TODAY’S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE ’80s (by Mick Tanner) 1. 16 Lovers Lane - The Go-Betweens 2. Primitive Man - Icehouse 3. Back In Black - AC/DC 4. Heyday - The Church 5. World Machine - Level 42 6. The Swing - INXS 7. Express - Love And Rockets 8. Nighttime - Killing Joke 9. A Walk Across The Rooftops - The Blue Nile 10. Flaunt The Imperfection - China Crisis ‘What can you say mate, this was THE most criminally neglected Aussie - make that any - band in the 80s,’ says Mick Tanner from Geelong in, surprise, surprise, Australia. ‘They had the songs, the musicianship and the poetry but didnt get their fair go - legends. Primitive Man has got the iconic Aussie anthem - Great Southern Land - and AC/DC is one of the greatest bands this countrys ever produced. But today I wanted to give The Go-Bs their fair go - cheers!’ Done your Top Ten yet? Message, don’t post, your selection and if you could mention why you chose your No. 1 that would be great. If you want to promote anything – record, book, film, gig etc. – send the details at the same time. We guarantee to post every one we receive. Also, if you’d like to nominate a friend or friends to do the Top Ten challenge, please be our guests. The aim is to produce the Ultimate Flexipop! Top 40 Albums Of The 80s Chart so please put your choices in order. 16 Lovers Lane was the sixth and final album from the original version of Australian indie rock band The Go-Betweens, released in August 1988 by Beggars Banquet Records. The album was recorded at Studios 301 in Sydney, between Christmas 1987 and Spring 1988. The band broke up in 1989 and produced no other material until Grant McLennan and Robert Forster reformed the band, with a completely different line-up, in 2000. The original release of the album contained ten songs, most of them written about band violinist Amanda Brown. In October 2010 it was listed at No. 12 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums. AllMusic said: ‘Arguably Australias greatest pop group ever, The Go-Betweens seemed to save the best for last when they split in 1989. 16 Lovers Lane is simply breathtaking; it is a deeply moving, aurally sensual collection of songs about relationships and the broken side of love that never lapses into cheap sentimentality or cynicism. ‘Songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan had always been visionary when it came to charting personal and relational melancholy and heartbreak, but here, their resolve focused on charting the depths of the romantics soul when it has been disillusioned or crestfallen, is simply and convincingly taut. While its true that the group was going through its own version of a soap opera-styled romantic saga, that emotional quagmire seemingly fuelled its energies and focus, resulting in an album so texturally rich, lyrically sharp, and musically honest, its effect is nothing less than searing on an any listener who doesnt have sawdust instead of blood in his or her veins. ‘Opening with McLennans Love Goes On, the stage is set for a kind of refined yet primal emotional transference that pop music is rarely capable of revealing. As he sings, the doorway to the heart and its secrets opens. ‘In the grain of his voice lie the flowers in the dustbin whose names are desperation and affirmation. With its hyperactive acoustic guitars, Amanda Browns cooing string arrangements, and the deftly layered, subtly played brass instruments, the tune becomes a gauzy anthem; it celebrates the ravaged heart as a beacon of strained hope in the entryway to a hall of bewilderment. He follows it with Quiet Heart, a song whose opening was admittedly influenced in structure by U2s With Or Without You, but blows it away lyrically and with its subtly shifting melody and harmony between the guitars. Browns multi-layered strings actually stride the backbeats pulse. His protagonist speaks to an absent lover. His ache offers a view of his own weakness, desperation, and an all-consuming tenderness. ‘Forster seems to underline McLennan s raw emotionalism with his painterly, nearly baroque, Love Is A Sign, where images from visual art, remembered scenarios, and real life brokenness intermingle effortlessly with the elegance of mandolins, a string orchestra, and a shimmering bassline. With Streets Of Your Town, The Go-Betweens scored a minor hit in the U.K., and even got played on American radio for a moment, but despite the fact that it has the most memorable hook on a record filled with them, it merely underscores how constant the quality is on the record. ‘Evidenced further by The Devils Eye, and the shattering closer Dive For Your Memory, 16 Lovers Lane is melancholy and sombre in theme, but gloriously and romantically presented. Despite the fact that band has but a cult following, even in the 21st century, The Go-Betweens have nonetheless given us a far more literate, magnificently written, performed, and produced slab of pop classicism, than Fleetwood Macs wonderfully coked out, love as co-dependency fest, Rumours.’ Track List: 1. Love Goes On! 2. Quiet Heart 3. Love Is a Sign 4. You Cant Say No Forever 5. The Devils Eye 6. Streets Of Your Town 7. Clouds 8. Was There Anything I Could Do? 9. Im All Right 10.Dive For Your Memory Streets Of Your Town, written by the Go-Betweens Grant McLennan, was released in July 1988 and reached No. 80 in the UK, No. 70 in Australia and No. 30 in New Zealand - the bands highest-ever placing on any national chart. Singer and guitarist Robert Forster said of the single, ‘We were walking around Soho in London in the summer and wed hear it on the radio, every jean shop and café. It was on Radio 1 and so we were hearing it everywhere.’ Lines from the song were included by U2 when they played Elevation and With Or Without You on their Vertigo World Tour in Brisbane, in dedication to McLennan who died on 6 May 2006 of a heart attack.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:09:16 +0000
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