3 Songs From 1986 That Were Ahead of Their Time

There are classic songs we revisit because of nostalgia, because they transport us back to a previous chapter in our lives. The production and style forever hardened in stone is exactly what draws us back to them over and over again. Perhaps reminding us of a time in our lives when we felt a little freer than we do now.

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Meanwhile, other songs are so groundbreaking that they still sound both of and beyond the year they were released. Ageless in a different way. Today, we’ll highlight three such ageless songs from 1986 that were ahead of their time.

“Master Of Puppets” by Metallica

Metallica wouldn’t fully become a mainstream band until they released their first music video for “One” in 1989. But “Master Of Puppets”, both the album and the song, felt like a cultural shift for heavy metal. The eight-and-a-half-minute epic proved listeners were hungry for something more complex, less pedestrian, than what most popular hard rock acts were offering then. It wouldn’t be the last time this track became a cultural phenomenon. It was featured in Season 4 of Stranger Things and landed high in the charts nearly four decades after its initial release.

“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths

In The Smiths’ pop gem from The Queen Is Dead, Johnny Marr borrows a riff from The Rolling Stones’ cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Hitch Hike”. Which also appears in The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again”. The track finds Morrissey echoing the wrecked homelife of Jim Stark, portrayed by James Dean, in Rebel Without A Cause. Here, Morrissey offers a first-hand account of a young and alienated romantic. The Smiths shaped countless bands, but fellow Mancunians Oasis, as good as any, furthered the craft of repurposing familiar parts of old songs to craft modern anthems.

Oh, please don’t drop me home
Because it’s not my home, it’s their home
And I’m welcome no more.

“Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel’s pop masterpiece equally elevated the art of the music video. The iconic clip, which utilized Claymation and stop motion animation, was unlike anything on MTV in 1986. A visual collage to match the genre-smashing track. Gabriel, along with producer Daniel Lanois, stitched together an audio quilt of funk, old soul, dance, and new wave. “Sledgehammer” is like a time machine, with Gabriel and Lanois performing 1960s soul with the technology of the 1980s, and then catapulting their smash-hit concoction well into the future.

Photo by Pete Cronin/Redferns