Annual Playlists

1996: One Was Magenta, The Other Was Blue

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By this year, music permeated my life more than it ever had before. Between regular used record store visits (including dollar vinyl bin dives), library CDs dubbed onto blank cassettes and “Ten Albums for the Price of One” record clubs (Columbia House, BMG, CD-HQ—I did ‘em all), I amassed a collection of more product than I could ever absorb. I stopped at a record store that September after a few weeks of deliberately avoiding them to save up some cash, about to burst at the seams with joy upon seeing all the new records I wanted to buy. I selected six of that year’s releases for my 100 Albums project and just as easily could’ve picked at least four more (Diary of A Mod Housewife, Viva! La Woman, Endtroducing… and Nine Objects of Desire, for starters) if I didn’t feel weird about including ten for a single year.

As with 1995, my age obviously factored into this. Everything at 21 still felt so new and limitless to me where music was concerned. While the alt-rock bubble had burst, it had not yet fully soured into the dubious mutations (nu-metal, mook rock and Smashmouth) that overtook it in the late ‘90s. Like any other year, this one had its share of pedestrian (311), overplayed (oh, I don’t know, “Macarena”?) and just plain godawful (hello, Bush!) hits. But look at Primitive Radio Gods topping the modern rock airplay chart for six weeks! Or agreeable novelty hits from Fountains of Wayne, Beck and Geggy Tah! Not to mention all the wonderful stuff not on your radio, from Sloan’s Chicago (the band)-gone-indie-pop gem to an improbable but divine duet between Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue!

The relative lack of real obscurities here (even Cibo Matto got on MTV) suggests indie’s infiltration of the mainstream was at one of its intermittent peaks though I suspect many listeners have never heard “Percolator”, “Power World” or even “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”. I myself did not hear DJ Shadow’s expansive, sample-built mood collage or Belle and Sebastian’s version of indie-pop more informed by Vince Guaraldi than Tom Verlaine until later (though in the latter’s case, not too much later) but both influenced particular musical genre strands that remain in heavy rotation through this day, even if I don’t care too much about recent work by either artist.

1996: One Was Magenta, The Other Was Blue

  1. Beck, “Devil’s Haircut”
  2. Aimee Mann, “Choice In The Matter”
  3. Belle and Sebastian, “Seeing Other People”
  4. Fountains of Wayne, “Radiation Vibe”
  5. Super Furry Animals, “Something 4 The Weekend”
  6. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with Kylie Minogue, “Where The Wild Roses Grow”
  7. Pet Shop Boys, “Se a Vida E (That’s The Way Life Is)”
  8. Cowboy Junkies, “Something More Besides You”
  9. Morcheeba, “Small Town”
  10. Jason Falkner, “I Live”
  11. Suzanne Vega, “World Before Columbus”
  12. Sam Phillips, “Power World”
  13. Amy Rigby, “20 Questions”
  14. Fiona Apple, “Sleep To Dream”
  15. Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Put A Lid On It”
  16. Gillian Welch, “Pass You By”
  17. Cibo Matto, “Know Your Chicken”
  18. Patti Smith, “Summer Cannibals”
  19. Sloan, “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”
  20. R.E.M., “Binky the Doormat”
  21. Luscious Jackson, “Naked Eye”
  22. The Divine Comedy, “Becoming More Like Alfie”
  23. DJ Shadow, “Stem/Long Stem”
  24. Stereolab, “Percolator”
  25. Sheryl Crow, “Home”
  26. Ani DiFranco, “Adam and Eve”
  27. Tori Amos, “Hey Jupiter”
  28. Pulp, “Mile End”
  29. Suede, “Trash”
  30. Sleater-Kinney, “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”
  31. Geggy Tah, “Whoever You Are”
  32. Steve Wynn, “Shelly’s Blues (Pt. 2)”
  33. Tom Petty, “Walls (Circus)”
  34. Primitive Radio Gods, “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand”
  35. Everything But The Girl, “Mirrorball”
  36. Soul Coughing, “Super Bon Bon”

1995: Feeling Good (For Now)

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By 1995, “Alternative” was the mainstream. I spent that Memorial Day at a music festival sponsored by WLUM, Milwaukee’s corporate modern rock radio station. Violent Femmes were the hometown headliners, but their most recent album, Rock! would never get an official domestic release (and is still not streaming anywhere); in fact, none of the bands I saw are on this mix. Next to the Femmes, the highlight was seeing the Ramones on the second stage on one of their last tours. They ran through 30 songs in 40 minutes, and more than made up for having to sit through the Flaming Lips (whom I’ve never cottoned to) and Thank You-era Duran Duran (yes, they played their versions of “911 Is A Joke” and “White Lines” from this misbegotten covers album).

However, I don’t mean to reduce an entire year to a single event, even if this particular one points to how alt-rock, after having built up considerable goodwill in the decade’s first half instantly began to curdle. Fortunately, a superb left-field hit would occasionally emerge amongst all the Live, Sponge and Alanis: “Connection”, “Down By the Water”, “Better Than Nothing”, “A Girl Like You”, “Queer”, “Judy Staring At The Sun” and “1979” are all tracks I first heard via rotation on WLUM, and all of them sound good today. Other tunes, like “Downtown Venus”, “Happy Sad” and “Somebody’s Crying” might not have fit that radio format, but they were present elsewhere—on other stations, in people’s cars or perhaps (gasp) even on MTV! Plus, Britpop was at its peak (if Oasis/Blur/Pulp aren’t your thing, try Echobelly), trip-hop was close to getting there (Tricky representing) and even a band as wacky as Southern Culture on the Skids was on a major label.

