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Urban75 Album of the Year 1981

Spandex said:
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When I was a moody 16 year old Bauhaus were my favourite band, so I can't let 1981 pass without mentioning Mask. They were much more than just a goth band, in many ways more a glam/art-rock act taking influences from all over - T-Rex, Bowie, dub, funk - although they have plenty of post-punk and that pretentious gloominess of goth to them. Not their best flowing album due to the switches in style, but it does have a load of great tracks, including my favourite of theirs, goth-funk classic Kick in the Eye:

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I was a moody 16 year old then as well , but Bauhaus didn't cross my radar then 😂 I was aware of them but don't think I listened to anything by them for many years.
 
Here are four more no one has mentioned yet, despite being major artistes... None are the best albums from them, but they are all still bloody good.

Elvis had two albums out. The country covers didn't go down too well at the time, but has aged very nicely.



Trust was slightly more popular, even though it includes none of the massive hits.



Wire had split up, for the first time, but did leave us with a live album, which is truly excellent, showing us their power and force as a live band. Document & Eyewitness.



And then there was Magazine with their final album (for thirty plus years). Again, not as magnificent as their earlier masterpieces, but still better than 99% of other recordings that year.

 
Ive been checking out the Scientist albums, not a huge amount to differentiate them tbh though some are a bit better than others....
but something that might be of interest is how all the famous Greensleeves ones (Big Showdown, Dub Champion, EVil Vampires, Space Invaders, PacMan, World Cup) have been reissued by Greensleeves (owners VP in fact), with accompanying vocal sets from which the dubs were taken - thats great! But the bad news is Scientists name has been taken off the covers, and the producer, be it Linval Thompson or Junjo Lawes, replaces it:

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I dont know the grizzly details but it boils down to the fact that Scientist has no publishing rights over the music, the original producer does...Scientist was "just" the engineer. It sounds like Scientist has been screwed over in these rereleases, I dont know what he was offered if anything but from what I can tell he got nothing off these. I doubt he got much first time around! Ouch
 
Spandex said:
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Featuring Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit (Can), Robert Gröl (DAF), produced by Conny Plank, obviously Annie Lennox singing and Dave Stewart doing whatever it is that Dave Stewart does. Sounds nothing like anything else they did.

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Just got round to listening to this. It sounds fifteen years ahead of its time. 90's post rock vibe. Amazing album.
 
ska invita said:
Ive been checking out the Scientist albums, not a huge amount to differentiate them tbh though some are a bit better than others....
but something that might be of interest is how all the famous Greensleeves ones (Big Showdown, Dub Champion, EVil Vampires, Space Invaders, PacMan, World Cup) have been reissued by Greensleeves (owners VP in fact), with accompanying vocal sets from which the dubs were taken - thats great! But the bad news is Scientists name has been taken off the covers, and the producer, be it Linval Thompson or Junjo Lawes, replaces it:

R-8767057-1468755745-8338.jpeg.jpg

R-8767407-1475866563-7720.jpeg.jpg



I dont know the grizzly details but it boils down to the fact that Scientist has no publishing rights over the music, the original producer does...Scientist was "just" the engineer. It sounds like Scientist has been screwed over in these rereleases, I dont know what he was offered if anything but from what I can tell he got nothing off these. I doubt he got much first time around! Ouch
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My initial reaction to seeing those is What the fuck? That's like reissuing Sgt Pepper with a different cover!

Then I thought about it some more and on further reflection: What the fuck? That's like reissuing Sgt Pepper with a different cover!
 
belboid said:
Here are four more no one has mentioned yet, despite being major artistes... None are the best albums from them, but they are all still bloody good.

Elvis had two albums out. The country covers didn't go down too well at the time, but has aged very nicely.



Trust was slightly more popular, even though it includes none of the massive hits.



Wire had split up, for the first time, but did leave us with a live album, which is truly excellent, showing us their power and force as a live band. Document & Eyewitness.



