Music Memories (Part 1)

For most of the 1980's, more specifically around 1983-1989, I used to religiously listen to the Top 40 charts on a Sunday evening between 5-7pm on BBC Radio 1. As so many kids seemed to have done during those years of discovering music, I'd have the record and pause buttons pressed down on my tape deck, ready to release the pause if a song came on that I loved. When I got a double tape deck around 1986 time I'd spend hours then re-editing the songs back on to tape cutting out all of the chit-chat. (There were no adverts on the BBC!).

The end product of these taping sessions was a collection of cassettes where I had gone to the lengths of making my own cardboard covers out of the reverse side of cereal boxes because you generally couldn't fit enough songs on the inlay card that came with them.

Now, I don't profess to actually still liking some of these songs and I'm shocked that I even bothered taping some of them, but hey I was coming to grips with music and finding the way to my rightful place somewhere between blues and metal. Not that you will be able to tell from this tracklisting.

One of the first collections I made myself was around 1985.

Side 1 of the cassette was as follows:

Body Rock - Maria Vidal - I used to love this song. This has the typical cheesy 80's pop video complete with bad bluescreen overlays and breakdancing. God I am glad I wasn't 10 years older at the time otherwise I might have looked like these guys in the video.

Power of Love - Huey Lewis & The News - I think I used to say that Huey Lewis & The News were one of my favourite bands at the time, but in truth I used to like this song and one other they released around the same time. My brother had a couple of their albums on vinyl, but I can't say any of their other songs have done anything for me since those first two that I heard. We won't mention that awful ballad he did with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Lavender - Marillion - I only taped this because I loved the song Kayleigh which was played quite a lot at the time. I recently downloaded the two tracks via Limewire and they brought quite a few memories back. Lavender was pretty awful though. Dilly-dilly what?!

Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler - This was probably my first foray towards Meat Loaf. The song was written by the genuis Jim Steinman who wrote Bat out of Hell and the more recent sequels. Bonnie had a cute Welsh accent, but didn't have much else going for her.

Angel - Madonna - Who didn't like Madonna? She was a hottie and any young, impressionable young lad would have fallen for her. Her music of course.

Lean On Me - Red Box - I couldn't remember this song or how it went so I looked it up on You Tube and found it (strange that). It's funny how many of the male singers in the 80's look gay when you take a peek back in time.

If I Was - Midge Ure - Errrr. Ok. Moving quickly onto Side 2.

The Heat is On - Glenn Frey - I guess I didn't know who The Eagles were in those days but I loved this song. At the time. I can't stand it now. Go back to your $500 per seat comeback gigs Glenn.

Live is Life - Opus Based on what I remember of this band they came from Austria. This song has fantastic memories despite it's ultimate level of crapness and poor German vocals in English. We went on a school trip to France for a few days (Wissant, near Calais to be precise) and this was a huge hit at the time across the whole of Europe. It played constantly in the jukebox at the hotel. Against better judgement I've included the video clip to this one as well in an attempt to break the world record for the longest blog entry and also for the fact that it had the gorgeously cute Scottish lass Clare Grogan introducing the clip.

Crazy For You - Madonna - Madge when she was good.

I'm On Fire/Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen - I've never been quite sure whether I like Springsteen or not, but I'm On Fire was and still is one of my favourite tracks of his.

In Your Car - The Coolnotes - I have no freakin' idea. I couldn't You Tube this particular song, but that's probably a good thing.

Crazy For You - Madonna - Yes, I did tape it twice. I have no idea why.

Living On Video - Trans X - Sorry I have to include this one as well as a video clip. I loved this at the time. Check out the robotic dancing - all the cool kids used to do that at the school discos. Well it felt cool at the time. The guy sounds like a girl but this must have been once of the last songs of it's genre to have any success.

Money For Nothing - Dire Straits - My Dad was a Knopfler fan and this used to be played through the house all of the time. Maybe one of my first ventures towards guitar-based music perhaps? I can't stand to hear the song these days.

... and lastly ... (and I think perhaps I should not put this in) ....

Cherish - Kool & The Gang - I was obviously a very confused kid.

So that was it. I may pull out some other tapes soon. Even if nobody else reads this and gets anything from it, I enjoyed doing it. That was some serious retro!