowly, almost wistfully, but then becomes a fire-breathing classic. Still scary after all these years.
4. Dire Straits: ‘Romeo And Juliet’ (Guitarist: Mark Knopfler)
The closing solo is just an oasis of choice phrases and unique tones.
3. Van Halen: ‘One Foot Out The Door’ (Guitarist: Eddie Van Halen)
Of course ‘Beat It’ is the industry standard, and possibly the greatest guitar solo of all time, but I’m going for this curio which closes out the oft-forgotten Fair Warning album. He just blows brilliantly over the changes with a gorgeous tone.
2. Jeff Beck: People Get Ready
The second and last solo is the one, a feast of Jeff-isms. A rare good bit from the rather poor Flash album.
1. Stanley Clarke: ‘Stories To Tell’ (Guitarist: Allan Holdsworth)
No chucking out any old solo for our Allan – this is a brief but fully-formed, perfectly structured, wide-interval classic that is easily the best thing about the tune. He seems to get a bit ‘lost’ in the middle, but then regroups for a stunning closing section over the rapid chord changes. Starts at 2:04:
‘File under: Victims Of A Cruel Medical Experiment’.
That was Q magazine’s memorable verdict on What Price Paradise, CC’s 1986 studio album. They had a point – it was producer team Langer & Winstanley’s unfathomable attempt to turn the Liverpudlians into Madness.
But when Steely Dan co-founder/co-songwriter Walter Becker came back onboard for ’89’s Diary Of A Hollow Horse, released 30 years ago today, normal service was resumed. It now sounds like a perfect follow-up to the 1985 classic Flaunt The Imperfection.
Becker was reluctant to record in England so persuaded the band to convene at George Benson’s Lahaina studio in Maui, Hawaii. He brought engineer Roger Nichols along for the sessions too, famous for his painstaking work on Steely Dan’s Aja and Gaucho. Nichols apparently taught all of the band how to scuba dive during their time off.
It’s hard to know what sort of expectations Virgin Records had for this album. What they ended up with is a kind of chamber pop, mainly the sound of a great, super-tight band playing live in the studio. The best tracks frequently evoke Steely Dan’s Katy Lied. The only concessions to ’80s music are the teeniest bit of reverb on the drums and the occasional synth overdub, adding colour in lieu of a horn section.
Becker’s real contribution seems to be on the arrangement side (typified by the tasty modulation for the guitar solo and flute arrangements on the vaguely ‘Deacon Blue’-esque ‘Sweet Charity In Adoration’), and he also brings in great backing singers Maxine Waters, Myrna Matthews and Linda Harmon, saxist Jim Horn, guitarist (and Countdown To Ecstasy engineer) Tim Weston and percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, who presumably used up most of the recording budget but is almost inaudible.
Virgin obviously computed the ‘hits’ as ‘Red Letter Day’ and ‘St Saviour Square’, summarily canning Becker’s versions of the songs and bringing in Mike Thorne to ‘re-produce’ them – the ploy didn’t work – the singles stiffed at #84 and #81 respectively, and they stick out like a sore thumb on the album. You can listen to all of the versions on YouTube.
Hollow Horse also didn’t work commercially, only reaching #58 in the UK album charts. But this was a period when some great pop/rock by the likes of Danny Wilson, It Bites, Love & Money and David Sylvian (all Virgin acts except for one…) also failed to find a big audience.
CC’s album sales diminished as the quality of their work increased – the game was up in terms of major-label support, but amongst fans of quality ’80s pop Hollow Horse has only gained status over the years.
The lads reproduced the album perfectly at London’s Dominion Theatre in spring 1989, a gig whose details elude me apart from the late Kevin Wilkinson’s superb drumming (and ahead-of-its-time, side-on kit placement) and vocalist Gary Daly proudly saying ‘That’s a good one, tha’!’ after ‘Day After Day’.
He had good reason to feel chuffed – Diary Of A Hollow Horse still sounds like a minor classic 30 years on.
The 1980s produced some fine lyricists. You couldn’t move for decent wordsmithery. But interesting lyrics came from the damndest places.
What was that Trevor Horn maxim? A good pop song should be like a good story, such that the listener is always asking: what’s going to happen next?
And, like a good story, pretty much every good song starts with an intriguing opening line or two. As the proverbial cigar-munching music-biz mogul might say: ‘You gotta grab ’em from the first bar, kid…’ So here are some great opening lines from 1980s songs, lines that hopefully satisfy Horn’s requirements.
