Worldwide "Oldie but Goldie"

[Arkady 396]

What are some of your own country favorite "old" songs (pre 1985)? Any genre is welcome (folk, pop, etc.) as both very popular or niche.

 

I would like for this thread to focus manly in non US/UK music (but if one is posted once in a while it's not a big deal, especially if it's something a bit niche), because usually classics from there are pretty know around the world and everyone and their pets has at least an idea of US/UK contemporary music history.

 

I'll start with some of my favorites from Italy:

Spoiler

This one I think is my favorite ever (the original song is from 1983)

 

 

Vacanze Romane B side was almost as interesting (the lyrics are much less political than the title and the singer gestures may lead to think)

 

 

Matia Bazar were the best good shit in the early 80's (this is from 1985)

 

 

This one is Milva with the bleakest lyrics ever (but they make the song even more beautiful). The original version of this song called "Valery" by another singer is interesting too.

 

 

This one has beautiful lyrics (they are in the song description, ready to copypaste on google translate).

 

 

[colorful人生 2777]

Philippines:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

I tend to prefer the 70's folk rock stuff before the music scene was absolutely inundated with pop ballads for the rest of eternity.

Edited April 5, 2020 by colorful人生

[spockitty 643]

Funnily enough I recognise Milva, as my parents happened to live in Italy from like '83 till '88 and I grew up with Italian music from that time. Al Bano and Romina Power mostly though :') 

 

Polish 80's music is all rather bleak as those were bleak times, so I gravitate more towards the 60's/70's:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

one 80's song I love though:

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by spockitty

[Jigsaw9 6783]

I have a somewhat weird relationship with old music from my country, mainly because for most of my time growing up all the golden oldies that were blasting through those 'nostalgia radio' stations either got way too repetitive way too fast or were just plain cringey to begin with, lol. So those circumstances weren't too inviting for me to explore any old stuff, plus I was a teenager getting into extreme metal and such, so it was a total turnoff.

 

Over the years as I got older I grew an appreciation for a small number of bands/artists though. While in theory I would dig the '80s Hungarian avantgarde / punk / no-wave scene, there's really no recording that survived the super-restrictive Soviet era that can be deemed enjoyable or listenable (only stuff that was later re-recorded by these bands in the '90s and '00s maybe) or their music was only released towards the late '80s so I'll skip those groups. If anyone wants to go exploring, try searching for A.E. Bizottság, CPg, Trabant, Vágtázó Halottkémek, Európa Kiadó (in order of 'least accessible' to 'most accessible').

 

Okay sorry, that was way too much blabbering, time to get groovy.

 

Spoiler

Locomotiv GT (or LGT for short) was formed in 1971 as a sort of supergroup out of various members of '60s beat-pop/rock'n'roll bands. Their sound was a playful mix of rock'n'roll, funk, jazz and a bit of prog-rock. Here's their short-lived original lineup playing their very first single:

 

 

Another cool early swingin' track from these guys:

 

 

Original LGT bassist/vocalist Károly Frenreisz left them just after two albums to form his own band Skorpió in 1973. I'm only recently getting into this band but seems like they were pretty killer. Funky and catchy as hell rock music with some proggy and occasional disco-ish elements. Check out this anthemic banger:

 

 

They had quite a bit of variety (even some instrumental prog-outs). Here's them playing a kind of hokey bittersweet pop tune. Check those phat organ tones though!

 

 

I saved my favorite for last, KFT. Four quirky and hilarious guys playing quirky and hilarious songs from 1981 till this day. They were considered part of the '80s new wave movement, which I guess kinda fits them but they're much more eclectic than that. Their exceptionally ridiculous lyrics (that are often surprisingly clever/insightful) are their main charm, but hopefully without understanding them you'll be able to rock out to these tunes.

 

Real Central European angura shironuri gang hours, who up:

 

 

Their sleeper hit from this early era (about feeling like a puppet... I'm surprised this slipped by censorship lol)

 

 

A later more mainstream-sounding song about... well, the mainstream actually, lol:

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Jigsaw9

[Takbardzozly 19]

Poland had great music in 60/70 . 80s rock/punk bands are mostly copies of western bands like the cure or the police, but without budget. My father had vinyl collection of many of the bands from 60/70 so I grew up with this music. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

A legendary folk song sung among Turkish, Australians,austirans, and only some Canadians remember the legendary battle that could've ended the great war in total defeat, Made in 1914 - 1915 by a local bard, it was popular when the ottomans would usually sing along with the prisoners or with the enemy when they would agree a local ceasefire to carry their fallen allies (the same time they would be influenced by the French and English) 

 

Turku is a turkish folk song stylised with poem ecstatics with instruments similar to sitar but a different acoustic guitar known as "saz" they would generally sing along with groups and don't count as a true "turku" if they dont

Many versions exist (I like a Canadian female fronted ballad version better) but the original is always the best and meant to be enjoyed as is

 

I put the lyrics in (that's the whole point..) 

