WELL DONE EVERYONE! We’ve made it through 1988. But the 80s still have more to throw at us. Let’s regroup and take stock of the year – use the poll to indicate which tracks YOU would have given 6 or more out of 10 to.
And use the comments to discuss the year in general – which, as has often been mentioned in the regular comments boxes, was actually pretty damn good.
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Tom in Popular • popular year poll • 1,635 views
All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–105.Back up to post. More comments: All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–105.
All the UK number ones since 1952, reviewed in order and rated by whim. As featured on Radio 2, The Times, Metro, Paul Cornell's LiveJournal, etc etc.
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…whereas what happened was that a shapeshifting Bill Drummond would set the agenda for the next 5 years of UK pop! Respect to Mark Moore though; he was in on the ground floor with the vogueing thing (see McLaren’s remarkably underrated Waltz Darling album) and one of his S’Express colleagues makes a return to Popular at the turn of the millennium.
We recently found a used copy of the second S’Express album, Intercourse (which I don’t recall ever seeing new in the shops at the time – was it even reviewed anywhere?) with “Mantra For A State Of Mind,” “Nothing To Lose,” etc. Fine stuff.
re 69 “she sells meat” is a tremendous line, i’ve always thought – one of suede’s very best stabs at the unspecifiably dirty.
on the disappointing butterfly album, i seem to remember that when ‘never’ first came out it was scorned by fans as an act of terrible betrayal, like it was ‘self portrait’ or something (or at least ‘ouija board, ouija board’). HOL were indeed great live though – their show at the hummingbird in birmingham (supported by some have fins, aficionados will note) was the third proper gig i ever went to i think and made a big impression.
i get the feeling from this thread (and my general sense of the majority demographics here) that i’m not the only one for whom the next few years saw the charts as an interesting sideshow to cud b-sides that were at the centre of the pop universe. it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the comments threads.
‘Never’ was like a dress rehearsal for the great Stone Roses ‘One Love’ letdown of 1990… And both of those singles have got fantastic B-sides (‘Soft as Fire/ Safe’ and ‘Something’s Burning’) that outshine their slapdash public faces.
I ticked 7, 2 or 3 of them very marginal. I was listening to indie, hip hop and house back then, and I probably saw a few of the bands in some of those lists – Wedding Present probably, maybe the Fall, almost certainly the Flatmates, who I knew very slightly.
Re 72: chiming guitars (as opposed to the fuzzy or jangly option taken by their Creation contemporaries) and stentorian vocals plus grandiose yearning equalled U2 to me. And I think Chadwick aspired very much to stadium filling…
What I think I mean is if you stand them next to the actual U2, they don’t sound that epic. If you place them alongside early Primal Scream or Slaughter Joe, they do…
Interesting to see the stark difference between the disco fodder at the top and the big blustery ballads at the bottom here.
So what WERE or are people’s favourite ballads of 1988?
Was Maconie writing much for NME in 88? I know he’d arrived because I remember him — very amiable fellow — but I don’t recall that he was setting its tone and agenda yet. Though it’s really strange how distorted your idea is of how a magazine comes across to readers, when you’re actually on the inside.
I made pretty much exactly the same switch as Stevie at almost the same age – gave up on NME, then when I got back into the music press it was Melody Maker circa early 92: I decided I preferred style over content (where content = the specific bands covered, not the ideas about those bands) and MM had all the style.
Maconie did set a lot of the tone on the NME in 89 – he, Andrew Collins and Swells were the joke-tellers. Back then I liked his comedy pieces a lot.
This Maconie review is of indirect nostalgic relevance http://home2.btconnect.com/iconic-trash/trigger-happy.html though I wouldn’t rep for the writing on it.
