23 April 1982
Released: 23 April 1982
Recorded: September 1981 - January 1982
Producer: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page
Track listing[1]
Side A
Burning Down One Side
Moonlight in Samosa
Pledge Pin
Fool in the Rain
Mystery Title
Side B
Worse Than Detroit
Fat Lip
Sea of Love
Swan Song
The Yardbirds' first album of the 1980s, the long-awaited follow up to In Through the Out Door, brought back the return to their rock roots with some rhythm and blues influence. Among them was a cover version of Phil Philips' 1959 hit "Sea of Love", which was released as a single shortly before the release of Axe Ivy, peaking at #3 in the United States. However, it did not chart as well in the United Kingdom, at a comparatively lowly #56. But even that didn't stop the album from topping the charts there (it stalled out at #2 in the United States, kept out of the top spot by Fleetwood Mac's Mirage).
JOHN BONHAM: "The album title Axe Ivy was a play on words; it was the Yardbirds' fourteenth album, and in Roman numerals, it's X-I-V [pronounced "acks"-"eye"-"vee"]. Get it? I came up with it myself; no one else had a good enough idea for the title, so it stuck." (2007)
Axe Ivy received generally positive reception from critics and fans, being regarded as a return to form for the Yardbirds, and the tour that followed up ensured that they would stick around for a long time and still hold their place in the rock and roll world.
14 May 1982
Released: 14 May 1982
Recorded: 1980, September 1981 and November 1981 - January 1982
Producer: The Clash
Track listing[2]
Side A
Straight to Hell
Know Your Rights
Rock the Casbah
Red Angel Dragnet
Side B
Should I Stay or Should I Go
Ghetto Defendant
Sean Flynn
Side C
Car Jamming
The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too
Atom Tan
First Night Back in London
Side D
Inoculated City
Death is a Star
Cool Confusion
Idle in Kangaroo Court
For the past few years, the Clash was one of Apple's most successful punk rock groups, and proved to critics and listeners that they were willing to put anything in their music. Even the most stupid-sounding shit, they turned to gold. But by the end of 1981, the cracks in their relationship were beginning to show.
JOE STRUMMER: "We were basically in two camps by that point; me and Paul [Simonon] on wanting to return to our more punk roots, and Mick [Jones] and Topper [Headon] wanting to continue evolving our sound. It didn't help that Topper was in the midst of a drug addiction." (1997)
MICK JONES: "I was unhappy; I felt estranged from the rest of the group and I was living with Ellen [Foley; his then-girlfriend] in New York. I thought, 'This must have been how Paul McCartney felt when he felt estranged from John, George and Ringo in the early 70s.' It felt like lightning was about to strike twice at Apple Records." (2009)
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| The Clash in Philadelphia, 1982. |
PAUL SOLOMON: "One of us caught a newspaper article saying that Ozzy Osbourne had choked on his own vomit. What really got to all of us was what Randy Rhoads said concerning his final words to Ozzy. 'You'll kill yourself, you know? One of these days.' It was very damning to read, and that made us realize that one of us could drop dead and we'd live the regret of never making up with him before then. We felt closer as a group, realizing that if we were to stay together, we'd have to cut the crap and make the album that all of us wanted to put out. And after that, we'd take a break for a while." (2007)
Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg came out that May, backed by singles "Know Your Rights" (#30 UK), "Rock the Casbah" (#14 UK, #5 US) and the double A-side, "Should I Stay or Should I Go"/"Straight to Hell" (#10 UK, #37 US), respectively released 23 April, 11 June and 17 September. The album topped the charts in the United Kingdom and peaked at #4 in the United States, becoming the Clash's best selling album to date. As the band was taking a hiatus to sort out their differences and drug problems, it would be a while before the world heard from them again.
Meanwhile, the original album art depicting the execution of Viet Cong member Nguyễn Văn Lém in 1968, photographed by Eddie Adams, sparked controversy due to insensitivity despite that it expressed the direct lyrical references to the Vietnam War and the notion of "urban warfare" that were prominent in the album. In wake of the controversy, the cover was replaced by a band photo.
25 June 1982
Released: 25 June 1982
Recorded: November 1981 - March 1982
Producer: Fleetwood Mac, Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat
Track listing[3]
Side A
Love in Store
Dirty Creature
That's Alright
Log Cabin Fever
Gypsy
Only Over You
Side B
Take a Walk
Straight Back
Put a Candle in the Window
If You Were My Love
Hello Sandy Allen
Wish You Were Here
Fleetwood Mac's first album since 1977's Rumours had come out the week following Crosby, Stills & Nash's Daylight Again under Apple Records, and it was their first to feature Neil Finn as guitarist and vocalist. Mirage carried on with the band's soft rock sound from Rumours and topped the charts in the United States for five weeks, and topped out at #3 in the United Kingdom. Finn's "Dirty Creature", Stevie Nicks' "Gypsy" and Christine McVie's "Love in Store" were all Top 20 hits in the United States.
MICK FLEETWOOD: "It was just before Mirage came out when Lindsey reached out to me and John a few days after Ozzy Osbourne was declared dead from excessive drinking. I could see that he clearly regretted his behavior following the aborted Tusk sessions, and it seemed as if a few years away from us had given him a lot of time to work on his behavior." (1998)
STEVIE NICKS: "Christine and I were reluctant to let him back into the band - Neil didn't have an opinion on the matter, for he stayed to the sides to see what would unfold. Lindsey had hurt Christine the most, and she was afraid of being in the same recording studio as him, just in case he had another meltdown. But still, we gave Lindsey the benefit of the doubt and let him join us for our short American tour." (2014)
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| Fleetwood Mac, 1982. Not pictured: Neil Finn. |
The tour was met with a few hiccups, but fortunately, none were connected to band relations. On October 5, Stevie Nicks' best friend, Robin Anderson, had died from leukemia at the age of 34, following a pregnancy leading to a premature birth to a baby boy, Matthew - thankfully, he survived. After the death of Robin, Nicks would give off some of her most electrifying, heartfelt performances as a tribute to her fallen friend, later impulsively marrying her widower Kim Anderson in 1983, thinking that it would be best for Matthew. Sadly, Stevie and Kim would separate after only three months, and divorce by 1984.
