a pretty impressive website for anyone interested in 80s music or having inexplicable fits of nostalgia:)  :

in the 80s

A great article on unwanted emotional memories (and whether we can suppress them)

It can be from trauma or an intensely painful break-up or just someone in general you want to forget forever, but the concept (as shown in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) of finding a way to purge someone from your memory has always fascinated me.

This article on suppressing unwanted emotional memories is really good: read here

Another incredibly sad and tear-inducing song is "I've Been in Love Before" by Cutting Crew.  I remember crying like a baby to it the first time I heard it back in high school in '87. To this day, whenever I hear it, I remember exactly what was going on in my life (though thankfully the pain and melodrama that went with it have completely disappeared.)

There are some songs you revisit that just don't sound as good or as vulnerable as you remember them, but this one sure sounds as emotionally powerful as ever!

"Alphaville" is my favorite track off the new Bryan Ferry album Olympia (featuring Kate Moss on the cover.) It has hypnotic grooves and an awesome 80s thing going on and it's also sort of creepy in a completely okay (and even delicious) kind of way. "You Can Dance" and "Heartbreak by Numbers" (oh so very, very sad) are also complete knock-outs!!


Pitchfork has some good things to say about it; here's their review:

There was a point at which Olympia was intended to be a new Roxy Music album. It would have been the band's first since 1982's Avalon, and there even seems to be a sly nod to that two-decade gap on album opener "You Can Dance", which opens with a brief musical passage that is pretty much a note-for-note reference to Avalon's "True to Life". Somewhere in the process, though, this became another Bryan Ferry solo album, featuring original Roxy Music members Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera, and Brian Eno, and Ferry brought in a raft of collaborators, some old, some new, to round out the record, his first to feature original songs since 2002's Frantic.

The funny thing is, if Roxy Music had released this exact album in 1983 as a follow-up to Avalon, I don't think anyone would have batted an eye. It spills over with the aesthetics and sounds of Ferry's 80s work, which has the strange effect of also making it sound very current. The synths, fluid beats, wiry guitar parts with just a bit of chorus, and electric pianos are all things you can hear on any number of indie rock records today. Ferry puts them together in a very classic rock way, residing at the center as the charismatic front man. The FM-rock approach to the emphasis on vocals is mirrored in the lead guitar contributed by Manzanera and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour-- that kind of playing is one of the few elements of 80s album rock that hasn't made a significant comeback, which may partly be down to the proficiency it requires.

The first half of the album is as solid as anything Ferry has done under his own name. "You Can Dance" and "Alphaville" have their roots in a late-90s session that ultimately produced about half of Frantic, and they're both very centered on grooves. "You Can Dance" grinds along on a creeping bass line and heavy drumming, guitars hovering in the wings as Ferry underplays his signature vocal quaver. "Alphaville" is more slippery, cut through with nicely phrased lead guitar by Gilmour, and it's good pivot to one of the album's standouts, "Heartache By Numbers". The song features the Scissor Sisters as backing band, and their studied grasp of disco and New Wave suits Ferry well-- the echoing piano intro is almost cheeky in its easy anthemic fluency, but it's very much of a piece with the singer's classic songs.


Elsewhere, Ferry indulges in a couple of covers; one is a completely disposable take on Traffic's "No Face, No Name and No Number", but the other is a pretty stunning transformation of Tim Buckley's epochal "Song to the Siren" into a sweeping, synth-soaked pop ballad. Ferry has always been fond of interpreting others' songs on his albums, and like his very best covers in the past, this one reveals a real connection to the song. The album does falter a bit in its second half--"BF Bass" just has a sort of generic fashion-rock sheen, aiming for something high-class and hitting something more like the oddly sterile cover image of Kate Moss, which basically looks like a perfume ad. Still, it's a good album, and without the pressure of making it under the Roxy Music name, Ferry has made a confident and remarkably fresh-sounding record simply by doing what he's done best for over three decades.

— Joe Tangari, October 27, 2010

There are certain songs that are almost too beautiful to bear. You want to listen, but you don't know if your heart can take it...you're going through a bad break-up, you've gotten caught up in an intense bout of unexpected and rare loneliness or the song is just too damn sad!

