1984 was 30 years ago

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

What is fcukin' wrong with you people?

VAN HALEN

I thought Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula was early 90s?

This is what I remember...










and this...

1984 for me.

A record stays at number one for five weeks and they don't play it on Top Of The Pops. This has got to be good. With a birthday coming up I asked for and received 19 inches of Frankie action. Eight years later The Sugarcubes hummed about sticking around for joy; back in the spring of 1984 Relax hung around the charts like a menacing minder.
Its inclusion on Now That's What I Call Music II ensured that the masses got to hear it. Side 3, track 1. Nicely sequenced before the Eurythmics' Here Comes The Rain. Which lead into Fiction Fictory's (Feels Like) Heaven and The Smiths' one and only appearance - What Difference Does It Make?
Other curveballs on the compilation included Snowy White's Bird Of Paradise, Carmel's More, More, More. Julia and Company with Breakin' Down (Sugar Samba). You also get Joe Fagin and a cracking Big Country 'n' Slade sequence.

Number 1 magazine went on strike in June. It wasn't published for seven weeks. Frankie Goes To Hollywood's second single Two Tribes went straight in at, er, number one, just before the staff downed tools. By the time they returned to work it was still in pole position. During this period Relax had climbed back up the charts and was in second place for three weeks. This was unprecedented stuff. So was the way I was purchasing music. Everything changed in June 1984; it was now not enough to own one version of a release. Over our wall was a big garden with potatoes and strawberries in it. They needed pickers.

Two Tribes was released at the height of the nuclear warfare fears. The Cold War was in full swing.
It came out in seven different formats during those two months. I bought all of them.

This is the sound.
Here are the details:

7" (Cowboys and Indians). The radio-orientated production that dispensed with a section of the song's middle eight.
7" (We Don't Want To Die). A picture disc. More guitar-driven. Has the middle eight.
12" (Annihilation). Starts with an air-raid siren. Features actor Patrick Allen recreating his narration from the Protect and Survive PIFs. A total deconstruction of the track complete with grim tips on how to dispose of dead bodies that had built up in the fallout shelter.
12" (Carnage). This followed the standard instrumental - vocal twelve inch blueprint. Halfway through saw a few vocal samples; more Patrick Allen and excerpts from the One February Friday (interview b-side). Chilling and my favourite. I played it at my 40th birthday party. Ian and Irene danced to it.
12" (Hibakusha). This was the hardest to get. 5,000 copies only. Heavier percussion.
12" War. A cover version of Strong-Whitfield's War was the main b-side. A remixed version subtitled (Hidden) became the a-side with the Carnage mix on the flip.
Cassette (Keep The Peace). Features elements of all mixes along with previously unused Reagan samples (voiced by Chris Barrie) and interview clips not used elsewhere.

Patrick Allen also features on the 7" versions but they're direct samples rather than him re-recording his vocal parts. A later mix (For The Victims of Ravishment) appeared on their debut album.

On 23 September 1984 BBC 2 showed a film called Threads. It shows the build-up to a nuclear strike along with the devastating consequences. 29 years on and I still get shivers when I think about certain scenes from it.

Advance orders for Frankie's first album (titled Welcome To The Pleasure Dome) exceeded 600,000. It was supposed to be released on 24 September 1984 (The "Day After" Threads - geddit?) but was postponed by five weeks and eventually came out on 29 October. Anticipation was immense.
The 29th was a bank holiday in Ireland so I had to wait until the next day to buy it. The shop (Ross Records - closed in 1986) only ordered two vinyl copies which displayed a shocking lack of confidence in the product. It was a double album and the four sides were subtitled as follows:

F - Pray Frankie Pray
G - Say Frankie Say
T - Stay Frankie Stay
H - Play Frankie Play

After The World Is My Oyster and a brief snatch of Ferry Cross The Mersey, the first side is mostly devoted to the epic title track. The lyrics were inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan.

The second side is devoted to the hits. New versions of Relax, War and Two Tribes. Plus Tag - Chris Barrie muttering about orgasms in a "Prince Charles" voice.

Side 3 came in for its fair share of criticism as it consisted of three cover versions. But the begrudgers were wrong; Ferry Cross The Mersey is heartfelt (along could be longer but has a funny Brookside sample) while Born To Run is extraordinarily rockist. In a good way. San Jose was a decent leftfield choice. The chaotic Wish You Were Here (featuring The Ballad Of 32) rounds off the third quarter.

The home stretch is extremely consistent. Krisco Kisses and The Only Star In Heaven are fiery camp-pop while Black Night, White Light has a gloriously dour funk vibe. The album ends with the hyperballad The Power Of Love. Strings by Ann Dudley. This also became the band's third single. It knocked Jim Diamond off the number one slot but only lasted a week due to the presence of the Band Aid juggernaut.

The title track was the band's fourth single in February 1985 but stalled at number two. Phil Collins and Philip Bailey's Easy Lover proving a tough nut to crack.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood would never be invincible again.

^^^ I might be a few years off with 'the New Avengers' (sorry), but I think the rest were all around 84'

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

The war with Eurasia.

damn it mardy, i got this far to see you beat me to it!

I remember it well, shergar still hadn't been found but Tidey was.

Kettleson wrote: »

This is what I remember...

All on Now 4 !

In Xanadu did kubla khan a pleasure dome erect