454. Adam And The Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier (1980)

















Track Listing

1. Dog Eat Dog
2. Ant Music
3. Feed Me To The Lions
4. Los Rancheros
5. Ants Invasion
6. Killer In The Home
7. Kings Of The Wild Frontier
8. Magnificent Five
9. Don't Be Square (Be There)
10. Jolly Roger
11. Making History
12. Human Beings

Review

This is the first album of the 80's and very appropriately we have what would be an icon for the age, Adam and the Ants, with the excess and fun that they brough and typified a certain kind of 80's.

Now, Adam Ant has himself called this the last nail in the coffin of punk and I couldn't agree more. It was the success of albums like this, glamorous, fun and neatly produced that brought down the last true punk trying to hang on. From now all is post punk and pop. This sits somewhere in the middle, you can tell that punk exerts its influence but also that there is a conscious effort to depart from it. And it is a successful effort, the music is great, sounds fresh and supremely catchy. If only all other pop/new wave albums in the 80'd would be the same.

And a great big welcome to the 80's, we'll laugh, we'll cry... with the most underrated decade of them all.

Track Highlights

1. Kings Of The Wild Frontier
2. Antmusic
3. The Human Beings
4. Jolly Roger

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This album introduced the new Burundi Drum sound. After having his previous backing band wooed away by producer Malcolm McLaren, who used them to form Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant recorded Kings of the Wild Frontier with guitarist Marco Pirroni his new writing partner. In spite of the difficulties with the recording, Kings of the Wild Frontier has become acknowledged as an inspiritational and unique sounding album, introducing two drummers, with Duane Eddy sounding guitar riffs. Unique in style and sound, it is hard to classify it as anything but Antmusic though some consider it fringe pop-oriented post punk rock.

Kings Of The Wild Frontier:

453. The Specials - The Specials (1979)
















Track Listing

1. A Message To You Rudy
2. Do The Dog
3. It's Up To You
4. Nite Klub
5. Doesn't Make It Alright
6. Concrete Jungle
7. Too Hot
8. Monkey Man
9. (Dawning Of A) New Era
10. Blank Expression
11. Stupid Marriage
12. Too Much Too Young
13. Little Bitch
14. You're Wondering Now

Review

The most noticeable punk band with very recognisable Jamaican influences we had here was the Clash. Now we close the 70's with The Specials, it is hard to say if they are a punk band with Ska or a Ska band with punk. But they are a pretty nifty band.

The album starts with the very well known Message to You Rudy and it shows their respect to the sources of Jamaican music, and it is actually quite admirable that al the covers show this respect. But The Specials shine equally in their original compositions, those have the very marked punk aspect to them and are great. Funny and with social consciousness they are some of the best modern Ska.

This is a great album, if you like Reggae, Ska, Punk or just good music, this is for you.


Track Highlights

1. Message To You Rudy
2. Little Bitch
3. Too Much Too Young
4. Money Man

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Trombonist Rico Rodriguez, who performed on many 50s and 60s Jamaican recordings before moving to London in 1962, played on the band's version of "A Message to You, Rudy," as he had on the original recording fifteen years previously. As a former member of the legendary Skatalites, a band that helped define the sound of ska and reggae, Rico's appearance on the album considerably added to the album's credentials.

A Message To You Rudi:

452. Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Airlane
2. Metal
3. Complex
4. Films
5. ME
6. Tracks
7. Observer
8. Conversation
9. Cars
10. Engineers

Review

Gary Numan comes up with a distinctive sound here that is actually a mix of distinctive sounds and attitudes, there is something of the good glam of the early 70's Roxy Music and David Bowie and a lot of the Kraftwerk. It is "what if Kraftwerk made pop songs".

If they did it would have been pretty cool. This is a great album, and unfortunately unlike anything else by Gary Numan. This is the peak of a career which looks very much like a needle, a sharp climb followed by a sharp drop. This is not to say that Gary was a one hit wonder, because this whole album is a hit, even if the only song most people will recognise immediately is Cars. Then you think about it and ME is where Basement Jaxx got Where's Your Head At From, Metal had incredible influence on the hip hop scene and the whole album comes together in a crescendo of goodness.

This is also a herald to some of the cool things expecting us just around the corner in the 80's, Soft Cell and the Human League for example owe their existence to this album. And let's not talk about Gary Numan himself but this album, this was his epiphany and this is what he should be remembered for. And that was enough Mr. Numan, you should be happy with yourself.

