Retro Spins: Depeche Mode - Violator

 

Depech Mode is often considered one of the greatest new wave bands of the 80's, yet it's ironic that their album, Violator from 1990, features their most memorable tracks. Songs like Personal Jesus, Enjoy The Silence and Policy Of Truth are often mistakenly considered 80's songs, when in fact, they are not, all being featured on Violator.

While it was great to hear these three songs again, as a whole, Violator was just an okay album. It really didn't have anything that stood out beyond these tracks. Don't get me wrong. I wanted it to be great. There were tunes that were grabbing me momentarily, but they never seemed to drive it home. I would either lose interest or simply just not be all the blown away in the long run.

After hearing this, I did go and do a search for more hits from the band. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I don't know many. As a result, I don't necessarily see myself putting much effort into tracking down much more from the band. I already have their 1984 release, Some Great Reward, and would consider their 1981 Speak & Spell, and possibly their 1986 Christmas Island, but that's about it.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm not a big fan. I wish there was more I could say, but short and sweet seems to be the best course of action.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: Prince - Graffiti Bridge

Grafitti Bridge may very well be the first "Parental Advisory" album I got to buy as a kid. I remember vividly the day I got it. We were driving from Oregon to Virginia, in one of our many family relocation periods. Over the course of the one week drive, eight or so hours a day, we eventually stopped at a local retail store, which I believe was a K Mart.

While we all took a well needed stretch of the legs, I wandered into the music section, a beautiful array of shelves with cassette after cassette neatly organized in alphabetical order. It was here that I found Graffiti Bridge. I'd never heard of it, but was a young fan of Prince. I certainly had no clue that it was the soundtrack to a movie, which was technically the sequel to Purple Rain. Still, something about the cassette made me want it. Either mom didn't look at it, or she did and didn't care about the advisory label. I'm guessing the latter was not the case. I think I just lucked out this time by it not being thoroughly inspected before getting approval.

Back in the car, the headphones went on, the cassette went into the Walkman, and it began.

"Dear dad. Things didn't turn out quite like I wanted them to. Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna explode..." From that intro, the music kicked into high gear, and I was whisked away into a mix of heavy rock, funk, soul and ballads.

From that day, Graffiti Bridge became one of my all time favorites from Prince. I went through a phase in my young high school years where this thing got played daily. That cassette had to have been on its last legs by the time I retired it for a CD version.

What I think stands out about the album, from other works from Prince, is the overall collaboration with Morris Day And The Time, the horizon of The New Power Generation, and the introduction and brief career of Tevin Campbell. It's masterfully crafted to not only contain great music, but also a story when listed to from start to finish.

Though Prince has undoubtedly made some great music since Grafitti Bridge, I think overall, for me, it remains his last best achievement in his career. It's a solid album from front to back, and one I really enjoy playing every now and then.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: Leo Sayer - Cool Touch

Much like Jermaine Jackson, Leo Sayer's career seems to have the same problem. It's showing up to the party too late. By this, I mean his music seems to be a decade behind. While most artists of the 80's were adopting synthpop sounds, Sayer (and Jackson), seemed to be stuck in the 70's dance craze of disco and ballads. It's because of this that it's no surprise Sayer's 1990 released Cool Touch seems to have finally caught up to this style of music. It certainly makes it stand out as my kind of music. However, I can also see why it failed to really impact in the era of grunge. It probably didn't help that the album was only released in the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

Despite its release date, the sound of the album appeals very much to my 80's nostalgic sense of being. As far as I'm concerned, it fits right in there with anything released between 1986 and 1987. However, with that said, it doesn't get a free pass for that.

As I listened to it, I didn't hate what I was hearing. Unfortunately, I also wasn't being blown away. Of the ten tracks, only two stood out for me. What made this all the more worse was how superior they were to the rest of the album. Going Home and My Favourite easily could have been chart toppers in the 80's, but very overshadowed and ignored in the 90's.

The album intrigued me enough to want to see what else Sayer did past his prime years in the industry. However, this led to a disappointing dead end. While he did release a few more albums, the releases were limited to foreign countries, and not only that, but he appears to have reverted back to his 70's era music style. I suppose I'll be passing on those.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: Tony! Toni! Toné! - The Revival

Feels Good was the only song I knew from this CD, and for me, that alone was worth the dollar I paid for it. This low price point turned out to be a very good thing because the rest of the album didn't do it for me at all.

By track four, I found myself saying, "Ugh, this is only track four?" By track seven, I started skipping songs. By track ten, I gave up.

