1980: a cd, a movie

1. Talking Heads - Remain in Light [Amazon US]
   Seldom in pop music history has there been a larger gap between what black and white audiences are listening to than there is right now. While blacks are almost entirely uninterested in the clipped, rigid urgency of the New Wave, it's doubtful that more than a small percentage of ROLLING STONE's predominantly white readership knows anything at all about the summer's only piece of culture-defining music, Kurtis Blow's huge hit, "The Breaks." Such a situation is both sad and ironic, because rarely have the radical edges of black and white music come closer to overlapping. On one hand, the Gang of Four utilize their bass guitar every bit as prominently and starkly as the curt bass figures that prod the spoken verses of "The Breaks." On the other, Chic producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards choose to make Diana Ross sound as sullen and alienated as Deborah Harry. None of this has escaped the notice of Talking Heads, however, and Remain in Light is their brave, absorbing attempt to locate a common ground in today's divergent, often hostile musical community. -- Ken Tucker, for Rolling Stone, 12/11/80 [...]
2. Dressed to Kill (1980) - Brian De Palma [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   To condemn Dressed to Kill as a Hitchcock rip-off is to miss the sheer enjoyment of Brian De Palma's delirious 1980 thriller. Hitchcockian homages run rampant through most of De Palma's earlier films, and this one's chock-full of visual quotes, mostly cribbed from Vertigo and Psycho. But De Palma's indulgent depravity transcends simple mimicry to assume a vitality all its own. It's smothered in thickly atmospheric obsessions with sex, dread, paranoia, and voyeurism, not to mention a heavy dose of Psycho-like psychobabble about a wannabe transsexual who's compelled to slash up any attractive female who reminds him--the horror!--that he's still very much a man.
   [...] --Jeff Shannon [...]

1981: a cd, a movie

1. Computer World - Kraftwerk [1CD, Amazon US]
   This is the album pundits like to point to when they accuse Kraftwerk of being digital-age visionaries; an all-too-easy assessment to make in the face of tracks such as "Home Computer" and "Computer Love" (not an ode to one-hand typing!). But to saddle the band with the reputation of sages is to completely miss the low-key wit and all-too-human playfulness of this album. "Pocket Calculator" and "Numbers" (the lyrics: numbers one to eight--period) could be read as tongue-in-cheek ripostes to too much bad "educational" programming, but that would smack of creeping punditry. Computer World is Kraftwerk's most lovable bundle of contradictions: at once its most technologically obsessed album and its most human. --Jerry McCulley
2. Coup de Torchon - Bertrand Tavernier (1981) [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   An inspired rendering of Jim Thompson's pulp novel Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) deftly transplants the story of an inept police chief- turned-heartless killer and his scrappy mistress from the American South to French West Africa. Featuring pitch-perfect performances by Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert, this striking neo-noir straddles the line between violence and lyricism with dark humor and visual elegance, perfectly captured by Criterion's glorious new anamorphic transfer. [...]

1982: a cd, a movie

1. Padlock EP - Mixed by Larry Levan
   

   Larry's landmark work in the studio led to the first whole album concept where the DJ gets top billing over the original artist. This was for Salsoul records, for who Larry did many remixes. Larry moved to productions with NYC Peech Boys and Gwen Guthrie in the early eighties. This, to me, is his most interesting period, because these mixes were done on a rhythm section provided by none other than Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, the most famous reggae rhythm section. [...]

2. Q (1982) - Larry Cohen [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   Q is a Larry Cohen movie, so b-movie fans know what to expect - a kinetic, almost documentary visual style, characters that are witty and behave like human beings, James Dixon (Cohen's Dick Miller), and little surprises to keep the movie from becoming predictable. The basic plot has a rash of ritualistic murders linked to disappearances from rooftops in mid-town Manhattan (starting with the beheading of an Empire State Building window washer) leading to the discovery of a monster sized winged serpent. Jimmy Quinn, a struggling former junkie/hood played beautifully by Michael Moriarty (Law & Order), stumbles across the creature's nest in the Chrysler Building (NOT the Empire State Building as some think). After putting the creature to good use, Jimmy attempts to make a deal. Police Officers David Carradine and Richard Roundtree are not amused. For a bare bones disc (Q is presented in a widescreen 1:85:1 aspect ratio and that's it, no trailer, no commentary, nothing) this release is rather steep, but b-movie lovers will want it in their collection. Recommended. Chadwick H. Saxelid for amazon.com [...]

