For this, my third blog post, we will be comparing and contrasting two New Wave films from the early ’80s along with their respective soundtracks. The films are Valley Girl and Liquid Sky. Somewhere along the way, either through torturous linkages of ill-conceived half-assed assertions or through random declarative dive-bombs, I plan to drop several unasked for comments regarding why The Breakfast Club sucks donkey dicks and why its soundtrack is non-recyclable rubbish. I will be doing this at no extra cost to you, the consumer, or Flicks, my employer. Consider it a Xmas bonus. Hashtag goodtimescomingyourway. OK, let’s get started.
Valley Girl is an early ’80s teen flick staring a young Nicholas Cage. He plays a young punk rocker named Randy who falls in love with a girl from the valley named Julie. The plot of Valley Girl is essentially a variant of #28 of Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations – #28 being Obstacles To Love, containing the elements of two lovers and an obstacle. Randy and Julie are the lovers and the obstacles are Julie’s friends who don’t like her hanging out with someone from the wrong part of L.A., especially one with a funny haircut and some odd unexplainable attire.
Just a quick aside – Nicolas Cage and his friend Fred’s styling in this film is indeed odd. It’s not what you imagine punks of any era wearing. I have been struggling to piece together an apt description and ‘nazi parking garage attendant at the rodeo’ is as close as I can get but that still doesn’t quite capture it. I imagine that the producers of the film did not want actual punk in their film as it might have put off their potential audience – punk still being seen as a threat back then – so they made up something innocuous and strange instead. In fact – and this makes a good segue to the soundtrack of the film – the music Randy and his friend listen to is not punk either. Throughout the film they hang out at a punk club where Geffen recording artists The Plimsouls perform what seems like an endless set of bar band power pop muck. The Plimsouls are not punk in any way. They had a hit of sorts in the ’80s with a song called A Million Miles Away which they play here on at least two different occasions.
The music the Children of the Valley listen to is much better. When Randy and Fred crash Julie’s friend’s party, everyone is wearing pastel polo shirts and dancing to The Sparks’ Angst In My Pants – which is awesome beyond words. At the climax of the film, at the school prom, the live band is Josie Cotton and she performs her cult new wave hit Johnnie Are You Queer while the kids try and spike the punch and Randy and Fred try and win the day. There are tons of other great songs scattered throughout the film.
The original soundtrack is a collectors’ album now and well worth seeking out although, like many compilations, it has its share of clunkers. One has to ask why the compilers included such drek as Pat Travers, and Payola$ and why did they feel we needed three songs by The Plimsouls? There are many superb songs that featured in the film that did not make it on to the soundtrack. These include Girls Like Me by Bonnie Hayes with the Wild Combo, Eaten By The Monster Of Love by Sparks, Pocket Pool by Killer Pussy, Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant and of course Mickey by Toni Basil. Rhino Records have corrected this oversight by re-releasing the original soundtrack with a follow up album containing all songs missed from the original.
Up against the bubblegum synths and pastels of Valley Girl, Liquid Sky is the dark, weird side of the ’80s. Set and filmed in a pre-Giuliani NYC the plot of Liquid Sky involves sex, heroin and aliens – ‘liquid sky’ being a euphemism for heroin. I am not sure if the plot for this film can be fitted into any of Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations. Basically these diminutive aliens land on the roof of a apartment building and become entranced with a fashion model named Margaret who lives nearby. Margaret (played by Anne Carlisle who also wrote the script.) dresses and does her makeup in highly stylized manner, a manner which can only be described as Xtreme New Wave. She flats with a drug dealer/performance artist friend named Adrian who is always saying crappy/sardonic things and putting Margaret down although Margaret doesn’t seem to mind too much as bitchy comments and putdowns are how people communicate in this film. So these aliens take more than an interest in Margaret and pretty soon anyone who has sex with Margaret mysteriously dies with a large crystal spike protruding through their head. She is somewhat distraught by this but not totally and maintains a semblance of new wave cool/naivety and deadpan self-absorption. One of Margaret’s many memorable lines is “I kill with my c**t.”.
Actually on further investigation I feel we can slot this storyline into #7 of Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations: Falling Prey To Cruelty Or Misfortune with the elements: an Unfortunate (Margaret); a Master or a Misfortune (pretty much everyone else in the story). I won’t tell you how the story ends but rest assured it does involve the miniature aliens, some sex and some death.
The music of Liquid Sky is predominantly performed on the Fairlight CMI, the first digital sampler/synthesizer and is both really cool and relentlessly annoying. The album does include one underground hit, a song called Me & My Rhythm Box which Adrian performs at a nightclub with a huge early 80s drum machine strapped to her hip. I think it maybe the same model that Blondie used for Heart Of Glass but I digress.
While I digress let’s talk about how shitty The Breakfast Club soundtrack is shall we? I mean have you heard it? It’s got one hit on it and it’s by Simple Minds… Simple freakin’ Minds. Simple Minds have only one good song in their career and it’s not Don’t You (Forget About Me). Simple Mind’s best/only good song is off their first album and is called Chelsea Girl. The Breakfast Club soundtrack also has a song by Wang Chung and a whole lot of wack 80s LA session muso instrumental masturbation fests. It’s not a good time. Stay away I implore you. Stay away.
While I am standing on my metaphorical soapbox a-spittin’ and a-hollerin’ let me tell you what I have always found annoying about The Breakfast Club. I know it’s now a massive cultural touchstone, a mighty 80s menhir towering over everyone’s collective teenage memory but I never liked it, no sir. And I’ll tell you why, the coolest character in the story is the one Ally Sheedy plays, the gothy girl Allison. At the end of the film after everyone’s danced and cried and shared and all that crap, the other kids do Allison’s makeup and make her look all square and shit and then the jock goes “ohhhhh, suddenly I think you’re cute and shit” and they pash. What’s that telling us…? What’s that telling the youth of yesterday and today? If you dress and do your makeup like everyone else you might just get to snog someone who play sports real good? What kind of message is that? That’s a dumbass message Mr. John Hughes.