That summer, I occasionally worked a graveyard shift as a desk receptionist at the Biltmore, an early 20th century hotel converted into a graduate and non-traditional student residence at Marquette. I was living at my parents’ south side home and it was a thrill to drive downtown late at night, secure street parking and sit behind the front desk in the building’s cavernous lobby until 3 AM (sometimes later), listening to music on the old boombox I donated to the post. I might have heard a few of these selections on the radio (incidentally, I still recall hearing WMSE airing Oscar the Grouch’s “I Love Trash” late one night there), although most of what I played came from dubbed cassettes (it’s where I absorbed stuff like Blue, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and The Best of Blondie.) I mention it here because this experience felt parallel to the new music I was discovering elsewhere at the time—a sense of infinite possibility that naturally permeates the air when you’re twenty and in academic limbo between childhood and becoming a responsible adult. Stuff like folkie Eddi Reader’s ethereal, unusually electronic Batman Forever soundtrack cut, the Cardigans’ slightly loopy lounge pop, That Dog’s sophisticated take on indie-rock, Morphine’s lightness-cloaked-in-darkness—all were on the margins but undeniably in the air, exuding stimulation and promise the following years would often struggle to replicate.

1995: Feeling Good (For Now)

  1. Elastica, “Connection”
  2. P.M. Dawn, “Downtown Venus”
  3. Jill Sobule, “Good Person Inside”
  4. Jen Trynin, “Better Than Nothing”
  5. That Dog, “He’s Kissing Christian”
  6. PJ Harvey, “Down By The Water”
  7. Ben Folds Five, “Best Imitation of Myself”
  8. Teenage Fanclub, “Sparky’s Dream”
  9. Chris Isaak, “Somebody’s Crying”
  10. Autour de Lucie, “L’Accord Parfait”
  11. The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979”
  12. Saint Etienne, “He’s On The Phone”
  13. Edwyn Collins, “A Girl Like You”
  14. Kirsty MacColl, “Caroline”
  15. Southern Culture on the Skids, “Camel Walk”
  16. Garbage, “Queer”
  17. kd lang, “Acquiesce”
  18. Tricky, “Aftermath”
  19. Morphine, “All Your Way”
  20. Bjork, “I Miss You”
  21. Eric Matthews, “Fanfare”
  22. Pulp, “Something Changed”
  23. Luna, “23 Minutes In Brussels”
  24. Blur, “The Universal”
  25. Pretty & Twisted, “Ride!”
  26. Eddi Reader, “Nobody Lives Without Love”
  27. The Cardigans, “Daddy’s Car”
  28. Alison Moyet, “Solid Wood”
  29. Towa Tei, “Luv Connection”
  30. Echobelly, “King of the Kerb”
  31. Erasure, “Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer’s Day)”
  32. Grant McLennan, “Horsebreaker Star”
  33. Pizzicato Five, “Happy Sad”
  34. Suddenly, Tammy!, “Beautiful Dream”
  35. Catherine Wheel & Tanya Donelly, “Judy Staring At The Sun”
  36. Oasis, “Champagne Supernova”

1994: Nobody’s Going To Tell Me Who To Love

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As 1964 was for British Invasion Pop and 1977 for Punk, 1994 now emerges as the year for Alternative Rock. The early ’90s may have produced more innovative stuff, but 1995-on saw a sliding off of sorts as quantity overtook quality. It’s inevitable now that a genre clearly defined by name as to exist outside the mainstream would implode once it achieved a certain level of popularity.

I spent the year in transition from a commuting college freshman to a sophomore living in a dorm. I was at the obvious age and in the ideal environment to take to alt-rock; shortly after moving on campus (and about six months after the demise of WARP-AM), Milwaukee got its first commercial radio station in the genre (then called “New Rock 102ONE”), exposing us all to new sounds we mostly hadn’t heard before. That is, until a few months on when they became painfully familiar due to the sort of repetition you’d find on any Top 40 station, of course.

This is a long way of justifying why my 1994 mix is heavily alt-rock, although I’ve sidestepped the era’s most heavily saturated artists (like the bands mentioned in Pavement’s sardonic and lovely “Range Life”) in favor of definitive but less overplayed (and in some cases, near-forgotten) selections (Tori Amos, Morrissey, Indigo Girls, Liz Phair.)  I’ve also included some longtime personal faves/non-hits by Milla (dropping the “Jovovich” for her brief music career), Sam Phillips, Luscious Jackson and Soul Coughing and a few token pop hits outside the alt-rock spectrum (Erasure’s fluke late hit, M-People’s retro-house crossover).

Of course, Britpop theoretically overlapped with alt-rock, even if little beyond Oasis’ best single crossed over here. Blur’s arguably best album track, The Auteurs’ more cerebral take on the sound and Echobelly’s distaff Smiths notwithstanding, one could stretch the definition of the term. After all, what is a terrific Alison Moyet single (why it never became a drag lip-synch standard is puzzling), an electro-folk epic from Saint Etienne or a sun-kissed but still salty almost-hit from Scots The Jesus and Mary Chain (with Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval) great British pop? Aussies (the proto-Belle and Sebastian twee sweetness from Frente!) and Canadians (Sloan, Nova Scotia’s finest) also showed Britpop could scan as an attitude that didn’t even necessarily need to be from the UK.

