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Top 100 albums 80 89 Pitchforkmedia pack 1

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[SIZE=7][color=blue]Pitchforkmedia's top 100 albums of the 80's pack 1 of 3
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001: Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation
[Blast First/Enigma; 1987]

I could sit here and force-feed you dietary information about Daydream Nation's purported Importance, and because it's ended up as our 80s MVP, perhaps that's expected. But really, the reason I like Daydream Nation better than anything else spawned between 1980-89 is that, hell, it's just the greatest fucking album. Few musical moments are more guaranteed to bring me joy than the joyous riff and snare rim clicks that kick off "Teen Age Riot". Never was the elusive Sonic Youth balance of noisecraft/songcraft kept so gloriously intact-- despite containing few songs under five minutes, this is still the most accessible album they ever made (including even that brief period when they were trying to be accessible). Thank their confidence in allowing themselves to stretch out their improv legs in the studio, to present the record with bright, clear production, to keep all the SKREEERAWWWKKK within the context of actual melodic songs. Thank the highest Lee ratio ever to be found on SY product, and unparalleled composition consistency from Thurston and, gasp!, Kim. Daydream Nation was a noisy punctuation mark to the evolution of sub-radar rock in the Reagan years, and as long as people are still listening to guitars, it will remain a milestone. --Rob Mitchum





002: Talking Heads
Remain in Light
[Sire; 1980]

As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, the Talking Heads found themselves at an awkward time: after punk, which they were at first associated with, had become synonymous with three chords and a sneer, but before the arrival of new wave. So they congregated in a Nassau studio with Brian Eno and created a record without precedent-- one that merged the restlessness and anxiety of the former genre with the futurism of the latter. The resulting album, drawing influence from tribal Africa, is massively percussion-fueled, dense with elaborate polyrhythms and elastic bass. Adrian Belew's bizarre guitar work flavors the music with erratic, technological pings and effects, even nailing modem noise with crystalline foresight. Byrne's lyrics are at their surreal best here, with shapeshifting as a recurring theme, but also at their most affecting on songs like "Once in a Lifetime", which poignantly addresses the passage of time and the crossroads at which we find ourselves during life, and "Listening Wind", whose haunted refrain finds us sympathizing with a man for whom terrorism is the last hope for preserving his culture. Both daringly experimental and pop-accessible, Remain in Light may be the Talking Heads' defining moment. --Ryan Schreiber

003: Beastie Boys
Paul's Boutique
[Capitol; 1989]

Once upon a time, three Brooklyn Jews lost their Def Jam street cred. They'd already been punks and raunchy pop-rappers, and damn if they didn't find themselves lost as to what to be next-- until down swooped the Brothers Dust. These fairy godbrothers helped them usher forth a dense samplorama that tanked sales-wise because it was so much smarter than its predecessor. Paul's Boutique was free of riff-slag, and boasted mostly unfunny, intimidatingly allusive lyrics. Just as the African-American Gwendolyn Brooks opened up doors for poetry, allowing epics to be written about dehumanizing Chicago tenements, the Beasties expanded hip-hop's domain to namecheck Salinger, Dickens, Galileo, and Newton. So ahead of its time, it should be on a 90s list. Odelay would owe it back rent if they didn't have the same landlords. --William Bowers




004: Pixies
Doolittle
[4AD; 1989]

Quick-- pick the most influential alternative rock band of all time. If you didn't choose The Pixies, I'll give you another chance. In the meantime, listen to Doolittle and learn from your mistakes. In all of indie/alternative, there may be no single album more borrowed from, adapted, or flat-out ripped-off than The Pixies' follow-up to Surfer Rosa. Steve Albini once dismissed the band as "boring college rock", and he was half right-- The Pixies were college rock in 1989. (The "boring" half was obviously added to pad his notoriety, as anyone who could call this band boring is surely The World's Biggest Asshole.) Doolittle is almost senselessly varied-- mood-altering hooks, poetically insane lyrics, larynx demolishing screams and surreal croons, surf, thrash, pop, slow burns and races to the finish line... Let me put it this way: if not for Doolittle, there would be no Pitchfork. In other words, the influence of this record is so vast that, fifteen years on, it has altered the course of your life at this very moment. --Eric Carr



