Moving on with this series it’s time now for 1985. This year was not quite as spectacular as years past. A lot of the acts that cranked out music in 1984 were off cycle for this year, it was touring and live albums and not anything from the studio. And those who were on cycle didn’t necessarily release their best output. Still, there is stuff to be found here so I’ll sift through it and identify five songs I like from the year.
John Mellencamp – Rain On The Scarecrow
1985 might have been a down year for some, but it was a banner year for Mellencamp. Scarecrow remains a high water mark in his catalog and the quasi-title track is an absolute banger that laments the plight of the family farmer. It wasn’t pleasant for the small-time farmer back then and it’s no better now, if there are even any left. This song remains a lament to that way of life and also one of Mellencamp’s best tracks.
Slayer – Hell Awaits
Slayer came out with their second album and it showcased a more honed-in thrash attack compared to the debut. Still evil and sinister as can be, the song lays out what awaits for all of us heathens who headbanged to this over the past forty years. This song in particular is very brutal and fast, perhaps a taste of what was to come on the next record.
Heart – What About Love
The Wilson sisters finished recalibrating themselves for the 1980’s and offered up a self-titled album that conquered the airwaves and reshaped their sound into 80’s rock. Here we have a cover song, though one unused by the group Toronto after they wrote it in ’82. Heart would ride their version to the top ten and this single kicked off their “hair era” in style.
The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary
The Cult were one band who did strike in both 1984 and ’85. Their second album Love hit in ’85 and was the band’s breakout record. It was helped along with this single. The song is mystical, melodic and entrancing. This song also had a life on the dance circuit but it’s the original version I’m concerned with here.
Accept – Metal Heart
Accept also had back to back records in ’84 and ’85. Metal Heart was another in a line of prime German metal albums that ran through the early and mid ’80’s. The band fused a few classical music pieces into the song, both showcasing the link between classical and metal and also playing into the hilarious stereotype of metal showcased by Spinal Tap a year prior.
That wraps up 1985. Next we’ll press on into the later 1980’s and see just how the years play out before the world of music would be turned on its head with the turn of the decade.
As 2024 rolls on, so does the 40 year anniversary celebration of the music of 1984. Today I’m going to loosen the constraints of release dates a bit and include one of metal’s landmark albums in this celebration.
Accept – Balls To The Wall
Released January 1984 (US) via Portrait Records
My Favorite Tracks – Balls To The Wall, London Leatherboys, Losers And Winners
Accept’s fifth album was released just on the “border” of a year – it came out in December 1983 across their native Germany and elsewhere in Europe, but was held back until January 1984 in the US. Its impact would be felt in 1984 and beyond so I am including it in this 1984-versary thing.
Accept’s line-up has never been one prone to long periods of stability, though most of the same group was around from the band’s prior effort Restless And Wild. Udo Dirkschneider provided his unique vocals while bandleader Wolf Hoffmann was the lead guitarist. Joining the band for this set was guitarist Herman Frank, who would be gone before the next album. Carrying on in their positions on bass and drums were Peter Baltes and Stefan Kaufmann, respectively.
Balls To The Wall was self-produced by Accept. All songwriting is credited to the band equally. Lyrics are credited to Accept and “Deaffy,” a pen name for Gaby Hauke. Hauke was Accept’s manager and would also marry Wolf Hoffmann.
The album covers offers a striking visual and was inspired by a 1977 image from photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. This cover, along with the songs London Leatherboys and Love Child, had some complaining about Accept being homoerotic. Band members and Gaby Hauke have stated that Love Child was about the suppressed gay community but overall the complaints about their links to homosexuality simply helped get Accept’s name out there more.
Today’s album offers up 10 songs in 45 minutes, a standard rock and metal offering at the time. Several reissue versions of the album exist and seem to contain various live bonus tracks, I’m not aware of any sort of demos or unreleased outtake versions of anything.
Balls To The Wall
The album opens with the title track and the song that came to be Accept’s defining moment. Much like the rest of the album, the song is tough and to the point. The riffing is simple yet aggressive and everything is in just the right spot without any embellishment.
Udo does a great job with quieter verses and loud pre-chorus dynamic, then launching into the song’s title for the to-the-point chorus. The lyrics are a manifesto for the downtrodden and oppressed, the song one of a revolution of the masses against those who keep them down.
