***** CONTENT WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS BRIEF MENTIONS OF NUCLEAR WAR, SPOUSAL ABUSE, SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, AND A CERTAIN CONVICTED FELON/FORMER PRESIDENT/CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE *****
These albums are all turning forty this year. This list is in chronological order by release date and covers albums released between May and August of 1984.
- Lament – Ultravox
CHART POSITION: #115 in the US, #8 in the UK
SINGLES: “One Small Day”, “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes”, “Lament”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “White China” and “Heart of the Country”
FUN FACT: Ultravox achieved their greatest success in the US the previous year with Quartet, but their most iconic song is Lament‘s “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes”, hands down my favorite dance song about a looming nuclear holocaust. According to lead singer Midge Ure, the lyrics were inspired by Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic novel On the Beach (the phrase “on the beach” is a Royal Navy euphemism for retirement from active service).
For more on Quartet – and other great albums from 1983 – click here:
- Reckoning – R.E.M.
CHART POSITION: #27 in the US, #91 in the UK
SINGLES: “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Harborcoat”, “7 Chinese Bros.”, “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”, “Pretty Persuasion”, “Time After Time (Annelise)”, “Letter Never Sent”, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”
FUN FACT #1: Reckoning was recorded over a period of just sixteen days. Producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, with whom R.E.M. had worked on their exquisite debut Murmur, used binaural recording to mimic the sound of the band’s live shows.
FUN FACT #2: In their first U.S. network television appearance, R.E.M. played an early version of “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” – before the song even had a title – on The Late Show with David Letterman on October 6, 1983.
FUN FACT #3: 10,000 Maniacs (a PBandJulie fave) recorded an excellent version of “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” for their 1992 single “Candy Everybody Wants”.
- Grace Under Pressure – Rush
CHART POSITION: #10 in the US, #5 in the UK, #4 in the band’s native Canada
SINGLES: “Distant Early Warning”, “The Body Electric”, “Red Sector A”, “Afterimage”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Grace Under Pressure was the first Rush album since their 1974 debut, not to be produced by Terry Brown. The band co-produced the album with Peter Henderson, who worked on ’70s classics like Wings’ London Town and Wings at the Speed of Sound and Supertramp’s Breakfast in America.
- Bananarama – Bananarama
CHART POSITION: #30 in the US, #16 in the UK
SINGLES: “Cruel Summer”, “Robert De Niro’s Waiting…”, “Rough Justice”, “Hot Line to Heaven”, “The Wild Life”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Two of Bananarama‘s singles appeared on movie soundtracks in 1984. “Cruel Summer”, the album’s biggest hit, reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to its inclusion in The Karate Kid. Later that year, the group provided the theme song for The Wild Life, the spiritual successor to Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
- Junk Culture – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)
CHART POSITION: #182 in the US, #9 in the UK
SINGLES: “Locomotion”, “Talking Loud and Clear”, “Tesla Girls”, “Never Turn Away”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Love and Violence”
FUN FACT: Junk Culture is the perfect bridge between OMD’s earlier, more avant-garde work and the Top-40 direction the band took the following year with Crush. Lead singer Andy McCluskey once referred to Junk Culture as “the catchiest, poppiest album we’ve ever made”.
- The Top – The Cure
CHART POSITION: #180 in the US, #10 in the UK
SINGLES: “The Caterpillar”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Shake Dog Shake”, “Birdmad Girl”, “Give Me It”, “The Caterpillar”, “Piggy in the Mirror”
FUN FACT: The Top is neither my favorite album by The Cure (that’d be The Head on the Door) nor their best work (Disintegration?), but it’s the album that made me a fan of the band. In fact, between this and Siouxsie & the Banshees’ Hyæna (which also featured The Cure’s lead singer, Robert Smith), 1984 was the year I made a life-altering discovery – goth, the music that matched the darkness inside me.
