Melody Maker Albums of the Year 1988

i think he threw in LOADS in paris, as it goes, but the thing was mapped out earlier -- was meant to be published in, like, 1918 or something, but it was banned in britain etc.

by this band I mean AR Kane btw

mike t-diva's list >>>>>>>>>>>> melody maker's.

I'm surprised to see Shiva Burlesque on this list. I used to have that record and remember it had a beautiful sleeve but I can't remember what it sounded like. I think I enjoyed it somewhat, though.

A.R. Kane have frustrated me in the past because I've heard some really good stuff by them and then other things I didn't find interesting at all.

I used to have that Mary Margaret O'Hara record, too. It didn't leave much of an impression.

Overranked: Sugarcubes, REM, Prince

Underranked: Talk Talk, Sonic Youth, Public Enemy

Voted for: 69 - AR Kane

i might listen to 69, y'all better have a good excuse for not voting HOLLIS

Certainly one record in this list placed approximately 27 places too low...

-- Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 16 June 2008 21:22 (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i agree the go betweens should be at #3

88 was the year i started getting into indie. as a result i can't even be bothered voting for any of it.

y'all better have a good excuse for not voting HOLLIS

It's at #28.

bimble and electricsound my office plz

I never heard that Shiva Burlesque record, but do remember that there was a minor flurry of interest in MM over some of the other stuff that came out on the same label (Nate Starkman). There was a certain mystique to it, I think all the bands had interesting names (Drowning Pool, Red Temple Spirits, err White Glove Test) and cool artwork (was Bruce Licher or involved with it?), but I never really followed up on it...

Some warped part of me was tempted to vote for the Skinny Puppy rekkid, I certainly spent enough money of imported CD singles of theirs back in the day, and everything I recorded for about a year after I heard them was unlistenable synthesiser-through-fuzzbox noise.

Sometimes the obvious choice is the right choice though, I voted for "It takes a nation of millions..." I still listen to it quite often and it still rocks. "she watch channel zero" was the number that got me into it, I just about wore the cassette tape I had out on that track.

I think all the bands had interesting names (Drowning Pool, Red Temple Spirits, err White Glove Test)

I have a Red Temple Spirits album! er "dancing to restore an eclipsed moon" (or something like that) I really like it, though I'd be quite hesitant to actually recommend it to anyone or anything like that. It's goth-psych that sounds like it was played by cro-magnon men, with intense, androgynous vocals that are somewhat "challenging". I pull it off the shelf a couple of times a year and heavy-rotate it for a week or so and always enjoy it loads. I've never met anybody else who can actually stand to listen to them.

That makes it sound both hideous and awesome.

Not saying they're the best, but the only records on this list that I've listened to again in the last 5 years are probably Talk Talk, Thin White Rope, Throwing Muses and the Go-Betweens.

House of Love too actually, and I still get disappointed by it - they could have cobbled together something really solid with some of the tracks off the German album - Destroy the Heart, Nothing To Me etc. As it is, it starts off like a rocket and then sort of dies by track two.

Yeah, never liked HOL. I did get that first album proper. Played once.

I used to really love HoL, had all of their records and everything. It's kind of hard to see what I actually saw in them now, they were a bit nowt-nor-summat in retrospect. Fontana version of "Shine On" still has it for me, I don't actually have anything else by them at present.

Oh god Scritti or PE can't decide

Oh and the only non-Birthday Party Nick Cave album I can wholeheartedly get behind.

8. All About Eve - All About Eve = loling my knackers off

Never understood how all about ever made it, either at the time or in retrospect. I knew people who absolutely loved them! There was NOTHING THERE!

Melody Maker = Goth fanzine, is why

Still, they were good on Top of the Pops that one time

I ought to vote Butthole Surfers really if people are gonna be all gothtarded about this

Also if Bug was a single it might be in with a shout

Maybe it's just cacky nostalgia but 1988 indie makes 2008 indie look like dogshite

(xpost)I suppose?! I never understood the goth thing with them, I mean they weren't actually tr00 gothick, really, were they? If I'd been a goth, I'd have hated them for selling out and not using enough flanger on the guitars or something.

Maybe it's just cacky nostalgia but 1988 indie makes 2008 indie look like dogshite

I don't think it it cacky nostalgia. indie '08 does seem to stay within v v narrow boundaries.

I guess AAE were the proto-Evanescence or something really. Yeah they wasn't Gothick, but they were definitely Celine Dion for your goth girlfriend.

Seriously there's like at least 15 albums here that are deathless.

I think it's cool that All About Eve covered a Mellow Candle song FUCKING HIPPIES!

I never understood the goth thing with them

I think that singing on that Mission record semented the goth affiliation.

Thin White Rope are another of the many bands on this list that deserve to win way more than the inevitably My Bloody Valentine bollocksy landslide.

Oops, sement? x-post

They covered a Trees song as well, didn't they? "Garden of Jayne Trelawney", I think. I kind of want to like them, just to be contrary, but the couple of tracks I just played on Youtube, the only memorable thing is the duff lyrics. Julianne Regan's britpop band (yes, I KNOW) "Mice" had a decent single that I still play, but the album was weak.

She would've had a decent voice to do folk-rock, but the rest of AAE were MOR hacks of the most cackhanded kind.

Obviously I'm hoping the mode lurker vote is for the ILM-acclaimed critically-lauded utterly-unprecedented "most daring album ever", but maybe that's too much to ask for.

(xpost) yeah, all these tracks sound like folksy test card music with someone doing vocal warm-up exercises over them! NO TUNES. NO GROOVE EITHER.

Oh yeah, Trees! See, I want to like them in hindsight too, but it's like trying to get stiff with a porn mag you've found in a pond.

They remind me of, ergh, what's that crappy sub-fleetwood mac neoprog band that classic rock used to prop all the time...er...

mostly autumn! Terrible.

Also the twatting Wonder Stuff placed above Nation of Millions, 1988 indie already proudly marching towards the apartheid years.

Another thing that used to amaze me! All the props that band got! They were total shit! "Miles Hunt, the great songwriter of our time" How come I can't remember a single one of their tunes then? And I can remember a couple of Skinny Puppy's "tunes" (cough) quite well?

I thought I just remembered a Wonder Stuff tune but it was a Kingmaker one.

Miles Hunt was yr OG racist indie cockwad, eh?

I don't recall the racist bit, what I mainly remember was the weird passive-aggressive thing he had about running their single videos down and suchlike. The album title was laughable - "8-legged 'groove' machine" - "Groove" lololololoool they were surely the unfunkiest, most rythmically plodding band EVER

Well I was stretching racist to include seething condemnation of any music remotely connected with black influences ever so yes.

i.e. 'Who Wants To Be The Disco King?'?

This is the dude who also "ironically" called for the execution of Rick Astley for making records that people actually liked.

Aside from the Mission thing, a lot of the AAE goth tag came from the first single on 4AD when Julianne still worked for ZigZag, and was a total Xymox pastiche.

Also, dressing up like Goths.