Jul 11: 1983

1983 saw the release of some favourite albums of mine.

I was in the first year of my degree at Huddersfield Polytechnic.

Eddie Jobson released 'The Green Album'.

He never got round to releasing his pink album which was teased in the lyrics.

I wrote to him back in 1983 and he sent back a newsletter and a signed letter which I have put somewhere safe... so safe I can't currently find it.

Here's Turn it Over....

And 'Who my friends'... the synthesiser sounds on this album are epic.

1983 also saw the release of REM's first studio album 'Murmur'.

Marillion released 'Script for a Jester's Tear'. There was quite a lot of buzz around this album. Their name was very prog, and I saw them live on their first tours to promote this and successive albums. It was very prog with its arrangements, dense lyrics, time signature changes, face-painted lead singer et al. And in 1983 I was very much up for that sort of thing...

Mike Oldfield released 'Crises', which featured the Fairlight synthesiser heavily... plus Simon Phillips' distinctive drum sound. The album's cover art was by Terry Ilott and was originally created as an illustration for an edition of J. G. Ballard's The Drowned World.

I was living in a very cheap house in Huddersfield for this first year. It cost me £9 a week including bills. I shared a room, and in the middle was my music centre and a selection of my LPs. I remember buying this and playing it for the first time there, having walked back up the hill to Newsome: at the top of a great big hill. It was released on the 27th of May, so it was still term time. Towards the end of the year, someone moved out and I moved into a room at the back of the house by myself. Similar room rate. Immersion heater turned on for a bath. Freezing cold bathroom in winter... A jungle unusable back garden. Good times...

Dio's 'Holy Diver' was also released that year. This has some great tracks on it.

Here's an album chart from August of that year.

Which of these did you have on your playlist back then?