- Street Talk – Steve Perry
CHART POSITION: #12 in the US, #59 in the UK, #79 in Australia
SINGLES: “Oh Sherrie”, “I Believe”, “She’s Mine”, “Strung Out”, “Foolish Heart”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: “Oh Sherrie”, written for Perry’s then-girlfriend, was the album’s biggest hit, and the accompanying video went into heavy rotation on MTV. To this day, when I hear those opening lyrics – “You should’ve been gone” – I smash that volume button.
- Ocean Rain – Echo & the Bunnymen
CHART POSITION: #87 in the US, #4 in the UK
SINGLES: “The Killing Moon”, “Silver”, “Seven Seas”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Nocturnal Me”, “Thorn of Crowns”, “My Kingdom”
FUN FACT #1: “The Killing Moon”, perhaps the band’s most iconic track, didn’t chart in the US. Lead singer Ian McCulloch has always maintained that the lyrics “Fate up against your will / Through the thick and thin / He will wait until you give yourself to him” came to him fully formed in a dream. The strings – a combination of cello and a keyboard arrangement – were inspired by balalaika music bassist Les Pattinson and guitarist Will Sergeant had heard in Russia. In 2001, the tune was featured in the opening scene of the cult film Donnie Darko.
FUN FACT #2: My favorite Ocean Rain track, “Nocturnal Me”, plays over the end credits of the Stranger Things 1 episode “The Flea and the Acrobat”.
- Stay Hungry – Twisted Sister
CHART POSITION: #15 in the US, #34 in the UK
SINGLES: “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “I Wanna Rock”, “The Price”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Burn in Hell”
FUN FACT #1: The massively popular videos for “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” feature actor Mark Metcalf reprising his Animal House persona, Doug Neidermeyer – and his signature catchphrase, “What do you wanna do with your life?”
FUN FACT #2: Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider testified before the Senate in 1985 in opposition to the PMRC’s effort to censor explicit lyrical content. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” appeared on the “Filthy Fifteen” list, comprised of songs that the committee found most objectionable. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is obviously cartoonish, and your average eight-year-old could differentiate between it and literal violence. Fuck – and I cannot emphasize this enough – the Parents Music Resource Center.
For more on the PMRC, including the entire “Filthy Fifteen” list, click here:
- Hallowed Ground – Violent Femmes
CHART POSITION: #56 in Australia
SINGLES: “It’s Gonna Rain”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Country Death Song”, “Never Tell”, “Sweet Misery Blues”, “It’s Gonna Rain”
FUN FACT: Hallowed Ground is Violent Femmes’ most divisive record. Fans and critics alike objected to the fire & brimstone lyrics and the country & western sound. Based on the band’s previous work, many assumed that Gordon Gano’s religious lyrics were ironic; in fact, Gano is a devout Baptist.
- Couldn’t Stand the Weather – Stevie Ray Vaughan
CHART POSITION: #31 in the US, did not chart in the UK
SINGLES: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, “Cold Shot”, “Couldn’t Stand the Weather”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Stevie Ray Vaughan had a very good 1983; his debut, Texas Flood, was released to critical acclaim AND he performed on one of the year’s biggest albums, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance. Couldn’t Stand the Weather wasn’t as universally beloved as Texas Flood, and Vaughan was criticized for its dearth of original material. His version of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is pretty terrific, though.
- All Over the Place – The Bangles
CHART POSITION: #80 in the US, #86 in the UK
SINGLES: “Hero Takes a Fall”, “Going Down to Liverpool”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Hero Takes a Fall”, “James”, “Dover Beach”, “Going Down to Liverpool”, “Where Were You When I Needed You”
FUN FACT #1: The Bangles’ commercial breakthrough wouldn’t happen until 1986, but their debut, All Over the Place, is the album that got the attention of Prince, who wrote the band’s first hit single, “Manic Monday”. Compared to their later work, All Over the Place has a retro feel I love.
FUN FACT #2: “Going Down to Liverpool” was written by Kimberley Rew for his band Katrina and the Waves, best known for the infectious 1985 single “Walking on Sunshine”. The video, directed by Susanna Hoffs’ mom Tamar, stars Leonard Nimoy as an unimpressed chauffeur (Nimoy was a family friend). Unlike most of the band’s singles, “Going Down to Liverpool” features lead vocals by drummer Debbie Peterson.
- Private Dancer – Tina Turner
CHART POSITION: Top 10 in twelve countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. In the US, Private Dancer was the fifth-most popular album of 1985.
SINGLES: “Let’s Stay Together”, “Help!”, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, “Better Be Good to Me”, “Private Dancer”, “I Can’t Stand the Rain”, “Show Some Respect”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: Private Dancer was a comeback for the ages. After enduring years of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband Ike, Tina struggled to jump-start her solo career. Only one of her first four solo albums – 1975’s Acid Queen – appeared on the Billboard 200. But in 1984, Turner signed with Capitol Records, whose A&R rep John Carter is credited with helping Turner reboot her career. Private Dancer was a triumph, selling over 12 million copies worldwide, earning four Grammy Awards, and ushering in the age of Tina.
FUN FACT #2: Almost every track on Private Dancer is credited to a different songwriter, among them Mark Knopfler (the title track), Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”), David Bowie (“1984”), and Lennon-McCartney (“Help!”). The legendary songwriting duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn – who’ve collaborated on iconic singles like Exile’s “Kiss You All Over”, The Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz”, and Toni Basil’s “Mickey” – teamed up with Holly Knight to write “Better Be Good to Me”. And Terry Britten, who’s written singles for artists like Olivia Newton-John and Cliff Richard, collaborated with Graham Lyle for Private Dancer‘s biggest hit, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” (the pair shared that year’s Grammy for Song of the Year).
- Major Moves – Hank Williams Jr.
CHART POSITION: #100 in the US (#1 on the country chart), #20 in Canada
SINGLES: “Attitude Adjustment”, “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”, “Major Moves”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: NFL fans will recognize “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” as the basis for the Monday Night Football theme song, “Are You Ready For Some Football?”
- Born in the U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen
CHART POSITION: #1 in eleven countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. In Canada, Born in the U.S.A. was the best-selling album of 1984, and in the US, it was the best-selling album of 1985.
SINGLES: “Dancing in the Dark”, “Cover Me”, “Born in the U.S.A.”, “I’m on Fire”, “Glory Days”, “I’m Goin’ Down”, “My Hometown”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Downbound Train”
FUN FACT #1: Born in the U.S.A. yielded a rare seven1 Top 10 hits, although none of them went to #1. “Dancing in the Dark”, accompanied by a music video directed by Brian De Palma (!!!) and starring a then-unknown Courteney Cox, is Springsteen’s biggest hit of all time.
1 Among the other albums to achieve this feat are Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, Genesis’ Invisible Touch, Madonna’s True Blue, George Michael’s Faith, and Whitney Houston’s Whitney.
FUN FACT #2: Despite its near-constant use by pandering right-wing politicians, “Born in the U.S.A.” is a blistering critique of American policy in the post-Vietnam War era (Springsteen was inspired to write it after reading Ron Kovic’s memoir, Born on the Fourth of July). Most nauseatingly, the song has been used at 45 rallies, despite Springsteen referring to the former president as “a flagrant, toxic narcissist” and a “threat to our democracy”.
FUN FACT #3: The album’s iconic cover photo, taken by Annie Leibovitz, drew controversy because – I am not making this up – some folks thought it looked like The Boss was urinating on the flag. Springsteen has denied any hidden message in the photo, telling Rolling Stone‘s Kurt Loder that “the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face”.
FUN FACT #4: At the 27th Grammy Awards, Born in the U.S.A. was nominated for Album of the Year; it lost – as did Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, Prince’s Purple Rain, and Tina Turner’s Private Dancer – to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. More on Purple Rain in a bit (and more on Can’t Slow Down in the third and final volume of this post).
- Hyæna – Siouxsie and the Banshees
CHART POSITION: #157 in the US (it was the band’s Billboard 200 debut), #15 in the UK
SINGLES: “Swimming Horses”, “Dazzle”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Dazzle”, “Take Me Back”, “Belladonna”, “Swimming Horses”, “Dear Prudence”
FUN FACT #1: “Dear Prudence” was not Siouxsie and the Banshees’ first Beatles cover; that distinction belongs to “Helter Skelter”, which the Banshees recorded for their 1978 debut, The Scream.
