1986 in Music

            1986 has always held particular significance to me, for you see, this was the year I entered this world (and of all the possibly trillions of planets in the universe that could possibly support life, it just had to be this one, sigh). It is sad that I missed out on the first six years of the 1980’s, and all I actually remember is very late 1989. But I did manage to grow up with the aftermath of the 80’s, through reruns and such. And to this day I’m still discovering 80’s music I haven’t heard yet.

1986 in Culture and News

           I had Labyrinth and The Great Mouse Detective on VHS at some point...

            Like other years I’ve covered, the box office successes of 1986 largely didn’t have the same staying power as the films that became cult classics. Take Jim Henson’s Labyrinth for example. Like its predecessor The Dark Crystal, it was misunderstood and underappreciated when it debuted, but has a large following today. I personally didn’t see it until sometime in the early 1990’s, but I loved it enough to name my son after its villain. Some other films from the year include Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and two of my favorites, the animated mouse movies An American Tail and The Great Mouse Detective. After the box office failure of The Black Cauldron the previous year (a movie that, while not as good as it could have been, is still under-rated), Disney nearly closed its animation department. But, The Great Mouse Detective was enough of a success to keep them afloat. Later that November An American Tail debuted, directed by Disney’s rival at the time Don Bluth, breaking Disney’s box office records. This would start a game of one-upsmanship that, while Bluth was ultimately unable to compete with, ushered in a renaissance for animation as a whole; high quality animation would be the norm for even television animation, at least until the 2000’s. The Great Mouse Detective has the slightly bigger fandom today, probably thanks to it being a Disney movie; I myself had to write most of the An American Tail Wiki and can attest that the An American Tail fandom mainly consists of probably less than ten dedicated people.

            On the video game front, we have the debut of The Legend of Zelda series. I really didn’t get into the series until 1998’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As a result of being somewhat of a latecomer, I’ve never really been able to truly appreciate the older 2D Zelda games. As I may have mentioned before, I was a strict Sega kid for most of the 90’s. But I did get the first game for the NES some time in the late 1990’s, when people were getting rid of NES games for $5 or less. The game itself is too hard for me, I must admit. I’ve never beaten it or even gotten that far in it. I mean you get sent back to the same place every time you die. But the gold cartridge is pretty awesome looking, you have to admit. I’ll keep it until I have some sort of major financial emergency I suppose (in which case it’s kind of amazing I haven’t had to sell it yet).

            Probably the most notable news item from 1986 was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which happened about a week after I was born. Fortunately for myself I was on the other side of the planet. But it was one of many things that would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union in a few short years. I’ll have a thing or two to say about that when the time comes.

1986 in Music

I wish this were my cassette cover, but I got it online.

            I’m going to say Ministry’s Twitch is my favorite album of 1986; this is a more recent dethroning of Kraftwerk’s Electric Café, which I’ve known about much longer. It pains me to say it, as much as I love Kraftwerk, but the same time, Electric Café is far from Kraftwerk’s best work, really. Their golden age was really from 1975 to 1981. They would come out with a remix album in 1991, The Mix, but we’d have to wait until 2003 for their next album of original music; and we unfortunately haven’t had an album of original music from them since then either. Meanwhile Twitch represented Ministry moving in a different direction, away from the synthpop that singer Al Jourgensen claims he was forced to make by the record companies (which is debatable) and into industrial, and finally later, industrial metal, a genre they would pioneer. I prefer their early synthpop work myself, but this album is a happy medium between that and their later, noisier work. I’d have still been alright with it if they’d stayed sounding like this. But Kraftwerk’s career was on a downturn in 1986, while Ministry was on their way up. A top 3 songs of the year is also a hard pick, as I’m confronted with a choice between nostalgia and my current musical tastes. Why not both then? My inner child will go with Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”, David Bowie’s “As The World Falls Down” from Labyrinth, and the movie version of “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail. My 30’s self will go with “All Day” by Ministry, “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order, and “Sex Object” by Kraftwerk.

Anyway, by 1986 industrial music was emerging, even leaking into the mainstream via Janet Jackson’s debut. 1985 and 1986 were sort of transitional years; the early 1980’s and the late 1980’s are rather distinct from one another musically, as New Wave and Post-Punk gave way to more electronically-influenced genres. This would affect the development of pop and hip-hop as well.

1986 in  music – Spotify Playlist

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

             

This is the song that heralded my birth. When it comes down to it, this song is at the root of my existence. I have know way of knowing if this was the first song I ever heard, but it may as well have been. It was released four days after my birth, on the 25^th of April. I grew up with this song and its zany, colorful stop motion music video. It appears on my first mix tape as well, recorded in 1999. Lyrically if you look at it and be honest with yourself, it’s actually a song about sex. One of the least deep topics you could write a song about. But I like to think the music video carries additional meanings.

