Lene Lovich Stateless (1978)

When you can gum up Lester Bangs’ “bubblegum apothesis” better than “Weird Al” Yankovic you’ve got a great working formula. But Lili-Marlene Premilovich and her uncredited collaborator/partner Les Chappell don’t really sap “I Think We’re Alone Now” of its potency. They released it a year late to let two sevens clashing mark a hit-every-decade-by-the-year triptych (it was a hit for the Shondells in ’67 and for Tiffany in ’87; though Girls Aloud also fucked up the formula, releasing theirs in 2006), they stuffed a woozy oscillation behind the trademark guitar riff, they turn the Theremin into a poltergeist, and they throw fucking hilarious background vocals behind the chorus. Lovich herself is a great bridge between punk, post-punk, and Cyndi Lauper; she’s odd enough that bullshit like “One in a 1,000,000” sort of works, she’s adept enough that her several wordless hooks on “Lucky Number” are awesome, she’s concrete enough that any quirkiness doesn’t upset pretty songs like “Too Tender (to Touch)” or “Tonight.” This album feeds off of the Sparks’ sense of melodrama as much as it does the burgeoning new wave sensibility. Saying she was the most eclectic member of the Stiff roster isn’t saying much, but where the rest of those artists (Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Richard Hell) were defining New Wave, Lovich was already branching out, employing her art school-background and surrealist fantasies to create a heavily classical performance-based approach to a punk sensibility.

Devo Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)

Beginning with a question that doesn't get answered and ending with a punchline concocted from Rolling Stones mockery and a Ross Gellar-fascination with books on evolution (what those dinosaur kids get up to!), Devo began to conquer the world through a series of contradictions. "Jocko Homo" is annoying on principle; they used to play it for upwards of twenty minutes just reciting the refrain: "are we not men?" According to Devo none of us are human; we're "mongoloids"; we wear hats and have jobs to deceive the neighbors who are also probably mongoloids so the whole act of deception is a waste of time. Our "Uncontrollable Urge" is our lineage of brain eating monkeys; our God did create us but he also used the monkeys in the first place; Darwin and Fundmentalists are wrong; we are all Devo's children. Scooping up and pairing down the motorik oscillations of Hawkwind and other mid-'70s synth groups, Devo employed electronics to accent their off-time, silly little songs. In the process they basically paved the way for most of the pop music of the '80s. Their emphasis on devolution (it's all in the name) was sparked by discussions between Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale about the Kent State shootings. After several shifting line-ups they recording this album with both of their brothers named Bob ("Bob 1" and "Bob 2" according to liners) and Alan Myers on drums. I mean, I don't even need to talk about the costumes to point out how weirdly cool these guys were, right?

Prince Dirty Mind (1980)

If Devo laid the groundwork for the alternative pop of the eighties, Prince's work would become the focal point for the huge singles of the decade. Funky and soulful enough to remain associated with the great R&B, funk, and soul of the '60s and '70s while simultaneously embracing the minimal (but not minimalist) edge of punk and post-punk, Prince might be the best example of the what the centrifuge of new wave meant in the aftermath of punk. Dirty Mind might even be the best example of high quality pop music made with a punk aesthetic, given that the album is the original demos Prince recorded to field the album. Let's put it this way: Prince was the Timbaland of the '80s, except that his own material was as good as the huge singles he wrote for others. As an added bonus, Prince exploited the gender ambiguity of glam rock in ways that the New York Dolls would never have dreamed of: purposefully keeping his heritage and sexuality secret, Prince was white and black, straight and gay, masculine and feminine all at once. And uncompromising about it. Dirty Mind delivers what the title promises; other than "When You Were Mine" the tracks are about sex and lots of it. And while Prince was not the first artist to be so upfront about the point, he might have been the first pop artist who wrote pop songs about blow jobs, masturbation, and fucking that didn't exploit dancing as a metaphor. "Do It All Night" isn't a dancefloor song; it's about shimmying in the bedroom. "Head" tells the age old tale of Prince stealing a bride from who groom-to-be by promising her really good oral sex. "Sister" incenses incest, and even the ballad "Gotta Broken Heart Again" stops to point out how good the sex was. Even "Partyup," the anti-war song, offers getting down as the solution. Prince is pure mojo on this album; it's a mojo with nothing to prove except how quickly it will consume us all.

