October 27th
album anniversaries

Sessions for 1999 ran from January to August 1982, split between Prince’s home studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota and Sunset Sound in Hollywood. It was the first album he recorded with the Revolution, and the credits include Lisa Coleman, Dez Dickerson and Bobby Z.

Issued as a double album, it opens with the title song, “Little Red Corvette” and “Delirious”, all three of them US hit singles. The Linn LM-1 drum machine is prominent on “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” and “All The Critics Love U In New York”. The record became Prince’s first top ten album on the Billboard 200.

Todd Rundgren sequenced Skylarking from XTC’s cassette demos before recording began, a new way of working for the band. They flew to his studio in Woodstock, and later sessions moved to The Sound Hole in San Francisco. Andy Partridge has admitted there were battles with the producer.

The album is loosely built around a cycle, whether a day, a year or a life. “Summer’s Cauldron” runs straight into Colin Moulding’s “Grass” at the start, and “Sacrificial Bonfire” closes the sequence. The title borrows a Royal Navy word for fooling around, one Partridge’s father used at home.

Björk sings on “Lilith”, one of several guest spots on Not For Threes, the second Plaid album by Ed Handley and Andy Turner. Mara Carlyle’s voice runs through “Myopia”, “Ladyburst” and “Rakimou”, Nicolette sings on “Extork”, and Turner adds his own vocal to “Ladyburst”.

Live instruments sit among the electronics as well. Benet plays guitar and violin, while Coba brings accordion to “Rakimou” and “Lilith”. Warp issued the album in Britain, where it reached number 40 on the independent albums chart, and Nothing Records released a US edition the following April that left out “Ol”. In 2017 Pitchfork placed it 36th on a list of the 50 best IDM albums.

Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Studio in New York is where Curtis Harding recorded much of Face Your Fear, sharing production with Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen. The album followed his 2014 debut, Soul Power, and opens with “Wednesday Morning Atonement”.

Harding’s route to these songs ran through a gospel-singing childhood, rapping in Atlanta, a garage band with Cole Alexander of the Black Lips and backing vocals for Cee Lo Green. Clash heard prime Curtis Mayfield and late 1960s Motown in “On And On”. New York Magazine had named the record one of its most anticipated releases of that autumn.

A Halloween show in Las Vegas on 31 October 2022 gave Nick Rhodes the idea for Danse Macabre. Its thirteen tracks mix new songs, themed covers and reworked Duran Duran material, produced by the band with Josh Blair and Mr Hudson.

Former guitarists Andy Taylor and Warren Cuccurullo both return, and Nile Rodgers also takes part. Victoria De Angelis of Måneskin joins the band on Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”, one of six covers that also include “Paint It Black”, “Spellbound” and “Ghost Town”. Older songs come back reshaped too, among them “Secret Oktober 31st”. The title track was the lead single.

Peter Vajkoczy, the neurosurgeon who operated on Sofia Kourtesis’s mother, has a track named after him on Madres. Kourtesis had offered him a song dedication in exchange for a few minutes of his time, and the album is dedicated to him as well as to her mother.

The Berlin-based Peruvian artist shared “Si Te Portas Bonito” as the lead single when the record was announced in July 2023. Two earlier singles found a place on it as well: the title track and “Estación Esperanza”, made with Manu Chao. Vajkoczy also appears in the liner notes.