585. Peter Gabriel - So (1986)

















Track Listing

1. Red Rain
2. Sledgehammer
3. Don't Give Up
4. That Voice Again
5. In Your Eyes
6. Mercy Street
7. Big Time
8. We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)
9. This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)


Review

We get to the last album of 1986, and we also get to what is the best pop music album of that unfortunate year. This is an album which has been unfortunately ruined by over-exposure of its very famous singles, but that rewards listening to it with a fresh mind, because the best music is outside of those singles, it isn't Don't Give Up or Sledgehammer that make this album great.

What makes it so good are the other tracks, Gabriel had been flirting with his own very specific idiom of pop on his earlier solo album, but here he goes all out while still creating some of the most original music of that year.

Then you have the collaborations with Laurie Anderson ( one of the most glaring omissions on this list his her Big Science album) in Excellent Birds for example and Youssou N'Dour in In Your Eyes or the Eno-like We Do What We're Told that just take the album up a notch. For some reason this is the only representative of pureish Pop ( is Graceland and Talk Talk pop? Maybe) in 1986 in this list, and it is a well deserved one.

Track Highlights

1. In Your Eyes
2. This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)
3. Red Rain
4. Big Time

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was Gabriel's first studio album to bear an official title. His previous regular albums were simply titled "Peter Gabriel". It is sometimes rumoured the name corresponds to the fifth note of the scale "do re mi fa so la ti do". However, according to Peter Gabriel himself, the title did not have any meaning. "It doesn't mean anything", he said in an interview with Smash Hits in 1986. "We just liked the form of the word and the two letters. That's all".

In Your Eyes:

584. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Queen Is Dead
2. Frankly Mr Shankly
3. I Know It's Over
4. Never Had No One Ever
5. Cemetry Gates
6. Bigmouth Strikes Again
7. Boy With The Thorn In His Side
8. Vicar In A Tu Tu
9. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
10. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

Review

Look back on my previous review of The Smiths album Meat Is Murder and you can tell how much I just hate Morrisey. And then this album comes along and there is a mix of hatred and actual appreciation. It's a love hate relationship and probably the most conflicted review I ever wrote here.

Morrisey actually hits the mark sometimes in this album, his lyrics are at their best when he is not preaching or wallowing in self-pity, he is at his best when some humour shines through, which it didn't in Meat is Murder.

So what can I say, the music is great and Marr is again to be bowed to, Morrisey still irks the hell out of me but at times writes (well Johnny Marr also co-wrote the songs in the album possibly explaining why I don't hate it) smart and funny lyrics here, often poking fun at himself and his self-pity like in There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. So I don't hate this one, actually I kind of like it and saying that makes me itch inside, but that is the beauty of this list, you learn. And actually this is one of the best albums of 1986, but I still cannot give it a 10.

Track Highlights

1. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
2. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
3. Bigmouth Strikes Again
4. Frankly Mr. Shankly

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Guitarist Johnny Marr wrote several songs that would later appear on The Queen Is Dead while The Smiths toured Britain in early 1985, working out song arrangements with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce during soundchecks. After releasing their September 1985 single, "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" (which is included on The Queen Is Dead in an updated, slightly re-mixed version), The Smiths turned to recording their third album. Marr produced the album with singer Morrissey, and worked with engineer Stephen Street, who had assumed the same role on the band's previous album, Meat Is Murder (1985). Street recalled, "Morrissey, Johnny and I had a really good working relationship — we were all roughly the same age and into the same kind of things, so everyone felt quite relaxed in the studio".

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others:

583. Anita Baker - Rapture (1986)

















Track Listing

1. Sweet Love
2. You Bring Me Joy
3. Caught Up In The Rapture
4. Been So Long
5. Mystery
6. No One In The World
7. Same Ole Love
8. Watch Your Step

Review

Were you ever at home sitting in front of the TV with your nipple clamps on, a box of Kleenex in front of you and a jar of lube in your hand when suddenly you stop and ask yourself: What is this lovely song gracing this so tasteful early 90's American soft core film?

No?... Neither did I... but it might have been some track from this Anita Baker album, that even if it does have a couple of not bad tracks feels more like a soundtrack to porn in parts than anything else. We have an expression in the old country "Musica de ir ao cu devagarinho", a rough translation of it would be "Music to be buggered to, slowly".

That said there are two good tracks here, and they are the famous singles as well, surprise, surprise. Sweet Love and Same Ole Love aren't bad, and in fact the whole album isn't bad, it is just covered in such a sheen of 80's commercialism (synths, flamenco guitars and that soft approach),that it feels like a lost opportunity and is best left alone.