1983: a cd, a movie

1. Clear - Cybotron [Amazon US]
   Juan Atkins and Rick Davies for Fantasy records in 1983
   1. Clear 2. R-9 3. Cosmic Cars 4. Enter 5. Alleys of Your Mind 6. Industrial Lies 7. Line 8. Cosmic Raindance 9. Salvador [*]
   Even the track that gave birth to techno, the Juan Atkins / Rick Davies 12” ‘Clear’ by Cybotron (Fantasy), was regarded as an electro classic here in 83, way before the techno scene began to take shape, and would feature on the first Street Sounds ‘Crucial Electro’ compilation the following year. [...] -- Greg Wilson
2. Videodrome (1983) - David Cronenberg [1DVD, Amazon US]
   Love it or loathe it, David Cronenberg's 1983 horror film Videodrome is a movie to be reckoned with. Inviting extremes of response from disdain (critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the least entertaining films ever made") to academic euphoria, it's the kind of film that is simultaneously sickening and seemingly devoid of humanity, but also blessed with provocative ideas and a compelling subtext of social commentary. Giving yet another powerful and disturbing performance, James Woods stars as the operator of a low-budget cable-TV station who accidentally intercepts a mysterious cable transmission that features the apparent torture and death of women in its programming. He traces the show to its source and discovers a mysterious plot to broadcast a subliminally influential signal into the homes of millions, masterminded by a quasi-religious character named Brian O'Blivion and his overly reverent daughter. Meanwhile Woods is falling under the spell, becoming a victim of video, and losing his grip--both physically and psychologically--on the distinction between reality and television. A potent treatise on the effects of total immersion into our mass-media culture, Videodrome is also (to the delight of Cronenberg's loyal fans) a showcase for obsessions manifested in the tangible world of the flesh. It's a hallucinogenic world in which a television set seems to breath with a life of its own, and where the body itself can become a VCR repository for disturbing imagery. Featuring bizarre makeup effects by Rick Baker and a daring performance by Deborah Harry (of Blondie fame) as Wood's sadomasochistic girlfriend, Videodrome is pure Cronenberg--unsettling, intelligent, and decidedly not for every taste. --Jeff Shannon [...]

1984: a cd, a movie

1. The Cramps - Bad Music for Bad People (1984) [1 CD, Amazon US]
   This album was my introduction to The Cramps, and it highlights the best of their early (and best) albums on I.R.S. Records, from the days when that was the most happening punk/new wave label. The Cramps successfully mix rockabilly, surf trash, punk, country and garage into an outta sight 60's B-horror movie sound that opens the ears,boggles the mind, and gets you to jump around the room, insane and highly recommended. -- John Spokus for Amazon.com [...]
2. Blood Simple - Coen Brothers [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   The debut film of director Joel Coen and his brother-producer Ethan Coen, 1983's Blood Simple is grisly comic noir that marries the feverish toughness of pulp thrillers with the ghoulishness of even pulpier horror. (Imagine the novels of Jim Thompson somehow fused with the comic tabloid Weird Tales, and you get the idea.) The story concerns a Texas bar owner (Dan Hedaya) who hires a seedy private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow his cheating wife (Frances McDormand in her first film appearance), and then kill her and her lover (John Getz). The gumshoe turns the tables on his client, and suddenly a bad situation gets much, much worse, with some violent goings-on that are as elemental as they are shocking. (A scene in which a character who has been buried alive suddenly emerges from his own grave instantly becomes an archetypal nightmare.) Shot by Barry Sonnenfeld before he became an A-list director in Hollywood, Blood Simple established the hyperreal look and feel of the Coens' productions (undoubtedly inspired a bit by filmmaker Sam Raimi, whose The Evil Dead had just been coedited by Joel). Sections of the film have proved to be an endurance test for art-house movie fans, particularly an extended climax that involves one shock after another but ends with a laugh at the absurdity of criminal ambition. This is definitely one of the triumphs of the 1980s and the American independent film scene in general. --Tom Keogh

