This is the ninth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

At this point we’re so early in the ’80s that most of the music will still have a distinct ’70s vibe to it, and the songs with strong ’80s aesthetics are totally fresh and forward-thinking in the moment. “Bette Davis Eyes” is a great example of this – it was written and originally recorded in the ’70s and you can hear that in the melody and sentiment, but the synth-heavy arrangement of the Kim Carnes version defines a very particular early ’80s vibe. I’ve never given that song a lot of thought until I realized it came much earlier in the ’80s than I had assumed, and now it strikes me a major turning point in pop music.

Thanks to Paul Cox, Chris Conroy, and Rob Sheffield for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous mixes in this series can be found on this page. The 1980 survey – the final of this series! – should be ready around the first week of August.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” / The Clash “The Magnificent Seven” / Blondie “Rapture” / Tom Tom Club “Genius of Love” / Rick James “Super Freak” / Kim Carnes “Bette Davis Eyes” / Soft Cell “Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?” / Depeche Mode “Just Can’t Get Enough” / The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “Kiss On My List” / Squeeze “Tempted” / Rod Stewart “Young Turks” / Olivia Newton-John “Physical” / Prince “Controversy” / Funky Four Plus One “That’s the Joint” / Grandmaster Flash “Adventures on the Wheels of Steel” / Disco Daddy & Captain Rapp “Gigolo Rapp” / The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping” / ESG “Moody” / Vivien Goldman “Lauderette” / The Specials “Ghost Town”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Queen & David Bowie “Under Pressure” / Ian Dury & The Seven Seas Players “Spasticus Autisticus” / Bill Withers & Grover Washington Jr “Just the Two of Us” / Boogie Boys with Kool Ski, Kid Delight, and Disco Dave “Rappin’ Ain’t No Thang” / Stars on 45 “Stars on 45 Medley” / Stevie Nicks and Don Henley “Leather and Lace” / The Cars “Shake It Up” / Dead Kennedys “We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now” / The Gun Club “For the Love of Ivy” / Elvis Costello “Clubland” / Wynton Marsalis “Sister Cheryl” / Muhal Richard Abrams “Du King” / Singers & Players “Devious Woman” / Brian Eno & David Byrne “The Jezebel Spirit” / Steve Winwood “Arc of a Diver” / Genesis “Abacab” / Gang of Four “To Hell with Poverty” / The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” / Kool and the Gang “Take My Heart” / Merles Haggard “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

New Order “Ceremony” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Spellbound” / The Cure “Primary” / U2 “Gloria” / Echo and the Bunnymen “A Promise” / The Pretenders “Talk of the Town” / Sheena Easton “9 to 5 (Morning Train)” / Kid Creole and the Coconuts “Table Manners” / Fela Kuti “Coffin for Head of State” / Afrika Bambaataa “Jazzy Sensation (Bronx Version)” / Diana Ross “Work That Body” / Yoko Ono “Walking On Thin Ice (Re-Edit)” / King Crimson “Elephant Talk” / DNA “Blonde Red Head” / Glenn Branca “Lesson No. 2” / Penguin Cafe Orchestra “Telephone and Rubber Band” / Lindsey Buckingham “Trouble” / Joe Walsh “A Life of Illusion”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

