My Decade for pop music! Eighties pop tart, me.
Two Double CDs.
Many of the featured tunes are separately featured on Artist Albums in the Gert Collection. Most of the rest are on tapes-off-the radio.
Alternative Eighties. Oh yes, practically orgasmic. Even the liner notes are amusingly designed, containing a picture of hand-written home cassettes.
I cannot be objective about this music. I don't know what people twenty years older or younger than me make of it. Do I care? I'm not sure I do - with respect! This is the music I grew up with. I started secondary school in September 1979 and graduated from Uni in July 1989. Many of these tunes probably don't stand scrutiny on their merits, but they are (nearly) all so very familiar, in my bloodstream, and so very evocative of times and places, people and passions. I started this entry by listing all the 'great' tracks, but then I realised that I was listing almost everything, so I thought it easier to link to album details, not something I am making a habit of on this All the Records by Forty project.
Looking through, I am surprised at how few of the artist albums I actually own. Imagine how massive my record collection would be if I had been a rich kid!
The Ultimate Eighties is far more mainstream, with nearly all the tracks featured on artist albums I own. If I say Queen, Bowie, U2, Pet Shop Boys. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, you�ll get my drift, and you'll have to wait until I reach that artist in my blogging - or look back through the archives.
Memorable tracks not on artist albums are Black's Wonderful Life, Paul Young's Love of the Common People, Dexys Midnight Runners' Come on Eileen, Soft Cell's Tainted Love and the Bluebells' Young at Heart. Closest this album gets to a turkey is INXS's Need You Tonight, which is no worse than 'boring'.
I can't believe that we were so privileged to have such a wide selection of really good music in the 80s. I do not believe that I love this album, and frequently play it, just because of memories. I really do believe that it is of a better quality than any previous or subsequent decade of pop-pop-pop music.
Gosh, I am such an Eighties Pop Tart...!
