Trip down the 70s and 80s vinyl lane and TTT
Here's another killing two birds with one stone post. This month's Hive Collectors topic is vinyl records, something that seems to be coming back in popularity in recent years.
Last year I bought a new turntable and started to listen to some old vinyls. They're mainly Hong Kong pop and won't mean anything to anyone here, so I won't bore you with them. However, I also have a stack of old vinyls in the garage that don't belong to me. I figured I'll dig around to see what's inside.
80s America
They were mainly 80s stuff, I think a lot of them belong to my sisters. We are the world is a charity song from 1985 to raise money for the Ethiopian famine. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and performed by 46 top US artists at the time.
Did anyone breakdance back on the days, or remember Irene Cara singing Fame? That's such a classic. I thought this record was from the Fame movie, but sadly not. A few of the younger cast from the movie formed a band called The Kids from Fame, and this is one of their records.
Talking of Fame, brings me to the first song for my Three Tunes Tuesday this week. This a great high impact and high energy song to start or round off your day.
The 80s was a great decade and a lot of the disco stuff is still very contemporary today. Axel F is a great one. It's the theme tune for Beverley Hills Cop written by Harold Faltermeyer. I have the 12 inch single version with a 7 minute M&M extended mix. It's a wicked cool mix.
My second TTT is the original 3 minute Axel F theme tune featuring Harold Faltermeyer himself in the MV.
70s Hong Kong
Enough of the 80s. Let's go a bit further back. There were a bunch of old Hong Kong vinyls dating back to probably the 70s. I could only assume they belong to my parents, but they never came across as music loving folks. Based on the covers, I think these are comedy plays. The two artists on the white cover were very well known into their late age until they died. As was the one in the bottom right in blue. She was a popular TV host affectionately called Fatty. I used to work in a local TV station in Hong Kong, and one time I stepped inside a lift with her. My brief moment with a celebrity 😀
This is probably the most famous Chinese opera called The Flower Princess. Think of it as the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, a sad love story where the main characters commit suicide together at the end.
And finally, this is Pancy Lau, I've heard of the name but never listened to her songs before. Apparently she was very famous in Hong Kong between the 60s to the 80s. I particularly like this vinyl cover and the angle the photo was taken at. She looks so relaxed and carefree. I listened to it yesterday, and she sings in such a high pitch note. Seems like it was a thing back in those days 😂. Another odd thing I noticed was this vinyl doesn't belong to my parents! Someone had written their name on it, and I didn't recognise it. How odd🤔
Anyway, when I listened to the end of side B, and finally heard a song I recognised. It's a classic but I thought it was sang by someone else. Maybe I got the oldies mixed up. I did a bit of googling and found the original singer here, and this is my final TTT.
The song is called Not going home today. The opening is very powerful and iconic, singing the title of the song. It always reminds me of Lulu belting out Shout. Then the melody is a very funky and bouncy. Have a listen, maybe just for 30 seconds to experience a bit of alternative oldie music culture.
ahh yes Harold Faltermeyer not far after we got Miami Vice on TV
Funny enough I never really watched Miami Vice or Beverley Hill cops, but they were popular enough that many would have heard of them
Miami vice is the reason we went for our honeymoon to Florida back in 1991 ;)
Wow, you have some interesting stuff there! What a great topic! I have been collecting vinyl for close to 20 years now if not longer. It's been a great journey and every time I spin one of my records it always brings back so many memories! Even the new ones!
I love the crackling sound when listening to my vinyls, the imperfection that you can't get on digital
Yes, I do too! So warm and wonderful!
And to think that we've evolved so much, from vinyl records to flash drives and digital media in the cloud, wow, what an insane evolution. In my childhood, I saw some vinyl records, but as far as I can remember, I never saw one being played live, like seeing those old players and the vinyl spinning inside them, haha. Nowadays, it's all relics.
It's like you're watching music being played in front of you, and makes it so real. Even with CDs you could see it spin, digit is purely sound, just one dimensional
Ahhh, a post written for me...
The Fame album is a live album from a concert by the TV series cast that was born from the movie. Irene Cara, didn't want to reprise her role as Coco as she wanted to focus on her music. The role of Coco was given to Erica Gimpel, who was primarily a dancer.
One of the actors from the film who did make it to the TV show was the amazing Debbie Allen, an incredibly talented dancer, choreographer and actor.
