Thirty Thousand Feet Over China

The Passions - Thirty Thousand Feet Over China (1981)

 

 

In September of 1981, The Passions released their second album, 30,000 Feet Over China. It contained the singles, "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" (#25 U.K.), "Skin Deep" and "The Swimmer". The album reached the #92 spot on the U.K. Recorded at Surrey Sound except "German Film Star" and "The Swimmer". It's melodic, atmospheric outing, with a moody, shimmering quality album. The mix of dream pop, Barbara Gogan's hypnotic vocals, and a left-of-center lyrical outlook on songs like “I'm In Love With a German Film Star” makes this album wonderful. 

Tracklist(remastered with bonus tracks):

1. I'm In Love With A German Filmstar
2. Someone Special
3. The Swimmer
4. Strange Affair
5. Small Stones
6. Runaway
7. The Square
8. Alice's Song
9. Bachelor Girls
10. Skin Deep
11. I Radiate (7" Version) [bonus]
12. Some Fun (7" Version) [bonus]
13. War Song (7" Version) [bonus]
14. Don't Talk To Me (i'm Shy) (7" Version) [bonus]
15. The Square (live) [bonus] 

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The Passions

The Passions

They were a British band which formed in 1978, and disbanded in 1983. They were one-hit wonders and you might know them from their magical song, "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" which was released in early 1981. Based in Shepherds Bush, west London, The Passions' music was grounded mainly in Barbara Gogan's voice, and Clive Timperley's delicate echoplex guitar work.

Michael and Miranda, the band's debut album was released in 1980.Singles "Hunted", and "Swimmer" followed, and then their major charting song, "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" (It has also been covered by Foo Fighters, Kish Mauve, Sunscreem, Dubstar (I will write about this band at some point) and Chris Whitley.). The band's second album, 30,000 Feet Over China, was released in August 1981. It included previously released A-sides and several brand new recordings.

Clive Timperley left the band in Verona in December 1981, during the Italian leg of their prophetically named "Tour Till We Crack" tour, as a result of "serious political differences". So once again politics destroys something good, thanks.. thanks a lot..

Armstrong and Smith took part in the recording of the band's third album, Sanctuary, which appeared in the autumn of 1982, but they dissolved for good in the summer of 1983, after playing their last show at London's Marquee Club on 12 August that year.

Keep dreaming guys.

Dream Pop Genre

Some of you reader might be wondering, what is dream pop? Why I am here? Why sky is blue?

And well here I am, I will answer one of these questions.

Basically dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s (yay for UK! And yay for crazy 1980s!) All thanks to bands like The Passions (I will be talking about them in my next article), Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane, they began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bitter sweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes (sugar, spice and everything nice these are the ingredients to make perfect Dream Pop). The essence of the music is a focus on ethereal textures and moods, rather than on propulsive rock riffs. Breathy, high-register female vocals or almost whispered male vocals are usually the means of lyrical delivery; lyrics are generally introspective and existential in nature. Cover art tends to consist of blurry pastel imagery or stark minimalist designs, or a combination of these two styles.

And as some of you might all ready know,  a louder, more aggressive strain of dream pop came to be known as shoegazing (That makes shoegazing baby of dream pop I guess). I bet you will see some of shoegazing talk in my blog, because a lot of bands that are Dream Pop actually are shoegazing too.

Off course this is not the end of dream pop history, there are a lot of talk, bands and albums from the 1980s to early 1990s, from 1990s to early 2000s and from 2000s to now (I bet you are most familiar with bands from this period of time)

In my next article as I said before I will be talking about The Passions and their album Thirty Thousand Feet Over China.

Keep dreaming readers

Hello World

Hello everyone, I am random internet person who likes to listen to music. So I am 20 years old, from Europe, a dude, I like pancakes. Nothing special about me except the last part. 

Mainly I will be talking about Dream pop music genre in here. Nothing too fancy, reviewing few albums, talking about bands and etc. As i said, nothing too fancy. I will try to post at least few times a week, though i might be busy at some weeks (by trying to survive in this cruel world). I must warn you that you might find some grammar mistakes in my blog and I am terribly sorry about that, you see, english is not my mother tongue language.

If you are new to Dream pop genre or you heard about it, but never actually listened to it, this blog is for you! For now I will be talking a lot about greatest Dream pop bands/albums and first dream pop bands/artists. Only after few months I will be talking about new released albums/bands, so true dream pop fans will have to wait a little bit (sadfacesmiley.jpg).

So that's about it, the end of my introduction article. In my next article I will generally talk about Dream Pop (it's origins, first bands, music essence, history and etc.) If you have any questions or you will not agree with few of my future articles just comment and write whatever you have in mind. I will try to read everything you write and give you exhaustive answer.

See you soon dreamers.