1989: The Year, Not the Taylor Swift Album Covered by Ryan Adams

I'm a fan of Paste magazine. I was a subscriber when they used to have a print offering (which came with a CD of recently released songs).  I am now on their e-mailing list and check out their online articles with some frequency.

Paste has a good feel to it. Highly knowledgeable writers for the most part, though there are times halfway through an article that I realize that the author was born when I was in college and therefore may not see things through the same lens.  Still, always a decent approach and highly informative. That's good for a music geek like... some of you.

Tons of music. Also, movies, television, games, beer, pop culture, and even politics, but tons of music. Their music reviews aren't as esoterically harsh as Pitchfork, nor as Grammy-style clueless as Rolling Stone. Nor are their politics as pointedly extreme as RS's... though in some cases the writers at Paste bleed somewhat heartily.

Anyway, this week they have a new music piece on 1989, which happens to have been 30 years ago, and the albums which hit the shelves of your local record store that year. Record stores... you remember... those mom and pop ones like Tracks in Norfolk (RIP) and Birdland in Virginia Beach (alive and kicking).  Or Tower Records in big cities.  Places where Rob and I would peruse the shelves very deliberately and make choices insightfully sublime and just awful in equal measure.

1989... the three bad brothers you know so well were freshmen becoming sophomores after pledging a certain fraternity; some among our gang here were young teens in the tri-state area and the space coast; and Mr. KQ was raising kids and looking forward to slowing his pace as retirement crept closer. The music we respectively cued up on compact disc or cassette or tuned in via the FM dial... well, here it is.

The article is worth reading in full (linked above), and you can say whatever you want about opinion-based best-of lists found on the dork web, but the list simply took me back to a simpler, more ignorant, and more blissful, if not drunker, time:

PASTE - The Best Albums of 1989

30. The Blue Nile: Hats
29. Andrew Hill: Eternal Spirit
28. The Ocean Blue: The Ocean Blue
27. New Order: Technique
26. Lou Reed: New York
25. The Mighty Lemon Drops: Laughter
24. Yo La Tengo: President Yo La Tengo
23. Galaxie 500: On Fire
22. Neil Young: Freedom
21. Elvis Costello: Spike
20. Indigo Girls: Indigo Girls
19. Bob Mould: Workbook
18. The Replacements: Don’t Tell A Soul
17. The B-52’s: Cosmic Thing
16. XTC: Oranges and Lemons
15. Bonnie Raitt: Nick Of Time
14. Camper Van Beethoven: Key Lime Pie
13. Janet Jackson: Rhythm Nation 1814
12. Bob Dylan: Oh Mercy
11. Nirvana: Bleach
10. Fugazi: 13 Songs
9. Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine
8. Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever
7. Kate Bush: The Sensual World
6. The Stone Roses: The Stone Roses
5. The Cure: Disintegration
4. Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique
3. Madonna: Like a Prayer
2. The Pixies: Doolittle
1. De La Soul: Three Feet High and Rising

Debate it if you will, and you certainly can. That "See a Little Light" is coming in two spots behind "Love Shack" is going to confound at least one of our opinionated gang.  I'm as pleased by Key Lime Pie's inclusion as I am Mother's Milk's omission.  Madonna seems out of place, the Petty album is annoyingly ubiquitous but still mostly underrated, and 13 Songs was an amalgamation of two EP's, one from 1988, so it questionably counts (but should be heard when you're feeling angsty).

We talk about it ad nauseum in this space, but it still amuses to see Paul's Boutique get props left and right this millennium after being summarily ignored in 1989. Some stuff isn't appreciated in its time. Like Dazed and Confused. And "Arrested Development"... the television show, not Mr. Wendal.  And the Cauc Hop.

Three Feet High and Rising, at #1, is curiously absent from Spotify, but I'll have to give it a re-listen on my private stock of Moving Pictures Experts Group Audio Layer 3 files... and YouTube videos like this:

More albums worth remembering from 1989... some that would certainly make my list:
The Cult: Sonic Temple
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Mother's Milk
Faith No More: The Real Thing
Hoodoo Gurus: Magnum Cum Louder
The Connells: Fun and Games
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: In Step
The Pogues: Peace and Love
Drivin' 'n' Cryin': Mystery Road
Mötley Crüe: Dr. Feelgood
Big Audio Dynamite: Megatop Phoenix
3rd Bass: The Cactus Album
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Automatic
Biz Markie: The Biz Never Sleeps
Random Idiots: Bloodfinger
Paul McCartney: Flowers in the Dirt
The Smithereens: 11
Phish: Junta
Kirsty MacColl: Kite
10,000 Maniacs: Blind Man's Zoo
Fine Young Cannibals: The Raw and the Cooked

There was a lot lot LOT of dreck that year as well, of course. '89 releases from the likes of Starship, Warrant, Milli Vanilli, Richard Marx, Barry Manilow, Wang Chung, Cher, Michael Bolton, Mr. Big, David Hasselhoff, Bee Gees, and good ol' Kenny G. Plus bloaty, post-peak efforts from the Dead, the Stones, Mellencamp, Prince, Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Queen.

But there was far more that I loved.  And such articles and ensuing discussions just make me want to play some of the old music.

To wit: