150 Best Albums of 1989

Most of the music Joshua Clover (a/k/a the Associate Professor Formerly Known as Jane Dark) writes about in his 2009 book 1989 did not technically come out in 1989. The book explores music at the end of history — which is to say, circa the revolutionary collapse of communism across the Eastern Bloc and less-successful…

False Metal Roundup, 1987

Three of the five albums focused on here made it into Stairway to Hell a few years later, which means plenty of the writing did, as well. But not all of it — including, I’m fairly certain, the battle of the bands between Mötley Crüe and Pussy Galore, and the too-soon Peter Tosh (R.I.P. 9/11/’87)…

Ronald Shannon Jackson review, 1987

I listen to jazz, particularly of post-bebop persuasions, much more than my writing would imply — check just about any of the “150 Best Albums Of…” posts on this site for specifics. But honestly, I just never really figured out how to write about the stuff. I did try some though, mainly in the late…

Beastie Boys review, 1987

Not my most famous piece about the band. That came a couple of months later. Here, they hadn’t quite broke out yet. Pretty much the unbowdlerized original version of what became the Licensed to Ill entry in Stairway to Hell, if only because with alt-weekly reviews you don’t have to get permission to reprint multiple-lined…

A Bubblegum Top 40

Reprinted in the 2001 Kim Cooper and David Smay-edited anthology Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth; possibly excerpted and/or cannibalized in scores of things I’ve written since. But this is how the original version looked on the page. A year later or decades later — after Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, the Spice Girls, Radio Disney, Aqua,…

Underground Metal roundup, 1987

A sort of early blueprint for Stairway to Hell (note the headline), where much of this piece wound up — though not nearly as much as I’ve long assumed. Only three albums (Celtic Frost, Voivod, Dick Destiny) overlap both book and article, plus one more band (Saint Vitus) represented by different albums in each. Plus…

Eric B. & Rakim review, 1987

Interesting to see this early take on the duo — i.e., that they were bringing the funk back to hip-hop — in light of how I felt about them just a few years later, which is that Rakim’s addiction to convoluted rhythms and rhyme schemes was a hip-hop equivalent of show-offy post-Sgt. Pepper’s prog-rock, or…

John Cougar Mellencamp live review, 1987

Maybe the third best thing I’ve written about the Cougmeister (check my third and fourth books for the first and second best), and still not horrible I don’t think. Surprised I didn’t point out in the corporate sponsorship hypocrisy paragraph that his greatest song is free advertising for Tastee-Freez. My opinion of The Lonesome Jubilee…

Charlene et. al. review, 1995

An excuse to rave about quite possibly the most ridiculous, brazen, inconceivably over-the-top soliloquy ever to go Top 10. And since you ask, yes I have indeed karaokied it. Did you expect otherwise? Eye Weekly, 25 May 1995

Lou Gramm single review, 1987

When I interviewed him for Creem a month or two later, Lou Gramm told me he appreciated this review, but wondered why I ended it calling him a “hack.” I told him, “But Lou, you sing for Foreigner!” As for suggesting they’re “the greatest postpunk 45-rpm band,” I was partly being provocative no doubt (they…