[Elagabalus 4]

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBIa8z_Mts

 

 

 

I’ve been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that I didn’t really understand any of their work, though on their last album of the 1970s, the concept-laden And Then There Were Three (a reference to band member Peter Gabriel, who left the group to start a lame solo career), I did enjoy the lovely “Follow You, Follow Me.” Otherwise all the albums before Duke seemed too artsy, too intelleotual. It was Duke (Atlantic; 1980), where Phil Collins’ presence became more apparent, and the music got more modern, the drum machine became more prevalent and the lyrics started getting less mystical and more specific (maybe because of Peter Gabriel’s departure), and complex, ambiguous studies of loss became, instead, smashing first-rate pop songs that I gratefully embraced. The songs themselves seemed arranged more around Collins’ drumming than Mike Rutherford’s bass lines or Tony Banks’ keyboard riffs. A classic example of this is “Misunderstanding,” which not only was the group’s first big hit of the eighties but also seemed to set the tone for the rest of theiralbums as the decade progressed. The other standout on Duke is “Turn It On Again,” which is about the negative effects of television. On the other hand, “Heathaze” is a song I just don’t understand, while “Please Don’t Ask” is a touching love song written to a separated wife who regains custody of the couple’s child. Has the negative aspect of divorce ever been rendered in more intimate terms by a rock ‘n’ roll group? I don’t think so. “Duke Travels” and “Dukes End” might mean something but since the lyrics aren’t printed it’s hard to tell what Collins is singing about, though there is complex, gorgeous piano work by Tony Banks on the latter track. The only bummer about Duke is “Alone Tonight,” which is way too reminiscent of “Tonight Tonight Tonight” from the group’s later masterpiece Invisible Touch and the only example, really, of where Collins has plagiarized himself.

 

Abacab (Atlantic; 1981) was released almost immediately after Duke and it benefits from a new producer, Hugh Padgham, who gives the band a more eighties sound and though the songs seem fairly generic, there are still great bits throughout: the extended jam in the middle of the title track and the horns by some group called Earth, Wind and Fire on “No Reply at All” are just two examples. Again the songs reflect dark emotions and are about people who feel lost or who are in conflict, but the production and sound are gleaming and upbeat (even if the titles aren’t: “No Reply at All,” “Keep It Dark,” “Who Dunnit?” “Like It or Not”). Mike Rutherford’s bass is obscured somewhat in the mix but otherwise the band sounds tight and is once again propelled by Collins’ truly amazing drumming. Even at its most despairing (like the song “Dodo,” about extinction), Abacab musically is poppy and lighthearted.

 

My favorite track is “Man on the Corner,” which is the only song credited solely to Collins, a moving ballad with a pretty synthesized melody plus a riveting drum machine in the background. Though it could easily come off any of Phil’s solo albums, because the themes of loneliness, paranoia and alienation are overly familiar to Genesis it evokes the band’s hopeful humanism. “Man on the Corner” profoundly equates a relationship with a solitary figure (a bum, perhaps a poor homeless person?), “that lonely man on the corner” who just stands around. “Who Dunnit?” profoundly expresses the theme of confusion against a funky groove, and what makes this song so exciting is that it ends with its narrator never finding anything out at all.

 

Hugh Padgham produced next an even less conceptual effort, simply called Genesis (Atlantic; 1983), and though it’s a fine album a lot of it now seems too derivative for my tastes. ‘That’s All” sounds like “Misunderstanding,” “Taking It All Too Hard” reminds me of “Throwing It All Away.” It also seems less jazzy than its predecessors and more of an eighties pop album, more rock ‘n’ roll. Padgham does a brilliant job of producing, but the material is weaker than usual and you can sense the strain. It opens with the autobiographical “Mama,” that’s both strange and touching, though I couldn’t tell if the singer was talking about his actual mother or to a girl he likes to call “Mama.” ‘That’s All” is a lover’s lament about being ignored and beaten down by an unreceptive partner; despite the despairing tone it’s got a bright sing-along melody that makes the song less depressing than it probably needed to be. “That’s All” is the best tune on the album, but Phil’s voice is strongest on “House by the Sea,” whose lyrics are, however, too streamof-consciousness to make much sense. It might be about growing up and accepting adulthood but it’s unclear; at any rate, its second instrumental part puts the song more in focus for me and Mike Banks gets to show off his virtuosic guitar skills while Tom Rutherford washes the tracks over with dreamy synthesizers, and when Phil repeats the song’s third verse at the end it can give you chills.

 

“Illegal Alien” is the most explicitly political song the group has yet recorded and their funniest. The subject is supposed to be sad—a wetback trying to get across the border into the United States—but the details are highly comical: the bottle of tequila the Mexican holds, the new pair of shoes he’s wearing (probably stolen); and it all seems totally accurate. Phil sings it in a brash, whiny pseudo-Mexican voice that makes it even funnier, and the rhyme of “fun ” with “illegal alien ” is inspired. “Just a Job to Do” is the album’s funkiest song, with a killer bass line by Banks, and though it seems to be about a detective chasing a criminal, I think it could also be about a jealous lover tracking someone down. “Silver Rainbow” is the album’s most lyrical song. The words are intense, complex and gorgeous. The album ends on a positive, upbeat note with “It’s Gonna Get Better.” Even if the lyrics seem a tiny bit generic to some, Phil’s voice is so confident (heavily influenced by Peter Gabriel, who never made an album this polished and heartfelt himself) that he makes us believe in glorious possibilities.

