The return to a more organic sound that would define the best
nineties rock was still a distant pipe dream in 1988, yet there is a sense of
new birth and rebirth in the best music of a generally stale year. Morrissey
and Keith Richards stepped outside of bands either seemingly dead or most
sincerely dead to make worthwhile solo debuts. Jane’s Addiction
slithered out of the sleazy Sunset Strip scene that gave us the hair metal
polluting the era and put a scary, junkie spin on the metal revival that felt
far less mannered than Axl Rose’s whining. The Pixies and My Bloody Valentine—
perhaps the two most influential bands on the coming decade— both released
striking debuts too. Meanwhile two of the most influential bands of the waning
eighties released L.P.’s that found them inching closer toward genuine
superstardom (though only one would truly snatch the coveted ring). So for a
year dominated by the likes of Def Leppard, Whitney Houston, Tiffany, Debbie
Gibson, Rick Astley, and White Snake, 1988 still managed its share of great
discs. Here are ten.
10. Viva Hate by Morrissey
Just days after the release of Strangeways, Here We Come, Morrissey was
already at work on his solo debut, and Viva
Hate is a different beast from the final Smiths record. While The Smiths sound
was always distinct from contemporary trends, Viva Hate and its gated, glossy Stephen Street production is pure
eighties and completely lacks the distinct musicianship Johnny Marr and Andy
Rourke brought to every Smiths session. Viva
Hate sounds like Morrissey’s bid for solo stardom, but his writhing
discontent and all-around disagreeableness could never have put him in
competition with Rick Astley. Take the utterly sweet sounding “Bengali in
Platforms”, which can be interpreted as either an in-character snapshot of
Thatcher-era racism or just an honest expression of Morrissey’s own shitty
opinions about immigration and race, which he has become more comfortable
expressing in recent years. Either way, it does not stir feelings of comfort.
“Everyday Is Like Sunday”, Morrissey’s definitive solo number, is considerably
less distasteful, though his wishes of seeing a dull seaside holiday town nuked
into oblivion is hardly hit parade fare. His anger is most justified on
“Margaret on the Guillotine”, though the lyric is devoid of insight (he wants
her executed because she makes him feel old and tired…not because of her
inhuman policies?) and the airy music never touches ground. Street and
Morrissey grumpiness meet on common ground in “Angel, Angel Down We Go
Together” in which Morrissey finally reveals a degree of humanity by offering
some very Morrissey comfort to a suicidal friend and Street lays on a string
arrangement owing more to “Eleanor Rigby” than “The Long and Winding Road”. “Suedehead”
is the most-Smiths like number on the disc and arguably the finest. Now if only
Morrissey would shut the fuck up so I could still enjoy listening to his music.
9. Talk Is Cheap by Keith Richards
Even the most loyal Stones fan had to admit that things were
getting really embarrassing in the eighties. Releasing fairly undistinguished
albums like Emotional Rescue and Undercover was one thing. Embracing the
worst tendencies of eighties production while tossing off utterly worthless
material was another thing. Strangely, Dirty
Work, the unchallenged nadir of The Rolling Stones’ career, was more Keith
Richards doing than Mick Jagger’s. Maybe Keith was trying to compete with
Mick’s insipid solo album She’s the Boss.
Who the fuck knows? The one clear thing in the mid-eighties mire is that the
Stones had reached a dead end and needed to refresh. Keith cleared out the
cobwebs by doing something he always promised he’d never do: go solo. This was
more like it. The loose riffs, the layer of grit, the songs built more on
grooves than bogus melodic, lyrical, or production concepts. Talk Is Cheap sounded a lot more like a
Rolling Stones album than anything the Stones had done in years, and in light
of middle-aged Jagger’s awful vocal mannerisms, Keith’s grungy growl was like a
breath of air both fresh and stanking of Marlboros and screwdrivers. There was
even a degree of diversity, as Keith dabbled with rubbery fifties boogie on “I
Could Have Stood You Up”, funk (complete with Bootsy Collins and Maceo Parker) on
“Big Enough”, luxurious Al Green soul on “Make No Mistake”, and earnest
balladry on “Locked Away”, though much of the other material is somewhat
indistinct, particularly on side B. No matter, because even that stuff sounds
great.
8. Starfish by The Church
Is frizzy session guitarist Waddy Watchel the great, unsung
MVP of 1988? He subbed for Ronnie Wood, dueling with Keith on Talk Is Cheap and coproduced Starfish for
the brooding Church. Watchel and Greg Ladanyi draw from the more complimentary
production nuances that went out of style after 1983 or so, so Starfish ends up sounding retro in ways
the Australian neo-psychedelicists probably did not intend. At a time when
similar artists such as The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen were exploring the
bigger sounds of the late eighties, The Church kept the embers alight for a
more intimate sensibility fading into the recent past. That combination of alluring
sound and sullen pop songwriting resulted in the year’s best single, though
“Under the Milky Way” is just one of the fine tracks on Starfish. “Destination”, “Lost”, and all of Side B (which includes the
excellent follow-up single “Reptile”) are proof that The Church did not expend
all of their inspiration on their defining song.
