A-Ha are one-hit wonders? What, didn’t you get James Bond films in America back then?
I ain’t never caught a rabbit, either, but what does that have to do with the 80s?
Their recent stuff is just as strong as their classic stuff, IMHO. In fact, they had a recent B-side (“I Didn’t Get Where I am Today”, 2004) that was better than most groups’ A-sides.
World Eater, thanks for mentioning the Housemartins. Don’t know how I forgot them.
As for mattmorgan64: I agree, the 80s were pretty dire times. But the best (mostly underground) music was a reaction to that, full of passion and anger, raging against the ugliness all around.
Eh, “The Living Daylights” wasn’t a huge hit over here.
It pisses me off that he reworked a bunch of the songs when he released it on CD.
betenoir, Andros, and woodstockbirdybird, lets get together and share playlists! I suggest a nice central location of First Avenue’s Seventh Street Entry, where I cut my teeth with then little known bands named Husker Du and the Replacements.
Well, that movie happened to feature one of the best, non-schlocky bands from the early 80s, The Plimsouls. They were the band playing in the punk club Nick Cage went to when he was broken up with the valley girl…oh, I think they were also playing when the punk guys took the valley girls to the same club, earlier in the movie.
Well, there is the fact that they’ve done a lot of disco-pop numbers of the sort that tends to get played in dance clubs, and the fact that Neil is out (legend has it that their album Very is the answer to the question “Are you gay?”).
There’s also the fact that a ton of their lyrics are about gay experience: “West End Girls” (which as I understand it is slang for queens from the theatre district), “It’s a Sin,” “Being Boring” and “Dreaming of the Queen” (about losing friends to AIDS), “Can You Forgive Her?,” “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing,” “Liberation,” “Young Offender,” “The Survivors,” “A Red-Letter Day,” “Rent,” “The Boy Who Couldn’t Keep His Clothes On,” “Sexy Northerner”… and those are just off the top of my head.
There are also a passel of covers of songs that were either gay to begin with or that they made gay, such as “Go West” (which, although a cover of the Village People, has some original lyrics as well), “If Love were All,” “Somewhere,” “Try It (I’m in love with a married man),” and “Homosexuality.”
Yeah, for some reason they’ve tanked in the US despite being (as I understand it) as popular as ever in Europe. They did a concert in Montreal in 1999 and it was the best time ever. Still the only concert I’ve ever been to.
Bilingual was barely released in North America, despite being amazing (in the running with Very as my overall favourite.) Nightlife included a number of versions of songs from their musical Closer to Heaven, as well as the radio hit “New York City Boy.” Release had a slower, guitar-ballad feel to it, that it’s taken me a while to warm to, but has some lovely tracks like “London,” “Home and Dry,” and “E-Mail”, while “The Night I Fell In Love” is a wonderful satire in which an 18-year-old boy spends the night with his idol Eminem. Disco 3 returned to their dance theme with some new tracks, and Pop Art is a best-of compilation with an absolutely luminous new track, literally my favourite song of theirs, “Miracles.”
get the two cd-version , so you can hear the remix of “Sexy Northerner”
Wrong starts with a “W”.
(I was going to quote Relax but can’t remember enough of the lyrics)
Relax! Don’t do it! If…-doo-gon…-do-do-do-it!
Glad I could help.
Don’t do it. When you want to go to it, that is.
Relax.
/Lucy
That’s It!!
/Lucy
Love Beach was 1978. (And it was half good, anyway. Unfortunately, they front-loaded the thing with five crap songs in a row, so your ears are bleeding and your stomach is in a knot before you get to the decent stuff.)
Ok, thinking about it makes perfect sense. I guess I’ve just been listening to them for so long that I just sort of take the gay vibe for granted. I forget how important–and unusual–it is to have a band (especially one with sometime pop appeal) dealing with specifially gay subject matter.
I’ve got Bilingual on order, and I’ll see about Release.
Let’s see, other stuff . . .
I still have my “Frankie Says” t-shirt, have never been able to get rid of it. It’s stashed away with my “Holiday Inn Cambodia” and “Peekaboo” tees.
And I once put Brain Salad Surgery on repeat for three days straight. Was stoned the entire time without smoking a single bowl.
I was just remembering wearing my “Relax” tee to a punk warehouse show. Got all sorts of shit for it, but I was 6’1" and wearing leathers, steel-toe Docs, and spikes, so the shit was somewhat limited.
Oh FUCK I’ve created a tribute thread to the worst decade in history.
May god forgive me, as I know I never will.
Choose Life.
You know, like on the t-shirts worn by Wham!
C’mon, aha had several Top 40 hits, back when he was singing professionally. (Which probably makes him unique among Dopers.) 
Of course, that was well before the 80s…