Bordertown - Joe King Carrasco. Album of Special Merit. This man had 2 good albums and one great one. This is the great one. Raved-up Tex-Mex, ska and rockabilly. Funny stuff, in general, but also a hint of politics. Cool party music about tequila, tacos and cucarachas...This was the hit of an all-Coors party I attended and got abducted by an Amazon corporate executive... but, I digress....
Diamond Life - Sade. Phenomenally sultry stay-in music for Friday nights and your honey. Mellow Island-flavored jazz-pop by a Ms. with molasses for a voice and greatly subtle arrangements.
Dream of the Blue Turtles - Sting. Yeah, some songs annoy me in their English teacher wordplay, but Mr. Marsalis and crew's improvs spice up such would-be clunkers as that hit about "barbed wire" and even "Russians." "Shadows in the Rain," the song off Zenyatta by the Police is improved greatly here by a swing feel. Daring debut twist from a commercial success.
Fishbone - Fishbone. EP of Special Merit. These California turkeys way-influenced 90s ska. Hilarious debut, some members in their teens. They were tossing horns back and forth to each other on stage at Rockitz when I saw them. Breakneck pacing, featuring "Party At Ground Zero" and "Lyin' Ass Bitch" (hysterical ending).
Head on the Door - The Cure. Probably one of their top 2 albums in my book. Features the songs we heard 10 million times in clubs; "In Between Days" and "Close To Me." The album cuts are the most solid Cure ones, methinks. In fact, they helped the alternate hits album (cassette only) rule the following year.
Internationalists - Style Council. Slicker than the debut, softer, but some very good jazzy soul stuff. I loved the whole mid-80s Brit Soul movement. Big Sound Authority, Tracy Young and others had nice single releases.
Krush Groove - Movie Soundtrack. The New Hard Hip-Hop announces its arrival. Beastie Boys ripoff a riff from Cheap Trick's "Stiff Competition" in "She's On It," available only here, I believe. Solid/humorous material by others.
Little Creatures - Talking Heads. A record my roomates blared constantly. I liked it better than Speaking In Tongues. "Road to Nowhere," "And She Was" (also played that one in a band) are featured. David Byrne was starting to sing less weird and write more traditional pop songs at this point.
Love - Cult. Are they metal? Are they New Wave? Who cares? This is some nice melodic yet macho dancefloor hard rock. The previous album was psychedelic Goth while this one goes more mainstream Wave; the next two were good, increasingly more metallic. "She Sells Sanctuary" was a simple club hit I played in bands. The singing is old-school belting and the guitars rock out more than most Wavers, but with less hypercrush than the metallers.
Lost & Found - Jason & the Nashville Scorchers. Album of Special Merit. Some called it Southern Rock. I can hear the coming of Late-90s New Country all through this. Great guitar playing on fast, cranked-up roots rock. A minor hit was "Shop It Around" and there is a Hank Senior cover, too.
Luxury Condos Coming To Your Neighborhood Soon - Various Artists. Song of Special Merit. "Sleep With The Angels" by the Wygals is one of those rare tunes that makes me feel like my soul is soaring; that it's not just a bunch of words and chords and beats and notes. I couldn't tell that to Janet Wygal when our eyes met on my 21st birthday that summer. They opened for the dB's; whose members and others round out this good American underground sampler. Wygals did a re-recording of "Sleep" on their l.p. that lacked the intensity here.
Mars Needs Guitars - Hoodoo Gurus. Saw them this tour and later. LOUD! Unique-sounding Australians. It is hard to classify their sound. Straight rock with cranked guitars, yet not metallic, not New Wave; a dancier CCR with less folk influence. "Death-Defying" is the song that says "oo-we" a billion times. "Bittersweet" was a college hit.
Meat Is Murder - Smiths. This record grew on me. My older sister and a girlfriend both adored it. The combination of grinding yet sensitive music with lyrics portraying a sense of loss really hit together coolly. "What She Said" and "I Want the One I Can't Have" fit this mode, while "Well, I Wonder" is a beautiful, brooding jazzy beat-ballad with serious deep crooning.
Playground - The Truth. Album of Special Merit. This was more George Michaelian than most my friends liked. Well-crafted poprock: ringing guitars and keyboards over Motown beats with hoarsely sweet brash singing.
Rattlesnakes - Lloyd Cole & the Commotions. Very good songs, especially "Perfect Skin." Almost spoken lyrics dealing with a variety of interpersonal conflicts. Fits well upside Springsteen/Joe Jackson/Parker/Costello a la 1979.
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash - the Pogues. Celtic folk music banged out by Drunk Irish Bastards. "Sally MacLennane" is a great example of the melodic nod to Tradition these almost-punkers gave. Tin whistles, fiddles, accordions, various alcholics pounding on drums and shouting in the background highlight a kewel session. These blokes drank port wine right out the bottles onstage, the singer with an evil graveyard of teefus.
