Welcome! Log In Create A New Profile

Advanced

When non-punks went punk...

Message List New Topic Print View
MrFab
When non-punks went punk...
August 03, 2005 08:01PM
It's the 80s. Time to lose the denim and facial hair, get synthesizers, and try and stay on top:

Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
Neil Young "Trans" ("We R In Control" RULES)
Peter Gabriel and, to a lesser extent, Phil Collins
Grace Jones
Robert Palmer

A friend of mine had the Village People's New Romantic album "Renaissance" and a Shaun Cassidy album with him looking all angst-ridden 'n' shit on the cover - he sings the Talking Heads' "The Book I Read" - but I never actually heard those two.

Any others?



Post Edited (05-05-11 17:23)
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 03, 2005 09:15PM
The Shaun Cassidy WASP album was definitely interesting. I ended up selling it for $30 on ebay to some girl in South Dakota. I still expect her to turn up on my doorstep someday and beat me to death with it.

Robert Palmer's CLUES had three truly amazing songs - "Looking for Clues," "Johnny and Mary," and "Woke Up Laughing." Great, great stuff. And I've always loved the fact that Palmer is a percussionist on Talking Heads' REMAIN IN LIGHT.

More train hoppers:

Styx - "Mr. Roboto"/Kilroy was Here

Toto - "Stranger in Town", which was such a blatant rip off of Ultravox's The Voice that Uvox should've sued; Toto also lifted the cover concept for XTC's Drums & Wires for one of their albums

Moody Blues - the Long Distance Traveler album (another Ultravox rip) and whatever album had "Your Wildest Dream" on it - which is a song I should've listed on the Don't Tell Anybody thread, because I love it to an embarassing extent.

Rush tried awfully hard to turn into the Police, especially on "New World Man"

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

Rod Stewart - the Tonight I'm Yours album - still more Ultra-faux!!!

Genesis - Abacab ("Keep It Dark" actually kicks pretty serious butt)

Pat Benatar tried to become Lene Lovich on Get Nervous, which was a weird-ass thing for anybody to try to do

Was the Planet P Project really Alan Parsons trying to go new wave? I don't remember

I don't really see Peter Gabriel as a trend-jumper - I always saw his stuff as just actual artistic progression from where he'd been before. Same way with Marianne Faithfull & Kate Bush, both people who could conceivably be included here. But all that may mean is just that I really like those three people.



Post Edited (08-03-05 23:33)
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 02, 2016 05:04PM
It's interesting to go back to the beginning of this thread and notice how impressed I was that I'd sold Shaun Cassidy's Wasp for a whopping $30 back in 2005. I wonder how much that sucker would bring these days, in the midst of the vinyl revival where people are routinely shelling out that much for such masterworks as the Footloose soundtrack?
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 03, 2016 08:47AM
Quote

Grace Jones had facial hair?

In her case, it was after she went New Wave. The androgynous look, dontcha know.
Reply Quote
carmen
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 03, 2005 10:17PM
joan armatrading - walk under ladders
Reply Quote
scratchie
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 07:36AM
None of this is really "punk" -- more new-wave synth-pop -- but don't forget Jimmy Page in The Firm and Robert Plant's synth-heavy solo albums in the 80s. There was a point when it seemed like every artist from the 60s or 70s had to lay on the synths with a trowel if they wanted to get on MTV or the radio.

You might even put King Crimson in this category (for 'Elephant Talk', etc) but I like to think of that more as artistic progression, as someone else commented on Peter Gabriel.
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 11:11AM
I'd say an artistic progression heavily influenced by punk. Robert Fripp's League of Gentlemen, which provided the template for the new Crimson, played stripped down, very energetic 3 minute guitar rock songs (David Byrne even guested!). Quite a contrast to the prior sprawling prog epics. Not to mention the fashion makeover, to short hair and sharp suits. And the Fripp-produced second Gabriel album contained a song called "DIY" - a clear acknowledgement of the punk influence.

It appeared to be more sincere then mere bandwagon-jumping. But who knows? If Robert Palmer's "Johnny and Mary" was bandwagon-jumping, it was still better then most of the "real" stuff.

Wasn't familiar with all this stuff so I went on Amazon and checked out the sound samples. Pretty interesting, if formulaic: stiff, fast beats, ticking synth sequencers. But I'd take "Tonight I'm Yours" over any other post-"Maggie May" Rod Stewart. If I had to.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 11:28AM
Linda Ronstadt - Mad Love (is that what it was called? Where she did Costello covers?)

Jim DeRogatis makes a case for ANIMALS being Pink Floyd's "punk" album in his Kaleidescope Eyes book. But even he aknowledges it's a fairly weak case and moves on from it pretty quickly.

