Four on the Floor – 1981.

 

Some would say an excellent year for rock music, but I happen to think it’s the year that the rot set in, these are still good albums however I believe the seeds of a new movement in the rock world was set in motion in this year, it may have taken seven or eight years to come to fruition but this was the edge of the precipice, read on and I’ll explain.

Blue Oyster Cult – Fire of Unknown Origin. – 9/10.

The last decent album for nearly Fifteen years, the next studio album The Revolution by Night was good but not great, but this was the pinnacle until Heaven Forbid came along in 1998. It was also the second and the last album produced by Martin Birch who always seemed to get the best out of bands, playing wise, song writing, bands seemed to step up to the plate for Martin, it’s also the last album of the original line up before Albert Bouchard had a hissy fit and buggered off, the songs (all 9 of them) are of a great standard and the artwork was something special, I remember having a shop display poster in my bedroom which took up most of one wall, after this it was the start of ever decreasing circles for the band they were and still are a great live band, but albums of quality were few and far between, they remain in my top three of bands that I love, but it was a slippery slope after this recording wise.

ACDC – For Those About to Rock.  6/10.

I know I’m going to get slaughtered for this but I do have my reasons, released a little over a year after back in Black, they then toured for the best part of a year and then jumped into the studio in the six weeks Mutt Lange had spare from all the other work he was doing in 1981 and the production for me suffers, as does the songwriting, maybe they should have had a little longer off, is it a bad album, hell no, it simply sounds tired, I saw the band on this tour and it was great and the songs that they played sounded so much better live than on the record, a couple of the songs are amongst my favourite Brian Johnson era ACDC songs, Lets get it up, Breaking the Rules and COD (Care of the Devil) I love, the rest were simply ok, again they remain a massive band but with the exception of Back in Black, I only like a couple of tracks from the rest of the later albums, they did start taking longer between albums and they are still one of the biggest bands in the world. but even Rick Rubin and Bruce Fairburn couldn’t save the albums that followed, they relied on their own abilities too much when in reality sometimes an outside set of eyes would have helped, to be honest the later albums didn’t have the sparkle of the Bon Scott era which every album was chock full of classics!

Foreigner – 4.   8/10.

Yet another Mutt Lange production from 1981, he was heading to a more polished sound to his production tasks, and to me again although Foreigner did some good albums after this, nothing that matched the quality of this, the album took 8 months of spit and polish to complete and there were many tears and tribulations along the way, was it worth it, I think so this album broke the band worldwide with the album breaking into the top twenty just about everywhere in the world and selling six million copies in the USA alone.

Van Halen – Fair Warning. 8.5/10.

As usual a short album a little ove31 minutes, but those 31 minutes are chock full of riffs and squeals, again I think this is the last great album of the original band , yes I enjoyed diver Down (basically a cover album) and 1984, again just over 30 minutes of mayhem but  the writing was on the wall as the band were going their separate ways, Eddie was wanting expand from the riffs and the talking type of singing ( hence when they became Van Hagar) I remember having a dodgy video of a gig in the USA from this tour, and they were simply awesome, the only issue for me on this album were the last two tracks, its like they needed something to fill the album up to the obligatory 30 minutes, and simply took two demoes that weren’t finished, but who cares when you hear the riff for Unchained kicks and everything else is forgiven.

So that’s my take on 1981, yes there were loads more classic albums, but I picked these because to me these bands were never the same after this, yes they remained big bands but in reality thrash was just around the corner and grunge was creeping up on the coattails, bands got rich and bloated in 1981 and the rot set in shortly after, please don’t send any death threats its just an opinion we all have them!

Sell your Soul

 

 

Over the years, employee expectations have changed as a result of the increased workload and stress in the workplace. When workers are fatigued, they are not as inclined to participate in the building of culture but more concerned about a manageable workload, wellness and realistic performance expectations.

The single most important thing employees want most is respect. The most powerful corporate culture initiative is a commitment to fairness, listening, identifying and caring for contributions, and caring for well-being.