Tracey Thorn is easily the year’s MVP, both for an artistic comeback with her own duo Everything But The Girl (their big hit from the same LP would not hit big until the following year) and her indelible collaboration with Massive Attack, whose trip-hop (also repped here by Portishead and the perpetually trend-spotting Madonna) resonated more deeply with me than alt-rock ever did. I haven’t even addressed the lithe fragility of Jeff Buckley, the underrated omnipresence of Michael Stipe (both with his band and as a guest on a Kristin Hersh song) or Sinead O’Connor stripping down newly deceased Kurt Cobain to his essential core. But “Bad Reputation” still sounds remarkably fresh today–hearing it always reminds me that I should explore Freedy Johnston’s back catalogue a little further.

1994: Nobody’s Going To Tell Me Who To Love

  1. Tori Amos, “God”
  2. Luscious Jackson, “Deep Shag”
  3. Jeff Buckley, “Grace”
  4. Sloan, “Coax Me”
  5. Milla, “Gentleman Who Fell”
  6. Freedy Johnston, “Bad Reputation”
  7. Everything But The Girl, “Rollercoaster”
  8. Ani DiFranco, “Overlap”
  9. Kristin Hersh, “Your Ghost”
  10. Sam Phillips, “I Need Love”
  11. Echobelly, “Insomniac”
  12. Erasure, “Always”
  13. Alison Moyet, “Whispering Your Name”
  14. The Auteurs, “Chinese Bakery”
  15. M People, “Moving On Up”
  16. Soul Coughing, “Casiotone Nation”
  17. Indigo Girls, “Least Complicated”
  18. Saint Etienne, “Like A Motorway”
  19. Massive Attack, “Protection”
  20. Madonna, “Bedtime Story”
  21. Sugar, “Your Favorite Thing”
  22. Frente!, “Accidentally Kelly Street”
  23. Steve Wynn, “Wedding Bells”
  24. Liz Phair, “Whip-Smart”
  25. Pavement, “Range Life”
  26. Ween, “What Deaner Was Talking About”
  27. Roxette, “Sleeping In Your Car”
  28. Sinead O’Connor, “All Apologies”
  29. Portishead, “Glory Box”
  30. The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Sometimes Always”
  31. Oasis, “Live Forever”
  32. Blur, “This Is a Low”
  33. Morrissey, “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get”
  34. Seal, “Newborn Friend”
  35. R.E.M., “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”

1993: Something Hidden, Something Free

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A transitional year. Just as I graduated from high school and began my first semester at Marquette, for me, new music felt stuck between 1992’s discoveries and, as we’ll see, 1994’s eventual, inevitable mainstreaming of modern rock. Truthfully, I spent more time in ’93 listening to classic rock and jazz, cultivating an appreciation for older music than actively seeking out new stuff; thus, many of the selections here are obscurities I stumbled upon: Mekons’ irony-drenched, Sally Timms-sung ode to sugar daddies, Teenage Fanclub’s drone-pop with its genius dumb outro repeating the same four measures sixteen times, Terence Trent D’Arby’s unclassifiable stab at Beatles-esque psych pop, Gutterball’s jaunty little comic noir. I first heard that last one via a friend who also introduced me to “Ugly On The Outside”, perhaps the most ebullient, non-sappy, queer-leaning (!) love song of its era–it should have been as big as “Linger” (which itself holds up rather nicely, by the way.)

My hometown’s first “alternative” radio station appeared this year, the automated (i.e. no-DJ) WARP-AM. It would be defunct not even midway through ’94, but it was a lifeline among the more idiosyncratic offerings left of the dial (including the freeform WMSE, still on the air today!) In addition to the Teenage Fanclub song referenced above, it’s also where I first heard songs below by The Posies, Juliana Hatfield, Deacon Blue, Concrete Blonde, Matthew Sweet and Crowded House—all stuff that might’ve aired on MTV’s 120 Minutes but not in rotation anytime else on that channel (WARP was also where I first (!) heard The Smiths’ nearly decade-old “How Soon Is Now”.) The Cranberries, The Breeders and Belly were notable crossover exceptions at the time.

Elsewhere, a mix of the usual suspects (latest singles by Kate Bush and Pet Shop Boys), 80s artists reinventing themselves (Aimee Mann’s look-back-in-wonder gem from her solo debut; Nick Heyward older/wiser/years-removed from Haircut 100) and clarion calls from what would become some of my favorite artists of the decade (Saint Etienne, Bjork, Liz Phair.) Combing over this playlist now, one never knows then what will endure decades later. Still fresh today: Mazzy Star’s pillow-soft shoegaze (and prom-friendly) balladry, James’ eccentric-but-catchy jangle pop, and an eerie, rich-in-texture track from Sarah McLachlan’s breakthrough album that shows she possessed a considerable edge pre-Lilith Fair.