As Scratchie pointed out, it is kind of interesting that so many mainstreamers were willing to try to go New Wave, but it's hard to think of anyone who tried to make an actual Punk album. I guess maybe the ones who understood it and respected it knew it would be silly to try and the ones who didn't get it were appalled by it to begin with and would never dream of doing such a thing.

So there were some great punk inspired albums that didn't really try to be punk themselves - most notably Neil Young's RUST NEVER SLEEPS and Pete Townshend's EMPTY GLASS.



Post Edited (08-04-05 13:44)
Reply Quote
scratchie
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 12:41PM
The main thing is that "new wave" was all over the radio, but actual punk was pretty rare. Occasionally you'd get some extremely stylized punk song like "I love Rock & Roll" or "Should I Stay Or Should I Go", but there were dozens of synthy, new-wavey songs all over the radio in the wake of "Cars", "Pop Muzik" and their ilk.

Consider that the American "punk" bands that hit it big were Blondie (post-"Heart of Glass"), Talking Heads and the B-52s. Even the Clash were better represented on American radio by pop-friendly songs like "Train in Vain" or "Rock the Casbah" than by any real punk.

Good call on mentioning "Rust" and "Empty Glass", though. Certainly a few people had their ears open.

Another good example of mainstreamer-gone-"punk" is the J. Geils Band, circa "Centerfold".
Reply Quote
cbtaco19
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 03:40PM
Random thoughts on this topic:

I remember reading in a record guide that Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane / Hot Tuna put out a single New Wave album sometime around 78-80 before wisely returning to hippie blues jams. Pretty weird.

There was a song on the J. Geils Band Centerfold record called Rage In A Cage that was a full-on New Wave workout. I heard it on a long forgotten mix tape a couple of years ago for the first time since '83 and it really jarred me. That was a long way from 12 bar blues.

I remember reading an interview with Joe Perry who said that in the late '70's he blew out more than one set of limousine speakers blarring Never Mind The Bollocks. I think you could make the case that Rats In The Cellar and Draw The Line were punk / new wave influenced.

There is a live version from '78 of When The Whip Comes Down on the Stones collection Sucking In The Seventies that is as punk rock as all get out. Pretty funny to think now that Mick Jagger was actually worried about what some poor, scruffy mouthoffs thought about him. It worked anyway, WTWCD, Shattered, Lies and Respectable are great songs.

Destroyer is one of my all-time favorite Kinks songs and that was definitely one instance when an established rock band "Updated" their sound successfully.

Right there with you on Pete Townsend. Although I remember reading that he was drinking / socializing with "New Romantic" types like Steve Strange in that period. Thank goodness he didn't try to turn The Who into Ultravox.

Turn this topic on its head: Would Paul Weller have been able to record the first couple of Jam records without Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy to use as a template?
Reply Quote
scratchie
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 08:02AM
>I remember reading in a record guide that Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson
>Airplane / Hot Tuna put out a single New Wave album sometime around
>78-80 before wisely returning to hippie blues jams. Pretty weird.

That would be "Barbecue King" from 1980. Amazon has some song clips if anyone's interested. The song "Running With a Fast Crowd" doesn't sound like it would be out of place on a mid-70s "pub rock" album, much of which was pretty bluesy anyway.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 10:45AM
It kind of makes sense that Townshend would gravitate towards Steve Strange/Ultravox types - WHO'S NEXT (specifically "Baba O'Riley") is the first major rock album that I can think of that really used synthesizers as synths and not just souped-up organs. People usually consider "Autobahn" to be the start of synth-pop, but the case could be made pretty easily that "Baba O'Riley" is the real starting point for it. (Although the Silver Apples had figured it out even earlier than that, but who ever heard of them until their 90s revival? Same with the United States of America. And the other stuff with people using home-made synthesizers like Del Shannon and Joe Meek were still more organ-ish than anything else.)

There might be earlier examples of synthesizers being used as unique instruments and not just imitations of existing ones but I can't think of any right off the top of my head. I'm talking about in rock music - I know Wendy Carlos, Perry & Kingsley and Raymond Scott were doing stuff with them earlier but they weren't in the rock context.

But if you listen to something like "Rez" by the Underworld, it's the opening of "Baba O'Riley" stretched out for eight minutes.
Reply Quote
scratchie
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 11:58AM
>There might be earlier examples of synthesizers being used as unique
>instruments and not just imitations of existing ones but I can't think of any
>right off the top of my head.

I've always liked the synth wash that ends the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". That was probably the first rock album (Abbey Road) to have synths all over it, although "Baba O'Riley" is certainly much more in the spirit of the 'serious' electronic composers.
Reply Quote
carmen
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 01:29PM
i saw hot tuna at the bayou in d.c. as a 4 piece band perform a great show of new wave style originals around '88.
nrbq's 'yankee stadium' was new wave without synths, tto.
Reply Quote
MrAl
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 20, 2005 08:37AM
Queen "Sheer Heart Attack"... although it might have been kind of a piss-take...
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 23, 2005 09:19AM
If so, then Queen's piss-take knocked at least half the punk bands of the day over to the curb, IMO.
Reply Quote
MrAl
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 27, 2005 06:53AM
yeah, but "Radio Ga-Ga" negates it! :-)
Reply Quote
Paganizer
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 02:13PM
Tracks on 'Some Girls' have been acknowledged by the Stones as their response to Damned/Clash/Sex Pistols.

