1988

"In a year that included landmark albums from contemporaries like Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies managed to turn in one of 1988's most striking, distinctive records."

-Heather Phares, amg.com revies of Surfer Rosa

From the sounds of it, 1988 was another one of 'those' years, like 1967, or 1979. But what did it signify? If 1967's Summer of Love took the electric pop-rock song and began to stretch and deform it until it held up a mirror to counterculture's hallucinations, and 1979 saw punk melding with the cutting edge of the Black Atlantic, what happened in 1988?

Let's take a look at some albums:

obv. Surfer Rosa
Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
My Bloody Valentine,Isn't Anything
Throwing Muses, House Tornado
Sinead O'ConnorThe Lion and The Cobra
The Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll
A.R. Kane, 69
Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden
Dinosaur Jr., Bug
Loop, Fade Out
Jane's Addiction, Nothing's Shocking
The Butthole Surfers, Hairway to Steven

Any other albums? I know I'm practically plagiarizing Simon Reynolds, so if anyone has other epochal albums that aren't stereotypcially "blissed out", that would be great.

http://archivedmusicpress.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/melody-maker-albums-of-the-year-1988.jpg

http://archivedmusicpress.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/melody-maker-albums-of-the-year-1988.jpg

I tend to look back on 1989 more, but there's a case for both years.

Leaving off It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back is a crime!

meh, u get the idea

xpost

xpost -- although I see MM tucked it in their list there...towards the end.

But what did it signify?

rock was "back". it was ok to be a bit hippy or metal?

When I think of 1988 I think of House Music. It was a really exciting time. I used to listen to the Dave Pearce show on Radio London, which was a fantastic radio programme. He would play masses of house, also Public Enemy and other hip hop and a fair amount of more trad r&b (ie Jam & Lewis stuff, Force MDs and so on).

Yeah, no mention of one of my favourites on that MM list, 'To the Batmobile...Let's Go' by Todd Terry. That seemed more like the future to me than any bunch of floppy haired feedback merchants.

The thing that this list and the revisionism of today misses is that it was a terrific year for singles of all shapes and hues, especially in hip-hop and house which was only barely starting to be develop as an albums medium.

I'm shocked to see one of my old faves (Scritti's Provision) on that list...I recall it being considered a major disappointment at the time, and the years (not to mention Green himself) have essentially disowned it...(I still love it, though)...

it's not a patch on c&p '85, tbh.

I turned 1 year old

i turned 7, i had a mcdonalds birthday party.

ned is right...sry...

that MM list is fantastic. I want every album on it RIGHT NOW!

The thing that this list and the revisionism of today misses is that it was a terrific year for singles of all shapes and hues, especially in hip-hop and house which was only barely starting to be develop as an albums medium.

post some lists dude!

The thing that this list and the revisionism of today misses is that it was a terrific year for singles of all shapes and hues, especially in hip-hop and house which was only barely starting to be develop as an albums medium.

― Billy Dods, Thursday, 6 November 2008 21:11 (41 minutes ago) Bookmark

what? i would say most people would say "acid house" was the big thing from 88, probably followed by that late 80s wave of hip hop like public enemy, epmd, nwa etc...

'88 was a banner year for hip hop

hardly anybody in the US gave a shit about acid house.

ok, self up-uping here but

2 X CDR700MB Go! 1988 : Success... Excess... Pop Will Eat The Brown Acid Itself

and I still haven't sent out some CDRs. i iz bastard. :(

bv. Surfer Rosa
Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
My Bloody Valentine,Isn't Anything
Throwing Muses, House Tornado
Sinead O'ConnorThe Lion and The Cobra
The Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll
A.R. Kane, 69
Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden
Dinosaur Jr., Bug
Loop, Fade Out
Jane's Addiction, Nothing's Shocking
The Butthole Surfers, Hairway to Steven

looking at this list I only see one real genuine big seller/hit here (Sinead), the rest are a disparate bunch of indie releases that got played on 120 Minutes. Apart from that I don't see any common thread, really.

1988 was one long nightmare of way too much hip-hop, hair metal and dance. And underproduced indie with way too much reverb, hardly any stereo at all (other than the reverb) and singers who didn't even hit the notes properly.

1988 was the only year this happened, yes

gibby hits all the right notes

by attrition

1988 would be the start of "alternative" music as a genre in the minds of the major labels. Didn't the Pixes, SY, MBV, and Dino jr. all put out their next records on majors.

what? i would say most people would say "acid house" was the big thing from 88, probably followed by that late 80s wave of hip hop like public enemy, epmd, nwa etc...

I'm not sure what your issue is with my statement. Apart from a few exceptions house was pretty much entirely a singles medium. Hip hop was already flourishing as an albums medium by '88.

I wouldn't say it was fluorishing exactly, more like just getting started

Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane
Pet Shop Boys - Introspective

what? i would say most people would say "acid house" was the big thing from 88, probably followed by that late 80s wave of hip hop like public enemy, epmd, nwa etc...

I'm not sure what your issue is with my statement. Apart from a few exceptions house was pretty much entirely a singles medium. Hip hop was already flourishing as an albums medium by '88.

― Billy Dods, Thursday, 6 November 2008 23:27

it was the bit about "the revisionism of today" i don't think there is really much revisionism in that regard.

If you look at what was popular in the hitlists in 1988, Stock/Aitken/Waterman pwned the entire year. At least in UK and Europe.

