This is a subject that I like to write about occaisonally, although I tend to highlight the same videos. I am trying to expand on this topic a bit more today.
I am using some of the videos from the following video, but not all of them.This blog is inspired by this WatchMojo.com video:
My Chemical Romance "Welcome To The Black Parade":
Natalie Imbruglia "Torn":
The White Stripes "Fell In Love With A Girl":
Foo Fighters "Life Is A Neighborhood":
Okay perhaps not a great video, but I do love Arcade Fire's "Sprawl 2 (Mountains Beyond Mountains)":
Sugarland "Baby Girl":
Tear drops. Miranda Lambert "The House That Built Me":
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Don't Come Around Here No More":
The Mission, aka The Mission UK, is a band I discovered several months ago. They're a band I heard of back in the day, but was really never exposed to their music. The've been around since 1986, but I didn't ever really explore their music until 2017. At first I fell madly in love with their music, but then as I listened to their music more I started to lose my enthusiasm. I'm currently in the middle of having 5 days off and I'm able to go back and finish some of my incomplete blogs. Part 1 of The Mission blogs only had a few songs from where I was writing it before. I've finished part 1 and then started to work on Part 2. As again I listen to The Mission's music, I'm falling in love again. Will it stick this time?
I spent a lot of time trying to find the best covers of 80s songs and I've come to find out there's not that many. I could only come up with 13 songs, so far, and 3 of those covers are from Kobra and The Lotus' "Words of The Prophets". I was surprised by how few great covers of 80s songs that have been released. I could expand the number of songs in this category if I included bands reworking their own songs, but is reworking the same as a cover. I would say "no". For instance, The Psychedelic Furs reworked their own 1981 song "Pretty In Pink" into 1986's much better version.
I have found a lot more great 80's songs that were covers of songs from earlier days. And of course you know I'll be writing about that.
Echo and The Bunnymen "The Killing Moon" (1984)
Roman Remains "The Killing Moon" (2017):
Michael Jackson "Smooth Criminal" (1987):
Alien Ant Farm "Smooth Criminal" (2001):
Dio "Holy Diver" (1983):
Killswitch Engage "Holy Diver" (2009):
Dead or Alive "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) (1984):
Dope "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) (1999)":
Pet Shop Boys "It's A Sin" (1987):
Ghost "It's A Sin" (2018):
The Smiths "How Soon Is Now" (1984):
t.A.T.u. "How Soon Is Now" (2002):
Rush "Spirt of Radio" (1980):
Kobra and the Lotus "Spirit of Radio" (2015):
Okay it's not from the 80s, but it's close enough. Triumph "Lay It On The Line" (1979):
"Heavy Metal" is a 1981 animated movie, 10 of the soundtrack's 16 songs make up this blog. I only post the best songs. Upcoming is the trailer for this very bizarre seeming movie- although it's a movie I've never seen. And at this point I'm pretty sure I don't want to see it. This countdown of the best 80s soundtracks is purely about the music and very little about the actual movie. The trailer:
1) Sammy Hagar "Heavy Metal":
2) Riggs "Heartbeat":
3) Devo "Working In A Coal Mine":
4) Blue Oyster Cult "Veterans of the Psychic Wars":
Madonna's "Ray of Light" was released 20 years ago this year. "Ray of Light" was Madonna's follow up CD to the amazing "Evita". Both "Evita" and "Ray of Light" dropped to mixed reviews, but I loved "Evita" from the get go. However it took me awhile longer to like "Ray of Light". At first I wasn't a big fan of "Ray of Light". I fell in love with and grew up with her 80's music, I was hoping for more great pop music like "Like A Virgin", "Material Girl", "Causing A Commotion" or any of her other classic upbeat songs. That are songs similar to her fantastic ballads like "Live To Tell" or "Crazy For You".
However songs on "Ray of Light" had an ambient/ technoish feel to them. No longer that percolating pop dance feel. These songs were more mid-tempo, more exotic sounding, deeper lyrics. She created this CD with British producer and composer William Orbit.
Orbit had previously remixed "Erotica":
and
"Justify My Love":
One of my favorite Madonna songs is "The Power of Goodbye".
What did reviewers think of this CD when it was first released? Below are review excerpts of Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and Pitchfork.
From Rolling Stone: "She gets knocked up, but she gets down again: Meet the latest brand-new Madonna, the Chemical Mother. Ray of Light is her maternity album as well as her avant-dance album, riding the electronica wave with her new collaborator, U.K. beat master William Orbit. She’s not exactly subtle about it, either. In just the first song, “Drowned World/Substitute for Love,” Madonna throws in trip-hop drum loops, jungle snares, string samples and pointless computer bleeps (lots of those). She shows off all these trinkets from her expensive collection of electronica gimmicks as if she’s unpacking her shopping bags after a day at the outlet malls and she doesn’t even care if they clash. “Drowned World” comes on loud, tacky and ridiculous, but it lets Madonna do what she does best: show off." From Entertainment Weekly: Strictly speaking, Ray of Light isn’t 100 percent pure techno. After all, it features traditionally structured pop melodies, and the music reflects Orbit’s less-than-edgy background in ambient-based mood music. Only once, on the sirenlike techno-glitter-ball of the title track, does the album kick into beats-per-minute frenzy. Instead, what Madonna and Orbit have done — and brilliantly at that — is to use electronica components as sonic window dressing. Hard-step beats and synth washes make the romantic-physical yearnings (and hooks) of ”Skin” and ”Nothing Really Matters” even tauter; the juxtaposition of fuzzy beats and soundtrack-score strings lends ”’Drowned World’ aka ‘My Substitute for Love”’ and ”Frozen” a wuthering-beats melodrama that’s often breathtaking. Throbbing yet meditative, Ray of Light is an adult’s version of dance music, with the dark timbres of Madonna’s nearing-40 voice its resolute center. From Pitchfork:
Of course, we know how it ultimately ended. Just one album later, the disco-tinged Music, Madonna would admit to feeling trapped by the quieter life. “I feel like an animal that's, like, ready to be sprung from a cage,” she’d tell The Face at the time of the release of Music, which, with its winking attitude, helped her keep up with the vampy Britney, by then fully ascendant and coming for her crown. “I’ve been living a pretty low-key domestic existence and I miss things.” So much for all that. For a brief shining moment with Ray of Light, Madonna became Her Holiness, the sage of synth pop. And the world heeded the call.
1) "Drowned World/Substitute For Love":
2) "Swim":
I'm throwing in a dance mix, this is the Cleopatra and Pander EletrOcean Club Mix, I have to admit I quite like this mix.
3) "Ray of Light":
4) "Candy Perfume Girl":
5) "Skin":
6) "Nothing Really Matters":
7) "Sky Fits Heaven":
8) "Shanti/Ashtangi":
Madonna is about the music, but she's also about the visual component, here's the unforgettable video from one of the CD's 5 singles. 9) "Frozen":
10) "The Power of Goodbye":
A different version of my favorite song on this CD:
