Tag Archives: 80’s Flashback

Paula Sheppard, Me And My Rhythm Box, 1983. From Liquid Sky, one of my favorite bad movies ever, in which microscopic aliens land in the East Village to harvest the chemicals in human brains created at the moment of orgasm, which kills the human. The acting is spectacularly bad, especially from Anna Carlisle, who plays the male and female leads. …

2 Live Crew, Me So Horny, 1989. Using the music of Mass Production’s 1979 hit Firecracker and a vocal sample from Full Metal Jacket, this track took the Miami-based rappers to the top of the charts, to jail, and eventually, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that freedom of speech protected the group from charges of obscenity. The album …

Coil, Tainted Love, 1985. Real life boyfriends John Balance and Peter Christopherson created one of the most sobering and creepy depictions of AIDS ever in their cover of Gloria Jones’ 1964 soul hit. Soft Cell’s Marc Almond, whose own cover of Tainted Love was a global hit three years earlier, makes a cameo here as the Angel of Death. Coil’s …

Gipsy Kings, Bamboleo, 1988. My all-time favorite flamenco version of a Venezuelan folk song performed by a French band whose parents fled Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Before South Beach took over gay nightlife in the late 80’s, we’d trek way down to South Miami to hear DJ Danny Tenaglia at Cheers, where every Saturday night he’d tease the …

Scritti Politti, Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin), 1984. Their first single to chart in the U.S., although it only got to #91. Scritti was much more successful with Perfect Way, the fifth single from Cupid & Psyche ’85, which topped out at #11 here. I’ve always liked Wood Beez better, possibly because of its similarity (especially the bassline) to …

Mari Wilson, Just What I Always Wanted, 1982. A pure pop delight with a 60’s throwback vibe. This track got to #8 in the UK, but other than some MTV play, didn’t get much notice in the U.S. (Except at gay video bars, of course, where the boys flipped for the beehive and the costumes.) From the excellent album, Showpeople, …

Gwen Guthrie, Ain’t Nothing Going On But The Rent, 1986. Known as the “First Lady Of The Paradise Garage” for her close relationship with DJ Larry Levan, this was Guthrie’s biggest hit, landing at #1 on the U.S. dance and R&B charts. Guthrie, who tragically died of uterine cancer in 1999 at the age of 49, was also an HIV …

Black Flag, TV Party, 1982. I never got into very many American punk bands other than the original, The Ramones. (Unless you consider X to be punk.) But the presence of Henry Rollins made Black Flag a notable exception, especially for their funnier numbers like TV Party. I love the roll call of 80’s television shows: That’s Incredible! Hill Street …

Will Powers, Adventures In Success, 1983. Photographer Lynn Goldsmith teamed up with Sting to create this parody of the self-help/get rich quick gurus that plagued the nation during the Reagan era. The album, Dancing For Mental Health, also featured contributions from Carly Simon, Steve Winwood, Nile Rodgers, and Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey. That’s Goldsmith’s voice in the clip, processed to …

The Specials, Ghost Town, 1981. One of my favorites from my year-long obsession with 2-Tone Records. Although I don’t think I quite got it at the time from Orlando, the song is a statement on Margaret Thatcher’s policies during a period of rife unemployment in the UK. I just thought it was spooky and cool.

Lois Bromfield, Sorority Girls From Hell, 1985. Arguably the most popular gay video bar clip of its day, this film by the openly lesbian Bromfield first appeared in former Monkees member Mike Nesmith’s short-lived summer replacement show Television Parts. Ah, the stampede to the monitors at Fort Lauderdale’s Cathode Ray when this was on. Picture two hundred gay men shouting …

The The, Uncertain Smile, 1984. My favorite track from my all-time favorite rock album. There are several versions of Uncertain Smile and if you were clubbing back then, you’ll probably know the ten-minute 12″ version with the gorgeous sax and flute solos by Crispin Cioe. But this, the album version, closes with three minutes of astounding keyboard work by former …

Vanessa, Upside Down (Dizzy Does It Make Me), 1982. Cheese! Camp! Cheesy camp! This clip by Dutch disco queen Vanessa, whose makers obviously watched ONJ’s Physical a few times, was quite popular in gay video bars thanks to all the beefcake. I remember being told that one of the bodybuilders was a gay U.S. porn star, but one of you …

Visage, Fade To Grey, 1981. Steve Strange, Midge Ure, and crew giving us some early New Romantic-ness. As I was already a Bowie freak, it was a short hop to Visage.

Bronski Beat, Why, 1984. This song seems especially appropriate for this weekend. Contempt in your eyes as I turn to kiss his lips. Broken I lie, all my feelings denied. Blood on your fist. Can you tell me why? You in your false securities. Tear up my life, condemning me. Name me an illness, call me a sin. Never feel …

Grace Jones, Pull Up To The Bumper, 1981. Last night my ex Ken and I saw Grace in concert at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom, almost 25 years after we last saw her at Fort Lauderdale’s Copa, where she appeared exactly three hours late. Grace took the stage a mere 90 minutes tardy last night, performing the first number entirely shrouded in …

Paul Hardcastle, 19, 1985. Who could have predicted that a dance record about the average age of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam would be a global smash, going to #1 in 13 countries? Strange, and the video was disturbing as well. Trivia: Mike Oldfield successfully sued Paul Hardcastle for plagiarizing his Exorcist theme, Tubular Bells, with this track. (I’ve never been …

Yello, Bostich, 1980. The song that launched my decade-long obsession with this Swiss trio/duo. The 1980 album version of Bostich was only just over two minutes long, but the track was extended slightly for this video done four years later. And for about 15 years I had been convinced that Dieter Meier was saying, “Everybody! Pizza party!” Only when Ruffneck …

Malcolm McLaren, Madame Butterfly, 1984. One of my absolute favorites of the decade. There’s not much to the video, just a bunch of bored Robert Palmer girls pouting in a sauna, but man this track used to kill during morning music sets at Fort Lauderdale’s Copa. Wait for Betty Ann White’s last note. Take it away, Cho Cho.

Anne Clark, Our Darkness, 1984. One of few spoken-word dance hits that I can recall. I remember having a really hard time finding this record because the title doesn’t appear in the lyrics. Remember when you and your friends would spend the entire ride home from the club pondering what that song might have been? And then spending half of …