Scarecrow - John Cougar Mellencamp. I think the last single I ever bought was "Small Town." John always had gems among embarrassing Heartland odes. This album added a touch of Motown. "R.O.C.K. in the USA" is almost too mainstream for me, but "Minutes to Memories" ranks as one of his best tunes. I bought Lonesome Jubilee for that other gem; "Cherry Bomb" and was overall disappointed.
Steady Nerves - Graham Parker & the Shot. "Wake Up Next To You" is one of 3 Great Soul tunes Parker did ("Hold Back the Night" and "I Want You Back," the others.) He opended up for Clapton this tour and I did miss it, by God. Once again, heard the dregs of the gig standing in the doorway with an almost-beautiful girl who was starting to like me; had a thing against buying into coliseum gigs by New Wave Royalty. This album was more like Whitney Houston than I was ready for at the time.
Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega. This one does not have "Luka," but does have "Marlene on the Wall." Cool twists to folky songs. Her telling, whispering breaths appealed to me. My bass player met her and got her to autograph a cool poster of the album cover. She said "oh yeah, I had the jacket in that picture stolen from my hotel room in Paris." Secondary brushes with greatness...Hey, I have been to Paris, Virginia.
Tales of the New West - Beat Farmers. Cowpunk meets Blasters-type rockabilly. They do a cover of "There She Goes Again" by Velvet Underground. Also features my little pop hero Vicki Petersen on guest harmonies and Montana Dick blowing the harmonica. He formed the Pleasure Barons in the mid-90s with Mojo Nixon; their live Vegas album is raucous and funny. M.D. died of a heart attack onstage near the end of 1995.
Telephone Free Landslide Victory - Camper Van Beethoven. David Lowery went on to form Cracker. Still lives in Richmond. This is a great romp. Country-rock, international folk and a lot of ska. Liberal doses of humor.
The High Hard One - Neighborhoods. Live Band of Special Merit. Saw them in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987. Good almost-Mod trio from Boston. I think this is their first long-player. "W.U.S.A." kicks off the fun and "Unfaithful" shows them introspective. Very much like the more exuberant songs by The Who in 1968 - 1972.
The Hounds of Love - Kate Bush. Finally, an album where her singing has dropped in pitch and no longer attracts dogs. Her 1978 debut only tops this for great songs. Sweet Kate turned 40 this July 31. Knew a keyboard player who had an homage to her, complete with mirrors and candles...Pretty introspective tunes in the early 70s Folk tradition, also a lot in common with the experimental new age biz. Symphonies of keyboards lushly played. Keen sense of lyrical melody. There is a live version somewhere of "Running Up That Hill" with Pink Floyd and Mark Knopfler; I thought commercially catchy, though not a hit in the States. Let's face it. We suck.
"The Wishing Chair" - 10,000 Maniacs. The leadoff track about the train is great. This one is faster and more quirky than subsequent big hits they released. Natalie sat on the steps at PB Kelly's that year; drew a picture and wrote a poem for this dude that played in our group. It was totally unintelligble.
"Tim" - Replacements. Album of Special Merit. Their heaviest-punching record, although it closes with the stunning Ray Davies-like acoustic ballad "Here Comes a Regular:" (Well, a person can work up a mean, mean thirst after a hard day of nothing much at all...) "Little Mascara" features a stumbling-into-greatness guitar solo and "Left of the Dial" documents our precious dying young adulthood. Paul Westerberg, I thought was the best rock songwriter of the decade. I had this on one side of a tape with the Scorchers on the other.
"Twelve Jealous Roses" - Dancing Hoods. Album of Special Merit. Rock'n'Roll defined: cranked guitars, sing-along melodies and a joyous beat to make the most feeble feet tap; this could've/should've topped the charts in 1975, 1985 or 1995. My bandmate played in a band with their guitarist Mark in high school. Mark went up to NYC at 18, married a 40-year-old with 4 kids and joined this seriously underrated band. The D-Hoods singer was this black kid who almost sounded white; emotional performances in crafted songs that are never sappy, yet have this yearning quality. "She May Call You Up Tonight" and "Changes" feature everyone bursting in Beach Boys' type harmonies. "Build a House" (what an ending) still pulls me up at the end of hard days. Someone please release this on CD with 1984's EP!
"Wild Child" - Untouchables. Dressed in skinny ties, porkpie hats, black suits and pitched as a ska band, these gentlemen had more in common with Soul acts--Otis Redding, in particular--of the late 60s. Title track reels hard. I had an extended mix of the gorgeous "What's Gone Wrong" that went on for 20 minutes and changed keys like five times. It had lush harmonies and was just plain touching (see Style Council 1984).
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