The Colossus

A special convergence of 70s stars for you -- Cher and the Osmonds sing a medley for you.

Welcome to my personal vision of hell. This, in endless loop.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I continue to play Virgil to your Dante.

I always thought of the Osmonds as sort of the bizarro-universe Jackson Five.

I do have some pity for Donny Osmond, though. A person who is a celebrity at age fifteen -- what do you do with the rest of your life after that? This isn't eighteenth century Vienna, where Mozart can go from child prodigy to having a career as a court musician to -- well, to being dead at thirty like Jim Morrison, so maybe that's a bad example.

But after you're a teen star in our culture, what happens to you? You get mocked for the rest of your life for decisions you didn't make, because surely Donny didn't choose that bad wedding tuxedo get-up his producers put him in. Transitioning to something else is virtually impossible; once the gods have struck you with lightning and made you a celebrity, there is no going back to mortality. It's not as if Donny Osmond could go drive a truck or become a stockbroker. You haunt the world like a ghost, I imagine.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I always thought of this as a complementary song to "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves." Same basic plotline -- Cher as a member of an ostracized minority facing disapproval from the broader society around her. Except this time, she gets to ride a pony.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, I know it is actually a 60s song -- recorded in 1968 by actor Richard Harris, who was then at the height of his Camelot mojo, or something like that. At least his singing career didn't seem as much of a put-on as William Shatner's singing career did.

By the way, the Richard Harris Camelot album was one of my absolute favorite records of all time as a kid, having that whole mystic Arthurian bent from early on.

But at any rate -- some hippy left his cake in the rain. While the Richard Harris version of the song is pretty unbearable itself, the version of this song that really that irked me was the souped-up, Donna Summer disco remix dance version of the thing -- weighing in, as Wikpedia tells us, at a bloated 8:40. Meaning if you were, as a kid, stuck in the back seat of a car going to the beach in the summer of 1978 with older sisters who fancied themselves disco queens sitting in the front seat and thereby controlling the radio, you had to listen to this thing, played pretty much in endless loop on AM and FM radio, over and over again.

(Mercifully, this version is only 3:57)

Much has been written of the banality of evil -- but what really upsets me about evil is its sheer love of endless repetition. And disco, my friends, is pretty much pure, concentrated evil.

UPDATE: By the way, that last bit is from Time Bandits -- a great film -- where evil has the temerity to criticize good.

"I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, day one."

Posted by The Colossus at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The 70s meant energy crises, which meant the 55 MPH speed limit, Jimmy Carter wearing sweaters and lecturing to us, and the inevitable populist revolt, which took the form of CB radio.

The song was unnecessary.

But the movie, featuring the inexplicably ubiquitous 70s star Kris Kristofferson was just gratuitous punishment for our sins.

Consider the tragic career of Ernest Borgnine. From a 1950s Oscar winner in Marty to McHale's Navy to -- well, to playing "Dirty Lyle" in Convoy. Just sad.

UPDATE: Related?

Posted by The Colossus at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All I can say is it must have been some wonderful pot.

At about 2:10 -- that is, if your pain threshhold is the equivalent of, say, legendary Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who reportedly withstood waterboarding for nearly three minutes, and you've lasted that long -- you get the synthesizer effect of the muskrats "singing" to each other, courtesy of the Captain.

This being, of course, one of the greater works of evil of the Captain and Tenille.

Burn in hell, Captain. Burn in hell, Tenille.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For Captain Ned.

But the amazing suckitude of this song did not end with the Terry Jacks 1974 version. Oh no. It continues even to this day.

The Nirvana version -- almost bearable or just off key?

The Westlife version -- somewhere in England, a twelve year old girl is sighing:

Captain Kirk gets into the act:

And the inevitable Harry Potter mashup -- final goodbyes before he takes out Voldemort?

Posted by The Colossus at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was going to post that this is Paper Lace's "other" hit, but they actually have yet one more -- Hitchin' a Ride.

You can't call Paper Lace a one-hit wonder band. They had at least three hits -- which means the problem, ultimately, was not Paper Lace -- it was the taste and culture of the times which rewarded them. For the 70s, there is plenty of guilt to go around.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

You knew this one was coming.

A girl.

Her pony.

Hypothermia.

Enjoy.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In this song, I always sympathized with the people of the town. Nothing like a bunch of ragbag carnies to bring down property values.

For those of you who have seen the Simon Pegg film "Hot Fuzz", I would be advocating Jim Broadbent's solution were Cher's "traveling show" to show up in my town.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So far, in posting a few videos from the 1970s, I've stayed to stuff that's not all that bad.

But my friends, if we are to drink of the cup of 1970s music, we must be prepared to drink that cup to its last bitter dregs. For every tolerable 70s tune, there is a whole album of stuff that should never be played again. For every "Frankenstein" there is a "Muskrat Love", my friends, and we must face that fact, lest we think the 70s are every bit as good as the beloved 1980s.

Bitter dregs, my friends. Bitter dregs.

The "artist" is, of course, Paper Lace. I would have been in about fifth or sixth grade when this song came out. It was played in heavy, heavy rotation, and it was enough to unbalance my young and fragile mind.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Kind of how I feel right now.

My new job is hectic and I have a lot of deliverables on a very short time suspense. I joke about having a blue collar job; in reality I seldom get my fingernails dirty as I work in an office. I am currently building both a relational database and a corporate intranet site, the database due Tuesday and the intranet site due in about 2 weeks, and I am doing it without any external resources, as they say -- doing all the DBA work, writing ASP scripts, and also providing the data from extensive internet trolling. This is taking a heavy toll on my free time. I expect this weekend will involve a lot of Jack Daniels and swearing at the sub-human bastards who built Microsoft Access.

