Inspired by a post in Girish Shambu’s blog, I would like to make a list of some pop songs in the 1980’s. I got to know most of these songs by reading Artit Promprasit’s column in a now-defunct Thai magazine called Generation Terrorist.
1.BEAT THE BEAT (1982) – MARI WILSON
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnp_sQ71pVc
2.BEEN TEEN (1982) – DOLLY MIXTURE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyXcWDv5elk
3.CAROLYN’S FINGERS (1988) – COCTEAU TWINS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh83z5vIP0w
4.I COULD BE HAPPY (1981) – ALTERED IMAGES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWQE4NmOPwY
5.LOVE IS CONTAGIOUS (1988) – TAJA SEVELLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJNO6KphQOg
6.ONE DAY (1985) – VINCE CLARK & PAUL QUINN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMjYzzZ5owY
7.ORPHEUS (1988) – DAVID SYLVIAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2dgMNm64Mg
8.PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GET WHAT I WANT (1985) – THE DREAM ACADEMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8ZJN1dSHI
9.SINCE YESTERDAY (1984) – STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7QPBzAJ_io
10.SONG TO THE SIREN (1984) – THIS MORTAL COIL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFAHVIyhtb0
11.SOUNDS LIKE A MELODY (1984) – ALPHAVILLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxmBD904pVU
I also would like to add some songs from the 1990’s
1.AND BEFORE THE FIRST KISS (1991) – THE FIELD MICE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqF0Ok04VQ
2.HIJACK – MARDEN HILL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEGPV9SYark
Limitless Cinema in Broken English 
Wow, if this were YMDB, we’d have something like 80% affinity! 🙂 Great call on Song to the Siren and Carolyn’s Fingers. I’d pick Altered Images’ See Those Eyes and The Dream Academy’s Life in a Northern Town, but great choices all around. Others I’d try to squeeze in would be The Blue Nile’s Stay, Black’s Wonderful Life, and Cabaret Voltaire’s I Want You. Cool choices though, I haven’t heard Since Yesterday since…well…1984!
Comment by acquarello — November 30, 2007 @ 6:20 am
–I love Cocteau Twins very much. My favorite ones include
1.FROU-FROU FOXES IN MIDSUMMER FIRES, in the album HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS (1990)
2.THEFT, AND WANDERING AROUND LOST, in the album FOUR-CALENDAR CAFE (1993)
3.THE THINNER THE AIR, in the album VICTORIALAND (1986) and also in the compilation album STARS AND TOPSOIL (2000)
4.SERPENTSKIRT, in the album MILK AND KISSES (1996)
–I just found out that Youtube has a clip of THE ANGEL ON RUSKIN (1995) by THE BATHERS with Elizabeth Fraser
–My favorite song of THE DREAM ACADEMY is WATERLOO, which is in the album A DIFFERENT KIND OF WEATHER (1990).
–THE BLUE NILE is very interesting. I first knew this band from the various-artist album THE TREE AND THE BIRD AND THE FISH AND THE BELL (1991), which includes REGRET by THE BLUE NILE. In this album, my favorite ones are “THE GLASGOW BARROWLANDS” by Eddi Reader and “JOCELYN SQUARE” by LOVE & MONEY.
–I really love “BLACK”. His songs–WONDERFUL LIFE and THE BIG ONE was very famous in Thailand in late 1980s. My favorites songs of BLACK include:
1.HERE IT COMES AGAIN
2.FLY UP TO THE MOON (duet with SAM BROWN)
The music video of this song is great. It is a very lovely animation, but I can’t find this music video in the internet.
–The music video of CABARET VOLTAIRE’s I WANT YOU is very funny. I love it. I just knew from wikipedia that Richard H. Kirk from CABARET VOLTAIRE later joined with Richard Barratt to form SWEET EXORCIST, a dance project which released a single called TESTONE (1990).
–Talking about CABARET VOLTAIRE reminds me that I should spend some time listening to the songs of the “C81” group, to which CABARET VOLTAIRE belongs. I am not familiar with most of the bands in the C81 and the C86 groups, but I have heard that they are very interesting.
C81 group includes Scritti Politti, Pere Ubu, Orange Juice, The Specials, Buzzcocks, Josef K, The Raincoats, D.A.F. and Aztec Camera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C81
C89 group includes Primal Scream, The Mighty Lemon Drops, The Soup Dragons, The Wedding Present, Fuzzbox, The Pastels, The Shop Assistants, Age of Chance, Stump, and Half Man Half Biscuit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C86_%28music%29
Here is the mv of “BUFFALO” (1986) by STUMP:
PAINTBALL’S COMING HOME (1997) by HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT:
–Another interesting band in the 1980s is THE ASSOCIATES (with the great voice of Billy Mackenzie). This is a clip of PARTY FEARS TWO (1982):
–I have to confess that most of the songs here are not what I really listened to when I was in the 1980s. At that time I listened to those silly lovely songs produced by Stock/Aitken/Waterman. But in the 1990s I became addicted to the writing of Artit Promprasit, a music critic. He wrote about most of the songs in this post. But in the 1990s I still couldn’t find the CDs of the songs he wrote about, or those CDs were imported and too expensive. I just had a chance to listen to the songs recommended by Artit because of Youtube, and I fell in love with them.
Other songs and albums recommended by Artit:
1.AIN’T THAT ALWAYS THE WAY (1985) by Paul Quinn, produced by Edwyn Collins+Paul Heard. This song is from the soundtrack of LETTER TO BREZHNEV.
You can listen to the song here:
http://hypem.com/track/366397
2.UP HOME! (EP) (1988) by A.R. KANE
http://www.myspace.com/arkane69
3.WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY (1985) by ANNE PIGALLE
http://www.myspace.com/annepigalle
4.BUOY (1986) – MICK KARN FEATURING DAVID SYLVIAN
5.THE EVENING VISITS…AND STAY FOR YEARS (1985, album) by THE APARTMENTS
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,241011,00.html
6.(I LOVE YOU) WHEN YOU SLEEP (1984) by TRACIE
Comment by celinejulie — November 30, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
I have posted some faulty links. Thanks to Brian Darr for telling me about this. I have corrected them now. The links I have corrected are the links to BEEN TEEN and SONGS TO THE SIREN.
Comment by celinejulie — November 30, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
I have spent all evening playing Theft, and wandering around lost, SFXsax on keyboard instead of liz’s vocal. Ive cried my eyes dry, and pissed off a bottle of beer and whiskey, and if anyone can still understand me, well this is what my body said. celinejulie i dont know who you are but i wish i did.
Comment by tony bianchi — May 22, 2009 @ 6:19 am
–I’m glad you like THEFT, AND WANDERING AROUND LOST. I’m not sure I fully understand the lyrics of this song, but the song gives me a kind of truly sublime feelings. Did the song evoke something in your memory so that it made you cry? Some instrumental songs made me cry without reasons, such as THE SUN IN THE STREAM by Enya. I feel as if it evokes some sad memories in my past life 3,000 years ago or something like that.
–I just noticed that I made a wrong link to PARTY FEARS TWO by The Associates. Here is the correct link:
Comment by celinejulie — May 22, 2009 @ 11:58 pm