Tag Archives: Decades 1980

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Song of the Day #2,951: ‘Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)’ – Squeeze

squeeze_argybargySo many of the albums I write about in these year-by-year series elicit in me the same response: I really need to listen to this one. Such is the case yet again with today’s selection, Squeeze’s third album, Argybargy.

Considering how much I love Squeeze’s 1981 classic East Side Story, along with the greatest hits collection I wore out in college, it’s a mystery why I haven’t listened to any of the dozen or so other albums they’ve released. Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford are one of the great pop songwriting duos, a pair dubbed the next Lennon and McCartney by some of their English countrymen.

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Song of the Day #2,950: ‘She’s So Cold’ – The Rolling Stones

rolling_stones_emotiional_rescueThe Rolling Stones essential period lasted from the mid 60s to the early 70s, when they ran off more than a dozen albums that are sexy, cerebral and alive. They faded after that, as all great music acts do, and have churned out solid if unspectacular work ever since.

But for a brief period in the late 70s and early 80s, they had a bit of a resurgence. 1978’s Some Girls and 1981’s Tattoo You are the standouts, but nestled between them, 1980’s Emotional Rescue is a serviceable collection of odds and ends.

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Song of the Day #2,949: ‘Hungry Heart’ – Bruce Springsteen

springsteen_riverI wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s The River nearly five years ago finished my blog post by stating “I’ve read enough about The River to know that I have to hear it in full.”

That never happened, and I sit here now writing about this celebrated 1980 album with the same thought running through my head. The River was Springsteen’s fifth album, sandwiched between Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska. It marries the somberness of those records with a pop sensibility that would show up again four years later on Born in the USA.

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Song of the Day #2,948: ‘Just Keep Walking’ – INXS

inxsLike yesterday’s SOTD, today’s track comes from the 1980 debut album of a popular rock band with a brash, charismatic lead singer. Only these lads come to us all the way from Australia.

INXS’ self-titled debut doesn’t sound at all like the music that would make them famous. Five years before Listen Like Thieves and seven years before Kick, they were searching for an identity, mixing up New Wave and post-punk into an unremarkable stew.

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