R.E.M. “Radio Free Europe” / The Au Pairs “We’re So Cool” / The B-52’s “Private Idaho (Party Mix)” / Black Uhuru “Sponji Reggae” / Maximum Joy “Stretch” / Teena Marie “Square Biz” / Donald Byrd “Love Has Come Around” / Patrick Crowley “Menergy” / Pete Shelley “Homosapien” / Van Halen “Unchained” / Mötley Crüe “Live Wire” / The Blasters “Marie Marie” / Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “The Waiting” / Billy Idol “Dancing with Myself” / The Ramones “The KKK Took My Baby Away” / Minor Threat “Minor Threat” / Black Flag “Rise Above” / Mission of Burma “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver” / Stripsearch & Emily XYZ “Hey Kid” / The Minutemen “Search” / Taana Gardner “Heartbeat” / Bee Gees “Paradise” / Juice Newton “Angel of the Morning”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Duran Duran “Girls on Film” / Lene Lovich “New Toy” / Lizzy Mercier Descloux “Lady O K’Pele” / August Darnell “Christmas On Riverside Drive” / Miles Davis “Shout” / Esther Williams “I’ll Be Your Pleasure (Larry Levan Mix)” / Frankie Smith “Double Dutch Bus” / Marvin Gaye “Heavy Love Affair” / Luther Vandross “Never Too Much” / Lionel Richie & Diana Ross “Endless Love” / Christopher Cross “Arthur’s Theme” / Air Supply “The One That You Love” / John Lennon “Woman” / Rickie Lee Jones “We Belong Together” / Al Jarreau “We’re In This Love Together” / Joan Armatrading “No Love” / The Psychedelic Furs “Pretty In Pink” / Split Enz “History Never Repeats” / Eurythmics “Never Gonna Cry Again” / Jandek “Feathered Drums” / Emmylou Harris “Evangeline” / Rodney Crowell “Shame on the Moon” / Willie Nelson “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground” / Bob Dylan “The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar” / Shakin’ Stevens “This Ole House” / Def Leppard “Bringing On The Heartbreak” / Loverboy “Working for the Weekend”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” / Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” / Journey “Don’t Stop Believin’” / Quarterflash “Harden My Heart” / Smokey Robinson “Being with You” / James ‘Blood’ Umer “Where Did All the Girls Come From?” / The Commodores “Lady” / Quincy Jones “Ai No Corrida” / Meat Loaf featuring Cher “Dead Ringer for Love” / Stiff Little Fingers “Go For It” / Adam and the Ants “Stand and Deliver” / The dBs “She’s Not Worried” / Gary U.S. Bonds “This Little Girl” / X “The Once Over Twice” / Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Shots” / Wipers “Youth of America” / Romeo Void “Myself to Myself” / The Adicts “Hurt” /The Adolescents “Amoeba” / Aneka “Japanese Boy” / Altered Images “Happy Birthday” / Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark “Souvenir” / Pointer Sisters “Slow Hand”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Laurie Anderson “O Superman (For Massenet)” / Kraftwerk “Computer Love” / Cybotron “Alleys of Your Mind” / Earth, Wind, and Fire “Let’s Groove” / Funkadelic “The Electric Spanking of War Babies” / Grace Jones “Pull Up to the Bumper” / Kool Kyle “It’s Rockin’ Time” / Material featuring Nona Hendryx “Bustin’ Out” / Electric Light Orchestra “Hold On Tight” / Was (Not Was) “Out Come the Freaks” / Minimal Compact “Statik Dancin’” / Heaven 17 “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” / Bruce Cockburn “Fascist Architecture” / Rosanne Cash “Seven Year Ache” / Tom Verlaine “There’s A Reason” / Patti Austin “Symphony of Love” / The Blue Nile “I Love This Life” / Comateens “Nightmare” / The Jam “Funeral Pyre” / Joe Dolce “Shaddup You Face”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “Bad Reputation” / The Replacements “Takin’ A Ride” / Agent Orange “Too Young to Die” / The Lyres “Buried Alive” / The English Beat “Doors of Your Heart” / Eddie Rabbitt “Step by Step” / Alvin Stardust “Pretend” / The Neville Brothers “Fire on the Bayou” / Coati Mundi “Me No Pop I” / Yarbough & Peoples “Don’t Stop the Music” / The Jacksons “Can You Feel It” / Spandau Ballet “Chant No. 1” / The Moody Blues “Gemini Dream” / Klaus Nomi “Total Eclipse” / Central Line “Walking Into Sunshine (Larry Levan mix)” / Dinosaur L “Go Bang!” / Billy Bang Quintet “New York After Dark” / The Manhattan Transfer “Boy From New York City” / David Byrne “What A Day That Was” / TSOL “Silent Scream” / Carl Wilson “What You Gonna Do About Me” / Deniece Williams “Silly”