Everything But The Girl: ‘Each And Every One’
‘If you ever feel the time/ To drop me a loving line/ Maybe you should just think twice/ I don’t wait around on your advice’
Associates: ‘Club Country’
‘The fault is/I can find no fault in you’
Wet Wet Wet: ‘Wishing I Was Lucky’
‘I was living in a land of make believe/ When my best friend wrote and told me that there may be a job in the city’
Lou Reed: ‘How Do You Speak To An Angel’
‘A son who is cursed with a harridan mother or a weak simpering father at best/ Is raised to play out the timeless classical motives of filial love and incest’
Steely Dan: ‘Babylon Sisters’
‘Drive west on Sunset to the sea/ Turn that jungle music down/ Just until we’re out of town’
Associates: ‘Party Fears Two’
‘I’ll have a shower then call my brother up/ Within the hour I’ll smash another cup’
Joni Mitchell: ‘Chinese Cafe’
‘Caught in the middle/ Carol, we’re middle-class/
We’re middle-aged/ We were wild in the old days/ Birth of rock’n’roll days’
The Smiths: ‘Reel Around The Fountain’
‘It’s time the tale were told/ Of how you took a child and you made him old’
Thomas Dolby: ‘Screen Kiss’
‘Miller Time in the bar where all the English meet/ She used to drink in the hills/ Only now she drinks in the valleys’
Love And Money: ‘Hallejulah Man’
‘On the blind side and down the back ways/ The roots of sadness crawl/ When you can’t get what you need/ You feel like taking a torch to it all’
Joy Division: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
‘When routine bites hard and ambitions are low/ And resentment rides high but emotions won’t grow’
The Teardrop Explodes: ‘Reward’
‘Bless my cotton socks/I’m in the news’
Tom Waits: ‘Swordfishtrombones’
‘Well, he came home from the war with a party in his head/ And a modified Brougham DeVille and a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly wings’
Prefab Sprout: ‘Moving The River’
‘You surely are a truly gifted kid/ But you’re only as good as the last great thing you did’
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions: ‘Brand New Friend’
‘Walking in the pouring rain/ Walking with Jesus and Jane/ Jane was in a turtleneck/ I was much happier then’
Siouxsie & The Banshees: ‘Cascade’
‘Oh the air was shining/ Shining like a wedding ring’
Bob Dylan: ‘Jokerman’
‘Standing on the waters casting your bread/ While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing/ Distant ships sailing into the mist/ You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing’
Robert Palmer: ‘Johnny And Mary’
‘Johnny’s always running around trying to find certainty/ He needs all the world to confirm that he ain’t lonely’
Prefab Sprout: Talking Scarlet
‘You hide under the eiderdown/ All you can’t sweep underneath the carpet’
The Human League: ‘Don’t You Want Me’
‘I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar/When I met you’
Talking Heads: ‘Crosseyed And Painless’
‘Lost my shape/ Trying to act casual/ Can’t stop/ Might end up in the hospital’
Scritti Politti: ‘A Little Knowledge’
‘Now I know to love you/Is not to know you’
The Smiths: ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’
‘Sweetness, I was only joking/ When I said I’d like to smash every tooth in your head’
Yesterday, when for the fifth time I was forced to avoid a rapidly approaching, earphone-wearing, phone-fixated zombie, it occurred to me that something had gone pretty wrong.
I remember the first time I was really blown away by my Walkman. It was Thomas Dolby’s samples on Joni Mitchell’s song ‘The Three Great Stimulants’. Those clanging industrial sounds seemed to be physically encroaching on me.
Then there were a few other striking sonic details only revealed by close Walkman listening, including Donald Fagen’s stereo-traversing reverb vocals on Steely Dan’s ‘The Caves Of Altamira’.
The Walkman was the beginning of the truly solipsistic musical experience. But back then headphone listening definitely seemed a musical experience, designed for quiet contemplation rather than moving around the bustling big city (despite Cliff’s sojourn through Milton Keynes in the superbly naff ‘Wired For Sound’ video).
I took it to be an aural not psychological phenomenon – it was for wading into the music, not blocking out the world. (Actually a lot of ’80s music seems made for headphone listening. Talking Heads’ Speaking In Tongues and Dolby’s The Flat Earth spring to mind. Is that true of music now? Isn’t it just loud then quiet, or quiet then loud? Does this matter?)
Spotify’s MD Daniel Ek sums things up very well: ‘We are in the moment space, not the music space’. In other words, every important life ‘moment’, every emotion, should be accompanied by music. Or there’s probably something wrong with you.
