You Want A Bit Of Everything In Terms Of Pearls, Sir, but Absolutely No Swine - Did I Get That Correctly?

Well, of course you do, 'cause that's what's on the menu today, lovingly cooked up as usual by le chef lui-même. For our latest adventure in All Pearls, No Swine land we go back to the 80s, and if you thought that past editions from that period could be eclectic, whoo boy, do we have some eclecticism for you in store today. All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 24 really has a bit of everything, starting with the slightly jangly underground pop of The Mahoney Brothers' "Don't Freeze Me Out" and ending 78 minutes later with Geoffrey W. Newhall's ambient/new age instrumental "Butterfly". In between you get an unlikely reggae-soul hybrid from Dede Higgins with "One Thing For Certain", atmospheric new wave from Jackie Leven and his cohorts in Doll By Doll with "Under My Thumb", groovy rock from beloved vets Little Feat via an outtake from Down On The Farm, throwback 60's-style garage rock from The Optic Nerve, and Christian folk-pop by Aina. And that's just the first seven songs! 

So, yeah, diversity is the name of the game here, no doubt about it. We also get some Oz rock courtesy of Australian Crawl (below) immortalizing the "Daughters Of The North Coast", country-pop from The Maines Brothers' having lovely "Dreams Of Desirée", hard to categorize (outsider folk rock?) but really cool stuff from virtual unknowns The Freemasons, moody rock from Uncle Friday and the return of power popper de luxe Jonathan Kupersmith! 

And the list goes on and on. We have some mainstream-ish artists making an appearance like Spirit with their remake of "1984" and the Go-Go's with their demo of classic "Lust For Love". And then there's new wave/electro-poppers Commuter with the bubbly "Young Hearts" (Cobra Kai influence, natch!) and Canadian's Depeche Mode Strange Currencies with the beautiful and uncharacteristic (acoustic guitars!) "This Island Earth", as well as one of Britain's premier alternative rock outfits, The House Of Love. 

When they say there is something for everyone here, what that sometimes means is that there's nothing for no one. But not with our All Pearls, No Swine, of course, where treasure hunters will be rewarded with a ton of cool music and acts with varying degrees of being known. So, dive into this veritable smorgasboard of cool-sounding goodies from the decade that gets better with every year in the retrospective mirror...