Margaret Glaspy “Situation”

It feels strange that I haven’t heard more songs about resenting unsolicited advice in all these years. Margaret Glaspy’s guitar parts in “Situation” are wiry and tense, and seem to tangle around the melody like string becoming a knot. She doesn’t sing so much as spit out her words, and the lines are blunt, confrontational, and completely unambiguous: “You don’t know my situation / we’ve had at most one conversation / you haven’t got a clue / so don’t tell me what to do.” It’s a perfect little dagger of a song aimed at the neck of some condescending even if potentially well-meaning person who doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize how insulting they’re being. When I hear it, I wonder how often I’ve been that person, and feel guilty for it. I can’t imagine what this song must feel like for the person Glaspy wrote it about. You just know they’ve heard it and felt the sting of recognition, right?

Buy it from Amazon.

Pip Blom “Truth”

There’s a part of my brain that hears Pip Blom’s songs and starts running a scan of my memory to figure out where I’ve heard her rhythms and chord progressions before. It’s all Alt-Rock 101 stuff, so it’s like — is that “Polly”? is that “Song 2”? is that some PJ Harvey thing? But this doesn’t get in the way of Blom’s songs, which all have immediate earworm hooks that benefit greatly from the blunt force of these simple chords. There’s a physicality to this music that you get from all the best ‘90s rock – she makes you feel the gestures and movements of playing the guitar, the impact of a snare hit, the raw sensation in your throat you get from using your voice the “wrong” way. She puts you right inside the anxiety of the song, and keeps her language as blunt as the rhythm so all the lust, confusion, self-doubt, and resentment in the lyrics are delivered to you entirely undiluted.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Melkbelly “Elk Mountain”

Melkbelly is remarkably fully formed for a band with only a couple singles out: a very defined guitar aesthetic; good melodies; a strong sense of urgency in everything they’ve produced. Guitar parts in Melkbelly songs are constantly moving – snaking around the beat, scraping against the groove, making hairpin turns just after you’ve settled into a rhythm. “Elk Mountain” does all of those things and more in four minutes, setting up a tension at odds with the vocal, which is basically a one-sided stoned conversation with some weirdo kid named Rusty. The details of the lyrics are surreal and unsettling, but sorta deadpan and matter-of-fact. By the end, she’s singing in this soft wordless angelic tone, and it’s hard to remember exactly how you got there because everything else went by in a blur.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Jay Som “I Think You’re Alright”

“I Think You’re Alright” stars off in a way that does not signal in any way that a good guitar solo will come later on, and when it does come it’s slightly startling even after hearing it a few times over. It feels small and intimate in a way that doesn’t often result in wordless catharsis, but the decision to switch gears like that at the end is satisfying and refreshing. It also feels right as the aftermath of lyrics that express great affection for someone, but seems to be dialing things back every step of the way to avoid sappiness and vulnerability. She’s laying out a fantasy of love and intimacy, but it’s full of fucked-up bits, and the “I love you” is downgraded to “I think you’re alright.” That solo lets loose all the buried feelings. It’s not especially graceful, but it’s exactly right. If only we could just blurt out wordless feelings in regular life, right?

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Amy O “Canteen”

“Canteen” sounds cheerful but also a bit nervous, as though every beat and melodic turn in it is guided by a quiet ever-present anxiety. Amy O’s lyrics call back to childhood – the very first line is “elementary school was a breeze” – but that sentimental imagery is laced through a song that otherwise deals with some ill-defined relationship that’s both enticing and terrifying. She sings about how “love is a spider,” and she’s getting stuck in this person’s web, and while that metaphor isn’t exactly obscure, the way she uses it makes everything about having a body and emotions seem icky and alien. But it is kinda weird to just be passive, right? To just give yourself over to someone else’s whims, and not really know what to expect from moment to moment.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Angelic Milk “Rebel Black”

