I’ve spent the day taking in the new Depeche Mode album Memento Mori, featuring the previously released songs Ghosts Again (great) and The World Is My Cosmos (less so, though it works better in the context of the album).
Look, it’s not a classic DM album per se, but it’s comfortably one of the better post-Alan Wilder albums. I’d rank it behind only Ultra and certainly superior to anything they’ve released since then. It takes a while to get its hooks in, but repeated plays do bear fruit (where the last 3 or 4 albums didn’t…)
I’m not sure just how much of DM these days is them, and how much is the producer/s, but I won’t spend too much time worrying about that. The bottom line is, it seems to be a decent enough listen.
Jangle-pop from the same space as The Hummingbirds, Velvet Crush, early Bangles, early REM, Smithereens etc. Have only recently discovered that what I had thought was a Hollowmen (Melbourne late 80’s-early 90’s band with Billy Baxter on vocals) original was in fact a cover from 1987…
If that interest stretches to Crowded House then you may want to check out next Tuesday’s episode of Mastermind on SBS. I’ll be on there with Crowded House as my specialist subject!
Good luck!! I’ll tune in…
As a bit of light training for you:
1- What was CH’s original name?
2- Who was the original 4th member that left before they changed their name to CH?
3- What other notable Aussie band was that 4th member in previously?
4- Producer Mitch Froom has been synonymous with CH. Which singer was he once married to?
5- What on earth led CH to believe that Chocolate Cake was the obvious 1st single from Woodface?
Ok, so I’ve been compiling a playlist of 80’s Antipodean singles (yes I know Short Memory wasn’t a single, yes I know a couple of them actually stretch into the 90’s…)
These are songs which are either great, are signposts in my youth (I can just about pinpoint where/when I first heard them) or are there for… uh… reasons. Some of them are acts where these are the only songs of theirs I like. A lot of them are not necessarily even my favourite song by the artist in question. All of them mean something in some way (good or bad) to me.
Can you make a case for any act/song I’ve overlooked?
Beargarden - The Finer Things
Machinations - Pressure Sway
Venetians - Shine A Light
INXS - To Look At You
Pseudo Echo - Listening
Real Life - Send Me An Angel
Icehouse - Love in Motion
David James Halloway - No Word From China
Mi-Sex - Falling in and Out
MEO245 - Other Places
The Expression - Small Brave Land
James Freud - Modern Girl
Dragon - Rain
Models - God Bless America
SPK - Metal Dance
Pel Mel - No Word From China
Do-Re-Mi - Warnings Moving Clockwise
The Church - When You Were Mine
Ups & Downs - Lit By The Fuse
Boom Crash Opera - Great Wall
Go-Betweens - Streets Of Your Town
Sunnyboys - Happy Man
Goanna - Razor’s Edge
Men At Work - It’s A Mistake
Beargarden - Drink Drink Drink
I’m Talking - Holy Word
INXS - Original Sin
Matt Moffitt - Miss This Tonight
Venetians - Chinese I’s
Max Q - Monday Night By Satellite
Weddings Parties Anything - Shotgun Wedding
Angels - No Secrets
Australian Crawl - Errol
Hoodoo Gurus - Good Times
Matt Finish - Mancini Shuffle
The Numbers - Five Letter Word
Divinyls - Good Die Young
Big Pig - Breakaway
Crash Politics - A Taste Of Things To Come
Falling Joys - Lock It
God - My Pal
Grant McLennan - Easy Come Easy Go
Little Heroes - One Perfect Day
The Reels - Quasimodo’s Dream
The Triffids - Wide Open Road
The Saints - Ghost Ships
Jump Incorporated - Sex And Fame
Huxton Creepers - My Cherie Amour
The Stems - At First Sight
The Pony - I Lied
Ratcat - Don’t Go Now
Hummingbirds - Blush
Midnight Oil - Short Memory
The Promise - Walking With A Weight
Mental As Anything - Berserk Warriors
Hunters & Collectors - Talking To A Stranger
Mi-Sex - Blue Day
Split Enz - I Walk Away
Schnell Fenster - Love-Hate Relationship
Crowded House - I Feel Possessed
Ratcat - That Ain’t Bad
Lime Spiders - Slave Girl
Sunnyboys - Alone With You
Sports - How Come
Vitabeats - Boombox
(And I can only assume that the track from The Expression is there for one of those “reasons” you mention as it’s not a patch on the majority of stuff from their self titled album.)
Again, not sure what qualifies because that’s a Very broad list (and you did say for good or ill), but a few acts/songs that immediately come to mind are.
Swanee, Wa Wa Nee, Runners-Edwards, Renee Geyer, Moving Pictures, Uncanny X-Men…
Electric Pandas - Big Girls…
Edit: if you want me to go silly then I can throw in stuff like Roxus, Indecent Obsession, Chantoozies, Jason and the Scorchers, Cattletruck…
None of them really spoke to me in any way. Renee’s best stuff was in the 70’s, and I really disliked Wa Wa Nee and Uncanny X-Men immensely. Electric Pandas had one song I quite liked, but it wasn’t that one.