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Solve For "X" (...iow, if I like these, what else will I like?)

Bob_Ross

Bob_Ross

Gold Supporting Member
Dec 29, 2012
14,403
29,564
#1
I posted this query on another forum over 10 years ago (!) and never got a response. I just stumbled over that old post, and so wondered if maybe someone on TB would have a suggestion?
========

Four albums, presumably with something in common:

- Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair
- Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
- Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick
- ?

What should #4 on that list be?

========
(Question was based on my inexplicable interest in techno-pop, and particularly my contention that much of the techno-pop music from the 1980s was far more sophisticated than it might appear on the surface.

Also, you won't get any points for suggesting "Peter Gabriel" he's already well-represented in my music collection!)
 
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#4
Bob_Ross said:
I posted this query on another forum over 10 years ago (!) and never got a response. I just stumbled over that old post, and so wondered if maybe someone on TB would have a suggestion?
========

Four albums, presumably with something in common:

- Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair
- Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
- Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick
- ?

What should #4 on that list be?

========
(Question was based on my inexplicable interest in techno-pop, and particularly my contention that much of the techno-pop music from the 1980s was far more sophisticated than it might appear on the surface.

Also, you won't get any points for suggesting "Peter Gabriel" he's already well-represented in my music collection!)
Click to expand...

Hot Rats said:
David Bowie, Let's Dance?
Click to expand...
There, you finally got your answer. Happy, now? :D
 
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#6
Bob_Ross said:
I posted this query on another forum over 10 years ago (!) and never got a response. I just stumbled over that old post, and so wondered if maybe someone on TB would have a suggestion?
========

Four albums, presumably with something in common:

- Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair
- Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
- Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick
- ?

What should #4 on that list be?

========
(Question was based on my inexplicable interest in techno-pop, and particularly my contention that much of the techno-pop music from the 1980s was far more sophisticated than it might appear on the surface.

Also, you won't get any points for suggesting "Peter Gabriel" he's already well-represented in my music collection!)
Click to expand...
I wouldn't call Jellyfish technopop, they were more of a newer strain of powerpop that got washed away in the grunge Tsunami.
I would suggest, at the top of the decade, Ultravox's Vienna, Japan's Tin Drum, then moving on, David Sylvian(ex-Japan singer), Brilliant Trees, very moody and artsy, Shriekback's Oil And Gold, Simple Minds, New Gold Dream. I could do this all day, but just sample what I've mentioned so far to see if I'm on the right track; none of this stuff is "hits radio", even for a station like KROQ back then, more like college programming.
 
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#7
^^^ Yeah, I knew Japan had to figure into the equation.
Good call on Shriekback (although unless something changed as they evolved, their vocals might be a bit too, er, unrefined to fully solve for this equation.)
 
#8
Michedelic said:
I wouldn't call Jellyfish technopop, they were more of a newer strain of powerpop that got washed away in the grunge Tsunami.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the thing that puts Jellyfish (and especially their 2nd album) on the list is the "far more sophisticated than it might appear on the surface" aspect. I know a lot of folks who think of that album as bog-stock Jon Brion fodder: College radio fare, bedroom songwriting enhanced with a liberal smear of exotic instruments and then pretending to adhere to a dumbed down almost lo-fi gestalt. But to my ears that album is pure Beach Boys' Pet Sounds meets Queen's Night At The Opera. iow, it's practically prog-rock.
 
#11
Bob_Ross said:
Yeah, the thing that puts Jellyfish (and especially their 2nd album) on the list is the "far more sophisticated than it might appear on the surface" aspect. I know a lot of folks who think of that album as bog-stock Jon Brion fodder: College radio fare, bedroom songwriting enhanced with a liberal smear of exotic instruments and then pretending to adhere to a dumbed down almost lo-fi gestalt. But to my ears that album is pure Beach Boys' Pet Sounds meets Queen's Night At The Opera. iow, it's practically prog-rock.
Click to expand...
Hey now, I know Jon Brion, the guy is brilliant. The Grays, the band he had with ex-JF Jason Faulkner, had its moments but sufferered from too many cooks in the kitchen-itis. For years he did shows at an LA cabaret/listening room, Largo, where no one knew what he was going to play, or who would show up, but it was always magical. I once watched he and Lone Justice's Maria McKee perform almost the entirety of Ziggy Stardust, just off the top of their heads(afterwards, my girlfriend and I gave her a ride home). Insane. He had a hard-to-find solo album, Meaningless, but it's all on Youtube.
OK, enough of the good old days…while Depeche Mode and Human League would be too much of a Capt. Obvious suggestion, Vince Clarke split DM after the first album to do two projects, Yaz and Erasure. That maybe the pop you're looking for. Upstairs At Eric's yielded a bunch a key tracks; I mean, "Don't Go"? Shut the front door, that song was huge. Whatever Erasure album has "Oh, L'mour", get that. Then the two guys who left HL(which early on was pretty bleak stuff)started Heaven 17; that first album, Penthouse and Pavement, was ace, with "We Live So Fast".
 
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#17
Wood and Wire said:
Although confusingly, back here in the U.K. they were called Yazoo.

Yazz was a solo act, about 4 or 5 years later, famous for "The only way is up".
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The story on that, IIRC, is that there was a reissue blues label, based on the old original label from the 1920's. They owned the rights to the name in the US, and threatened legal action, hence the name modification, similar to the situation with the 'English' Beat(there was an LA powerpop band called The Beat first), and the Charletans 'UK'(I can't imagine what the statute of limitations might have been, or if the name was registered, but there was a Charletans band who was the first of the SanFrancisco hippie outfits). I vaguely remember Yazz, I don't think she had much of a career in the US, but I tended to tune out that Brit dance pop stuff, like Lisa Stansfield, Cathy Dennis, and the like. I was in record wholesale/retail at the time, and had to keep track of a lot of stuff I didn't care for.
 
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#20
Michedelic said:
The story on that, IIRC, is that there was a reissue blues label, based on the old original label from the 1920's. They owned the rights to the name in the US, and threatened legal action, hence the name modification, similar to the situation with the 'English' Beat(there was an LA powerpop band called The Beat first), and the Charletans 'UK'(I can't imagine what the statute of limitations might have been, or if the name was registered, but there was a Charletans band who was the first of the SanFrancisco hippie outfits). I vaguely remember Yazz, I don't think she had much of a career in the US, but I tended to tune out that Brit dance pop stuff, like Lisa Stansfield, Cathy Dennis, and the like. I was in record wholesale/retail at the time, and had to keep track of a lot of stuff I didn't care for.
Click to expand...


Yeah, for quite a while The Verve were simply called Verve, then due to legal wranglings with a U.S. label, were forced to add "The".

Funny, I wouldn't lump Yazz in with Lisa Stanfield (who was more 80's Soul / R&B, apart from the stuff with Coldcut), or Cathy Dennis (who was straight up 90's pop, before she stopped performing, and became a highly successful song writer for other pop acts).

I guess because of the prevalence of the TB303 squelching it's way throughout "the only way is up", I associate Yazz with Acid House, and The Second Summer of Love (although as I recall, the album "Wanted" mixed up other genres too).
 

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