Since I neglected the old guard last time, I'll start with them this time.
Bob Dylan is back! He ever left! I hear Oh Mercy is one of his best albums and was his best in a long time upon its release. I believe it. It's quite great. I don't remember too much of it this much later, but I do know that "Most of the Time" holds a personal place in my heart and it's such a great sad song that puts more meaning into the word "most" than I've heard before.
Elvis Costello took things into an interesting direction with Spike. I'm not sure what the title means but that's kind of how I feel about the album: favorites and least favorites. My opinion spikes in either direction when I listen to it. It starts off really strong with some dark clownish songs, lynching songs, and looks at ugliness. In addition to a truly great pop song co-written with Paul McCartney "Veronica," which just breaks my heart. And some great ballads scattered about. Then there are some attempts at funk that I just don't feel at all. They just don't sound natural. And I really don't like "Baby Plays Around," which just seems beneath Costello's considerable lyrical abilities. But when it's on, this album is really on. When Margaret Thatcher died recently of course it brought to mind "Tramp The Dirt Down," a great song about the great pain that she brought to England.
I'll randomly stick Weird Al right here. The UHF Soundtrack And Other Stuff has a lot of stuff on it. I think it might have been the first Weird Al album I got on CD instead of tape, which made it one of the first ones into this digital music collection. It also means I brought it on a lot of car trips with my family and made them listen to it a lot. I know I got my sister to like it because of her love of hamsters and gerbils with "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars." I remember my dad wondering about the polka song on this one because it's all Rolling Stones songs. And "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" was an obvious good choice for road trips because it's about a road trip. Everything I've said so far was not from the movie. All "other stuff." I loved that movie though and the bits such as "Spatula City" and "Gandhi II" were classic bits. I actually saw the movie years after getting the album so I didn't know what was going to show up in the actual movie. Sorry Rachel, no radioactive hamsters in the movie.
How about that new wave? We're down to very few artists in the genre but the remaining ones are the ones that are still considered highly influential.
Depeche Mode's Violator is probably their biggest album. I would assume so. Because it has what are probably their biggest hits. "Enjoy The Silence" is great and everyone knows it. "Personal Jesus" has been covered a lot and such. Just the darkness of the whole album is great and proves that new wave still had plenty to say.
Disintigration is the best album ever! So says Kyle from South Park as well as The Impossibles on an EP. It might actually be the best album The Cure put out. Not my personal favorite (I'm unapologetically pro-pop-version-of-The-Cure) but I still find a lot of value in this album, particularly upon repeat listens. "Last Dance" holds another personal spot in my heart, "Pictures of You" is another great pop song contained in a 7 1/2 minute goth jam, and it's just one big embrace of the darkness with lots of extended instrumental breaks. Music!
My only Public Image Ltd album is one I got back in my punk rock days because I'd finally heard about this other band from Johnny Rotten. It's called 9 and it really speaks to how few albums I used to have. I remembered the album fairly well even though I know when I got it I was a bit underwhelmed by it. I appreciate it a bit more now but I bet there are better PIL albums out there. But just remembering it so vividly made me realize that I knew it better than most albums I now profess to like. A piece of me misses limiting my musical scope so much that I'd give everything enough time to marinate and form attachments to me rather than the way too many albums I now own that I could never keep up with.
Of course post punk/punk/college rock/whatever were pushing things forward from the new wave and Fugazi is where I'll awkwardly start this conversation. The second half of 13 Songs, the Margin Walker EP, shows them already expanding to two guitars, keeping the energy high, and just being Fugazi. I also have a recording of a concert from 1989 and they had already developed such a strong cohesiveness together, like a living organism just playing off instinct and working together, it's just natural.
So punk. And pop-punk, before it was a dirty word. The Lookout! brand of pop punk was in full effect as The Mr. T. Experience put out the EP Big Black Bugs Bleed Blue Blood. I first got this album because it was such a good value of so many songs for the regular price of a CD. 31 Songs! But it turns out that was mostly bonus content and originally BBBBBB was just an EP. I got way into the two or three MTX albums I had in high school. Catchy pop music that I could get away with liking because it was punk rock. And you know, better than the actual pop music on the radio!
On the grittier, gutterier side of punk was Crimpshrine, whose Duct Tape Soup also brings me back. Listening to it this time I realized that there is something strangely romantic about this band. Political and dirty sounding and not trying to appease any commercial viability yet some part of them embraced some traditional values, particularly in the field of romance. Particularly "Closed Doors, Closed Minds," which argues that romance and love are giving, not taking away, that they shouldn't be taken as a threat, etc. The more I listen to it the more concern I have about what it's really getting at. There's reasons women would take such actions with offense and they kind of gloss over any concerns. It's weird. And then "Pretty Mess," which used to be one of my favorite songs, I am now realizing that it sounds like a man loves this woman in a way that he wants to help fix/rescue her in some ultimate male fantasy. Weird because Jeff Ott turned out to be one of the most PC personalities in punk rock. But that's Fifteen, not Crimpshrine.