005: R.E.M.
Murmur
[IRS; 1983]

Not widely noticed when it was released, R.E.M.'s first full-length album was surely a milestone: a clean break from everything else on the radio, Murmur introduced the band's simpler, stripped-down, almost folky sound and its straightforward but insidious music. Guitarist Peter Buck jangles more gently than his garage or power-pop peers (like, say, producer Mitch Easter's Let's Active); but without a doubt, it's Michael Stipe who defines the band with his deadly combination of feminine sensitivity and masculine, stoically cryptic vocals. And they brought great songs-- "Radio Free Europe", "Pilgrimage", "Moral Kiosk", "Catapult"... everything sounds just as good, and even as refreshing, two decades later. If any one album were single-handedly responsible for inventing alternative rock, this would be it. --Chris Dahlen


006: The Smiths
The Queen Is Dead
[Sire; 1986]

In a way, this is the Smiths album-of-choice by default, as it's the record that feels least like it was built around a few great singles. The pacing and sequencing are key, starting off with one of the band's most urgent songs (the title track) moving to the jaunty and clever "Frankly Mr. Shankly", before eventually getting around to the incredible "Cemetery Gates". The back half has two of the finest songs of the modern guitar-pop era ("The Boy with a Thorn in His Side" and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"), some of Morrissey's funniest lyrics ("Bigmouth Strikes Again"), and no filler. A new batch of lonely and alienated American teenagers discovers The Smiths every year. The reason is simple: few other bands could ever provide an antidote to adolescent yearnings as powerful as The Queen Is Dead. --Mark Richardson


007: Pixies
Surfer Rosa
[4AD; 1988]

Surfer Rosa snapshots the Pixies when they were still young, fresh-faced, and (I assume) speaking to each other. Frank Black's demonic one-man choir is already snuff-film disturbing, Kim Deal's voice charms, having yet to be thoroughly scorched by cigarettes, David Lovering's meaty fills float in ethereal reverb, and Joey Santiago proves himself master of the one-note riff. Maybe it's Albini on the knobs, but Santiago's six-string, sounding like a bee with its finger in a socket, is a key element here, bloodbath-battling Black's tongue-speaking through "Something Against You" and "Vamos". The band jumps from the abstract weirdness of tracks like "Broken Face" and "Tony's Theme" to the effortless pop immediacy of timeless indie wonders like "Where Is My Mind?" and "Gigantic". How one band could toe the line between jagged, artful unpredictability and sublime melodic bliss is anyone's guess, but their gift has not been equaled since, and Surfer Rosa, easily their strangest and most chaotic outing, remains an unparalleled example of rule-smashing innovation in independent music. --Rob Mitchum



008: Tom Waits
Rain Dogs
[Island; 1985]

Tom Waits' life-as-theater has been onstage for nearly three decades, yet of all his albums, this one edges to the top of the pile. The second installment in his German art song/"Island trilogy", Rain Dogs has the strongest songs and the surest grip on its own wanderings. With his hobo-centric lyrics reinspired by a move to New York City, Waits belts out "Union Square" and then rumbles out ballads like "Time"; the bleak vaudeville comes with accordion and pump organ wheezing out oompahs, while the percussion clanks, romps and slinks ("Clap Hands"). And then there are the guitars: Keith Richards shows up to make Waits look young and healthy, but it's Marc Ribot whose icepick lines best suit Waits' verses, and who owns the riff on "Jockey Full of Bourbon". But c'mon, Waits, surely you could have stopped Rod Stewart from destroying "Downtown Train". --Chris Dahlen


009: Public Enemy
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
[Def Jam; 1988]

