Old Enough to Forget

In 1983 David Bowie ruled the world. After years of flirting with mainstream success, he was suddenly the flavour of the day. It was the latest strange turn from one of rocks most durable and creative voices.  I'll also freely admit I was not a fan. At all . Not at first. To me he was the guy who did "Space Oddity" and that song weirded me out as a kid. I didn't like it, and thought it sounded terrible. It didn't help that when I was in my teens there was a young Bowie singing a duet with Bing Crosby on a Christmas Special where he mashed up some ridiculous counterpoint "The Little Drummer Boy." I hated it. Ick, phooey. Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that Bowie was unlistenable. He was a dinosaur who kept desperately throwing whatever he could against the wall trying to make anything stick to make so that  his 15 minutes would last a little longer. It didn't matter that there were quite a few of his classic songs that were pretty amazing. I h...

Once upon a time the boys in Duran Duran were taking a break, and two of the three Taylors formed a band with Robert Palmer and drummer Tony Thompson who had pounded the literal shit out of the skins on Bowie's 1983 album Let's Dance . In the spring of 1985 they dropped an album called The Power Station , named after the legendary New York studio. I'm guessing the guys were having trouble coming up with a suitable band name as they opted to use the same name. The album opens with "Some Like it Hot" and right off the bat you really get the feeling you're in for a ride. To say Tony Thompson sounds huge on this song is an understatement. At this point in the mid '80s Phil Collin's was sort of the standard bearer for big gated toms and from the get go it's like Tony said to the engineer, "Hold my beer." Having Robert Palmer front was pretty cool, as at this point in his career he was still better known as that guy who covered "Bad Case o...

At first glance you'd think this was a release by Julio Iglesias, but you'd be wrong. I'm not an expert in all things Palmer, but I've been a fan of sorts since first hearing him kill it covering Moon Martin's "Bad Case of Loving You" when I was in high school. While I never listened to this album in its entirety until now, I did  have the excellent compilation Addictions Vol.1 (I never did get the second as the first one hit all the high points for me) and recently found a copy of 1979's Secrets (which I enjoyed, and may revisit here at some point - or not) so I was prepared to hear some odd musical choices that were sort of his thing. He always seemed like a rather handsome class clown who was out there to have fun and do what he wanted. Robert Palmer was riding a wave, coming off the rather surprisingly good Power Station album and he would use the bump in notoriety to his advantage. When Riptide came out in 1985 he was primed and ready to go. You...