Why It Matters

Almost thirty years have passed since I met Chris the cool guy at the beach.  That was a great summer for music, even if you weren’t a Purple Rain fan.  Born In the USA came out that summer, too, along with albums from The Bangles and Miami Sound Machine.   Okay, it was a pretty good summer to jab an ice pick into your ears, too, but we’re not going to focus on that.  Here are some seriously choice cuts from June through September, 1984:

“Blow the House Down,” Siouxsie and the Banshees: Hyaena has been in my power rotation for twenty-eight years, and I expect it to hang in there for another twenty-eight.  An absolute no contest desert island disc for me. Released four days after Born In the USA, June 8.  Really?  You people picked “Dancing in the Dark” over this?

“Go For A Soda,” Kim Mitchell:  Also released in June, this one appealed to the Guy In Who Black Tee Shirt Who Jammed still lurking in my belly.  To hell with Sheila and her cutoffs and Goody comb hatred.

“All Night Long,” Billy Squier:  I’ve been wondering for at least a year how I was going to work this cut into Why It Matters.  Camelot received a new-fangled machine called a “CD Player” one week along with our regular shipment.  It was a Hitachi front-loader with a drawer that opened in a manner similar to a car’s glove box.  Retail on a new CD was roughly double the price of an album, so we couldn’t open any inventory for our new toy.  Somebody purchased Billy’s Signs Of Life, released on July 5, and brought it back as defective.  Of course what this really meant was that it sucked and they didn’t want to be stuck with a fifteen dollar coaster.  The CD played fine, and the intro to album opener “All Night Long” sounded amazing on our store’s sound system.

So here you go.  Use your imagination and see if you can grasp how cool that intro must have sounded in 1984 when all we knew were scratchy albums and hissy tapes.

“The Order Of Death,” Public Image, Ltd.:  Still my favorite PiL album.  Released July 9.

“For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Metallica: July 27, 1984, Metallica starts to find their groove.

“Viet Nam,” Minutemen:  A D. Boone classic from the legendary Double Nickels on the Dime, released in July.

“Masochism World,” Husker Du.  Another July release, and another favorite.  If you don’t own Zen Arcade I recommend picking up a copy quickly.