Slayer: Show No Mercy (1983)

A lot more new music purchases to get to, but I needed a bit of a breather. So I go back to the time of my childhood, but I’ll be honest: I definitely wasn’t listening to Slayer at 10 years old, cool as that would be. I remember the burnouts in high school with the logo emblazoned on their jackets, but my black Members Only jacket had a small Stryper logo at the time (I would eventually upgrade to acid washed denim with a Halloween back patch). It took another few years and the band’s incredible live album before I became a fan, and a few decades after that before I dug into Show No Mercy, their 1983 debut. Fast and loose and gleefully evil in a way their followups would veer sharply from, it’s a bubbly blast that shows hints of the beast they would become.

ChrisJune 27, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Ozzy Osbourne: Blizzard Of Ozz (1980)

Since it’s my birthday month, June was supposed to be filled with easy favorites, albums I love and didn’t review yet. I woke up and couldn’t think of a single one to cover. So I went to my Discogs collection and clicked the random button and out popped Blizzard Of Ozz, the solo debut by one Mr. John Michael Osbourne, aka Ozzy Osbourne. Life is filled with coincidences: the last time I used the random button to write was for Diary of a Madman, and Blizzard… was probably the album that got me on the heavy metal train to begin with. All aboard, indeed…

ChrisJune 3, 2025June 3, 20252 Comments

CD, Vinyl

Les Rallizes Dénudés: YaneUra Oct/Sep ’80 (2024, 2025)

Lovely as Les Rallizes Dénudés are, I have been sick as a dog since Monday night, and their particular sonic onslaught is now doing nothing for my aching an pounding head, so we’re going to wrap up Live Month today with a brief double-header. It’s one that makes sense, though: two blasting shows at the Yaneura live house in Shibuya, Tokyo. And because we established that linear time has little meaning to a band so unstuck in its tick-tock mechanisms, we’re going in order of release but in reverse chronological order, starting with YaneUra Oct. ’80 and then moving back to YaneUra Sep. ’80. Let’s do this so I can give my clogged and pressurized ears a break…

ChrisApril 24, 2025April 24, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Joy Divison: That’ll Be The End (1980)

Some people believe the only “real” representation of the late, great Joy Division was their live shows, that the production meddling of Martin Hannett smothered their intensity into an otherworldly cold sheen on record. I love the production on those records, and while we can debate until the cows come whether that singular production was a help or hindrance to the band’s longevity, there’s no denying that live they were a different, more primal beast. That’ll Be The End documents their penultimate performance at the Ajanta Cinema Derby on April 19, 1980, less than a month before Ian Curtis’s tragic suicide. Like all of their live recordings it’s rough, not meant for official release, but unable to suppress the energy and control the band could hold over an audience.

ChrisApril 11, 2025April 11, 2025Leave a comment

David Bowie: Olympic Stadium, Montreal 1983

I haven’t really written about David Bowie yet on this site. When it comes to my favorite artists I need time to really think about how I want to frame their work and its impact on me. Of how my understanding of them change and grow over time, sometimes making them loom larger, sometimes smaller. He’s one who over time has become larger and larger in my life, and his death in 2016 was a galvanizing moment for me. So I’ll get to Bowie proper eventually; for now though we’ll use the opportunity of Bootleg Week to discuss this document from his Serious Moonlight Tour, Olympic Stadium Montreal 1983.

ChrisApril 10, 2025April 10, 2025Leave a comment

CD, Vinyl

Iron Maiden: Live After Death (1985)

I won’t argue it has a more iconic line than yesterday’s Johnny Cash album, but for a kid growing up in the 80s in love with hard rock and heavy metal, there was no greater thrill than shouting out “Scream for me, Long Beach!” along with Bruce Dickinson. I may have discovered Iron Maiden through The Number of the Beast, but it was Live After Death, their live document of the 1984-85 Powerslave tour that hooked me as a fan for life.Practically a note for note execution of their greatest hits to date, everything from the cover artwork to the photos to the galvanizing me into the fan for life I am today.

ChrisApril 2, 2025April 2, 20251 Comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Tag: 1980s