I'm not a professional IT type -- I am a kind of data samurai -- really a data ronin -- a guy who rolls into town, administers rough justice, and moves on. A true IT professional would demand a scope of work document, a written spec, and about 6 months of time to do what I'm hacking out in a week. I am a jack of all trades in the IT world -- good at nothing, but able to get a project done in a short time for people who are operating under the gun. I deal in ugly code and bad, short-term fixes.

So, as it has been for the last 60 days or so, blogging will continue to be light.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I heard a rumor . . . .

And yes, to counteract Bananarama we'll give you a 70s tune. A really depressing one.

Although this cover of it was always my favorite . . .

Posted by The Colossus at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Squeeze. Hourglass.

And for you 70s fans out there, some equal time.

Golden Earring. Radar Love. The Official Song of the Massachusetts Turnpike, at least after the 15th of the month, when the staties are out in force to meet their quota.

Posted by The Colossus at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Secret Memo to the Llamas: See you and raise you. This should be Hillary Clinton's campaign theme.

Don't mess with Hall and Oates, my friend.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Frankenstein, baby.

Sorry. Had to cleanse the 80s palate.

UPDATE: Granted, it's not the whole Moog synthesizer version, but I only venture into the 1970s for the occasional raids and airstrikes. Best I can do.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although considering that Elvis was putting out stuff like this as early as 1977, I'm also willing to entertain the notion that he was a time traveler, and the 1980s really began in 1980.

This is the famous Saturday Night Live head-fake, where they start off with "Less Than Zero" but Elvis changes his mind.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You may want candy, but if you gave it up for Lent, you're out of luck.

I gave up drinking for Lent, which may explain the half-mad quality my blogging has of late.

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I was looking for video of Joe Jackson performing his 80s hit "Kinda Cute" in honor of this story, but I guess I'm the only surviving Joe Jackson fan from the 1980s, as no one has posted it on YouTube.

But at any rate, we'll settle for "Steppin' Out." Enjoy.

UPDATE: How far has Joe Jackson fallen, by the way? He's William Shatner's backup singer.

And in continuing my ceaseless Amazon whoring, I'll point out that Shatner's album with Ben Folds and Joe Jackson is available -- and it's fantastic.

Buy it. Buy something.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While we're on the subject of Heston . . .

This isn't the official video, but I guess I'm not the only person who associated Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" with The Omega Man.

Those funky vampires haunted my dreams for years.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1981. This song is in my Top Ten all time 80s songs.

Why wasn't Kim Wilde bigger? Any theories?

UPDATE: And no, Kids in America is not Masquerade. People frequently confuse them. Masquerade is by Berlin.

UPDATE 2: And neither one is Synthicide! Synthicide was by SSQ (Stacey Q's band).

Honestly. They're not the same song. And they're not even the same band. And the singers are all different.

Posted by The Colossus at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cruel to be Kind.

Nick Lowe -- actually released in 1979, but its ambience is definitely 80s.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The return of the Spy Novel . . .

Thought I'd share this 80s video with you, also.

UPDATE: I actually saw Elvis Costello when he was on the tour promoting this album, which is Punch the Clock.

Posted by The Colossus at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hear you, Susanna. Believe me.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Perhaps the finest/worst example of gratuitous use of models in a music video: Julian Lennon's forgettable hit, Stick Around, in which he seems to be complaining about how models mistreat him. The heart bleeds.

UPDATE: Worth it for the Piscopo cameo alone.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, so Katrina and the Waves aren't German. Katrina is an American, the Waves are English, if Wikipedia is to be believed.

Big hit back in 1985, mainly due to the goofy enthusiasm of the video.

A fun song, waiting for a remake.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mrs. C. and I were at a wedding this weekend where they played this -- and I asked her if she remembered the disturbing video with the Roman guy yelling at the little girl.

She said no.

Of course, some things we prefer to forget.

The commenter who posted the original version of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" added the editorial comment "too gay to function", which gave me a chuckle.

If you don't like this version, you can always try the R rated Marilyn Manson cover.

Or, Tainted Love in Hogwarts, using the Marilyn Manson cover as the background track.

Or the rather disturbing version by Coil, which reimagines it as an insane asylum dirge.

Or, Soft Cell meets Phantom of the Opera.

More on Soft Cell and Tainted Love here.

Posted by The Colossus at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What a huge song this was for Tears for Fears.

Also somewhat appropriate for my mood today.

Here is my sad pensee for the day. Cue the violin. But only one.

When I was young, I always said I wanted to be an immortal. It was not that I was so much in love with my life, for my youth consisted mainly of drinking from various bitter cups, until I learned that life was not about happiness. Then I learned that life was about doing things well, and in learning this lesson, passed into adulthood. But I wanted to be an immortal still. For though I realized that the dreams of limitless joy of my youth were foolish, I still reasoned that there would be much to learn, and many skills to acquire. I could be a surgeon or an architect for years, until I grew bored of it, and changed my name, my face, and my identity to take on a new life. Always I would grow richer and wiser, until I would see the connections between all things.

But a voice began to grow in me, and although I rejected it, at first, it came to become a friend. This voice said to me "the world doesn't make sense like it did in my youth." I remember coming back from Germany in 1989, after my longest period away from America, only to find that a lot of things had changed, and it no longer made sense to me. Everything was brighter, louder, bigger, padded for safety and arranged for greater comfort. The braying voices of the media were dumber and shriller, and the music was once again changing. I felt disoriented, and when the Soviet Union began its collapse in the fall of that year, I could not recognize it for what it was. "Surely Gorbachev will roll the tanks", I thought, but when the Berlin Wall came down I realized that the tanks would never roll. Those days were over.

