Stonemaybe wrote:Those who have posted, do you find you first heard your fave songs in a certain period of your life?
The musical period I'm most nostalgic about is the first half of the '80s (I could easily make a Top 100 '80s songs list - though I'm sure my taste for "hit singles" would draw scorn from some here).
Five favorites from '83 (in no particular order):
Synchronicity II - Police
Stand Back - Stevie Nicks
In A Big Country - Big Country
Big Log - Robert Plant
Modern Love - David Bowie
...which barely touches on all my favorites from that year. Why 1983? Well, why not. Fall '83 to summer '84 was especially meaningful to me, music-wise. That it coincided with my first year in that hell on earth called "junior high" means...whatever you want it to mean.
The first time I heard Synchronicity II on FM stations (back when I still listened to radio), I was blown away by its sheer pomp and grandeur. It just came out of nowhere. (Oh, and the music video for it was pretty cool as well, for its time.) Then I bought the album Synchronicity...and my allegiance to the Police was secured forever.
I love Stand Back because it's got such a seductive synth sound - along with Stevie Nicks's seductive voice! It's a hypnotic combination. The produced sound of the original version was curiously weak - you really had to turn up the volume to hear it. I much prefer the re-mixed version (featured on her "best of" CD), which opened up the sound tremendously.
In A Big Country is maybe the song I'm most precious about. If I could reduce the fall and winter of '83 to one song, it would be this. It became my mental soundtrack to the Covenant books, which I had just discovered. The epic, evocative quality of Big Country's music just suited TCTC beautifully in my mind. The band's E-bow guitar was one of the most arresting sounds I had ever heard.
Long before I knew Robert Plant as the voice of Led Zeppelin, I knew him as this dude whose song Big Log was in play a lot on Friday Night Videos (back in '83 I followed music videos with religious fervor). As it turned out, Big Log was a damn good song. It had this aching quality that was just sublime. Whenever I hear this song, it reminds me of dark winter nights - not threatening, just lonely and contemplative.
David Bowie was one of my big favorite musical acts of '83. At the time, the only guy on the planet who could rival Bowie's coolness was Sting. Modern Love was a great, funky song that showed Bowie's cool charm but it had feeling too, under the sleek production.
Empire - Queensryche