1985: Marillion, IQ, Supertramp, Neil Young & more! | The Album Years Podcast (Part 5)
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- Our epic journey into the music of 1985 comes to a close with this week's episode, which includes albums by Marillion, IQ, Neil Young, Supertramp and more!
Let us know in the comments what your personal favourites and most influential records from this monumental year were.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:28 R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction
00:01:18 Neil Young - Old Ways
00:07:10 Marillion - Misplaced Childhood
00:11:08 IQ - The Wake
00:15:12 Supertramp - Brother Where You Bound
00:17:22 Magma - Merci
00:18:33 Philip Glass - Satyagraha
00:19:32 John Adams - Harmonielehre
00:20:07 Steve Reich - The Desert Music
00:21:21 Eberhard Weber - Chorus
00:22:49 Andrew Poppy - The Beating of Wings
00:25:01 Wim Mertens - Maximizing The Audience
00:30:07 The Best and Most Influential Albums of 1985
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Nice to hear IQ get a little love. One of the most underrated bands ever.
I discovered IQ in 1993 or 1994. I think they‘re getting better with every album!
“Singing praises was never a feature of me or my kind”
Totally agree
Kind of a shame way < 0 1% of the world's population will ever be exposed to their greatness. But, doesn't take away our appreciation. Amazing band. @birdzzzondayflu2489
@@bobmichaels6252 Very well described
IQ "The Wake" , has a place in my head that can never be replaced!
Desperately needs a remix (sadly the tapes are apparently lost) but The Wake is still one of the greatest hidden gems
@@keithdawe5512 On tonight again, I don't tire of it still after all these years. It's like Pendragon's Jewel album. These days I listen to mostly psych from Scandanavia or death metal but often drift back to the sec gereration prog stuff . I remember going to see Twelfth Night at the Dominion circa '84 and got bored and walked out. That night I went into the Astoria and watched Heavy Pett'in for free. I later became godsmacked by Geoff Mann and couldn't get enough of TN.
I was lucky to meet both Peter and Mike from IQ while I was at an Islington gig with my friend Andy Hall who's no longer with us but still cursing me no doubt about my Irish ways.. Considering I was an overwhelmed Irish man outside the Nag's Head in Islington , they were great, they took time to chat. I love IQ!
Thanks for covering Misplaced Childhood. I agree: it was a huge step forward for the band. (And I'm a little more partial to Clutching at Straws, too.)
As an echo of Genesis, Fish wrote the lyrics and all music was composed by Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, & Pete Trewavas.
Love The Wake, a true 80’s prog classic
IQ as a link between Genesis and the Cardiacs, that's amazing. I can absolutely see that. What an inventive, eye-opening comparison. Especially when seeing IQ in the light of Niadem's Ghost; it's very urgent and fast and frantic.
Famously Martin Orford of IQ loaned his mellotron to Cardiacs to enable them to record a Little Man & A House…
@@marshmallow1680 I absolutely love that fact.
I always saw IQ as the link between Genesis and those early 80's goth electronic bands like Bauhaus. Probably because I think I read somewhere that Peter Nicholls was a big fan of that music at the time.
Regarding Marillion’s excellent album, I think Steve Rothery deserved some credit. Great solos, as known, they worked over Fish’s beautiful and unique lyrics, such a great work!
Fantastic to see The Wake, and IQ, featured. Superb band 💕🤘🏻
I could listen to Tim talk all day.
Both Early Marillion and IQ are very Goth. If you are in to Cure have a listen.
Im so ecstatic to hear Steven Wilson say he's a fan of IQ. I've always considered them as somewhat of a guilty pleasure, if there is such a thing, but I've always liked IQ up to this day, and would've NEVER guessed Steven liked them. It's one of the few prog bands today that can get me excited about a new album.
I met Steven back in '01, during NEARfest... I asked him about IQ, and he said he wasn't too into them. Said they were "too packaged" for his taste. Fast-forward a while afterwards, and sure enough he admits (in an interview I read) that he had his neo prog bands mixed up, and that he apparently thought IQ was a different band when I inquired at the time, lol!
I’m here for the Marillion analysis. These two know their stuff!