Public Enemy was the real deal: a codified cultural force featuring an off-the-hinges production team (The Bomb Squad), the black-nationalist scholar (Professor Griff), menacing Para-Military types (The S1W's), the B-Boy (Flavor Motherfuckin' Flav), and the mouthpiece that held it all together (Chuck D). The unrelenting momentum of Chuck's radical rhetoric was matched pound-for-pound by The Bomb Squad's dense, revolutionary soundghettos; while Flav (who repped both big clocks and crack rocks) did his gyrating dance around armed Black Panther rejects, making Public Enemy possibly the finest example of Hip-Hop Theater, ever. And when all these elements gelled on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Public Enemy became the equivalent of a Molotov Cocktail thrown into the ever-growing cultural necropolis of Reagan's 1980s. --Sam Chennault


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011: Tom Waits
Swordfishtrombones
[Island; 1983]

The edge goes to Rain Dogs, but it was the album prior that found Waits coming out of the cocoon as a death's head moth. With Swordfishtrombones, The Black Rider was thrown out of the nightclub into the alley and, finding himself in his true element, he made its trashcan residents and urine stink the genetic code of the rest of his career. "Underground", "Shore Leave", and "Frank's Wild Years" all convey this mission nicely, with Waits embracing his inner Cookie Monster and divine guitar clang. There's even time for a few pint-swinging shanties to boot, and a heart-shaped declaration of dependence ("Johnsburg, Illinois") to the woman that preserved Waits' life, liver, and hipness quotient. Waits' early career is certainly respectable, but Swordfishtrombones is the corner he turned to become America's proud hobo laureate. --Rob Mitchum

012: Prince & The Revolution
Purple Rain
[Warner Bros; 1984]

Prince was everywhere in 1984. Almost every song on Purple Rain was in steady rotation on radio or MTV at some point (don't remember hearing "Computer Blue" anywhere), and incredibly, they never really got old. What carries Purple Rain over is the unbelievable emotional intensity Prince brings to nearly every song. He never screamed with more intensity than on the end of "The Beautiful Ones", he never wrote another melody as good as "When Doves Cry", and he never integrated his rock leanings into his sound as completely as on "Let's Go Crazy". The great accomplishments of Prince are very great indeed, and this is his greatest. --Mark Richardson


013: The Fall
This Nation's Saving Grace
[Beggars Banquet; 1985]

The product of years of development into a powerful rhythmic beast, This Nation's Saving Grace predicts both The Pixies and Pavement with pristine clarity, and like those bands, it is at once accessible and utterly uncompromising. Mark E. Smith stars as the unhinged emcee as the band rages through the enormous riffs of "Barmy" and the thunderous stomp of "Gut of the Quantifier". "Spoilt Victorian Child" is a defining moment for post-punk, Smith tripping over his own words while Brix's guitarwork anchors the tracks with melodic fury. The band moves over more terrain than their usual sturm-und-drang here, too, stopping off in "L.A." for a go at sleazy, junkyard new wave and paying tribute to Can with "I Am Damo Suzuki". This Nation's Saving Grace is The Fall at their mightiest, Brix's riffs coaxing you in just far enough for the Scanlon/Rogers/Burns/Hanley rhythm section to crush you with a sledgehammer. Genius. --Joe Tangari

014: Sonic Youth
Sister
[SST; 1987]

Sister was the last time Sonic Youth spent the majority of an album in full-on Attack Mode, which explains why it's the fist-clenchers' SY album of choice. The word of the day is "aggressive", with the album's humid production throwing a blanket over the noise to convert all instrumentation and vocalization into power-tool percussion. You can hear the clenched teeth through "Catholic Block" and "White Cross", the grinding machinery on "Pacific Coast Highway". Stranded in the midst, "Cotton Crown" still stands as the band's most romantic moment, frustrating evidence that Thurston and Kim should've sang together far more often. Sister was the last burst of Sonic Youth's early stage before they molted and moved on to bigger labels and bigger audiences, but for those with a preference for their grainy-footage early days, it's their zenith. --Rob Mitchum


015: XTC
Skylarking
[Virgin; 1986]