And of course Operation Ivy. Finally I talk about OPIV! Here is my story of first hearing this band. My brother had that early Green Day album where they covered "Knowledge" but I all I knew is that I didn't know nothing about the origin of that song. Then some time passed. I got more into ska punk and whatnot and heard their name dropped all the time as an influence on every damn band I listened to (and I knew of a tribute album as well). I talked about this mythical band with my friends because this was before the Internet made it super easy to hear about a band and hear their music immediately. Finally one day we were at Wherehouse Music (or as we called it because of its unfortunate spelling "whorehouse music") and they had those listening station things and my friend Dustin finally decided to check out this Operation Ivy band and while I was listening to Five Iron Frenzy or some such thing he took a listen to them. And he had a reaction similar to my initial reaction: These are cheap recordings! It sounds like crap! And they don't have horns! What kind of ska band doesn't have horns?? I think he might have gotten it anyway and given it enough time because for whatever reason I ended up getting it as well and became pretty obsessed with it. Mostly for the punk side of the equation probably. Today it makes me laugh that I thought the recording quality sounded crappy because that's what punk is supposed to sound like. In fact, it was probably just a couple years after that that I started complaining about stuff sounding "overproduced." But anyway, the music. The energy is what did it for me. No wonder that's the name of the album. And we liked that Tim from Rancid had this other band. We loved the message of Unity and all that. And it really got me into punk rock and its ethos and this song kind of explained everything to me about why I liked the music that I liked and didn't like the radio stuff:
Operation Ivy "Artificial Life"
Ok speaking of life changing music, Pixies. Doolittle. Need I say more? I'm gonna. Their other truly great album. Maybe my favorite? As it stands, I think I'm ready to call it for Doolittle. The energy is just up there. The screaming is there. "Monkey Gone To Heaven" is one of the weirdest universally loved songs out there. Kim's bass really comes across as well. And "Wave of Mutilation," can't deny that one is a classic. I remember meeting this cool girl in high school and knowing each other was cool because we were the only two in our group of friends that seemed to know the words to "Hey" and we felt the need to go through the whole first verse to show off how bizarre this thing was that we both had memorized. I think Doolittle was my first Pixies album and when I got it I told my buddy what albums I had gotten and we were both impressed at me because it was the first time I had gone to the record store and come home with a couple albums, neither of which could be described as punk or ska. This is the album to branch out to, and it really showed me the possibilities of music beyond my narrow perception. This could therefore be considered the album that set it off for me. Got me exploring the vast world of music. This could be the album that is to blame for me having over 40,000 songs on my hard drive, which is the reason I felt it necessary to do this project in the first place. Doolittle! Oh, and it's also cool because the whole thing kicks off with this song is about Luis Buñuel and surrealism.
Pixies "Debaser"
There were also some B sides from this year that were quite good, most notably Kim song "Into the White" and a sweet "UK Surf" version of "Wave of Mutilation." All very fantastic.
And to show off the influence as much as possible, my iPod decided to follow this up immediately with Bleach by Nirvana. I don't have enough to say about this to justify not putting it down there but I do like that "About A Girl" song but it's not as good as real Pixies songs.
And finally on to hip hop! 1989 was a breath of fresh air after all the politically charged angry hip hop I came across from 1988. Mostly because of De La Soul, whose 3 Feet High And Rising sounds like a game changer. Positivity, the D.A.I.S.Y. age, tons of internal rhymes and intelligence and goofiness and three rappers playing off each other so flawlessly, it just all works. And according to my hip hop head friend, it's one of their lesser albums! (confession: I only had this album for a long time, until the giveaway thing they did).
By comparison, Young MC seemed pretty old school for 1989. His style was pretty similar to the earlier 80s stuff. He could rap really fast (which today is heard all over the place, but in this context it was pretty damn impressive) and of course "Bust A Move" is a jam.
And The Beastie Boys just destroyed on Paul's Boutique. Such a dense album! So much to pick up on that even doing this I made myself listen to it twice. Just to pick up on more of it. And now I already forget what I was going to say about it. It's...good...and the Dust Brothers just like, did such an awesome job and it had rapping that was all good and stuff.
Extras Section:
- Allroy's Revenge seems like a good step up for All. More energetic, kinda starting to develop their own identity outside The Descendents.
- Stone Roses are good ok?
- Lou Reed's New York is another classic.
- Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire." Reminds me of car trips and trying to sing along.
- "Like A Prayer" might be my favorite Madonna song.
- Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 is one hot pop album that reminds me of Justin Timberlake (not because of the super bowl thing but it does seem very appropriate that they were singing together) in its high energy, unapologetically pop music that still has an edge and is meant to be played loud. Yeah!
- Yo La Tengo really hit their signature sound with President Yo La Tengo, which includes a trademark 10+ minute jam.
- Math rock is alive!!! Slint put out Tweez which is not quite Spiderland but it's definitely laying the foundation to one of my favorite obscure genres of hardcore/post rock/whatever.
- The Vandals put out a country album called Slippery When Ill and then years later put out a version of mostly the same songs called The Vandals Sing Really Bad Original Country Tunes. I got it because I like their Christmas album but didn't really care for these country tunes. I thought it'd be funny but a lot of it is just kind of offensive. I just can't tell if these guys are being satirical sometimes. Or at least the level of satire. I can't find the line but they seem to cross it.
Next Time:
Onto the 90s! That "college rock" will give way to grunge which will give way to terrible music which won't be represented here. Stuff will happen. Specifically for 1990 here's what will happen:
The Breeders, Fugazi keeps destroying it, Jawbreaker, lots more Mr T Experience, Pixies try and follow up Doolittle (and don't do too bad a job at it!), Social Distortion, a very popular Sonic Youth album, a very popular They Might Be Giants album, and Treepeople (pre-Built to Spill!). I actually don't have all that much mustic from 1990 but 1991 is going to be nuts.
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