1985: a cd, a movie

1. Sing & Shout (1985) - Chosen Brothers [1 CD, Amazon US]
   Track Listing: 1. There You Are 2. Sing & Shout 3. Jah Don't Like That 4. Hey Lady 5. Joy Joy 6. I Gave You Love 7. Dancing In The Rain 8. Mash Down Babylon 9. Back To Africa 10. All Things
   This CD came out in 1985 on the Wackies label, it was reissued by Blood and Fire in 1996. [...]
2. Tampopo [1DVD Amazon US]
   [Superb Japanese film about food, and more in particular noodles]
   Like seeds of a dandelion blowing in the wind, the plot of Tampopo wanders in several directions, following the lives of a quirky collection of characters. At the heart of this film is a young widow named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto), who is struggling to make ends meet by running a noodle restaurant. Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki), a truck driver, saves Tampopo's young son from being beaten by a group of school girls and is rewarded with a bowl of very bad ramen (noodles). Goro tells Tampopo the awful truth about her cooking and she asks for his help. Together they search for the perfect ramen recipe. -- --Luanne Brown

1986: a cd, a movie

1. Shinehead - Rough & Rugged [1 CD, Amazon US]
   Debut album by Shinehead, it was preceded by a twelve inch which includes both a cover version of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" and Junior's "Mama Used to Say".
   Shinehead cut a album for Sly and Robbie in -86 called Rough And Rugged. The album sparkled with talent. It covered lots of different styles and Shineheads performance was extraordinary. Unbelievably inventive and fresh. A mix of singing, DJ:ing, rapping and whistling. [...]
2. Blue Velvet (1986) - David Lynch [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt shadow world of malevolence, sadism, and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the Technicolor picture postcard images of middle class homes and tree-lined lanes into a dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of a lush score. Blue Velvet is a disturbing film that delves into the darkest reaches of psycho-sexual brutality and simply isn't for everyone. But for a viewer who wants to see the cinematic world rocked off its foundations, David Lynch delivers a nightmarish masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker

1987: a cd, a movie

1. Come On Pilgrim [EP] (1987) - Pixies [ 1 CD, Amazon US]
   1. Caribou 2. Vamos 3. Isla de Encanta 4. Ed Is Dead 5. Holiday Song 6. Nimrod's Son 7. I've Been Tired 8. Levitate Me
   When they first hit the underground scene with this debut album, the Pixies were like an exotic drink that hid its sweetness behind a ferocious bite. The album's production is like a crude explosion: every strum and clang comes down with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. English and Spanish lyrics collide as singer Black Francis (later Frank Black) shouts in a hoarse monotone and Mrs. John Murphy (later Kim Deal of the Breeders) backs him up with throaty wails. Yet somehow the clash of these bruising titans makes for tracks that print indelibly upon your consciousness--once let in. Kurt Cobain is their most famous student. He grafted the Pixies' time-honored craft of the big bang theory onto Nirvana's biggest hits. (You start with a quiet verse and then explode for catharsis in the chorus--evidenced best here with "I've Been Fired.") The Pixies themselves have served quietly, attaining post-punk godfather status not by tooting their own horns, but through the praise of a steady stream of genuflecting admirers whose word of mouth continues to increase the band's deserved critical standing. --Rob O'Connor for amazon.com [...]
2. Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) - Carl Gottlieb, John Landis [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   Contrary to popular rumor, this 1987 collection of comedy skits is not about a group of female employees from Amazon.com on a mission to the lunar surface. It's a series of unrelated spoofs and sketches designed to resemble an aimless night of TV channel-surfing, and the satirical targets include grade-Z science fiction films of the 1950s, sex films of the 1930s, hospital soap operas, and Playboy video centerfolds. There's a charity drive in which legendary bluesman B.B. King pleas for donations to help "Blacks Without Soul," and Ed Begley Jr. thinks he's the son of the Invisible Man, which would be fine if he weren't as visible as everyone else. The various sketches feature an all-star cast including Rosanna Arquette, Griffin Dunne, Carrie Fisher, Michelle Pfeiffer, the late Phil Hartman in an early role, and many others. It's strictly hit-or-miss, and many of the sketches fall flat, especially since the subjects being spoofed (the title sketch is a send-up of the actual 1954 movie Cat Women on the Moon) are funny enough without being satirized. Even though Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide describes most of the sketches as "astonishingly unfunny," this can be a very amusing movie if you're in the mood for a no-brainer with a lot of familiar Hollywood faces. Now a modest little cult film, it's the kind of disposable entertainment that maintains its appeal almost in spite of itself. --Jeff Shannon for amazon.com [...]