It took a long time for that to sink in. The voice inside me then spoke its first clear words. "Someday the world will make no sense to you at all."

And I realized it was the truth. And then I recognized that when the world finally made no sense to me whatsoever, I would be ready to depart it.

I look at the world today and I have nothing to say, because I don't recognize the story line. Narrative has failed me. I'm sure it will resume for me soon enough, for I am far too young to simply close my eyes and pass away, and I certainly don't believe in suicide. But I look at the world and it makes very little sense today.

Do you ever feel this way?

Posted by The Colossus at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Gratuitous, and silly.

Still, a pretty good song.

More on Robert Palmer here. And no, he was not in Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. You're confusing him with Carl Palmer.

Like all posts in the gratuitous model usage category, no models were harmed in the making of this video.

Posted by The Colossus at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As everyone knows, the first video played on MTV. The single was released in 1979, but it is clearly in the 80s style and mode, part of that two and a half year period from late 1977 to 1980 when the 80s were being born.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody, have fun tonight.

Everybody, Wang Chung tonight.

Note the imperative voice.

UPDATE: Oh, believe me, I've scoured the Intertubes for the Frasier Crane "Everybody Wang Chung tonight" bit, which Tee Bee references in the comments. No luck. But courtesy of the Kos Kidz comes this Ned Lamont ad . . .

Even though I think Ned Lamont is a bought-and-paid-for-empty-suit, it's pretty funny.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Lest people think that the demonization of Republican presidents is a new phenomenon, here is a video from the 80s.

I used to like Genesis and Phil Collins until this video, when they revealed themselves to be leftist idiots.

The video won a Grammy; casting sham pearls before real swine, as the old expression goes.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My adventures in Movable Type have left me feeling a little woozy, and I fear I might be sucked back into the alternate world of Stylesheets, Templates, and DIV tags (Curse you, DIV tags. From hell's heart, I stab at thee . . . ) to be attacked by the HTML equivalent of biker hooligans.

Posted by The Colossus at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I might like you better if we slept together. But on the other hand, I might not.

Kind of a Cult Classic -- which is like a one hit wonder that really wasn't a hit. You either remember it or you don't. You either liked it or you didn't. Me, I liked it.

You might want to wait until it downloads, then fast forward past the first minute or so until the song starts, unless you like the little drama.

More on Romeo Void here.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Not quite a one hit wonder. But the Stray Cats were big for about a year, and then vanished.

I was never a big rockabilly fan, so I didn't miss them.

Posted by The Colossus at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is one of those groups that you look at and say "are they really an 80s group?"

The answer is "yes", or course. Granted, they don't come out of the same punk rock or techno veins that produced so many of the groups of the times. But there's no place else to put ZZ Top.

Of course, some fans point to this article as evidence that ZZ Top was still going strong into the 1990s.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ric Ocasek unleashes the creepy stalker vibe in this one.

It worked for him. Again, I think it was because of a pact with Satan. Go ahead. Try to prove me wrong.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Go-Go's channel the power of claymation in this video classic.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Perhaps the greatest video of them all, no matter what you think of him today.

It such such a legendary and iconic video that someone felt the need to recreate it -- extremely faithfully -- with LEGOs.

And, needless to say, due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dire Straits was one of those groups that you wanted to succeed, back in the day. And then when they released this video and revealed themselves to be soulless corporate shills for MTV, the cool kids abandoned them.

The graphics today are laughable. They might have been laughable back in 1986. It seems to me that even Matthew Broderick had cooler stuff on his computer than this.

UPDATE: Sting, of course, on background vocals. He had gone independent by then.

The bloom was off the 80s by late 1985, I think.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another in the long list of the exploitative use of models in music videos. My young, impressionable mind was forever altered by these videos.

You could pretty much substitute any Duran Duran song here. They were all about this kind of video.

Posted by The Colossus at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Inspired by the recent travails of Robbo.

It was a ground breaking video when it came out, though stop-motion photography has been around forever. Today, it looks kind of cheesy. We'll review other cheesy videos as we proceed.

Posted by The Colossus at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In honor of her birthday, which was yesterday, as the LMC points out.

Bonus points if you can tell me the name of the guy in the video. Here's a clue. He's Rommel's son.

No, he's not Manfred Rommel. But his dad played Rommel in a movie. His dad had that ability to play any kind of European; you'd believe him as a German just as readily as an Englishman. It's a wonder to me that he never appeared in a Bond film -- he would have made a superb M or a great villain.

Give up? The guy in the video is Morgan Mason. His dad was veteran British actor James Mason.

UPDATE: James Mason did appear as the villain in the Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest, which I always felt was a kind of proto-Bond film. It has a lot of the elements in it that made the Bond franchise successful -- the handsome, urbane hero attempting to unravel a nefarious plot, the beautiful girl, and big location shots (the face of Mt. Rushmore, the UN building, etc.). It also had the fantastic modernist house as a kind of villain's lair. There's no doubt in my mind that Terence Young thought a lot about the movie when he directed his Bond films -- the helicopter chase scene in From Russia With Love is clearly a homage to the crop duster scene in North by Northwest. It's hard to say who fills the James Mason shoes today. The closest I can think of is probably someone like Jonathan Pryce, or Anthony Hopkins.

Posted by The Colossus at 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the real supergroups of the 1980s. Here's the day they caused a riot.

Well, almost.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued Iguana."

For that line alone, this is a classic.

More on Wall of Voodoo here.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I always liked this video.

From the rock opera "Chess" written by a couple of Abba members. Hence the chess theme.