Afraid of Sunlight or Marbles
@DorisDay-lw4xsBrave, Marbles, Afraid of Sunlight
Meraviglioso "The Wake" degli IQ. Ma secondo me "Tales from the Lush attic" è ancor più bello e contiene una delle suite più belle della storia "The last human gateway" ❤
Love that you covered IQ and Twelfth Night. I remember travelling up to Inverness to see them at the Eden Court Theatre, around 1984 I think.
And Twelfth Night was the main reason that I travelled down to the Reading Festival in 1983. For me TN's 'Fact and Fiction' is one of the best albums of the 80s. ❤
Misplaced Childhood for the best of '85
A fabulous album with some truly outstanding lyrics.
“I was walking in the park, dreaming of a spark
When I heard the sprinklers whisper, shimmer in the haze of summer lawns” 🥰
IQ is soo underrated, especially this album. And you're both on the money here, neo-prog was more than just a Genesis copyists' clique, it's very much its own thing in many respects.
Misplaced Childhood will always be the highest point of Fish era for me (even though Script is my personal favourite). Never got why Clutching At Straws is so celebrated though, it is literally Childhood's clone musically and structure-wise.
And hey, my favourite Supertramp album!
I feel like IQ have actually gotten to their peak in the last 10 years or so, Road of Bones is the best thing they've ever done.
Edit: I could have just waited 5 minutes for Steven to say basically the same thing.
@@beneathsands hehe he did!
TROB is in my top5 for sure, but Dark Matter takes the cake, this record is simply flawless
I agree that IQ are very underrated. The Road Of Bones is my favourite album. I like their other albums also, with the exception of Resistance. I’m torn between Misplaced Childhood and Clutching At Straws as I like both equally.
I'm just here to support "Script" - also my personal favourite. Maybe it's because I considered Misplaced Childhood as too much pop, when I got to know the band. But of course, as Tim and Steven argue, there are amazingly good pop songs on the album and I just love the "trilogy" of Pseudo Silk Kimono, Kayleigh and Lavender
@@marcuslamprecht7948 Script was my first Marillion album - it was 2003, I was 16 and I was blown away :) and yes, MC seemed a bit too poppy after that, but it won me over pretty fast
Very interesting and funny, but "Fables of the reconstruction" was a great record with many extraordinary songs: "Driver 8", "Maps and Legends", "Can't Get There from Here ", "Feeling Gravity's Pull "...
Superb episode, nice to see IQ getting some Props. Keep them coming fellas :)
Happy to see Brother Where You Bound getting some love...
Fables of the Reconstruction is a fabulous album. REM at their Southern gothic greatest.
Fables is a classic! Get with it guys!! First REM I bought. They put a bow on the jangle era with an album that celebrates southern gothic weirdness and idiosyncratic characters who live in the underbelly of the south. It's a deeply southern rock album but its through a lens far removed from the Allmans or Lynyrd Skynyrd but just as deeply southern. I mean how many songs not only name check but include in the title of the a long-forgotten, obscure dud of a 1973 comet. Fables is the sound of R.E.M. at probably their least self-conscious and their most celebratory of the south they grew up in, and the oddballs they grew up around.
Excellent post, just excellent! Awesome descriptions of REM music during this period. REM changed what alternative music could be, they are forever TRAILBLAZERS!
Such a great summary of this album. This is the album where I got on board with REM and decided they were the greatest band in the world, and for about the next four years I continued to believe that.
I didn't realise that the Wim Mertens you talk about was written for Jan Fabre's The Power of Theatrical Madness. I saw that show at the South Bank Centre in London (3 hours, no break!). It was an astounding experience.
Such a pleasure to hear you talking about Marillion and IQ
Misplaced Childhood is my favorite Marillion album. Kayleigh is an all time classic imo. 1985 was also a great year for Thrash Metal. A number of classic albums released that year. Would be great if you did an episode on it. Ah I see this is the final episode for 1985. Oh well.
Wim Mertens started as a radio producer for the BRT (Belgian Radio & Television). He composed Close Cover as a tune for the late night broadcasts. It was released as a track on the mini-album Struggle For Pleasure by Soft Verdict. That's the moniker Wim Mertens started his recording career under. Soft Verdict indeed collaborated with members of Tuxedomoon.