Around the time of Robin's death, two shows were postponed when Nicks suffered from walking pneumonia, but soon recovered. The October 22 show at The Forum in Inglewood was filmed and later released under the title Fleetwood Mac In Concert - Mirage Tour '82 under Apple Films. Lindsey Buckingham would remember that for just about every show, it felt as though he had never left to begin with, finally being integrated back into the band. When asked what Fleetwood Mac's plans for the future were, he said, "Who knows? We might do another album. Hopefully it won't take five years to put out!"
Summary of Fleetwood Mac releases, 1982
- "Dirty Creature" / "That's Alright" - 11 June 1982 (#85 UK, #14 US)
- Mirage - 25 June 1982 (#3 UK, #1 US)
- "Gypsy" / "Cool Water" - 4 September 1982 (#34 UK, #7 US)
- "Love in Store" / "Take a Walk" - 18 October 1982 (#10 US)
- "Hello Sandy Allen" / "Only Over You" - 12 December 1982 (#71 UK)
4 September 1982
Released: 4 September 1982
Recorded: June 1982
Producer: Glyn Johns
Track listing[5]
Side A
Athena
It's Your Turn
Cooks County
It's Hard
Dangerous
Eminence Front
Side B
I've Known No War
One Life's Enough
One at a Time
Why Did I Fall for That
Man on the Corner
Cry If You Want
The Who's second post-Keith Moon album, It's Hard (#11 UK, #8 US), received polarizing reviews from critics. Some praised it and even considered it a spiritual sequel to Lifehouse from a decade prior, while others condemned the album, some even going so far as to say Phil Collins had "ruined" the Who. Having a solo career alongside his position as their drummer likely didn't help the hostility towards Collins either. "Athena" backed with the non-album B-side "A Man is a Man" was released as a single at the same time as It's Hard, reaching #40 in the United Kingdom and #28 in the United States. Neither of the follow up singles - "Eminence Front" (25 December 1982) and "It's Hard" (February 1983) - reached the Top 40 in either country.
PHIL COLLINS: "It was a pretty miserable time to be a part of the Who; Pete [Townshend] was depressed, often under heroin and constantly fighting with Roger [Daltrey] and John [Entwistle] over what to play on stage. I just sat there and let everything unfold. I almost regretted leaving Genesis in the first place, wondering what might have happened had I decided to stay with them." (2002)
The Who would embark on a farewell tour in North America with the Yardbirds as support, with the final show taking place on December 17 in Toronto, Canada.[6] Pete Townshend would spend part of 1983 writing new material for a potential follow-up to It's Hard, but was unable to come up with music that would be good enough for the Who to record, and so on 16 December 1983, he announced his departure from the Who, which ended the band for good. This left Phil Collins free to focus on his solo career for the remainder of the 1980s, although he would still play with them for live performances up until 1989.[7]
Footnotes
- "Fool in the Right" is sourced from In Through the Out Door, "Sea of Love" from The Honeydrippers: Volume One, and "Swan Song" is "Midnight Moonlight" from The Firm. The remaining tracks all come from Robert Plant's solo album Pictures at Eleven.
- Track listing is based upon what Mick Jones proposed for Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg before it was pruned down to become Combat Rock. The four outtakes ("The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too", "First Night Back in London", "Cool Confusion", "Idle in Kangaroo Court") can be found on the 2013 box set Sound System.
- Neil Finn's tracks ("Dirty Creature", "Log Cabin Fever", "Take a Walk", "Hello Sandy Allen") are all taken from Time and Tide, due to Split Enz breaking up earlier than in OTL. The remaining tracks are sourced from OTL's Mirage, with "Put a Candle in the Window" and "If You Were My Love" being outtakes from the same sessions, found on the 2016 deluxe edition. The latter track was eventually re-recorded for Stevie Nicks' 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault in 2014.
- This actually happened in OTL, except it was during Lindsey Buckingham's final tour with Fleetwood Mac until 1997.
- "Man on the Corner" is sourced from Genesis' Abacab, taking the place of "A Man is a Man". Otherwise, It's Hard follows the exact same track listing as OTL. In addition, Roger Daltrey takes lead vocals on "Man on the Corner" while Phil Collins sings co-lead on "Cooks County" instead of Pete Townshend.
- In OTL, the Clash went on tour with the Who; because of the former taking a hiatus by that point, the Yardbirds take their place instead.
- In OTL, Kenney Jones played with the Who for one-off performances at Live Aid in 1985 and at the BPI Awards Ceremony in 1988, as well as their 25th anniversary tour in 1989. He was not, however, invited for their performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 1990, and in 1996, Zak Starkey became the Who's new touring drummer starting with their Quadrophenia Tour. With Phil Collins on board, all of this will happen.
Author's Comments
Not much to comment on here; a fair number of storylines are coming to close. The Yardbirds' 1980s discography will draw parallels to Robert Plant's (I mean, he is the lead singer of Led Zeppelin, after all), and those of the Clash and Fleetwood Mac will be revisited once more in 1985 in universe. The Who's storyline is just about finished barring their appearance at Live Aid, which I'm sure most of you can predict, but we will hear from Phil Collins once more in 1985.
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