It’s time to get back to my favorite decade. For the month of March, I’ll be looking back at some of my favorite jams from the 80s. These songs often came to me via MTV or the radio. NYC-area stations WDRE, WPLJ, WNEW, K-ROCK and Z100 introduced me to everything from irresistible pop confections to under-the-radar post-punk anthems. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for the 80s. It was the decade when I discovered music can be a truly powerful thing. #31DaysOf80sSongs
In stark contrast to the U.K., the U.S. has always been slower to adopt alternative and progressive forms of music on any real mass scale. Alternative has been just that – the alternative. And progressive forms have been even more niche. It’s why Kate Bush is such an underrated talent here in the States, even though she was quite famous in the U.K. Critics have suggested that Bush would’ve been more successful had she made her appearance ten years later during the Lilith Fair years – among the very artists she inspired. And maybe that’s the greatest compliment we can give Kate Bush. That she was so far ahead of her time, paving the way, even if we didn’t understand the road she was creating until we looked back at it many years later. That’s the feeling I get when I hear the Hounds of Love album and its closing track, “The Morning Fog”.
“Cloudbusting” and “Running Up That Hill” are two of my other favorite tracks from the same album. But, even in the States, these songs got some due respect on college rock stations. But in this country, “The Morning Fog” flew completely under the radar. One of Bush’s more melodic tracks, the song contained pop expressions that manifested in un-pop instrumentation like classical guitar and a Slovakian flute known as the fujara. There’s a beauty and a sophistication to the way Bush strings together different sounds. But instruments aside, it’s the way that she sings that makes her so unique and distinct. She sings like an actress on a stage who’s capable of expressing a wide range of emotions.
“I am falling like a stone, like a storm. Being born again into the sweet morning fog.”