#2: 1985

THE NINETIES-IST
Welcome, faithful readers, to the 90s-ist, a new weekly think tank in which your tireless, music-obsessive writer ponders all things 90s. We will begin by discussing “alternative” rock’s rise to mainstream attention in the late 80s. From there, we’ll trace the historical steps through the glut of indie stalwarts and copycats who dented the charts in the wake of Nevermind’s 1991 release, to the resurgence of boy bands and the advent of the MP3 in the late 90s, concluding with commercial rock’s last big push (garage rock) and the industry’s death rattle, which came at some point in or around 2003. Your writer believes that rock music is a dead or dying means of expression. It is my intent, through this column, to trace the path of what has happened to music over the last twenty-five years, who killed rock and roll, and what we as a culture can do to breathe life back into its’ corpse. Join me, now, looking back to the first year in our journey: 1985.

January 1985 saw the release of two of the most notable albums of the decade. Atlantic Records dropped Phil Collins’ greatest commercial success (and current fodder for about 1/8 of Patton Oswalt’s routine), No Jacket Required on January 25th. Including the huge singles “Sussudio,” “One More Night” and “Don’t Lose My Number,” as well as several key placements on then-tastemaking nighttime drama Miami Vice, No Jacket Required was sufficiently bashed into the world’s subconscious, producing three top 10 singles, sitting firmly at number one on the US Billboard chart for 7 weeks, and achieving certified Diamond (10 million shipped) in sales.

Down the road a way in Hermosa Beach, CA (the writer is taking the liberty of guessing that Atlantic Records is based out of Los Angeles), Greg Ginn’s SST Records issued New Day Rising, Hüsker Dü’s less-ambitious-but no less influential-follow-up to Zen Arcade (Hüsker’s legendary two-LP meditation on teenage angst) on the same day as No Jacket Required. Although polar opposites in terms of sound, sales and historical influence (Collins’ work may have moved twenty times the units Hüsker Dü’s did but, like the Velvet Underground and the Ramones before them, most people who bought Mould and Co.’s classic album started a band of their own), the two albums bear more in common than you might think.

Bear with me, here. No discerning ear would ever confuse Collins’ voice with that of Hüsker Dü frontmen Bob Mould or Grant Hart. The opening cuts off each respective disc bear no immediate similarities either: Husker Hüsker Dü’s “New Day Rising” is a meditation in repetition and dissonance; Mould’s endless barking of the title is barely audible over squalling guitars and skittering drums. Collins’ “Sussudio,” on the other hand, is the epitome of 80s pop singles: crisp, super-produced drumming and horns. You can practically hear the amiable grin spread across Phil’s face as he launches into the chorus. But, look a little bit deeper. Many of the songs on No Jacket Required, among them the singles “Sussudio” and “Don’t Lose My Number,” were based around the singer improvising lyrics in the studio. That amount of spontaneity is what gives Collins’ work its’ buoyancy and zip.

Having been on the road for the better part of four years prior to New Day Rising’s release, the members of Hüsker Dü had a musical rapport that bordered on improvisation (not to mention songs on each of their key albums are live studio improvisations). That Collins’ best work is even partially improv-based is an amazing testament to the faith and unobtrusive patience of whoever was running Atlantic Records, although it doesn’t hurt that Collins’ is such an amiable musical identity, and his music is exactly the right kind to shop to. This lenience, in 1985, surprises me, as I thought that spontaneity in commercial rock music was last seen when the right DJ put the needle down on the B-Side to Dave Dupree’s “Train to Nowhere” single in 1958, and brought “Tequila” to the world (side note: 1985 was also the year Tim Burton’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure gave “Tequila” a second wind).
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Spontaneity is more or less out the window today, in an era in which every album “accidentally” leaks weeks before proper release, and approximately one out of every three albums released is a reissue of some lost “classic,” laden with disappointing B-sides and bonus tracks that bog down albums more than shed new light on the original work. The earliest example I can find of a forgotten album reissued to beat the bootleggers and capitalize on fan interest comes in February of 1985, and the official release of the Velvet Underground’s “lost” fourth album, VU. Later accompanied by the 1986 album Another VU (and still later made redundant, with the maddening exception of an early version of “Andy’s Chest,” by the 1994 boxed set Peel Slowly And See), VU peaked at #85 on the Billboard charts, and while #85 is the highest chart position in the band’s career, VU isn’t much more solid an album than the oft-bootlegged, never issued (for obvious reasons) Lennon-McCartney jam session A Toot and a Snore in ‘74.

The door was thrown open with, or sometime near, this hodgepodge Velvets album, and I would guess that this is where the nostalgia craze kicked into second gear. With CDs becoming a more common household item by 1985, both the demand for new product and the extra storage space of a compact disc pushed the industry’s hand to start reissuing anything they could think of, up to and including reference tracks that were never intended for public consumption. This glut of possibilities to choose from, as well just creating increasingly inferior products, must be [Editor’s Note: read: Mr. Pridemore thinks) linked to music’s eventual downfall. It didn’t matter if a reissue CD was “good,” as long as it is “lost” – a definite mentality shift.
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Finally, I’d like to point out that 1985 is the year in which one of the most unlikely success stories in pop music history: that of perennial parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic, transcended novelty record hell and set both feet firmly into the pop mainstream with his third album, Dare To Be Stupid. Including “Like A Surgeon,” a parody of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” apparently conceptualized and recorded after Madge joked that she would “know she’d made it when ‘Weird Al’ released a single called “Like A Surgeon.’” Dare To Be Stupid didn’t sell quite as well as it’s predecessor, In 3-D, but the album’s cultural impact is apparent with the title track’s inclusion on the 1986 Transformers soundtrack, as well as spot-on, career-highlight parodies of hits by The Kinks and Huey Lewis and the News. He’s showing no sign of slowing: indeed, Al’s been playing with the same backing band since 1980 and released his greatest commercial and critical success, 2006’s Straight Outta Lynwood, a full thirty years into his career. “Weird Al”’s story is one of the most unlikely and most unconventional success stories in modern rock history; considering the gravity of much of the popular music throughout the 1990s, it’s a testament to Al’s skill as a humorist (as well as the greater public’s desire to laugh) that he weathered some lean years creatively and continues intact today.

Next week, 1986: the dissolution of Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys, Metallica’s Cliff Burton is killed in a freak bus accident, and the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame makes it’s first inductions.

by Brook Pridemore