Rats, I just realized I don't have the official list with me so the order might be real wacky... I'll do my best to prevent that.
10. The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands
JAMC's second album is a pleasant and mature step forward from their debut. Unfortunately apart from a few great singles like "Head On" it is where their glory days end. Every strength of their first album is fine-tuned with the noise stripped away and extended into a slower-paced groove. It is almost like a set of David Lynch-worthy ballads from another era apart from that distinctly 80s drum sound. Simplicity is still the brothers' greatest virtue, both in music and lyrics - that and repetition which with longer songs can become a bit less charming on this set of a lot less tracks. Luckily that also makes the songs bleed together... just a bit less. It is the perfect prescription for "more JAMC, it's just too bad it ends there. If you're really desperate, note how closely Butch Vig was taking notes, especially on "Happy When It Rains."
9. Hüsker Dü - Warehouse: Songs and Stories
The Dü concludes their brief yet prolific career with another double album. Is it a concept again? I can't tell and I don't really care, but with so many great songs who cares? It sounds the best of any of their records and signals the very different path that Hart and Mould would take afterwards with more new sounds in the arrangements and completely different vibes like the Medieval-with-distortion "She Floated Away." Still the best songs are speedy punk-pop with somewhat obscure lyrics like "Ice Cold Ice" and "You're a Soldier." Along with a whole bunch of albums, most of which will be on my next list this foreshadows the "alternative revolution" of the following decade and this album would have been a hit five years later for certain. After all, its length fits a CD better than vinyl. The band even appeared on Joan Rivers in a clip I highly recommend and "Could You Be The One?" really should have made it - perhaps it was too poppy...
8. Sonic Youth - Sister
Sonic Youth finally fully embraces the pop sensibilities of their peers in the American Underground on this one. They are still a bunch of pompous New York brats (and one wannabe New York bat), but they get away with it on this album that really made them the over-worshipped, but still great combo they always will be. "Schizophrenia" has been a staple of the band since and for good reason despite some kind of eye-rolling lyrics that I guess tie into the Philip K. Dick concept. The energy gets higher on "(I Got a) Catholic Block" which, along with "Tuff Gnarl" really signals where things would go on the following albums. Lee Renaldo sounds fantastic on "Pipeline/Kill Time," which sets the standard for his songs that are always a welcome change of pace on their later albums, even though Steve Shelley could ill back a little bit. Like that would ever happen. Their take on Crime's "Hot Wire My Heart" is pretty fun, too. Maybe not Sonic Youth's first great record, but the first one I would recommend without hesitation.
7. The Triffids - Calenture
More melodrama from David McCombs and company, though this time a bit more streamlined. Where Born Sandy Devotional has a wide range of songs, this one is a lot more unified, but never in a limiting way. Opener "Bury Me Deep In Love" may be this band's most intense song, an anthem for lost souls on the road and certainly to be played at my funeral. Even the up-beat sounding single "Trick of the Light," is extremely dark with the line "see, I was beating her like an anvil, beating her out of original shape," not enough to distract from the protagonist's (?) heartbreaking mirage. The self-explanatory "Hometown Farewell Kiss" and horror story "Jerdacuttup Man," keep this album full of heartbreak and torturous violence with the closest thing to relief being Jill Birt's "Open For You." Lyrically, it is even more explicit, yet musically much more accessible than BSD, this can be as good a place to begin with the Triffids. The title comes from the condition in which the open sea appears to be fields of green grass - a mirage leading to heartbreak and and likely a very unpleasant death.
6. Game Theory - Lolita Nation
This Davis, CA group loosely associated with the Paisley Underground (later adding Michael Quercio) teams up with Mitch Easter to create one of the biggest and most psychotic albums of the 80s pop underground. This group of Kubrick fanatics led by Scott Miller have plenty of dark interests, but the sounds of this double LP are very bright and the lyrics... very hard to tell. Sweet tunes like "We Love You Carol and Alison" and "Chardonnay" are interspersed with odd samples like "Kenneth - What's The Frequency?" a more accurate retelling of Dan Rather's unfortunate encounter than peers R.E.M.'s. The titles get weird, but instrumentals like "Choose Between Two Sons," make them incidental to the beautiful pop music all over this brainy mammoth of an album.
