Slicing Up Eyeballs has a survey – pick ten out of 150 albums released in 1983.
My list:
Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
Suicidal Tendencies – Suicidal Tendencies
R.E.M. – Murmur
New Order – Power Corruption & Lies
Stray Cats – Rant N’ Rave with the Stray Cats
Misfits – Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood
Billy Idol – Rebel Yell
Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)
Duran Duran – Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Police – Synchronicity
http://deadaudio.com/podcast/better-luck-dead-man-skinny-puppy-brap-set/
90-minute career-spanning live-recorded Skinny Puppy mix, including mixed in news coverage and bits from horror films SP sampled from. Performed by Better Luck Dead Man and hosted by Dead Audio.
Thanks Spip!
Great tune to close out the film. A fun watch. Worth the big screen viewing.
Grimes speaks her mind and lays it out – we could all learn a bit from this kind of honesty.
I always thought this tune stood out as a kind of weird departure on the Queensryche album Rage for Order. I never realized it was a cover!
Found the original tonight by accident. Check it out:
Take THAT, Geoff Tate! Wow. The Queensryche version is pretty good, honestly. But the original by Dalbello has a creepiness and weirdness that comes from the nearly industrial beat that keeps thumping along through the song and the New Wave trappings dressing everything up. I loved Rage for Order when I found it in the late 80s, and loved it even more when I realized that it was produced by Dave “Rave” Ogilve, who produced the first half of Skinny Puppy’s discography. Here’s the Queensryche version:
They amped up the creep quality (and I wonder if Rave had any influence on the choice to cover this tune).
The gender-bending elements of the video only amplify the “single white female”-esque aspects of the song as performed by Dalbello. Tate’s androgyny in the Queensryche video isn’t quite the same, but positioning him as the stalker has a sort of vampiric quality.
Now to find more Dalbello…
The Naked and Famous have put together a concert video from near the end of their 2 year tour to support Passive Me, Aggressive You. It’s AWESOME. I downloaded the 1080p version today and have it playing now. It’s VERY reminiscent of the show I saw in Indianapolis last spring. In fact, the show I saw was 3 days before the one in the video. This band is doing LOTS of things right as far as winning a fanbase and keeping people interested. They’ve taken a well-earned break and hopefully they’ll have an awesome follow-up album to show for it. In the meantime – ONE TEMPORARY ESCAPE.
TRAILER:
Stereogum has what starts out as a really informative article about Morrissey. (Full disclosure: I kind of hate Morrissey’s music, most of the time — can’t stand his voice, like every cover of a Smith’s song I’ve ever heard WAY more than the originals.)
But then it becomes the dumbest thing I think I’ve ever read, and really makes me feel like 1) I’m old, and 2) the current generation of music fans, no matter their taste, just “doesn’t get it.”
Writer Michael Nelson calls Morrissey out for sticking too closely to his moral stance on animal rights, in order to reach a broader audience. Maybe he missed the fact that the Smiths had an album in 1985 titled Meat Is Murder. Morrissey wouldn’t allow the rest of his band to be photographed eating meat at that time. He’s pretty adamant about this belief. (Full disclosure: I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, and while I don’t agree with any moral compunction against eating meat or using animal products, I understand the impulse and the belief and can respect it in others who don’t condemn my own behavior.) This is someone who publicly feuded with Robert Smith, another vegetarian who said, “If Morrissey says not to eat meat, then I’ll eat meat; that’s how much I hate Morrissey.” The guy has dealt with both the FBI and UK intelligence regarding his anti-government statements. He’s on record chastising the sitting Prime Minister of England for hunting stags.He’s been a vegetarian since he was 11 years old.
As far as “reaching a broader audience,” Morrissey’s first solo album debuted at #1 on the UK Charts. How many bands have covered “How Soon Is Now?” — it’s been the theme song to both a feature film and a prime time TV show. He has one of the most insanely loyal fanbases in all of rock music. The British music press has had a nearly 30-year fascination with the man, particularly NME.
In the meantime, it appears that the Staples Center has agreed to Morrissey’s request and will have only vegetarian vendors at his performance.
Another cool find from my first trip to Toxic Beauty Records in Yellow Springs:
A signed copy of Lightning Strikes by LOUDNESS!
LOUDNESS is a Japanese hair-metal band. I got into them by finding Thunder in the East (1985), Lightning Strikes (1986), and Hurricane Eyes (1987) at the library when I was in high school. Some great stuff, lyrics all in English.
The edges of the sleeve are all chewed to hell, so whoever owned this must have listened to it a lot, or at least moved it around a bunch. But the signatures made it worth the $5 I dropped on it.
Vinyl does have a certain satisfaction and allure to it that nothing else quite approaches. I have been really excited to find stuff by (for example) Scheer on CD because there were so many 4AD singles when that band was active, but it’s not quite the same. Still, sometimes buying brand new music on vinyl almost feels kind of like a posture. It’s very weird. Reissues feel kind of fake. 
But I listened to Lightning Strikes on vinyl for the 4 weeks I had it, and then played my cassette copy over and over for about 3 years. Fun stuff. If you’re into Poison, Motley Crue, Dokken, and that ilk, and you’re looking for something “new,” this could be a nice discovery for your collection.
An aside: I lived in Japan in Nara prefecture for 5 years from 2006-2011. Apparently, the drummer Higuchi Munetaka (RIP, 2008 liver cancer) has family (a grandmother, I believe) from the next village up from where I lived. When I was in Fukuoka, I went to Jackie’s Bar, and the owner was friends with the members of LOUDNESS. Very cool that I was able to relate to people about this band while I was there, and to have their autographs is very cool.
On Sunday, while window shopping in Yellow Springs, Ohio (the cool hippie village up the road from where I live, home to Antioch College and Young’s Jersey Dairy), I stumbled into Toxic Beauty Records, an honest-to-god VINYL record shop. Chatted a bit with Josh, the owner/operator, about the new My Bloody Valentine album coming out soon (first release since 1991!) and poster art, as well as Japanese reissues of Beatles 7″ records.
As I flipped through the bins, I found a pretty amazing surprise, especially from a sci-fi nerd perspective. H.R. Giger designed the biomechanical look for the 1979 film ALIEN. Giger has also designed album covers and sleeves. I had found Debbie Harry’s “KooKoo” in a used vinyl bin back in the early 1990s, and had even hung the inner sleeve up on the wall, as a fan of Harry AND Giger.
One of Giger’s most famous (and interesting) album cover art designs is for the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer disc Brain Salad Surgery. The album features headshot portraits of all 3 band members on a foldout poster. The poster, if folded properly, overlays Giger’s biomechanical artwork around the band’s faces.
Clash Magazine
OtR
Pitchfork
RE>GEN Magazine
STEREOGUM
The Conversation