Of all the words I might use to describe XTC, "warm" didn't really become applicable until the band realized it was okay to like Burt Bacharach. However, on Skylarking, they had the adjective thrust upon them by alpha-producer Todd Rundgren. Taking their already ambitious songs about life, love and the passing of seasons, Rundgren turned what might have been another clever-but-distant outing into a beacon of psychedelic greenery. Andy Partridge's diatribe "Dear God" (a b-side not originally slated for the album) was a modest U.S. hit, but magic tracks like Colin Moulding's "Grass", "Season Cycle", and the weeping, orchestral "1000 Umbrellas"-- all lending a modern sophistication to the amiable eccentricity of The Beatles and Beach Boys-- revealed a more peaceful tune at the core of the album. --Dominique Leone


016: Galaxie 500
On Fire
[Rough Trade; 1989]

A casual listen to On Fire yields little. The spastic vocals drive some crazy. The drumming constantly lags a quarter-measure behind the already-slow compositions. Every song has the exact same rhythm, which happens to be the first one every guitar player learns. But if you're wired a certain way, Wareham's falsetto flights on "Blue Thunder" and "Snowstorm" are the very definition of majestic. You'll notice that guitar and bass compete to see which can spin up with the most achingly melodic leads. Damon Krukowski's cymbal washes demonstrate his preference for color over rhythm. Tying it all together, producer Kramer smeared Vaseline on the lens and shot every scene straight into the golden late-afternoon light. --Mark Richardson


017: Minutemen
Double Nickels on the Dime
[SST; 1984]

It's a double-album by a hardcore band that specialized in one-minute funk-punk blasts. That adds up to a lot of songs-- over forty of 'em-- and few are less than fantastic. The first ten tracks are the disjointed warm-up; the middle locks together to make one of the greatest one-sided conversations you'll ever have; the end peters out, exhausted. D. Boon, channeling co-lyricist Mike Watt, rants about politics, disses Michael Jackson, makes fun of suck-ups and reads off "shit from an old notebook". He reminisces about the band's early days, speak-singing the classic prophecy, "Our band could be your life." Even the Van Halen and Steely Dan covers succeed, like singing along to the car radio, while the Minutemen's own jumpy hooks and short, sharp rants are unstoppable. And you wouldn't it know from the edited version on Jackass: The Music, Vol. 1, but "Corona" is a thinking man's feel-good masterpiece. --Chris Dahlen


018: De La Soul
3 Feet High and Rising
[Tommy Boy; 1989]

In 1989, Prince Paul dispensed with his musical pots and pans and ushered hip-hop from its Stone Age into sampledelia-- never before had samples been as versatile, intricate, or as expressive as they were on Three Feet High and Rising. Paul rarely stepped up to the mic here, but his voice resonated throughout history; DJ Shadow, RJD2, Co-Flow, and any number of other sample-based hip-hop acts owe a long thank you letter to the real Prince of the 80s. And let's not forget young MC's Pos, Trugoy, and Mase, who rose to the occasion and matched Paul's sound collage quirk-for-quirk, proving that you didn't have to be hard to rock a mic. --Sam Chennault


019: Public Image, Ltd.
Second Edition
[Virgin; 1980]

Only John Lydon could claim to be "getting rid of the albatross" by tying it around his neck in the form of an obtuse ten-minute album opener. Less a band than a menacing juggernaut, PIL recorded an unforgiving second album, propelled by Keith Levene's livewire guitar work and Jah Wobble's endless, rubbery basslines. Lydon (still Rotten, just not by name) used these perpetual motion machines to launch bitter screeds against society, and it's hard to imagine more anti-social music. But the group were aware of the potential hypocrisies in holding up a dark mirror image to the public, implied by their corporatist name. Second Edition was originally released as Metal Box, literally packaged in cost-prohibitive film canisters. For this, Lydon was eternally grateful to Virgin, his pride and price for showing that major labels were capable of issuing genuinely challenging art for mass consumption. --Christopher Dare