Misplaced Childhood and Clutching At Straws are incredible albums, but don’t overlook the H albums. Brave, Marbles, FEAR, An Hour Before It’s Dark…all great albums.
When I first heard Season's end I was pissed because that's when I learnt of Fish's departure, but grew to love it. But yes, those two albums are art as much as music, thus I have a daughter named Kayleigh😁
I cant stop geeking out on that t-shirt! 🌱
Best podcast ever. Hope you unleash the unedited long conversation. People crave long format discussions.
I love what you're doing here, chaps!!! A bit surprised you didn't decipher the german word "Harmonielehre" though... 😃😃😃It alludes to the book by Arnold Schönberg with the same name... Waiting eagerly for the next year in this brilliant series!! Cheers!
Brother Where you Bound has always been my favourite Supertramp album 👍
Awesome year guys, it actually made me remember when Mylo went down And we sat and cried on the phone. I never felt so alone He was the first of our own.
Some of us went down in a blaze of obscurity, Some of us go down in a haze of publicity, but that is the price of infamy, the edge of insanity 🤷♂
Agree about the melodic brilliance of Misplaced Childhood...it's shot through with sugar-rush moments, even on Side 2 from which no single was culled (Lords of the Backstage, Blind Curve, White Feather - all utterly anthemic)
I love the H-era and think Hogarth can also be a great melodicist, but it often feels to me like the vocal melody has been 'tacked on' to a band jam. In their defence, they've done 4x the number of albums since Fish left.
Mmmm.... None of these entered my sphere in 85 (thankfully), but each to their own.
Here's my top 5 of that year :
1 Clan of Xymox - Clan of Xymox
2 City Slab Horror - Severed Heads
3 Endangered Species - Fatal Charm
4 Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live in the Past - Severed Heads
5 Low Life - New Order.
Eberhard Weber was also on The Dreaming (All the Love - featured heavily). He is on 4 albums overall: Hounds of Love, The Dreaming, Sensual World and Aerial.
I´m happy to know that both agree with me about Misplaced Childhood and Clutching Straws.
IQ❤
I was surprised The Damned's Phantasmagoria didn't get a mention. In ways it was a trailblazer for Goth. An Identikit picture of what the genre was. But it also had Kate Bush's former producer and a slight Marillion texture. For myself I was listening to Curtain Call back to back with Grendel in 1983 as both songs appeared as B sides to 12 inch singles around this time.
Nice video, Steve and Tim. ^^
Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always, Dead Can Dance - Spleen and Ideal, Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 and Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen are my fave albums of that year.
I could add the debut album of Clan of Xymox as my fave album of it, as well.
It was ony very late when I was able to watch this 2nd part of a great music year...
I was give the opportunity to search and meet a really great band..Marrillion...
No one easily belives that it is from that year...or rather how many laters bands have the wonderful inpired...
Thank you that apart from REM you mentioned Eno and Dire Straits...
You both have great chemistry!!!👍🙏💯💎💿💎📀💎💞💕🌬🌊🎶
I loved listening to them wax lyrical about Misplaced Childhood, one of my favourite Marillion albums which was very influential on my musical tastes - I agree with everything they said! (though I do love this album, I think Fugazi might be my favourite Fish-era Marillion album). I also recently discovered that Steven was heavily involved in Fish's "Sunsets on Empire" album which is one of my favourite albums of all time!
Watching/listening to you from Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺
I wondered if you’d heard Anne Pigalle’s Everything Could Be So Perfect… also 1985 and also on ZTT. It was part of my ZTT playlist at the time. Still is for that matter.. 👍
Actually, yes. A lovely album.
Old Ways is a great album. Glad to hear that someone else thinks the same! Heck, I love Landing on Water too.
Birdy by PG and Alchemy by DS were my favorite albums of the year. I was 17 and open to almost anything. But these 2 albums spoke volumes to me in design and execution. Once, I made my metal friends listen to these records and they were blown away.
selective memory
Great episode guys, so pleased you covered IQ, one of those much underrated bands, that amazingly seem to get better the older they get.