Has some great lines:

"One town's very like another when your head's down over your pieces, brother,"

"Siam's gonna be the witness of the ultimate test of cerebral fitness,"

and the ever popular

"I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine."

Murray Head, the star of the video, pretty much made his career playing the lead in the opera. "Buffy" fans might know his younger brother Anthony.

Posted by The Colossus at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Who ya gonna call?

I think the movie has aged pretty badly. The movie's special effects are, by today's standards, pretty poor. I thought, when it came out, that it was the greatest movie ever. Of course, that was before Die Hard came out. A movie that still stands up pretty well, in my opinion.

Still, there are some laughs in it. Mainly supplied by Bill Murray.

The Ghostbusters sequel was just awful. Like every sequel that has Dan Aykroyd in it. Caddyshack II, Ghostbusters II, The Blues Brothers 2000, Driving Miss Daisy II: The Wrath of Daisy, and so on.

In fact, the movie needn't be a sequel -- he's been in plenty of bad first run movies, too. Dr. Detroit, Dragnet, Spies Like Us, Exit to Eden. There's a lot of chaff for the wheat you get from Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd's "serious" movie career has been, in a lot of ways, better than his comedy career.

And that, to me, is a little bit sad.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

But which one is the cover? After the Fire or Falco?

I think Falco came first.

Laura Branigan did a remake of it called Deep in The Dark, also, if Wikipedia is to be believed, but I don't recall it and don't see any video for it. We'll address Laura Branigan at a later date. She's famous in another one of our categories . . .

Posted by The Colossus at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bangles cover this song for the movie version of "Less Than Zero". The movie featured Andrew McCarthy and Jamie Gertz as mixed-up rich kids. In a real stretch, Robert Downey Jr. was also cast in it as -- wait for it -- as a drug addict. I disliked the movie almost as much as the book.

That being said, this cover by the Bangles was the best thing about it.

Now I'm probably revealing my cultural ignorance here, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember who did the original -- and when I found out, I stared at my computer screen for thirty seconds, and said "No. It can't be."

It was written by Simon and Garfunkel. No one has uploaded a video of them performing it at You Tube, but you can play an excerpt of it at Amazon's site.

I think this is one of those cases where the cover is so much better than the original that there is simply no reason to listen to the original anymore. The Bangles version of it just rocks.

The best part of it? At 2:05, we get cowbell. Not enough to please Bruce Dickinson, perhaps, but just a taste of it.

It's like cool taking a victory lap.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Worst. Cover. Ever.

Mick Jagger does his "heroin-addled rooster" impersonation. David Bowie pioneers the "white trenchcoat over floral pajamas" look that became so famous. At 1:20, they almost kiss.

My God. What were they thinking?

It was written in 1964 by the legendary Marvin Gaye (who also had a big hit in the 1980s with Sexual Healing) for one of the original girl groups: Martha and the Vandellas. It was, perhaps, a kind of mercy that Marvin Gaye never lived to see the Jagger/Bowie cover of it.

The original is a classic. But my personal favorite version of it is the one done by the Mamas and the Papas. Cass Elliott sings the hell out of it. Here is a live version of it that is a shadow of how well she could sing it:

I'd wager that in this video, she weighs more than both Bowie and Jagger combined, but I don't want to take your money. Put your money away.

OK -- is this song the most covered tune, ever? It has to be right up there with Twist and Shout. Here are versions of it done by the Who, Jon Bon Jovi, Atomic Kitten, and Australian teenybopper Nikki Webster, just to name a few.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm out of town today, so we're putting this up early.

The "other" big girl band of the 1980s was the British group, Banamarama, who claim to have sold more records than any other girl group. I don't know whether that's true or not. They always seemed to me to be a bit of a put on -- unlike the Bangles or the Go-Go's, there isn't any evidence that they know how to play instruments -- or ultimately, that it's even really them singing. Remember that the 80s was the decade of Milli Vanilli, so anything was possible.

OK, I believe they're singing. But I never "got" Bananarama; I never thought they were serious.

Still, a fun video.

The original was by the Dutch band "Shocking Blue" who are, as far as I know, only famous for this song.

The original is surprisingly good. I think this is a better version than the cover, and I like the cover. Mariska Veres is the lead singer -- if I'm interpreting Wikpedia correctly.

Of course, back in 1986, the really cool kids knew not only of the Bananarama cover of the song, but they also knew of the cover version by Yoko.

No, not Yoko Ono -- do you really think I'd profane the internet with a Yoko Ono video? Please. You wound me with such thoughts. Yoko Nagayama.

Some of us were so cool we had the extended dance version of the Banarama cover on our party tapes with a fade into the Yoko Nagayama version. We were too cool for school, my friends.

This is another song that's due to be remade at some point, probably by Atomic Kitten, who are something like the Bananarama of our times. They're already covering Bangles tunes -- and they'll come up again in our discussion of the worst 80s cover ever.

Maybe they'll remake it. But maybe not. Last time I heard the song, it was being used by Gillette to sell razors. How the mighty have fallen. In Japan, there is a cover version of the ad sung by Japanese pop star Hitomi, who, I suppose, is the Yoko Nagayama of our age.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Momma always said that. Right after the bit about the chocolates. (I know -- I've used that joke before).

Posted by The Colossus at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

From his legendary EP that includes "Just a Gigolo", comes this cover of the Beach Boys Classic. It's not bad; but David Lee Roth has only one setting, and that is way over the top.

Gratuitous use of models warning. This is a theme we will see repeated in many, many videos throughout the 80s. In fact, I'm planning a separate theme on this subject, so this video also fits into the category of Gratuitous Model Usage, #1. This video might be the ultimate exemplar of that, but I've yet to consider the works of Julian Lennon and Robert Palmer, so we'll see. May not be safe for work, in some environments.