7. Globe of Frogs by Robyn Hitchcock
and the Egyptians
Robyn Hitchcock frankensteined insane songwriting,
lugubrious singing, and pop hooks better than anyone since Syd Barrett, and his
mad scientist skills reached a delectable head on Globe of Frogs. With guest spots for Glen Tilbrook’s dulcet voice
and Peter Buck’s chiming Rickenbacker, Globe
of Frogs certainly feels like Hitchcock’s own bid for the big time, and the
success of “Balloon Man” (a song originally composed for The Bangles [!]) got
him about as close as he’d ever come. Yet as ctachy and impeccably produced as
“Balloon Man”, the glorious “Vibrating”, “Sleeping with Your Devil Mask”,
“Unsettled”, “Flesh Number One (Beatles Dennis)”, and the concert staple “Chinese
Bones” are, it’s tough feature what radio listeners would have made of such
ghastly dementia as “Their rotting brains fell to the floor and crawled away
towards the door” or “And her eyeballs had rolled up so her pupils had
vanished.” Back in the cult closet with you, Mr. Hitchcock.
6. Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s
Addiction
In the late eighties, the hairspray-splattered Sunset Strip scene
seemed less likely to produce anything remotely worth hearing than Phil Collins
(at least Phil used to back Peter Gabriel). That’s why Jane’s Addiction came as
such a surprise. In high contrast to the forced decadence of Guns ‘N Roses or Mötley
Crüe, Jane’s Addiction wreaked of authenticity, stripping away all the cock
rock posturing and tacky glamour of their neighbors. While Vince Neal and Axl
Rose were screeching about fucking strippers, Perry Farrell was spitting
bitterness about the non-existence of God and the idiocy of politicians, surveying
the wasteland of televised terror, and meditating on the hollowness of
masculinity while pissing down his leg and whacking off in the shower as Dave
Navarro and Eric Avery discharged riffs reminiscent of Led Zeppelin at their
funkiest. While the poseurs were branching out with power pap like “Sweet Child
O’Mine” and “You’re All I Need”, Jane’s Addiction were shaping “Jane Says”, a sincerely
touching pre-eulogy to a junkie girlfriend, and the gorgeous and nostalgic
“Summertime Rolls”. No new band seemed either primed to achieve superstardom or
immediately implode as Jane’s Addiction did in 1988. The fact that they didn’t
quite do either further distinguished them from their bullshit peers.
5. Isn’t Anything by My Bloody
Valentine
Encouraged by Creation Records’ Alan McGee to probe beyond
the tuneful but relatively generic indie pop of their early singles, My Bloody
Valentine flooded their still tuneful songs with dissonant seepage on their
first album. The resulting record is not as legendary as Loveless, but Isn’t Anything
is a better entry to My Bloody Valentine’s work. You older old timers can think
of it as MBV’s Safe As Milk to Loveless’ Trout Mask Replica. Or you could just think of it as Isn’t Anything, because as all great
albums do, it stands up beautifully without putting it into any glib context.
For a listener like me who most frequently returns to strong pop songwriting,
it is the best My Bloody Valentine record because the noise has yet to get so dense
that you sometimes have to grope blindly for the hooks. The stop-starting “Soft
as Snow”, the ominous acoustics of “Lose My Breath”, the sneering strut of
“Cupid Come”, the cosmic-debris trailing rush of (When You Wake) You’re Still
in a Dream”, and nearly everything else would hold up as great songs regardless
of the art production. About halfway through the album, Kevin Shields starts
dropping in more songs that are as dramatic, demanding, and delirious as anything
on Loveless, though when tracks such
as “No More Sorry” and “All I Need” share space with somewhat more conventional
productions such as “Feed Me with Your Kiss”, they stand out more than they
would if they’d been buried on Loveless.
4. Peepshow by Siouxsie and the
Banshees
Siouxsie and the Banshees abandoned the sustained abrasiveness
that defined their early work for good with Tinderbox.