There is an increasing practical perspective towards work among employees. They prioritize a job based on financial and personal requirements and not look for identity, purpose or community just from their employer.

Many organizations attract workers because they show, rather than tell, that they care. Often, it's more important to do the right thing, say the right words and behave in the right way than to conduct a well-executed culture campaign.

Excitement used to be created by providing free snacks, game rooms and casual Fridays. Most workers today consider these benefits to be less important than job security, purposeful work, flexibility and career prospects.

Staff listen attentively to leaders' decisions. Inadequate transparency, poor communication, or perceived unfairness can lead to lack of faith in management decision-making and discourage participation in other cultural programs.

Staff have a desire to learn, grow and progress in their work. In organizations where job growth is not clearly defined, it's hard to retain and motivate talented employees without a clear job progression plan.

Motivation is not something that can be done with words. But the number of employees who are assessing their companies' payouts is on the rise, and they're taking financial recognition as a more tangible measure of appreciation than slogans or employee branding.

Flexible work schedules and remote work opportunities have become more important to many workers than office amenities. The freedom to manage personal responsibilities and have work-life balance is more likely to influence satisfaction than culture-driven events.

People get bored when the values they hear about at work are inspiring, but the actions at work are not. If there are actions by leaders that are in contrast to the principles, trust is lost and employees are suspicious of actions or acts that look like performance rather than action.

In My Life.

I have to admit I have thought long and hard regarding doing this blog and it’s a kind of continuation from the blog “Girls”! that blog is my most read blog and I have had more than 25% of the readership asking for more details,  now the details I’m going to give might not be the details that some of you want as there will be nothing salacious, but I feel the need to at least tell the story of how she made such an impact on a young teenage boy that was to last, for a very very long time!

I met the young lady for the very first time in the first year of my senior year, to be honest it was nearly the end of our first senior year and our house (no it wasn’t Hogwarts) had won the house points table so we got to on a trip to Whitby, I had to my knowledge not noticed her before and yes I had noticed girls as I had gone out with a couple of them, but when I got on the bus for that trip I noticed the best looking girl in my year and to be honest I was totally gobsmacked by her, the trip was a fun day and the trip back was the first time that I actually spoke to her, nothing of any great importance, but we spoke.

Over the summer me and my best friend spent our time doing what boys did during summer holidays, fishing swimming generally doing what boys did and just occasionally I would see that girl where we were, we didn’t speak but I saw her and she definitely saw me, the holidays finished we went back to our school, but after the first year we transferred to the main school, further away for me, but closer for her, and soon we had the first school disco and all the boys sat around the hall gazing at our feet and the girls danced, by this time my friends had guessed that I liked the girl as I was tongue tied whenever she was close by, I chickened out and bolted, one of my friends simply walked up to her (mind you he had been in her junior school and knew her well) and simply stated “you like him he likes you so that should  make you two a couple” and she said yes! He then dragged me from my hiding place, and we actually spoke together for the first time!

I soon calmed down in her presence , and I do admit to feeling like I was the luckiest boy in the school, as she was way out of my league, I would walk to her house(which by road was a little over 3.5 miles, however in good weather I would cut across open country and get it down to under two) things went swimmingly, at least I thought so, a typical male I didn’t foresee any storm clouds on the horizon, at the time I was allegedly an angry little boy, and I don’t think that I was the most popular boy in the school although did try my best not to annoy people, I have a sneaking feeling I wasn’t always successful, my mouth had a tendency to work way quicker than my brain, at this point I was angry with myself not with other people (read some of the previous blogs you might get a hint) it seemed as though we were drifting apart, and sure enough we did split up, simply because of my insecurities, nothing new there then, and we drifted apart, we didn’t fall out with each other, we just went our separate ways, mainly because of me, I know it now and I knew it then. 

