Badlittlekitten

In my last Pictures Of Me I said I would cover random years. This as it turns out was a lie, because it's much easier to write about the best and most momentous years in music. 1987 is both.
By now hip hop had grown up from a curious street novelty and developed into a scowling, gold toothed, bicep bound beast. Gangsta rap - spawned from Shoolly D, the cartoon thuggery of the Beastie Boys first LP and the very real danger in the first Public Enemy album - started about here. Hip hoppers realised the extent in which they could get away with macho posturing and willy waving and 1987 saw the first rap album to have it's stars brandishing guns on the sleeve with Boogie Down Productions Criminal Minded. Sadly BDP's Scot La Rock would make another first, being the first rap star to be shot dead. With the sonic invention and liberal baiting that defined rap, the former rebellion music, rock, could not compete and would give up trying by the next decade. Still, in 1987 some rockers attempted to compete with the scary black men, with the devil noise of Big Black and The Young Gods and more pathetically Guns n' Roses. But at the same time alternative rock continued its baby steps into extinction as REM had their first chart hits, Sonic Youth became that little bit less noisy and Husker Du released their most commercial album yet on Warner Bros.

Roll the disses . . . .

Dishonourable Mentions
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Guns n' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Because millions of people can be wrong.

Honourable Mentions
Arthur Russell - World Of Echo
Bad Brains - I Against I
Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded
REM - Document
Swans - Children Of God
Sonic Youth - Sister
Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing

My Bestest Albums Of 1987
(In ascending order of goodness)


11.

Dead Can Dance - Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun

A gorgeous meld of gothic tones and eastern flavers, Dead Can Dance’s third LP shimmers by with grace. The crooner vocals of Brendan Perry and the Indian style warbling of Lisa Gerrard make a nice pair, especially when Perry's lyrics are so wise and reflective and Gerrard's singing so full of mystical power, at once euphoric and hysterical in a land fading to darkness. With a touch of classical here and a smidgen of Gaelic folk there, this album takes you on a journey across the world as well as through different periods of time, all from the comfort of your own bedroom. You might not want to return.



10.
M.J's neurosis through metallic white noise. I gone did a full review for this very site here

09.

Big Black - Songs About ****ing

A sadistic study into the art of noise, which happens to sound like Steve Albini throwing a fit inside your radiator. ‘Bad Penny’ in particular is a glorious hateful racket. Blasphemy for some maybe, but the militantly funky cover of Kraftwork’s ‘Model’ is better than the original.


08.
So here they come, swaggering from their council tower blocks, full of bad vibes and badder drugs, bringing their northern street slang and dodgy house parties and a smart street urchin named Shaun Ryder whose voice seems to express all the beauty and decay and recklessness of British society. For me, no other band has evoked the experience of the English underclass as acutely as the Happy Mondays. And I’m a Londoner! But the hustle bustle, the aggro, the blunt wit, the poverty and the sleaze, the need to “get out of this place”, get loaded and escape reality with 24 hour part people, is tangible. And it’s all backed with a funky rhythm section, Stones/Byrds guitar riffs and Ryder’s bruised voice guiding us through this tour of trash. The Mondays would improve with next years Bummed album. But this is 1987 and this LP is more than satisfactory.




07.

The Jesus And Mary Chain - Darklands

By this, their second album, The Mary Chain had already abandoned the white noise that made the classic Psychocandy so striking. With former drummer Bobby Gillespie doing his thang with Primal Scream, the Reed brothers employed a drum machine and wrote some sunny pop gems. To me Darklands has always sounded like an album about struggling with depression and a “chaotic soul”, inside a “world that keeps turning the screws into my mind”, but ultimately overcoming all that nasty stuff with bubble gum melodies and red cherry kisses. I’ve already talked about the joy that is ‘April Skies’, ‘Happy When It Rains’ is pretty much the same thing but with different words. And that’s a huge compliment by the way. 'Cherry Came Too' features those timeless Beach Boy melodies, and a girl who will slice you till your heart bleeds. The albums ‘dark’ track ‘Fall’ has daft and funny lyrics like “Everybody’s falling on me. I’m as dead as a . . . . Christmas tree!” The closing track 'About You' features an acoustic guitar and Jim Reid's voice, which already sounds older and wiser, brushing away those dark days and finding that “there’s something warm about the rain, there’s something warm in everything”. Most touching of all is the line “You and me. Will win, you’ll see”, which gives you the sense that love conquers all. But maybe the Reid brothers are terminally miserable buggers and I’m misreading all this, who knows. After all, heaven, I think, is too close to hell.




06.

Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription

"It's 1987 and all I wanna do is get stoned".
Where's Darklands evoked depression and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, The Perfect Prescription was about shutting yourself away, filling yourself up with hard junk and blasting off into the blackness. Spacemen 3 are always teetering on the edge, unafraid to look death in the eye, walking with Jesus. The best tracks here, 'Walking with Jesus' and 'Ecstasy Symphony/Transparen Radiation' are lush, mountiness soundscapes. Or to justly use an overused word, 'ethereal'. I've never taken heroin but these tracks emit a transcending quality, one of inner peace and a feeling that sense has been made of this strange world and all that one needs from it is another fix. Smack might be nothing like that, but I wouldn't doubt the conviction in the Spacemen's performance. Also Jason Pierce needs more props as a vocalist. He invents a new kind of blue-eyed soul, a voice of torment that yearns for the heavens but is destined to be keeping the devil company. On 'Come Down Easy' he sings "Lord I I'm gonna shake it, lord I'm gonna make it, sure I'm gonna take it, cos I feel alright", though really he feels anything but. Spacemen 3's music has the same oscillating, catatonic trance- like qualities of fellow druggers The Silver Apples and The Stooges, sounding as they want to reach beyond their own skin.

