Tag Archives: 80’s Flashback

Raze, Break 4 Love, 1988. A sexy classic of the early days of house music, Break 4 Love was a global smash, reaching #1 on the U.S. dance charts and topping out at #28 on the UK pop chart. Vocalist Keith Thompson had a falling out with producer Vaughan Mason (whom you might recall from his 1979 roller-disco hit Bounce, …

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, The Message, 1982. Gritty depictions of life in the ghetto were standard fare in the early days of hip hop (and continue less frequently today), but The Message, with its slowed beat and menacing Don’t push me, cuz I’m close to the edge refrain, earned the group its 2007 induction into the Rock and …

Edelweiss, Bring Me Edelweiss, 1988. Following the step-by-step instructions on how to create a pop smash as laid out in the KLF’s book, The Manual, three Austrian men teamed up with vocalist Maria Mathis to make Bring Me Edelweiss, a manic combination of fiddles, accordions, rapping, pop samples, ABBA and Indeep lyrics, and most notably, yodeling. Ruck. Sack. RUCKSACK. The …

Baltimora, Tarzan Boy, 1985. Baltimora was a six-man band from Italy fronted by Irish citizen Jimmy McShane, whom many wrongly believed was the entire act. McShane was not a musician or singer and was selected for band based on his flamboyant appearance and dancing abilities. In the video for Tarzan Boy, McShane is lip-syncing the vocals of Baltimora’s Maurizio Bassi. …

Man 2 Man Meets Man Parrish, Male Stripper, 1986. Brothers Miki and Paul Zone, formerly of the ’70s queercore innovators The Fast (who were known as “the male Plasmatics”), teamed up with NYC’s electro pioneer Man Parrish to create this homage to gay strippers, taking it all the way to #4 on the British singles chart and even performing it …

Elton John, Elton’s Song, 1981. Co-written by Elton and Tom Glad To Be Gay Robinson, this song about a gay school boy with a crush on a classmate was banned in several countries due to “homosexual content.” This accompanying video, which may evoke Bronksi Beat’s Smalltown Boy for you, was never aired at the time, although tabloids screamed “Elton’s Gay …

Marianne Faithful, The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan, 1980. My favorite track by Faithfull, this cover of Dr. Hook’s 1975 album track is probably one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. “At the age of 37, she realized she’d never ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.” The imagery of a wasted life …

Joe Jackson, Real Men, 1982. This track about coming out, bullying, and machismo was not a radio hit for Jackson despite getting surprisingly heavy rotation on MTV. There was some small controversy about censoring the word “faggot”, but as I recall it was gay activists that insisted that it should remain. Jackson’s never officially come out, writing in his autobiography …

Erasure, A Little Respect, 1988. Although Erasure has had a whopping 35 Top 40 hits in the UK, including 15 that made the Top 10, this one was one of their only three singles to be pop smashes in the U.S., topping out at #14 a few months after their biggest stateside hit, Chains Of Love, peaked at #12. On …

J.J. Fad, Supersonic, 1988. This track made J.J. Fad the first female rap group to be nominated for a Grammy. Originally J.J. Fad stood for “Juana, Juanita, Fatima Ann Dania,” but after some member changes it was said to stand for “Just Jammin’ Fresh And Def.” Supersonic was a refreshing lighthearted tonic in the face of the nascent gangsta rap …

West India Company, Ave Maria (Om Ganesha), 1984. Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle teamed up with Erasure’s Vince Clarke and Blancmange’s Stephen Luscombe to create what I consider one of the all-time classics of 80’s club music. (On the 12″, Clarke is credited with “pyrotechnics.” Indeed.) This is easily one of the most obscure of these posts, but if you …

Pet Shop Boys, Domino Dancing, 1988. Last night at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom, Pet Shop Boys wove this, their lone foray into freestyle, into a fantastic medley capped by a surprisingly wonderful cover of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida. (Please PSB, put that out commercially.) Domino Dancing was produced by the then-red hot Miami freestyle king Lewis Martinee, who gave us Expose’ …

Haysi Fantayzee, John Wayne Is Big Leggy, 1982. One of the silliest songs from a time that gave us a lot of very silly songs. A lot of folks thought that Haysi ripped off their look from Boy George, but lead singer Jeremy Healy said it was the other way around. (They went to school together.) Haysi had a couple …

Diana Ross, Live In Central Park, 1983. Once of the most famous moments in Diana Ross’ career came when a sudden thunderstorm interrupted her free Central Park concert just as it was beginning. Ross shrugged off the downpour and continued singing, despite the request of promoters that she wait. As the storm intensified and the estimated crowd of 800,000 (perhaps …

Klaus Nomi, Total Eclipse, 1981. Openly gay German-born opera singer cum East Village avante-gardist Klaus Nomi totally owned the music documentary Urgh! A Music War with this performance. I was reminded of this after JMG reader BStewart23 mentioned the liner notes on Man Parrish’s first album (mentioned here on Tuesday), as Nomi also contributed vocals to that release. He was …

Fred Schneider & The Shake Society, Monster, 1984. Fred’s only solo hit, Monster includes B-girl Kate Pierson on vocals and P-Funk legend Bernie Worrell on keyboards. Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club member Tina Weymouth and artist Keith Haring both do cameo appearances in this clip. (Can anybody ID the drag queen?) The rest of this album wasn’t so great, other than …

Man Parrish, Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop), 1982. What many consider to be the single most influential hip-hop/electro track ever was created created by an openly gay guy. (I’d also put Soulsonic Force’s Planet Rock and Hashim’s Al-Naafiysh on that short list.) This clip is very, very silly and one might guess shared a make-up artist with the folks …

Sylvester, Someone Like You, 1986. Not my favorite Sylvester track and definitely not one of his better live vocal performances, but this clip is worthwhile for the post-song chat he has with Joan Rivers, who was subbing for Johnny Carson on New Year’s Eve. Rivers fawns over Sylvester’s jewelry and he drops the bomb (on national TV! In 1986!) that …

Pete Shelley, Homosapien, 1981. The BBC (but not MTV) banned this first solo single from the former Buzzcocks lead singer because of the references to gay sex. “Homosuperior. In my interior.” Yeah, still funny. Of course, a lot of the Buzzcocks songs had gay references too. TRIVIA: Pete’s parents were going to name him “Shelley” if he’d been a girl, …

New Order, Confusion, 1983. After the global success of Blue Monday, some New Order fans were dismayed by this foray into hip-hop/electro, but I loved it. In this clip, legendary producer Arthur Baker takes the band to Chelsea’s notorious Funhouse Disco so they can watch the b-boys react to his mix. (The Funhouse was two blocks from where the Eagle …