The release date of the fifth album by Public Image Ltd. was 27 January. By this point the band had in truth become John Lydon's solo project. In the studio, he was accompanied by several famous musicians like Steve Vai, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Ginger Baker. The end result was quite strong: there were several songs well worth embedding here, such as Rise or Fishing, but I ended up choosing the closing track Ease which you can listen to above. It serves as a great example of Lydon's outstanding development as a musician.
I have nothing in my diary for February, so let's discuss the first of this year's two albums whose release dates are unknown to me. We already discussed Ultravox in 1984; now, they have a new album out called U-vox. For the most part, it is nothing too special but there is one song on it that stands head and shoulders above the others. It is the best song by the group ever, and a very strong contender for Best short track of the year: All in One Day.
U-vox closes the group's golden era and is in fact their last release during the eighties. All in One Day serves as its last track which I suppose partially explains the grandiosity of its goosebump-inducing finale. This masterpiece was intended to close the entire album in a big way - and, as it happened, it also closed their recording career for a long time. The next Ultravox album wouldn't be out until 1993.
On 7 March, the action fantasy film Highlander premiered in the US. There were some truly enjoyable songs on its soundtrack, composed and performed by Queen. For me, the standouts were the film's opening track Princes of the Universe and particularly the beautiful Who Wants to Live Forever? I am not aware if there was a soundtrack available at the time but this was the first publication of these songs in any case, as a part of the film where they worked extremely well. I will not embed anything here but please do check these out if you feel so inclined.
Only ten days later, on 17 March, synth pop was finally transformed into a genuine art form when Depeche Mode released their first masterpiece Black Celebration, their fifth studio album overall. An impeccable recording without a single weak track, it immediately became a strong contender for the title of Album of the year. I have embedded my number one favorite song Stripped above, but there are plenty of other masterworks there as well, such as the other two single releases A Question of Lust and A Question of Time, or the harrowing closing track New Dress.
Stripped is an exceptionally striking example of a piece of music designed like a mathematical formula. Pay attention how each of the sound effects and instruments are turned on in a specific order at the beginning of the track, and are then later turned off in reverse order at the end. Stripped ends as it began, as if it could be played from end to beginning as well as beginning to end. Sound effects evoke the later birth of industrial music genre, although noisy aggression is replaced here with a catchy downbeat melody.
In April, it was time for French synthesizer wizard Jean-Michel Jarre to release his follow-up to 1984's Zoolook. His new album was called Rendez-vous. It seemed that Jarre was no longer quite as creative as he had been in the seventies, but even this new album did contain some highlights. Of the six instrumental parts, the first two are excellent and the last one also quite good, bringing back memories from the atmospheric Equinoxe parts 2 to 4 (1978).
Style-wise, Rendez-vous was a return to the keyboard driven compositions of Jarre's first three albums. Gone were the world music influences, samples and short vocal passages of Zoolook, which was perhaps just as well; in spite of Ethnicolor's greatness, they mostly hadn't worked too well on that album. Jarre would go on to publish a couple of more albums with individual tracks worth mentioning here, but later in the nineties his output became increasingly erratic and we will be following it less closely.
Two days before my 23rd birthday, on 19 May, another strong contender for Album of the year title came out. Peter Gabriel had finally given up on releasing only self titled recordings and called his fifth one So (in the US, this had happened one album earlier: over there, Gabriel's fourth was called Security). It continued Gabriel's tendency to succeed admirably on his odd-numbered albums and noticeably less so on his even-numbered ones. This trend would continue on his sixth album.
So is unquestionably a masterpiece, but a very different one from Gabriel's previous releases. It sounded like the former Genesis singer had taken a much more commercial approach with his material than before. The single hit Sledgehammer was a danceable pop song and Big Time, embedded above, displayed a similar sense of humor to it in its lyrics, overall tone and even comically animated music video. There were also more serious songs in the collection, none of them weak. The only track I skipped often was the duet with Kate Bush called Don't Give Up which became a bit of a bore over time.
Before jumping all the way to the end of June, let's discuss the year's other album whose exact release date is unknown to me. Let's just say that some time in 1986, The Enid released Salome, which is my favorite album in their output. I had been following them since the late seventies, but before now, their way of playing classical music with modern instruments had never really piqued my interest. Salome, on the other hand, is a stunning album that saw the group adapt a much more contemporary style.
The opening track O Salome, embedded above, is a good example of what the Enid sounded like at this point in their career. It is not the best track on the album; it is just the only one I could find in YouTube. Tracks 3 and 4, called The Change and The Jack respectively, are the ones that really take this work of art to new heights and successfully combine classical influences with modern art rock. Salome is an album of great beauty performed by skilled musicians and gets a strong recommendation from me.
Then it was summer, and on 30 June one of the greatest pop songs ever was released on a new album by Madonna. The album was called True Blue and the song is of course Live to Tell. Prior to this, I had considered Madonna only a meaningless pop idol, not exceptional in any way. This is something that I now had to swiftly reconsider. Even on this greatest decade of pop, there weren't many other songs that matched the greatness of the track embedded above.
This year, I had a summer job at the university where I was studying. In the summer evenings, I listened. In awe.
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