"After the Fall" by Cary Brothers is such a one.  Some of my most favorite songs are the ones that make me yearn for something that is inexplicable, yet somehow still has to do with love. There's this great quote by Australian artist and writer Norman Lindsay that goes: "the best love affairs are the ones we never had."

Music, especially emotional music, wrecks havoc with my imagination and with all those possibilities, both missed and still out there waiting...

I hope I haven't blogged about the TrashCan Sinatras before. I double-checked and didn't see any old posts on them, but if I somehow missed a previous one, I apologize for any repetition.

But these guys are amazing...so peaceful and surreal and one of the artists I think of when I think how music is capable of completely altering your mind in the most spiritual way possible. The Big Takeover called this (back in 2004) "twinkling and soulful....it ebbs and flows like a slow, steady river on a quiet day." I couldn't agree more!!

More recently Trashcan Sinatras released a beautiful and very dreamy song called "People."

I have found my new coping with a bad day song. "Skinny Little Bitch" by Hole. Take that, mean people of the world!:) But, practically speaking, silently counting to ten and taking a deep breath is better suited during the middle of the day, especially if you're nowhere near music!

There's a Gary Jules song called "Mad World" in which he sings, "the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had." At the risk of sounding freaky or self-destructive, I've got to say that I find this to be a very easy-to-relate-to line.

Some people say you can't die in your dreams, but I think they're wrong!  I died in mine last night and it was so weird and amazing and beautiful...in the dream I die in some kind of ##% accident (don't want to write it down since I feel like it would jinx things) and my spirit survives.

...I'm invisible (which is something I've always wanted to be)...My sister and niece are the only ones who can see me which is sort of odd if you ask me, but oh well...I'm happy and I can still enjoy things like eating (but now without any calories or consequences) and reading...and I get to see how people I've always liked are doing, too...and can help them out in tricky spots.

Ever since I was a little girl I've had the weirdest dreams...but in the years since my insomnia has gotten worse I've discovered that I sleep best and have the most intense dreams only when I have a cold and take NyQuil and magnesium together....

To me, it seems dreams are taken for granted or not even thought much of at all. But how can something that happens to you while you sleep, that feels so real and often so beautiful, be dismissed as "just" biological or (worse) reduced to a ridiculously pat ( and patronizing) theory like Freudian interpretation?

iTunes recently offered this stripped down version of  John Lennon's "Just Like Starting Over" (off Double Fantasy) for free. I downloaded it to my iPod and love it even more than the way it sounded in its original release in the early 80s.

Goldmine's website offers this wonderful book in honor of John Lennon's fabulous musical career and life:

here

  
I won't go into the details, but I just wanted to write a quick post about how easily open online personals websites like match.com can be when it comes to "romance scams," a longer and more elaborate type of the infamous 419.

This month I had a potentially harrowing experience of my own with online fraud and when I researched the subject more I was astonished to discover 1 out of 3 profiles on sites like match.com are completely fake.

I have to give credit (not really!) to the person who tried to rope me in...the scammer came up with an intriguing and interesting background for their personal history (complete with very convincing photos that most likely were stolen), but they still tripped and fell. They mistook yearning on my part (to meet someone nice and hopefully sincere) for stupidity.

For more info read here. It's one of the best sources on "romance scams" and amazingly close to what happened to me. I have to say that match.com was great about giving me a refund and helping with the situation, but I can't help but worry about particularly vulnerable people out "there" in cyberspace who may not realize what's happening to them until it's too late...

What a cute little thing this is; I saw it advertised in this Sundays' paper, in a Kohl's ad. It plays cds, cassettes, vinvl and even MP3s...

So when I was sick a couple of weeks ago and my viewing standards considerably lowered I watched a lot of  "I Dream of Jeannie." In one very likable episode ("Jeannie, The Hip Hippie") I couldn't help but find the "fake" music group Jeannie put together very catchy.

I didn't realize that two of the guys she blinked into her living room were actually Tommy Boyce and Bruce Hart, often associated with the sound of the Monkees. They had a huge hit with "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" (a song I used to love as a little girl.)

But a bit unnerving (and unexpected) was the sight of a young Phil Spector playing himself and nodding enthusiastically to the "new sound" of the group Jeannie slipped in to his office.