And then there was Magazine with their final album (for thirty plus years). Again, not as magnificent as their earlier masterpieces, but still better than 99% of other recordings that year.

Click to expand...

First track on the Magazine album is superb.
 
I did listen to John Peel a lot in 1981 but rarely bought the stuff he played , if I liked something I tended to miss him saying who the band was , and had to hope he'd play it again and I did hear who the band was. Oh for a 1981 version of Shazam or Iplayer 😁
 
ska invita said:


includes this band ive not heard of before from Bristol



features on this collection

www.discogs.com

Talisman - Dole Age - The 1981 Reggae Collection

Explore songs, recommendations, and other album details for Dole Age - The 1981 Reggae Collection by Talisman. Compare different versions and buy them all on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com
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I thought this was particularly good. Probably my favourite 1981 reggae album that I've heard so far.
 
cloudyday said:
Bob Calvert’s Hype, a mix of Quark, Strangeness and Roxy Music.


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Re-release, not original album cover ^
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Did you read the book? I only half remember it now, but it was a laugh. Utterly ridiculous but highly entertaining.

I see it was rereleased in 2013, still with the original cover.

51+GZU05W1L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
belboid said:
Did you read the book? I only half remember it now, but it was a laugh. Utterly ridiculous but highly entertaining.

I see it was rereleased in 2013, still with the original cover.

51+GZU05W1L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
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No, I must try and get hold of it. I'm currently reading Joe Banks' book on Hawkwind (Days of the Underground) which includes a short but insightful interview with Calverts ex-wife.
 
Now this is all sorts of awesome. Finnish jazz fusion from Piirpauke. Two albums - Birgi Bühtüi and Kirkastus

 
The Kirkastus album seems to be much more mellow. I'm a bit bowled over by this last minute discovery.



Oh this take on salsa!



This is shaping up to to be this year's Gunesh!!!!
 
Oh and Kräldjursanstalten's Voodoo Boogie was 1981. Swedish post Beefheart avant rock. This will clear the cobwebs out.

 
hitmouse said:
Is tonight the deadline for this, and if so did can we get a ruling from belboid on whether Why? is allowed?
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The deadline IS tonight, tho I may accept them a day late if (when) I haven't totalled everything up by midnight.

I have now looked through all the EP's mentioned and none of them count. Only one hits twenty minutes, which is still too short, and several play on 45! No.
 
belboid said:
The deadline IS tonight, tho I may accept them a day late if (when) I haven't totalled everything up by midnight.

I have now looked through all the EP's mentioned and none of them count. Only one hits twenty minutes, which is still too short, and several play on 45! No.
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This is appalling anti-hardcore bias, Group Sex is 15 minutes and I've never heard anyone deny that's an album. Although an album that came out in 1980 and so doesn't qualify here, but I assume it was probably in the 1980 top 10.
Anyway, looks from this like Spotify and iTunes would both rightly recognise it as an album on the grounds of having ten songs:
 
Forgot Negativland's Points which is by far and away my favourite Negativland album and possibly the trippiest thing ever put on record. I've submitted my top ten but this would have been a top five for me. Doh.


 
andysays said:
I've recently discovered Suburban Lawns and The Wipers (who also had an album out in 1981) by them being included in Spotify playlists, which I guess is one way of discovering music you haven't already heard these days.

There was probably no way I was ever going to hear either of them as a teenager in London back in 1981 (unless maybe John Peel played them), so while I'm not going to include either in the list I vote for, it's certainly interesting to listen to them now as part of the retrospective soundtrack to 1981.

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Peel described them at one point as the world's most underrated punk band.

killer b said:
I think Wipers enjoy an enduring audience partly due to being the only band to appear twice in Kurt Cobain's list of his 100 favourite albums (which is a pretty good list fwiw, loads of good stuff on there)
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Three times and this intro (not from 1981) may sound familiar...
 
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