Posts Tagged 1980s
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February 25, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
Movies of My Life # 26: Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Neal Page is a high-strung marketing executive. Del Griffith is goodhearted but he’s annoying. He sells shower curtain rings. Neal and Del spend three days together trying to make it home to their families for thanksgiving – they live in the same city, but ahead of a chance encounter, a taxi cab muck-up and then […]Archive
July 23, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: No Jump
We would run through town trying to leap to touch the signs that were hanging under the shops. Saturday night, but not too late, the shops all closed for the weekend. And my brother could sometimes touch the bottom of a sign. And my cousin would sometimes get close. But I never got very close […]Archive
November 15, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 18
Toots & The Maytals, Knock Out! (1981) The song Beautiful Womanwas everywhere when I was a kid. I remember it well. I didn’t particularly like it. Nor did I know who it was by. It was just everywhere. It was years – and possibly even a few more years after that – before I found […]Archive
May 31, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 116
Boris Gardiner, Everything To Me (1986) I first learned about Boris Gardiner due to a random library-find, back in those busy toddler-caring days of finding some salvation by digging in the library’s music section. The album, Every Nigger Is A Star, a soundtrack album to a banned movie was the one. A fantastic album. Gardiner […]Archive
April 21, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 130
Amazulu, Amazulu (1986) Just the other day I was remembering Aswad – I pair them with Amazulu. Both British bands fusing a type of light reggae with pop, both big in the mid-80s, both beginning with ‘A’ – a lot of surface comparisons I guess. I pair them simply because I discovered them around the […]Archive
November 29, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Pink Floyd: The Later Years 1987 – 2019
Pink Floyd The Later Years 1987 – 2019 Legacy The post-Roger years examined, remixed – a few rarities…well, in fact this “Sampler” is just a taste of it. The actual “box-set” is still a couple of weeks away; the sequel – if you like – to The Early Years – 1965-1972 (an embarrassment of riches […]Archive
April 30, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 313
Van Halen, Fair Warning (1981) The first six Van Halen albums – or fuck off! (Actually, I’m gonna say the first seven…controversial perhaps, but that’s where I’m at). The best of this band is never far from my ears but I recently worked through the whole catalogue in chronological order. Yes, the wheels fall off big time toward the end […]Archive
April 23, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Completing the 1001 Albums Challenge
I had the 2005 version of the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die – I’d owned it for years and had a flip through the pages, but never really studied it. And then someone asked me how many of the albums I had heard – was it half? Was it all? I figured the […]Archive
February 14, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 335
Hothouse Flowers, Don’t Go [Single] (1988) Hothouse Flowers – good band! Saw them live a couple of times, once still in their ascendancy and then many years on. They still sounded great. Good show. Very capable. But it was a school night. In a wee pub down the road. And no one seemed to really give a fuck – […]Archive
February 12, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 336
Don Henley, The Boys of Summer [Single] (1984) Confession time – all this “I hate the fuckin’ Eagles shit” (and I mean that by the way, always!) – but I have a soft spot for some of the solo stuff. And I include amongst that not very much by Don Henley but most certainly this song. A banger. A gem. I dunno. […]Archive
February 4, 2019 by Simon Sweetman