            After analyzing the music video many times, I believe the video is about life. In a general overview this is how I interpret the video. It starts with a sperm cell incubating an egg, then shows a fetus forming, and then we’re shown Peter Gabriel, fully formed. This is conception and birth, obviously. The early part of the video represents childhood, with its colorful and wonderous visuals. When you’re a child everything is fresh and new and you’re experiencing the world for the first time. Your self-image may change often in your childhood and teens, which is what is shown in the video as we see Peter Gabriel’s face take on different forms. By the time Peter Gabriel is in the room surrounded by people he has reached adulthood. We see his full body; he has a fully realized sense of self that will no longer change. We see all of the different people he’ll meet; perhaps they’re family, children, co-workers. Things become less surreal as he becomes accustomed to reality. Then, in fatigue, he rests in a chair, it turns around and he arises in a black costume with lights like stars; he steps through a door, and he’s surrounded by darkness and stars. This part of the video represents growing old and dying, and the spirit rejoining the stars from whence it came.

            Of course, I could be completely wrong and it’s just a song about sexual innuendos with a pretty and artistic video. Meh. 

A-Ha – Soft Rains of April

            And here’s our obligatory “Other Songs by One hit Wonders” entry; although A-Ha had lots of hits in their home country of Norway. It’s a song about April and it came out in 1986. It’s another song that reminds me of my birth! Perhaps I was being a bit of a narcissist by including it. It otherwise isn’t actually my type of music.

New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle

            This was one of New Order’s bigger hits, and one of their catchiest songs. A lot of New Order songs have random lyrics where you can’t really find a meaning of them, as was the case with “The Perfect Kiss” which I discussed in 1985 in Music. This is another one of those. An actual “bizarre love triangle” might make an interesting topic for a song, but it doesn’t really come up in the lyrics at all. Still a fun song though.

Cyndi Lauper – Change of Heart

            I’m throwing Cyndi Lauper a bone here. I like Cyndi Lauper’s music just fine, it’s not my favorite, but it’s alright. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is of course her most recognizable hit and could have been on my 1983 in Music mix, had I not heard it a million times and grown tired of it. So, here’s one of her lesser hits.

Yello – Oh Yeah

            “Mmm bow bow. Chick. Chickachika.” If you’ve ever seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you know this song. It sounds like Jabba the Hutt if he were in a particularly lecherous mood. So Yello were these two older Swiss guys who made experimental electronic music that was not designed for mainstream appeal, but accidentally gained mainstream appeal with this song and one other (“The Race”, which was only a hit in Europe). The YouTuber Todd in the Shadows recently did a good video on the song which I recommend viewing, as he gets pretty in-depth about the band and such. 

Depeche Mode – Stripped

            I have to confess I heard Rammstein’s cover of this song first, back when I was in high school.  I didn’t listen to a lot of Depeche Mode growing up, it wasn’t until I was older, after I transitioned from metal to goth. The Rammstein version is very comical sounding, with the lyrics being sung in the same gruff, German-accented voice that is better suited for industrial metal than synthpop. But after hearing both I have to say I like the original by Depeche Mode better. A very carnal song about stripping naked with your lover and running off into the woods or something like that. You know there were a lot of sex songs in 1986, I’m noticing. What was going on that year?

Janet Jackson – Nasty

            Listen to those clanging beats at the beginning of the song, like someone taking a hammer to a sheet of metal. This song is an industrial song disguised as a pop song. It really is. Anyway, this was off Michael Jackson’s sister’s debut album. Janet Jackson went on to have a pretty respectable career, maybe never reaching the heights of Michael Jackson but she was still pretty popular in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We’ll get to the song I really remember hearing from her in my toddler years, “Escapade”, at a later date.

Kraftwerk – Sex Object

            I remember being shocked by the title of this song when I first bought Kraftwerk’s Electric Café album back in my teens. Was this song going to be about an electric sex toy or something? No, actually it’s a song about someone who is tired of being objectified by their significant other. Which is still a really weird topic for a Kraftwerk song. They usually sing about robots or technology and the like. Also unusually for a Kraftwerk song is it is dominated by a string section. It has plenty of synths too, but other than on The Mix version of “Trans Europe Express” this has never really happened. There exists a demo version that does sound more electronic though.

            As for the album as a whole, only “Music Nonstop” and “The Telephone Call” really appealed to me, and the version of “Music Nonstop” on The Mix was a vast improvement. Electric Café is kind of a disappointing release after so many groundbreaking albums in a row from the band. From what I gather it was plagued by setbacks during its five year production  and didn’t gain much critical acclaim at the time either.

KMFDM – Itchy Bitchy

            KMFDM, standing for “Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid” or “no pity for the majority” in English, is an industrial band out of Germany. I’ve always felt like I should like their music more than I do, but I could never really get into them, for some reason. I was amused by the title of this song when I was looking for music to include on this mix, and I kind of like the track. And surprise surprise, it’s another sex song. A really dirty one too if you look at the lyrics.  How fun.

