Rick Springfield - Don’t Talk To Strangers

[1982]

Here's a forgotten bit of gold that was at the intersection of soft-rock, teeny bop and yacht rock! It's our Broady-boy* Ricky and his lost classic Don't Talk To Strangers. 

I'd Really Love to See You Tonight · England Dan & John Ford Coley

[1976]

Getting more into the yacht-y end of the soft rock jamz. And boy oh boy they wrote an excellent chorus here, one of the great pop songs about laundry.

"I'm not talkin bout the linen"

It's the real name of the song innit, as stated by the song's true fans, AM radio enthusiasts and Samuel L Jackson in The Long Kiss Goodnight. Don't let Geena Davis tell you otherwise. 

There's some incredible 3D production shit goin on here... yeas.

Steve Perry - Oh Sherrie

[1984]

Hits Huge 1984: Australians of a certain age are gonna remember that various artist hits compilation and this tune was the best thing on it. I don't think Journey were all that popular here, having no top 40 hits (Don't Stop Believin' peaked at #100) but Steve Perry's debut solo single was a top 5 smash. This song is just as excellent as the first time I heard it back in high school when I was in year 7. 

The synth-y intro, the voice, the emotions, all of those emotions in that fabulous voice, the dramatic doomed from the start romance, the self-hatred, the sexual confidence, the ace succinct guitar licks and a crafty coda outro all add up to soft-rock anthem gold.

"You'd be better off alone

If I'm not who you thought I'd be

But you know that there's a fever
That you'll never find nowhere else"

This depiction of a doomed passionate tryst captures a frisson that is incredibly enticing stuff, particularly for young players.  

Eddie Money - Take Me Home Tonight/Be My Baby

[1985]

Mid 80s mash up goodness. 

This is so much more goodness than I remember. I don't recall this video at all. It's hitting the synapse jackpot though: The 80s anthemic production, the oriental synths, the daggy dad dancing, those sunnies, that, I dunno what it is, some kinda legendary fancy tracksuit top, then wait for it he pulls out and pretends to play a mini saxophone. Then that break where it's just guitar and vocals and Ronnie fucking Spector. 

Eddie and Ronnie for the win.

Also this does not get the credit it deserves. It's at least a year prior to Walk This Way so... as I said Eddie and Ronnie for the win BABY!

REO Speedwagon - Take It On the Run

[1980]

Unbelievably this wasn't a number one hit (#30) and doesn't ever feature on golden oldies radio here in Australia. It might just be the best thing they ever did though. A shonky love-life scenario entwined in large melodies in peak radio rock anthem sung by crafty songsmiths who were so uncool it was heroic! 

The  teen drama spirit of girl groups, Phil Spector and Love Me Do Beatles lived on here.

Sunset Grill · Don Henley

[1985]

I don't recall hearing this in the 80s. I mean I had the 7" single of Boys Of Summer but I'm guessing this tune wasn't a hit here in Australia (quick search reveals it only got to #98 on the charts). Anyway this is something else innit. Fretless bass, brass smothered in thick layers of synthesisers and dodgy lyrics about watching prostitutes while drinking beer. Whether it's good or bad I cannot say... or just maybe this sprawling epic is awesome.

Incredible - Future

[2017]

I really haven't given rap a crack or given a crap about rap since 2018 a year after Future's HNDRXX was issued. In 2018 albums by Migos, Young Thug and Future were in my year end list and then my love of Atlanta trap and whatever followed took a dive and waned to zero interest. After 5 or 6 years of being fully immersed in the innovative delirium of Atlanta trap and its orbiting scenes I just thought well if Thugger and Future ain't cutting it any longer what's the point? 

Future had such a great run from 2013's Monster followed by Beast Mode, 56 Nights, DS2, What A Time To Be Alive and ending with 2016's Purple Reign. He was on such a roll I thought it was never gonna end indeed this purple patch was a purple reign. However in 2016 he released the disappointing Evol then the totally bloated Project ET. Then in 2017 he dropped the double wammy of HNDRXX & Future in the same week which was just way way too much and didn't really signal the full comeback we were all hoping for. Those two solo albums should have just been condensed into the one succinct banger-fied LP with all the dross chucked in the bin.  