Anyway, you'll be happy to hear that the Kids from Fame are still touring intermittently right up until the present day.
By the way. Sadly, Irene Cara had a heart attack and died about 4 years ago at only 61.
Enjoy the clip and enjoy the vinyl!
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Have they renamed themselves Oldies from Fame😆
Seriously, sounds like you're quite a Fame fan! I never watched either the movie nor the TV show, but I know it was very popular. The fact the Kids from Fame are still touring is a testament to that.
I read about Irene Cara's death when writing this piece, that so sad at such a young age. But anyway, thanks for sharing a lovely MV.
Wow, you have a nice amount of vinyls and not just that you store them nicely 😊, I am a bit jealous.
I just came back from our old weekend home where we are holding ours, so I can finally write about this theme.
Let's begin .. ⌨️✍️
I saw your post last night, will pop over in a minute. I'm so glad to see you exploring different communities ⭐
Excellent collection. There's a lot of varied music in different languages. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it. You're welcome.
Gosh The kids from Fame were huge!
This brought back memories, my grandfather was born in Shanghai. And in a bid to go over there, I almost took up a position with the Hong Kong police straight from uni. The Oil industry won though and around the world I went.
I didn't realise the Kids from Fame were that popular 😅
Nor did I realise your grandfather was born in Shanghai, were your great grand parents traders back then ? I had a uni friend who joined the HK police force after he graduated. I met up with him once afterwards and he'd done quite well as they all do in those days, but lost contact with him afterwards.
Oh, Axel F. What a tune to remember! 👌That was so cool to listen to again, like going back in time and hear that song from Beverley Hills Cop. I also loved the song We Are The World 💗
So, thank you very much for going to your garage and search for this huge collection. 😍 You do have many of them. And it seems that the popularity of this item will not fade, today three posts with the monthly theme arrived at the Hive Collectors community, starting with your one. Plus I also got one vinyl-related surprise today, maybe I will write about it soon 😇
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Thank you very much, stresskiller and topcomment 😊
The thing with Axel F is that even listening to it in 2025, it doesn't sound dated... or maybe because I'm part of that generation 🤔
Thank you for hosting a great topic this month and look forward to reading about your new vinyl.
Have a great time in Krakow!
Yeah, the rhythm from that song is probably timeless 😀
Thank you, we are travelling by train right now, heading towards Poland, of course, with my new vinyl in my bag 😁
Hello, @livinguktaiwan. Although I don't know anything about Hong Kong pop and rock, what I can say is that I love that cover of the Breakdance soundtrack. It brings back a lot of memories for me.
I liked the song “Not going home today”, a great culmination for a great post about vinyl.
A very big greeting.
Were you breakdancing back to then? I remember it was very popular, not that I ever took part.
Thank you for dropping by!
😒 Qué manía tiene la gente de andar matando pájaros con una sola... ¿piedra-post? 🤣
We’re quite alike—I have a few of my mother’s vinyl records too. Some are in Russian. I think one of them might be piano music. The thing is, I don’t understand Russian, so maybe tomorrow I’ll try using an image recognition app to figure out what it is, since I don’t have a turntable. The other option would be to take it somewhere I can play it and see what it’s like.
I listened to the song you left at the end. I liked it; it has its own charm.
The vinyls from our parents by are like a treasure chest, we can learn quite a lot about them from the music they listen to. I'm sure @mipiano would be interested to find out more about your mother's collection. Maybe do a post so we can all investigate together. That will be fun.
Me pregunto por qué la gente se mete con los pájaros. Pobres pájaros.
Vinyls, I beat myself up every time I see them, I threw my small collection out many many moons ago, absolute sacrilege!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, and the intro to Hong Kong 70s. Like you say, the song does become funky. That high pitched singing is still popular in Indian music. We went to a Bhangra bash a couple of years ago for a pre-wedding function and a lot of the female singing was like that, lively and very funky.
I had consider throwing them away. If it the were objects just sitting there not doing anything, like home decor stuff, I would have thrown it given them away, but I do like the whole vinyl by setup, it's just so classy
Aah this is amazing. What an impressive collection! <3 Just listening to Not going home today now and I bet that sounds killer on a turntable. :)
These oldies songs sounds especially good with the crackling from the turntable, like sprinkling some be truffle on top of spaghetti 🙂
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