Accept have a handful of songs as jewels in their crown, but none shine brighter than Balls To The Wall. This broke across MTV in 1984 and remained in rotation well past that. This is Accept’s signature anthem.
London Leatherboys
One of the songs that was mistakenly pegged as “homoerotic,” any cursory reading of the lyrics would offer that it’s clearly about biker culture. This is more guitar work that tells a story with riffing and without a lot of flash, Wolf’s excellent yet brief solo aside. It’s easy to chant along and headbang to, which means one big mission accomplished.
Fight It Back
Another revolution anthem here, this one has such a great turn from verse to chorus both musically and vocally, it’s impossible to not get sucked into this one. It moves at a nice clip and remains easy to digest and appreciate. Though the song is short, this one does get a lengthy solo.
Head Over Heels
This one is a total ’80’s melodic metal song. Udo delivers a very wordy chorus but glides right through it, almost rapping it. It seems someone found some nefarious activity going on at night in a park, and wound up enjoying what they found.
Losing More Than You’ve Ever Had
This one keeps the ’80’s alive and well as it rocks through a tragic tale of a guy losing his girl to another man, this other man being Udo. It’s not a bragging story, instead Udo cautions the guy how his own faults led to the split with his woman. A bit more sophisticated take on the “I stole your girl” trope found through ’80’s rock.
Love Child
It’s the song that actually was about homosexuality. Accept members have said they viewed the gay community as oppressed in the ’80’s, which is very much true, and the band’s aim was to focus on suppressed people in their lyrics through this time. It’s a song about someone out on the prowl and confused about his feelings toward a guy. It’s another groovy and basic tune that plenty of people probably headbanged to without knowing what the hell it was about.
Turn Me On
A nice dirty rocker about finding a lover and a spot to have at it, getting the deed done and getting out real quick. It’s “the ol in-out” from A Clockwork Orange fame. The line between love and lust may be a fine one, but here everything is clearly on the lust side.
Losers And Winners
This song goes into turbo mode and it’s another tale of Udo getting the girl that someone else wants. The girl doesn’t want the other guy so Udo slides in to take advantage of the situation. Udo offers up some sage advice, like “take it easy and screw the girl that’s next to you.” The lyrics here are honestly a bit of a laugh riot and are worth reading along to. And the song totally rocks out, putting the track far above the honestly goofy as all hell premise of the lyrics.
Guardian Of The Night
The song itself is another upbeat rocking track, though the lyrics are fairly dismal. Here is a man who is left to live in the night, shunning the light of day and the normal life of most people. It does seem this night owl lives a pretty brutal life and is on the wrong side of society.
Winter Dreams
The album closes with a bit of a ballad. It’s a nice, simple song about the calm and peaceful side of winter. Winter nights can be very pleasant and this song communicates that very well. The song is a bit of a curveball after nine straight ahead headbanging tracks but it also isn’t a vast departure and it closes the album well.
Balls To The Wall would be Accept’s breakthrough album. It charted modestly in a handful of countries, but it would eventually be certified gold in both Canada and the US, marking the group’s greatest US success.
Accept would roll through the ’80’s with two more solid albums, Metal Heart and Russian Roulette, before long periods of line-up instability and hiatuses plagued them. The band would eventually solidify a new line-up in the late 2000’s that did not include Udo. This modern version of Accept has run consistently through to this day, though not without some roster changes.
But back to the time period at hand – Accept were now players in the ’80’s metal game. Their sound would contribute influence to a wide number of acts across the rock and metal spectrum – anyone from the rising hair band scene to aspiring thrash bands found something to like in Accept. And while Germany had the Scorpions representing them well on the rock front, Accept helped open a wide door for a wealth of German metal acts to spread across the world in the ensuing years.
Accept’s story is long, sometimes complicated and formed of many different parts. But the most central part of that story is Balls To The Wall, the album that offered up the group’s magnum opus and broke the group to worldwide recognition.
Today I’m going back in the time machine to 2012. It seems odd to have to look so far back for what was just a recent year, but that’s what getting old and going through a series of crazy world events does, it puts a lot of distance to even the recent past.