I have already described in a previous blog how we got back together so I won’t rehash it, but by this time I was a mess of real insecurity, I definitely had anger issues again towards myself, it turns out I scared her, I found this out much later and I have never been so unhappy about my actions in my life, at no point did I ever want to cause her pain suffering or unhappiness, but I was teenager who didn’t have a father figure and I certainly was starting to hate my (own) life,  our relationship ended after making plans to see her at the weekend and as I was walking to afternoon registration I got pulled by my history teacher who was trying to get me into the “O” level stream, again a blog for another day, the upshot was I was going to sit a mock O level paper on the Monday morning to prove I was capable. I asked someone (one of my friends…allegedly) to explain to her I wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend because of this exam the following Monday, the next break all hell broke lose with one of her friends telling with glee in her voice that she never wanted to see me ever again, I did try to speak to her but her friends blocked access at every step of the way, in reality I should have fought harder but this just proved that the world hated me with all of its might!

Now this is where it gets silly, the person who I asked to pass the message about the exam, went out with a girl who lived directly across the road from my now ex-girlfriend, and they had broken up so to twist the knife and to pay him back I went out with her, primarily so I could have an excuse to see my ex-girlfriend, childish I know, but I was a sultry teenager who should have been slapped across the back of my head and told to grow up (I didn’t and it would take a while before I did, some say I still haven’t) we went out for over year and in that time my ex-girlfriend went out with the older brother of one of her fiends (he definitely hated me) I was oblivious I simply wanted a chance to see her, my relationship with the girl across the road lasted a year it had the occasional bump in the road, the worst one which blew up as (allegedly) my ex-girlfriend had told her all the bad things about me to her and she threw it all in my face (I wish she had said it to me when we were going out , I don’t blame her for not doing so) and our relationship finally came crashing down when I came back from the army, at this point I hated life and everything and everybody in it, alcohol became and best friend and my worst enemy, when in reality I was and always had been my own master of my downfall.

I never saw her again at least to my knowledge, I am aware that she was in a pub one night over thirty years ago with friends and my brother said the immortal words of “don’t turn around now….but” unfortunately she was gone by the time I did turn around, I have never tried to find out how she has done, does she have kids, did she marry, does she still live in the area, I do know that she is the one regret in my life (hence the title of the blog and a well-known song) I would love to have a coffee and simply tell my side of the story as to what actually happened, and to return her Lene Lovich single that I borrowed so I could tape the B-side, I still have it and cherish it knowing that it was hers and not out of spite , I would willingly return it ,I would say sorry, because I feel the need to be contrite, however she did rip my heart out and go and bury it out on the moors never for it to be reclaimed. It took me a long while before I realised that, and I have to say just about every relationship since then has been guided by the harsh words spewed at me by her friend who lived across the road, as I hated the person who it described, however it was all obviously true as I dated simply see her!

Since my diagnosis of face blindness I wonder most days has she passed me by thinking that I’m ignorant, the girl across the road works as a health professional and came in at the end of an appointment that I had and said hello and I didn’t recognise her, not because I was being a twat, simply because I struggle to know who most people are in my life are! The only good thing that came out of the relationship was it gave me a foundation for love song lyrics that I put to bloody good use for four years while I was a lyricist, I would say 99% of those lyrics were for the girl who stole my heart, even if I didn’t know it at the time!

And there have it, the story as I remember it, I doubt she remembers it in the same light, if she remembers it all , it’s the only thing that I cherish from my teenage years and it’s the first real relationship I ever had, she was the best thing that happened to me and yes I know I screwed it up, so there you go a kind of historical blog just not musical, oh and by the way the mock exam that I was supposed to have that caused the whole ruckus, was cancelled on the morning of the test as the head of history hated my guts, definitely another blog for another day. So, if any of you know me and went to school with me and you know the person that I have written about, lets just leave it here she doesn’t need to know that for 45 years I have cursed the way we ended, I wish her nothing but happiness and I’m sorry I caused her so much pain because she didn’t deserve it!