Rocks In The Attic #118: Flowers - ‘Icehouse’ (1980)

Australian synth-pop band Icehouse were originally called Flowers, for this, their debut release. They changed their name to the title of this album not long after, and they’re still called that today.

With a sound not too dissimilar to fellow New Wave bands like Martha & The Muffins, Devo and Flock of Seagulls, they sound pretty cutting-edge for 1980, especially for a backwater country like Australia. Like most New Wave bands, you can hear the Bowie and Lou Reed influences dripping out of the stereo. They actually remind of the sort of bands that feature on the New Wave radio station in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Their two later singles - Hey Little Girl and Great Southern Land - would make them world famous a few years later. Well, world famous in the South Pacific, if you can call that fame.

Hit: We Can Get Together

Hidden Gem: Icehouse

Rocks In The Attic #107: Various Artists - ‘Inglourious Basterds (O.S.T.)’ (2009)

Of all of Tarantino’s films so far, this is probably the one I’ve liked the least. Death Proof was pretty poor, for no other reason than it was just plain boring; this film however, was insulting in its revisionist fantasy retelling of WWII events.

The soundtracks jars slightly too, because among snippets of Morricone film scores (which prop up the album), there are odd choices that sit in-between them.  Songs like David Bowie’s Cat People (Putting Out The Fire) or Billy Preston’s Slaughter would have fit into any other Tarantino soundtrack - but as an accompaniment to a period film, which otherwise is well scored with Morricone’s western themes, they feel just a little too much out of place.

The vinyl artwork for this soundtrack is very nice - made to look like a very old 1940s release, with water marks around the edges and publicity shots from the film printed with Ben-Day dots.

Hit: The Verdict - Ennio Morricone

Hidden Gem: White Lightning (Main Title) - Charles Bernstein

Rocks In The Attic #78: David Bowie - ‘Space Oddity’ (1972)

This is a strange album - considered by many to be the first proper Bowie album, this was originally released as David Bowie in 1969, before being repackaged with a different title and released with a different cover in 1972. I have that version - the one with Bowie looking stoned with spiky orange hair on the cover.

I remember being taken to Rock Circus by my parents when I was 8 or 9. Rock Circus was a museum, in Picadilly Circus (hence the name), run by the same people who do Madame Tussauds. Alongside the usual eerie-looking waxworks was a room set up like a small theatre. We took our seats and the first act was Bowie himself doing Space Oddity. In a spacesuit. Revolving around the stage, going upside down and such. Obviously this was just a waxwork, but it looked pretty good - enough to forever stamp that song onto my brain. I think, if memory serves, that Bowie was then followed by The Beatles doing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and maybe With A Little Help From My Friends. Or maybe The Beatles opened for Bowie, I can’t quite remember.

This isn’t a fantastic album. There are flashes of brilliance, but overall it’s full of hippie nonsense and only a tentative sign of things to come.

Hit: Space Oddity

Hidden Gem: Memory Of A Free Festival

Rocks In The Attic #48: Clint Mansell - ‘Moon (O.S.T.)’ (2009)

Soundtracks are a minefield. You can have the great themes by composers like Bernard Hermann and John Williams, but those soundtracks can also be marred by short, unmelodic bursts of score that only serve the purpose of matching cues in the accompanying film. Then there are the soundtracks that just have popular songs on them, starting with American Graffiti and continuing through the John Hughes films of the 1980s. These types of soundtracks are all the rage these days (especially since Tarantino lent an air of cool to the process in the 1990s) as they’re easy to cobble together. Then there are composers who simply try to put across a mood or a feeling in their soundtracks. Clint Mansell is one of those composers.

Looking at the subject matter of this film, and the identity of the film’s director Duncan Jones (also known as Zowie Bowie), it would have been all too easy to plonk Space Oddity on the film’s soundtrack. Thankfully, this fantastic film was made in the UK, away from the clichés of Hollywood.

Hit: Welcome To Lunar Industries

Hidden Gem: Memories (Someone We’ll Never Know)

Rocks In The Attic #32: Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - ‘Couldn’t Stand The Weather’ (1984)

If you ever wonder what a Jimi Hendrix album in the 1980s would sound like, you only have to listen to this. Paying tribute to him on Voodoo Chile, the rest of the album sounds like it might have been recorded by Hendrix, with only the crisp 1980s production dating it to that decade.

This is Vaughan’s second solo album - a year after he played guitar on Bowie’s Let’s Dance. It’s a fine album, aside from the aforementioned dated 80s production.

It’s a shame Vaughan died so young. As Dennis Leary - or was it Bill Hicks? - once said, “Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead, and we can't get Jon Bon Jovi onto a fucking helicopter!"

Hit: Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)

Hidden Gem: Tin Pan Alley