Tony! Toni! Toné!'s The Revival was not for me. However, considering I got the full album for less than the price of a single, I'm not going to hate on it. On the other hand, I'm not going to focus on it anymore beyond this either.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: Warrant - Cherry Pie

Oh wow. I forgot how much I liked this album. I haven't heard Warrant's Cherry Pie since the days of my brother blaring it over his stereo speakers. However, unlike the majority of his music, I actually really liked when this one got played.

It all starts out with the album's iconic hit, Cherry Pie, which debuted at number ninety-seven in September of 1990. The song peaked at number ten before dropping back down. From there, it leads into my favorite track, Uncle Tom's Cabin. This track, while it charted, only managed to do so at number ninety-three and was gone the following week.

I Saw Red, is the perfect example of how to do a ballad correctly. Not only is it a great song, but it also went to number ten on the charts. Though there are other great tracks to be found, Blind Faith is the only other song from the album to chart. Much like Uncle Tom's Cabin, it debuted and disappeared in one week at number ninety-nine.

Cherry Pie is one of the last great hair band albums, before the grunge scene dominated everything, changing the music world forever in the process. It's pretty solid from start to finish with thrashing riffs and catchy tunes.

By track six, I had added all of them to my shuffle mixes for later re-listening. By the end, I had added ten of the twelve. The only songs which didn't make the cut were Train, Train and Ode To Tipper Gore.

However, that last track isn't exactly a song. It's just fifty-five seconds of live obscenities aimed at Tipper Gore for her PMRC campaign. The history surrounding that campaign is an unfortunate one, but it's worth checking out if you don't know much about it.

As for the album, that about wraps it up. I really can't say anymore than I have, but clearly, I liked it a lot. It made me go digging into the history of the band's discography a bit and I found they had a debut album from 1989, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, which I picked up for a few bucks. By the time you read this post, I'll probably have listed to it and written a Retro Spin on it.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: The Time - Pandemonium

The majority of my exposure to The Time is via Prince's Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge. While I'm sure in 2023 I wrote a post about an 80's The Time album, the truth of the matter is I wrote all the 2024 posts before any of those. This makes Panedmonium the first album from The Time I've actually heard.

Panemonium starts out on a really strong note, and I found myself really enjoying the album title track of the same name, Jerk Out and Blondie. However, that's were things really stopped for me. As the album kept going, I was expecting to hear something as good as what these first few tracks offered, but it never came. I even went back when the album was done and played sections of the aforementioned songs to make sure I did actually enjoy them just to be sure. I did.

So, what happened? Why did the tracks suddenly drop off for me?

I think part of it was that the remaining songs turned more serious in tone from that of the ones I mentioned before. That niche comedy styling that The Time has become known for just wasn't there for these remaining tracks.

Additionally, I think the album suffers from the same issue a lot of albums from the 90's do - It's too long. At one hour five minutes, that's just too much material for any record. Some of the best albums I've ever heard have been around the thirty-five to forty minute mark. I think this "forces" musicians to pack in only the strongest of their tracks, while leaving the filler out.

I'm pretty disappointed that Pandimonium set the bar so high when it first started, but then continued to lower and lower and lower and lower the bar until it was dragging on the ground. I really had high hopes based on my first impression.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Retro Spins: Deee-Lite - World Clique

Back in the day, I had a co-worker who her and I thoroughly enjoyed phrasing questions with, "How do you say, de....<insert random word here>." We would then laugh at our inside joke as people stared at us like we were lunatics. All of this was derived from the music video of the only song I've ever known, until today, from house group, Deee-Lite.

Ever since seeing the video on MTV, I've been hooked on the song, Groove Is In The Heart. Everything about it was fun, from the music to the visuals. It was different from the emerging Seattle rock, and at the same time took me back to the 70's in a way. The inclusion of Bootsy Collins on bass only upped its charm for me.

As I listened to World Clique for the first time, what I found myself enjoying the most was the music itself. While Lady Miss Kier has an amazing and unique voice, it really wasn't the lyrics which were drawing me in, but rather the beats and melodies. I found this interesting since I'm really not into heavy beat and bass driven music. It had a lot of funky soul to it, and, for lack of a better word, was just groovy.

Unfortunately, it didn't hold my attention all that long, though I did get excited when Groove Is In The Heart finally came around. I also got giddy to hear What Is Love?, which features the spoken portions at the beginning of the music video for Groove. I didn't know this until today.

Overall, I don't see myself becoming a fan of Deee-Lite. I dig Groove Is In The Heart, and that's really enough for me.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.