The post Madonna “Finally Enough Love” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

It’s been more than a minute since I’ve made time and space to sit down to listen to a record and write: life is insanely busy, the holidays came and went, Vault Boy is home for a month from college (I guess it would be more accurate to call him Vault Man since he’ll be 19 soon but that feels waaaayyyy to weird), and the records on my to-do stack are numbering close to 100 so it’s time to get back on the listening and writing wagon. I grabbed Simply Red’s debut record for a few reasons – it was sitting on top of one of the stacks and its big hit song, “Holding Back the Years,” is on my New Year’s playlist so it feels right this time of year.

“Holding Back the Years” went to #1 in the US (the week of July 12th, 1986) and to #2 in the UK (it was initially released there in ’84 when it went to #51). It earned Simply Red a Grammy nomination for best pop performance. It’s also the only song on Picture Book that I have any familiarity with or connection to and I am therefore going to ignore the rest of the LP (I’m listening to it now, it’s pretty boring overall though Simply Red’s cover of The Valentine Brothers’ “Money’s Too Tight” is OK). “Holding Back the Years” was omnipresent on the radio and MTV during the first half of ’86; one of my all-time favorite memories hearing “Holding Back the Years” is from around spring or early summer of ’86. I had stopped by Tom’s Drive-In (not an actual drive-in as this local fast food chain joint was downtown Appleton), possibly after school as I know I was on my brown 10-speed Schwinn bike, to see who was hanging out there. I can’t remember everyone present but I do know that (if they were even there) my girlfriends had all left, leaving me to hang with the group of punk boys who were a little bit scary and a lot of bit awesome. “Holding Back the Years” started playing on the restaurant’s speakers and one particularly scary punk, Kevin, got up and started doing a remarkably great slow stomping dance with his shaved head, army jacket and combat boots while singing along – even a hard-ass punk knew all the words.

The post Simply Red “Picture Book” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

I admit to being somewhat late to the Winehouse party. I certainly was aware of some of the singles in 2006 but didn’t really listen to more than what I’d occasionally hear on the radio. But then we spent 10 days in London in 2019, three of those exploring Camden where she had lived. We took a Rock-n-Roll tour of the neighborhood one evening that visited many of the places where Amy hung out (pubs, mostly). Our tour guide, Alison (who I’m still in touch with), knew Amy tangentially I believe and told us a few personal anecdotes (again pubs, mostly, and boys). I also sort of got my picture taken with Amy Winehouse. Alison said that the statue is exactly to-scale of Winehouse – she was soooooo tiny!

The post Amy Winehouse “Back to Black” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

Controversy is Prince’s fourth album; it hit #21 on the US album chart and #3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop album chart. Funky and danceable, its themes are a mix of socio-political commentary (most explicitly on “Ronnie, Talk to Russia” but also on the pro-gun control song “Annie Christian”), religion and sex sex sex without even a whisper of innuendo. Songs- and that poster! – like “Sexuality” (released outside of the US as a single – 1981 America was clearly not ready for it), “Do Me, Baby” (which was released, hitting #41 on the single chart and #1 on the R&B chart; it was supposedly written not by Prince but by Revolution bassist Andre Cymone), “Private Joy” and “Jack U Off” tell us exactly where Prince’s mind was at when writing the LP. Other singles he released were the title track “Controversy” (#70 US, #5 UK) and my favorite song on the album, the ultra-funky “Let’s Work” which went to #1 on the US Dance chart.

The post Prince “Controversy” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The post Prince “Around the World in a Day” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The post Blue Swede “Hooked on a Feeling” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

And Hugh Grant breathed some hilarious new life into “Jump (For My Love)” in 2003 with a classic scene from the romantic comedy holiday film Love Actually.

The post Pointer Sisters “Break Out” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The post Wham! “Make It Big” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The post The Cars “Candy-O” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

I’m not a big Hall & Oates fan but this album is OK. Overall it’s a very 80′s record, mixing blue-eyed soul, pop and new wave (and as with many many records from the era, lots of saxophone). Allmusic states, “Though the production is state of the art for 1981, what keeps Private Eyes from sounding robotic is that it never gets in the way of the kinetic energy of Hall & Oates’ touring band, who give the music muscle; they are what keeps the album sounding vibrant 20-plus years after its release, since while elements of the production have dated, it still captures a real band working at a peak. These are the elements that make Private Eyes a sterling example of the sound of mainstream pop circa 1981, but the record was a hit, and has aged well, because both Hall & Oates, along with regular songwriting collaborators Sara and Janna Allen, were at a peak as writers….Though they continued their streak of excellent hit singles, Private Eyes was the culmination of the sound they’d been developing since Along the Red Ledge, and it stands as the pinnacle of their time as the biggest pop act in the U.S.A.”

The post Hall & Oates “Private Eyes” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.