I liked two latter day responses:
Neil Young's to Sonic Youth (he was continually upstaged when he brought them on tour)
&
Pat Boone's metal-album response in welcoming Ozzy to his neighborhood!



Post Edited (08-05-05 17:26)
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 02:29PM
I liked when all the 80s hair metal bands started wearing flannel shirts.
Reply Quote
Paganizer
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 03:55PM
Bad Religion - Into the Unknown. Funny how the band was so embarrassed by this that they leave it out of their own discography. I think it's one of their best and most varied.

Costello/Ronstadt >> Remember how he infamously tore up his royalty check?

Rush - playing along to tapes onstage and then releasing studio LPs as "live".
Are these the same fans that like Kevin Smith movies, perhaps?



Post Edited (05-05-11 18:07)
Reply Quote
michael baker
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 06:01PM
my fave example is little known glass harp--a monster guitarist, a cream-like heaviness with superb psych stuff intermingled; they found the lord VERY soon after the debut and Phil Keagy, leader/guitarist, has embarked on a SERIOUS christian path ever since.

my beloved richey furay, although neither punk nor hard, has not trod far from his self appointed ministerial road to enlightenment either. shame. he's a real GD major talent who gets lost in all histories.

rush were cartoony; they could only hint at the stadium heaviness that they so pretended to extol.
Reply Quote
KyDoug
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 06, 2005 12:46PM
>>>Are these the same fans that like Kevin Smith movies, perhaps?

I'm a long-time Rush fan, but I've got a sense of humor and I can see how others might not dig it.
However, I am not a Kevin Smith fan. I was going to jump on that thread earlier to voice my belief that Mr. Smith is a one-trick pony who showed a flash of talent with Clerks and thereafter became an embarrassment. How he still gets studio financing is beyond me. I caught "Jay & Silent Bob..." on cable late one night and was pleasantly horrified at what an unfunny mess that movie was. (Mark Hamill must need some $$)

Reply Quote
Paganizer
Re: When non-smiths went smith...
August 06, 2005 12:59PM
Jay & SB is essentially a long 'inside joke'. All of the humour is based on solipsistic images, industry insider humour, parody, or the 'trilogy' as a whole. That's fine enough material that often lends itself to repeated viewings (see 'The Player') :: WHEN it WORKS. Smith's 'mouthful' dialogs (among other problems) ruin the structure. Hamill's there to break the 4th wall because, when I grow up, I wanna be a director so I can meet Mark Hamill and have him sign my lunchbox.

Smith's shows iffy structure, poor flow and composition and a very personal editing style. Actors seem pleased to work for him. If he found a decent writer to work with and had some discipline to not venture into the immature-cheap-joke with it, he'd have something good.



Post Edited (11-03-16 07:49)
Reply Quote
Aitch
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 04:49PM
If you want to go the other way around, have a listen to "Still from the Heart" by The Angelic Upstarts.
If you associate them with "Police Oppression" and the like you wouldn't know it was the same band. THAT is synth-heavy.
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 06:03PM
Another prime example would be Bad Religion's synth-heavy second album, 1983's *Into the Unknown*.

Personally, I liked it -- strong songwriting, and it still rocked, even though it was a big jump away from the straight-up punk sound of their first album. But *Into the Unknown* was such a curveball to their fans that the band swore off that musical direction and got back down to loud-fast-rules. The title of their next release couldn't have stated it more plainly: *Back to the Known*.

Today, *Into the Unknown* is the only Bad Religion album that's out of print. (They released it on their own label, Epitaph, so surely they could reissue if if they wanted to.)
Reply Quote
satchmykels
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 04, 2005 11:32PM

>
> Today, *Into the Unknown* is the only Bad Religion album that's
> out of print. (They released it on their own label, Epitaph, so
> surely they could reissue if if they wanted to.)


today they seem more than happy to release the same album over and over and over and over...
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 08:28AM
Another example of a mainstream/established rock artist trying to co-opt a new wave sound: Alice Cooper's 1980 album *Special Forces*. Its single "Clones We're All" sounds like a Gary Numan imitation, and the rest of the album isn't far behind.
Reply Quote
KyDoug
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 11:38AM
>>>Rush tried awfully hard to turn into the Police, especially on "New World Man"

I always thought that, too, but never dared mention it among my fellow Rush fans. Rush also got heavier in the early 90s (Counterparts being a prime example) after the Nirvana, et al, wave. Alex Lifeson started playing in drop D and they scaled back the keyboards. They certainly weren't the only band guilty of this. But I digress.

Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 12:41PM
The funniest part was during the 80s Neil Peart claimed that Rush's biggest contemporary influence was Japan (David Sylvian's posse, not the nation), but then they kept releasing pseudo-Police sounding stuff. So either he wasn't on the same page as Lifeson and Lee, or he couldn't bring himself to admit his band was lifting their sound from someone that popular (after all, Kenny Loggins claimed to be influenced by the Police! Horror!!) and tried to claim some more obscure but artsy reference.

Rush was huge in my high school. For some reason all the stoners were in awe of the fact that Neil Peart had a cowbell as part of his drum kit. I never did figure out why this was so impressive to them. But anytime one of them would go off on some extended description of the storyline of 2112 and the priests of Syrinx or something, it eventually came back around to a discussion of that damn cowbell.
Reply Quote
scratchie
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 12:47PM
A friend of mine described a Neil Peart drum solo as a 'gymnastics routine'.
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 05, 2005 03:30PM
Oh yeah, Linda Ronstadt's Elvis Costello cover ("Alison" I think?). In what has to be one of the all-time great rock'n'roll put-downs, Costello called it "a waste of vinyl."
Reply Quote
brightspark
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 02:55AM
Jack Casady from Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna had a punk-new wave band called SVT.The classic''baby's got a heart of stone''is in the compilatiom''declaration of independents''.Svt are now legendary for their pure rock n roll shows and their only EP a collector's item.

Don't forget also Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson.Both loved punk rock and made some great productions or helped and played in new wavers albums.Mick Ronson produced Payolas''hammer on a drum'',Slaughter and the Dogs deput album and Ian Hunter helped Tuff Darts,Ellen Folley,Hilly Michaels and others.

Nik Turner from Hawkwind,released special Lsd influenced hippy new wave albums in eightees as Inner City Unit.
Linda Rondstand's ''Mad Love'' is fully influenced From Cretones album''thin red line''.This song is a cover from Cretones and had always told how she liked it all over the 80s.
Reply Quote
brightspark
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 09:11AM
Just remembered the Reneissance album of 1981''Camera Camera''.Got deep into new wave territory remaining the art rock feeling and the operetic vocals of Annie Haslam.Its a great album that doesn't sound as trying hard to be ''new rock'', although some of its productions techniques and effects are a bit dated.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 09:59AM
One more I just remembered - Peter Noone from Herman's Hermits fronted a pretty good new wave/power pop band called the Tremblers. They did a cover of Costello's "Green Shirt" on their only album, which I think was called TWICE NIGHTLY.

After that, Noone decided to go ahead and play the part of the aging pop star and became a tv host, starred in Pirates of Penzance on stage, and started touring the oldie's circuit - all of which surely earned him more money than the Tremblers probably ever would have. It's a shame, though, as they were a pretty good band and the album was definitely a worthwhile power pop record.
Reply Quote
madisdadi
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 12:24PM
Daryl Hall put out a solo album called "Sacred Songs" produced by Fripp and had some songs Fripp did on his solo album ("NYCNY", "Urban Landscapes"), that were punky. Hall did "You Burn Me UP I'm a Cigarette" from Fripp's "Exposure" album that was new wavey.
There was a song off Jefferson Starship's "Modern Times" album (with a cover photo of a new wave girl dressed in latex) that was their take on Devo which was really bad and is erased from my memory.
The Pointer Sisters went NEWAVEY Synth POP in 1985 when they did all those Allee Willis songs. Then there were Kim Carnes and Sheena Easton, Journey even put on spandex and stripes for awhile but do they count since they would try anything to sell.
The Kinks "Low Budget" album....................
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 01:13PM
The Daryl Hall album *Sacred Songs* is actually very good. It was a pretty big departure from the music Hall & Oates had been putting out, and I think it helped sharpen them up for the early '80s material that made them big stars. I don't know if anyone at the time expected him to work with Fripp, but the results were pretty great. (Still available on CD, if you're interested.)
Reply Quote
madisdadi
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 17, 2005 02:14PM
I actually have it on a Japanese Import cd that I got in a used cd store for 2 bones!
Now if I can just figure out Japanese I could read the liner notes.
Reply Quote
michael baker
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 12:37PM
the tremblers song, You Can't Do That, is killer.


i guess i should check out the rest...



Post Edited (08-08-05 14:45)
Reply Quote
brightspark
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 04:21PM
Tremblers''twice nightly'' a true forgotten masterpiece.Great catchy songs,brilliant production,airy synths and arockabilly attitude all over the album.Much more better from what Peter Noone made with Hermits.