Track Highlights

1. Same Ole Love
2. Sweet Love
3. Caught Up In The Rapture
4. Watch Your Step

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Rapture was the breakout 1986 album for Rhythm and blues singer Anita Baker earning her two Grammy Awards in 1987. The album's first track, "Sweet Love" was a Billboard hit in addition to winning the Grammy. The success of Rapture (her second album) and "Sweet Love" brought well-deserved widespread attention to Baker. The album has sold over five million copies.

Same Ole Love:

582. Bad Brains - I Against I (1986)

















Track Listing

1. Intro
2. I Against I
3. House Of Suffering
4. Re-Ignition
5. Secret 77
6. Let Me Help
7. She's Calling You
8. Sacred Love
9. Hired Gun
10. Return To Heaven

Review

This is a strange album, if you can think of a Metal/Hardcore/Reggae/Funk album then this is it. That should make it pretty interesting, and it does indeed, but interesting isn't enough to sustain interest in it for more than a couple of listen throughs.

I am told from a good source (Hi Adam, enjoy Primavera Sound) that this isn't their best album, and I can well imagine. It is still interesting to have metaly hardcore being sung in a very Rasta voice, this is particularly present in the best track of the album, Re-Ignition.

So, an interesting album which is more here due to concept than actual end results, it is perfectly listenable if you are into heavyish stuff but it just does not blow you away.

Track Highlighs

1. Re-Ignition
2. I Against I
3. Sacred Love
4. Return To Heaven

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The title I Against I presumably refers to a common Rastafarian phrase, I and I, which is used in place of the first-person plural (i.e. we) in order to signify the union of the speaker, audience, and Jah (God) in love and peace.

It is interesting to note that the vocals to "Sacred Love" were recorded over the phone from prison, while H.R. was serving time on a marijuana distribution charge.

There is song collaboration of Massive Attack and Mos Def with the same name, and another by Jedi Mind Tricks.

I Against I:

581. Steve Earle - Guitar Town (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Guitar Town
2. Goodbye's All We've Got Left
3. Hillbilly Highway
4. Good Ol' Boy (Gettin' Tough)
5. My Old Friend The Blues
6. Someday
7. Think It Over
8. Fearless Heart
9. Little Rock 'N' Roller
10. Down The Road

Review

So Steve Earle is another of those granddaddy's of alt country, but unfortunately he is no Nanci Griffith, Earle is deriving his influences as much from Bruce Springsteen as from Country music, but that doesn't necessarily make it great.

Don't get me wrong, it is a pretty god album, but it just doesn't add much to country music, the lyrics aren't particularly interesting kind of mimicking the Springsteen thing about driving and blue collared people. Then it sometimes tries to be a bit lighter in a very countrified way which doesn't particularly work that well, such as in Hillbilly Highway...

In the end a good album but nothing interesting enough to bring it above a middling level, some of the tracks are a bit too sappy for their own good, some are a bit too rednecky and some are too Springsteen, but not as good.

Track Highlights

1. Down The Road
2. Guitar Town
3. Fearless Heart
4. My Old Friend The Blues


Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 2006, it ranked 27th on CMT's 40 Greatest Albums in Country Music.

Guitar Town:

580. XTC - Skylarking (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Summer's Cauldron
2. Grass
3. Meeting Place
4. That's Really Super Supergirl
5. Ballet For A Rainy Day
6. 1000 Umbrellas
7. Season Cycle
8. Earn Enough For Us
9. Big Day
10. Another Satellite
11. Mermaid Smiled
12. Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
13. Dying
14. Sacrificial Bonfire

Review

Take a UK New Wave band with the idea of going back to basics and getting inspiration from the Beatles' Revolver, Beach Boys and such and then add Todd Rundgren as a very hands-on producer and you get one of the best albums of this year, an album which eschews the excesses of the 80's ending up sounding more modern than most pop at this time.

Then you have the ultimate DC geek track in That's Really Super Supergirl, a very funny and referential song from a boyfriend of some Supergirl that feels very inadequate in his manly role. And the lyrics are just generally pretty fantastic with really smart arrangements which are obviously the work of Rundgren and some good work indeed.

We end up with what is really the best pop-album of this year, fantastic stuff which sounds fresh and original even today. A good addition to anyone's library.