1988: a cd, a movie

1. Big Black - Songs About Fucking[1 CD, Amazon US]
   Back in 1991 I was getting ready to graduate from high school. All I had ever listened to was Janes Addiction and I assumed that they were as good as music gets. Then one day a friend of mine got a job at a local record store and brought back an album and said "You have to check out this band." I then half heartedly removed my "Ritual De Lo Habitual" CD out of my car's stereo and inserted "Big Black's - Songs About Fu...". My taste in music and my entire life changed from the moment that CD played. I found a whole new world of music that rarely, if never, touched the corporate radio waves. -- Steve Combs for amazon.com [American mid eighties punk rock from Steve Albini's former band. Originally released in 1988.] [...]
2. Tetsuo: The Ironman (1988) -- Shinya Tsukamoto [1 DVD, Amazon US]
   Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg's work and then twists it into a manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man (Tomoroh Taguchi) awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life... or is it? Haunted by memories of a hit and run (eerily prophetic of Cronenberg's Crash), the man knows this ordeal could be a dream, a fantastic form of divine retribution, or perhaps technological mutation born of guilt and rage. Shot in bracing black and white on a small budget, Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge (resulting in the film's most disturbing scene). The story ultimately takes on an abstract quality enhanced by the grungy look and increasingly wild images as they take to the streets in a mad chase of technological speed demons. This first entry in his self-titled "Regular Sized Monster Series" is followed by a full-color sequel, Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, which trades the muddy experimental atmosphere for a big-budget sheen but can't top the cybershock to the system this movie packs. --Sean Axmaker [...]

1989: a cd, a movie

1. 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) - De La Soul [1 CD, Amazon US]
   1. Intro 2. Magic Number 3. Change In Speak 4. Cool Breeze On The Rocks 5. Can U Keep A Secret 6. Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge) 7. Ghetto Thang 8. Transmitting Live From Mars 9. Eye Know 10. Take It Off 11. Little Bit Of Soap 12. Tread Water 13. Potholes In My Lawn 14. Say No Go 15. Do As De La Does 16. Plug Tunin (Last Chance To Comprehend) 17. De La Orgee 18. Buddy (Ft Jungle Brothers/Q-Tip) 19. Description 20. Me Myself And I 21. This Is A Recording 4 Living In A Fulltime Era (L.I.F.E.) 22. I Can Do Anything (Delacratic) 23. D.A.I.S.Y. Age 24. Plug Tunin (Original 12 Inch Version) 25. Freedom Of Speak (We Got Three Minutes) 26. Strictly Dan Stuckie 27. Jenifa (Taught Me) (12 Inch Version) 28. Skip To My Loop 29. Potholes In My Lawn (12 Inch Version) 30. Me Myself And I (Oblapos Mode) 31. Ain't Hip To Be Labeled A Hippie 32. What's More (From Hell On 1st Ave Ost) 33. Brain Washed Follower 34. Say No Go (New Keys Vocal) 35. Mack Daddy On The Left 36. Double Huey Skit 37. Ghetto Thang (Ghetto Ximer) 38. Eye Know (Know It All Mix) 39. Magic Number (Chad Jackson Hip Hop Version)
   De La's debut represented a new path for hip-hop, a reaction to conventions that had turned into clichés. It was friendly and playful enough to cross over to a pop audience (thanks to Prince Paul's production, which found the funk hiding inside Steely Dan and "Schoolhouse Rock"), but complicated and tough enough to be hugely influential in the hip-hop world. Cryptic but ecstatic, and sometimes sexy (especially the ingenious double-entendre "Buddy"), Trugoy and Posdnuos's lyrics invented a "new style of speak," dense with self-invented slang and metaphors. The hits, including "Say No Go" and "Me Myself And I," are delightful, but the little sketches and sound-experiments between them make the whole disc flow effortlessly. --Douglas Wolk for amazon.com
2. Mr. Hire (1989) - Patrice Leconte [1 Video, Amazon US]
   Monsieur Hire, directed by Patrice LeConte, is a flawless film, winning the French Film Critics' Award for Best Feature of 1990. The story, music, acting are all superb; yet the performance and very presence of Michel Leblanc on the screen are quite extraordinary. This film introduced me to the music of Johannes Brahms [...]