Here's the original, as performed by the Beach Boys, which is still the gold standard. In fact, I can't think of a cover version of any Beach Boys tune which is better than the original. You just can't improve on that California beach sound.

No gratuitous model usage in this video. It is completely model free.

Posted by The Colossus at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

First up, the cover, done by Tiffany, the 80s teen star who promoted her album by giving free performances in shopping malls. She then went through the usual lawsuits against her parents to get control of her money that all underage performers seemed to go through (Macaulay Culkin, for instance). She vanished for a few years from the popular scene, got married, had a kid, got divorced, etc., and posed for Playboy in 2002. All this before age 31.

I think the cover is the best version of the song that I've heard. It's due for a remake; Hillary Duff could probably add a few million dollars to her investment portfolio by re-releasing it.

I've been searching for a video version of the original, but have only found this one. It uses the Tommy James and the Shondells version as the background track for a rather disturbing reimagining of the Harry Potter movies as a Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy "slash" story. I apologize in advance. I did get a laugh out of it, though.

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Covers Week! Yes!

It's amazing to me how many big hits in the 80s were actually cover versions of songs from the 1960s and 70s. Some of these songs I only know from their 80s versions, while others I know of the versions by the original artists. In some cases, I think the 80s version is better. In others, the originals are surprisingly good. And some I will leave you to to decide.

First up, this old 80s favorite of mine from Naked Eyes. It was their biggest hit, reaching #8 in the U.S., according to Wikipedia -- though I won't give you the link for that bit of info until the end of this post, because there is a bonus trivia question at the end.

Now I never realized that this song was also a pop hit in the fall of 1964 for British singer Sandie Shaw, and was, according to Wikipedia, also recorded previously in the U.S. for a minor soul singer named Lou Johnson (Wikipedia incorrectly calls him Lou Johnston).

Here's the Sandie Shaw version of it.

Pretty strange, huh? Has that definite early 60s vibe to it.

Now, here's your bonus question . . .who wrote it? You'll have better luck listening to the Sandie Shaw version, although I couldn't figure it out, and was surprised to see who wrote it. Any guesses?

Answer below the fold . . .

Continue reading "80s Video Jukebox Du Jour #18: Covers Week, #1" »

Posted by The Colossus at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In honor of Robert the Llama's years of work in the garden.

The whole pirate costume thing -- I guess it works for some acts. Me, I watch the video and I keep thinking of the Seinfeld episode with the puffy shirt.

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This video, to me, marked a turning point in the history of music videos. After this video was released, it was no longer acceptable for a performer to stitch together some archive footage of themselves onstage and to record a few pranks on a Super 8 camera in a basement somewhere. No, after this video (or perhaps it was Michael Jackson's Thriller that marked the change -- your call), you had to do videos like they were motion pictures. You needed directors, producers, sets, a plot, and a phalanx of gay dancers. Videos became huge production numbers; a veritable arms race of technology and one-upsmanship.

I blame Madonna.

Featuring Keith Carradine and Robert Wuhl. Carradine you may remember from his many film appearances. He's the Carradine broher that doesn't kick ass. Wuhl, of course, was (is?) the star of the show Arlis$, which may be the only TV show produced by HBO studios that no one watches.

Truly.

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I think the video did as much as anything to guarantee that Dexy's Midnight Runners would be one hit wonders. Because frankly, they were pretty unphotogenic.

Yeah, I know. That didn't stop The Cars. But that's only because of Ric Ocasek's well-documented pact with Satan.

UPDATE: What's that? You want evidence for that slanderous statement? Frankly, I'm a little hurt. Well, here you go.

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The other girl band of the 1980s. In the future, historians will debate which of these bands was more influential -- the Go-Go's or the Bangles. I've always been an advocate of the Go-Go's, but I'll leave the decision to you. The Bangles make their case in my favorite video of theirs, below:

UPDATE: Of course, fans of Vicki Peterson will maintain that there is no difference. After all, as Wikpedia points out:

1988's Everything was another multi-platinum smash and included their biggest selling single in the soft ballad "Eternal Flame," but working relationships within the band had broken down, and they split shortly after, with Hoffs embarking on a solo career and Vicki Peterson touring as a member of the Go-Go's and the Continental Drifters.

UPDATE 2: More Go-Go's and Bangles collaboration in the future? The Wikipedia entry on the Go-Go's suggests it . . .

In 2006, the band is touring to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Beauty and the Beat. The Go-Go's are planning a project with Disney called the Po-Go's, featuring child musicians performing new Go-Go's material. Charlotte Caffey and Kathy Valentine are also planning a reality show with Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson of the Bangles, that will showcase female musicians and form a new all-female band.

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They may not be playing in Israel right now, but you can always enjoy them here.

Their first big hit. Considering how much darker their music got as the 1980s went on, this seems like pure bubblegum. They were never my cup of tea back then, but hey, it isn't about me. The 80s were bigger than any of us.

More on their history here.

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A classic, from back in the days when he wasn't doing community service . . .

No George, we don't want to hurt you. We just want you to sweep up a little. Sweep, sweep.

UPDATE: Audio seems a little loud on it, so you may want to turn your speakers down a little.

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Sweat! Sweat! Sweat!

OK, I'll grant you, Billy probably is just talking about dancing here. But I get a laugh out of all his videos. I like the post-apocalyptic Mad Max ambience of the set in this one.

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More along the same lines . . .

UPDATE: Lyrics here if you doubt me.

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Is it just me, or are an inordinate number of 80s video about the topic of, ahem, self-pleasure?