This might be something to celebrate for musicians – it is, to a degree, but only a tiny percentage of artists are making money from streaming services. Taken to its extreme, it’s another weapon in the war on reality, another mode of desensitization. We are sleepwalking into trouble. We must be mindful. As JG Ballard said, there are danger signs ahead.
A fear of robots? Maybe we are the robots. As we walk around in a zombified state, we are losing touch with each other. Street banter is disappearing. Philosopher Michael Sandel recently wrote in his book ‘What Money Can’t Buy’: ‘Altruism, generosity, solidarity and civic spirit are like muscles that develop and grow stronger with exercise. One of the defects of the market-driven society is it lets these virtues vanish.’
Remember when you rushed to the shops to buy an album? We might do well to keep that excitement about music. It’s not wallpaper or the soundtrack to the mundanities of life. To paraphrase Bill Shankly, it’s far more important than that.
Almost 30 years ago to the day, my brother arrived home from a Richmond shopping spree bearing strange cargo – a new Donald Fagen 12” single.
To say that this was a surprise would be an understatement. After all, it was six years since The Nightfly and the late ’80s were generally a Steely Dan wasteland apart from occasional guest spots (China Crisis, Rosie Vela, Love And Money, Yellowjackets).
‘I think we felt that a lot of the energy was missing so we kind of sat out the ’80s,’ Fagen once said.
But, in his book ‘Eminent Hipsters’, he went further, talking about ‘falling apart like a cheap suit’ towards the end of the decade, with panic attacks, antidepressants and shrinks abundant.
But at least he didn’t need the money – ‘What supported me was that when CDs came out at the beginning of the ’80s, people had to buy the albums again.’
Fagen’s movie-producing cousin Mark Rosenberg headhunted him to come up with some music for the film version of Jay McInerney’s celebrated yuppie-in-peril book ‘Bright Lights Big City’. Fagen was typically reluctant but apparently swayed by the quality of McInerney’s writing.
There was also something distinctly Steely-esque about this tale of a disillusioned twentysomething’s descent into a drug-addled, paranoid New York hell. So Fagen fashioned his version of the movie, co-writing the lyric with Timothy Meher.
There are touches of ‘Bonfire Of The Vanities’ and ‘Wall Street’ in there. AIDS too, and ‘American Psycho’ was of course just around the corner.
The opening scene finds our hungover hero lamenting the roar of the Monday-morning garbage trucks. Cut to the floor of the NY Stock Exchange, where our yuppie daydreams about a conquest of the female variety: ‘We cut to this blonde/Dancing on a mirror/There’s no disbelief to suspend….‘
The image brilliantly conjures up Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate. Madonna should also probably come to mind. ‘She’s the concept, more or less, of love in the city at century’s end…‘
Nothing and nobody is real – it’s all pose and high-concept. There’s no hope for redemption either: ‘Nobody’s holding out for heaven‘. Greed is good. But then the mystery blonde is using her ‘pirate radar’ to find a likely escort or – even better – a minor celebrity to latch onto.
But no-one materialises, so you’ll do, although you know you’re only the second choice. But still: ‘Let’s get to the love scene, my friend‘…
Musically, ‘Century’s End’ is yet another brilliant Fagen concoction, initially based around a typical minor vamp and groovy half-time shuffle groove shepherded by Yellowjackets’ ‘Jim’ Haslip on bass and drummer Leroy Clouden (submerged in one or two different bits of rhythm programming).
Michael Brecker and Lew Soloff lead the horn section, and the raft of uncredited backing vocalists sounds like it might include Patti Austin. Gary Katz co-produced the song at Chelsea Sound.
Fagen’s vocals have rarely been better – check out his phrasing in the chorus. The 12” and CD also came with ‘Shanghai Confidential’, a neat little fuzak instrumental starring Marcus Miller on bass and Steve Khan on guitar.
The movie, starring Michael J Fox, stiffed. The casting didn’t help. But ‘Century’s End’ seems to be a bit of a guilty secret in Fagen’s discography, ripe for rediscovery…
OK, it’s cards on the table time. Time to ‘address’ the elephant in the room, no more waltzing around it, etc etc…
Regular readers of this site may already have an inkling about my favourite albums of the ’80s, but what the hell – here they are in no particular order (apart from the unimpeachable collection in the #1 spot).
Numbers have been crunched, playlists have been quantified. Only kidding. This is a totally sentimental, unscientific list. My original intention was to narrow it down to only ten but that wasn’t going to happen…
The rules: only one artist per slot, soundtracks are allowed but no best-ofs, and all albums must have a no-skip guarantee. A few things pop out: 1981, 1985 and 1987 strike me as very good years, 1984 and 1986 as pretty barren ones. It wasn’t a great decade for straightahead jazz, soul or funk, at least not in my house, though Alexander O’Neal, Janet Jackson, Cameo and Terence Trent D’Arby nearly made the cut.
