1984: Marching On

The Alarm: Marching On

[purchase]

In 1984 there were a lot of bands who were trying to be relevant and even spiritual. Big arena sounds were everywhere, with big voices, and overly dramatic lyrical content. To some degree Big Country fell into this category, Simple Minds did it quite well for a while, but The Alarm probably took it to a level that none of those other bands had even considered. Their lyrics are embarrassingly self-conscious, and their sound is big and lusty.

The Alarm's initial full-length release, Declaration (1984), was worth owning at the time, and I still enjoy it today in the same way that I enjoy watching old movies or looking through yearbooks. The featured track is sort of like The Alarm's answer to The Times They Are a' Changin', with calls to the adult world to get ready for the inevitable march of the youth that will change their values and hold them accountable for their crimes.

The weirdest thing about this album for me is that I listened to it 20-30 times over the course of a week in 1985 while I was home from school with bronchitis. I ate a lot of string cheese that week for some reason. Now I literally never hear a note from this record without thinking of string cheese. Go figure.