(or, more accurately, my favorite albums released in 1984)
Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
| Produced by: | Trevor Horn |
| Billboard 200: | 33 |
| CashBox 200: | 20 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 19 |
- Billboard: "a marriage of slick, old-line disco with tribal rock primitivism"
- Rolling Stone (★★★): "a work of extraordinary studio imagination and perverse commercial ambition dedicated to the elevation of hip agitprop and homoerotic self-absorption"
- Smash Hits (7 out of 10): "A pretty thin package at times, but it still seems a real adventure."
- Stereo Review: "the most absorbing new rock album of 1985"
- Robert Christgau (C): "on the whole Frankie are a marginally competent arena-rock band who don't know how to distinguish between effeminacy and pretension"
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Hot 100 | Dance | Rock |
| Relax | 10 | 20 | |
| Two Tribes | 43 | 3 | 27 |
| Welcome to the Pleasuredome | 48 | 31 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
"Relax"
"Two Tribes"
Embarrassingly juvenile disco/arena rock with lots of covers and I love it - well, every so often. I didn't own this album in the '80s, but I dubbed a cassette copy of a friend's 2 LP set in early '85. I'm sure the group members must have contributed something during the recording, but this is a Trevor Horn album from start to finish. From what I can tell, the backing band were really studio aces from Horn's camp, including Art Of Noise bandmates Anne Dudley and JJ Jeczalik, and two former bandmates from Yes: Steve Howe and Trevor Rabin.
Body and Soul
Joe Jackson
Joe Jackson
| Produced by: | David Kershenbaum & Joe Jackson |
| Billboard 200: | 20 |
| CashBox 200: | 12 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 11 |
- Rolling Stone (★★★★): "a breakthrough"
- Stereo Review: "can claim three of the best things he's ever done"
- Robert Christgau (B-): "it's likable enough."
- Smash Hits (6 out of 10): "a downbeat collection of croony orchestrated 'pieces' rather than songs"
- Record Mirror (★★★): "a solemn, deadly serious piece"
- Downbeat (★½): "pompous, unintentional goofiness of the highest order"
| U.S. Billboard charted single: | Hot 100 | AC | Rock |
| You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want) | 15 | 13 | 12 |
Top 3 Tracks
"You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)"
"Heart of Ice"
"Happy Ending"
"You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)"
"Heart of Ice"
"Happy Ending"
The music isn't as smooth as Jackson's previous effort, 1982's Night and Day, but some of the influences are the same: pop, standards, and salsa music. Jackson also continued his transition into his soundtrack/serious music stage with two instrumental tracks. Many critics think this album has jazz influences, but I don't hear it. It's certainly not as jazzy as Night and Day. I think the critics were just fooled by the album cover, a copy of a 1957 Sonny Rollins album. While Night and Day was more influenced by Cole Porter, this album has a '60s Brill Building feel to it. Is it fair to compare this album to Night and Day? Probably not, but I do anyway. Not exactly what I was hoping for in 1984, but a solid effort that I listened to quite a bit.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
| Produced by: | Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, Richard Mullen & Jim Capfer |
| Billboard 200: | 31 |
| CashBox 200: | 23 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 18 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Rock |
| Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) | 26 |
| Cold Shot | 29 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Couldn't Stand the Weather"
"Cold Shot"
"Stang's Swang"
My true introduction to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I knew of SRV from Bowie's Let's Dance album, but this album was my first exposure to his own work. My buddy Jim had this album and played it for me but I was too much of a wannabe New Waver at the time to give it much of a chance. I became a true fan around 1985 and I've made up for lost time ever since.
Kurt Loder didn't much care for the album, giving it just ★★ in RS 429. I prefer Robert Christgau's characterization of this album in his B+ review in The Village Voice: "a roadhouse album with gargantuan sonic imagination." Let's go with that.
Modern Times
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead
| Produced by: | Steps Ahead |
| Billboard 200: | - |
| CashBox 200: | - |
| Rolling Stone 100: | - |
- Billboard: "invites comparison with Weather Report"
- Downbeat (★★★★): "marks the emergence of a new era for Steps Ahead"
- Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★
Top 3 Tracks
"Self Portrait"
"Oops"
"Safari"
"Self Portrait"
"Oops"
"Safari"
In the early '80s, I was just turning on to jazz music, but my interests were definitely in the smooth jazz vein (Yellowjackets, Spyro Gyra, David Sanborn, etc.), so straight ahead jazz and jazz fusion were foreign to me. One of my high school band directors recommend this album to me, so I dubbed a cassette of his album and, after a few listens, I liked it enough to purchase my own copy. For me, this album bridged the gap between the smooth and fusion sub-genres. While hardly smooth jazz, it was highly synthesized with strange structures, odd chord progressions, and disjunct melodies - continuing along the lines of Weather Report and Return To Forever (bands I had yet to discover). I was drawn to the synth sounds because, after all, this was the '80s. Even with all the electronics, the music here has aged well.
Music from Purple Rain
Prince & The Revolution
Prince & The Revolution
| Produced by: | Prince & The Revolution |
| Billboard 200: | 1 |
| CashBox 200: | 1 |
| Rolling Stone 100: | 1 |
- Rolling Stone (★★★★): "Anyone partial to great creators should own this record. Like Jimi and Sly, Prince is an original; but apart from that, he's like no one else."
- Robert Christgau (A-): "an artist in full formal flower, and he's got something to say."
- Billboard: "a potent springboard to a vastly broader audience for the saucy pop'n'funker"
- Stereo Review: Best of the Month
- Smash Hits (8 out of 10): "sensational"
- CashBox: "A masterpiece."
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: | Hot 100 | R&B | Rock | Dance |
| When Doves Cry | 1 | 1 | 31 | 1 |
| Let's Go Crazy | 1 | 1 | 19 | 1 |
| Purple Rain | 2 | 4 | 18 | |
| I Would Die 4 U | 8 | 11 | 50 | |
| Take Me With You | 25 | 40 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Let's Go Crazy"
"I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm A Star"
"Take Me With U"
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember the music of Purple Rain (not the movie, because that thing's gawd awful). I consider Prince to be more of a singles artist than an album artist, but to my ear, this is easily Prince's best, most consistent album and my dubbed cassette was never far from the Markmobile's Pioneer cassette deck or my new Sony Walkman WM-10 during the last seven months of 1984. After giving us some albums that included great dance/funk tunes (e.g., Dirty Mind & 1999), Prince creates the perfect funk/rock crossover here with scorching guitar licks over dance grooves that won't quit (and you don't want them to).
These are my personal top 10 albums released in 1984. The following criteria was used on a very slippery sliding scale:
- How often I enjoyed the album at the time of release
- How often I've enjoyed the album over the years since release
- My opinion of the overall quality of the album
The top tracks for each album are solely my opinion.
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