This one is pretty much the first of the sub-genre, though we'll explore a few others of this theme along the way . . .

UPDATE: Surely you understand that "Turning Japanese" is a euphemism . . .

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You couldn't avoid this song in 1984. I even tried joining a Trappist monastery but when I met the abbott, he was wearing a first-generation Sony Walkman cassette player, and he said to me "You've got to hear this. It's the best song ever."

That's when I knew, for the first time, truly, that this was a fallen, broken world.

The video is of the German version, of course. The cool kids wouldn't be caught dead playing the English version, for the simple reason that it implied you had never heard of Nena until the English version was released. And of course, all of the cool kids knew about the band before Luftballoons came out . . .

UPDATE: I never knew what the song was about until I read the Wikipedia entry.

Both the English and German versions of the song tell a story of ninety-nine balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalyptic overreaction by the military. The music was composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the keyboardist of Nena's band, while the guitar player, Carlo Karges, wrote the original German lyrics. Kevin McAlea wrote the English version, titled "99 Red Balloons," which has a more satirical tone than the original.

The song came during a period of escalating rhetoric and strategic maneuvering between the United States and the Soviet Union. In particular, its international chart success followed two events in Europe that raised fears of the Cold War becoming "hot." First, in November 1983 the Soviet Union misread NATO's annual Able Archer exercise as an actual preparation for a nuclear strike and activated its own weapons for a preemptive strike. Although few outside the Soviet Union understood the seriousness of the response, historians now consider it one of the closest calls with nuclear war and a reflection of the war angst of the time. A few weeks later, in January 1984, the US deployed Pershing II missiles in West Germany, prompting protests across western Europe.

In this context, Nena topped the UK Singles Chart with "99 Red Balloons" for three weeks from 28 February 1984 (Strangely, in the USA the german version was more successful, charting at number 2. She never charted again in the U.K., and was placed #10 on the recent Channel 4 poll "The 100 greatest one hit wonders of all time." The song also peaked at #2 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart.

But surely, Colossus, you speak German -- how did you fail to understand it? A lot of people who know me are under the impression that I speak German fluently. I did, after all, spend two years in the Army there. Truth is, I speak a very poor conversational German, and can understand it only when it is spoken to me slowly, and in context. I can catch snippets of what Nena is prattling about, but not enough to understand that it is an anti-military song.

That being said, I always assumed it was. Germany in the 80s was pretty anti-American in its posturing.

As for the English version, I guess I never listened to the lyrics. Besides, Nena's accent is pretty strong.

UPDATE 2: Lyrics to both versions here.

UPDATE 3: 90s Ska band Goldfinger did a cover of it. It's pretty mediocre.

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Although I usually think of this guy as being a 70s artist, he didn't really make the crazy money until the 1980s, when it seemed like everything he wrote was a top ten hit.

As we all know, the girl who dances with him goes on to be a big 90s TV star . . .

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Another favorite. You have to be old enough to remember the Cold War to understand the ambiance of this video.

Essay question: How different would the 80s have been if Terri Nunn had gotten the role of Princess Leia instead of Carrie Fisher?

My answer below the fold.

Continue reading "80s Video Jukebox Du Jour, #6" »

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Yeah, I know. It came out in 1979. But we've covered that already.

The album, Armed Forces, is one of the great indispensables of a 1980s collection. Costello himself was thought of as a "punk" artist by a lot of people, which gave his music that hard, unwholesome edge that made it appealing to a teenager.

Seems pretty silly today.

He himself could be an *sshole, as in the famous incident where he insulted Ray Charles:

His success in the US was severely bruised when, during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in a Columbus, Ohio Holiday Inn hotel bar, Costello referred to James Brown as a "jive-ass nigger", then upped the ante by pronouncing Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant nigger".

Bramlett and friends had evidently been baiting Costello with derisive comments about British rock music in general and "sawed-off Limey"-type comments aimed at him in particular.

A contrite Costello apologised at a New York City press conference a few days later, claiming that he had been drunk and had been attempting to be obnoxious in order to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion, not anticipating that Bramlett would bring his comments to the press.

According to Costello, "it became necessary for me to outrage these people with about the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster". In his liner notes for the expanded version of Get Happy!!, Costello writes that some time after the incident he had declined an offer to meet Charles out of guilt and embarrassment, though Charles himself had graciously forgiven Costello ("Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper").

It is notable that Costello worked extensively in Britain's Rock Against Racism campaign both before and after this interlude. This incident specifically inspired his Get Happy! song Riot Act.

Pretty classy way to handle it by Ray Charles, I think. He probably could have destroyed Costello's career, but he took the high road.

I, for one, am thankful he did, because I've always enjoyed Costello's music.

UPDATE: I've been looking for video of Bill Murray singing it in Lost in Translation, but haven't been able to find it. It was one of the only parts about that movie I liked.

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I have to ask -- did the 80s have more pretentious, self-obsessed performers than any other decade?

This is from the "Sting is reading C.G. Jung because he's such an intellectual" era. Like the old joke -- for years he suffered for his music, and now it's our turn.

That being said, I like the video.

And this parody of it, done by the Dean of the Columbia Business School during the Ben Bernanke confirmation hearings, is a small classic on its own (h/t to the Llamas for that one).

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As I blogged a long time ago, there were three tracks from this album that were required, by statute, to be on every 80s party tape.

This was one of them.

I remember reading a Time magazine article in the 1980s that compared Prince to Michael Jackson, and asserted something to the effect that Prince was like an evil twin to Jackson -- the dark side of Michael, if you will, because his music was so risque.

How times change. Prince seems downright mild -- almost prudish -- compared to some of the acts out there today. And as for being the dark side of Michael Jackson?