FUN FACT #2: “Dazzle”, originally composed on the piano, features a 27-piece band comprised of members of the London Symphony Orchestra. The lyrics “Swallowing diamonds / A cutting throat” were inspired by the scene in 1976’s Marathon Man in which Laurence Olivier swallows diamonds.
- From Her to Eternity – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
CHART POSITION: #40 in the UK (did not chart in the US)
SINGLES: N/A
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Avalanche”, “From Her to Eternity”
FUN FACT: From Her to Eternity (Cave’s debut album) is a pun on the title of James Joyce’s novel From Here to Eternity.
- Goodbye Cruel World – Elvis Costello and the Attractions
CHART POSITION: #35 in the US, #10 in the UK
SINGLES: “I Wanna Be Loved”, “The Only Flame in Town”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “The Only Flame in Town”, “Room with No Number”, “Inch By Inch”, “The Comedians”, “Sour Milk Cow Blues”
FUN FACT #1: “The Comedians” is in one of my favorite time signatures, quintuple (5/4) time. Yes, I do know I’m a nerd.2 Anyway, the most famous song in that time signature is “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (other examples are The Beatles’ “Within You Without You” and Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme).
2 You non-music nerds can learn more about time signatures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature
FUN FACT #2: “The Only Flame in Town”, which features Daryl Hall (y’all, Daryl Hall was EVERYWHERE in 1984) on backing vocals, began its life as a torch song before it was reworked by producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley in a pop-R&B style. The video, featuring a “Win a date with the Attractions – and Daryl” storyline, helped bolster the single’s success in the US, where it reached #56 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? – Art of Noise
CHART POSITION: #85 in the US, #27 in the UK
SINGLES: “Beat Box”, “Close (to the Edit)”, “Moments in Love”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Art of Noise, an avant-garde synth-pop outfit, was comprised of engineer/producer Gary Langan, programmer J. J. Jeczalik, keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, music journalist Paul Morley, and producer Trevor Horn (also known for his work with The Buggles). The band made innovative use of sampling to create their “sound collages”. Art of Noise, with an updated lineup, achieved their greatest US success later in the decade with singles like “Peter Gunn” (with original guitarist Duane Eddy!), a remake of Prince’s “Kiss” (with Tom Jones!), and “Paranoimia” (with Max Headroom!). They were also fully credited on Prodigy’s 1996 single “Firestarter”, which samples “Close (to the Edit)”.
- Purple Rain – Prince and the Revolution
CHART POSITION: #1 in the US, Canada, Austria, Netherlands, and Zimbabwe, top 10 in eight more countries. Purple Rain made the year-end charts in several countries, including the US and Canada, where it was outsold only by Born in the U.S.A.
SINGLES: “When Doves Cry”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Purple Rain”, “I Would Die 4 U”, “Take Me with U”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of them
FUN FACT #1: The best album of 1984 – and possibly the greatest album of the entire decade – is one of the best-selling, as well. An absolute masterpiece from beginning to end, with banger after banger like “When Doves Cry”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Darling Nikki”, “I Would Die 4 U”, that killer title track, and more. There’s not an ounce of fat on this album. 15/10. No notes. Purple Rain has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
FUN FACT #2: The cover photo was taken at the Warner Bros. backlot in an area known as Hennesy Street. Designed to resemble a Lower East Side alley, Hennesy Street has appeared in movies like Annie, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Gremlins, Bugsy, Minority Report, Road to Perdition, and The Greatest Showman. Originally known as Tenement Street, it was renamed in honor of Annie‘s production designer, Dale Hennesy, who passed away before filming on the 1982 musical ended.
FUN FACT #3: The video for “When Doves Cry”, Purple Rain‘s leadoff single, caused a stir at MTV, whose execs deemed it too sexually explicit for television.
