Back in the day, I was still actively checking off albums that featured classic 80's tunes on them. Among these was The Fixx's 1983 released Reach The Beach, which featured the song, One Thing Leads To Another. Around the same time, I also ended up with a copy of Greatest Hits: One Thing Leads To Another. Inundated with albums to listen to, I played neither.
Around July of 2022 1986's Walkabout got added to the fold. Whether this was because of the song Secret Separation, or just a whim purchase, I don't recall at this point. What I do know is that it too got put aside.
One day in 2023, as I had my iTunes running on shuffle, the tune, Can't Finish popped up, and instantly became a favorite. Suddenly the bug hit me. I needed all their other studio albums. Thus began the hunt, and by July 15 of that year, I had checked off their entire 80's discography. The problem was that even then, I still didn't get around to playing any of them.
Fast forward to 2025, and finally an album hits the CD player. That being the aforementioned Walkabout. Well, today, it's time to start rectifying my lack of attention to the band and finally start my listening sessions. It all kicks off with their 1982 debut, Shuttered Room.
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It's one of those situations were depending on which continent you buy it from will dictate the version you get. Both the UK and US pressings have ten tracks. However, the UK release includes Sinking Island and Time In A Glass. Whereas the US version omits these, and includes I Found You, and The Strain, which are not on the UK pressing. For my purposes, I own and am listening to the US version.
Things kick off with the upbeat I Found You and then go into the equally up tempo Some People before landing on the hit, Stand Or Fall. So far, so good.
While things tapered off a bit with The Strain, the album immediately picks up again with the fantastic Red Skies. It was upon this time that I checked my handy dandy Billboard Hot 100 Charts book by Joel Whitburn and was quite shocked to find that only Stand Or Fall landed on the charts and peaked relatively poorly at number seventy-six. Honestly, I would have expected better. Red Skies would manage to hit both the US Billboard Bubbling Under the Hot 100, and US Billboard Top Tracks.
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| Awesome book! |
Pretty much the entire album was solid, with just a couple tracks that really didn't resonate. This was definitely a good start...or rather late continuation of The Fixx, and I'm totally hyped to keep going through the rest of their 80's catalog. My next stop is 1983's Reach The Beach, which I'll play through tomorrow.
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And now, 31 Days Of Halloween!
When your first "dead" movie was Dawn Of The Dead, followed by Day Of The Dead, it makes going back to the original Night Of The Living Dead quite difficult. Back in those days, we didn't have the internet. As such, there was no massive database to link everything together. If you didn't know, you didn't know, and there was nowhere to find that answer unless it was printed somewhere that you saw.
Regardless, after seeing the second and third film, I somehow learned that the original was linked to it and soon had the (then) trilogy on VHS. The first one, in comparison was not good. But, then again, none of them are magnum opus projects by any means. Still, if you like zombie flicks, there's none better than those by George A. Romero.
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