A few years ago, I found a cassette at a thrift shop called Ransom Note by an Australian group called Dear Enemy.  It piqued my curiosity, so I got it, and found this track called Computer One that seems to have been a BIG hit in Australia in 1983.  I still love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN85Fjwvq-M


This is my entry into the great obscure songs of the 80s.  I will post more later ...

I'm always looking for obscure 80's songs, especially from '79 to '84.

Found an old new wave song - Onyx - "Call of the Wild". I love the synth and atmosphere, it's VERY early 80's...

0cbZ3JjJ5UI

I downloaded the mp3 here. It's going straight into my 1982 folder!  :)

A few years ago, I found a cassette at a thrift shop called Ransom Note by an Australian group called Dear Enemy.  It piqued my curiosity, so I got it, and found this track called Computer One that seems to have been a BIG hit in Australia in 1983.  I still love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN85Fjwvq-M


This is my entry into the great obscure songs of the 80s.  I will post more later ...


Yes, another song I remember. I had completely forgotten about this one...

Another Aussie song (1981) ... by The Flowers (who became Icehouse).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYefLjP2bco

A few years ago, I found a cassette at a thrift shop called Ransom Note by an Australian group called Dear Enemy.  It piqued my curiosity, so I got it, and found this track called Computer One that seems to have been a BIG hit in Australia in 1983.  I still love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN85Fjwvq-M


This is my entry into the great obscure songs of the 80s.  I will post more later ...


Wow,this video's great a lot of cool 80's technology is seen in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PWAt28goAY

Novo Combo - Up Periscope {1981}


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lx2vH2Q5yo

The Producers - What's He Got {1981} (From Atlanta, Georgia USA)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT6Lv5iBsLM

The Producers - She Sheila {1982} (From Atlanta, Georgia USA)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDtoFX5ITU

Trees - Shock Of The New {1982}


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8q6cJVUEhM

Novo Combo - Too Long Gone {1982} (Original Music Video, poor sound quality)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-tR7z62yk8

Novo Combo - Too Long Gone {1982} (HQ Audio only)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9d6ek3KDRI

Art in America - Art in America {1983} (only charted for 3 weeks)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI_mUirKmT0

The Front - Haunting {1983} (Canadian)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh7JEb2qXXI

The Expression - Total Eclipse {1983} (Australian)




Dan

Obscure '80s songs? -- this thread should be interesting.

Here's an obscure one, and it's one of the best instrumentals to come out of the '80s, too...

From January 1980,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NPlrhINxI
Sketch for Summer - The Durutti Column

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PWAt28goAY

Novo Combo - Up Periscope {1981}


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lx2vH2Q5yo

The Producers - What's He Got {1981} (From Atlanta, Georgia USA)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT6Lv5iBsLM

The Producers - She Sheila {1982} (From Atlanta, Georgia USA)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDtoFX5ITU

Trees - Shock Of The New {1982}


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8q6cJVUEhM

Novo Combo - Too Long Gone {1982} (Original Music Video, poor sound quality)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-tR7z62yk8

Novo Combo - Too Long Gone {1982} (HQ Audio only)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9d6ek3KDRI

Art in America - Art in America {1983} (only charted for 3 weeks)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI_mUirKmT0

The Front - Haunting {1983} (Canadian)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh7JEb2qXXI

The Expression - Total Eclipse {1983} (Australian)




Dan




good choices Dan. Were there any in the U.S.? ???

Another Aussie song (1981) ... by The Flowers (who became Icehouse).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYefLjP2bco


Oh, do I know this one.  Great stuff! :)





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI_mUirKmT0

The Front - Haunting {1983} (Canadian)


I can't say as I remember this one, but it's not bad

I can't say as I remember this one, but it's not bad


That's because it's Obscure!

lol


Dan

That's because it's Obscure!

lol


Dan


Yes, but when it comes to Canadian artists, I am all about the Obscure LOL

Was a hit in the Philippines (where I come from), and in South Korea. Didn't make it big anywhere else ;):

UxcVqq5ZoPA

An Australian hit from my birth year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kmZa1LYsv8

Here's another song I heard that I liked. Gary Myrick's "Living in a Movie"...


pRhwiyXfdCo


Awful video! I hate it when an 80's chick is staring at a guy, and he's staring into the camera and starts singing the song
(this happened a LOT in these videos). But the song's not bad!

An Australian hit from my birth year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kmZa1LYsv8


This must've been after "Locomotion".