Heh. I don't think so.

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Another classic from the Golden Age.

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One of my favorite bands from the golden age.

I've decided I'll spin up no more than one of these a day, lest I inspire an overdose. I could spend hours chasing down old videos on YouTube.

UPDATE: I didn't realize that Hillary Duff did a cover version of it. Listen to it and you tell me if it's better than the original.
My thoughts below the fold . . .

Continue reading "80s Video Jukebox Du Jour, #1" »

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I was talking with Mrs. C. about the 1980s the other day. And I was explaining that the decade I think of as being a golden age didn't actually run from 1980 to 1989 (or, for you purists who argue that each decade begins with a year ending in 1 and ends in a year ending in 0, from 1981 to 1990).

I think that the 1980s actually began a little before 1980.

Consider this recording by the Cars.

"The Cars," you say. "A prototypical 80s group."

Yes, indeed. Except their first album, eponymously titled "The Cars", came out in 1978.

Me, I think if you're coming out with a list of "Greatest Albums of the 1980s", the Cars' first album needs to be on it. It is a great album. It defines so much of what follows in the decade. In many ways, it is a performance that the Cars never match again -- each successive Cars album throughout the 1980s became progressively worse. Listen to "Heartbeat City", which came out in 1984, and you realize that the Cars are doomed band -- the bloom is off the rose, and yet the 1980s aren't technically even half over.

I also think of the 80s as beginning in the late 1970s for two other reasons in the world of politics. Two world leaders came to power in the last years of the decade of the 70s, were to help define the decade of the 80s.

Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978. Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979. You sensed that there were big changes afoot on the world stage, that things were going to be different.

I think though, that the earliest artifact one can posit to have originated in the 1980s is this piece of vinyl, which came out in 1977.

Because this guy was never part of the 1970s. No way, no how.

UPDATE: Part of it is, of course, the effect of the slow percolation of the culture back then. Elvis Costello might have released "My Aim is True" in 1977, but it took time to reach the consciousness of someone like me, as a teenager. It was one of those albums I played all the time in 1983, a full six years later, when it was still considered by the cognoscenti to be a cool album. Or what passed for the cognoscenti in the crowd in which I traveled. Some time ago I made a joke about the news story that reported how Lionel Ritchie recordings are huge in Baghdad right now. Talk about slow percolation, right? Cultural memes from our West coast take twenty years to reach Baghdad. Part of me wonders what would happen if I took a few thousand recordings of the Beatles to Afghanistan. How big a sensation would that cause?

Posted by The Colossus at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Change of pace for you.

Featuring one of my favorites, Squeeze.

Tempted.

Is That Love.

Cool for Cats.

If It's Love . . . with an interminable lead in. Apologies.

Squeeze on the show "The Cutting Edge" . . .

Evidently Glenn Tilbrook is doing a solo tour.

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Fits in both categories, actually.

Since no one except Robbo and Steve-O (the LLamas) liked "Boomer News #1", I'm going to just throw up links to Amazon for the rest of today before drinking myself into a maudlin bender with my old friend John Daniels. Me and John, we don't need you guys. We'll sell out for a buck to push product at you. We can do that, you know. We can do that all day long.

At any rate, Currently Playing on my Windows Media Player is one of the great Artifacts from the 80s. I may have blogged about this album before -- I can't be troubled to look details like that up for the likes of those who didn't even appreciate the sublime Laverne and Shirley parody in that post -- but this was one of the all time greatest records of . . . stop right there. One of the all time greatest records. 'Nuff said.

Squeeze: Singles, 45s, and Under

A great album. A classic. Is there a bad track on this album?

Yes. Yes there is. Actually there are two bad tracks on this album. "Cool for Cats" and "Take Me I'm Yours", frankly, suck. They're both on the first side, and even I fast forward through them half the time.

But every other track on this record is a thing of beauty, a thing of wonder. So much so, that if they didn't put "Cool for Cats" and "Take Me, I'm Yours" on the album, you might be "Tempted" (hah! a little play on words, there) to just leave this album on continuous loop and let it play for the duration of your cold, nasty, brutish, short life.

It's that good.

Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, Amazon tells us, hoped to be the second coming of Lennon and McCartney.

They were. This album and the Beatles "Revolver" (UK edition) are both albums that remind us that there are happy places and times, worlds full of wonder, charm, and sublime ironies. Worlds where even the unhappy tales are told with a smile on your face, with wit and charm, to a circle of admiring friends.

Great songs by great songwriters.

Sadly enough, Difford and Tilbrook went underappreciated by a word which lapped up the profane offerings of Madonna like they were the Sermon on the Mount. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine and I went to see Squeeze play. Back in the day, this would have been in an auditorium packed with thousands of people.

We saw them in a small venue, a club, with about 150 other people.

150 people, to see Squeeze.

What a cruel bitch-goddess you are, life.

Posted by The Colossus at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Available here if you really must have a pair.

Mentioned by James Lileks in the Bleat today.

I never owned them. Every time I thought about buying them, I'd see them on the feet of a jackass, and then it would occur to me: "they're jackass shoes."

Posted by The Colossus at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Image courtesy of Homeruncards.com)

Painful?

You bet it's painful. I still feel the wrench in my gut every time I think of him hobbling around first base.

A piece of advice for John McNamara. In your next life, if Vishnu sees fit to bring you back as something higher on the food chain than, say, a dung beetle, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Leave Clemens in. He was doing just fine.

2. Failing that, if you opt to pinch hit for him with Greenwell, do it as a double switch and put Greenwell in at first. Or, put in Dave Stapleton, for that matter!

UPDATE: Something I had forgotten. Buckner had gone 0-5 in the game. His sole contribution on the night was that soul-destroying error.

