Sunday, February 22, 2015

Hits, Cult Classics & Obscurities: 1985

First edition of a new series of posts where we pick a year and choose three songs that belong in one of these three categories: Hits, Cult Classics or Obscurities.

The first category includes bona fide hit singles chosen among the year’s top-sellers in the US or the UK. The second includes songs that may not have found much commercial success when they were released, yet their lasting influence has given them cult status. In the third category there are songs that perhaps you've never heard before but among them there are plenty of hidden gems that deserve your attention.

For the premiere of Hits, Cult Classics and Obscurities we go back 30 years to 1985 and start off with Paul Hardcastle's UK Number One hit "19", an anti-war song released on February 17 inspired by a documentary on the Vietnam war and the electro sounds of Afrika Bambaataa:


The indie scene of 1985 has certainly plenty of cult classics to offer. Let's hear another release from February 1985, "Field Of Glass" by The Triffids, the title track of an excellent EP that the cult Australian band recorded at BBC's Maida Vale studios on November 6, 1984, produced by Mark Radcliffe - not one of their most known songs but undoubtedly one of their most powerful:


Last but no least, have a listen to "Chance", a post-punk roller-coaster ride by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, released as a single in 1985 but not included in the Leeds band's debut album of the same year "Talk About the Weather":


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