1993: Something Hidden, Something Free

  1. Belly, “Feed The Tree”
  2. The Juliana Hatfield Three, “My Sister”
  3. The Posies, “Dream All Day”
  4. Nick Heyward, “Kite”
  5. Mazzy Star, “Fade Into You”
  6. Digable Planets, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”
  7. Chris Isaak, “Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me)”
  8. Jellyfish, “The Glutton of Sympathy”
  9. The Breeders, “Cannonball”
  10. Aimee Mann, “I’ve Had It”
  11. Kate Bush, “Moments of Pleasure”
  12. Mekons, “Millionaire”
  13. Saint Etienne, “Mario’s Cafe”
  14. Depeche Mode, “Walking In My Shoes”
  15. Teenage Fanclub, “Hang On”
  16. Gutterball, “One By One”
  17. New Order, “Regret”
  18. Liz Phair, “Divorce Song”
  19. Terence Trent D’Arby, “Penelope Please”
  20. Lenny Kravitz, “Heaven Help”
  21. The Judybats, “Ugly On The Outside”
  22. Suede, “Metal Mickey”
  23. Urge Overkill, “Positive Bleeding”
  24. Pet Shop Boys, “Can You Forgive Her”
  25. Bjork, “Big Time Sensuality”
  26. Concrete Blonde, “Heal It Up”
  27. Deacon Blue, “Your Town”
  28. The Cranberries, “Linger”
  29. James, “Laid”
  30. Morphine, “Cure For Pain”
  31. Crowded House, “Locked Out”
  32. Tasmin Archer, “Lords Of The New Church”
  33. Blur, “For Tomorrow”
  34. P.M. Dawn, “I’d Die Without You”
  35. Sarah McLachlan, “Fear”
  36. Matthew Sweet, “Time Capsule”

1992: You Were The Chosen One

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I can’t help but look back on 1992 with nostalgic lenses. I was 17, and R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People came out at exactly the right time to make a major impact on how I approached and consumed music. In addition to its gorgeous, gliding Andy Kaufman tribute, other songs here that I actually knew and loved in ’92 include Deee-Lite’s ultra catchy ode to escapism, a great Kate Pierson showcase from The B-52’s somewhat maligned Good Stuff, perhaps my current favorite single by The Cure (not as overplayed as “Friday I’m In Love” or  “Just Like Heaven”) and definitely INXS’ best, most underrated single.

As with those gems, many of the other selections here happen to have been hits, but they’re good hits, from Shakespears Sister’s power-ballad with its dramatic, bonkers shift in the middle and L7’s surprisingly catchy Go-Go’s-from-Hell feminist anthem to the comforting faux-R.E.M. of Toad The Wet Sprocket and the second single from Madonna’s Erotica, a Latin-disco epic that has aged pretty well, audacious-lyrical-callback-to-“Vogue”-and-all. Lesser known are a track from Soho’s second album Thug, a big flop but far more ambitious than Goddess (which gave the world their only hit, “Hippychick”), Los Lobos’ slinky, exotica-friendly mood piece, the suitably prescient title track from Leonard Cohen’s The Future (nearly 25 years after his debut) and a gently undulating Sade album track that deservedly made it onto their greatest hits album two years later. Also, the shimmering opener on 10,000 Maniacs’ final album with Natalie Merchant is arguably the best thing she ever did with or without them.

Despite a few catchy novelties here (ravers Utah Saints gleefully sampling Kate Bush, Meryn Cadell essaying a postmodern take on a monologue inspired by 1950s educational films) and a few spirited pastiches there (Vanessa Paradis redoing classic Motown, Lindsey Buckingham cosplaying as Brian Wilson), this is a foundational year for introducing such soon-to-be-icons as Tori Amos and especially PJ Harvey—her “Sheela-Na-Gig” predicts where much of the rest of the decade will go, particularly for alternative female singer-songwriters. Thankfully, Annie Lennox, k.d. lang, and Suzanne Vega all adapt to the times (each in their own ways) as does ex-Hüsker Dü-er Bob Mould (via his short-lived trio Sugar), his pioneering melodic crunch providing inspiration for younger bands such as Ride and Catherine Wheel, whose exquisite shoegaze epic “Black Metallic” has somehow become one of my most-played tracks of the past five years.

1992: You Were The Chosen One

  1. Annie Lennox, “Little Bird”
  2. Utah Saints, “Something Good”
  3. Deee-Lite, “Runaway”
  4. The Cure, “High”
  5. Suzanne Vega, “In Liverpool”
  6. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “All I Want”
  7. PJ Harvey, “Sheela-Na-Gig”
  8. Soho, “Into the Void”
  9. L7, “Pretend We’re Dead”
  10. Ride, “Twisterella”
  11. k.d. lang, “Constant Craving”
  12. They Might Be Giants, “I Palindrome I”
  13. Tori Amos, “Crucify”
  14. Madonna, “Deeper and Deeper”
  15. The B-52’s, “Revolution Earth”
  16. R.E.M., “Man On The Moon”
  17. Los Lobos, “Kiko and the Lavender Moon”
  18. 10,000 Maniacs, “Noah’s Dove”
  19. Sugar, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
  20. Meryn Cadell, “The Sweater”
  21. Steve Wynn, “Tuesday”
  22. Morrissey, “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful”
  23. Vanessa Paradis, “Be My Baby”
  24. Catherine Wheel, “Black Metallic”
  25. Sade, “Like A Tattoo”
  26. XTC, “Then She Appeared”
  27. Concrete Blonde, “Someday?”
  28. Shakespears Sister, “Stay”
  29. The Darling Buds, “Please Yourself”
  30. INXS, “Not Enough Time”
  31. Leonard Cohen, “The Future”
  32. Lindsey Buckingham, “Countdown”
  33. George Michael, “Too Funky”