Carmen Appice from Vanilla Fudge,had a hard rock-new wavy band in early eightees the DNA.I think they had two albums,the one i have is with a pretty kitsch album cover, showing some experimental activities inside a laboratory,totally influenced from Devo's first album one.

And ofcourse Fleetwood Mac's Tusk,had a minimalistic new wave surface among the wonderful melodic acoustic songs.Listen to ''ledge'' and ''what makes you think you are the one'' and see the seeds of Residents and the rhythmic boxes of Throbbing Gristle!As Lindsay Buckingham had said''the future of music is in new wave revolution and i love Gang of Four''!
Reply Quote
carmen
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 08, 2005 12:10PM
hall and oates turned new wave while springsteen carefully tore his shirts. j.c. melloncamp had his style sharpened-up a bit, too.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 09, 2005 08:24AM
I remember channel surfing years ago and catching the 90s version of the Mickey Mouse Club doing "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding." It was pretty surreal, but anything that puts money in Nick Lowe's pocket is a good thing.
Reply Quote
cbtaco19
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 09, 2005 08:56AM
Speaking of putting money in Nick Lowe's pocket:

I once read that NL is a very wealthy man, primarily due to one absolute fluke. In 1992, some clown named Curtis Stigers did a lame cover of What's So Funny.... that was included on the soundtrack to the Whitney Houston vehecle, The Bodyguard. That record sold a gajillion copies and Nick Lowe probably had to hire his own bodyguards to haul all his loot home.

Not bad for a song that started life as a Brinsley Schwarz throwaway. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 09, 2005 09:39AM
Yeah, that's a true story. Funny how the world works - the least worthwhile version of one of his songs is the one that ends up setting him up for life.
Reply Quote
brightspark
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 13, 2005 06:28PM
Split Enz,an important case-from Genesis like art rockers,with strange albums and complex songs to wonderfully fitted new wave poppers and later -why not?- 80s stadium pop stars.

Mick Farren also from Deviants and Pink Fairies embraced the whole movement,added some agit politics to it,issued some fanzines but unfortunately didn't play in any band.The same can be told also for Mayo Tompson (Red crayola) who worked with Pere Ubu and produced Stiff Little Fingers magnus opus''Inflammable material''.
Reply Quote
STEVE
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 13, 2005 09:24PM
It was great fun reading this cord. I laughed and cried at remembering those days. At how some of the rock heavies took a stab at the new muzik back then. One of the coolest things was the Hall and Oates "Sacred Songs" plug. I just gotta check that one out. Thanks again everyone!
Reply Quote
Manila Syndicate
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 04, 2006 01:35PM
"I remember channel surfing years ago and catching the 90s version of the Mickey Mouse Club doing "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding." It was pretty surreal, but anything that puts money in Nick Lowe's pocket is a good thing."

Hey breno, was Keri Russell there? If so I gotta check it out.

Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 04, 2006 07:44PM
I would imagine she was - looked to me like it was a whole MMC production number and not just a select few or anything. But heck, I have no idea how many members the rodent brigade had in that version. But I seem to remember a whole bunch of them out there.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 06:39AM
Thirty-three years after the fact, I finally picked up a copy of McCartney II, and it immediately put me in mind of this very ancient thread - it's such an obvious "Cor, I think I'll try me a bit of this new wave business" album that I figured someone had to have mentioned it here and I wanted to see what they said about it. Guess not.

So I'm mentioning it. "Temporary Secretary" sounds like Macca bought a synthesizer and brought the Human League in to advise him, and I have to think that "Frozen Jap" is some sort of misguided Yellow Magic Orchestra tribute. "Coming Up" is McCartney ripping off/paying tribute to the exact same sources Robert Palmer was tipping his hat to with "Looking for Clues." "Front Parlour" is pure Silicon Teens.

That album also makes me wonder how the hell TLC managed to not get sued into oblivion for "Waterfalls." I guess Paul just didn't feel like he needed the money. And TLC didn't lift the tune, just used the exact same metaphor and almost, but not exactly, the same lyrics. So I don't know if he even would've had grounds to sue them if he'd wanted to.
Reply Quote
Floyd Eberhard
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 13, 2005 11:31PM
Todd Rundgren doing the skinny tie thang with Utopia, especially the wonderful "Hammer in My Heart."
Reply Quote
satchmykels
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 13, 2005 11:44PM
Floyd Eberhard wrote:

> Todd Rundgren doing the skinny tie thang with Utopia,
> especially the wonderful "Hammer in My Heart."


and after that didn't work, he got an itch in his brain...


fwiw, i loved that stuff!
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 19, 2005 04:55PM
Man, how could I forget John & Yoko's stuff, like "Walking on Thin Ice" -CLASSIC. John's guitar work is demented on that one.

