January: Decades of Music

The Bee Gees kicked off their Saturday Night Fever success with "How Deep Is Your Love"

I stopped writing the old "Monthly Dance Party" posts a while back because of two reasons. First, although it's fun to look at different musical trends over the decades, contrasted in five-year intervals, I didn't feel as if my writing was giving anything special to the topic. My posts were little more than a couple pictures and a list of videos.

Second, I got lazy. Feeling as if these music posts were just list-compiling drudgery, I couldn't muster up the energy or enthusiasm to write about the songs or my experiences of the music. Yeah, with a little effort, I could have addressed my first concern, but that very problem broke my morale and sapped my will, creating a vicious cycle of negative feedback. My posts were vapid and that drained my enthusiasm, which, in turn, kept me from improving upon my posts.

That's kind of stupid, but that's how it went down. But, with a new year, I'll try to start the project up again and try to make things more interesting. We'll see.

Artwork for Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" from the interior of the Wedding Album 

This month, I went easy on the selections with nothing too far from the mainstream. I didn't hit many Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers, but they all probably made good chart positions. Sure, I could have dug a bit deeper into the music, turning up forgotten gems, but there's nothing wrong with mainstream music.

After all, we're here to have fun. ;-)

With Your Beating Heart

Detail of Patrick Nagel's cover art for Duran Duran's album, Rio (1982)

Thirty years ago, on May 10, 1982, Duran Duran released Rio.

I've previously mentioned that I wasn't an enthusiast of their music back in the day, but it is impossible for me to remember the early to mid '80s with hearing Duran Duran's music playing somewhere in the background. Now, with a mix of nostalgia and a fresh appreciation for New Wave-style music, I really enjoy this music.

Although I certainly would complain about the constant airplay that they received on the local radio stations and the various video channels, it was good music with captivating videos. Being very enthusiastic of sexy "Euro-babes" and the exotic beauties of the era, I didn't mind watching the videos over and over and over. ;-)

Patrick Nagel's alternative artwork for the Rio cover

And I've always loved the cover art. Nobody did stylish and sexy like Patrick Nagel.

Time Can't Touch Us

Christy Turlington (1993); photo by Jonathan Exley

I miss the days when "super models" dominated fashion magazine covers, when the queens of the catwalk defined that which was chic, from haute couture to commercial merchandising. It was a time when popular culture looked to the "glamour girls" as the ideal beauties, the leading look of emerging style.

I don't know who is my favorite super model, but Christy Turlington is certainly near the top of my list. It isn't because I find her to be the most gorgeous or sexy, but because there is an accessibility, a sense of invitation, to her posturing, a vulnerability intrinsic to her poise. With a broad chin and pinched nose, Christy is far from being a "perfect" beauty; her irresistible allure comes the intangible persona that her material features so strongly convey.

Today marks Christy Turlington's 43rd Birthday, born in 1969. Yet, I find her every bit as lovely as I did back in the late '80s.

Christy Turlington on the cover of Paris Vogue (August 1987); photo by Bill King

So, let's wish Christy a Happy Birthday!

Stay Wilder Than the Wind

Detail from the cover of Duran Duran's "Medazzaland" album (1997)


Popular music of the early 1980s forms the kernel of appreciation from which all my subsequent musical interests grow, regardless of genre, style, or era. Though I rarely stop to listen to the tunes of 1983 or '84, they insinuated their way into my youthful psyche and early aesthetic development with so durable an influence that I can "hear" the music "on call" within my imagination.

It was the convergence of sound and vision in the medium of music videos that made these memories so strong. I must have spent countless hours watching MTV or the local video show hosted by Richard Blade, spellbound by the exotic places, beautiful people, and entrancing melodies. Perhaps the most compelling performers in perfecting the union of music and image were the British New Wave group, Duran Duran.

I wasn't a fan of Duran Duran back in the day. Their music was distinctive and well-crafted, but a few of their songs got so overplayed that it turned me off of their sound for a while. Even now, when I hear "Rio" or "The Reflex" I have a mixture of enthusiasm and loathing. Happily, time has allowed me to lift my vague antipathy from their music as a whole, opening up a rich catalog of three decades worth of quality compositions, songs that carry that original "new romantic" spirit with ever increasing sophistication and maturity.

Detail from Patrick Nagel's cover art for "Rio" (1982)

And so let's take the birthday of lead singer, Simon Le Bon, for an excuse to give a listen to some wonderful songs from the greatest British band of the early '80s. "Voices, another sound, can you hear me now?" ;-)