Wild Horses – Gino Vanelli
This catchy tune was released in 1987, and reached #55 in the US top 100 but #7 in Canada (where Gino was born). The song earnt Vanelli the Juno Award for Recording Engineer of the Year (which he incidentally shared with his brother that year).

The clip is in black and white and features a sexy female playing the harmonica. And no, I have no idea what her name is – in fact I don’t know the names of the other band members either (can someone help me?).

I know I said the tune is catchy, but when you look at the lyrics ……. well I’ll let you make up your own mind. Weird.

As the sun goes down on the Arizona plain
And the wind whistles by like a runaway train
Hey hey hey it’s a beautiful thing
Well it’s me and you and a flatbed truck
My heart kicking over like a whitetail buck
Hey hey hey in the middle of spring

Wild horses could not drag me away from you
Wild horses could not drag me away from you

Watch the video clip on YouTube.

Wild Horses – Nik Kershaw
Not one of Nik’s more popular songs (he had far better), but this one was released in 1984 on ‘The Riddle’. The Riddle reached UK #8, U.S #113, AUS #39.

Laid Back – White Horse
I love this song. Laidback were a Danish band, and released this song in 1983. White Horse was a dance track with a repetitive, memorable bassline and ambiguous, drug and/or sex-themed lyrics (“white horse” being slang for heroin) that became popular in US clubs. It spent three weeks at number one on Billboard’s National Disco Action charts. White Horse ’89 was released in (have a guess) 1989 by Laidback’s label but it did not have the success of the original.

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Live TV demonstrated the unit to show how even scratched discs could still play and being digital, the quality of the sound would never diminish – something laughable today but at the time it was a big selling point.

Even though it was sold as portable, the D50 (which was the first model) required the purchase of a battery pack that attached to the back of the unit which added to the sized and weight. If you didn’t use the battery pack, power was supplied by a conventional plug pack transformer.

The original discman did not like getting knocked or bumped. It was a bit sensitive and it wasn’t the type of thing you could go running with.

I still have my original D50 and after all the years it works flawlessly. Typical Sony quality! Below is a pic of my discman:

I’m sure how many different models of the discman were released, but a few years later the D121 was release. This was a much slimmer unit with additional playing functions and bass boost. Going down the ‘real’ portability path, the D121 ran on a couple of AA batteries with medium to good playing time. It also had technology in it to handle bumps and did it quite well. I found the CD rarely stopped/jumped if I knocked the unit.

I also still have my D121 and shown below is a photo of it. Again, still working as good as the day I bought it.

It is no coincidence that I post about the Discman this week. Sony has announced that Walkman will be officially retired. The last Walkmans were shipped out of Japan in April and once that batch sells out, that’s it.

Even though the Walkman was originally released in the late 70s, it was the 80s that they became popular – for many years even after the Discman was released.

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The A-Team first graced our TVs in 1983, and was full of mandatory explosions, fist fights and typical 80′s one-liners – not to forget the iconic characters. Who could forget Mr T? Immortalized in … well I’m not sure what but when anyone mentions the name, we all know who it is.

Karate Kid, released in 1984 was one of those kid-who-gets-bullied-and-then-kicks-ass-to-be-the-hero type of movies was so good it prompted 2 sequels and a ‘Next Karate Kid’ to come out. It might be just me, but I will always will think of Mr Miyagi as Arnold from Happy Days!

As for the new movies, check out these trailers:

A-TEAM

KARATE KID

Make your own mind up, but as good as they look, personally I think you cannot beat the originals.

Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are nerds and best friends, both heading to Adams College to study computer science. Even the music and ‘nerdy’ jokes are great at the beginning, setting the theme for a typical callege loser-to-hero story – but in it’s own special way.

Lewis and Gilbert move into a freshmen dorm with other first-year students, and are immediately set upong by the Alpha Betas, a fraternity to which many members of the school’s football team belong. The leader of the Alphas is Stan Gable, played by Ted McGinley of Happy Days fame.

The team’s coach (John Goodman) uses his intimidation to overrule the school’s Administrative Dean Ulich (David Wohl) and has the Alpha Betas evict the freshmen from the dorm for their own purposes. lewis and Gilbert work with the other outcasts whose characters are revealed in more details, and finally renovate a run down house for their own.

The Alpha Betas and their associated sorority, the Pi Delta Pis, harrass the nerds, and the story evolves further with the boys being continually tormented when they are trying to get in good with the Lambda Lambda Lambdas (Tri-Lambs). Come along the female nerd sorority, the Omega Mu.

I must bring up the outstanding (?) character of Booger (Curtis Armstrong), someone that you would not associate in real life, but in the movie was a real hero and funny guy with his unique and careless attitude towards life.

The movie comes to a head, where one night Gilbert has enough of the bullying and storms in the homecoming pep rally that the Alpha Betas are involved with. With a bit of asisstance from other chapters of the Tri-Lambs, the nerds get their way, and Lewis gets his girl, who just happens to be a member of the Delta Pis.

Here is one of the main songs from the movie. Looking at it now makes me laugh as it seems so corny, but don’t forget it was 1984!

A great movie, and as I said before, one that you can watch over and over & still enjoy.