And Hawkwind dropped the prog/metal thing for one album - "Quark Strangeness and Charm." The title track is a wonderful 3-minute bit of Devo-ish nerd pop.
Reply Quote
satchmykels
Re: When non-punks went punk...
August 24, 2005 08:56PM
the scorpions' police-ish fake reggae thing, "is there anybody there?".
Reply Quote
Manila Syndicate
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 03, 2006 06:20PM
It's a shame that so many talented artists would compromise themselves just to stay in the limelight. It's like the Allman Bros. playing Disco during the late-70's. Could you imagine?

It makes one admire R.E.M. and The Smiths all the more in the light of these discussions. They were the true artists of the time with the integrity and guts to stick to what they believed in and persevered. Peter Buck once said in an interview that he used to get depressed when he would be playing in front of 600 people in the 80's while some English synth-band would be playing in front of 6,000. But he knew that his music would be the one remembered. And he's right.

Reply Quote
satchmykels
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 03, 2006 08:55PM


> Peter Buck once said in an interview that he
> used to get depressed when he would be playing in front of 600
> people in the 80's while some English synth-band would be
> playing in front of 6,000. But he knew that his music would be
> the one remembered. And he's right.
>


hehe, pete musta been crazy on the wild turkey for that one, eh?
Reply Quote
xhead
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 03, 2006 11:00PM
How about Heart's "Bebe Le strange" The tile track was such an overt attempt at a punk/new wave sound. As well as "Rocking Heaven Down", "Strange Night" and more...

Stevie Nick's "Angel" from Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"

Sheena Easton pouting on "Pout" embarassingly imitating new wave looks and sound. "Morning Train" urggghhh!

Kim Carne's copy cat Debbie Harry looks and Blondie wannabe sound, "Bette Davis Eyes"

Van Halen's synth on"Jump" and David Lee Sloth's spandexed ass

Sammy Hagar "Can't Drive 55"

Styx, Bloody Awful "Mr. Roboto"...
Reply Quote
James K
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 04, 2006 01:29PM
Wouldn't David Lee Roth's spandex covered ass really apply to the other definition of punk?

Did Rob Halford cut his hair and put on leather before or after punk hit England?

Johnny Cougar had a bald bespectacled keyboard player prancing around in his very early video's.
Reply Quote
satchmykels
if u got the look, i got the new wave sell-out
February 04, 2006 03:08PM
>
> Sheena Easton pouting on "Pout" embarassingly imitating new
> wave looks and sound. "Morning Train" urggghhh!



how bout when she was suggesting to prince that they should "get 2 rammin"?



Post Edited (02-04-06 17:10)
Reply Quote
madisdadi
Re: if u got the look, i got the new wave sell-out
February 06, 2006 08:25AM
i just saw her on "Miami Vice" which was during this time, she looked new wavey and i think got 2 rammin with Jon Dohnson
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: if u got the look, i got the new wave sell-out
February 14, 2014 10:28AM
Oh, and: what HAPPENED to all the people who originally posted on this thread? So many we've lost along the way. Imma pour some beer out for 'em...
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 08:30AM
Reno, thanks for reviving this thread! Great fun to re-examine it.

> Peter Buck once said in an interview that he used to get depressed when he would be playing
> in front of 600 people in the 80's while some English synth-band would be playing in front
> of 6,000. But he knew that his music would be the one remembered. And he's right.

And thirty years later, what has changed?

Most of the bands that have made a splash on mainstream pop/rock radio in the 2010s clearly take their cues from '80s synth-pop. From Lorde and Chvrches down to Foster the People and (way down to) Fun., they're all copping from Depeche Mode, The Human League and their ilk.

I don't mean that as a criticism, because I loved the '80s synth-poppers and the '80s jangle-poppers both in considerable measure. But the guitar sound that Peter Buck "knew would be remembered"? It's still remembered, and it still has its loyal adherents (and hopefully always will), but it really doesn't have a foothold in mainstream pop.

Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 10:21AM
I'm surprised "Temporary Secretary" didn't come up in the original thread, but I may not have discovered it yet. It is kinda Sir Paul doing what Neil Young later did with 'Trans.'

I've discoverd some others since this thread:

-Jefferson Starship "Stairway to Cleveland": fake-punk,, complete with the f-word! Must be heard to be believed.

- Hall & Oates "Alley Katz": contributions from R. Fripp and Cheap Trick's guitarist, from 1978. Quite good, actually.

- Freddy 'Boom Boom' Cannon "Hey Punk Rocker": as he's backed by the L.A. hardcore band Gears, could be a bit of a piss-take.

- Kim Fowley. Unless someone's gonna try to convince me that he actually helped invent it in the first place.

- Rick Wakeman "I'm So Straight I'm a Weirdo": Umm...no comment

- Lindsay Buckinham did some pretty wacked-out stuff, like the XTC-ish "That's How We Do It in L.A."

- not only was there the infamous 'Chipmunk Punk' album, there was 'Pink Panther Punk'!