Brilliant. Both are incredible. 5 hours analysing a year's albums. I learned a lot of music I didn't know. Motivated by these videos I found two more unanalysed albums, by vangelis and red hot.
Best podcast ever. Keep the video episodes coming!
Oh, the depth of knowledge these guys have is amazing. I have a lot of bands to discover!
It's a delight to listen to you talking about albums I've never heard or even know the band. But I'm searching for the music in my streaming software (buuh!) or even find already existing playlists to your album years. That's nice. I've even bought Goldies Saturn Returnz based on your descriptions. Well, what an experience... But please, Steven, provide poor poor Tim a better chair. You are sitting in your favorite fart chair and poor poor Tim sitting on this uncomfortably looking kitchen chair (or the piano chair of the last episode). Good lord! That's rude! :D Go on with this. This is wonderful. 5 stars from me. ★★★★★
Most influential for what was to come on the alternative guitar scene from this point onwards were the 2 albums from Husker Du this year: New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig
Yeah! Those Hüsker Dü albums represented a 1985 zeitgeist , especially for those of us in Minneapolis that year.
always find stuff i have not heard... thank you !
Thank you gentlemen. I loved the episode. so informative. Can’t wait to hear the Wim Mertens.
You guys went from one of my fav duos (No-Man) to one of my fav podcasts ♥️
girl, same!
love these chats, I'm always left with at least one unfamiliar recording to explore
Methinks “Hounds of Love” is probably the best album (especially side 2.) Most influential, and I’m going out on a limb here is Nighttime by Killing Joke, mostly rhythmically but also for production - think NIN, Nirvana, Industrial, etc.
The only place talking about so must kind of music😊
I love the framework or series of talks you guys are doing. Amazing discussion, gents. Best part is you both are educating and exposing people to what was a monster year in music, 1985! ❤
Love Fables...a ton...you guys are a ton of fun, regardless!
Please keep going with this podcast! Nothing entertains me quite as much!
Wim DID do soundtracks soon after this era! He did Peter Greenaway's "The Belly of an Architect" (1991)
I hope you will discuss Ionas "Beyond these shores" from 1995. It's a bit Enya goes prog with a few pop sprinkled in the mix. It's one of my favorite albums. Bass from Nick Beggs and a bit from Robert Fripp. Very underrated album, I think.
Excellent episode! Everybody's Rockin' was reportedly the one that pushed Geffen to breaking point, and you can kind of see his point.
Great podcast, guys !
So glad you brought up Wim Mertens! That title track is one of my all time favourites.
I also love John Adams, Steve Reich, Eberhard Weber, and Arvo Part. Most rock critics would not go there. From 1985 I like Song for Everyone by Indian violinist L. Shankar.. An ECM release, it features Jan Garbarek and percussionists Zakir Hussain and Trilok Gurtu.
So nice to go through all these albums. Makes me reach to some of them to have a listen. On some particulars, I think Supertramp "brother where you bound" is really great throughout. About Merci from Magma, when I discovered them in 1997, I acquired most of the catalogue very quickly and at the time it was the final Magma album and it did not leave a great impression on me, it felt a downer compared to the rest, it is probably time to have a new listen to it on its own merit.
Really enjoying, or should I say "liking" these reviews of music from select years. I am enjoying your passion for music and the pleasure of talking about it!
Fables of the Reconstruction is more than alright
🎯🎯🎯🎯!
😊 I absolutely love both of you guys and your tastes and your musics. Do not stop this. I absolutely love it! I'm 53 and a jazz/prog fanatic so this speaks to me on so many levels. THANK YOU!
5 out of 5 stars!!
Good episode guys. Much more interesting than the previous 1985 podcasts. Educational.
Loved this episode. So many albums that were also mine, specially in the pop realm. Loved it!
I'm not really a fan, but I'm impressed Steven gave his take on IQ.
Appreciate the Misplaced Childhood discussion..and yes, Mylo is definitely sad and poppy and pretty. 1 of the best parts of the record.
Absolutely love the chats... so much to learn with your wealth of knowledge
1985 for me, in song...