And I wish there were more female artists, though Will Powers (Lynn Goldsmith), Wendy & Lisa, Sheila E, Chaka Khan, Rickie Lee Jones, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Donna Summer, Cocteau Twins, Randy Crawford and Madonna came close. Let the countdown commence…
54. Bireli Lagrene: Foreign Affairs (1988)
53. Stanley Clarke: Rocks, Pebbles & Sand (1980)
52. Human Chain: Cashin’ In (1988)
51. The Tubes: The Completion Backward Principle (1981)
50. Terje Rypdal: The Singles Collection (1988)
49. The Blue Nile: Walk Across The Rooftops (1984)
48. David Sanborn: Voyeur (1981)
47. Randy Newman: Trouble In Paradise (1983)
46 De La Soul: Three Feet High And Rising (1989)
45. Nile Rodgers: Adventures In The Land Of The Good Groove (1983)
44. John Martyn: Glorious Fool (1981)
43. Gabriel Yared: Betty Blue Original Soundtrack (1987)
42. Mike Stern: Upside Downside (1986)
41. Wayne Shorter: Phantom Navigator (1987)
40. Jeff Beck: There And Back (1980)
39. The Robert Cray Band: Bad Influence (1983)
38. Kate Bush: Hounds Of Love (1985)
37. John Scofield: Still Warm (1985)
36. Steve Khan: Casa Loco (1982)
35. Donald Fagen: The Nightfly (1982)
34. It Bites: Once Around The World (1988)
33. Talking Heads: Speaking In Tongues (1983)
32. Michael Jackson: Thriller (1982)
31. Lyle Mays: Street Dreams (1988)
30. David Sylvian: Gone To Earth (1986)
29. Peter Gabriel: III (1980)
28. Roxy Music: Avalon (1982)
27. Grace Jones: Nightclubbing (1981)
26. Prince: Around The World In A Day (1985)
25. Joni Mitchell: Dog Eat Dog (1985)
24. Mark Isham: Vapor Drawings (1983)
23. David Bowie: Scary Monsters (1980)
22. King Crimson: Discipline (1981)
21. Hue & Cry: Remote (1988)
20. Scritti Politti: Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)
19. XTC: Skylarking (1985)
18. Prefab Sprout: Steve McQueen (1985)
17. Vladimir Cosma: Diva Original Soundtrack (1982)
16. Lee Ritenour: Rit (1981)
15. Larry Carlton: Friends (1983)
14. Japan: Oil On Canvas (1983)
13. Love And Money: Strange Kind Of Love (1988)
12. Level 42: World Machine (1985)
11. Weather Report: Sportin’ Life (1985)
10. Various Artists: That’s The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute To Thelonious Monk (1984)
9. Thomas Dolby: The Flat Earth (1984)
8. Stump: A Fierce Pancake (1988)
7. China Crisis: Flaunt The Imperfection (1985)
6. Propaganda: A Secret Wish (1985)
5. Danny Wilson: Meet Danny Wilson (1987)
4. Marc Johnson/Bass Desires: Second Sight (1987)
3. Miles Davis & Marcus Miller: Music From Siesta (1987)
2. Valentin Silvestrov: Symphony No.5 (1988)
And the 1980s album I would save if my flat was on fire…
‘Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.
We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.
Walter had a very rough childhood — I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.
His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.
I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.
Apart from Steely Dan reaction videos on YouTube, my other mini viewing obsession over the last year or so has been ‘Columbo’ repeats.
Say ‘fusion’ to most music fans and it’s the classic early-‘70s jazz/rock of Miles or The Mahavishnu Orchestra that would probably come to mind. 
You’ve heard of a midlife crisis, but is there such a thing as a mid-music crisis?
The 1980s produced some fine lyricists. You couldn’t move for decent wordsmithery. But interesting lyrics came from the damndest places. 
Yesterday, when for the fifth time I was forced to avoid a rapidly approaching, earphone-wearing, phone-fixated zombie, it occurred to me that something had gone pretty wrong.
Almost 30 years ago to the day, my brother arrived home from a Richmond shopping spree bearing strange cargo – a new Donald Fagen 12” single. 
OK, it’s cards on the table time. Time to ‘address’ the elephant in the room, no more waltzing around it, etc etc… 
A statement from Donald Fagen:
movingtheriver.com 