Peepshow doubles down on that move
toward a more marketable sound with out-and-out opulence. Mike Hedges and the
bands’ production is like a satchel of jewels: rich, dazzling, multicolored,
polished, and cold. And there’s as much variation between tracks as there is
between an emerald and an amethyst. “Peek-a-Boo”, a big spew of disgust at the
dubious entertainment name checked in the LP’s title, is serpentine psychedelic swing: all backward loops and automaton accordion. “The Killing
Jar” is a race across verdant panoramas. “Scarecrow” is spindly,
moonbeam-stabbed trees. “Carousel” is malevolent circus music. “Burn Up” is a demonic hoedown. “The Last Beat of My Heart” takes the deluxe production to
extremes with palatial orchestrations. The stomach-churning “Rawhead and
Bloodybones” is the closest Peepshow
comes to revisiting the old avant gardism, though even this freak show has an
underlying sweetness. With its beauty and use of shiny production to bring out
the most in its eclectic tracks rather than court the charts— as the band would
with their next and far less successful disc— Peepshow stands as the peak of Siouxsie and the Banshees’
“commercial” period.
3. Green by R.E.M.
Even when they put out “Kiss Them for Me”, Siouxsie and the
Banshees remained too out there to truly cross over. With their clean
tunefulness and traditionally structured songwriting, R.E.M. only had to want
it to hit the big time. By Green,
they clearly wanted it. The U2-like “Orange Crush” and the ear-worming “Stand”
and “Pop Song 89” all went top twenty on one Billboard chart or another
(somehow, the equally perfect “Get Up” didn’t manage to chart anywhere though).
These are all slamming, extroverted tracks, yet the heart of Green lies in its smaller tracks.
Reflecting the rusticity implied in the album title, Peter Buck sets aside his
Rickenbacker to jangle his mandolin on “You Are the Everything”, “The Wrong
Child”, and “Hairshirt”, creating a new R.E.M. sound as defining as the
electric jangle still evident in “World Leader Pretend” and “Untitled”. Michael
Stipe continues to focus and clarify his lyric writing. Sometimes this works,
as when he plays a self-doubting politician stumbling into destruction on
“World Leader Pretend”. Sometimes it doesn’t, as when he plays a little boy
taunted for his mental disabilities on “The Wrong Child”. Nevertheless, Green is still the most consistent album
of R.E.M.’s mandolin phase.
2. Surfer Rosa by The Pixies
Just 20 minutes long, Come
on Pilgrim is almost an album. There is no question what Surfer Rosa is even as anything that
dumps together all the shrieking, bopping, melodicizing, feed backing, surfing,
and sloppy Spanish of The Pixies’ first truly long-playing long player is still
indefinable. Actually, Surfer Rosa is
just 13 minutes longer than Come on
Pilgrim, but it definitely sounds huger than that, packing in nearly twice
as many songs and thundering with Steve Albini’s production, which would make a
flute solo sound like a herd of rampaging mastodons. Indeed, Surfer Rosa is a more powerful disc than
Come on Pilgrim, though some slight
songwriting makes it feel less substantial in some ways. Yet even the lesser
songs like “Something Against You” and “Broken Face” leave stains. When Black
Francis’s songwriting is sharp, it is a stiletto in the eyeball. “Bone
Machine”, “Break My Body”, and “Where Is My Mind?” are absolute classics, as important
to their era and the era around the bend as anything on Green or Nothing’s Shocking.
So is “Gigantic”, the first taste of the songwriting powers that would give Kim
Deal the serious case of the George Harrisons that eventually prodded her to breed
with a kindred spirit from the next band on our list…
1. House Tornado by Throwing Muses
… The Pixies were scatological; Throwing Muses were
literate. The Pixies made simplicity sound complex; Throwing Muses made
intricacy sound effortless. The Pixies became a defining band of their era, influencing
Nirvana and nearly every other nineties artist worth a damn; Throwing Muses
remained an oblique obscurity. But when it comes down to it, the Muses had more
treasures in their attic even if they never made an album as good as Doolittle (how many did?). Hunkpapa didn’t stand a chance against
it in 1989, but in 1988, the Muses came out on top as far as I’m concerned. House Tornado is the greatest statement
from their original line up, and though I personally prefer The Real
Ramona, much was lost when Leslie Langston and her pirouetting bass left
the fold. It dances all over House
Tornado. The torrential strumming of Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly flood
the ground beneath as Hersh’s gale wail rains above. The combined noise is vicious
yet elegant, violent yet soothing, thoroughly modern yet as eerily antiqued as
a torn sepia photo trapped under an eiderdown of cobwebs. While Doolittle became the album to name check, House
Tornado hid in secret whispers of the chilly joy of “Colder”, the
angularity of “Mexican Women”, the sunny break of “Juno”, the sugar rush of
Donelly’s “The River”, the runaway shadows of “Saving Grace”, and the sheer
magic of “Walking in the Dark”, the finest song of Throwing Muses’ career and
1988.