Twice A Man: Lapwing Territory (1986)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5M40lVhEWc&feature=related

Eyeless In Gaza: Transience Blues (1981)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsqRM8vt3ME

The Legendary Pink Dots: The Light In My Little Girl's Eyes (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfqvP2Ok8ag

Robert Gorl: Darling Don't Leave me (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M95Dws35cKQ
featuring Annie Lennox

Minimal Compact: When I Go (1985)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oknedFHvpXs

Muslimgauze: Sakharov (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs6gSJmlwmc

Robert Ashley: Perfect Lives (excerpts) (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1LWC39Ehm4
piano: "Blue" Gene Tyranny

This must've been after "Locomotion".


Tis correct.  'Got to Be Certain' was her 3rd single.  It was not a hit at all in North America, but Europe and Australia ate it up.

Here's an obscure one.  Sorry it doesn't have much in the way of video.  But if it did, I probably wouldn't want to post it.

A brief history of 40s jazz in Europe:

2u3ucVDdyyM

Robert Palmer and Lisa Dalbello, "Rules Are Made To Be Broken", from Hugh Marsh's 1988 release Shaking the Pumpkin.

Partial lyrics follow.  When I'm more sober I'll do a full transcription of the passage from the book in the lyrics thread.


In this so-called jazz type repertoire, preference is to be given to compositions in a major key and to lyrics expressing joy in life arather than Jewishly gloomy lyrics; as to tempo, preference is also to be given to brisk compositions over slow ones; however, the pace must not exceed a certain degree of allegro commensurate with the Aryan sense of discipline and moderation. On no account will Negroid excesses in tempo be tolerated.

So-called jazz compositions may contain at most ten percent syncopoation; the remainder must consist of a natural legato movement devoid of the  hysterical rhythmic reverses characteristic of the music of the barbarian races and conducive to dark instincts alien to the German people.  Strictly prohibited is the use of instruments alien to the German spirit, as well as all mutes which turn the noble sound of wind and brass instruments into a Jewish-Freemasonic yowl.

Also prohibited are so-called drum breaks longer than half a bar in four-quarter beat (except in stylized military marches); the double bass must be played solely with the bow in so-called jazz compositoins; if a pizzicato effect is absolutely desirable for the character of the composition, strict care must be taken lest the string be allowed to patter on the fingerboard which is henceforth strictly forbidden.

( Musicians are likewise forbidden to make vocal improvisations. ) All light orchestras and dance bands are advised to restrict the use of saxophones and substitute for them a suitable folk instrument.


The text is from a passage comparing WW2-era Nazi guidelines on pop music with early Soviet guidelines, as documented in Josef Skvorecky's 1967 book The Bass Saxophone.  Skvorecky spent WW2 as a slave laborer in a Nazi aircraft factory, presumably for breaking one or more the above rules (or any one of the millions of unwritten ones of the era), hence the title of the Hugh Marsh tribute.

Skvorecky bailed on Czechoslovakia in 1968 (First the Nazis, then the Russians.  The dude just couldn't catch a break when it came to totalitarians) by high-tailing it to Canada, where he published banned Czech literature and wrote for Voice of America in the 70s-90s, and by 1988, snippets from his 1967 memoirs became the inspiration for Hugh Marsh's "Rules Were Made To Be Broken", as shown above.  

After the implosion of the USSR, Skvorecky rounded out his career by being awared with the Order of the White Lion from a 1990 post-liberation Czechoslovakia, was made a member of the Order of Canada 1992, became a Fellow of the Guggenheim, and the French appointed him to the Order of Arts and Letters in '96.  Not a bad set of gigs if you can get it.  But the decades of prep-work were a bitch.

The unwritten rules of this thread say that the songs are obscure, and not everybody's supposed to get the reference.

So here's to you, Josef.  And here's to jazz.  Rules, as you say, were made to be broken.

^ Through-composed music wasn't in the clear either, especially if it was by noisy Jew composers who smacked of the Second Viennese School.  Composers such as Gideon Klein (1919-1945).  He was director of cultural activities at Thereisenstadt, later liquidated at the Fürstengrube camp.  R.I.P. Gideon Klein.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yZLDQcVBGg

Anyway, this thread is for obscure eighties songs.  Here's one you might not remember:

Serge Gainsbourg: Lemon Incest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeGkBbXdGgc

The title is a pun on "lemon zest."  A lot of folks got the idea the 56-year-old Gainsbourg was engaging in sexual congress with his 13-year-old daughter Charlotte, who sings on this record.  Rumors were unfounded.