Angelic Milk is music made by a Russian teen who seems to be obsessed with a romanticized concept of the angst-ridden American teenager. There’s several layers of irony to their project, but it’s not enough to obscure a genuine feeling. “Rebel Black” is built out of references, but they’re largely gestures to feelings in other songs and movies, not direct swipes from anything in particular. It’s more about what it’s like to imagine moments in your life the way they might be told in a movie, and willing your life to be more like that grander, more sentimental version of the experience. Edit out the boring parts, punch up the dramatic bits, and make everyone and everything much prettier, but keep things just raw enough to feel convincing.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Sleigh Bells “Rule Number One”

Casey Kasem used to end his Top 40 broadcasts by telling listeners to “keep your feet on the ground, but keep reaching for the stars.” In other words, be ambitious, but also pragmatic. Alexis Krauss offers a more impatient and aggressive version of that thought in “Rule Number One,” belting out “RIPPING DOWN STARS WHILE I STAND ON MY TOES!!!” over a Derek Miller riff so severely processed that it sounds more like it’s being played on grinding gears instead of guitar strings. I can’t understate how much this moment of the song thrills me – I rewind the bit and play it back all the time, just trying to tap directly into this extraordinary willpower and self-belief.

No contemporary rock band has devoted as much of their energy towards making their music sound AS HYPE AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, but “Rule Number One” is a new peak for this duo. Krauss used to rely mostly on head voice, but here she’s as brassy and bold as En Vogue circa “Free Your Mind.” Miller’s riffs and beats have the raw energy they’ve always had, but they’re refined and reinforced. They’re both pushing themselves to their limits, and seem defiant in a way they haven’t seen before Treats came out. And that makes sense, right? They’re the underdogs again, and this is a song about breaking yourself, reinventing yourself, and willing yourself into greatness. It’s inspirational as fuck and I can’t get enough of it.

Buy it from iTunes.

Mitski “Once More To See You”

“Once More to See You” is built upon the “Be My Baby” beat, an easy signifier of aching romance in pop music. But it’s slowed just enough that you hang on every hit, anticipating something that you know is coming but still somehow feels slightly too far away. That theme carries over to Mitski’s words as she sings about a passionate love that’s being kept secret, and the agony of biding time until they can be alone together again. It’s a very melodramatic sentiment, but the song is rather understated overall, with the strongest feelings expressed in the spaces between words and sounds.

Buy it from Amazon.

Beck “Wow”

“Wow” slots into the Odelay/Midnite Vultures/Guero wing of the Beck discography, but it doesn’t feel quite like anything from those records. This song, along with last year’s “Dreams,” finds Beck exploring a vibe that’s so chill that it’s nearly vapid. There’s a void at the center of most of his late period material, and while the sadder songs stare into that void, “Wow” is like diving gracefully into it while wearing comfortable but extremely expensive clothes. A lot of the lyrics here are intentional cliches – “it’s your life / you gotta try to get it right” – but there’s a lot of old school absurdist Beck-isms in the mix too. “Girl in a bikini with the Lamborghini shih tzu” is a silly yet vivid line worthy of Midnite Vultures, but my favorite bit is when he raps “my demon’s on the cell phone to YOUR demons.” It’s a funny image, but it suggests an alienation from his own negative feelings so intense they’re removed from himself. This is Beck’s version of “YOLO” – live your life, do it right, have fun, and distance yourself from all bad vibes.

Buy it from Amazon.

Ariana Grande “Moonlight”

Ariana Grande’s major hits tend to be uptempo and sorta blaring, or force her into pairing up with pop rappers who seem arbitrarily selected and artificially forced into the song. I much prefer her in ballad mode, particularly when she aims for nostalgia and innocence, as on “Moonlight.” The song is extremely sweet and sentimental, and though she subverts the old-fashioned qualities of the tune with some contemporary slang, it’s pretty clear that she’s whole-heartedly embracing the naive romance of it all. Grande’s voice is lovely on this, and nicely balanced between straight-forward emoting and nuanced elegance. I like that she opens her new album with this song – other artists might sequence this sort of song at the end, but she’s wise enough to know that this is exactly the sort of showcase for her voice that ought to be your entry point into a record.

