The start of the ‘80s gave listeners a fascinating intersection of styles and genres. Just as new sounds were beginning to come to the forefront, established forms of music were holding on for dear life.
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Just to give you an example, we headed back to February 1980 and picked out five outstanding albums that were released in that stretch. Here’s what had record stores buzzing 45 years ago this month.
Get Happy!! by Elvis Costello
Costello’s fourth album was the first in which he began to display the stylistic wanderlust that would go on to epitomize much of his career. He and the Attractions kept many of the songs short (there are 20 of them crammed onto this single LP), and those songs are often indebted to Stax/Volt and Motown influences. What’s impressive is E.C. managed to fit his wordy lyrics seamlessly into swinging tracks like “Opportunity” and “King Horse.” There’s still enough room for other diversions, such as the baroque pop of “New Amsterdam” and the Dylanesque anger of “Riot Act.”
Against the Wind by Bob Seger
Seger wasn’t satisfied with the fact he’d finally emerged as a nationwide star on albums like Night Moves and Stranger in Town. He wanted to top the charts, and he tackled Against the Wind with a formula in mind that would get him there (which it did). The good news is his songwriting, combined with the winning performances of the Silver Bullet Band and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, prevented it from sounding in any way calculated. From the winsome self-reflection of the title track and “Fire Lake,” to the fierce rocking of “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight” and “Her Strut,” Seger and company have everything working.
Argybargy by Squeeze
At the point they released Argybargy, Squeeze were a sensation in their native Great Britain, but they hadn’t quite crossed over in a meaningful way in America. It’s one of the high points of their career, the quintessence (to use a word the band’s lyricist Chris Difford once squeezed into a lyric) of their pop period. Try and find any holes in the construction of singles like “Another Nail in My Heart,” “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” and “If I Didn’t Love You,” and you’ll come up empty. The album tracks are pretty great as well, especially “Wrong Side of the Moon,” featuring then-Squeeze keyboardist and future chat-show maven Jools Holland on lead vocal.
Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School by Warren Zevon
Just by assessing the title of the record, you can kind of tell you’re getting Zevon in uncompromising mode here. There’s probably something to the notion he was subconsciously undercutting the commercial gains he’d made with his previous record (Excitable Boy). Nonetheless, Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School yields a fascinating mix of songs for those willing to follow Zevon’s twisted sense of humor and bruised heart wherever it leads. “Play It All Night Long” is a blistering rocker, “Jeannie Needs a Shooter” a cool tale of a doomed outlaw, and “A Certain Girl” a smoking R&B cover.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
They later became known as the kings of the prom ballad, thanks to their success with “If You Leave.” But OMD built their reputation in their native Great Britain based on their synthesizer-and-programmed drums constructions, most of which had lyrics that had absolutely nothing to do with romance. Their self-titled debut proved endlessly influential, and did pretty good business in their home country. It’s striking how they make each song its own animal, even with the sameness of instrumentation throughout. Tracks like “Almost” and “Pretending to See the Future” also prove the duo of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys were ace songwriters, even at this early stage in their careers.
Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
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