- and of course when Gilda Radner became 'Candy Slice.' And SCTV's The Queen Haters. "I hate the bloody queen!"
Reply Quote
Jermoe
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 07:28PM
Man, that was some great reading.

So, McCartney II is my favorite of Sir Paul's post-Beatles albums. Granted, he probably did "better" albums (Ram, Band on the Run, Wings at the Speed of Sound, Pipes of Peace, Flowers and Dirt, Memory Almost Full off the top of me head), but McCartney II such a...unique effort. Of course, I never thought he was trainspotting, I just thought he was having fun.

It would be interesting to have the same conversations re. Peter Gabriel, Roberts Palmer and Fripp, Daryl Hall/Hall & Oates and even Todd Rundgren with everyone on the 2005 thread all these years later. Maybe everyone feels the same...
Reply Quote
Jermoe
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 07:58PM
Lest we forget:

[www.youtube.com]

He didn't like jazz, he didn't like funk...
Reply Quote
BCE
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 07:59PM
What about Yoko Ono's world peace album from the 80's? Does that count?
Reply Quote
Jermoe
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 14, 2014 08:12PM
"I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." – John Ono Lennon
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 15, 2014 07:02AM
Quote

Of course, I never thought he was trainspotting, I just thought he was having fun.

I think he was doing both. It is a very fun and downright weird album - I'm sorry it took me three decades to catch up with it.
Reply Quote
Aitch
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 16, 2014 01:52AM
Hey! Where did madisdadi get to?
Reply Quote
rhettlawrence
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 16, 2014 05:19PM
And Michael Baker? And Floyd Eberhard? Both of those guys were even doing reviews for a while, I believe.
Reply Quote
wade
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 17, 2014 10:59AM
I always wondered what happened to that Shizzle guy. I recall some interesting posts from him; some nearly treatise-level.

Reply Quote
Aitch
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 17, 2014 04:45PM
I remember him trying to get us all to reconsider the merits of Billy Idol's solo material. It led to a stoush with STEVE.
Reply Quote
HollowbodyKay
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 19, 2014 09:29AM
It's the 80s. Time to lose the synthesizers, get some denim and facial hair, and try and stay on top:

MINISTRY


OK. Maybe what they were going for wasn't purely "punk."


But it was a helluva lot more "punk" than they'd been the previous afternoon.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 02, 2016 04:48PM
I was listening to the 80s station on Sirius and "Heart Attack" by Olivia Newton-John came on, and hoo boy, was it a "Guess I need to try this New Wave thing now!" track.

She'd already edged towards it with the Physical album, but "Heart Attack" is full-on ersatz New Wave. It was like a cast off from Josie Cotton or the Flirts, only without even the very deep artistic integrity of those major artists.

I'm trying to figure out who specifically the song is aping. Maybe a third generation xerox of Lene Lovich? I guess it sounds as much like someone trying to clone Stateless (minus Lene's inimitable vocals) as anything else.

Anyhow, hearing it put me in mind of this hoary thread. (The comic nerds amongst us will know that I'm gearing up to see Dr. Strange based on that phrasing.)

[www.youtube.com]
Reply Quote
HollowbodyKay
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 02, 2016 08:53PM
Quote

It's the 80s. Time to lose the denim and facial hair, get synthesizers, and try and stay on top:

Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
Neil Young "Trans" ("We R In Control" RULES)
Peter Gabriel and, to a lesser extent, Phil Collins
Grace Jones
Robert Palmer

Wait. Grace Jones had facial hair?
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 03, 2016 10:08AM
I always wondered about Grace ... the only Bond girl whom 007 didn't look happy to hook up with.

Reply Quote
jothoma
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 04, 2016 11:32AM
Hard to believe this thread goes back 10 years.

I have two more to add to the canon of 70's artists going "punk"

Ian Hunter: "Short back and sides" (with Mick Jones on guitar)

Joe Ely: "Musta notta gotta lotta" (trying really hard to sound like the Blasters and touring that year with the Clash)

both albums came out in 1981.
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 04, 2016 01:38PM
Joe Ely's an interesting call out. I didn't listen to a whole lot of country music in the early 80s, but I have to suspect some mainstream country types tried to add a few new wave touches to their music.

Juice Newton heard "Queen of Hearts" on a Dave Edmunds album and had a big hit with it.

And of course, Johnny Cash covered his then son-in-law Nick Lowe and hired him to produce a song or two.

But for country musicians to cover Edmunds and Lowe wasn't really that much of a stretch, since Rockpile took a lot of cues from country music.
Reply Quote
Delvin
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 04, 2016 04:03PM
> The funniest part was during the 80s Neil Peart claimed that Rush's biggest contemporary
> influence was Japan (David Sylvian's posse, not the nation), but then they kept releasing
> pseudo-Police sounding stuff. So either he wasn't on the same page as Lifeson and Lee, or he
> couldn't bring himself to admit his band was lifting their sound from someone that popular ...

