As our loyal readership has no doubt observed, the Tracks get a skosh intermittent come the summer months. Vacations, visitors, a general (and misguided) desire to spend less of one’s waking hours in front of a computer screen—these are the impediments to a healthy blog come said dog days, June to August. But rest assured Matthew and I are still numbered among the quick (right, Matt?), and we’ll do our best to throw the odd bone whenever possible. As luck would have it, today is one such bone day, and better still, a bone day devoted to a pet favorite of mine—the more eccentric voices of a decade absolutely lousy with them. What I probably love most about this particular selection of artists derives from my likely false sense that you could only have gotten away with this kind of musical deviance during the ten-year, no-holds-barred cage match that was the eighties—at least and still have any hope of passing for “the popular shit,” which in varying degrees each of these tracks did. (Incredible given that the pop charts were dominated just a couple years previous by this kind of thing.*) David Byrne’s jerky take on the Al Green classic “Take Me to the River” climbed to number twenty six on the Billboard Hot 100; Scritti Politti rode Green Gartside’s illogically high voice all the way to number eleven; most unlikely of all, Wall of Voodoo and their clip-clop ode to stations remote made it to number fifty eight. Matt and I joke on occasion that certain mainstream artists are held back from underground appeal largely by the over-proficiency of their lead singers (Exhibit A: Coldplay). One can imagine such artists being doubly fucked in an era where even the charts had started falling for weird, exorbitant, distinct….

“Take Me to the River” – Talking Heads, off More Songs About Buildings and Food

“Private Idaho” – The B-52s, off

“Ant Music” – Adam and the Ants, off Kings of the Wild Frontier

“Ana NG” – They Might Be Giants, off Wild Planet

“Perfect Way” – Scritti Politti, off Cupid & Psyche 85

“Mexican Radio” – Wall of Voodoo, off Call Of The West

“Rip It Up” – Orange Juice, off Rip It Up

“President Gas” – Psychedelic Furs, off Forever Now

“Punk Rock Girl” – The Dead Milkmen, off Belzeebubba

“Dear Prudence” – Siouxsie & The Banshees, off Hyaena

“I Got You” – Split Enz, off True Colours

“Take the Skinheads Bowling” – Camper Van Beethoven, off Telephone Free Landslide Victory

“Generals and Majors” – XTC, off Black Sea

“Be Stiff” – Devo, off Freedom of Choice

“Genius of Love” – Tom Tom Club, off Tom Tom Club

*Full disclaimer: I actually REALLY like The Babys. Also, I’m well aware that there were literally a shit ton of hits during the eighties that fell far closer to the conventional end of music spectrum.