Track Highlights

1. That's Really Super Supergirl
2. Grass
3. Sacrificial Bonfire
4. 1000 Umbrellas

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was produced by Todd Rundgren, a gifted guitarist/singer/songwriter in his own right, after the band chose his name from a list of potential producers submitted by its label, Virgin Records. The recording sessions took place in the spring of 1986, at Rundgren's upstate New York recording studio. The sessions were fraught with tension, due to creative differences between Rundgren and XTC's main creative force, Andy Partridge. In the book XTC: Song Stories by Neville Farmer, Partridge says:

(Rundgren) was so bloody sarcastic. Which is rare with Americans. He's got it down to an extremely cruel art. He'd ask how you were going to do the vocals and you would stand in front of the mic and do one run through to clear your throat and he'd say, "That was crap. I'll come down and I'll record me singing it and you can have me in your headphones to sing along to." I just thought it was so insulting.

However, in the same interview, Partridge acknowledged Rundgren's contributions to the album, saying:

He did do great things musically. The arrangements were brilliant and I don't know how he came up with them... The bloke is ludicrously smart when it comes to certain things.

Grass:

579. Run-DMC - Raising Hell (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Peter Piper
2. It's Tricky
3. My Adidas
4. Walk This Way
5. Is It Love
6. Perfection
7. Hit It Run
8. Raising Hell
9. You Be Illin'
10. Dumb Girl
11. Son Of Byford
12. Proud To Be Black

Review

Remember the days when sampling of a track by a mainstream hip hop group could actually make that track better? Well, I do, and I have some very great memories of that time. I was 4 then.

Run-DMC do just that and not only with Walk This Way by Aerosmith but also with My Sharona in It's Tricky. And it sounds stronger, angrier and also funner. And the album is all of it amazing, one of the best hip-hop albums of all time.

There is not one track here that is less than great, and they are all pretty complex, there is plenty of thought put behind the sampling and the arrangements and it all comes out perfect, and the beat are fucking vicious here, they attack you in a good way making for some of the catchiest tunes in all of music. And it pre-figures a lot of future hip-hop but also many other kinds of music that have used sampling since then, be it Beck or The Avalanches. Oh and I wear Adidas because of track number 3.


Trivia

1. It's Tricky
2. My Adidas
3. Walk This Way
4. Peter Piper

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Notably, Raising Hell features the well-known collaboration with Aerosmith, "Walk This Way". While the song was not the first fusion of rock and hip hop, it was the first one to make a significant impact in the charts. It became the first rap song to crack the top 5 of The Billboard Hot 100. Raising Hell peaked at #1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip Hop Album chart, and at #6 on the Billboard 200.

It's Tricky:

578. Paul Simon - Graceland (1986)
















Track Listing


1. Boy In The Bubble
2. Graceland
3. I Know What I Know
4. Gumboots
5. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
6. You Can Call Me Al
7. Under African Skies
8. Homeless
9. Crazy Love Vol 2
10. All Around The World Or The Myth Of Fingerprints

Review

We come to what is definitely one of the best albums of 1986 and one of the most original ones. Paul Simon in his middle age comes up with what is arguably the best album of his career, both in terms of originality and influence but also in the sheer quality of the tracks.

It is hard to define the album, is it a pop album with African influence or an album of South African music with a pop twist? The African elements are so upfront here that it is ridiculous to call it "African influence" but so is country music and Americana in general, and often in the same track and it all comes off sounding as pop. And this is the genius of the album.

The only thing that sometimes does not stand up to the test of time are the more poppy songs, like You Can Call Me Al or All Around The World Or The Myth Of Fingerprints, the more the African elements are up-front the better it sounds, however and the symbiosis of styles is so perfect that it is hard to understand why no one did it this way earlier.

Track Highlights

1. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
2. The Boy In The Bubble
3. Graceland
4. Homeless

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in many years, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5xPlatinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it the singer's most commercially successful album. Critics welcomed its eclectic mix of sounds and broad, quirky subject matter and it regularly shows up in critic polls and "recommended" lists. The album also helped to draw worldwide attention to the music of South Africa. The United World Chart listed Graceland as the 100th most successful album of all time.

In the Graceland Classic Albums video, Simon states that he considers the title track the best song he has ever written. A popular music video starring Simon and Chevy Chase was made for the hit song "You Can Call Me Al". Simon toured the album extensively, featuring many of the artists from the album in addition to exiled South Africans Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba. A concert in Harare, Zimbabwe, was filmed for release as "The African Concert".

Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes:

577. Throwing Muses - Untitled (1986)




















Track Listing

1. Call Me
2. Green
3. Hate My Way
4. Rabbits Dying
5. America
6. Fear
7. Stand Up
8. Soul Soldier

Review

In the book this album is listed as self-titled, well that is a lie, this is actually an untitled album, the self-titled one is from 2003 and so we should try to avoid confusions by correcting the book here. Another interesting thing is that this album is pretty hard to find in this form, but you can get it easily in an even better one, the CD In a Doghouse collects this album in its correct order plus a bunch of other tracks.

And this is another instance of that rarity that is good music in 1986, and the next few albums are going to be good ones as well. Following Sonic Youth on the list Throwing Muses are also breaking new ground by reinterpreting some pretty big influences into music that is not only good but also extremely influential in its own right.

The tone of the music reminds you of the Pixies and all of those bands which are interrelated in 4AD like the Breeders for example. And this is really the first significant album from an American band in 4AD that would bring with it so many lovely bands in the nearish future. Kristin Hersh goes whole hog with her bipolar disorder here making some of the craziest but also most appealing and beautiful music of her career, with her disjointed lyrics and chaotic music which hangs together surprisingly well at the end. A great album.

Track Highlights

1. Rabbits Dying
2. Vicky's Box
3. Hate My Way
4. America

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This was the first album by an American band to be released on 4AD, which had concentrated primarily on United Kingdom-based acts up to this point. This release marks a shift in the label's direction; a year later 4AD would sign the Pixies based in part on the band's connection to the Muses, and by the mid-1990s much of the label's roster was made up of American bands.

All the songs on the album were written by Kristin Hersh, with the exception of "Green", written by Tanya Donelly. The album was produced by Gil Norton, who went on to produce albums for the Pixies

Hersh doing Rabbits Dying last year:

576. Slayer - Reign In Blood (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Angel Of Death
2. Piece By Piece
3. Necrophobic
4. Altar Of Sacrifice
5. Jesus Saves
6. Criminally Insane
7. Reborn
8. Epidemic
9. Postmortem
10. Raining Blood

Review

More thrash metal! Hell yeah. But, actually, bear with me, Slayer are actually not that bad, firstly they are much less tacky than Metallica or Megadeth, then they are fucking fast, and then the album is mercifully short lasting for less than 30 minutes.

Why listen to Master Of Puppets if you can listen to Slayer, take half the time to do it, have more tracks and just as many notes? The speed is what makes this album more worthy, it is almost like Hardcore Punk Metal, the songs go for under 3 minutes in most cases, distilling pure anger into the tracks.

This is still not to say that I enjoyed it, but I could see a lot more to like here than in previous thrash albums here, it is also much heavier than anything on this list before, it pounds like a pillaging barbarian in a particularly bad mood.

Track Highlights

1. Raining Blood
2. Angel Of Death
3. Necrophobic
4. Postmortem

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Reign in Blood is regarded by critics as one of the most influential and extreme thrash metal albums. In its "Greatest Metal Bands Of All Time" poll, MTV praised Slayer's "downtuned rhythms, infectious guitar licks, graphically violent lyrics and grisly artwork", which they stated "set the standard for dozens of emerging thrash bands", while "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal". MTV described Reign in Blood as essential listening, and the album was ranked number 7 on IGN's "Top 25 influential Metal Albums"

Raining Blood:

575. Sonic Youth - EVOL (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Tom Violence
2. Shadow of a Doubt
3. Star Power
4. In the Kingdom #19
5. Green Light
6. Death to Our Friends
7. Secret Girls
8. Marilyn Moore
9. Expressway to Yr. Skull


Review

This is definitely a breath of fresh air for 1986 and the start of what will be a fortunate tendency for the following years, well into the 90's for the growth and development of Indie music, culminating and dying with Nirvana.

Of course there have been several Indie albums here before but Sonic Youth, and probably Husker Du before them with the sadly absent from this list Zen Arcade, marks the graduation from Hardcore Punk to a more artsy level of music in the same indie scene, here they are being published under SST one of the most iconic indie labels in music history, which started off with Black Flag.

By the time EVOL came out there was still much growth to be done by Sonic Youth and their best albums are still to come, but as a taste of future things this is a very nice amuse bouche indeed. Particularly in the barren waste of 1986. There is a lot of things going on here, there is Joy Division, Jesus and Mary Chain (and therefore VU), Television, X and Patti Smith in the vocals of Kim Gordon and simply good music, inspired from good sources and never does this sound like lowest common denominator. A keeper.