Anyway for some reason in the middle of the night I had the urge to listen Future's 2017 albums HNDRXX and Future again. I can honestly say I was surprised. Many of the tunes from HNDRXX in particular were exceptional and not the ho-hum death of Atlanta trap I thought they had signalled. I mean four or five tunes less and it might have been an all-timer. The vibe unexpectedly isn't anywhere near as nihilistic as the drug addled death wish that was DS2, in fact it feels rather sparkly and upbeat in comparison. The slurred wobbly meat glitch vocal science seems to be more restrained than usual or perhaps it's just been expertly refined due to further mastering of his techniques of fusing his flesh and bone vocals with the tech gimmix of the time.  

Incredible is incredible, as are the two other tracks on the LP produced by Dre Moon. I listened to this straight after listening to a mixtape of 80s rock anthems and it totally stood up in anthemic anthem-ness next to those anthems. He's reaching the same ecstatic heights here that he achieved on the 2012 hands in the air classic Turn Out The Lights.  

Dre Moon's beats here are like a sunshine pop/psych-rock opus crossed with the usual seedy luxuriance and dilapidated RnB all complimenting the low-key euphoria of Future's slurred strangely emotional delivery. The funny thing is using an array voice altering fx usually alien-izes and trivialises an artist ultimately making them a novelty but Future's performances seem to gain gravitas and pathos. You have to think that he and his producers were so advanced in the sophistication of this human/tech merger that it placed them (along with Migos and Thugger) light years ahead of everyone else. 

That eerie ambient synth line here is straight out of early 90s British ambient house. It's a love song innit. Some spellbound space-y opulence on display here. 

The Severed Arm/Messiah Of Evil - Phillan Bishop

[1972]

This avant-garde composer has just three scores to his name and what glorious works they were in the pre-Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter era of electronic scores. Who even knows if these were existing pieces or specifically arranged for these three films? I'm sure he was probably an academic connected to a university that probably had an electronic/computer music research centre but I can't be sure because I can find zero primary sources of  information on the guy. Phillan Bishop is so mysterious I'm inclined to think he never even existed except as a pseudonym. Having said that he was one of the essential pioneers in the first half of the 70s with regard to the development of synth and electronic film scoring.

The only biographical info I can find is that Bishop was born 1948 and died 1991 at 43 years of age and was the nephew of Jazz pianist Hampton Hawes. That's it!

The Severed Arm's disconcerting reverberations, clanky bloops, unsettling rudimentary synthetical signals, eerie tones, clangorous drones and archaic unearthly textures are classic mid 20th century gestures from the electro-acoustic world.

It's unbelievable that Creel Pones have never done some kind of archival release of Bishop's delightfully deranged scores.

[1973]

Youtube channel Fish Man on youtube manages to extract 4 minutes and 13 seconds of the unsettling Messiah of Evil score here in this clip. Bishop definitely achieved peak eeriness for this eerie of the eeriest movies as heard in the first three and a half eerie minutes here then in the last forty five seconds we get those absurdly heavy clanks, a masterpiece of horror sound design as is the apprehensive whirling synthetic delirium of the finale. It all perfectly matches the surreal horror of the antics in the sea-side town of Point Dune.  

 

[1975]

A swirling vortex of ominous electronics, clanks, scrapes and buzzing bleeps put through an echo chamber, discordant gothic piano and harmonica reverb-ed to oblivion, sinister chirps, off kilter synthetic bursts of sound, echoing atmospheres of malignancy and ending with spooky toy-town music box shenanigans amongst an array of blustery gusts. 

Phillan Bishop was a sublime sorcerer of scary synthetic sound: A gift to these horror film makers.    

Don't Go in the Woods Alone - H. Kingsley Thurber

[1980]

More unreleased pioneering electronic soundtracking. It's all about the first minute here. Two awesome layers of synth. That thick dark threatening synth bass drone paired with the modulations of the meandering melancholic glimmering melody over the top. Intermingled between the synths there's also something that sounds like a treated stringed instrument, maybe a banjo, guitar or a Jew's harp, giving it a further menacing vibe. Later in this 14 minute snippet of soundtrack from 1980 we get all sorts of uncanny, atonal jump scare fx and drums of impending doom. This is golden ultra gloomy synthetic scoring... almost makes me wanna check out this terrible movie again...  

Fiend ost - Paul Woznicki

[1980]

Glorious improvised thick synth textures with dark apprehensive tones. Synthesizer as multi layered drone generator for vibe setting although there's an occasional melodic piano interlude. This is peak synthetic film scoring. Composed for low budget regional horror auteur Don Dohler of Night Beast notoriety. 

*Just noticed that this is no longer unreleased. An LP of the Fiend score was recently released by the ace cult soundtrack label Mystic Vault.