I have no idea when in 1982 Waving Not Drowning really came out, but let's use it as a placeholder for January since nothing else of any interest was released then. Hine had stunned audiences with previous year's Immunity, so it came as no surprise that this new release wasn't capable of achieving the same greatness - but by no means was it a failure either. And the strongest song of all was this last song on it.
These days, when pop music is made only for mindless masses, it seems incredible that there once was a time when songs like One Man's Poison were recorded and made public at all. Hine has a weighty message about the nature of humanity, cynical and pessimistic as it is. He leaves the album listener with those thoughts in mind, since One Man's Poison is its last track. Talk about downbeat endings. One of the absolute best songs of the year that I initially thought should be assigned a blog entry of its own. But there is little point in me discussing the merits of the song: just listen to it, the lyrics in particular, and draw you own conclusions.
Nothing of any interest was released in February either. This year surely was a slow starter. So let's check out another release whose exact release date is unknown to me, and use it as a placeholder for February. Simple Man was Klaus Nomi's second album and was quite similar to its predecessor. On the whole, I found a little more enjoyment on it, the highlight being After the Fall, embedded above. In addition to it, the title track is also great. Nomi was one of the genuinely original artists of the era, who sadly didn't have much longer to live.
Even the first half of March was still devoid of significant releases. Then, two interesting albums were released on consecutive days. First out was Asia, the self titled debut album of what was initially thought of as a prog rock supergroup Asia, on 18 March. Two members of Yes, one former member of King Crimson and one of Emerson Lake & Palmer - what else could you expect but challenging progressive rock of highest caliber?
Well, that actually wasn't what you got. Nearly all of Asia's output turned out to be banal AOR, starting already with next year's second album Alpha. Even one half of this debut is quite worthless. But the other half consists of four well written songs that actually have some prog influences. The strongest one of them, called Wildest Dreams actually has a point. Please check out the video above, then also listen to the other three worthwhile songs: Sole Survivor, Without You and Cutting it Fine. These four songs both open and close Asia's golden era, and the group won't be mentioned again.
The following day was 19 March and that was when the seventies multi instrumentalist favorite Mike Oldfield began his short lived comeback with a new album called Five Miles Out. Following Incantations, he had released two disappointing studio albums that we mercifully skipped at the time. This new release marked a slightly surprising return to form, although the eighties version of Oldfield sounded quite different from the seventies version. Songs were much shorter, and many of them were sung by Maggie Reilly.
I was particularly impressed by the album's opening track, the well over 20-minute instrumental Taurus II, which I suppose was some kind of a thematic sequel to the opening 10-minute instrumental Taurus on Oldfield's previous album QE2. It is one of only two of his album side long compositions made in the eighties that fit the mould of his seventies output and were actually quite good. Oldfield's next album, out in 1983, would also open with an instrumental that fills the entire A side and is even better, so we will definitely be discussing it then.
Precisely one month later, on 19 April the American singer and songwriter Laurie Anderson debuted with Big Science that was quite a mixed bag when it came to the successful realization of ideas, but even at its worst it was definitely original and interesting. Initially, it was the opening track From the Air that completely blew me away, but over time I have come to admit that the true standout on the album is really the one that opens its B side: O Superman (For Massenet).
As you can see from the video above, this performance has been included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which seems understandable. Back in the eighties, this song already felt like a genuine work of art. Anderson was little known outside artistic circles to begin with, but this song's success on the UK single charts - it reached number two - made her well known also among a wider circle of music fans. On her next album there would be an even bigger favorite of mine; we'll return to it when discussing the output of 1984.
6 May, and it was finally time for Camel to close their golden era with their last really good album. Following last year's Nude, anything was bound to disappoint, yet the group made a heroic attempt not to. The Single Factor is a strong collection of well made, melody driven pop / rock songs. There is no prog here, but you won't really miss it because great songs just keep on coming. There is even an instrumental called Selva, obviously a remake of sorts of Elke from Rain Dances (1977) - one that manages to improve on the original!
There is no shortage of good songs too choose from for embedding. Above, you can listen to the absolutely beautiful pop song Today's Goodbye, because I couldn't find my first choice Manic in YouTube at all. They are perhaps the two best songs on the album, but there is really nothing weak on it. Be sure to also check out Heroes, the already mentioned Selva, and the stunningly beautiful epilogue End Peace that closes both this album and Camel's best times. Their next albums were to be significantly weaker.
Next, let's sidestep prog completely and mention one album that was as pure pop as possible, yet it also contained plenty of sheer brilliance. We already discussed Roxy Music back when they released their first album. In May 1982, they released already their eighth and final studio album called Avalon, which became quite popular also in Finland and received a lot of radio play. The most classic tracks on it were the endlessly cool title track and the minor masterpiece that opens it and has been embedded below.
We have now reached the end of May 1982 - an important point in my life. At this point, I graduated. Twelve years of school were now behind me. As I entered June, I listened to the new album releases as a free man, so to speak. At 19 years, I had also been an adult for over a year. Since the last week of April, I had already been working the most pleasant summer job I ever had, and now that school was officially behind me, I listened to new music with more optimism than before. At the beginning of September, it would be time to enroll into university, but for now, I was free of any and all worries.
There were three album releases during June that were worth noting. First up is the American group Kansas, whose Vinyl Confessions is most likely not considered one of their best but which I liked anyway. I particularly enjoyed the grandiose feel of Crossfire: while its religious lyrics always sounded more than just a little silly, the music was simply wonderful. Please check it out below.
Only a short while ago in this very same blog entry, I mentioned that the seventies progressive rock favorite Camel managed to last until 1982 before their golden era ended. For many other seventies prog giants like Pink Floyd, Yes and King Crimson, it ended already during that decade. The latter two were good examples in that they had already released new albums in the eighties, yet they haven't been discussed here. This is because Drama (1980) and Discipline (1981) weren't particularly good albums.
On the whole, King Crimson's next album Beat, out on 18 June, was even weaker than its predecessor, but there was one track on it that caught my attention. And not in a good way: to begin with, I absolutely loathed the closing track of the album, an instrumental composition called Requiem. I thought it was mostly just plain noise with no musical value. However, upon repeated listenings, I came to appreciate it and eventually came to realize that it was in fact the only track on Beat that was worth anything.
If the performance embedded above sounds like mindless noise, please bear with me. When you listen to it several times, you begin to notice a pattern. The noise is not random: it has a design. Upon more listenings, it begins to seem like a mathematical formula had been transformed into a sonic experience. There is definite underlying greatness under all that noise. By far the best thing that King Crimson recorded during the eighties, Requiem remains an endless enigma: explicable yet escaping precise definitions. Progressive rock at its best. The genre was not dead after all, which came to me as a relief at the time.
One final June release is left to be mentioned. Eye in the Sky is the pinnacle of The Alan Parsons Project's career. I already hinted at it back when briefly discussing The Turn of a Friendly Card. Once again, I had a new album in my hands that had virtually no weak tracks. Of all the brilliant songs on the album, the most moving is the closing track Old and Wise which I will embed below. At age nineteen, I had of course no idea what it is like to be old and wise but these days, I believe I already have a vague understanding.