1991: All Bound For Mu Mu Land

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If it seems conspicuous that the only 1991 entry in my 100 Albums series was a singles comp (represented below via a mind-melting medley covering U2 and Frankie Valli), note that at times I seriously considered including the following: R.E.M.’s first number one album (which also had their highest-charting single), Seal’s first eponymous release (believe it or not, he was actually interesting pre-Grammys/Steve Miller cover/Heidi Klum), Sam Phillips’ second secular album (I’d write plenty about her third), even PM Dawn’s dreamy, near-unclassifiable debut. In the end, none compelled me enough to want to write about at length, but I’ve made sure to represent tracks from each of them here.

Historically, people love to sum up 1991 as The Year of Nirvana and Nevermind; I respected Cobain and co. but was never much of a fan, preferring my rock and roll to be Anglophilic and danceable. Looking over this curious selection, one might almost get an impression of ’91 as a last breath of optimism/utopianism before grunge and alt-rock’s irony/cynicism took over. Saint Etienne’s landmark early single (still easily one of the five best songs they ever did) sets the tone, and fellow Brits The Orb, The Shamen, Jesus Jones, James, Primal Scream and even Seal all sustain it, although only “Right Here Right Now” really broke through over here. Kirsty MacColl’s vivacious Latin bauble carries the same spirit although musically it has precious little in common with the others.

As with last year’s playlist, this combines top 40 (Roxette, Prince, Londonbeat) with modern rock (Billy Bragg, Electronic, Violent Femmes, Matthew Sweet) and the occasional crossover from the latter to the former (Divinyls, Siouxsie and the Banshees.) The mighty “Unfinished Sympathy” sounds absolutely undiminished, “Love… Thy Will Be Done” is a terrific, long forgotten top ten hit ripe for reappraisal and “Funeral” and “It Won’t Be Long” are obscurities everyone should know. I was giddy with joy when many songs by the KLF resurfaced on streaming in the past few years. A techno-pop hymn about the band’s own “mythology” and their ice-cream van, sung by none other than country-western legend Tammy Wynette(!), “Justified & Ancient” is the most bonkers hit of its time (and perhaps the entire decade.) Thirty-plus years on, I still can’t believe how big it was. Watch the video above and ask yourself, “Did this really happen, and could something so delightfully weird and far out of left field ever become a hit again?”

1991: All Bound For Mu Mu Land

  1. Saint Etienne, “Nothing Can Stop Us”
  2. The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette, “Justified & Ancient”
  3. PM Dawn, “Paper Doll”
  4. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Kiss Them For Me”
  5. Crowded House, “Fall At Your Feet”
  6. Sam Phillips, “Cruel Inventions”
  7. Alison Moyet, “It Won’t Be Long”
  8. Roxette, “Fading Like a Flower”
  9. R.E.M., “Near Wild Heaven”
  10. Divinyls, “I Touch Myself”
  11. Mekons, “Funeral”
  12. The Orb, “Little Fluffy Clouds”
  13. The Shamen, “Move Any Mountain”
  14. Massive Attack, “Unfinished Sympathy”
  15. Billy Bragg, “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood”
  16. Seal, “Future Love Paradise”
  17. Dream Warriors, “My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style”
  18. Londonbeat, “I’ve Been Thinking About You”
  19. Matthew Sweet, “I’ve Been Waiting”
  20. Electronic, “Get the Message”
  21. Morrissey, “My Love Life”
  22. James, “Sit Down”
  23. Prince & the New Power Generation, “Diamonds and Pearls”
  24. Joni Mitchell, “Come In From the Cold”
  25. Erasure, “Breath of Life”
  26. Kirsty MacColl, “My Affair”
  27. Kylie Minogue, “Shocked”
  28. Martika, “Love… Thy Will Be Done”
  29. Simply Red, “Something Got Me Started”
  30. Lisa Stansfield, “It’s Got To Be Real”
  31. Queen, “I’m Going Slightly Mad”
  32. U2, “Until The End of The World”
  33. Jesus Jones, “Right Here Right Now”
  34. Pet Shop Boys, “Where The Streets Have No Name/Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”
  35. Primal Scream, “Movin’ On Up”
  36. Violent Femmes, “American Music”

1990: What A Swell Party This Is

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A brand-new decade, even though many paint this as a liminal period, a bridge between 1980s flash and what we would come to know as 1990s bellwethers (grunge, alternative rock, gangsta rap, etc.)  Roughly two-thirds of these songs were favorites at the time (mostly anything here that made the top 40); I became familiar with the rest over the ensuing decade, the tellingly named “Obscurity Knocks” being of the few exceptions (my husband introduced it to me not long after we first met.) You can already detect the budding Anglophile within, as more than half of these tracks are from UK-based artists; the Americans run the gamut from superstars (Madonna) to, at the time, super-obscure (Yo La Tengo long before MTV ever played ’em).