Buy it from Amazon.

Colleen Green “U Coulda Been An A”

There’s been a lot of Ramones in Colleen Green’s music all along, but lately she’s made Ramones pastiche the focus of her work. The Ramones aesthetic frames her songwriting skills in a very flattering way, particularly in her talent for expressing her complex neuroses very plainly. By tapping into Joey Ramone’s charming guilelessness, she embraces an earnest vulnerability while dialing down some of the darkest feelings on her last album, I Want to Grow Up. She’s not undermining herself so much as putting a more light-hearted spin on her anxieties. “U Coulda Been An A” is all post-breakup angst, but it’s played like a joke: Hey, you coulda made this work, but whatever, buddy! It’s good to have perspective.

Buy it
from Amazon.

Cass McCombs “Opposite House”

The lyrics of “Opposite House” suggest a living situation so narrow and cut off from the outside world that it’s brought on a sort of madness, but the sound of the song feels rather open and airy. There’s an indication that the space in one’s mind can be very different from physical reality, and that can in turn warp your sense of a confined room. To the singer of this song, there’s a whole world in this small home, and his endless time alone gives him plenty of time to figure out a way to bring a love back into his life. It’s all a fantasy, but fantasies can be nice.

Buy it from Amazon.

Kip McGrath “Clock Hands”

Good news, everybody! I’ve found the best chill indie song of summer 2016. The one that will sound perfect when you’re in a backyard, on a roof, in a car, near some body of water, or just walking around with headphones on. The song that will make you feel relaxed and friendly, but also just a little bit melancholy. They always need that vague note of sadness because you’re always supposed to be aware that the moment is fleeting. These songs take many forms, but this time around it sounds sorta like a groovier version of The Smiths fronted by Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab. I didn’t even know I wanted that!

“Clock Hands” is about embracing change in life, and knowing that as some things end, others can begin. “Take the clock / turn back the hands / let love in your heart again.” It’s a simple and sweet sentiment, and it’s delivered with just the right bit of empathy and realism. The song knows that is easier said than done, but it’s worth it to try and it’s always a good idea to open yourself up to new experiences and new people. As a wise man once sang, “what comes is better than what came before.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.

The Kills “Whirling Eye”

The Kills have always eagerly embraced artifice and glamor, but in a way that more about deciding who you want to be rather than pretending to be something you’re not. They project an atmosphere so strong and a vibe so vivid that it can momentarily change your reality: Maybe you’re not smashed in Hollywood at 2 a.m., but you’re there with them in that feeling at the start of “Whirling Eye.” There’s a touch of new wave in this song – not so much that it comes out like pastiche, but enough to feel a bit different from the arty digital blues that Jamie Hince usually plays. It’s a hyper-romantic song, but also somehow very low-key. Alison Mosshart sings everything in this sorta matter-of-fact way, even when she’s belting out the most passionate bits of the chorus, and it makes exciting, profound, sexy things sound totally casual. That’s the fantasy: A life so thrilling it becomes mundane.

Buy it from Amazon.

Here’s the eighth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

We’re in the home stretch now!

This is the longest of the 1980s surveys so far, and I didn’t really even intend for that to be the case. But there’s a lot of very different things going on in 1982, and I wanted to represent that as best I could. At this point we’re at the tail end of the initial explosion of punk and new wave, old school hip-hop is starting to hit its stride, dancehall and reggae is booming, and there’s still a lot of funk carried over from the disco era. It’s the first year where the ‘80s trifecta – Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna – all have music out at the same time. But along with all that, there’s a LOT of music that will probably make you go “that came out in 1982??” That was my reaction to some things, anyway.