 

Invisible Touch (Atlantic; 1986) is the group’s undisputed masterpiece. It’s an epic meditation on intangibility, at the same time it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. It has a resonance that keeps coming back at the listener, and the music is so beautiful that it’s almost impossible to shake off because every song makes some connection about the unknown or the spaces between people (“Invisible Touch”), questioning authoritative control whether by domineering lovers or by government (“Land of Confusion”) or by meaningless repetition (“Tonight Tonight Tonight’. All in all it ranks with the finest rock ‘n’ roll achievements of the decade and the mastermind behind this album, along of course with the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford, is Hugh Padgham, who has never found as clear and crisp and modern a sound as this. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument.

 

In terms of lyrical craftsmanship and sheer songwriting skills this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Take the lyrics to “Land of Confusion,” in which a singer addresses the problem of abusive political authority. This is laid down with a groove funkier and blacker than anything Prince or Michael Jackson—or any other black artist of recent years, for that matter—has come up with. Yet as danceable as the album is, it also has a stripped-down urgency that not even the overrated Bruce Springsteen can equal. As an observer of love’s failings Collins beats out the Boss again and again, reaching new heights of emotional honesty on “In Too Deep”; yet it also showcases Collins’ clowny, prankish, unpredictable side. It’s the most moving pop song of the 1980s about monogamy and commitment. “Anything She Does” (which echoes the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold” but is more spirited and energetic) starts off side two and after that the album reaches its peak with “Domino,” a two-part song. Part one, “In the Heat of the Night,” is full of sharp, finely drawn images of despair and it’s paired with “The Last Domino,” which fights it with an expression of hope. This song is extremely uplifting. The lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I’ve heard in rock.

 

Phil Collins’ solo efforts seem to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying in a narrower way, especially No Jacket Required and songs like “In the Air Tonight” and “Against All Odds” (though that song was overshadowed by the masterful movie from which it came) and “Take Me Home” and “Sussudio” (great, great song; a personal favorite) and his remake of “You Can’t Hurry Love,” which I’m not alone in thinking is better than the Supremes’ original. But I also think that Phil Collins works better within the confines of the group than as a solo artist—and I stress the word artist. In fact it applies to all three of the guys, because Genesis is still the best, most exciting band to come out of England in the 1980s.

 

[Elagabalus 4]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL4Y2qXDl4

 

An old celtic song which has so many covers no one knows who made the original or even if it was ever made 

Its like dombra it was made long ago but only the notes remain and someone made it  

Date? I guess whichever era celtics lived lol

 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

 

Drunken sailor is a sea shanty dating back to early 19th century but records first appear near late 1700s 

 

It was revived by the Irish rovers a nova scotian folk group in late 1970s 

 

This is my favourite version as the thumbnail looks like a creepy pasta lol

 

Its origins are Scottish 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

Made by John Barry in 1973 is a orchestral composer mainly popular in filming scores those times 

He's English, most of songs were used in other countries near 1980s (Germany, Italy, Croatia, Turkey) 

 

 

 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

The feel of Neil diamond (1966)

Is one of my favourite folk album with solitary man being my favourite folk song

 

The most famous and notable cover is Ofc Johnny cash's American recording album with the legendary producer Rick rubin

 

I like this version better as cash's version is too focused and monochrome (Ba dum tis) 

 

 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

Made in 1983 back when turkish musicianship was original in a way they were culturally aligned, evidenced by false credits

 

An example is many people don't know but Prague (Czech) is somehow known as a lonely and deep city filled with emotions which many art was created there internationally 

I wanted to know why but couldn't no knew 

 

While I wanted to know other cultures I thought going to the beginning would be the best, the man on the right is considered one of the best actors in Turkey, and 18 months of learning Arabic and later turkish I gotta agree, 

While later years the country struggled to keep domestic viewers it was already late when late 90's and 2000s movies was going downhill with no one to take the place (and never did) they would lose their identity to mainstream pop as most pop artists who are in the business for more 50+ years never gave up their mantle

Which is sad because when I was a kid it was dark feelings of nostalgia and emotions that really touched my heart that I could never explain, a culture lost with only fragments in the past,

 

Seriously. 

 

 

[Elagabalus 4]

Outright beautiful and deep

 

A song made by a Norwegian artist Henning Sommero.

 

which in fact is a poem Vårsøg  by Hans Hyldbakk in, written in 1945. 

 

It translates to "a better day" 

[Elagabalus 4]

Song made by stewie wonder in 1985

Which had notable covers in the East 

 

 

 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

12 hours ago, Elagabalus said:

I’ve been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke...

Mr. Ellis, is that you?