020: This Heat
Deceit
[Rough Trade; 1981]

Superficially, bands like This Heat had very little business existing in the 80s. Their legacy appeared to have been comprised of most of the radical, experimental rock trends of the 70s (drone, prog, free improv, electronics, punk, et al), yet in 1981, it's hard to imagine many other bands sounding as out of place as they did. In retrospect, there may have been a small family of like-minded ensembles (Art Bears, Etron Fou Leloublan, Family Fodder), but virtually no unifying "scene" for this music. That Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen and Gareth Williams' music has impacted out-musicians a generation removed from the actual events speaks volumes of what they accomplished. The first moments of Deceit sound current enough to have been recorded yesterday afternoon. This album is dense, damaged, furious, inspiring (technically, musically, perhaps even politically), and it's a damn fine argument for rock as transcendental experience. --Dominique Leone




021: Brian Eno & David Byrne
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
[Sire; 1981]

Slick politicians, laughing exorcists, Lebanese folk singers, agitated radio hosts, and radio reverends all shared speaker space with some wildly funky music on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. With this album, Brian Eno and David Byrne combined programming, live instrumentation and samples into a clever stew that anticipated, in one way or another, nearly every trend in electronic music for at least the next decade. The sonic result of their collaboration expanded on the hypnotic worldbeat experiments of the Eno-produced Talking Heads albums (particularly Remain in Light, as this album was recorded during those sessions), bringing in folk recordings and plying the wasteland of American talk radio for choice material. Popular music turned a corner with this record, and things haven't been the same since. --Joe Tangari


022: My Bloody Valentine
Isn't Anything
[Creation/Sire; 1988]

Sure, it was Loveless in chrysalis, but pupating genius is genius nonetheless. Isn't Anything can be described as a stage in the evolution towards the next album-- the guitars, though warped and shredded, still act like guitars, the vocals haven't yet been absorbed into mix, etc.-- but there was nothing tentative or vestigial about this record. If Isn't Anything wasn't so rippingly aggressive, so instantaneously memorable-upon-first-listen, who knows whether the more oblique Loveless would have been pampered like it was? Nearly as influential as its successor would be, Isn't Anything was an inspiration to bands who, not willing to completely fuck with their axes, were content with getting to third base. --Brendan Reid




023: The Jesus & Mary Chain
Psychocandy
[Blanco y Negro/Warner Bros; 1985]

The Jesus and Mary Chain stripped pop music down to its essentials and filled all the leftover empty space with white noise. Psychocandy is considered one of the key records in what became shoegaze, but the band's greatest contribution to the movement may have been to make walls of guitar racket seem sensual and feminine. Despite the consistently maxed-out distortion, Psychocandy seems much more pop than rock, more Beach Boys and girl groups than Stooges or Suicide. Not one, but two (rather great) songs use the "Be My Baby" drum intro, for god's sake. --Mark Richardson


024: Gang of Four
Solid Gold
[Warner Bros; 1981]

Solid Gold documents a band that has moved beyond the comparatively simple, chic politics of their punk-funk debut Entertainment! into truly cynical, wicked critique. Despite recent efforts, it's nigh impossible to give Gang of Four too much credit: a vast majority of underground records released since 2000 are grievously indebted to the band whether they know it or not. In the 80s, groups as varied as R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and INXS all cited them as a key influence. Big Black simply wouldn't exist without them. In the 90s, The Jesus Lizard, Helmet, and Quicksand (who completely ripped off "Paralysed" on their album Slip) added a darker gloss to the Gang's shimmering twang, exposing a new generation to the detached, zombie swagger they all but invented. For sheer societal terror, few bands can approach the resigned paranoia of Solid Gold's finest moments: "If I Could Keep It for Myself", "Cheeseburger" and their most harrowing cut, "He'd Send in the Army". --Chris Ott

025: Black Flag
Damaged
[SST; 1981]