Thanks to Paul Cox and Chris Conroy their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous 1980s surveys are still available: 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, 1983. The 1981 survey should be ready around the first week of July.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Elvis Costello and the Attractions “Beyond Belief” / Michael Jackson “Billie Jean” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” / Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out” / Fleetwood Mac “Hold Me” / Sister Nancy “Bam Bam” / The Clash “Rock the Casbah” / Grandmaster Flash “The Message” / The Human League “Don’t You Want Me” / Eurythmics “Love Is A Stranger” / New Order “Temptation” / Missing Persons “Destination Unknown” / Steve Winwood “Valerie” / Prince “1999” / George Clinton “Atomic Dog” / Marvin Gaye “Sexual Healing” / Stevie Wonder “That Girl” / Musical Youth “Pass the Dutchie” / Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force “Planet Rock” / Yaz “Situation” / Klaus Nomi “After the Fall” / The Pointer Sisters “I’m So Excited” / Culture Club “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Stevie Nicks “Edge of Seventeen” / Survivor “Eye of the Tiger” / John Cougar Mellencamp “Jack and Diane” / Richard and Linda Thompson “Don’t Renege On Our Love” / Squeeze “Black Coffee In Bed” / The Jam “A Town Called Malice” / Phil Collins “You Can’t Hurry Love” / Toni Basil “Mickey” / The Waitresses “I Know What Boys Like” / Bow Wow Wow “I Want Candy” / The Go-Go’s “Vacation” / Adam and the Ants “Goody Two Shoes” / Steve Miller Band “Abracadabra” / King Sunny Ade “Mo Beru Agba” / Yellowman “Mister Chin” / Sugar Hill Gang “Apache” / Ornette Coleman “Sleep Talk” / The Gap Band “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” / The dB’s “Amplifier” / Anti-Nowhere League “Animal” / Blitz “We Are the Boys” / Reba McEntire “Can’t Even Get the Blues” / John Anderson “Swingin’” / Jackson Browne “Somebody’s Baby” / Willie Nelson “Always On My Mind”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

The B-52’s “Mesopotamia” / Dexys Midnight Runners “Come On Eileen” / Madness “Our House” / Marshall Crenshaw “Someday, Someway” / The Fall “The Classical” / Modern English “I Melt With You” / Kate Bush “Suspended In Gaffa” / The Roches “Keep On Doing What You Do / Jerks on the Loose” / AC/DC “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” / Bad Brains “Pay to Cum” / Romeo Void “Never Say Never” / X “Motel Room In My Bed” / 4-Skins “Jealousy” / Vanity 6 “Nasty Girl” / Madonna “Everybody” / Patrice Rushen “Forget Me Nots” / The Dazz Band “Let It Whip” / Funky Four “Do You Want to Rock (Before I Go)” / Kid Creole and the Coconuts “Stool Pigeon” / Eek-A-Mouse “Sensee Party” / Nairobi featuring the Awesome Foursome “Funky Soul Makossa (Rap Version)”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

Billy Idol “White Wedding” / The Cure “Let’s Go to Bed” / Depeche Mode “The Meaning of Love” / The Lords of the New Church “Russian Roulette” / Shriekback “My Spine is the Bassline” / Peech Boys “Life Is Something Special (Larry Levan mix)” / Kurtis Blow “Tough” / Billy Joel “Allentown” / Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder “Ebony & Ivory” / Donald Fagen “The Nightfly” / Michael McDonald “I Keep Forgetting” / Gregory Isaacs “Night Nurse” / Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters “God Bless Pickney” / Aretha Franklin “Jump to It” / ESG “Dance” / The Fearless Four “Rockin’ It” / Evelyn Champagne King “Love Come Down” / ABBA “You Owe Me One” / Sylvia “Nobody” / Lou Reed “Heavenly Arms” / King Crimson “Heartbeat” / The Celestial Choir “Stand On the Word”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

