Mixes By Year: 1982 Most Recommended Albums

1982- the year that New Wave haircuts ruled the world. New Wave had been around at least since 1978 and was a catch-all term invented by record companies to describe a toned-down and more marketable version of Punk Rock. Though some New Wave had little in common sonically with the aggressive Punk, all of it was inspired by it, at least stylistically if nothing else. ’82 saw former Punk heavyweights or U.K. New Wave vets like Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Squeeze, XTC, Dexys Midnight Runners, Roxy Music, Simple Minds, Gang Of Four, The English Beat, The Clash, The Jam & Adam Ant release albums that either marked the last phase of their career or a sharp transition. Other British groups, like Duran Duran, the Eurythmics, ABC, Yaz & A Flock of Seagulls spawned the ‘New Romantics’ movement and dominated the charts in both the U.S. & U.K. with a fey synth-pop sound, seemingly the polar opposite of Punk. The Culture Club was an outlier U.K. group. Mega successful & brand new but neither Synth-pop nor New Romantic- they can best be described as New Wave blue-eyed Soul and didn’t have much in common with the above bands except for maybe Yaz courtesy of the vocal similarities between Boy George and Alison Moyet. U.S. groups like The Motels, The Stray Cats, Romeo Void, Marshall Crenshaw, the Plimsouls, The Go-Go’s, Thomas Dolby, Wall Of Voodoo & Kid Creole & the Coconuts had varying degrees of success, some one or two hit wonders, others one to two album wonders. But none was commercially built to last whether or not their artistry had merit.

I was ten years old at the time and listening to nothing but commercial radio so I may be biased but looking back on ’82 I find it to be a fun and exciting time filled with great radio songs. I was still listening to mostly commercial radio 2 to 3 years later as well and those years just don’t stack up as well. Outside of a few great albums, ’82 had a dearth of amazing albums but a plethora of great songs. Beyond the commercial realm groups like New Order, The Cure & R.E.M.- soon to be institutions- were releasing some of their group early works like “Temptation”, “Let’s Go to Bed”, “Pornography” and the “Chronic Town” EP. U2 mostly took the year off but did come out with the great “A Celebration/Trash, Trampoline & the Party Girl” non-album single between “October” and “Under A Blood Red Sky”.

Despite all of the softer New Wave-style groups mentioned above there were a handful of great bands continuing in the style of their Punk forebears. X, the Descendents & Fear all put out excellent excellent L.A. hardcore releases, though X was more in the rockabilly Punk style. D.C.’s Bad Brains released their first and best album- the self-titled “Bad Brains” and Boston’s Mission Of Burma released their one and only full length album (until the 2000’s) Vs.. Bad Brains and Burma in particularly would be hugely influential on all Grunge and Indie Rock of the late 80’s early 90’s. Both albums were little heard at the time but would gain stature as time moved forward.

At the time black music was very segregated from white rock music- both at radio and especially at MTV who didn’t even play videos by black artists to appeal as much as possible to the middle America. Though this would not change until ’83 two albums, “1999” by Prince and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson would be instrumental in integrating their music both at radio and MTV. In fact Jackson would become MTV’s biggest star and “Thriller” eventually the single best selling non-greatest hits album of all time. Before these two albums, the most prevalent music on black radio was a post funk, post disco, hybrid music by groups like Dazz Band & the Gap Band. Rap music also had a big year. Though there were only a few classics released then such as “Rockin’ It” by Fearless Four and “Making Cash Money” by Busy Bee two of the music’s all time game changers appeared that year as well. The first was Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five released “The Message”- to me still one of Rap’s all time 5 greatest songs- which was the first rap song to use political lyrics and carry a specific message, hence the title. It also didn’t hurt that the beat is one of the most recognizable and inventive in the genre. The second was Afrika Bambaatta’s “Planet Rock” which brought a techno beat inspired by the German group Kraftwerk and created the electro sub genre of rap. Bambaataa also released the almost as good follow up single “Jazzy Sensation” later in the year. Though Disco had petered out a few years earlier as a commercial force, it had gone back underground, still flourishing in gay clubs and songs like “Don’t Make Me Wait” by the NYC Peech Boys and “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” were minor fringe hits setting the table for House Music and the rise of Madonna in the coming years.

Duran Duran- Rio