FUN FACT #4: Inexplicably, none of the songs from Purple Rain were nominated for Best Original Song at the 57th Academy Awards, though Prince did win Best Original Song Score (which isn’t even a category anymore!). Even worse, in one of the biggest travesties in Oscar history, Stevie Wonder’s absolutely dreadful “I Just Called to Say I Love You” took home the Best Original Song prize that year.
FUN FACT #5: “Darling Nikki”, with its explicit reference to female masturbation (go Nikki!), was one of the aforementioned “Filthy Fifteen”.
- Victory – The Jacksons
CHART POSITION: Top 5 in twelve countries, including the US, the UK, and Canada
SINGLES: “State of Shock”, “Torture”, “Body”, “Wait”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT #1: Victory is the only album that features all six of the Jackson brothers, including Randy (who didn’t officially join the family band until Jermaine’s departure in 1975), Jermaine (who had just reunited with his brothers the previous year for the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever), and Michael and Marlon (who both left for good after the Victory tour concluded).
FUN FACT #2: Neither of Victory‘s videos – “Torture” and “Body” – starred Michael Jackson, who was still churning out sales of Thriller (that album, released at the end of 1982, was the best-selling album of 1984 in the US). If you pause the “Torture” clip at precisely 2:00, you can spot the Michael wax dummy they borrowed from Madame Tussauds.
- Diamond Life – Sade
CHART POSITION: Top 5 in ten countries, including the US and the UK (where it was the seventh-most popular album of the year)
SINGLES: “Your Love is King”, “When Am I Going to Make a Living”, “Smooth Operator”, “Hang On to Your Love”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above
FUN FACT: Sade, named for its lead singer Helen Folasade Adu, earned the Best New Artist Award at the 28th Grammys. Their signature song, “Smooth Operator,” reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single’s video, featuring actors Michael Feast and Amanda Pays, was directed by Julien Temple, who later cast Sade in his 1986 musical Absolute Beginners. For “Smooth Operator”, Sade was nominated for Best New Artist in a Video at the 2nd MTV Video Music Awards (they lost to ‘Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry”).
- Ride the Lightning – Metallica
CHART POSITION: #48 in the US, #87 in the UK
SINGLES: “Creeping Death”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Ride the Lightning”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
FUN FACT: Ride the Lightning takes its name from Stephen King’s epic The Stand (a character uses the phrase to refer to death by electric chair). Though the album only made it to #48 on the Billboard Hot 100, it has been certified 6x Platinum in the US – and it set Metallica up for their commercial breakthrough, 1986’s Master of Puppets.
- Go Insane – Lindsey Buckingham
CHART POSITION: #45 in the US, #33 in Sweden
SINGLES: “Go Insane” and “Slow Dancing”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “I Must Go”, “Loving Cup”
FUN FACT: Go Insane was executive-produced by the legendary Roy Thomas Baker, who has worked with artists like Queen, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Santana, and The Cars. Buckingham earned seven VMA nominations for Go Insane, four for the title track and three for “Slow Dancing”.
- Zen Arcade – Hüsker Dü
CHART POSITION: N/A
SINGLES: N/A
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Pink Turns to Blue”
FUN FACT: Zen Arcade – a double concept album about a young man who escapes an abusive home life only to discover that the world at large is even worse – combines elements of hardcore punk, folk, and psychedelia. Hüsker Dü recorded a cover of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” during the Zen Arcade sessions; it was released as a non-album single in April 1984.
- Mirror Moves – The Psychedelic Furs
CHART POSITION: #43 in the US, #16 in Canada
SINGLES: “Heaven”, “The Ghost in You”, “Here Come Cowboys”, “Heartbeat”
MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “Highwire Days”
FUN FACT #1: While promoting The Cure’s Head on the Door in 1985, Robert Smith named Mirror Moves as one of his five favorite albums.
FUN FACT #2: The cover art is an homage to graphic designer and video director Barney Bubbles, who died by suicide in 1983. Among the album covers Bubbles designed are Music for Pleasure by The Damned (below left) and Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True (below right). As a director, he helmed videos for artists such as Squeeze, The Specials, and Fun Boy Three.
The updated playlist:
PB & Julie + Julie C. Trivia 