Melody Maker Albums of the Year 1988

Quality not quantity.

the list: a-fkn-bundance galore. im-bogglin-possible to choose.

From memory the critical breakdown would have been thusly:

1 - everyone's 8th or 9th choice
2, 6, 14 - Stickboy
3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 24, 29 - Reynoldstubbs
4, 9, 18, 22, 25, 27 - Jonesey
8, 11, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21 - Chris Roberts
19 - Stud Bros
23 - Caroline Sullivan
26 - Carol Clerk
28-30 - ?

(i.e. I don't recall anyone in MM being especially opinionated one way or the other about the last three)

Tender Prey

I've only heard five albums on this list, but then my 1988 was almost entirely 12" singles-based, and mostly guitar-free. At the time, my top albums of the year were:

1. Lovesexy - Prince
2. Tracey Chapman - Tracey Chapman
3. Introspective - PSBs
4. Short Sharp Shocked - Michelle Shocked
5. The Forest Is Crying - Trio Bulgarka
6. Look What I Got - Betty Carter
7. Akwaba Beach - Mory Kante
8. Green - REM
9. Naked - Talking Heads
10. Gypsy Kings - Gypsy Kings

...with The Pogues If I Fall From Grace With God, Hal Wilner's Disney tribute Stay Awake and Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man as runners up.

Most glaring omission: It Takes A Nation Of Millions, but I was DJ-ing a mixed alternative lesbian/gay club night and had BANNED! Public Enemy after Professor Griff's homophobic comments in the press. My Roxanne Shante-loving separatist lesbian contingent wouldn't have stood for it, for starters - and bearing in mind the climate of the times (Clause 28 etc), I wasn't standing for it either.

20 years on, and my vote from this lot has of COURSE to be for Public Enemy.

CharlieNo4: that AR Kane album sounds like really woozy dub reggae with lots of JAMC-style feedback thrown in the mix. It sort of lollops along sleepily and every now and again it'll crash into a big bucket of noise. The Live Skull is good too: quite a dark sound but with lots of white light shining through all the holes ripped in it. It's not a million miles away from the AR Kane actually - the same sort of lolloping bass with guitars slicing through the muzz, but definitely 1000x more rocking. They always got compared with Sonic Youth at the time and that overshadowed them a bit.

Er, Nation Of Millions is there but at number (Clause!) 28 WAS THIS A PLOT WE SHOULD BE TOLD

Pogues were verboten at MM and Stickboy was quite keen on Tracy Chapman but I guess in MM terms she failed to have significant swoon/bliss component necessary for the times.

To be honest this year would be better evaluated by a singles EOY list, being the year of Acieed crossover and all that...

Fisherman's Blues!

I still have a soft spot for that album.

Yes. (leaves Ding's office) (with an xpost)

The Pogues If I Fall From Grace With God

Now we're talkin.

BACK IN THE OFFICE RIGHT NOW MM WERE RIGHT WORST GROUP EVER

Er, Nation Of Millions is there but at number (Clause!) 28 WAS THIS A PLOT WE SHOULD BE TOLD

Heh... I meant that they were omitted from my own list, not MM's.

My 1988: Ten City, Inner City, Todd Terry in all his guises, Neneh Cherry, Rob Base, Sterling Void, Yazz, S-Express, Eric B & Rakim, early sightings of De La Soul & Soul II Soul, Stetsasonic, Young MC, Phase II, Ofra Haza, Blaze, Nightwriters, Kym Mazelle, CeCe Rogers, Brat Pack, Joyce Sims, JVC Force, Roxanne Shante, Yello, Womack & Womack...

The year I first started reading MM regularly. It's probably not unconnected, then, that 1-3-5-6-14-16-20-21 would be somewhere in my own personal top 200 of all-time. 28 seems terribly important and ground-breaking and that, but I didn't understand that stuff at the time and I don't think I've played it more than half a dozen times.

I really, really, really, really loathe The Pogues. Sorry everyone. They're the fucking worst. Trad-Oirish fakey dullard bollocks from some public-school dropout with disgusting, avoidable health issues and a bullshit mythology.

i don't think anyone disagrees.

If that AR Kane album really sounds as NickB describes it then I've been missing out!

My mum likes The Pogues. ;_;

If that AR Kane album really sounds as NickB describes it then I've been missing out!

I don't think it does, but then that's just my opinion. I don't like The Pogues either but any band with Terry Woods in them can hardly be descibed as fake Oirish.

If it helps people don't think they're fake Oirish in Oirland

Did the Cardiacs make it into any critics' EOY polls ever?

The people standing next to me at The Forum last night were having an animated conversation about Cardiacs.

Mind you, it was at a Gong concert...

It was probably my ex-brother-in-law

The Pogues in precis:

hoidy hoidy hoidy hoi an a hoidy hoidy birmingham six hoidy hoi an a drunk un shite un whisky kilburn rent boy hoidy hoidy hoi

Actually, "Rum Sod" etc was the one.

I got "grace" but played it once. approx.

Although I did use "Fiesta" for the Dance Troup in Turkey, before it became ubiquitious in adland...

I'm gratified that no one is lamenting the exclusion of Rattle And Hum from this list.

(Introspective by the PSBs should have been in but they were also disliked at MM)

If I were Irish, the act mentioned on this thread I'd patriotically declare as upholding the adventurous, aesthetic spirit of the nation would be the one with Kevin Shields in it. Dingbod OTM.

Okay, I know we're just bashing the Pogues but, to clarify: is this Green Hazed Daze song I'm watching on youtube representational of the general sound etc of AR Kane, if so I like a lot.

primal scream? ; )

OK, had another look at the list OH Godddd....

I'd vote for "Life's too good".

I would be interested in crossing the road for getting a copy of "Fishermans Blues" OK? s'about it. ~Not heard it (partfrom thi singles).

If I were Irish, the act mentioned on this thread I'd patriotically declare as upholding the adventurous, aesthetic spirit of the nation would be the one with Kevin Shields in it.

That'll be the Kevin Shields who's lived in England for 20-odd years then?

and was born in NY etc etc yeah but they're IRISH, look at their NAMES

THEIR DRUMMER'S NAME i mean

...

Like Shane McGowan?

I wouldn't ever actually listen to the Pogues but their abrasive drinking songs fit with a whole lineage of pissed off hyper conservative music in Ireland. They're hardly Planxty though....

Always preferred Band of Holy Joy myself.

This is a pointless argument, MBV are Irish, The Pogues are shite, finito.

Nyah Fearties for me

Every time I see that name, I can't help but hear Vic Reeves announcing it! (Band of Holy Joy, I mean)

Nobody stays in Ireland, that's why its so romanticized, it's bloomsday so I don't mind mentioning that Joyce wrote Ulysses in Paris

right, but getting back to AR Kane...?

What did they do after AR Kane?

?

I probably didn't do a very good job of describing them BTW :o(

Did MARRS, got lots of money, bought themselves out of the 4AD contract, and went back to their high-paying day jobs probably.

And gave up music then?

Strange how Colourbox totally vanished after MARRS (predicted Dale verdict: "They were a weird lot, weren't they?").

I dunno, probably. They might be writing high-selling singles for Tracey Ullman in Japan, for all I know.

AR Kane did "i" the year after which was poppier but also brilliant (Primal Scream did an interesting cover version a couple of years later except they called it Screamadelica). Then they put out a crap third album on David Byrne's label in '94, since when nowt has been heard.

Joyce wrote Ulysses in Paris

don't think he did

There was a Royal House album? I just didn't get "Party People" at all when it came out, in much the same way that I didn't get "Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel" - it was a couple of jumps ahead of me, but I had an underlying hunch that there was something worth perservering with. Then "Can You Feel It" - which was virtually a remix of "Party People" anyway - came out and just exploded. It was my biggest floor filler for two or three weeks, just after "Big Fun" and just before "Voodoo Ray". And then there was Swan Lake, Black Riot, Todd Terry Project... ah, Todd-mania, happy days...

Yep - the Royal House album was entitled Can You Party? Standout track: "A Better Way" with vocals by the splendidly-named Ian Star.

Wow, Hope Against Hope. There's an album I hadn't heard in nearly 20 years. I think I still have it on tape, which includes Love Agenda from the following year, and might even be better. Time is right for a reissue. Wired For Sound 1986-93 was issued in '95.

No Critical Beatdown
No Blood Fire Death
No Bananarama's greatest hits
No I Am Kurious Oranj
No I'm Your Man
No Reek of Putrefaction
No South of Heaven
No Great Adventures of Slick Rick
No Don't Be Cruel
No Lead Me On
No Straight Outta Compton
No ...And Justice For All, for the fucking love of Christ

this list wasn't even there in '88

MC covers Compton a couple of posts up

indeed, it made #21 the following year

Never thought I'd see a poll where my two favorite albums are by Public Fucking Enemy and Sonic Fucking Youth, but hey, there's a first time for everything (and they're both pretty good albums, obviously.)

I'm surprised Melody Maker panned It Takes a Nation of Millions... when it first came out. Is the review available online anywhere? I'd love to read it.

ISTR Reynolds opining that "Millions" was too self-referential and too concerned with PE's treatment at the hands of the media and that it was a distinct disappointment after "Bum Rush". I thought he was wrong then and I think he was even wronger now.

also there was insufficient bliss/ocean input unlike e.g. Strafe Fur Rebellion and Legendary Pink Dots.

At the end of 1988 I would have said Green. By 1991 I'd gone back and discovered Isn't Anything, Surfer Rosa, and Daydream Nation. I'm struggling to choose between those ones now.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

I have 13 of those and they're all great - or they were the last time i played them in about 1989.
Honourable mentions - pixies ,mbv yawn, amc, thin white spunk, muses, kane

Seeing as it's missing Rudimentary Peni and Napalm Death, it's gotta be Jane Siberry . Sounded like nothing else to me when I first heard it

Don't believe the Hype

No-one into Revolting Cocks? I'm sort of surprised by that.

Have still never heard any Jane Siberry. Anyone care to tell me about that record?

I couldn't decide whether to vote for RevCo or Skinny Puppy, and forgot to vote for either.

ugh someone voted the wonderstuff

Wow Marcello voted for AR Kane? I must adjust my assesment of him.

Sorry that sounds rude. I didnt have a bad assesment to begin with. But anyway.

I've had bad and good assessments of Marcello. I wouldn't be quick to pass judgement with that dude. To this day I have no idea how I stand about him. ILX might be a little more entertaining with his presence, though. He was noticeably silent on that Phil Spector thread. I somehow he'll return to ILX for awhile, if at all.

DOUBT