Surely everyone’s favourite ballad of 1988 is the one I should be writing about right now instead of thinking about the House of Love ;)
NME was very much in transition in 1988: there’d been a very significant management purge of the editorial team in 1987, and the new editor was putting together a new team and establishing a new direction which very likely didn’t gel until 1989. I actually applied for the job that James Brown got — assistant editor — but I didn’t get it: possibly because I was interviewed IN THE PUB which totally threw me (I doubt I was seriously in the running: as I recall part of my pitch was “raise the quality of writing”, which wouldn’t actually have excluded “funny”). A whole bunch of contributors quietly left at this point; I was able to fashion a noisy exit because I am a massive drama queen.
fave ballad of 88
From the archives: these were my favourite singles of 1988:
1. left to my own devices – pet shop boys
2. right back to you – ten city
3. alphabet street – prince
4. buffalo stance – neneh cherry
5. can you party – royal house
6. fast car – tracy chapman
7. teardrops – womack & womack
8. reachin’ – phase II
9. fairplay – soul II soul
10. ye ke ye ke – mory kante (original/afro-acid remix)
11. it takes two – rob base & dj e-z rock
12. first we take manhattan – leonard cohen
13. it’s alright – sterling void
14. the only way is up – yazz & the plastic population
15. theme from s-express – s-express
16. follow the leader – eric b & rakim
17. jenifa (taught me) – de la soul
18. know how – young mc
19. cars and girls – prefab sprout
20. every day is like sunday – morrissey
And DJ Punctum’s token classic ’88 single waiting to be rediscovered: “Don’t Scandalize Mine” by Sugar Bear.
I miss Champion Records; the label was always a guarantee of quality, like ECM.
#89 I’m sure it gets rediscovered every 10 years or so and never takes, which is a shame – I first heard it in the mid-90s thanks to some “how on earth were these not smashes” feature or other.
Little admin note: I’ve finally tracked down and zapped the bug that was resetting vote counts very high in older polls with multiple answers like this. (This was making all the old polls appear with tiny bars, all in proportion, but scaled down so that the top result looked like it had something small like only 20% of the vote, etc)
Re: HoL and Suede. Didn’t both have the marrow sucked out of their bones when their rather talented guitarists left after an album and a half (ish)? Always thought they were very similar in many respects, Guy C and Brett A running their bands like military leaders (Chadders had an army upbringing, after all) and using the same key words in most of their songs (jesus/plastic/fire vs trash/wild/council flat). Both fond of singing “so young”, which neither were (ouch).
Metal Mickey lyric – snap, except I thought it was “she’s so hard, she’s so clean”, which is not really the kind of girl Mr Anderson was describing. Also thought So Young’s chorus was “let’s kiss the coppers” and The Wild Ones were “running with the tarts tonight”. His diction was rather limp.
@92 Sacrilege! I loved Dog Man Star and feared the worst when Butler left, but was absolutely obsessed with Coming Up, my favourite Suede album bar none. Listened to it non-stop on my walkman for months, backed on C90 with Pulp’s His ‘n’ Hers.
Butler’s solo efforts, on the other hand…
W&W’s Teardrops was no.1 in Holland for SIX WEEKS. Shame on the UK. Is there a Dutch Popular out there somewhere?
Re 93: I was a little harsh on ‘The Boy Oakes’-era Suede (but only a little). Yes, Bickers and Butler both suffered from Marr syndrome (again that’s a LITTLE harsh on Butler, but basically true).
@94 No argument from me on the albums after Coming Up, but Oakes was the last one to blame.
Those Norwegian number ones in full:
Belinda Carlisle – Heaven Is…
Billy Ocean – Get Outta My Dreams
A Ha – Stay On These Roads
Prince – Alphabet Street
Ofra Haza – Im Nin Alu
Tindrum – Drums Of War
Viggo Sandvik – Fisking I Valdres
Europe – Superstitious
Transvision Vamp – I Want Your Love
Vidar Theisen & the Retrievers – Heavy Metal
Koreana – Hand In Hand
One 2 Many – Downtown
Sam Brown – Stop
Favourite ballads of 1988:
Perhaps “Love Is Contagious” by Tajeh Sevelle,
Perhaps “Come Into My Life” by Joyce Sims.
(I suppose if the original release of “Stop” by Sam Brown counts here, that too)
Very much less sappy than the high-charting ones… My, didn’t the quality of number ones drop off as the year went on though, after such a vaguely promising spring and winter.
Worst top 40 single of the year? “Soldier of Love” by Donny Osmond, perhaps?
And “Destroy The Heart” – a fantastic explosion. Best number 76 hit ever. Was quite fond of some of the HoL’s later stuff, too.
NME Readers Poll – Best Single of 1988
1. Destroy The Heart – The House of Love
2. Sidewalking – The Jesus & Mary Chain
3. Everyday Is Like Sunday – Morrissey
4. Suedehead – Morrissey
5. Crash – The Primitives
6. The Mercy Seat – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
7. Desire – U2
8. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? – The Wedding Present
9. Christine – The House of Love
10. Fine Time – New Order
Melody Maker Readers Poll – Best Single of 1988
1. Tower of Strength – The Mission
2. Desire – U2
3. Martha’s Harbour – All About Eve
4. Christine – The House of Love
5. Everyday Is Like Sunday – Morrissey
6. Moonchild – Fields of the Nephilim
7. The Mercy Seat – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
8. Crash – The Primitives
9. A Wish Away – The Wonderstuff
10. You Made Me Realise – My Bloody Valentine
=. Cathouse – Danielle Dax
For Chelovek, here are the number 41s of 1988 – an evocative list!;
Eurythmics – Shame
Bryan Ferry – Kiss & Tell
Maxi Priest & Beres Hammond – How Can We Ease The pain?
Taylor Dayne – I’ll Always Love You
The Style Council – How She Threw It All Away
Jellybean – Coming Back For More
Kiss – Turn On The Night
Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Killing Jar
Freddie Jackson – Crazy
The Human League – Love Is All That Matters
The Proclaimers – Sunshine On Leith
Transvision Vamp – Sister Moon
Mista E – Don’t Believe The Hype
Hmm, Mista E “Don’t Believe The Hype”: I seem to recall this track was the focus of a lot of tabloid hysteria about raves, etc. (Listening to it on youtube: I hear the voice of someone pretending to be Prince Charles, or possibly samples of him, with other sampled voices talking about “the acid house”. Am sure I’ve heard it lots since, actually!
Bryan Ferry’s “Bete Noire” (from which “Kiss and Tell” is taken) is a fine pop album, ALMOST as polished and perfect in its way as “The Lexicon of Love”. Barely a duff track, though “The Right Stuff” was the best single (which barely got any higher than no 41)
Proclaimers – absolute classic track.
Tranny Vamp – has aged surprisingly well. I recall a big tabloid fuss about naked Wendy James in the video (but don’t recall ever seeing it)
Not impressed by the Taylor Dayne or Siouxsie tracks; and the Style Council one (complete with B-side “Oh I Do Like To Be B-Side the A-Side” suggesting further that the creativity had run out, and, oh, the less said about their awful cover version of the wondrous “Promised Land” the better) was also somewhat below their best. I sill can’t decide whether that Human League track is a minor gem or not.
Strange to see so many relatively big names on the no 41 list this year.
The Face’s films of 1988 (not numbered):
Wings Of Desire
Bird
Near Dark
Ironweed
Barfly
Tampopo
Planes Trains And Automobiles
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Hollywood Shuffle
The Hidden
A pretty weak bunch, I think, and considering they’re not numbered, putting Ironweed and Barfly next to each other makes it seem sameier than it is. The ‘Also’ list contains Robocop and Midnight Run, both of which I’d take over everything on the main list any day, plus a bunch of ehs? What was Angel Dust? The Fruit Machine? The Dead Can’t Lie? Hidden City?
Not making the list at all were films including: Beetle Juice, A Fish Called Wanda, Hairspray and Colors.
Tampopo is terrific.
Huh? 1988 is the year of Cinema Paradiso, one of those films that would make my all-time top twenty. And if you think it’s a typical piece of elitist arty-farty European cinema you haven’t seen it!
Pretty sure Cinema Paradiso came out in 1989 here – it won the Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA in 1990.