The db's Stands for Decibels (1981)

The db's were sort of left stranded, the songs of Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple too involved for popular consumption that demanded power pop in the vein of the Cars and the A's and the rhythmic work of Wil Rigby and Gene Holder not flashy or well-honed enough for fans of XTC. On the other hand, throw this album into a blender with Mission of Burma's Vs. (1983) and Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth (1980) and you basically have the formula (or parts thereof) for Yo La Tengo and every other band that sounds like Yo La Tengo. R.E.M. also cited the album as an influence, although R.E.M. never had the sense of humor this band had. Holsapple and Stamey, the McCartney and Lennon of indie song-writing, balanced each other perfectly; Holsapple's pop work on "Black and White," "Big Brown Eyes," and "Bad Reputation" (dude likes his "B"s) turns the techniques of power pop on their head while the grittier, complex compositions of Stamey (which bear traces of his work with Alex Chilton and Richard Lloyd) give the band some heft. "Espionage" is a mini-rock opera, "She's Not Worried" is gorgeous punk-Beatles faux-classical, and "Tearjerkin'" throws gorgeous vocal harmonies over a ragged off-time attack. The perfect template for an indie-pop album.

XTC Englush Settlement (1982)

It shouldn't be hard to figure out why XTC is the favorite pop group of any out music fan (especially those of us who feel that giving the Beach Boys that honor requires we buy into the personality of Brian Wilson more than we'd like): these guys were fucking insane. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding wrote songs that tackled class inequality, sexism, working class life, racial prejudice, and the classics with equal acumen while, along with Dave Gregory and Terry Chambers, they performed music that consumed dub, funk, prog, and pop music and regurgitated something that sounded entirely original. English Settlement was the apothesis of this formula, highlighting both the insanely tricky rhythm work of Moulding (bass) and Chambers (drums) that had coallesced on Drums and Wires (1979) and offering a double album of some of the most gorgeous songs Partridge and Moulding have written. Single "Senses Working Overtime" might be the best example of all cylinders working together, but watch how the band takes simple pop tunes like "Ball and Chain," 'Down in the Cockpit," and "Knuckle Down," messes them up, and yet still gets away with having these monstrosities come off like cheery pop tunes. Moulding's "Fly On the Wall" is a barrage of chiming organs and shifting rhythms; Partridge's "Yacht Dance" is a lovely acoustic ballad offset by Chamber's lush high hat work that he punctuates with a soaring snare. The tom fills between verses are hilarious. "Jason and the Argonauts" is like the evil twin of "Senses Working Overtime"; the latter is the sunny side of Partridge's personality while the former is deep, reflective, and edgey. The vocals are particularly stunning; they share the tightrope acrobatics of the instrumentation. The album concludes masterfully: "English Roundabout" is Moulding's most sophisticated track, reducing complex prog riffs and funk bass to an anchored reggae lilt (and check for the Sly/"I Wanna Take You Higher"-like vocal chanting at the end over the riff key changes). Patridge gives us "Snowman," a restained (for him) and gorgeous number where most of the lyrics are unintelligible. An album as gorgeous as it is funky; what other album can you say that about?