You wouldn’t expect Iggy Pop, of all people, to secure two slots on a 1990 playlist, but here he is with “Candy”, his sole top 40 hit/duet with The B-52’s Kate Pierson,  and “Well Did You Evah!”, a gleefully irreverent Cole Porter cover with perfectly acidic support from Debbie Harry which appeared on the wonderful Red Hot + Blue tribute album (an early candidate for my 100 Albums list that missed the final cut). I could’ve ended and started the mix with Iggy but instead chose Deee-Lite’s immortal “Groove Is In The Heart” for an opener (it arguably sounds fresher today than anything else on this list) and The La’s deathless “There She Goes” to go out on—like Squeeze’s “Tempted” in ’81, can you believe it never made the American Top 40?

In addition to finding room for good artists who never made what I’d consider a great, timeless album (INXS, Sinead O’Connor (both of whom came close)) and quirky one-hit wonders such as Soho, who scored with a genius-dumb lament built upon a Smiths sample, this format gives me an excuse to spotlight weird one-offs that don’t fit anywhere else: Was (Not Was)’s hilariously cruel and cold character sketch (it’d be unimaginable post 9/11), Prefab Sprout’s beguiling bossa nova/samba/end-of-the-world party anthem, DNA’s infamous/genius surprise hit remix of a three-year-old a cappella Suzanne Vega album track, Urban Dance Squad’s leftfield Beck-anticipating earworm.

As with most of these mixes, I posted a putative version long ago that stopped at 25 songs; upon reappraisal, I had difficulty limiting it to 11 more. Among the most notable additions: George Michael’s career-torching but supremely catchy manifesto, Living Colour delving into Afrobeat as if making their own Graceland, Information Society’s inspired, sample-heavy nonsense, and proof that as late as 1990, Brian Eno and John Cale could join forces to produce perfect pop that should’ve topped the charts instead of all those drippy ballads that did from the likes of Michael Bolton, Taylor Dayne and Mariah Carey.

1990: What A Swell Party This Is

  1. Deee-Lite, “Groove Is In The Heart”
  2. DNA feat. Suzanne Vega, “Tom’s Diner”
  3. Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson, “Candy”
  4. Yo La Tengo, “The Summer”
  5. Teenage Fanclub, “Everything Flows”
  6. The Sundays, “Here’s Where The Story Ends”
  7. Sinead O’Connor, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
  8. They Might Be Giants, “Birdhouse In Your Soul”
  9. Jellyfish, “That Is Why”
  10. Prefab Sprout, “Carnival 2000”
  11. Was (Not Was), “I Blew Up The United States”
  12. Soho, “Hippychick”
  13. The Darling Buds, “Crystal Clear”
  14. Happy Mondays, “Kinky Afro”
  15. A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”
  16. Madonna, “Vogue”
  17. Cocteau Twins, “Heaven Or Las Vegas”
  18. Michael Penn, “No Myth”
  19. Trashcan Sinatras, “Obscurity Knocks”
  20. Concrete Blonde, “I Don’t Need A Hero”
  21. Pet Shop Boys, “Being Boring”
  22. INXS, “Disappear”
  23. Depeche Mode, “Enjoy The Silence”
  24. Electronic, “Getting Away With It”
  25. Urban Dance Squad, “Deeper Shade of Soul”
  26. George Michael, “Freedom! ‘90”
  27. Stereo MC’s, “Elevate My Mind”
  28. Information Society, “A Knife and a Fork/R.I.P.”
  29. Brian Eno and John Cale, “One Word”
  30. Living Colour, “Solace of You”
  31. Kylie Minogue, “Better The Devil You Know”
  32. Social Distortion, “Ball And Chain”
  33. Iggy Pop and Deborah Harry, “Well Did You Evah!”
  34. Midnight Oil, “Blue Sky Mine”
  35. The Lightning Seeds, “Pure”
  36. The La’s, “There She Goes”

1989: We Do The Dive Every Time We Dance

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A crucial year, for it was when I began listening to American Top 40 on a weekly basis and looking for a posted copy of the Billboard Hot 100 whenever I visited Musicland or JR’s at Southridge mall—not coincidentally also where I bought my first post-“Weird Al” Yankovic albums (on cassette, naturally.) In 1989, I began thinking of pop music (and all its genre-specific iterations) as a cultural force, something to obsess over and actively engage with rather than relegate to background noise from the radio or MTV.

As with most of these mixes, I heard few of these songs in 1989 apart from the big fat hits (Madonna at her peak, Fine Young Cannibals at theirs, Donna Summer’s S/A/W-produced comeback, Elvis Costello’s fluke McCartney co-write crossover); perhaps the least likely smash of them all was Neneh Cherry’s homespun, hip-hop-adjacent “Buffalo Stance” which never fails to mentally transport me back to that summer. Other new sounds from Europe also infiltrated my consciousness: Soul II Soul’s uncommon elegance (and soon widely imitated shuffle beat), Black Box’s straight-up revivalist disco, even wacko-dance novelty “Bring Me Edelweiss”, which I became obsessed with after taping it off the radio (a wise move, since I believe I never heard it there ever again.)