2012 was kind of funny – it was the year the world was “supposed” to end, based on some idiot’s interpretation of the Mayan calendar. The calendar did not end, it just went to a new cycle. And, as we saw, the prediction was 8 years early.
Anyway, the point of this September evening was to convene to see two legends of German metal – Accept and Kreator. Accept were into their second album with “new” lead singer Mark Tornillo and Kreator were running a stable line-up and touring behind the 2012 album Phantom Antichrist.
This was quite a twin billing, both were bands I had never seen so this was a great way to get two off the bucket list at one time. The show was in Kansas City at a decent sized club called The Beaumont. I’d seen a few shows there but sadly the club closed at some point after this concert.
It’s also worth mentioning that this show was just two days after another trek to Arkansas for a concert. I’ll give that show, highlighted by St. Vitus, a post someday, but there were a lot more bands involved with that so I’ll save it for another time when I’m less lazy. It was a true “700 miles of metal” weekend.
So on to the night of German metal. The show was opened by Finnish death/doom outfit Swallow The Sun. I’m just gonna be real about it – I haven’t listened to Swallow The Sun much at all, couldn’t tell you if I like them or not, and I don’t remember a damn thing about their set that night. I’m guessing that I wasn’t moved given my lack of memory.
Accept was up next and yes I absolutely remember their set. Roughly half the set comprised songs from the (then) two albums fronted by Tornillo – Blood Of The Nations and Stalingrad. While some Accept fans could not accept (…) the departure of classic vocalist Udo Dirkschneider and his replacement with Tornillo, I have been one to love this newer era of Accept. Hearing the new songs aired out live was a fantastic experience.
Accept were phenomenal on that night, cutting through both new stuff and the classic era songs like Restless And Wild and Metal Heart. The set ended with the band’s most famous songs, Fast As A Shark and Balls To The Wall. It was an electric set, Mark and the band were totally on point all night. It rang truer than the huge stacks of amps lined up across the stage, which were totally not real and a bit comical, but it’s all good.
There is no good footage of the specific tour I saw, so here’s an actual pro-shot video from a release they did awhile later.
Kreator were up next. This was my first (and to date only) time seeing the legendary German thrashers, who have been one of my favorites for a long time. Their 2000’s resurgence was spectacular and I was very happy to be finally seeing the group live.
There is one thing about Kreator and live shows – I’m not sure that if, in the course of their now 40 year history that they are allowed to soundcheck before gigs. That might be putting it a bit too harshly, but the band does have a reputation for not caring all that much what they sound like on stage. They have done live albums that sound fine, but in a random bar in Kansas City they might not give as much of a shit about their sound.
I will say that yeah, they were loud and not “dialed in,” but I could still make out their songs fine. It wasn’t the worst sounding live show I’ve heard. There was no dissecting the finer points of their sound but hey, this is a loud thrash band and you might as well roll with it.
Kreator had a set that was focused on their most recent album Phantom Antichrist. The album was a good one, one of several in a row for the group and so it was nice to hear some cuts from it. Beyond that they jumped around to several points of their long career, playing everything from 1986’s Pleasure To Kill to 2009’s Hordes Of Chaos. It was a lot of title tracks and a look at several parts of their catalog. A few songs were bundled into two-part medleys, including the classics Endless Pain and Flag Of Hate. I’m not normally a medley guy but this worked out fine.
One funny part was toward the end of their set. They played The Patriarch, which is the instrumental intro to Violent Revolution. It’s one of my favorite Kreator songs (and albums), so I jumped up front to headbang along and shout some lyrics back. I’m usually pretty subdued during shows but I wanted to jam out for a little bit.
Holy shit, the people up front acted like I was going insane or something. It’s like these people had never been to a metal show before. These people, directly up front, acted like I was punching babies or something. I don’t know what was wrong with them, but I went ahead and rocked out to the song just the same. I don’t know their deal, I saw Testament in Kansas City a few years prior and that crowd was absolutely electric, but these people were sticks in the mud.
Anyway, Kreator got done with their not optimally mixed but still pretty good set and the night was over. I made it to the hotel and back home the next day without being apprehended for a moment of energy and headbanging. It was nice to see Kreator, but Accept was the true toast of the evening.
The Crooked Wanderer 