Elvis Costello & the Attractions Imperial Bedroom (1982)

Assuming that Nick Lowe would just get impatient with the shit he'd cooked up for the next Attractions album, Costello got ex-Beatles associate Geoff Emerick in the producer's chair for Imperial Bedroom. Combined with the strife that plagued Costello's personal life at the time, the result was simultaneously Costello's lushest and most cynical work, both bravely reaching out to the fringes of pop production while delving inward into personal turmoil. Given that Costello's early work is essentially synonymous with post-punk new wave (as in, the most obvious successor to a punk lineage that includes Buddy Holly, surf music, LA garage, the Rolling Stones, and the Clash) the emotional growth here is astounding, but what's more astounding is how well Costello was able to integrate whatever emotional trip he was on into the coherent pop hookness of This Year's Model (1978) and Armed Forces (1979) and the genre excursions of Get Happy! (1980) and Trust (1981). The orginal recordings apparently sounded very much like Trust but under the guidance of Emerick Costello encouraged the band to experiment with various instrumentations and styles without regard for genre. "...And in Every Home" is the most obvious result: a 40-piece orchestra climbs around the band like kids grappling on a jungle gym. But the approach also bore fruit like the "The Long Honeymoon," a crossbreed of "The Girl from Ipanema" and the stock Hollywood sound cue for "French location," accordians and all. Or "Human Hands," which grafts a Led Zeppelin-via-Flaming Groovies intro onto a ska verse and a Billy Joel chorus. Or "Boy with a Problem," a throwback Pink Flamingos vibe with some wild Charlemagne Palestine piano. Or "Town Crier," a song which starts like Elton John, falls into Bruce Springsteen, and ends up somewhere around Frank Sinatra, a beautifully arranged string section bringing the album to a close, finally dispelling some of the misery so awesomely created with opener "Beyond Belief." Costello will likely never surpass this masterpiece, but it's not like he needs to either. This shit is so far ahead of the game it's unbelievable.

New Order Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)

Factory Records' most notorius album cover is likely the all-sandpaper sleeve that graced Return of the Durutti Column (1980); the story about this album's cover is funnier, though. Tony Wilson, head of Factory, phoned the National Heritage Trust which first refused the use of Henri-Fantin LaTour's painting; Wilson asked who it belonged to and once he discovered that it was part of a trust left to the people of Britain replied, "well, the people of Britain now want it." It's hard to say which was more shocking: the album itself, the synths and beats of which deviated so sharply from the dismal concoctions of the ashes from which this pheonix had risen, Joy Division; or the single "Blue Monday" which came out around the same time and threw the dance world on its head. Fortunately, Power, Corruption & Lies doesn't really suffer for the single's non-inclusion. "5-8-6" proper rips just as hard as a dance track, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris knocking heads against canned beats and keeping the low end busy while Bernard Sumner and Gillian Gilbert rock the keys overtop. Opener "Age of Consent" sounds positively cheery compared to Closer (1980) as Sumner sings love song lyrics that don't mean much and the band gets giddy all over the place. If Movement (1981) was the band's eulogy for Ian Curtis, iPower, Corruption & Lies was the mission statement that laid the groundwork for their dominance through the mid-eighties. And even if New Order wasn't the only formerly punk/postpunk band to leave the nihilism of the late seventies behind the dramatic situation that led to their shift only heightened the catharsis their rebirth provided. This stuff is sheer crack.

Cyndi Lauper She's So Unusual (1983)

Aside from the fact that Lauper was a serious mainstream pop artist who connected with a particular generation that believed both in the dismal state of politics in the Reagan/Thatcher era and also believed that it wasn't their job to do anything about it by doing things that most mainstream pop artists would never be able to get away with today; aside from the fact that unlike our current crop of pop ingenues she was over thirty when she noted that "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and it was fun...and political; aside from the fact that one of her biggest hits is about masturbation ("She-Bop"); aside from the fact that Miles Davis once covered the gorgeous "Time After Time"; aside from the fact that, with absolutely no irony, she covers Prince's "When You Were Mine" and she does so without changing any of the pronouns; aside from the fact that her cover of the Brains' "Money Changes Everything" is like Bruce Springsteen jamming with Devo; aside from the fact that "All Through the Night" makes me giddy; aside from all of these things She's So Unusual is so many kinds of awesome precisely because it collapses the boundaries between commercial viability, punk edge, and pop sensibility. Even the album's less well-known second half is fun; the reggae bounce of "Witness" and the synthetic squelches of "I'll Kiss You" work well. Only the excrutiating "He's So Unsual" -- which seems to do nothing more than prove that Lauper was "weird" -- is worth skipping. Whatever. Six pop classics v. a few mediocre songs still makes She's So Unsual leagues above the new Justin Timberlake record, and people seemed to like that a lot.