Elsewhere, I’ve included obvious choices (Bob Mould going all jangle-pop, The Pixies going pop, period), a few obscure album tracks (“One Of The Millions”, possibly the best XTC song Colin Moulding ever wrote; the languorous, Sally Timms-fronted “Learning To Live On Your Own”) and a couple of mostly forgotten hits (I’d rather hear “Deadbeat Club” instead of “Love Shack” again, or listen to “Blue Spanish Sky” vs. another round of “Wicked Game”.)

As the decade drew to a close, a potential for something startlingly new was apparent, even if it ended up sounding forever of its time (Kon Kan’s cheeky Lynn Anderson extrapolation, Pet Shop Boys-produced Liza Minnelli (covering Sondheim!)) or drawing considerable influence from the past (Lisa Stansfield merging Philly Soul with Diva House, for instance.) Although “Daisy Age” rap would soon mostly give way to harder textures and crasser temperaments, De La Soul’s sole top 40 hit remains a wonder–ingenuously sampling the past until it becomes a tapestry not so much futuristic as it is timeless.

1989: We Do The Dive Every Time We Dance

  1. The B-52’s, “Deadbeat Club”
  2. Kate Bush, “The Sensual World”
  3. Concrete Blonde, “Happy Birthday”
  4. Soul II Soul, “Keep On Moving”
  5. The Cure, “Pictures of You”
  6. Hunters and Collectors, “When The River Runs Dry”
  7. Indigo Girls, “Kid Fears”
  8. Morrissey, “Interesting Drug”
  9. Kirsty MacColl, “Innocence”
  10. Chris Isaak, “Blue Spanish Sky”
  11. The Blue Nile, “Headlights On the Parade”
  12. XTC, “One of the Millions”
  13. The Beautiful South, “You Keep It All In”
  14. Madonna, “Like A Prayer”
  15. Kon Kan, “I Beg Your Pardon”
  16. Liza Minnelli, “Losing My Mind”
  17. Mekons, “Learning To Live On Your Own”
  18. Dramarama, “Last Cigarette”
  19. Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man”
  20. Bob Mould, “See A Little Light”
  21. New Order, “Vanishing Point”
  22. Fine Young Cannibals, “Don’t Look Back”
  23. Elvis Costello, “Veronica”
  24. Ramones, “Pet Sematary”
  25. Neneh Cherry, “Buffalo Stance”
  26. De La Soul, “Me, Myself and I”
  27. 10,000 Maniacs, “Trouble Me”
  28. Edelweiss, “Bring Me Edelweiss”
  29. Donna Summer, “This Time I Know It’s For Real”
  30. Lisa Stansfield, “This Is The Right Time”
  31. Black Box, “Ride On Time”
  32. Erasure, “Blue Savannah”

1988: What A Life

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As always, these playlists are totally subjective and meant to collect my favorite songs of a single year rather than attempt a record of what 1988 was actually like for me or most listeners at the time. I heard a lot of Guns N’ Roses and Richard Marx on the radio in ’88, but they (mercifully) won’t appear here. Truth be told, this was the year I started to pay close attention to Top 40 radio (having received a dual cassette boombox for my 13th birthday) and MTV’s Top 20 Video Countdown, so I was newly aware of a world beyond “Weird Al” Yankovic and whatever my parents listened to in the car.

On that note, Top 40 doesn’t dominate as it did in previous years, though a few unlikely crossover hits do make the cut: Tracy Chapman’s unlike-anything-else-at-the-time breakthrough single, Erasure’s enduring danceable ballad, sublime one-hit-wonder When In Rome, the incomparable Information Society, also unlike anything else on the radio in 1988–I still marvel that this Latin freestyle techno-pop with sci-fi/Star Trek accents (from Minneapolis, no less!) reached number 3 on the Hot 100 that October. I wish Sade’s refreshing, proto-Trip Hop groove “Paradise” (far less overplayed than “Smooth Operator”, for sure) peaked higher than number 16 on said chart.

Still, other musical worlds existed beyond such mainstream confines: They Might Be Giants’ sui generis quirk-pop, Leonard Cohen’s ballsy reinvention as a sophisticated, smokey-voiced chanteur, Cowboy Junkies’ indie slowcore Velvets cover, Talk Talk’s own transformation from second-string new romantics into ambient-leaning experimenters. There was another world just beyond my reach–British pop fascinated in the late ’80s/early ’90s, from club songs that crossed over to the top of the UK charts (Yazz and the Plastic Population) to sparkling one-shots such as Fairground Attraction (also a UK #1) and The Primitives. The old guard continued to innovate (Siousxie and the Banshee’s craziest, fizziest hit), surprise (The Fall’s sardonic-yet-faithful Kinks cover) and expand its horizons (both newly solo Morrissey and Pet Shop Boys turning ever more orchestral.)

All this plus a guitar-pop triple-threat from Down Under (The Go-Betweens, Hunters & Collectors, Crowded House), early Sam Phillips (assisted by Van Dyke Parks’ super-lush orchestral arrangement), late ‘Til Tuesday and Icelandic weirdos The Sugarcubes, most notable for unleashing vocalist Bjork on the rest of the planet.

