Low Culture Podcast: Eurythmics’ 1984 Soundtrack

We love it when our subscribers send in suggestions of things for us to talk about – but do we love what they’re suggesting? Is Eurythmics’ soundtrack to the 1984 film 1984 doubleplusgood or does it send John Doran into his own personal Room 101? Find out here.

In this month’s Low Culture Podcast, John and Luke begin with some disturbing-sounding plans for noise techno made from the digestive racket made by magpies while feasting on mice (in tribute to Chris Watson (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)), and reminiscences of when they worked in an office that was being knocked down while they were still at their desks. Then it’s time for them to play good cop/bad cop with the cultural artefact. Or, perhaps, bad cop/even worse cop. Gird your loins fans of Eurythmics, and specifically those who adore the pseudo-soundrack 1984: For The Love Of Big Brother (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). Initially, such is John’s dyspepsia regarding the group, that one might assume that Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were personally responsible for mocking his family viciously in the pages of Smash Hits, until it turns out his dismay is linked more widely to “the great synth pop rout of the mid-80s”, his feelings on musicians who adopt and drop Black artistry on a whim and why at the halfway point this decade was producing great pop, but also insipid and pretentious music for adults. Luke, who is more of a fan, can sense the more experimental and industrial futures suggested by this album and references their work with Chris and Cosey. Things do get slightly heated though, with apologies to our subscriber Ian Jones who suggested the pair talk about this record. Anyway, if you were thinking of suggesting a cultural artefact for John and Luke to discuss, now would be a good time as producer Alannah Chance has said, quite firmly, that they should play nice at least until the end of this year and that for them to be mean spirited about any more suggestions would be something of a s-s-s-s-s-s-subscriber crime. Thanks as ever to Alannah for putting this together and to all our subscribers – especially Ian Jones – for funding our podcasts and wider editorial.