...'65 love affair...

Last night I suffered a bit of 80s nostalgia and found myself on iTunes, downloading some songs I'd long forgotten about...but used to really love. Until recently it was impossible to find the single "65 Love Affair" by Paul Davis (look at that hair!) anywhere digitally, unless it was the Karaoke version..

"65 Love Affair" came out when I was ten and I have vivid memories of it always seeming to be on the car radio whenever I was riding with my family. It was different than "I Go Crazy" and some of his other well-known songs...it had more of a Hall and Oates wanna-be feel to it and it milked "wasn't it great when we were younger?" for all it was worth. (I love that he tries to rhyme "dum dum" with "pom pom.")

Wikipedia mentions that David originally wanted to call it "55 Love Affair," but was talked out of naming it that since he would have been 7 at the time and most of the target audience listening in the early 80s would relate much better to being young and in love in the 60s!:)

One night in the late 80s I was listening to a weekly Westwood 1 radio program which often played "extra" songs during popular music countdowns (it wasn't the official Top 40 by Casey Casem). The DJ started something featuring George Michael on vocals. It was a cover of "Jive Talkin'" and I was flabbergasted. At the time I loved George Michael and the Bee Gees with equal passion.

The next time I was out shopping I looked everywhere for the single, but it turned out (I would later discover) it wasn't an American release. It was only available in the UK.

Yesterday, for some odd reason, I thought of the song for the first time in years. I had tried a few times in the past to track it down, but George Michael wasn't credited for the track so it took some digging. On iTunes and Amazon it is available as a 7" inch single and a 12" Jellybean remix (Amazon only offers them in vinyl while iTunes--obviously--is strictly digital).

Without even pausing to consider that more than twenty years had passed since I last heard this particular "Jive Talkin'," I downloaded both versions onto my iPod touch...and I can say without hesitation that it sounds as good as ever. The Bee Gees once said that they had heard this cover and liked it very much!:)

Here's more background on the song and Boogie Box High:

Boogie Box High 

Back in the 90s , whenever I would get down, this album always kept me company and then one day I just lost the collection...so now (since it's hard to come by in physical form) I'm trying to get all the songs separately...this was an amazing cd when you just needed to go off and cry by yourself for a little! Of course you don't need to be sad to put the music on...it's a great listen, no matter what!:)

by Stewart Mason

Another typically eclectic, weird, and wonderful compilation from the unfortunately short-lived Risky Business imprint, The Big Hurt takes its name from Toni Fisher's classic 1960 single, an over-the-top early example of stereo phasing that sounds as if it were recorded in an empty water tower. The other 11 tracks tend toward this type of pre-Beatles soft pop as well, with only J.D. Souther's soft rock "You're Only Lonely'" and Don McLean's 1981 cover of Roy Orbison's "Crying'" deviating from a program that includes weepy classics like the Fleetwoods' gorgeous "Mr. Blue" and Del Shannon's paranoid classic "Runaway," along with relative rarities like Johnny Tillotson's countrypolitan gem "It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'." The Big Hurt, as the subtitle implies, is just right for a good old-fashioned sobfest. It's good that it's only 33 minutes and change, though -- no need to wallow.

Tracks

				Title	Performer	Time
		1		Big Hurt	Fisher
		2		Cry	Ray
		3		Crying	McLean
		4		Mr. Blue	Fleetwoods
		5		It Keeps Right on A-Hurtin'	Tillotson
		6		Hurt	Yuro
		7		I'm Hurtin'	Orbison
		8		Hurt So Bad	Little Anthony & the Imperials
		9		Mr. Lonely	Vinton
		10		Runaway	Shannon
		11		Suspicion	Stafford
		12		You're Only Lonely	Souther

"Lonely" by Anita Baker is a song I hadn't thought about in years, but used to love...so I downloaded it recently and it sounds just as sparkly and vibrant as ever...which made me wonder: is she working on anything new?

The last I read, Ms. Baker was working on an album called 21st Century Love, which was due for a November 9th release...but still has no availability date on Amazon.

In the meantime, it looks like she'll make an appearance on the upcoming Soul Train Music Awards:

Soul Train