1988: What A Life

  1. Information Society, “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy)”
  2. Prefab Sprout, “Cars and Girls”
  3. When In Rome, “The Promise”
  4. The Primitives, “Crash”
  5. The Church, “Under The Milky Way”
  6. Sade, “Paradise”
  7. The Go-Betweens, “Quiet Heart”
  8. Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”
  9. Everything But The Girl, “These Early Days”
  10. Hunters & Collectors, “Back On The Breadline”
  11. Fairground Attraction, “Perfect”
  12. Morrissey, “Everyday Is Like Sunday”
  13. Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”
  14. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Peek-A-Boo”
  15. The Sugarcubes, “Motorcrash”
  16. They Might Be Giants, “Ana Ng”
  17. Yazz and the Plastic Population, “The Only Way Is Up”
  18. Inner City, “Good Life”
  19. Talking Heads, “(Nothing But) Flowers”
  20. R.E.M., “You Are The Everything”
  21. Cowboy Junkies, “Sweet Jane”
  22. Talk Talk, “I Believe In You”
  23. Sam Phillips, “What Do I Do”
  24. Erasure, “A Little Respect”
  25. Pet Shop Boys, “Left To My Own Devices”
  26. Was (Not Was), “Somewhere In America There’s A Street Named After My Dad”
  27. ‘Til Tuesday, “(Believed You Were) Lucky”
  28. The Darling Buds, “Let’s Go Round There”
  29. Roxette, “Dressed For Success”
  30. The Fall, “Victoria”
  31. Patti Smith, “People Have The Power”
  32. Crowded House, “Better Be Home Soon”

1987: Please Don’t Let Me Hit The Ground

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This year arguably epitomizes the sleek professionalism we now tend to associate with the entire decade. Everything had to sound this expensive and immaculate in order to be a hit, from songs that either topped the charts (“Heaven Is A Place On Earth”, “Father Figure”) or came very close to doing so (“What Have I Done To Deserve This”, “Little Lies”) to unlikely but thrilling Top 40 crossovers from the likes of The Cure and Midnight Oil. Even beyond that, you have The Smiths at their lushest, The Replacements at their poppiest and UK goths Sisters of Mercy getting the hell produced out of them by Jim “Total Eclipse of the Heart” Steinman.

Personally, it’s also a weird year. I was 12 and on the verge of discovering a world beyond “Weird Al” Yankovic. I remember incessant MTV airplay for one-hit wonders such as Danny Wilson (“Mary’s Prayer”, no longer on Spotify) and Breakfast Club (“Right On Track”, recently on regular rotation at my local supermarket and it still slaps) and occasional peek-through appearances like 10,000 Maniacs performing “Like The Weather” on SNL. And yet, I knew nothing of The Cure, R.E.M., Sinead O’Connor or Siouxsie and the Banshees just yet—still too young to stay up and watch 120 Minutes on Sunday nights, I guess.

Obviously, I came to know a majority of these songs after ’87, with some exceptions. George Michael was everywhere at the time and I knew the U2 hits among all the Whitney, Bon Jovi and Heart coming out the radio, which might be why I prefer an album track like the lovingly wounded “Running To Stand Still” or the no-nonsense pub rock of “Mystify” to INXS’ overplayed hits of the era.  While nearly anything from Sign ‘O’ The Times would suffice below, the Sheena Easton duet is an instinctive choice (also, it doesn’t just slap, it slams.)

As for the few tracks that conceivably could’ve come from another year besides this one, we have the ever in-his-own-time Tom Waits, retro-pastiche artists The Dukes of Stratosphear (if you don’t know them, don’t look ‘em up before listening to “Vanishing Girl”), R.E.M.’s jangle-pop classicism (was happily surprised to hear them play “Welcome To The Occupation” on their Monster tour in ’95) and The Go-Betweens’ heart-on-sleeve guitar pop splendor, with a soaring chorus and an oboe (!) solo on its outro. As for New Order’s definitive, near-euphoric 1987 remix/rethink of their 1982 single “Temptation”, well, I did rate it rather highly once (and still do.)

1987: Please Don’t Let Me Hit The Ground

  1. The Cure, “Just Like Heaven”
  2. R.E.M., “Welcome To The Occupation”
  3. George Michael, “Father Figure”
  4. Midnight Oil, “Beds Are Burning”
  5. Sinead O’Connor, “Mandinka”
  6. The Smiths, “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
  7. Sting, “Englishman In New York”
  8. Eurythmics, “You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart”
  9. 10,000 Maniacs, “Like The Weather”
  10. INXS, “Mystify”
  11. U2, “Running To Stand Still”
  12. The Replacements, “Can’t Hardly Wait”
  13. Fleetwood Mac, “Little Lies”
  14. Tom Waits, “Hang On St. Christopher”
  15. The Go-Betweens, “Bye Bye Pride”
  16. Alison Moyet, “Is This Love?”
  17. Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”
  18. Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”
  19. Prince, “U Got The Look”
  20. Wendy & Lisa, “Waterfall”
  21. The Dukes Of Stratosphear, “Vanishing Girl”
  22. Swing Out Sister, “Breakout”
  23. Breakfast Club, “Right On Track”
  24. Vanessa Paradis, “Joe le Taxi”
  25. Debbie Gibson, “Only In My Dreams”
  26. Alexander O’Neal & Cherrelle, “Never Knew Love Like This”
  27. The Housemartins, “Build”
  28. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “The Passenger”
  29. Depeche Mode, “Never Let Me Down Again”
  30. Sisters of Mercy, “This Corrosion”
  31. New Order, “Temptation”