And in the US, it was hair metal.

y'know I dl'd a bunch of PSB stuff recently with fairly fond memories of them as clever synth popsters and I gotta say I was appalled by the overall shitty sound of their most famous material. The string patches! The drum hits! The wimpy, barely-even-singing vocals! Their production aesthetic is just so weirdly dated and unadventurous. I was disappointed.

x-post

maybe I should post this on a PSB thread hah

''hair metal and dance''

1988 in total was just a big set up for Trent Reznor's dynasty.

^^^
The seeds were certainly sown by then

y'know I dl'd a bunch of PSB stuff recently with fairly fond memories of them as clever synth popsters and I gotta say I was appalled by the overall shitty sound of their most famous material. The string patches! The drum hits! The wimpy, barely-even-singing vocals! Their production aesthetic is just so weirdly dated and unadventurous. I was disappointed.

The string patches and barely-even-singing vocals are two of the most memorable elements, I'd say. And Tennant's vocals on "Why Don't We Live Together?" and "Kings Cross" are hardly that.

Pet Shop Boys have always strived to sound very much up-to-date with the latest trends. Which will always mean they will run the risk of sounding dated a few years later.

IMO, the only albums of theirs that sound really dated are "Actually" and "Introspective", simply because late 80s keyboard/electronic based music tends to sound very dated these days (hard sampling sounds, FM synths, hardly no "soft" analog sounds at all).

~~max's fresh 10 '88 edition~~

"top billin" - audio two
"snappiness" - bbg
"twist of cain" - danzig
"jibaro" - electra
"good life (magic juan mix)" - inner city
"cars with the boom" - l'trimm
"fairytale of new york" - the pogues
"children's story" - slick rick
"the rainbow" - talk talk
"tweeter & the monkey man" - traveling wilburys

Re. the Pet Shop Boys. The big shift that occurred in dance, hip hop and r&b production between the late '80s and the early to mid '90s, and which filtered through to the dance-pop of the day, was the replacement of brittle, thin sound with a much fatter, rawer sound. The digital presets of the '80s generation of synths was gradually replaced by more heavy reliance on samples and analog synths. But not just that, the style of eq changed. Things became murkier and murkier. Hip hop and DIY House, either by accident (ie necessity - being limited to cheap, basic equipment) or design, went for a rawer sound. For some reason the Pet Shop Boys persisted with a thinner, over-eq'd sound. I remember thinking during that period that I really disliked their production sound. They modified it a bit by the mid '90, though, bringing themselves back on track with the general trends.

But referring to that general early '90s rawness, some of it sounds pretty painful to me now. I can't believe how bass-heavy and muddy many of the typical 909 kicks sound now.

re: the PSB - everything I grabbed (which was mostly just the hits, I confess - Let's Make Lots of Money, West End Girls, Suburbia, You Were Always On My Mind, etc.) sounded like a shitty DX-7 preset. Totally agree about the over EQd/brittleness of the sound.

I like the PSB, but I still don't like Introspection. I know it's what the critics back then said about it re: "more songs, less length", but it's too bad because I think PSB proved they could put out a great long-disco-track album -- i.e. the first Disco, of course -- it's a remix album, but I feel it has just as much an identity as Please or Actually.

As far as PSB in 1988 goes, all is forgiven nonetheless because the single edit of "Left To My Own Devices" is their greatest achievement to date.

I don't think these have been mentioned yet--

Slayer - South Of Heaven
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Tender Prey
EPMD - Strictly Business
The Jungle Brothers - Straight Out The Jungle
Boogie Down Productions - By All Means Necessary
Ultramagnetic MCs - Critical Beatdown
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From The Grace Of God
Soul Asylum - Hang Time
Galaxie 500 - Today
Eric B. & Rakim - Follow the Leader
Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
Ministry - The Land Of Rape And Honey
Beat Happening - Jamboree
Bongwater - Double Bummer
Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
Big Daddy Kane - Long Live the Kane
Slick Rick - The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Prince - Lovesexy
Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man
Metallica - ...And Justice For All

Prefab Sprout - Langley Park
Microdisney - 39 Minutes
REM - Green

Those also not mentioned. Sure I'm missing some stuff. Favourite overall, of all the splenid alberms from this yer, probably Spirit of Eden.

"splendid"

how good is Operation Mindcrime? One of my good friends from my last job is all about Queensryche, and he told me that that album was a classic-and-a-half...

Actually, there was a lot of good albums this year...

Although released in August 1987, it took until 1988 for it to define nearly every Hip-Hop album (1987 used it mostly on singles, and wasn't nationwide yet)
http://www.samplist.com/sp1200_f.GIF
Before this, Rap music was directed more by studio enginners and executive producers. This was the moment Hip-Hop moved to bedrooms for pre-production.

Then Play Long reaches the world of New Jersey via Bon Jovi, but not before noticing that there's a ton of rock (1n 1988) elsewhere: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bon-jovi-new-jersey.html

― agincourtgirl, zaterdag 23 mei 2015 15:49

I somehow was able to hear different versions of "Fairytale of New York" multiple times over the past couple weeks without getting too sick of 'em, so I went back to the album for the first time in about 25 years. As usual at Rancho Bulboso, things escalated from there.

https://fastnbulbous.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lucky-88.jpg

https://fastnbulbous.com/lucky-88/