Sweet & Refreshing Eighties Soda Pop

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Enjoy music mostly from and otherwise inspired by the 1980s!

The majority of the tracks can be categorized as “sophisti-pop”. Many popular artists of the genre incorporated sweet pop-soul into their sound, which made it fit smooth jazz radio formats. The synthesized sound of sophisti-pop made it a typical product of the 1980s and by the beginning of the next decade, it had largely faded out, leaving us with quite a few really enjoyable songs.

Electro pop band The Human League were very successful during the first part of the 1980s, but they seemed to have taken a dead end street in the mid-eighties. To get a fresh sound the record company hired R&B producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis who had just finished Janet Jackson’s album Control. The collaboration did not go well, because Jam & Lewis mainly used their own musicians and replaced vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley in favour of their studio singer Lisa Keith. The album Crash was based on two ideas that did not fully succeed: the typical Human League sound had been pushed into the background and the soul of Jam & Lewis was not fully reflected in it either. But that did not apply to all songs, Human was a perfect collaboration and The Real Thing also featured The Human League in a tight R&B setting. After the album was finished, tensions in the band made them go on as a trio. Only front man Phil Oakey and female singers Joanne and Susan remained, but Crash did not crash the band’s career entirely. In 1990 they got back in the limelight again, when Heart Like A Wheel reached number 29 in the UK and number 32 in the US. And 5 years later the trio hit the jackpot once more, when Tell Me When peaked at number 6 on the UK singles chart and at number 31 in the US, followed by a couple of minor hit singles. In 2024 the band is still alive and ready for their 2024 tour in Australia and New Zealand.

Mick Haupt

British singer Steve Harley helped shaping the 1970s musically, but in the 1980s he was a little lost. He occasionally dropped some singles, but basically none of them were very successful, although he worked with big names, like Midge Ure from Ultravox. In 1986 tables seemed to turn when he became the first phantom in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom Of The Opera. The title track became a UK top ten hit, but to his big disappointment he was replaced by Michael Crawford for the stage version of the musical. In 1989 Steve Harley recorded Dancing On The Telephone, but it took three years before it was finally released on his album Yes You Can. It was his last attempt to catch up with contemporary electronic music. Only a few years later he cut off his long blond locks, stopped making moves on stage and showed up as an “old dad” acoustic folk singer with a beard and a so-called "flowerpot hairdo". Nowadays Steve Harley is seriously ill and he had to cancel this year's tour.

The closing track by The Heidi Incident is brand new:

“If Not Now, When is a pop/contemporary/synthwave song with vintage synth sounds driving the main instrumental complemented by clean guitar chord sub melodies that almost have an 80's vibe as well as an old school funk feel.”

(Bandcamp)

Next week we are going to celebrate 3 million plays on Mixcloud with a special episode of Sunshine Radio! 😊 

Tracklist:

The Human League – The Real Thing (1986)
Steve Harley – Dancing On The Telephone (1992)
China Crisis – Hanna Hanna (1983)
Culture Club – I'll Tumble 4 Ya! (1983)
Steve Marrs – How Was I To Know (1982)
ABC – Rage And Then Regret (1987)
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Talking Loud And Clear (1984)
The Pale Fountains – Thank You (1982)
Everything But The Girl – When All’s Well (1985)
Bryan Ferry – Limbo (1988)
The Style Council – Have You Ever Had It Blue (1986)
Prefab Sprout – Hey Manhattan! (1988)
Halo James ‎– Magic Hour (1990)
Alan Gorrie – In The Jungle (1985)
Hue & Cry – Labour Of Love (1987)
The Blow Monkeys ‎– It Doesn't Have To Be This Way (1986)
Curiosity Killed The Cat ‎– Ordinary Day (1987)
NxWorries – Scared Money (2016)
Momoko Kikuchi – Mystical Composer (1986)
Naked Eyes – (What) In The Name Of Love (1984)
The Heidi Incident – If Not Now When (2023)