A couple of the louder tracks have dated poorly and Pierce would make better records as Spiritualized. But if anyone has an interest in 80's indie, as well as the darker side of the human spirit - the side that doesn't even attempt to resist temptation - then this is the perfect prescription.




05.

Prince - Sign Of The Times

Masterful double album from the pocket dandy. One or two tracks hinted at a new found earnestness, the first signs of his song writing taking a nosedive. (Actually, neither Prince or M.J were great after 1987, abandoning their strong pop song craft in search for hip hop cool.)


04.

The Young Gods - The Young Gods

The debut album by Swiss industrialists the Young Gods is a jet black masterpiece. This abrasive stew of noise is better than any industrial record that followed, thanks mainly to the dexterity and dynamism of the rhythm section. Skull crushing cymbal smashes collide with pummelling polyrhythms at breakneck speed, then there’s the slices of electronic ambiance, strings and horn stabs, special ingredients that make this stew like no other. Crucially The Young Gods don’t take themselves too seriously and this is exemplified by the blackly comic Gary Glitter cover 'Did You Miss Me?', one of two tracks with English spoken lyrics (A sample: “did you miss me when I was gone? Did you hang my picture on your nose?”) and the almost camp chorus to 'Jimmy'. This really is a special kind of rock album, achieving beauty via the unlikely route of sonic assault and dark wizardry.



03.
Rakim is in the running for the greatest MC of all time and if you listen to the opening track ‘I Ain’t No Joke’ you’ll know why. Bouncing his words on and off of the beat with complex syncopation and weaving creative metaphors with his deep, soulful voice, he was the first rapper to make MCing into an art form. Rakim is like the Beatles of hip hop, and the flows and themes of the rappers that followed can be traced right back to Paid In Full. And then there’s Eric B’s beats, which were mutated funk and electronic dance that you couldn’t dance to. Rap was no longer a troublesome novelty and its future foundations had been laid.


02.

Husker Du - Warehouse: Songs And Stories

Slowly leaving their hardcore roots behind, Husker Du were picking up bits of Beatles songcraft and R.E.M. neo-psyhedelia a little more with each LP, until finally baring the fruits of Warehouse, their last and best album. The two leading singer-song writers Bob Mould (gay, depressive) and Grant Hart (heroin addict) sculpt noise as metaphor for inner torment and redemption through frayed jangling guitars. Power pop hooks and a ringing din of classic rock melodies sweep you from your feet until you kiss the skies. The usually reliable Hart has an off day here for whatever reason (dem bad drugs?), with his tracks often being shallow and simplistic. But in ‘Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope’ and ‘Back From Somewhere’ he proves he’s still capable of invigorating rock gems. As for Mould, well this is his creative peak; a tour de force that even he’s much loved future project Sugar couldn’t match. It seems 1987 was the year of the miserable rock bastard and Mould was the most dignified of the lot. You sense he's there at the bottom of the barrel, occasionally poking his head up, eager to climb out, bemused and amused by the craziness around him, and as he memorably sings in ‘Turn It Around’, “Now is the only time to decide which side you’re on. Now is the only time. Now it’s time to try to turn it around.” I could talk till I’m blue about Mould’s songs on Warehouse but I’ll leave that for another time.

OOOOHHHH but I just need to sneak in a word or two about “It’s Not Peculiar”, surely one of the very best rock tracks of the 80’s (and I can't even get the fucker on youtube!) It sounds like unpredictable mood swings as expressed with stomach churning chord changes. Then there’s the almighty hook, “It’s not peculiar, there’s nothing to devise at all” in which Mould stutters and stammers with the words “at all a a a a a a”, irresistibly building tension and uncertainty until the euphoric release of “. . . alright!”, and suddenly the stars have realigned and Mould has tumbled out of that barrel.


01.

Public Enemy - Yo! Bum Rush The Show

And then it came, shattering the earth like a big, black, molten meteorite. You had the barrage of Chuck D’s words melding inner-city gang violence with pro-black politics. You got the sense that Public Enemy inhabited the America that Prince addressed on ‘Sign Of The Times’ (“There are seventeen year old boys and their idea of fun, is being in a gang called the disciples, high on crack and touting their machine guns”), making Prince’s attempts of hip hop and controversy seem laughable by comparison. You got the Bomb Squad production team making avant-art with samplers and machines which made all hip hop around it sound dated overnight. You got the psychotic, crackhead ramblings of Flavor Flav. Sure there had been gangster threats in hip hop before this, but it was Chuck D’s bullish acknowledgement of blacks and blacks only, plus the strangled funk, gnashing white noise, industrial beats, screeching getaway cars and snatches of ghostly guitar and party noise in the music that made this LP more intimidating and potent than and rap album before it. The UK press had a tendency to label any dangerous and exciting rock n’ roll group as “the new Sex Pistols”. Despite not having a guitarist, P.E’s fearless revival of long dead 60’s militant black politics, along with their revolutionary use of machines and production, ensured that they were the only group deserving of the title. All of this and they weren’t even at their best yet.



Coming soon - Pictures Of Me 2010 edition.

__________________
'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt.

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My Top 100 LPs
My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)