Henry Rollins might be his own running gag now, but without him, Black Flag might have forever remained buried under the miles of garbage calling itself hardcore in Los Angeles circa 1980; with him, Black Flag took on the essential ferocity of men about to snap, and combined that with an acidic sense of humor and these things called "songs"-- a concept that many of the wannabe punkers of the day were still trying to sort out. Damaged hit in 1981, and by 1982, four bars bearing the Black Flag name had been airbrushed across miles and miles of spiked leather. Conflicting feelings of violence, apathy, rage, and self-satire course through this one-- the essential touchstone of the entire genre of West Coast hardcore-- crystallizing the turmoil of the movement. Listen to "Rise Above" and try not to be incensed, then listen to "TV Party" and try not to laugh out loud. That's awesome. --Eric Carr
026: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Get Happy
[Columbia; 1980]

Like something out of a Nick Hornby novel, a British music geek proves that he "gets" soul music. Elvis Costello leads the Attractions through twenty tracks that burst the seams of the original vinyl. At the time, Costello still wrote his lyrics almost entirely in puns and double-entendres-- "love for tender", or "'til I step on the brake to get out of her clutches"-- but the music makes it weightless. The band is giddy, especially Steve Nieve, as Costello slings his tightest set of material ever. Even covers like Sam & Dave's "I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down)" blend right in. --Chris Dahlen




026: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Get Happy
[Columbia; 1980]

Like something out of a Nick Hornby novel, a British music geek proves that he "gets" soul music. Elvis Costello leads the Attractions through twenty tracks that burst the seams of the original vinyl. At the time, Costello still wrote his lyrics almost entirely in puns and double-entendres-- "love for tender", or "'til I step on the brake to get out of her clutches"-- but the music makes it weightless. The band is giddy, especially Steve Nieve, as Costello slings his tightest set of material ever. Even covers like Sam & Dave's "I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down)" blend right in. --Chris Dahlen


027: Michael Jackson
Thriller
[Epic; 1982]

I don't care what kind of music your promo bait covers; any 80s list without Thriller is kidding itself. Thanks to a twenty-year campaign waged by Jacko to completely incinerate his artistic integrity, revisiting Thriller is a revelation, cutting through the tabloid baggage with its crisp, sharp-edged Quincy production. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" is sweltering dance-floor Afro-funk highlighting Michael's abhorrence for personal criticism; "Billie Jean"'s paranoid bass and hiccup histrionics are still cooler than its video's illuminated sidewalks; the breakdown in "PYT", with its ecstatic call-and-response and sultry panting, remains the funkiest goddamn thing since James Brown's "Hot Pants". Though the audio equivalent to Star Wars in that it can be held responsible for inspiring perhaps more crap than any other release of its time, Thriller permanently ziplocked the sound of era so that it might forever remain as fresh and vital as the album itself. --Rob Mitchum


028: New Order
Power, Corruption & Lies
[Factory; 1983]

Ian Curtis haunts this album for exactly thirty seconds: until Bernard Sumner's vulnerable vox begin, one can almost detect combustible Curtis imploring us to "Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! To the radio!" over the drum-n-bassline opener "Age of Consent". Shifting the lyrical focus from alienation and fascism to love and lovelessness, and mutating the band's sound from marchy rock to marchy dance, this was the peak of the New Order's stellar 80s output, before they'd become soccer-anthem softies begging us to "Rock the Shack". Every synth sweep holds up. Hear the jangle everybody in Athens, Georgia was copping. Hear why Peter Hook is the most fitting name in Britpop. Hear what you're missing if you only know the hits. --William Bowers


029: The Replacements
Let It Be
[Twin/Tone; 1984]

Youngish lad that I am, I heard plenty of worship about the 'Mats before I actually got around to hearing their body of work. Once I finally did, it became pretty clear that Jeff Tweedy is merely the reincarnation of Paul Westerberg's relevancy. Through a career that ran from sloppy alcohol-soaked punk to alt-rock grandpaws (nicely summarized in the first two-thirds of "We're Coming Out"), Let It Be stands as the hingepoint, and I snuggled up to it more closely than most albums of either extreme. Since my memories of the 80s are distorted by childhood haze and retrospective kitsch, Westerberg coughing out "Androgynous" with nothing but tape hiss for company is necessary proof that the decade's fashion struggles were about more than bad haircuts and neon. --Rob Mitchum