KATE BUSH - The Ninth Wave (yes. the entire suite)
Songs From The Big Chair's the best pop-rock album of the year!
And what about Brazilian music?
Many similar thoughts about some of the 1985 albums covered today. Prefer "Clutching at Straws" over "Childhood's End" (was bummed when Fish left after CAS, because I thought they'd really found more of their own sound and style, being a bit less derivative), really thought Supertramp's "Brother Where You Bound" was a great disc (very well recorded as well...great sounding), and though I never got into the IQ release from '85, fully agree "The Road of Bones" was a really good album with some great vox from Peter Nicholls (have to confess he was a bit nasally for my taste until post 2000...his voice timbre and style definitely matured after he hit his 40s). 1985 had a big impact on me musically, so it's interesting to hear the discussions. Keep it up. Cheers!
For me, here in Mexico, these video episodes are way better cause I can seek more music, on audio only episodes I couldn’t understand some names, being Spanish my first language, I’ve grown accustomed to American English, I can understand maybe 98%. Love your music too.
I love your podcast. You are music scholars. Conspicuously absent from your discussion is Propaganda's A Secret Wish, although Steven named it as one of his favorite albums. 🤩
Funny I don't really like misplaced but I looove clutching. On the radio they played the entire script before the clutching at straws premiere (those were the times) so listeners could see how bad the latter was, LOL! I love the first albums too btw
Bruce Cockburn fan here. Don't forget about him
Excellent as always gentlemen , fond regards..Alan
Wonderful fun and enlightening, even to a "knowledgeable" fan of these albums.
Marvellous, boys.
Love your show.
How about lilac time/ Stephen Duffy. He’s like you, he stayed true to himself
Let's hear it for Steve Reich In The Afternoon
You guys are so funny together.
Which episode was Secret Wish on? Seems to have slipped through the cracks. Shame they missed the Colourbox album from this year. In many ways it was one of the most influential - led to MARRS Pump Up The Volume and sample culture.
We did discuss it (very favourably) on the episode that Slave To The Rhythm features, but it was edited out as (sadly) it wasn't wholly clear what album we were talking about.
You covered everything, but there was also that Clan of xymox album from 4AD, in the dark wave category, holds up today pretty well. Rem Fables is a question of tastes, if you like 80's REM, it's solid.
I will have to check out that Supertramp...never heard it!
You have to do it!! Do not miss on the big suite on that album. One of the best epics from Supertramp 😊
got it now!
It's good, real good! I was surprised at how solid it was, top to bottom.
Love the Wim Martins album.
Wim Mertens did do at least one movie soundtrack, for the 1987 Peter Greenaway film The Belly of an Architect, which also has music by Glenn Branca.
For me, Propaganda's A Secret Wish is my absolute favourite record from 1985. I liked FGTH (1984 and 1986 ) and Andrew Poppy, too (Alphabed from 1987, too).
Andrew Poppy isn't just "operating now", he's producing some of his strongest, most accessible and most fascinating work at the moment. I highly recommend his 2019 "Hoarse Songs" and 2022 "Jelly" albums.
John Adams is a Genius.
I like REM but I don’t really know the first five albums at all. I really started with Green and then my interest lasted up to around Up (so the 90s output, the most commercially successful period I guess). Those albums are enough for me. Maybe I’m doing them a disservice not giving the early albums a go, but that’s what it is.
Twelfth Night was the greatest Prog Band of the 80s, we needed to wait for Tool and Mars Volta for another leap like that.
I find the R.E.M. blindspot quite baffling considering how much they give U2 (arguably the most successful pub band of all time) a free pass. They have a solid and versatile body of work, with only one truly weak record in Around The Sun (even that has some nice songs but is weighed down by anaemic production) and Stipe is one of the most distinctive and thoughtful frontmen of all time. I think Tim and Steve need to do a deep dive and maybe do a show reflecting on their findings.
What a great video. What about 1980?
Wilson keeps interrupting tim. Let him speak.
I agree - and this is coming from a long time fan of SW. Interrupters can ruin a whole podcast.
I think it’s because Wilson is the time-keeper whereas Tim is the slow-paced bloke.