Ministry – All Day

            This song and “We Believe” are my two favorites off Ministry’s Twitch album, which as I discussed before was Ministry branching off and doing the sort of music they wanted to do I suppose. I chose this song over “We Believe” because it hits close to home for me now that I’ve experienced what it’s like to be part of the work force. It’s a song about wasting day after day of your finite life working for the wealthy who sit back and laugh while they count their money and drink champagne. The world needs more anti-work songs.

Metallica – The Thing that Should Not Be

           

            Alright, here’s the metal section of the mix. This was a track off of Metallica’s Master of Puppets album, a true classic of course. It’s a song based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, which I’m perhaps not as familiar with as I ought to be given that I write fantasy, but, perhaps I’ll get on that later. It’s a badass song either way though, about an unspeakable beast that is immortal and will drain you of your sanity.

Ozzy Osbourne – Shot in the Dark

            Every now and then I like to listen to a bit of Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath as the case may be. This isn’t perhaps one of his more famous songs, but it has an undeniably 80’s feel to it. You can see he was trying to adapt to the times.

Beastie Boys – Fight for the Right

           

            I went through a major Beastie Boys phase when I was about 14, which like many phases I had around that age came and went in a manner of a few months. If forced to listen to rap I’d choose Beatie Boys over any other rap group. This is one of their more punk rock type songs, which they made every now and then, and one of their more famous songs. A song about the eternal generation war, which everyone always acts like is a new thing but can be traced back at least as far as ancient Greece.

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Cities in Dust

            Siouxsie and the Banshees were at the height of their popularity in the mid-80’s. This song is actually about the city of Pompei, which as you may know was a Roman city that was destroyed by a volcano. Given that it happened almost 2,000 years ago you really don’t see a lot of modern music dedicated to that tragedy. And that’s too bad really. History shouldn’t be forgotten, no longer how long ago. Human beings still make the same mistakes, putting their settlements in dangerous areas where it’s not a question of if a disaster will happen, but when. That’s the story of our entire civilization, really. You wouldn’t expect a 1980’s gothic rock band to be the ones to keep history like that alive, but you know what, I’m glad they did.

Clan of Xymox – Back Door

            Clan of Xymox is a band that formed in 1981 and is still around and making new music today, amazingly. They just released a new single this year, “She”, which is pretty good. I’ve only recently begun to listen through their discography. Their debut album was their self-titled album released in 1985. This song, ”Back Door”, was the final song off their second album, Medusa.

David Bowie – As the World Falls Down

            Now for the soundtrack section of the mix. I personally think David Bowie’s music on the Labyrinth soundtrack are some of his best songs altogether. Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic, or maybe it’s because I didn’t really start listening to Bowie’s other music until years later, but Bowie’s three songs in this movie are my favorites. This is the song that plays during Sarah’s dream sequence at a masquerade party with Jareth the Goblin King. I played it at my wedding so it has just a tinge more significance to me than the rest of the soundtrack, but only by a little.

Vincent Price – Goodbye So Soon

            This song appeared in The Great Mouse Detective, which is basically Sherlock Holmes but with mice if you haven’t seen it. This was a prerecorded song performed by the villain Ratigan (played by Vincent Price) specifically made to play while his arch enemy Basil of Baker Street is stuck in a death trap. You have to admire the forethought and dedication it would take to compose such a song for this purpose. Such malice. Vincent Price should have sang more often. Ratigan’s other song in the film, ”The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind”, gets more attention than this song does, which is largely overlooked, and that’s a pity. This is more of a legit song which you could even picture hearing on the radio. It is without any interruptions that would give it away as being from a musical. It’s an overlooked song in an overlooked movie. Even if I like An American Tail better, I have to concede this movie may have had slightly better musical numbers. But very different musical numbers too, not the sort that exist to advance the plot. “Let Me Be Good To You”, the famous burlesque number from this film, is another good song from this film and a runner-up to be on the mix.

Phillip Glasser and Betsy Cathcart – Somewhere Out There

            I had a version of this song on my Moon Mix, so the cat’s already out of the bag that I like this song, from An American Tail. That said, I only like specific versions of this song. Appearing on this mix is the one sung by the voice actors from the film; a song that young Fievel, a mouse who was separated from his family on the way to America from Russia, sings as his sister Tanya, a long distance away, sings her verses at the same time. There was a far more popular pop love ballad version by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram which managed to climb the charts in early 1987. It changes it into a generic love song, going against the deeper meaning behind the song in the film. While I don’t mind Ronstadt’s voice too much, I dislike Ingram’s. It’s just not my thing. Anyway, I compiled this article on the song over on the An American Tail Wiki, if you want to take a gander and learn some trivia about it.

Conclusion

            The 1980’s are going to start winding down from here on out, although the musical style bled into the early 1990’s for a while. We’re also going to start getting to the point where I can remember songs from my childhood. In 1987 we’ll have a look at follow-up releases to many of the bands featured on this mix, such as New Order, David Bowie, and Metallica, as well as some other rarities of course.