Actually, Rush's documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage includes a portion of a TV interview with the band, from around the release of their hit album Moving Pictures. (The song "Vital Signs" from that album serves as a Police-like warmup for the "New World Man" single on the Signals album, the following year.) In that interview, both Peart and Lee cite The Police as one of the newer bands they really like. In another interview, Peart mentions Ultravox as a big favorite from around the same time.

> (after all, Kenny Loggins claimed to be influenced by the Police! Horror!!) ...

Better to be influenced by The Police than Kenny Loggins any day. Fake-rock solo artists are not all that common, but Loggins certainly owns it.

Reply Quote
dj45rpm
Re: When non-punks went punk...
November 05, 2016 11:18AM
Can't remember if her early stuff was that mainstream (though she apparently first came to fame among Meatloaf's performing troupe) but Ellen Foley hooked up with Mick Jones of the Clash (apparently in more ways than one) for her Spirit of St. Louis album. (She was an okay actress, but I could never get over her resemblance to a blonde Liza Minnelli).

>>The Shaun Cassidy WASP album was definitely interesting. I ended up selling it for $30 on ebay to some girl in South Dakota. I still expect her to turn up on my doorstep someday and beat me to death with it.<<

It's actually more likely she managed to flip it for more than what she paid for it, especially if she waited until vinyl's resurgence before selling it and X2 if she waited until after Bowie's death (so she could plug SC's timeless so-wrong-it's-right cover of "Rebel Rebel" on the album)
Reply Quote
breno
Re: When non-punks went punk...
January 16, 2019 07:53AM
The thread that will never die returns! With a couple of other codgers who tried their hands at the ol' New Wave back in the day.

Bill Wyman - His 1980 self-titled album, especially "(Si, Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star". Apparently Wyman wrote "Je Suis..." for Ian Dury, but no one ever passed it along to him to record, so Wyman kept it himself. So that was an instance of an old-timer actually attempting to write a song for a New Waver. But the rest of the album is equally synth-y and herky-jerky, so Wyman was definitely in the mood.

[www.youtube.com]

Jethro Tull - This Grammy winning heavy metal band went pretty full-on New Wave on much of 1984's Under Wraps, though there were still plenty of standard Tull-isms in the mix. They carried on with this approach through the first song of their next album, "Steel Monkey" from Crest of a Knave (the album that netted them their Metal Grammy), then went back to just being Tull, albeit with 80s production values.

Here's "Radio Free Moscow" from Under Wraps:

[www.youtube.com]



Post Edited (01-16-19 11:23)
Reply Quote
zoo
Re: When non-punks went punk...
January 16, 2019 02:12PM
Tull went heavy on synths back in 1980 on the "A" album. That was supposed to be an Ian Anderson solo album, but the label wanted it released under the Tull name. By the time Under Wraps was released, they were definitely going farther down that path.

I wasn't around for the original thread, so I did a few searches for artists that I might have mentioned back then. I didn't see Elton John, who was definitely incorporating New Wave elements into his music in the early '80s. As much as I liked some of Rush's stuff from that time, I don't think it suited Sir Elton so well.
Reply Quote
MrFab
Re: When non-punks went punk...
January 17, 2019 09:16AM
I must have missed that phase of elton's career. what are some examples?
Reply Quote
zoo
Re: When non-punks went punk...
January 17, 2019 12:37PM
Quote

I must have missed that phase of elton's career. what are some examples?

Check out some of the songs on Too Low For Zero, Breaking Hearts, Ice On Fire, and Leather Jackets. Some bad synth pop on those. Some good songs as well, I must admit. Except Leather Jackets. That one stinks out loud and is one of his worst albums.
Reply Quote
Bip
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 01, 2019 01:28PM

Quote

So I'm mentioning it. "Temporary Secretary" sounds like Macca bought a synthesizer and brought the Human League in to advise hi

just reading through this thread for the first time. Kudos to breno for the Undertones' "My Perfect Cousin" reference!

I think my two main examples of this, both fairly obvious and already mentioned, are Alice Cooper's "Clones" and Rondstat's "Mad Love" album with the Cretones.

"Clones" is still one of my favorite touchstones of that era. I played it in every jukebox i could back then, and would do the same today if it was an option!
Reply Quote
Post-Punk Monk
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 04, 2019 01:01PM
Cooper's "Clones [We're All]" is better than most American New Wave music of the time! Killer great song!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®
Reply Quote
dj45rpm
Re: When non-punks went punk...
February 10, 2019 07:41PM
Let's not forget David Cassidy's "Wasp" album (produced by Todd R.), complete with so-wrong-it's-right Bowie cover.

[www.youtube.com]
Reply Quote
Newer Topic Older Topic
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login