I find it interesting to look back at the past 100 posts, particularly the ones that feauture the music from the radio and MTV. Seeing it all in this condensed time lapse format highlights how quickly the popular mainstream music sound changed over the course of the decade. Men Without Hatsand Culture Club faded away and INXS and Tears For Fears took over those spots at MTV. Bruce Spriungsteen andJohn Mellencamp brought us back down to earth with working class, small town sensibility.
With the dawn of the Compact Disc, my own musical identity was all over the map. Up to this point, My Musical Evolutionmuch like my actual life, was compartmentalized into very distinct and tidy boxes. If you have been following along since January, you know about The Scratchy 45 Days, The KISS Age, BFMS, The Academy Days, Space Mountain, College Intermission, The Rise & Fall Of ’84, The Metal Years and Roach Days Revisted. With few exceptions, music from each of these eras for one reason or another stayed in those eras. That isn’t to say that I didn’t listen to The Go-Gos during The Roach Days, just that when I did, it was usually to reminisce about The Academy Days.
Life moves forward and for the most part, so did My Musical Evolution Now, with the advent of the Compact Disc, I was possessed with idea of acquiring all the music from My Musical Evolution on Compact Disc. That project was very similar to to this one. I think that one while more expensive was considerable easier becaue it didn’t require much thought. If I found Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me on a CD, I knew it was fromThe Scratchy 45 Days and I bought. This project requires more head scratching and memory jogging.
While I was giving all my money to Wooden Nickel and Musicland, MTV and the radio were providing music that I couldn’t justify on my budget.
Suzanne Vega – Luka
Swing Out Sister – Breakout
Ben E. King – Stand By Me
Belinda Carlisle – Mad About You – Belinda bummed me out, she left The Go-Gos, a band that I really liked and she dropped 20 pounds. I thought she was prettier before. She wasn’t bad after but I thought before that she was voluptuous and after my first thought was that she was ill.
Tina Turner – Better Be Good to Me – Tina was still a good performer and looked amazing for her age at the time. I felt though that MTV promoted her as a way to legitimize itself. She was a respected entertainer form the previous generation and her she is again. Kind of like those guys that say “I like R.E.M. bunt only their early stuff.”
Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels – I can’t say that I was a fan of Tears For Fearsback in the 80’s but after enough hammering by MTV they were able to enter my collection via the nostalgia side entrance.
Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F – You already know that I like electronic instrumental music. This was my favorite of the BHC soundtrack
Wham! – Freedom – Like Tears For Fears I was not crazy about Wham! but the girls liked it and eventually, long after the fact, it was nice to hear again.
Bruce Springsteen – I’m On Fire
John Cougar Mellencamp – Lonely Ol’ Night – I liked John Cougar much more than John Mellencamp. I understand his desire to help with Farm Aid and all that but he really turned me off when he went Activist. Not because of anything he did specifically, I just cannot get past that notion. Same with Springsteen. Do great songs and ditch the soap box.