Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years of Great Music - 1986

[Zeeba Neighba]

Well if it's Friday, it must be Belgium! Nah...but it is the next year in our "Great Music" thread

Welcome to 1986!

Here's the rules:

Each Friday, we'll introduce a new year from 1957 through 2016. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 1986

 

[axolotl]

If your future is so bright, you just gotta wear shades, here is the list:

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1986

This doesn't mean I'm picking Timbuk 3, though....

 

[patrikc325]

Lifes Rich Pageant - R.E.M.

 

[axolotl]

Juan Martín ~ Painter in Sound



Seriously, why would I pick anything else? My five stars beats the socks off of your five stars.

Plus, "you're not the boss of me," he said sheepishly.

I posted this Youtube of the whole album elsewhere, so I will spoilerize it, here.

Spoiler

 

[Mattafett]

I'm going a different route this year.

Poison - Look What the Cat Dragged In

One of the best hair metal records of all time, by the band that perhaps defined the genre. This is just a fun record to listen to. And isn't that what is most important about music? FUN

 

[LeslieC]

Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

Hey I am a Jersey Girl!

 

[Mattafett]

Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

Hey I am a Jersey Girl!

This was choice 2.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Sonic Youth - EVOL

 

[Postalboy]

XTC- Skylarking

 

[Gasoline Daydreams]

Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill

 

[lpfreak1170]

Tesla - Mechanical Resonance


Gonna skip all the biggies in the top 20 and go with one that I still listen to on a regular basis (and it has never gotten old for me). The record company tried hard to fashion them as hair metal, but they weren't at all...they were, and still are, just a great hard rock band.

 

[Worm]

Peter Gabriel - So

Boy, I listened to this ad nauseum back in the day. I need to dig out the vinyl and give it a spin.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.

By 1986, country music was facing yet another existential crisis: the Nashville Sound was dead and the outlaws had descended into self-parody. Just as it had in the early 60's, the Bakersfield Sound blew in from the San Joaquin Valley to sweep away the ashes with twanging Telecasters and tales of honky tonk tribulation. Dwight Yoakam played the role of Buck Owens nicely, with producer Pete Anderson as his guitar slinging sidekick. Amped up covers of Ray Price, Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton nestle comfortably next to new originals, with Maria McKee adding a touch of female angst.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Spotify playlist here:

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

Paul Simon – Graceland



Paul Simon flies to Africa, finds local groups doing popular African music, merges them with his usually-pretty-good songwriting, makes a smash hit. As an aside, Ladysmith Black Mambazo gets worldwide recognition.

I played this to death in the latter half of the ‘80’s. Every one of my kids can probably sing the words to every track on it. I still love the album. The merging of African and American music was unusual and delightful to my ears. It still is.

There was some controversy that Simon had broken an informal embargo on South Africa over apartheid. It didn’t seem to affect sales. In retrospect, he promoted those African bands to a degree they could not have otherwise done. I think he even toured with the bands he borrowed and had them open for American acts as well, but don’t quote me on that.

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to defend Simon. I'll just stop before I get too deep in the rabbit hole.

 

[JazzyRandy]

Cameo - Word Up!

Tough year for me to make a pick, with no less than nine albums deserving of my pick.

The first side here is so perfectly great, it's inevitable, not disappointing, that the second half of the album shines a little less brilliantly. Cameo had a great run with a dozen albums in their first 10 years, culminating with this hugely commercially successful album. After this, it was all downhill for the band. Not that they created awful albums after this, but nothing after this was as good as anything prior to this.

 

[lpfreak1170]

Cameo - Word Up!

Tough year for me to make a pick, with no less than nine albums deserving of my pick.



The first side here is so perfectly great, it's inevitable, not disappointing, that the second half of the album shines a little less brilliantly. Cameo had a great run with a dozen albums in their first 10 years, culminating with this hugely commercially successful album. After this, it was all downhill for the band. Not that they created awful albums after this, but nothing after this was as good as anything prior to this.

Sounds like that's one of those albums that you play side 2 first...like Dire Straits' Making Movies.

Edit: Also, that title track is a friggin' monster!

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead



High school me would have been incredulous over this pick by future me here 30+ years later. At the time, I teased my friend, a Smiths friend, about the group. They seemed whiny and I didn't like Morrisey's sound at all. Quite frankly (Mr. Shankly), I still don't particularly his voice, but the songwriting - clever and witty, biting and sarcastic, and often beautiful. High school me, focused on lengthy guitar solos would not appreciate Mark's wonderful swirling guitar but now I appreciate that in music less is more and sometime overall tone and mood is importance . I still don't enjoy a lot of the early British new wave of the 1980s buy it was clear The Smith's were something different (they eschewed synthesizers through most of their history). This album was #1 of all time on an NME list several years ago, and yes that's too high (NME is British and definitely tries to rattle the cages with their lists). Still, it's such a good and important album it would be impossible to leave it unchosen (despite how great Raising Hell is and how huge Sprringsteen's first, mammoth live album set was to teenage me - sorry guy).

 

[Unsomnambulist]

HMs:

Big Black - Atomizer



Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Your Funeral... My Trial



The Fall - Bend Sinister



Spacemen 3 - Sound Of Confusion



Elvis Costello - King Of America

 

[axolotl]

^ Dang fine list!