Paul McCartney - Flowers in the Dirt POLL

Checking Wiki,I had no idea "Hope of Deliverance" was bigger worldwide than the Flowers singles.

I love this album. 1988-89 was a cornucopia time for boomer-generation songwriters - scratch that, for major art-pop releases in general.

I voted for Distractions, but This One (great coda included) is not far behind.

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Yeah, I heard 'Hope of Deliverance' on the radio quite a lot back when it came out, but I don't really recall hearing many tracks from Flowers in the Dirt... I think I heard 'My Brave Face' at least once, and I know for a fact that I saw the video to 'This One' ...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"That Day Is Done" is such a runic song - picked that one.

Went with 'Figure of Eight' in the end, but what an album.

It pains me to read all these reassessments to the negative of this "late-80s musical tropes" album all over the web now. It reminds me of the stupid anti-fretless bass backlash that was around some years ago. Instead of taking advantage of the temporal distance to relish what were unique production occurrences in time, we have all these flagellating, blinkered critiques yearning for an immovable, abstract purist classicism... but it's pop music! It's subject to, and derives its vitality, from its place in time itself! Try stripping early Elvis of the spring reverb - so why should one have this huge problem with gated reverb? Why should a song like 'Motor of Love' be unredeemable cheese and nothing else but? Can't one enjoy it all for what it is?

Well, for the last six years at least, I've abandoned "dated" as a pejorative when writing a review. It's not an insult -- it's a fact.

Yup, Alfred OTM.

It's often why it irks me when I read '80s productions being described as "dated", while '60s productions are described as "timeless" ... no! Revolver sounds like a record made in 1966, it does not sound like a record made in 2017.

Flowers in the Dirt sounds exactly like I'd expect an album released in 1989 to sound, and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

It's often why it irks me when I read '80s productions being described as "dated", while '60s productions are described as "timeless"

Yep. Few critics say the use of a Rickenbacker 12-string dates the record -- always it's the use of technology that does.

Few critics also point out that the studio technology they used in the '60s automatically date the record to that time, too. In those cases, it's always the word "vintage", never "dated" ...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Damn!

I'll admit that the production on the album poses a challenge for me. It feels like it's going to float away. I think there's too much trebly stuff for my taste - trebly background vocals, trebly guitars, snare emphasized over bass drum...

'We Got Married', 'You Want Her Too' and 'Don't Be Careless Love' all deserved a vote, but otherwise more varied than I thought it was gonna be!

Rough Ride got zero votes. We all win.