CDs

1. Frankie Knuckles - Collection of Classics [Amazon US]
   Two cds, one disco, one house, the house one is not exceptional, the disco one is. Disco CD (mixed) 1. Convertion - Let's Do It 2 .Cheryl Lynn - You Saved My Day 3. Bumble Bee Unlimited - Love Bug 4. Positive Force - We Got The Funk 5. Tempest Trio - Do You Like The Way That It Feels 6. Sharon Redd - Can You Handle It 7. Billy Frazier & Friends - Billy Who? 8. Candido - Thousand Finder Man 8. Billy Ocean - Nights (Feel Like Getting Down) 9. Paradise - Change 10. George Duke - I Want You For Myself 11.Eumir Deodato - Night Cruiser 12. Nick Straker Band - A Little Bit of Jazz 13. Juggy Murray Jones - Inside America
2. Old School Jams [1 CD, Amazon US]
   1. One Way - Cutie Pie 2. Atomic Dog - Clinton, George 3. Get Down on It - Kool & The Gang 4. Rapper's Delight - Sugarhill Gang 5. Juicy Fruit - Mtume 6. And the Beat Goes On - Whispers 7. Got to Be Real - Lynn, Cheryl 8. Another Man - Mason, Barbara 9. Give up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) - Parliament 10. The Message - Grandmaster Flash & 11. Outstanding - Gap Band 12. I Wonder If I Take You Home [Extended Version] - Lisa Lisa 13. The Breaks - Blow, Kurtis Disc: 2 1. Just a Touch of Love - Slave 2. Weekend - Class Action 3. Boogie Down [Bronx] - Parrish, Man 4. On the Floor [Rock It] - Cook, Tony 5. Touch Me (All Night Long) - Rae, Wish Fonda 6. Is It All over My Face? - Loose Joints 7. No Parking (On the Dance Floor) - Midnight Star 8. (You Are My) All in All - Sims, Joyce 9. Disco Nights [Rock-Freak] - GQ 10. Fantastic Voyage - Lakeside 11. Walking on Sunshine - Rocker's Revenge 12. Encore - Lynn, Cheryl 13. Just an Illusion - Imagination 14. Say I'm Your #1 - Princess 15. I Feel for You [Remix] - Chaka Khan
   Although I do not own this cd myself, it looks like a nice selection of mostly eighties US dance material. My personal favourites include Weekend by Class Action, Loose Joints of course, The Breaks by Kurtis Blow [...]
3. Best of Chicago Trax [2 CD Amazon US] more on Trax records Only 14;99$ for two CDs, don't know about the liner notes nor packaging.
   1. On the House 2. Move Your Body - Marshall Jefferson 3. Baby Wants to Ride - Frankie Knuckles 4. Can't Get Enough - Liz Torres 5. Do It Properly - Adonis 6. You Used to Hold Me - Ralphi Rosario 7. 7 Ways to Jack - Hercules 8. Jackin' Me Around 9. I Like It - Razz 10. Iminxtc 11. Mind Games - Quest 12. Don't Make Me Jack - Paris Grey Disc: 2 1. Your Love - Frankie Knuckles 2. Bring Down the Walls - Robert Owens 3. Can U Feel It - Mr. Fingers 4. Children of the Night - Kevin Irving 5. Jungle - Jungle Wonz 6. Real Thing - Screamin' Rachael 7. No Way Back - Adonis 8. House Nation 9. String Free - Phortune 10. You Used to Hold Me - Ralphi Rosario 11. This Is Acid - Maurice 12. Ride the Rhythm - Kevin Irving 13. Move Your Body - Marshall Jefferson 14. Let's Get Busy

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