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Although it was invented in the 1970s, as this history points out, it came to America in 1980 and became a huge fad.

Dr. Erno Rubik's "Cube".

(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)

The official site is here.

I eschewed all "solutions" to the cube, preferring to work it out for myself. I never solved it.

You can also get the solutions to the various Rubik's puzzles here.

Of course, that would be pointless if you did not own a cube. You can buy it from my Amazon store by clicking on the picture, above.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

(Image courtesy of Klov.com)

(Image courtesy of Klov.com)

Spy Hunter.

This game from Midway debuted in 1983. It was an instant arcade classic, capable of emptying a kid's pockets faster than a school bully at lunchtime. It was one of the first games to feature a sit-down cockpit with driving controls.

How to describe it. You were a spy. You drove down a highway and various bad guys in blue cars attempted to kill you. They could do this by any number of means -- pushing you off the road, extending whirling blades that shredded your tires, or simply shooting at you.

Sometimes they used helicopters. And there was a memorable sequence where you could drive down a path and your car converted to a boat.

You tried to kill your enemies, by means of your machine guns, bumping them off the road, or, as the game progressed, with various other weapons systems, most notably the Oil Slick or Smokescreen.

But you did not start out fully armed. No, sirree. You started out with only machine guns, and had to link up with a trailer truck known as the "weapons van" in order to get the upgrades.

Here is a typical scene. Boy, I wish I had an oil slick right now. Where is the damn weapons van?

(Image courtesy of Klov.com)

Then there was the music. The Henry Mancini "Theme from Peter Gunn" was the background track. But it was not a simple, crude version of it that blared in your ears as you drove. No, my friends, it went through more permutations and variations as the game progressed, with different instrumentation in each seemingly improvised riff.

A sample of the Mancini original here, courtesy of Amazon.com (scroll down to play). I cannot find the actual version used in the game, which is a bummer.

For the day, it was a remarkable technical achievement.

You can actually play an online version of the game at Midway's site here. Unfortunately, it plays without Peter Gunn -- which means that you are getting about 10% of the feeling you got in 1983. Sad. But still fun.

Posted by The Colossus at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

This is the 1981 version.

Imagine your best girl, working out in her Jennifer Beals-style ripped sweatshirt, listening to her Flock of Seagulls cassette on this.

Bliss, my friends. Bliss.

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The President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, had these on his desk.

Not just jelly beans. Jelly Belly jelly beans. The Official Jelly Bean of the Colossus.

The great thing about Jelly Bellies is that they can be combined using recipes -- put two or more together, and you get wonderful taste treats.

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Of course, the L.L. Bean Maine Hunting Shoe has been around since 1912. But it became widespread outside New Enlgand in the 1980s.

They last forever. I have a pair that I bought in 1983 that I still use.

L.L. Bean is, by the way, The Official Outfitter of the Colossus. I make the annual Haj to Freeport, Maine along with the other faithful to stand in front of the canoes.

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There were two definitive novels of the 1980s.

One was Bret Easton Ellis's "Less Than Zero". But those of us who remember the 1980s know that Ellis was a second rater, a poseur, a hack, who ended up glorifying rich kid serial killers. Screw you, Ellis. Screw you. From hell's heart I stab at thee.

The real literary talent of the 1980s was Jay McInerny, who wrote the definitive 1980s novel, Bright Lights, Big City. McInerny, according to 80s lore, quit writing due to the negative reviews of his second novel, Ransom, a book which ends with a duel conducted with samurai swords.

I mean -- how f**king cool is that?

Jay, wherever you are, I love you, man.

Buy the book here. A masterpiece.

The movie, with the 80s-omnipresent Michael J. Fox, was only so-so.

Posted by The Colossus at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the once and future Prince.

I associate this album with some really bad hangovers, and the smell of stale beer so strong that no amount of carpet shampoo could remove it.

There was, in the 1980s, a Federal statute that mandated three tracks from this album be prominently featured on any party mix cassette.

1999
Little Red Corvette
Delirious

The statute was short lived, and was repealed after the 1986 release of his second film, "Under the Cherry Moon", when it was decided by a concurrent, voice-vote resolution of the House and Senate, that Prince had, indeed, jumped the shark.

You may listen to excerpts from the holy work 1999 here.

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I was alone on this one. I liked it.

The full story is here. There is a Japanese site, but unfortunately I never learned Japanese.

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In the 1980s, there were cars.

Most of them were not very good.

But a few were acts of mad, inspired genius.

You really must see this site to get a full appreciation of it.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was, for many of us, the greatest computer we ever owned.

I never actually owned one. My college roommate was the son of a doctor. It was actually his. But who was he kidding? It was mine, all mine!

This, my young Hobbits, was back in the Second Age, before the Dark Lord had returned to his old haunts in Mordor and assumed physical form. How free of care we all were then . . .

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As anyone my age knows, the 1980s were the high point of Western civilization. From time to time, I like to think back on the 1980s with something that I think is nostalgia, but people around me tell me is mere maudlin drunkenness. Yeah, well screw you. I don't need any of you! ANY OF YOU! (stumbles, falls, hits head).

(some time later)

But where was I? Yes, the 1980s. The zenith of Western Civilization. Ronald Reagan was president, disco was dead, Margaret Thatcher sent Britain to war against Argentina over some rocks and sheep, and George Michael was still firmly in the closet. Good times. Nay, great times.

From time to time, I shall post sacred relics of this glorious era, so that you, like Hobbits living in the post-Numenorean fallen world of Middle Earth, may gaze upon them in wonderment.

"What does it mean, Gandalf?"

Sacred relic #1:

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