030: U2
The Joshua Tree
[Island; 1987]

Oh, how the punks hated U2. Just when they'd managed to dispel the excess of the 70s, here were four lads from Ireland trying to capture the entirety of human pathos in the broad strokes of the rock song. Yet there's an unquenchable yearning here incommensurate with the bloated contentment of the worst of 80s pop. Three of these eleven songs became wildly popular radio anthems still in heavy rotation today, and I'll be damned if they've lost any of their power. The pleasure comes in discovering that the latter tracks prove just as great, from the moody closer "Mothers of the Disappeared" to Bono's aching depiction of just "hangin' on" in "Red Hill Mining Town". Named for flora that flourish even in the heat of the desert, The Joshua Tree features songs about the political fallout of the 20th century, but it truly justifies the oft-overused adjective "timeless". --Christopher Dare




031: Sonic Youth
EVOL
[SST; 1986]

Like the first slimy creature to pull itself from the primordial muck, EVOL is an aural document of Sonic Youth's One Small Step. Feedback-soaked noise had been their hallmark until this album, but EVOL would mark the true departure point of Sonic Youth's musical evolution-- in measured increments, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo began to bring form to the formless, tune to the tuneless, and with the help of Steve Shelley's drums, they imposed melody and composition on their trademark dissonance. A breathtaking fusion of avant-garde noise (as far as Rock was concerned) and brilliant, propulsive rock took its first shaky advances out of the storm and didn't look back. That these sonic youths would go on to release two more of the decade's most impressive albums before you could say "Teen Age Riot" only reinforces the prominence of EVOL; this is where the seeds of greatness were sown. --Eric Carr


032: Hüsker Dü
Zen Arcade
[SST; 1984]

While R.E.M. crossed over into pop territory, a handful of moderately renowned independent bands continued to make hard art: Sonic Youth, Husker Dü, and The Minutemen dashed all conventions, creating astounding, unique material, overflowing with determined conviction. These bands labored in a tenuous, low-income network, playing houses, hole-in-the-walls, and whenever possible, wealthy liberal arts campuses. Most of the people that helped make said network would agree or concede that up to 1984, Zen Arcade was at once the most artistically and commercially remarkable record to come out of their nascent scene. Bob Mould's out-of-step, trademark Gibson Flying V stood for everything the underground were struggling to prop up, and the smarter-than-hardcore rage of "What's Going On" and "Something I Learned Today" silenced any closed-minded quips about the plaintive "Never Talking to You Again". The blinding winter skies conveyed in "Chartered Trips" and "Pink Turns to Blue" exemplify the power of this massive double album, a testament to the frustration and isolation underground bands fought through in the early 80s, as well as the debt we all owe them. --Chris Ott


033: The Fall
Hex Enduction Hour
[Kamera; 1982]

Beginning with 1980's Grotesque, The Fall set out on a decade-long run of confrontational, controversial and eventually commercial releases. It's definitely controversy-- perhaps more than music-- that lands Hex Enduction Hour its place in our 80s canon. The "Slates" ten-inch that preceded it is far and away their most accessible record prior to 1985's This Nation's Saving Grace, but Hex has history in spades. Mark E. Smith felt the six-member band was going nowhere, and decided Hex Enduction Hour would be the last Fall album, at a then-outlandish running time of sixty minutes. Unbeknownst to him, their offbeat, drum-driven singles had caught the attention of an up-and-coming Motown rep in London, to whom Smith gave a copy of Hex upon request. The infamous first yawp from "The Classical" blared from his office: "Where are the obligatory niggers?! Hey there, fuck-face! Hey there, fuck-face!" and obliterated what could have been one of the more daring marriages in pop history. --Chris Ott





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