Track Highlights

1. Cars
2. ME
2. Metal
4. Engineers

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Notable tracks included "Airlane", the lead-off instrumental; "Metal", sung from the perspective of an android longing to be human and covered by Nine Inch Nails on Things Falling Apart, Afrika Bambaataa on Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light and used as backing for Planet Funk's "Who Said"; "Films", acknowledged by Bambaataa as an important influence on the U.S. hip hop scene; "M.E.", told by the last machine on Earth and later used as backing for Basement Jaxx’s "Where’s Your Head At?"; the electronic ballad "Complex", a UK number 6 single; and "Cars", a worldwide synthpop hit recently covered by Fear Factory and sampled for Armand Van Helden’s "Koochy". "Cars" reached number 9 in the U.S., helping make The Pleasure Principle Numan's strongest Stateside showing, but lack of a strong commercial follow-up meant he was tagged a one-hit wonder there.

Cars:

451. The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Love Song
2. Machine Gun Etiquette
3. I Just Can't Be Happy Today
4. Melody Lee
5. Anti Pope
6. These Hands
7. Plan 9 Channel 7
8. Noise Noise Noise
9. Looking At You
10. Liar
11. Smash It Up (I)
12. Smash It Up (II)

Review

Ahh The Damned, it isn't apparent form the list but they were the first British band to have a Punk single, so they have been around by the time this album came out. Actually the punk is here but so is something else, a darkness and musicality more associated with gothy post-punk and even pop and a smattering of Psychadelia.

This is definitely a good thing, and all the tracks here fall into slightly different fields, making this a pretty varied but still consistent album. It is consistent in the quality but also in the overall feel of the thing. It is dark and oppressive but this is Thatcherite Britain so it is just a mirror to society. Actually in the times to come we will see very much the two poles of depression and escapism coming out of the UK as we start going into the 80's.

This album is great, one of the links between punk and the 80's gothy post-punk this album has feet planted firmly in both fields making it an interesting thing. It is actually poppier than Siouxsie for example, never reaching their level of depression and bleakness and being able to see some of the fun behind the darkness. Get it.

Track Highlights

1. I Just Can't Be Happy Today
2. Smash It Up (I)
3. Plan 9, Channel 7
4. Melody Lee

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The original vinyl's lead-out groove contained a sound clip ("Nibbled to death by an okapi") that was intended to loop indefinitely until the listener removed the needle from the vinyl (like the lead-out groove on Sergeant Pepper). The sound clip was a line from the BBC Radio series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, spoken by Peter Jones, about the fate of Arthur Dent's brother

Smash It Up (II) and I Just Can't Be Happy Today:

450. Michael "Wacko Jacko" Jackson - Off The Wall (1979)

















Track Listing

1. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
2. Rock With You
3. Working Day And Night
4. Get On The Floor
5. Off The Wall
6. Girlfriend
7. She's Out Of My Life
8. I Can't Help It
9. It's The Falling In Love
10. Burn This Disco Out

Review

So someone has been listening to Stevie Wonder... but all that political stuff is really too much so he decided to make it funkier and dumb it down. Well there is nothing wrong with that, in fact this is an album that touches your inner child. Sometimes that child is touched inappropriately, because the challenge to your manliness that comes from prancing around the house in your boxer shorts (laundry day) dancing to Wacko Jacko is substantial.

So this is a fun album, with a little interlude of a ballad in She's Out Of My Life that although it sounds heartfelt sounds slightly out of place in what is such an upbeat album.

So if you like fun, don't turn your nose up to this. Nose... get it? Nose. So yeah I enjoyed it a the most basic level of music, the fact that it makes you happy and dancy but really doesn't demand anymore from you. But that music has its place and if it is done as competently as it is here it deserves to be respected and listened to. This is a perfectly produced album of pure fun, and a trip back to a time when Jackson was a great singer and performer.

Track Highlights

1. Don;t Stop 'Til You Get Enough
2. Off The Wall
3. Rock With You
4. Burn This Disco Out

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt the album should have made a much bigger impact. In particular, Jackson was angry that he had won "only" one Grammy Award at the Grammy Awards of 1980 (Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"), losing the Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive". He became determined to exceed everybody's expectations with his next album. Even Jackson couldn't have prepared himself for the phenomenon that followed. (Though his personal vow was fulfilled at the Grammy Awards of 1984 when he swept the ceremony, taking home a record-breaking 8 awards). Then he made sweet love to Macaulay Culkin.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough: