A few weeks back, a Brat bravely postulated that 1987 was the greatest year in the history of music. After the laughter died down, we took a closer look at the albums released twenty-five years ago and you know what?He may very well be right.
See if he's correct. We compiled the twenty-five greatest albums from twenty-five years ago, 1987. Tell us what you think when you get down to #1. And let us know if you would've ordered them differently.
Here are Numbers 11-15:
15. Whitney Houston, Whitney
Whitney Houston's Whitney was the singer's second album and avoided the dreaded "sophomore slump." It ended up being certified 9 times platinum and put Whitney in the top tier for female artists. It was the first album by a woman to debut at number one on the Billboard charts. In short, it made Whitney a superstar and if you say you you've never sung into your hairbrush and belted out "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," I'm pretty sure you're lying.--Archphoenix
14. Mötley Crüe, Girls, Girls, Girls
So in 1989, a friend of mine took me to this strip club called J.K.'s Playroom in Baltimore. I had been to strip clubs prior to that, and some of them were pretty seedy. None of that prepared me for J.K.'s. It was a dive. Worn carpet, haze of cigarette smoke, men's room toilet that tended to overflow on a regular basis, soaking the aforementioned threadbare carpet... Just flat out awful. But my buddy was driving, and the beer was cheap, so I humored him. Even so, after a couple of okay-looking girls strutted their stuff on stage, I was about ready to ask my friend why the hell he brought me to this place. Nothing to see here. Move along.Then, over the speakers, I heard a motorcycle rev, and the dulcet tones of Mötley Crüe started singing about strip clubs (that, ostensibly, were much nicer than this one). And out came Julie.
Julie was just plain awesome. She danced on the stage for a bit, then made her rounds of the bar (it was a small place, and the dancers usually danced among the patrons--this was a bikini strip club, mind you, and table/lap dances were not part of the repertoire.) Anyway, Julie danced over to me and winked at me over the mirrored sunglasses she was wearing, her hand brushing my knee... and I was a Mötley Crüe fan for life.
I'm not sure you could find anyone who would go so far as to describe Vince Neil and company as huge talents. But for me, the music I like is often more about the context in which I was introduced to it rather than it's intrinsic merits as "good music." There were a whole slew of bands that I heard for the first time in my strip club-frequenting days of the late '80s and early '90s, and some of my earliest CD purchases were a direct result of this. Girls, Girls, Girls was certainly one of my first 10 CDs. (Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction was THE first--also strip club music in my mind). And to this day, I can picture Julie in her mirrored shades and bikini every time I hear that song.--Dave
13. Love And Rockets, Earth, Sun, Moon
It would be another two years before the band earned a somewhat shocking top five single with "So Alive," but Earth, Sun, Moon, the third album from the guys that rose from the Peter Murphy-less ashes of Bauhaus, was Love And Rockets' best album. More restrained than the band's previous offering, Express, Earth, Sun, Moon was an alternative masterpiece from start to finish, with standout tracks including "No New Tale To Tell," "Mirror People," "Here On Earth," and my personal favorite, "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven."--Chris
12. Prince, Sign O' The Times
Despite the fact that it's easier to find proof of the existence of Bigfoot on the Internet than to stumble across a Prince video, Sign O' The Times was another piece of the enigma that was Prince. His last truly great album, Sign O' The Times was a double album, and Prince's first as a solo artist. The album had great hits like the title track, "U Got The Look," and "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man," but it also boasted gems that never made it to your radio like "Housequake," "Play In The Sunshine," and one of the simplest and greatest Prince tunes of all time, "Starfish And Coffee."--Chris
11. Aerosmith, Permanent Vacation
Being a young kid just discovering MTV, Aerosmith was the reason my parents forbade me from watching it. The video for "Rag Doll" was an extensive education for me in the world of sexual desires and fetishes. Permanent Vacation was already Aerosmith's ninth album, but the first to reach wider audiences and give them visibility on MTV. For a band that would be considered classic blues-hard-rock, this could be seen as selling out, but I think it only brought a great retro-sound to a welcoming mainstream audience. Aersosmith can be dirty and crass (would "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" ever thrive in a current, politically-correct world?) but on the same album, produced one of the best hard rock ballads ever with "Angel."--Robin| << Nos. 16-20 | Nos. 6-10 >> |
