595. George Michael - Faith (1987)
















Review

1. Faith
2. Father Figure
3. I Want Your Sex (Parts 1 & 2)
4. One More Try
5. Hard Day
6. Hand To Mouth
7. Look At Your Hands
8. Monkey
9. Kissing A Fool
10. Hard Day (Shep Pettibone Remix)
11. A Last Request (I Want Your Sex) (Part 3)

Review

It is actually quite sad to notice that mainstream pop-music has evolved very little since this album, it is also, however, a tribute to how influential this album is, and also its staying power.

The songs here could have been done at any time after 1987 but not before, the qualitative evolution when compared to something like Thriller is quite astounding. The songs have a social and life-style message, they aren't simply innocuous pop of the Jackson variety, the use of drum machines is also pretty influential to the point that it sounds like so much that came afterwards.

And then the music is actually quite good, there are of course horrible tracks here, an example of which is Monkey, a pointless addition to the album, but with a couple of cuts this could have been one of the best R&B pop albums out there.


Track Highlights

1. Faith
2. I Want Your Sex (Parts I & II)
3. Hard Day [Shep Pettibone remix]
4. Kissing A Fool

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1989, Faith was ranked #84 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 480 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Faith was ranked 79th in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.

Faith:

594. Sisters Of Mercy -Floodland (1987)
















Track Listing

1. Dominion/Mother Russia
2. Flood I
3. Lucretia My Reflection
4. 1959
5. This Corrosion
6. Flood II
7. Driven Like The Snow
8. Never Land


Review

I have always found Sisters Of Mercy to be the most overrated of goth rock bands, a genre which I actually really like. This album is probably the best thing they ever did but it is still not that great.

Sisters Of Mercy play overblown epic goth rock which most obviously has some sense of humour about its own failings, surely they must have, well I hope they do. And that sense of humour comes across in the fact that they have J. Steinman the producer of Bat Out Of Hell producing this album. So you can imagine what comes out of it.

This overblownness is actually the best thing of the album, when it gets more quiet and less pumping it loses its power to be quite fun and funny, so it ends up being a hit and miss album and the hits are really in tracks like the first one and Corrosion, with their choirs and thumping gothyness sounding like the most ridiculous caricature of goth ever put on this earth, making it good.

Track Highlights

1. Dominion/Mother Russia
2. This Corrosion
3. Lucretia My Reflection
4. Flood I

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Eldritch claims that bassist Patricia Morrison, the only other official member of The Sisters of Mercy at the time, did not perform on the album and was hired only for the purpose of promotional appearances. This claim is contested by Morrison. She is not credited on the album's sleeve, although her image appears in its artwork. Morrison did perform on The Sisterhood's album.

The Sisters of Mercy did not follow the album with live performances.

Dominion:

593. Depeche Mode - Music For The Masses (1987)
















Track Listing

1. Never Let Me Down Again
2. Things You Said
3. Strangelove
4. Sacred
5. Little 15
6. Behind The Wheel
7. I Want You Now
8. To Have And To Hold
9. Nothing
10. Pimpf

Review

Depeche Mode have always been one of those phenomena that I never really got. I never really clicked with them, and this album isn't really solving that problem. It does have some good songs and a couple of interesting sounds to it but it never makes it a great album. It is a pretty good album but never great.

I can very well recognise their influence in the rising Electronic music scene at this point in time, but they never seem that different from something like OMD for example. And I like OMD better.

The lyrics are quite interesting and they become like a love child of OMD and Soft Cell. I am sure you have all gone through that idea of bands or singer that you know you "should" like but then you never click, and this is what happens with me and Depeche Mode, most definitely, so a resound blah.

Track Highlights

1, Strangelove
2. Behind the Wheel
3. Never Let Me Down Again
4. Pimpf

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album became the band's highest-charting in the US upon its release, reaching #35 on the Billboard 200. It also contained more hit singles than any of their previous releases. While there was no extremely popular single from the album ("People Are People" from Some Great Reward reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100), the three singles that were released all made it onto the Hot 100, a feat that hadn't been achieved by any Depeche Mode single after those from Some Great Reward. Moreover, all three singles achieved modest success on the chart.

Strangelove:

592. The Cult - Electric (1987)
















Track Listing

1. Wildflower
2. Peace Dog
3. Li'l Devil
4. Aphrodisiac Jacket
5. Electric Ocean
6. Bad Fun
7. King Country Man
8. Love removal machine
9. Born to be wild
10. Outlaw
11. Memphis Hip Shake

Review

The Cult used to be a goth band, then they came out with this album and became a hard rock band. Fortunately this is not Hard Rock in the tradition of Judas Priest or Def Leppard, The Cult are going further back into musical history to the likes of The Doors, Stones or Led Zeppelin.

This makes the album both better and slightly worse, it is better because honestly that other kind of Hard Rock is pretty horrible and worse because it is profoundly derivative, and not in a particularly good way.

The Cult never really make anything better than the bands they are so clearly influenced by, and you would have thought that with 20 years of hindsight they could have, but then those bands are so good that it isn't even worth trying unless you are self-confident to the point of self-deluded. And I think The Cult might just be self-deluded enough to think they were making something amazing... they weren't. But it is quite listenable.

Track Highlights

1. Love Removal Machine
2. Wild Flower
3. Lil' Devil
4. Electric Ocean

Final Grade

7/10


Trivia

From Wikipedia:

After the breakthrough success of their second album, Love, the Cult began working on a follow-up to build on their success. In the summer of 1986, they recorded twelve tracks at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire. These "Manor Sessions" were overseen by Steve Brown, who had produced Love. The twelve tracks were to be the basis of a new album, tentatively entitled Peace. However, on completion of the recording sessions, the band decided that they were unhappy with the sound, and looked for a new producer.

The band went on to re-record the entire third album with producer Rick Rubin, with a slightly different track-list and running order. These new recordings became the album that was released, Electric.

Love Removal Machine:

591. Prince - Sign O' The Times (1987)
















Track Listing

1. Sign 'O' the Times
2. Play in the Sunshine
3. Housequake
4. Ballad of Dorothy Parker
5. It
6. Starfish and Coffee
7. Slow Love
8. Hot Thing
9. Forever in My Life
10. U Got the Look
11. If I Was Your Girlfriend
12. Strange Relationship
13. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
14. Cross
15. It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night
16. Adore

Review

Prince seems to be one of those love him or hate him artists. And I have to say that I am in the first category, I really like this diminutive sex freak. And this is undoubtedly his best album on the list and probably of his whole career.

It doesn't really have that many hit singles, in fact it only has 2 recognisable songs, the title one and U Got The Look. But in spite of that it is the best collection of songs that he has ever produced, in fact there is not one weak link in the whole thing. This is a work of consummate genius.

The beat is particularly good throughout the album and the little funk/jazz elements that he includes more or self evidently in the tracks are equally amazing. Iti s actually hard to chose favourite songs in the album, it is so sprawling at over 80 minutes long and there is so much variety here that favourite tracks change from day to day. Something to be experienced, digested slowly and cherished.

Track Highlights

1. Housequake
2. Sign O' The Times
3. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker
4. Starfish and Coffee

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The bulk of the tracks originate from the final Revolution project known as Dream Factory and a later solo project called Camille. These projects, along with some other songs merged into a 22-track, 3-LP opus called Crystal Ball. Prince's record company, Warner Bros. Records, balked at the idea of a 3-LP album, considering the lukewarm performance of Parade, and Prince's second movie, Under the Cherry Moon, and forced Prince to trim the album down.

The result was Sign O' The Times, which quickly became widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus amongst fans and critics alike. In 1989, Time Out Magazine ranked it greatest album of all time. It was 16th in the New Musical Express list All Time Top 100 Albums and 3rd in Hot Press Magazine's list The 100 Best Albums of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked it number #93 on their list of greatest albums of all time. The album placed 8th on Nieuwe Revu's Top 100 Albums of All Time. Time Magazine placed Sign O' The Times as the greatest album of '80s, and 29th greatest album of all time.

Sign O' The Times... I wonder how long until Prince's people take this down: