- Music
- 22 May 01
John McKenna's 1982
Our grand old men have become older this year – a quiet heart cacks through ‘Ice Cream For Crow’ as a briefer Jeanette Coleman pipes through ‘Of Human Feelings’. Regardless, the warmth and intimacy of both leaves pleasure lingering, leaves us and sounds shaking in the hair.
Others have come of age in the year 1982: Elvis Costello cended tunes to tongue-twisters and succeeded in diversity; Simple Minds’ brightness bore a narcotic new progress. Bunny tailer with both ‘Rock And Groove’ and ‘Tribute’ provides reasons for staying up late. If 1982 seems to have left few lingering musical memories, then that is obviously mein own discontent and singularity – however, for Shalamar’s ‘A Night To Remember’ and the year’s finest line, “when you love someone it’s natural, most demanding”. I can achieve an instant stupor. Others have to be searched out – Scritti Politti’s eager intellectual paeans, Gwen Guthrie’s soda-pop fluff and Rip Rig And Panic’s greedy Cecil Lawlor pastiches.
In the mainstream, such as The Gang Of Four, The Cure and Dexy-s provide pleasing records that refuse to linger. The Jam deposited a sheaf of singles worthy of attention and better than yogurt, and Tom Petty demonstrated his simple superiority. Belfast’s Big Self remain my favourite band and ABC my most disliked. Annette Peacock and Donna Summer make delicious, feminine records. Nina Simone’s ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’, made before I was born, is the song to make a chap break down and cry.
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The BBC’s Hitchcock season was a suitable thrill, Alex Higgins’ victory in the world professional snooker championship the tummy twister. Orson Welles effortlessly my favourite film maker but Fassbinder’s death a blow – his ‘Veronika Voss’ is super rich and detailed. Coronation Street has returned from mediocrity to excellence, street-wise not one record of 1982 touched its cool and cut, while our own election replayed the near farce of Irish politics. And in the North the Assembly did not elect, to part-time but pensionable posts, the only true deserves – our football team. It’s a rotten world.