Scritti Politti Cupid & Pysche 1985 (1985)

Either you buy into the dub-lite refractions and the crystal pop here or you don't. Because I'll admit it: I really like this album, but 11 tracks can grate no matter how interesting Green Gartside's collage of dub, sampling, R&B, and Gramsci is. And then there's the lyrics on the thing. Let's take "The Word Girl (Flesh & Blood)" as an example: "A name the girl outgrew / The girl was never real / She stands for your abuse / The girl is no ideal." This is followed by deliberations on how "the girl" became Jesus or something. Gartside isn't necessarily less political here than he was on his earlier post-punk work; he's just more interested in turning phrases and wordplay. Stuffing those words inside a blanket of session musicians and sampled material, Gartside creates some of the most skittish pop imaginable: a shifting array of polemic declarations and expressions of love as varied as the styles of music used to float them. His bright tenor/falsetto soars above the mix, augmented with backup vocalists and effects. My girlfriend Leah describes it as "cheesy" and that's a fine conclusion; what makes the album essential despite that cheesiness is the fact that Gartside is making early stabs at incorporating hip hop culture into mainstream music and even if the overall sound is debatable in process he's fairly successful. In other words, this isn't an artist saying, "how can I make my hip hop song?" It's an artist saying, "how can I make the techniques of hip hop work for me?" Get your AKAI out and let it recognize.

Talk Talk Spirit of Eden (1988)

I don't know how to talk about this album. I can tell you it's in my top ten of all time; I can tell you it's beautiful; I can tell you it's exhibit A in my (lengthy and probably boring) argument concerning why Kid A (2000) isn't all that and a bag of chips. I can tell you that it contains my favorite use of harmonica ever. I can tell you that I like it more than Laughing Stock (1991) when I'm listening to it and Laughing Stock more than it when I'm listening to Laughing Stock (I'm using this one here because Laughing Stock really sheds any trace of new waveisms). I can tell you that the shakers and rides that enter five minutes into "The Rainbow" are spacious; I can tell you that the fluctuations between piano, organ, and harmonica immediately after are wonderful; I can tell you that they linger the perfect amount of time before the kick hits again. I can tell you that this album may have provided one part of the post-rock template but it's also the epitomy of a new wave grown and tired by the end of the '80s, still dealing with conservative governments and increasing wealth disparity and a realization that the nihilism of the '70s maybe had a point and that the reckless political disavowels of the '80s had only allowed religious fundamentalism to gain strength. Maybe that's why Mark Hollis went so spiritual on this album, hocking Eden and heaven around like shafts of light through the broiling clouds of music he and bandmates Lee Harris, Paul Webb, and Tim Friese-Greene concoct with a host of guest musicians. The glacial pace of the songs invites people to consider this album pretty and soothing but I don't get that; the dynamics on this album have yet to be captured by any band since because they're built from contrast more than distortion pedals. Throwing the sound work of experimental artists over the guitar riff from "Heroin" and the sonic textures of Genesis allows this album to be the intersection in a Venn diagram of some many at-odds genres. And the restraint of the band is amazing: consider how much less intimidating "Desire" would be if that crunch guitar entered at full volume? If the harmonica was replaced with guitar feedback instead of the wildly vibrant work of Mark Feltham? If the anticipating-Califone acoustics weren't relegated to the edges of the channels? And when the band finally crashes into a beat at 2:39 there's fucking shakers and hockey organs and it lasts for like 20 seconds and then it's back to the silence. I mean, the whole album has shiver-inducing moments like that, and chronicling them would hardly actually explain what experiencing them is like. If Brian Wilson wrote teenage symphonies to God, Talk Talk was asking him for his resignation letter. They had a better way. Plus there are oboes and clarinets and bassoons, which are like my heroin.