R.E.M. “Wolves, Lower” / Sonic Youth “I Dreamed I Dream” / INXS “Don’t Change” / Laura Branigan “Gloria” / Gang of Four “I Love A Man in Uniform” / Rank & File “Sundown” / Captain Sensible “Happy Talk” / Sly Dunbar “River Niger” / Lee Ritenour “Cross My Heart” / Funkapolitan “As the Time Goes By” / Shalamar “Playing to Win” / Grace Jones “Nipple to the Bottle” / Neil Young “Transformer Man” / Oingo Boingo “Private Life” / Judas Priest “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” / The Dream Syndicate “When You Smile” / The Bangles “The Real World” / Malcolm McLaren “Buffalo Gals” / Wall of Voodoo “Mexican Radio” / Devo “Big Mess” / Subhumans “Mickey Mouse Is Dead” / Discharge “Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing” / The Exploited “Jimmy Boyle” / Fear “I Don’t Care About You” / Dead Kennedys “Bleed for Me”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Alice Coltrane “Jagadishwar” / Nina Simone “Fodder In Her Wings” / John Cale “(I Keep A) Close Watch” / Melissa Manchester “Hey Ricky (You’re A Low-Down Heel)” / Buckner & Garcia “Pac Man Fever” / Olivia Newton-John “Make A Move On Me” / XTC “Senses Working Overtime” / The Pretenders “Back On the Chain Gang” / The Alan Parsons Project “Eye in the Sky” / Peter Gabriel “Shock the Monkey” / The English Beat “Save It For Later” / The Addicts “Chinese Takeaway” / Mission of Burma “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate” / Angry Samoans “They Saved Hitler’s Cock” / The Birthday Party “Kiss Me Black” / The Misfits “Vampira” / Beastie Boys “Egg Raid on Mojo” / Flipper “Life Is Cheap” / Iron Maiden “The Number of the Beast” / Carly Simon “Why (12” mix)” / Trouble Funk “Pump Me Up” / Captain Beefheart “The Host the Ghost the Most Holy-O” / Rosanne Cash “Down On Love” / Kenny Rogers “Love Will Turn You Around” / Lionel Richie “Truly”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Vangelis “Chariots of Fire” / A Flock of Seagulls “I Ran (So Far Away)” / Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “I Love Rock and Roll” / J. Geils Band “Centerfold” / Tommy Tutone “867-5309/Jenny” / Men At Work “Who Can It Be Now” / America “You Can Do Magic” / Duran Duran “Hungry Like the Wolf” / The Weather Girls “It’s Raining Men” / ABC “The Look of Love” / The Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way” / Queen “Body Language” / Toto “Africa” / Foreigner “Waiting for a Girl Like You” / Air Supply “Even the Nights Are Better” / Chicago “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” / Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes “Up Where We Belong” / Bruce Springsteen “Atlantic City” / Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band “Shame on the Moon” / Charlene “I’ve Never Been to Me” / Van Morrison “Cleaning Windows” / Roxy Music “More Than This” / Barbra Streisand “Memory”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Killing Joke “Empire Song” / Richard Hell and the Voidoids “The Kid with the Replaceable Head” / Billy Squier “Everybody Wants You” / Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “You Got Lucky” / Joni Mitchell “Wild Things Run Fast” / Frank Zappa “Valley Girl” / The Descendents “Suburban Home” / The Replacements “White and Lazy” / Brigadier Jerry “Pain” / Morris Day and the Time “The Walk” / The Treacherous Three “Yes We Can-Can” / The Who “Eminence Front” / Van Halen “(Oh) Pretty Woman” / Juice Newton “Love’s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me” / Frida “I Know There’s Something Going” / Sparks “I Predict” / Bucks Fizz “My Camera Never Lies” / Crash Crew “Breaking Bells (Take Me To Mardis Gras)” / Lone Ranger “M16” / Eddy Grant “I Don’t Wanna Dance” / Goombay Dance Band “Seven Tears” / Warren Zevon “Let Nothing Come Between You” / Levon Helm “Willie and the Hand Jive” / Bananarama “Shy Boy” / Material (featuring Whitney Houston) “Memories”

