1989

The talking dog has transported me to 1989. He’s still smarting from the butt bite Spuds MacKenzie gave him. I told you to pick on some dog your own size, talking dog.

I’m in Berlin where the wall comes tumbling down. I guess Mikhail did tear down this wall after all. Now everybody is protesting against Communism. One guy stops a tank at Tiananmen Square. Not that it was all that hard; the tank was being driven by Michael Dukakis (drum roll. please). Some guy named Exxon Valdez got a lot of birds dirty and now everybody is mad at him. Did you see Ted Bundy in that John Water’s movie, Female Trouble? Yeah, they put him on the electric chair and everything. Okay, so he didn’t star in Female Trouble. Oh, and did you hear that Pete Rose gambles on baseball? As if nobody knew. Well, now he can gamble on baseball all he wants but he’ll never play in the NFL again.

Panama is the hot vacation spot of the year, you should take the kids there for Christmas. Did you hear about the Keating Five? They were arrested during the Democratic Convention in Chicago or something (or is that the Catonsville Nine?). Well now there are new kids on the block so there!

The Ayatollah is mad at some author and he’s put a fatwa on him. And I was going to bake a cake too. And communism is dying. Well who are we going to blame everything on now? Don’t worry; I’m sure we’ll think of something. Don’t eat those M and M’s; they’re alive, alive!

Well, I better get on with my top twenty-five of 1989. See you in the nineties.

Event of the year: I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

Fad:  Democracy

Babe of the Year: Leona Helmsley

Scandal of the Year: Pete Rose banned from baseball for throwing spitballs

Movie or TV show to barf to: Saved By the Bell

What we could have done without: The War on Drugs

Pet of the year: Spuds MacKenzie

Other Tidbits: San Francisco comes tumblin’ down, Chinese Student stops a tank, leaps over tall buildings in a single bound, Al Bundy’s brother executed, Leona Helmsley declared the Queen of England, Juan Valdez busted for spilling oil in Alaska, Morton Downey Jr. exposed as a liberal, President Bush says Merry Christmas and invades Panama, Noriega becomes a metal head, Salomon Rushdie publishes The Ayatollah wears Panties, Time and Warner merge to form Subway, Zsa Zsa Gabor slaps a cop (this is true), Jack Nicholson falls into a vat of acid, Bruce Wayne marries Kim Basinger, Charles Keating named most honest banker of 1989, The Berlin Wall moved to Boston to replace the Green Monster.

So what’s on the menu for 1989 you ask? Well let’s give it a spin and find out…

1)  Camper Van Beethoven- Key Lime Pie

2) The Pixies- Doolittle

3)  Galaxie 500- On Fire

4)  Chris Isaak- Heart Shaped World

5)  Roy Orbison- Mystery Girl

6)  Nine Inch Nails- Pretty Hate Machine

7)  De La Soul- 3 Feet High and Rising

8)  The The- Mind Bomb

9)  Tom Petty- Full Moon Fever

10)  Beat Happening- Black Candy

11)  Kirsty MacColl- Kite

12)  XTC- Oranges and Lemons

13)  The B-52s- Cosmic Thing

14)  The Replacements- Don’t Tell a Soul

15)  Neil Young- Freedom

16)  Kate Bush- The Sensual World

17)  Nirvana- Bleach

18)  Lenny Kravitz- Let Love Rule

19)  House of Freaks- Tantilla

20)  Beastie Boys- Paul’s Boutique

21)  Chris Knox- Seizure

22)  Concrete Blonde- Free

23)  Michael Penn- March

24)  Bob Dylan- Oh Mercy

25)  The Cure- Disintegration

The top two spots for me were easy and yet hard at the same time. I mean, really, I like Key Lime Pie but I also love the Pixies, so this was sort of like flip a coin season. I like CVB for their straight forward quirkiness and some awesome guitar work, while the Pixies impress with their chord changes and psychedelic sound if you will. My surprise gets the third spot while Chris Isaak, who I guess is a guilty pleasure, and the late, great Roy Orbison round out my top five. The rest of my top ten are full with highlights starting with the one industrial band I really like in Nine Inch Nails, one of the great Hip Hop albums from De La Soul, my other surprise with The The, and Tom Petty’s best, imo. And, of course, there is the quirky Beat Happening. Other gems in my twenty-five include a great effort by Kirsty MacColl, comebacks from the B-52s and Neil Young, Nirvana with the then overlooked Bleach, another surprise- this one from Lenny Kravitz, and House of Freaks. I’m thinking about the Freaks in particular because I was heartbroken when I heard about Bryan Harvey’s murder in 2006.

Biggest Surprise- Galaxie 500- On Fire.

I’m not sure where I am in terms of Shoegaze in general. I figured this album would rate on my list somewhere as I had liked the couple of tracks I had heard from this band- and this album. So, maybe an Honorable Mention, right? Well, I got to listen to the full album on Spotify and I knew it was top ten, then top five. Yeah, the only albums better for sure at this writing would be my top two picks. The guy can’t sing and the sound is a bit like a bunch of kids in the garage fooling around. Yet, it totally works. It’s almost even lush, thus the shoegaze label, I’m sure.

Biggest Disappointment-  Smithereens- 11

After two very solid albums, I expected to hear the same on this album (I bought this one new). Not exactly. It sounds as if they were the Knack doing their follow-up album. The thing that annoys me the most on this album is that every song had to do a quickie drum solo on the third verse of every song. Yeah, if I have to take this with me to a deserted island, I’d rather drown instead.

Honorable Mention- New Order- Technique, Elvis Costello- Spike, Jesus and Mary Chain- Automatic, Red Hot Chili Peppers- Mother’s Milk, Queen- The Miracle

Stinker of the Year-  Torn Flesh- Crux of the Mosh.

Believe it or not, this is Christian Thrash Metal though you’d never know it because you can’t understand anything the lead , um, singer, is saying. He speeds his words faster than that guy in the Federal Express commercial (if anyone remembers that). Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about getting bashed too much in Gay Rights(?). And, of course, don’t forget that classic, Kill the Dead.

And with that, I think I’m going to get some religion… not! See you next time as we enter the nineties.