Hello and welcome to the fourth chapter of the 1984 Hideaway 200! If you've followed along since the beginning, you know this isn't your ordinary countdown. We didn't start at 200 but we're going to end up at Number One. Click HERE if you've missed any of the first three parts. For those of you who've asked, no, these are not all U.S. pic sleeves. All sleeves were chosen strictly for illustrative purposes. Let's jump back in and see what we have for today...
183
Twisted Sister stood out from the other metal acts in 1984 with their unpolished punk metal sound and their clown prostitute look. "We're Not Gonna Take It" is a song of rebellion with near-universal appeal. One of our co-workers brought the Stay Hungry tape in to play and that's how we heard it. Almost everyone else we know says they first saw and heard the band on MTV. We have never purchased a Twisted Sister album but we have a few of their songs on compilations. The best-sounding version of "We're Not Gonna Take It" to our ears is found on two Time Life discs: Sounds of the Eighties: 1984-1985 from 1997 and Hard + Heavy - Talk Dirty To Me from 2008. The latter disc had been previously released as Guitar Rock - The Heavy '80s in 1995 and Guitar Rock - The Heavy in 2003 so they may have similar-sounding masters.
93
The first ten seconds or so of the song "Magic", the alien spaceship landing sound, make for an excellent notification tone. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, "Magic" might be our favorite song from Heartbeat City, an album we ranked as our 33rd favorite from 1984. The song sounds really good to us on a couple of Japanese pressings and a couple of U.S. compilations but the absolute best-sounding version on all five of our listening environments is the high-resolution release we downloaded from HDTracks as part of The Elektra Years 1978-1987 collection.
138
Orion The Hunter was a one-and-done minor-league supergroup made up of current and future members of Boston and Heart, one of a few projects that emerged while Boston major domo Tom Scholz battled his label while his perfectionism and natural disasters delayed Boston's third album. Other than the clunky synth drums, we really enjoy "So You Ran" though it does seem to run a bit long now that we are focused on listening to it. Two shorter edits of the song were released for airplay but to the best of our knowledge, neither of them has been released on compact disc. Patrick bka pbthal has done a great-sounding archival rip of the vinyl album but our preferred version of "So You Ran" can be found on the three-disc Sony compilation Rockin' 80s from 2004.
172
We featured OMD previously with their song "Tesla Girls" at number 194 on the 1984 Hideaway 200. The chugging bassline is the attraction here though it's another one of those downbeat lyrics disguised by uptempo music tracks. Steel drums and brass stabs also flavor the track while Andy McCluskey's voice floats just above his bassline. Our girl does this cool little shimmy when this song comes on which should move the song up a few dozen notches from its place here at number 172 yet here it sits. While auditioning the various versions in the HERChives for her, she responded best to the extended remix found on disc three of Classic Cuts Presents The 12" Box: 80s/2. The overall best-sounding mix to all four of our ears turned out to be from the same compilation that housed our preferred version "Tesla Girls", The Best of OMD from 1988.
63
Loved INXS since we first heard them in 1982. Remember finding the 12" single of "Original Sin (Dream On)" one day early in 1984 right after Christmas Break and rushing home to listen to it for the first time with the song's lyrics printed right there on the back of the jacket. Nile Rodgers' production was immediately recognizable and the band had never sounded better with each player, each instrument standing out in the mix. We're a house divided as to which is our favorite-sounding version of "Original Sin". She likes the 6:02 Dance (Dub) Version found on the 1990 plainly-titled promo CD Compilation: New Music From INXS while I'm just a little more partial to DJPaulT's 2014 archival vinyl mix of the 1984 promo 12" vinyl of "Original Sin" in particular the Dance (Dub) Version found on the B-side. We're probably splitting hairs on this one and indeed, blind A/B testing revealed that neither one of us could pick out our preferred version. We like what we like.
52
Is there a more divisive or even hated songwriter/singer/producer than Jim Steinman? We have stood on the "love his work" side of the line from the first time we heard Meat Loaf sing Steinman's lyrics in "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" spilling out of the radio. As you can see from the above image of the UK picture sleeve to the single "Nowhere Fast", Steinman must have had a special clause in his contract that allowed him top billing. In the rest of the world, the song was simply credited to Fire Inc. The 3:57 single edit of "Nowhere Fast" is just too short for anyone who has heard the 6:02 full-length version or seen Streets Of Fire. Steinman's works are best enjoyed when they are of epic length. Our pick for the best-sounding version of "Nowhere Fast" is an easy one: our 1987 Japanese JVC pressing for the U.S. compact disc of Streets of Fire.
81
One of our favorite rock music quotes goes something like "He wrote the letter, I licked the stamp" which is how Jim Steinman described his contributions to Billy Squier's Signs Of Life album. We were Squier fans after taping his Don't Say No album off of KLPX when it was featured as one of their Sunday Six Pack, six albums played back to back in their entirety which was briefly a common practice on rock radio. We liked the next album, Emotions In Motion, and Squier's soundtrack contributions to the films Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Metropolis. We also enjoyed his contribution to the rock Holiday canon with "Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You" in 1981. It has always been strange that the otherwise innocuous music video for "Rock Me Tonite" has been heralded as one of the worst music videos ever - we've seen plenty worse - and the beginning of the end of Squier's popularity. Our favorite-sounding version of "Rock Me Tonite" is the one on the 1989 promo compilation Hear, Then & Now that we ordered from New England CD when we saw it listed in their ad in a 1990 issue of Goldmine back when we were a subscriber. Billy Squier will make another appearance on the 1984 Hideaway 200.
137
The song "I Can't Hold Back" starts off like a typical Eighties rock ballad: all ringing acoustic guitars and breathy emotive vocals before launching into a full-blown rocker. We more than likely heard the song on KLPX but did not immediately rush out to buy the Vital Signs album. I recall picking it up during a Holiday sale at Hollywood Records around Christmas 1984. The best-sounding version of "I Can't Hold Back" in our collection is the Japanese pressing for Germany of Vital Signs from 1984.
72
We have two vivid memories of hearing "Go For Soda": the first memory was on hearing it for the first time on KLPX through a friend's new stereo with giant speakers with 12" woofers and the bass line sounded positively epic out by his pool and the second memory was when it showed up out of the blue on a Mr. Pibb commercial. (I love me some Dr. Pepper but the increasingly hard-to-find Mr. Pibb is my all-time favorite soft drink.) The lyrics are simple but man oh man the song rocks pretty hard. There are only two recordings of "Go For Soda" in the HERChives and they sound pretty similar but we're giving the edge to its appearance on the 2001 four-disc Canadian music compilation Oh What A Feeling 2.
192
We bought this 12" single in January 1985 attracted to the possibility of what an Arthur Baker remix of the Rolling Stones track "Too Much Blood" would sound like - some songs seem more ripe for a remix than others, right? Hearing the remix was both a shock and a thrill. There is so much going on in the remix that it may be the single busiest remix ever with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in the mix. It's telling that the song is one of a handful that the Stones have never attempted to perform live or include on any of their many compilations and I'm always surprised when I find someone else who likes the song. Once again, DJPaulT gets the nod for our favorite-sounding version of a 12" remix with his 2013 meticulous digital preservation of the U.S. issue of "Too Much Blood (Dance Version)".
🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧
We're 20% into the 1984 Hideaway 200. There are still 160 songs to go so we'll continue to publish multiple parts of the countdown each week until all twenty parts are up and out there. As a reminder, the Top 10 will be featured in part twenty. As always, those playing along at home should check their cards against the ones below.
No comments:
Post a Comment