Bat for Lashes @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 6/2/2016
I Do / Joe’s Dream / In God’s House / Honeymooning Alone / Sunday Love / Never Forgive the Angels / Close Encounters / If I Knew / I Will Love Again // Laura / We’ve Only Just Begun / What’s A Girl to Do? / Horse & I / Marilyn / Sleep Alone / Daniel

Natasha Khan is one of the world’s best living singers, and as beautiful as her voice is on record, you need to witness her sing in person to fully understand that. Her technical skill is extraordinary; her control over her voice is so precise yet totally natural that it can seem unreal. But the technical qualities of her singing are trumped by the soul and overwhelming emotion in her voice, and how it’s all at the service of Khan’s hyper-romantic songs. Khan is fascinated by love and romance, nearly her entire body of work is focused on variations on this theme. And it’s never mundane. Her songs are rooted in the details of common life, but the romance is heightened and melodramatic in a way that often feels mythic. Khan sings about idealized passion and grand love, and when she sings of pain and failure, it’s always a tragedy. Listening to the records gets this across, but there is a fussiness to the production that can obscure the intensity and presence of her performances. Seeing her live, there’s no ignoring the stakes of her music, or how much of her body and soul she puts into the songs. There’s no half measures here.

Bat for Lashes “Never Forgive the Angels”

The Bride is about a woman who is struggling with the sudden loss of the man she was about to marry. You hear her move through different stages of grief in the tracks just before “Never Forgive the Angels” – she’s in denial, she runs away – but this is the song where the reality of his death fully sets in. It’s a nightmare that does not end, and she sounds truly broken by understanding the permanence of it all. The aspect of grief that this captures so well is the feeling that your own life cannot move beyond this horrible thing, like there’s this block you can’t move beyond and you’re doomed to be stuck in this moment forever. Even as the song builds towards a catharsis, it feels cold and still. And that catharsis isn’t so much about letting the feeling go so much as exhausting it for the time being.

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School ’94 “Common Sense”

The name of this band is School ’94, but the sound of it is a lot more indie ’84, so when I first heard it I was ready for the vocals to be fairly thin and twee, as that’s generally who gravitates to this aesthetic over the past 15 years or so. But nope! The vocals on “Common Sense” are full-throated and passionate, and really sell this state of being entirely unsure of yourself and fighting your own mind to get a handle on facts and feelings. A lot of lesser acts will try to get by entirely on the glimmery sound of the keyboards and the propulsion of the bass, but in the case of this song, it’s all supporting the drama of the vocal. Or should I say melodrama – this feels very “teen soap opera” in the best way.

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ASAP Ferg featuring Skrillex and Crystal Caines “Hungry Ham”

It’s been gratifying to see Skrillex gradually transition from the punchline of dumb EDM jokes to high-profile producer, especially since taking himself out of the spotlight has a way of highlighting the musicality that’s been at the core of his work all along. It’s vindicating! His hyperactive sound works really well in hip-hop, or at least when it’s matched with a bold, high energy rapper like Ferg who doesn’t have to adjust at all to fit in with aggressive beats and blaring treble. “Hungry Ham” feels a bit like the Public Enemy/Bomb Squad aesthetic reimagined as trap music – the business and grime is largely stripped out or implied, but the punch of it is somehow just as hard.

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King “Supernatural (Extended Mix)”

“Supernatural” follows a slightly odd trajectory, but the song is so heavy on atmosphere and texture that’s it easy to ignore the underlying structure of it. It’s a bit too much to say that this is like shoegaze R&B – it doesn’t go too far into that territory to make sense – but it’s just hazy and psychedelic enough to suggest an introverted and ultra-stoned version of modern R&B. The song is about a crush, and starts with starry-eyed infatuation and ends with an ecstatic declaration of love. The use of horns is excellent in that finale section, highlighting the singer’s joy with brief melodic runs, but not undermining the song’s expression of romantic bliss and casual vulernability.

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