FEATURE:
Ending the Decade in Style!
PHOTO CREDIT: @divandor/Unsplash
Part I/V: The Finest Albums of 1989
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THE reason I want to put together a new feature…
PHOTO CREDIT: @akshayspaceship/Unsplash
is to shine a light on the albums that end a decade with a huge bang. I feel it is hard to define what a decade is about and how it evolves but the first and last years are crucial. Entering a decade with a big album is a great way to stand out and, similarly, ending it with something stunning is vital. It can be hard leaving a brilliant and bountiful decade of music but I wanted to shine a light on the artists who brought out albums that did justice; gave hope the next decade would be full, exciting and brilliant. I will do a five-part series about albums that opened a decade with panache but, right now, the first in a five-part feature that collates the best decade-enders from the 1960s, 1970s; 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. I am starting with 1989 and the best ten records from the year. The 1980s get a reputation as being a bit naff and dodgy but I would contest this. The 1990s is a wondrous and fabulous time and bridging that gap was a hard task. The 1980s had some iffy years – 1986 and 1983 produced few genuine standouts – but it was an incredible decade that provided some world-class records. A lot of them came in 1989 and, as I show, prove the decade had its share of innovation, brilliance and promise. Have a look at the essential ten 1989-released records and recall – if you were alive then… – a year that bade farewell to a brilliant decade…
PHOTO CREDIT: @mero_dnt/Unsplash
IN style!
ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images
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The Cure – Disintegration
Release Date: 2nd May, 1989
Label: Fiction
Review:
“Expanding the latent arena rock sensibilities that peppered Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by slowing them down and stretching them to the breaking point, the Cure reached the peak of their popularity with the crawling, darkly seductive Disintegration. It's a hypnotic, mesmerizing record, comprised almost entirely of epics like the soaring, icy "Pictures of You." The handful of pop songs, like the concise and utterly charming "Love Song," don't alleviate the doom-laden atmosphere. The Cure's gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring, however, and the songs -- from the pulsating, ominous "Fascination Street" to the eerie, string-laced "Lullaby" -- have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable. It's fitting that Disintegration was their commercial breakthrough, since, in many ways, the album is the culmination of all the musical directions the Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s” – AllMusic
Standout Track: Pictures of You
Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
Release Date: 25th July, 1989
Label: Capitol
Review:
“While each member has their spotlight moments—MCA’s pedal-down tour de force fast-rap exhibition in “Year and a Day,” Mike D having too much to drink at the Red Lobster on “Mike on the Mic,” and Ad-Rock’s charmingly venomous tirade against coke-snorting Hollywood faux-ingénues in “3-Minute Rule”—Paul's Boutique is where their back-and-forth patter really reached its peak. At the start of their career, they built off the tag-team style popularized by Run-DMC, but by ’89 they'd developed it to such an extent and to such manic, screwball ends that they might as well have been drawing off the Marx Brothers as well. It’s impossible to hear the vast majority of this album as anything other than a locked-tight group effort, with its overlapping lyrics and shouted three-man one-liners, and it’s maybe best displayed in the classic single “Shadrach.” After years of post-Def Jam limbo and attempts to escape out from under the weight of a fratboy parody that got out of hand, they put together a defiant, iconographic statement of purpose that combined giddy braggadocio with weeded-out soul-searching. It’s the tightest highlight on an album full of them, a quick-volleying, line-swapping 100-yard dash capped off with the most confident possible delivery of the line “They tell us what to do? Hell no!” – Pitchfork
Standout Track: Shake Your Rump
Pixies – Doolittle
Release Date: 17th April, 1989 (U.K.)/18th April, 1989 (U.S.)
Labels: AD; Elektra (initial U.S. distribution)
Review:
“Wouldn't it be wild if quirky alternative rockers like Pere Ubu and the Swans (each now on major labels) turned out to be in 1989 what sensitive folkie types were in 1988? If that happens, the Pixies' second album should reach the top of the charts.
Unlikely. But, if it did, it would probably start with the Boston quartet's song "Here Comes Your Man," a sweet 'n' summery cross of the Tremeloes' '67 pop hit "Here Comes My Baby," Them's "Here Comes the Night" and the Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man." Way cool, indeed, but no less so than the flip of the coin that follows immediately, the fractured horror-flick tune "Dead," a yowling hunka anti-pop. The neat thing is that this major bit of, um, Pixilation doesn't come off as coy or arch, but dovetails to form a serious/curious dichotomy not unlike that of the Sugarcubes.
The hands-down highlight, however, is the cello-mellowed "Monkey Gone to Heaven." Here, singer-guitarist Black Francis (ne Charles Thompson) suspends himself halfway between his winking and wicked extremes for a majestic yet dry elegy to humanity's follies, with bassist Kim Deal's indifferent reading of the title phrase bold-facing Francis' understated confusion and anger. The prototype for thoughtful, creative and bracing pop in the '90s? We can only hope” – Los Angeles Times
Standout Track: Debaser
New Order – Technique
Release Date: 30th January, 1989
Label: Factory
Review:
“Technique was the group's most striking production job, with the single "Fine Time" proving a close runner-up to "Blue Monday" as the most extroverted dance track in the band's catalog. Opening the record, it was a portrait of a group unrecognizable from its origins, delivering lascivious and extroverted come-ons amid pounding beats. It appeared that dance had fully taken over from rock, with the guitars and bass only brought in for a quick solo or bridge. But while pure dance was the case for the singles "Fine Time" and "Round & Round," elsewhere New Order were still delivering some of the best alternative pop around, plaintive and affecting songs like "Run" (the third single), "Love Less," and "Dream Attack." Placed in the perfect position to deliver the definitive alternative take on house music, the band produced another classic record” – AllMusic
Standout Track: Run
Kate Bush – The Sensual World
Release Date: 16th October, 1989
Labels: EMI; Columbia (U.S.)
Review:
“Goddess or gooney bird? Even some of this English progressive popstress' loyalists sometimes have to wonder. Though on 1985's "Hounds of Love" Bush stripped away many of the quirks of youthful exuberance that had marred her unique approach, some will always find her attention-getting vocals precious and her quasi-cosmic outlook and naked emotionalism off-putting. But this, her first album since "Hounds," is even more mature and accomplished. As Bush herself sings in "The Fog," "You see, I'm all grown up now."
The glorious Trio Bulgarka sings on three songs, further expanding Bush's already thoroughly developed world vision--perhaps only Peter Gabriel melds so many cultural elements with such seamless flair. But it's the how , not the what , that distinguishes her accomplishments.
Listen to the mournful Balkan wail that punctuates "Deeper Understanding's" look at loneliness in the computer age. No Post-Modern irony or juxtaposition here; rather, the combination transforms the song into a wide-eyed-wonderful essay on the human condition, with all the sensuality promised in the album title. It's enough to make you go, well, gooney” – Los Angeles Times
Standout Track: This Woman’s Work
The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
Release Date: 2nd May, 1989
Label: Silvertone
Review:
“Compared to the dark, macho Mancunians who came swaggering in their wake, the beauty of this mythological debut twenty years later is its light, almost feminine beauty.
The album’s second reissue – coming in enough formats to appeal to everyone from casual converts to old fanatics – polishes up the gang’s ultraconfident blend of sun-drenched, jangly psychedelia and whip-smart, dance floor rhythms, while still conjuring the giddy excitement of acid-house: “Kiss me where the sun don’t shine/ The past was yours but the future’s mine” – The Daily Telegraph
Standout Track: I Am the Resurrection
Janet Jackson – Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814
Release Date: 19th September, 1989
Label: A&M
Review:
“In 1989, protest songs were common in rap but rare in R&B -- Janet Jackson, following rap's lead, dares to address social and political topics on "The Knowledge," the disturbing "State of the World," and the poignant ballad "Living in a World" (which decries the reality of children being exposed to violence). Jackson's voice is wafer-thin, and she doesn't have much of a range -- but she definitely has lots of soul and spirit and uses it to maximum advantage on those gems as well as nonpolitical pieces ranging from the Prince-influenced funk/pop of "Miss You Much" and "Alright" to the caressing, silky ballads "Someday Is Tonight," "Alone," and "Come Back to Me" to the pop/rock smoker "Black Cat." For those purchasing their first Janet Jackson release, Rhythm Nation would be an even wiser investment than Control -- and that's saying a lot” – AllMusic
Standout Track: Rhythm Nation
Neneh Cherry – Raw Like Sushi
Release Date: 5th June, 1989
Label: Virgin
Review:
“Produced by a shifting team of young musicians, the most established of whom is Tim Simenon of Bomb the Bass, Raw Like Sushi never runs out of tricky beats. Whether incorporating Latin freestyle ("Kisses on the Wind") or go-go percussion ("Inna City Mamma"), the production ensemble eschews the easier option of sampling for its own catchy thump and consistently matches Cherry's bravado with episodic surprises. During the last several years, many musicians have built retirement funds by imitating the musical and sexual paths of Prince and Madonna. Neneh Cherry may be the first newcomer inspired by them who also poses a threat to their preeminence” – Rolling Stone
Standout Track: Buffalo Stance
Soul II Soul – Club Classics Vol. One
Release Date: 10th April, 1989
Label: Virgin
Review:
“Twisting voluptuous female soul vocals (Caron Wheeler, Rose Windross, the late Do'Reen Waddell) with rare groove-styled dance beats gave Soul II Soul a niche that would see them win a broad array of fans worldwide. Back To Life (However Do You Want Me), their best-recognised hit, is a classic example of this musical melting pot.
Keep On Movin' –another key anthem- was the group’s first real mainstream success (Fairplay only made it to 63 in the UK charts) and came at a time when American artists saturated the R&B scene. Founder Jazzie B made his record label more than happy as the track hit number five in the UK and number one on the US R&B chart.
Much like Bristol's trip-hop supergroup, Massive Attack, Soul II Soul have had a huge and important effect on black British music. Like Massive Attack's Blue Lines, Club Classics Vol. 1 is one of those rare albums that make you want to listen to every single track, over and over, again and again. Something most musicians can but dream of” – BBC
Standout Track: Keep on Movin’
Madonna – Like a Prayer
Release Date: 21st March, 1989
Label: Sire
Review:
“So maybe Madonna’s protests that Like a Prayer wasn’t autobiographical were a bit of a ruse—or just another way to keep the minds of America’s pop-watchers thinking about her music as she gave them an album where she was less afraid to show her flaws, more willing to try on new personas that had bits of her selves attached. After all, as she told The New York Times in 1989, “What I do is total commercialism, but it’s also art.” Like a Prayer straddles those two ideals with gusto, with even its less satisfying moments adding to the heat given off by the MTV era’s brightest star” – Pitchfork
Standout Track: Like a Prayer