The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Today’s a bit of a busy day for me, so in lieu of the standard-issue scintillating post, here’s a gift from the 1980’s Canadian Rock archives: Wind Him Up [8.0MB, MP3] by Saga. 

Saga were David Hasselhoff before David Hasselhoff: almost unnoticed in their own home country, a big hit in Germany. Wind Him Up is one of their best known songs and had an unusual topic — gambling addiction.

This one goes is dedicated to good ol’ Will Horne from Science ’91 (where I am listed as “professional eccentric” on the “Where are they now” page), who constantly played Saga on his stereo in our Crazy Go Nuts University residence, Leonard Hall, back in first year.

A couple of weeks ago, in an entry titled The Soundtrack to My Personal Coming-Of-Age Film, I lamented that the Billboard Top 100 wasn’t representative of the sort of stuff I listened to. I was a regular listener of CFNY (better known these days as 102.1 The Edge) back then. I looked around for some CFNY charts, which led me to the Spirit of Radio site, which publishes CFNY’s old charts.

Here’s the chart from the year I graduated from high school — 1987 — with the ones I particularly liked in bold, and the ones I particularly disliked in strikeout text. Note how much this chart differs from the 1987 Billboard chart.

1. U2: The Joshua Tree

   This was one of the instigators of that false notion a lot of late 80s musicians had: “slower” means “deeper”. This is similar to another false notion that got its start in the early 90s and still plagues indie rock today: “angry and bitter” means “honest and sincere”.

2. New Order: Substance
3. R.E.M.: Document
4. Depeche Mode: Music for the Masses
5. The Cult: Electric
6. The Smiths: Strangeways, Here We Come
7. Sting: Nothing But the Sun
9. The Cure: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

   The Cure went all over the stylistic map with this one and made an album packed with gems. It brings me back to dancing with the death-bunnies at Montreal’s “Thunderdome” club.

10. Echo and the Bunnymen: Echo and the Bunnymen
11. Blue Rodeo: Outskirts
12. Pink Floyd: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

    My roommate Mark used to play this quite often, so hearing Learning to Fly always takes me back to hanging out in Crazy Go Nuts University’s Leonard Hall, room 313.

13. INXS: Kick
14. Pet Shop Boys: Actually
15. The Northern Pikes: Big Blue Sky
16. The Housemartins: The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death

    Before he became Fatboy Slim, Norman Cook was in this happy Britpop band.

17. 54.40: Show Me
18. Billy Idol: Vital Idol
19. Chalk Circle: Mending Wall
20. Level 42: Running in the Family
21. Various Artists: La Bamba Original Soundtrack
22. Suzanne Vega: Solitude Standing
23. Eurythmics: Savage
24. Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson
25. The Alarm: Eye of the Hurricane
26. David Bowie: Never Let me Down
27. Sinead O’Connor: The Lion and the Cobra

    “Don’t call me sweetheart, just call me Joe…” Before she went bonkers, she made some pretty good music.

28. The Box: Closer Together
29. Men Without Hats: Pop Goes the World
30. ABC: Alphabet City
31. Icehouse: Man of Colours
32. Bryan Ferry: Bete Noire
33. Erasure: Circus
34. Prince: Sign O the Times
35. Love and Rockets: Earth-Sun-Moon
36. Yes: Big Generator
37. The Jesus and Mary Chain: Darklands
38. The Sisters of Mercy: Floodland

    Want a good 80s goth collection? Get Fad Gadget’s Collapsing New People, some Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, a little Alien Sex Fiend, the Batastrophe EP by Specimen and of course, this album, which features the original pre-Ofra Haza version of “This Corrosion”.

39. Rock and Hyde: Under the Volcano
40. Gene Loves Jezebel: House of Dolls
41. Gowan: Great Dirty World
42. The Grapes of Wrath: Treehouse

    “Now and Again” was by far the better Grapes of Wrath album.

43. FM: Tonight
44. Crowded House: Crowded House
45. The Smiths: Louder Than Bombs

    Another must-have if you’re trying to put together a definitive 80s alt-rock collection.

46. George Harrison: Cloud Nine
47. The Silencers: A Letter from St. Paul
48. Grateful Dead: In the Dark

    The Dead are forever associated in my mind with a lack of volition and hygiene.

49. Simply Red: Men and Women

    I could never get into Simply Red, either.

50. That Petrol Emotion: Babble

    One of the best eighties albums you never heard.

51. Rush: Hold Your Fire
52. Squeeze: Babylon and On

    Much better than their previous attempt, Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, but still no Argybargy.

53. 10,000 Maniacs: In My Tribe
54. Roger Waters: Radio Kaos
55. Hoodoo Gurus: Blow Your Cool
56. Hugh Marsh: Shakin’ the Pumpkin

    A violin player rocks out and gets interesting results. Notable track on this album: Rules Were Made to be Broken, a primer on Nazi Germany’s hatred of jazz. They called it “Judeo-Negroid music”.

57. Skinny Puppy: Cleanse, Fold and Manipulate

    “This is stuff by a guy who used to be in Images in Vogue?” I asked when I first heard it.

58. The Style Council: The Cost of Loving
59. Flesh for Lulu: Long Live the New Flesh
60. Gino Vanelli: Big Dreamers Never Sleep
61. The Proclaimers: This is the Story
62. Public Image Limited: Happy
63. The Screaming Blue Messiahs: I Wanna Be a Flintstone (12″ Single)
64. Yello: One Second

    “Ohhhhhhhhh yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh (chicka-chickahhhh!)” How many movie soundtracks did that song end up on, anyway?

65. Van Morrison: Poetic Champions Compose
66. The Nylons: Happy Together
67. The Psychedelic Furs: Midnight to Midnight
68. Swing Out Sister: It’s Better to Travel
69. Julian Cope: Saint Julian
70. David Sylvian: Secrets of the Beehive

    Brian Eno for the Doc Martens and spiky-hair set!

71. The Cars: Door to Door
72. The Dead Milkmen: Bucky Fellini
73. The Mighty Lemon Drops: Out of Hand
74. Alison Moyet: Raindancing
75. M/A/R/R/S: Pump Up the Volume

    George and I played this a lot back in Leonard Hall.

76. Hunters and Collectors: Living Daylight
77. The Blow Monkeys: She was Only a Grocer’s Daughter
78. Thrashing Doves: Bedrock Vice

    I was seeing a rather wacky girl at the time and I associate the big single on this album, Beautiful Imbalance, along with the entire Singles: 45 and Under album by Squeeze with her.

79. Run DMC: Raisin’ Hell
80. Manteca: Fire Me Up
81. Various Artists: In Demand
82. Bruce Cockburn: Waiting for a Miracle

    My friend Yann and I used to have this favourite Cockburn joke: If a tree fell on Bruce Cockburn, would anybody care? He’s just too damned earnest, even for me.

83. The Big Supreme: Don’t Walk
84. Wire: The Ideal Copy
85. Skid Roper and Mojo Nixon: Bo-day-shus!

    Everybody remembers Elvis is Everywhere, but Don’t Want No Foo-Foo Haircut on My Head/cite> was also pretty good.

86. The BoDeans: Outside Looking In
87. The Dolphin Brothers: Catch the Fall
88. The Call: Into the Woods