5. The Butthole Surfers- Locust Abortion Technician
Usually considered the Surfers' best, this is the height of the band's studio wizardry and unified playing with the addition of classic bass player Jeff Pinkus. Beginning about a minute and a half into the album the group states their purpose of being louder, heavier, and slower than Sabbath. They succeed and would put generations and generations of so-called "doom metal" bands to shame if any of them had the good sense to listen. "Pittsburgh to Lebanon" and the backing of the horrific fabricated sexual assault of "22 Going on 23" are the heaviest songs of the decade. Studio experimentation is at its best on "Hay" (a far cry from the R.E.M. tribute of similar name) and the classic re-cut piece of Thai pop "Kuntz." Gibby totally cuts loose vocally propelling the apocalyptic music of "The O-Men" and "U.S.S.A." into the most nightmarish territory this band of acid-fried gypsies from hell created. They don't regret anything they didn't do, so if you do see your mother this weekend, you'll be sure what to tell her.
4. Wire - The Ideal Copy
I'll be honest, I haven't listened to this album enough to say much. I can't really listen to it right now, at least not in any way to add much. Either way Wire is one of the best bands that ever existed. After eight years they came back and not only sounded as great as ever but put the younger generation to shame. A lot of people debate when U2 stopped being relevant, I would say that it was when Wire got back together. I would also say that about New Order, as pleasant as listening to them would remain. I have a lot of catching up to do on latter-day Wire, but I have not been disappointed so far and I can place this album (at least) this high with no hesitation despite it being a new addition to my life.
3. Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me
The Western Mass trio make the best album of their initial career on this one. The young band is not want for experience or talent and the crunch and emotion precede what would follow enough for Lou Barlow to believe they could have been Nirvana. That is debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is easy to overlook the very talented and his perfect playing Barlow as J and Murph, steal the show as always with their godly talent. Still, "Lose" is one of the greats, up there with "Kracked" and "The Lung." However, all these songs pale in comparison to opener "Little Fury Things," maybe the band's greatest song beginning with their hardcore roots and following with harmonies and tambourines that remake 60s folk rock with the knowledge of decades of punk, noise, and tasteful metal. These hippies know tunes, heavy playing, and shredding better than any other band around and this is their peak from the early days.
2. The Bats - Daddy's Highway
After being the hippest thing on the planet for the entire decade the Flying Nun camp finally puts out a true masterpiece - the finest record the label ever released. The Bats, though seldom regarded as such are a supergroup led by former Clean bassist (on guitar) Rob Scott and featuring Toy Love member Paul Keane on bass. Their approach is what differentiates them from other supergroups as much of what makes this album great comes from lead guitarist Kaye Woodward's harmonies and occasional bass playing on songs like the opener "Treason." That song also introduces the brain-penetrating violin of guest star Alastair Gilbraith. This flawless set of guitar pop sounds eerily similar to the artists working in New Jersey around the same time and would come back to influence those same ones, most evidently in Yo La Tengo. Moods very from the bright and cheery of "Round and Down" and "Take It" to the melancholy ballads of "Tragedy" and "Some Peace Tonight" to the dark psychedelia of "North by North." It concludes with the punchy bass and particularly tight harmonies of the coming of age title track.
1. Guns 'N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
If you can believe that. Like the intelligence-breeding psychotropic mushroom growing out of a great big pile of cow shit, one of the finest rock albums of the era came out of the 80s Sunset Strip pop metal scene. Maybe it was ambition, maybe it was pure self-desctructive psychosis, or maybe it was brotherly love, but this album is a true masterpiece. Perfectly titled, it is the one thing for which tortured genius Axl Rose will always be remembered. It is in no small part due to the rest of the band featuring childhood best friend Izzy Stradlin and his Strokes-inspiring dynamics with lead guitarist Slash. Slash's own childhood best friend, the troubled Steven Adler with former Fastbacks' drummer Duff McKagen back that up with the heaviest and most interesting complicated rhythms. As volatile as their personalities were the five members collaborate equally here, explaining why it is so vastly superior to their other work, even the finest moments on the underrated Use Your Illusion. The vile Sunset Strip metalhead life is evident on "It's So Easy" and "Nightrain," but GNR's material goes much deeper with the sensitivity of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Think About You," and the peers into Rose's horrifying mind on "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Out Ta Get Me." Even the final songs and their sleazy sexuality transcend the stupid horniness of their scene-mates. After each song, this album leaves you thinking "there is no way the next song could rock that much!" and then proves you wrong in about five seconds. While most of the members have spent the last 25 years embarrassing themselves and appearing to have more and more in common with the members of Poison and Mötley Crüe this is an album of uncommon brilliance without any comparison.
Okay, finally that's over with. Better writing next time. Great albums, though!
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