Track Highlights

1. Star Power
2. Death To Our Friends
3. Secret Girl
4. Expressway to Yr. Skull

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

EVOL is the third studio album by American noise rock band Sonic Youth, released in 1986 on SST Records. The album cover features a picture of Lung Leg, a still taken from Submit to Me Now, a film by Richard Kern. The album is notable for Steve Shelley replacing Bob Bert and the band showing signs of transition away from their noise-rock past and towards a greater rock sensibility. It was the first album by the band released on the SST label. By 1986, label founder Greg Ginn was anxious for SST to move away from its American hardcore roots, and signing Sonic Youth was an undeniably important step for the label, as well as for the band.

The record marks the second straight for the band in which it had worked with New York singer/performance artist Lydia Lunch. Lunch had shared vocal duties on Bad Moon Rising's "Death Valley '69" and on this record she co-wrote the tune "Marilyn Moore," which may or may not be about the second woman to survive an attack by the Yorkshire Ripper. "Shadow of a Doubt" takes a great part of its lyrical imagery from the Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train: "Met a stranger on a train/you'll kill him and I'll kill her/swear it wasn't meant to be".

On the vinyl format of the album, the time length for "Expressway to Yr. Skull" was indicated by the symbol for infinity; the final moment of the song featured a locked groove, making it theoretically endless. The CD format added a bonus track: the band's raucous but surprisingly faithful take on the Kim Fowley tune "Bubblegum," which Kim Gordon kicks off by shouting "hit it, girls."

Star Power:

574. Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet (1986)

















Track Listing

1. Let It Rock
2. You Give Love A Bad Name
3. Livin On A Prayer
4. Social Disease
5. Wanted Dead Or Alive
6. Raise Your Hands
7. Without Love
8. I'd Die For You
9. Never Say Goodbye
10. Wild In The Streets

Review

This album has got my favourite Bon Jovi song! Favourite as in slightly less shittier, Wanted Dead or Alive is thematically and musically like a cow-pat when compared to worm infested, pus ridden, bloody syphilitic human shit.

It is still shit, however. In fact the whole album is pretty bad, you can tell where they are coming from and why they are failing tremendously, some tracks derive their inspiration for Bruce Springsteen, but lack the musical or lyrical ability of the Boss. Examples of this are Living on a Prayer and particularly Wild In The Streets. Other tracks are simply lowest common denominator crap.

The album is relentlessly positive in its hope for a new world dawning with Reagenomics on the horizon (what gullible fools), an album with very little brains even (or particularly) when it tries to tackle big subjects, conservative, silly and which belongs on the bargain bin where you can find it these days. Still, unfortunately, and this reflects the bad taste of the Populus, at least 4 of these songs are classics heard over and over again, in order to exacerbate my suicidal tendencies, particularly Never Say Goodbye.

Track Highlights

1. Wanted Dead Or Alive
2. Livin' On A Prayer
3. You Give Love A Bad Name
4. Let It Rock

Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album went through various name changes during its inception, with Slippery When Wet being the final title conceived. According to Jon Bon Jovi in a DVD interview on the box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong, the albums working titles were Wanted Dead or Alive and later Guns N' Roses when Bon Jovi read a newspaper article about then-upcoming Los Angeles band Guns N' Roses and wanted to name the album after them.

Jon Bon Jovi was initially reluctant to include Livin' on a Prayer on the album, believing that it was not a good enough song. Richie Sambora was convinced it was a hit single in the making, and so the band re-recorded it, releasing the second version on the final album. Ironically, it became the band's most popular and well-known song, and was the #1 song of 1987. The song is referred to in Bon Jovi's 2000 single "It's My Life" among other songs. The original demo, which Jon Bon Jovi thought was not good enough for the album, can be found as a hidden track on the band's box set.

With this album's singles, Bon Jovi was the 1st hard rock band to ever have two consecutive #1 Hot 100 chart hits.

Slippery When Wet was the 1st hard rock album to spawn three Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hits. The band would go on to break this record with New Jersey, which spawned five.

With Slippery When Wet, the band twice had the #1 single and the #1 album simultaneously, another hard rock first.

Wanted Dead Or Alive:

573. Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying (1986)













Track Listing

1. Wake Up Dead
2. The Conjuring
3. Peace Sells
4. Devil's Island
5. Good Mourning / Black Friday
6. Bad Omen
7. I Ain't Superstitious
8. My Last Words

Review

Before anyone else starts commenting on how prejudiced I am against metal, I will admit that it is not my favourite musical genre, but I will also say that I like Black Sabbath, Motorhead and even Iron Maiden, but it is the thrash metal of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax that I have the most difficulty swallowing. Together with them we have the New Wave of British Metal bands like Def Leppard and Judas Priest that belong to the same circle of Hell.

That being said I much prefer Megadeth to Metallica, firstly the songs are shorter, being therefore less predisposed to wankery of the solo kind, secondly it has more of a political conscience that is a good thing, even if most of the lyrics are simplistic and puerile, but so was War Pigs.

And surprisingly I prefer Mustaine's voice, he can put more emotion and emphasis in one line than Metallica could in one 10 minute track. Nonetheless, most of the bad things about Metallica apply equally here and this is not an album that I would like to listen to again.

Track Highlights

1. Peace Sells
2. Devil's Island
3. Wake Up Dead
4. I Ain't Superstitious

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The song "Peace Sells" ranked #11 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs and the bassline at its beginning was used for years as the theme for MTV News and also appeared in the 2002 videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, playing on Rock station V-Rock.

Seizure inducing video for Peace Sells:

572. Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Happiness Is Easy
2. I Don't Believe In You
3. Life's What You Make It
4. April 5th
5. Living In Another World
6. Give It Up
7. Chameleon Day
8. Time It's Time

Review

Talk Talk take the lead into de-synthing synth-pop, you don't really need drum machines, and they realised this by bringing back some actual musicians playing fucking music. The end result is a pretty good one.

This is still synth-pop don't get me wrong, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the level of it is being tuned down to include real instruments where needed instead of sub-par computerised copies as was the unfortunate way in 1986.

You end up with a very full sounding album, with immaculate production and a very complex sound, the music is at times almost ambient like, with long tracks and a lot of special effects including a fucking children's choir and shit. This is not the most impressive music, but it is definitely a step in the right direction for the mid 80's. And oh, It's my Fucking Birthday!

Track Highlights

1. Life's What You Make It
2. April 5th
3. Time It's Time
4. Happiness Is Easy

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It became the band's highest selling non-compilation studio album, reaching the Top 10 in several countries, including their homeland. With its international hit "Life's What You Make It", Talk Talk expanded their fan base, and garnered the band the second of their two American hits, along with 1984's "It's My Life".

Life's What You Make It:

571. Billy Bragg - Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (1986)

















Track Listing

1. Greetings To The New Brunette
2. Train Train
3. Marriage
4. Ideology
5. Levi Stubbs' Tears
6. Honey I'm A Big Boy Now
7. There Is Power In A Union
8. Help Save The Youth Of America
9. Wishing The Days Away
10. Passion
11. Warmest Room
12. Home Front

Review

Billy Bragg is more famous these days as a talking head on TV than really a musician, but he is a talking head because of his strong political views and those come across strongly in this album.

Unfortunately many of those more political songs come across has ham-fisted and not subtle enough to pass as an integral part of the album. Where he saves his face is definitely in the more romantic songs, although he never abandons the politics completely.

I do agree with his politics in most of the songs, being the commie that I am, but they do seem to be overtaking the album rather than enhancing it. Some of them sound just like stuff you'd sing out at a rally, like There Is Power In A Union and others grate.

Track Highlights

1. Greetings To The New Brunette
2. Levi Stubbs Tears
3. The Marriage
4. The Home Front

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

With production by John Porter and Kenny Jones, Talking with the Taxman about Poetry featured more musicians than Bragg's previous works, which were generally little more than Bragg himself and a guitar. There were two singles released from the album. While "Levi Stubbs' Tears" peaked at #29 in the UK, the follow-up "Greetings To The New Brunette" fell short, only managing #58 a few months later.

The song "Ideology" is based on Bob Dylan's song "Chimes of Freedom".

The song "There Is Power in a Union" is based on the song "Battle Cry of Freedom".

Greetings to the New Brunette:

570. Nanci Griffith - Last Of The true Believers (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Last of the True Believers
2. Love at the Five and Dime
3. St. Olav's Gate
4. More Than a Whisper
5. Banks of the Pontchartrain
6. Looking for the Time (Workin' Girl)
7. Goin' Gone
8. One of These Days
9. Love's Found a Shoulder
10. Fly by Night
11. Wing and the Wheel

Review

A bit of country comes back on the list now, and thank god for that. This is a pretty good album, one of the first alt country albums mixing folk and country into something different and yet very appealing.

The tracks are all great, Nanci's voice is very much country but the songs sound quite distinct from most other country that we have had up until now, they sound more mature, more literate and quite beautiful.

This is not outlaw country or sappy, it's proper singer-songwriter country music, and it is heads above most of the music of this year, it takes a little bit to sink in, as you get past the country sound of the thing and start get more deeply into the music, but it is very rewarding when you do.

Track Highlights

1. Last of the True Believers
2. Love At The Five And Dime
3. Banks Of The Pontchatrain
4. One Of These Days

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The photograph on the album cover contains several references to the album's songs. A couple can be seen behind Griffith dancing in front of a Woolworth's store as described in "Love at the Five and Dime." The male dancer is Lyle Lovett who also appears on the album as a vocalist. Another couple can be seen apparently acting out a scene from "Lookin' for the Time" as the man, John T. Davis, a journalist and music historian, is pointing at his empty wrist.

As with other Nanci Griffith albums she is pictured holding books by and/or about southern writers. On the front cover she is holding a copy of The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto. On the album's back cover she is clutching Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

Last of the True Believers, look for Lyle Lovett on backup:

569. The The - Infected (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Infected
2. Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire)
3. Heartland
4. Angels Of Deception
5. Sweet Bird Of Truth
6. Slow Train To Dawn
7. Twilight Of A Champion
8. Mercy Beat

Review

This is the second The The album on the list, and even though I didn't like it as much as Soul Mining, it is still a pretty good album. The The is probably one of the bands that have better married political message to Pop music.

This is pretty catchy pop music, with very angry political message at the front of it, and to that successfully without just sounding like agitprop one has to be pretty talented.

It is a bit more of the same that we got in Soul Mining, and I don't think the music is any worse, but the shock value of that album is not replicated here, as you kind of know what to expect, but if you liked that album and want a continuation you could do worse than getting it here.

Track Highlights

1. Heartland
2. Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire)
3. Infected
4. Slow Train To Dawn

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It is reputed that the album used 67 different musicians and 3 producers. The money lavished on it and its companion full-length video seemed at the time to be extravagant for an obscure band.

Many of the tracks carried on with Johnson's main topics of his feeling of alienation from society as all whole and the melancholy that this generates in young males. However around this time Johnson was becoming aware of "World Issues" or the culture clash between the West and Islam. The song "Sweet Bird of Truth" is about a pilot trying to save his plane whilst flying over Arabia and was released just prior to the Reagan Libyan bombings which affected sales when record shops refused to promote it.

Heartland:

568. Metallica - Master Of Puppets (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Battery
2. Master Of Puppets
3. The Thing That Should Not Be
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
5. Disposable Heroes
6. Leper Messiah
7. Orion
8. Damage Inc.

Review

Oh dear god all mighty, why? And unfortunately this is just the first of several Metallica albums on the list, we are going to have some prize shit music in this year of 1986 as well, considered for good reason one of the worst years in music.

Master Of Puppets is a masturbatory feast of overly long tracks filled with overbearing solos that show little more than technical prowess, and just end up sounding extremely dull. It lacks any sense of humour,it is self-important and listening to it you are sure these guys take themselves seriously, and that is the saddest thing, because they are shit.

The reason why I dislike this is not because it is heavy, I don't think it's that heavy, but it is excruciatingly boring. The songs eventually stick in your head but not due to any particular merit of them, but just because they are so repetitive. Was there ever a more undeservingly famous band as Metallica? It sounds ridiculous, Spinal Tap is at least funny.

Track Highlights

1. Battery
2. The Thing That Should Not Be
3. Master Of Puppets
4. Orion

Final Grade

5/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album proved to be a modest commercial success upon its release, reaching number twenty-nine on the U.S. Billboard 200. However, with the bands increasing popularity from the release of ...And Justice for All, awareness of the album has increased, and has to date sold over four million copies in U.S. alone. It was the last album the band recorded with bass player Cliff Burton, who was killed six months after it was released.

Battery:

567. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Rhymin & Stealin
2. The New Style
3. She's Crafty
4. Posse In Effect
5. Slow Ride
6. Girls
7. (You Gotta ) Fight For Your Right (To Party)
8. No Sleep Till Brooklyn
9. Paul Revere
10. Hold It Now, Hit It
11. Brass Monkey
12. Slow And Low
13. Time To Get Ill

Review

The Beastie Boys are probably one of the most obnoxious bands in history, but that masks some complexities that not only reveal quite musically-literate influences as show them to be the greatly influential band that they are.

There is a feeling here which we have had before on the list, particularly in the album of the Dictators, there is a sense of fun and obnoxiousness that reflects the silliness of adolescence perfectly. Tempered with some lovely misogyny, lack of consideration and misbehaving. There clearly is a big influence of "Handsome" Dick Manitoba on this, and that is fun.

Then there is a really innovative use of samples here, which is masked by the childishness of the lyrics, but if I was saying yesterday that Afrika Bambaataa was more similar to Beck's Odelay than Puff Daddy, then this is the direct ancestor of Odelay. Using samples from rock, tv shows etc. in a very innovative way. So yeah, Beastie Boys are fun but are much more than that. And notice if Paul Revere does not sound a lot like Snoop Dogg and Pharrell's Drop It Like It's Hot.

Track Highlights

1. Girls
2. Rhymin & Stealin
3. No Sleep Till Brooklyn
4. Paul Revere

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The full album cover, front to back, features a Boeing 727 — with "Beastie Boys" emblazoned on the tail — crashing head-on into the side of a mountain. The tail of the plane has the Def Jam logo and the legend '3MTA3' which spells 'EATME' when viewed in a mirror.

Here's Beastie Boys' No Sleep 'Till Brooklin in Oeiras, as a tribute to my friend Marco who is from Oeiras near Lisbon and staying over here for the foreseeable (I can't foresee farther than the 19th of May) future:

566. Afrika Bambaataa And The Soul Sonic Force - Planet Rock (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Planet Rock
2. Looking for the Perfect Beat
3. Renegades of Funk
4. Frantic Situation
5. Who You Funkin' With?
6. Go Go Pop
7. They Made a Mistake

Review

This album might seem somewhat outdated to be in this list right next to the Beastie Boys, but it is a compilation of earlier singles, the title track is from 1982, for example, making it particularly impressive.

Even this outdatedness isn't too bad, however, as it is still a musically very strong album, the complexity of the samples used for example, and the way in which they are used are a refreshing contrast to Puff Daddy's school of sampling-by-raping, in this sense it is more akin to music like Beck's brilliant use of samples in Odelay than what happened with later hip-hop.

This is a really good album, even if it is a strange addition to the list which according to the editors does not contain compilations, this is a particularly worthy one, as it contain tracks that are not part of any album. Good Stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Planet Rock
2. Lookin' For The Perfect Beat
3. Go Go Pop
4. Renegades Of Funk

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The song "Planet Rock" was one of the earliest hits for hip hop and remains one of its pioneering recordings. The single's liner notes credit Kraftwerk with the song. In creating the track, portions of Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" were used, along with portions of songs by Captain Skyy and Ennio Morricone. Rather than sampling these works digitally, the phrases were re-recorded in the studio. "Planet Rock" is also cited as the first electro funk record. "Renegades of Funk" was covered by Rage Against the Machine on their Renegades album.

Shorter edited version of Planet Rock:

565. Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Blood And Chocolate (1986)
















Track Listing

1. Uncomplicated
2. I Hope You're Happy Now
3. Tokyo Storm Warning
4. Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head
5. I Want You
6. Honey Are You Straight Or Are You Blind
7. Blue Chair
8. Battered Old Bird
9. Crimes Of Paris
10. Poor Napoleon
11. Next Time Round

Review

Here is an artist, like several in the list until now that I had no time for before making this list, I would kind of dismiss off-hand any Costello things because I thought of him as terminally uncool (although to a lesser degree than my new found idol Springsteen or Rod "very good two early albums" Stewart).

His last few albums have completely changed me around to a devout fan, and this one is no exception, it is if anything better, but it is at least as good as Armed Forces and that is high praise indeed. The album starts unexpectedly with a heavy stomp and goes on to have some great songs with amazing lyrics.

It should be noted that the best songs here are actually the longest ones, Costello's repetitiveness in those tracks particularly I Want You and Tokyo Storm Warning allow for a deep slouch that really buries the tracks in your mind. A great album.

Track Highlights

1. I Want You
2. Tokyo Storm Warning
3. Uncomplicated
4. Poor Napoleon

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikpedia:

Costello describes it as "a record of people beating and twanging things with a fair amount of yelling".

Costello's singing and playing is credited on the album under the pseudonym "Napoleon Dynamite," while his songwriting is credited to him under his actual surname, "MacManus" (with the exception of "I Hope You're Happy Now", which is credited to "Costello").

I want you covered by Fiona Apple with Elvis on guitar: