Looking at 1989 it really is the end of one decade and the beginning of another. For me 1989 was dominated by a few albums in particular. In 1989 my album of the year would have been Disintegration by The Cure. Today it would be Doolittle by Pixies. You will read my entries below and wonder how the album of the year is not The Sensual World, and I would say that is mostly because Doolittle would become the most influential of all of these records on music.
20. Gouge Away by Pixies
As I said before I didn't discover the Pixies until around 1995 or so, but this album is just amazing.
19. You Must Learn by Boogie Down Productions
This was the peak of BDP's popularity and for good reason it's a great album. Love this song. Probably my favorite song ever about the state of education and it is more fitting today than when it came out in 1989.
18. Talent Show by The Replacements
I find The Replacements to be an oddly depressing band. Maybe they came at the wrong time, maybe it's just because like so many rock bands they were never going to reach their potential because of their demons. I find this song to be hauntingly sad and upbeat at the same time.
17. Blue Spanish Sky by Chris Isaak
This album is a solid album, but it has two standout songs, this being one of them.
16. Kinda I Want To by Nine Inch Nails
Such an influential band, this is easily their most accessible album.
15. This Woman's Work by Kate Bush
I think this is Kate Bush's most consistent album and really is probably her best work. I think what I find interesting about Bush is her ability to have these very abstract thoughts that she then turns into very clear images. In this song she is playing around with two concepts which I think are interesting. One is the idea that "man" has done all he can, working on someone who is sick, and now as she says, "starts the craft of the father," God. God's craft of healing the person, healing the souls of those involved in the situation, these are things that in our society we think of as woman's work. In the song then she is also playing around with the idea of the man having to deal with doing "woman's work" and how hard that is for a man. When we have a society where these things are "woman's work" when they are left to a man, he finds them very hard because he has no training in them or maybe they are just inherently outside of his nature. The man in this song is also struggling with his own faith in God doing his work. It is an amazingly beautiful, touching, and sad song. She made a perfect video to go with it as well.
14. All Around the World by Lisa Stansfield
This will begin a love affair with me and Lisa Stansfield that will get me through some very high and very low times in my 20's.
13. Disintegration by The Cure
The timing of this album was absolutely perfect for me. I was taking a semester off from college and living at home working for my dad. So many days spent driving around Western Kentucky listening to this album.
12. Monkey Goes to Heaven by Pixies
I could have picked pretty much any song off of this album to be in this mix, but this song has become one of my favorites over the past 10 years.
11. Me Myself and I by De La Soul
Looking at this list I made I find it criminal that this is the only song I picked off of this album, one I find to be a go to album for me and I think one of the best albums of its genre. For each of these top 20 mixes I have another mix that has more songs for that year. This album has twelve songs on that list. All great songs. No other album is represented in one year's mix like this. I'm not sure how this ended up being the only one in my top 20 list, maybe the mood I was in when I made it. This song though does hold a special place for me. I was really into this album and so I was struck when sitting in church one day to hear the preacher talk about this song. He spoke of how the message of the song was bad because it talked about me, myself and I and left out God. The problem is the preacher completely misunderstood the song or misrepresented the song. "Me, Myself and I," doesn't leave out God at all. What the song is about is being the person you are first and foremost. To me that is one of the most important lessons in the Bible. We have to be ourselves and not who society wants us to be. As a Christian we will always be bucking up against society and the one thing we can do is remain who we are in Christ, "Me, Myself and I." I'm not saying De La Soul included God in the song, but the song is not about putting yourself first, it is about being yourself first and that to me is a very Christian approach. For them in particular they are talking specifically about their music and how they represented themselves. The industry and society would like them to be something they are not, so they can be more popular or to represent what society thinks rap represents. They don't want to do that; they want to represent their art in their way. There is a line, "Proud, I'm proud of what I am, poems I speak are Plug Two type. Please oh please let Plug Two be Himself, not what you read or write. Write is wrong when hype is written on the soul, De La that is. Style is surely our own thing not the false disguise of showbiz."
10. Jack of Spades by Boogie Down Productions
What a great song. It is a movie song but so represents BDP.
9. The Fog by Kate Bush
Again we have Kate Bush and her abstract thinking being wonderfully represented. I talk often about how there are abstract writers of songs and those who are more realists. Bush is an interesting one because she can be both and that allows her to experiment with concepts like this song where she is blending the idea of learning to swim for the first time and the amount of trust that takes in the person who is teaching you, with falling in love with someone and the amount of trust that takes in the other person. In this case as well it gets even deeper because there is this idea of trusting that the one person has a big enough love to sustain them both, until the singer can learn to love them the same or learn to swim.
8. Eat for Two by 10,000 Maniacs
I played this album to death in 1989 and this is the song that has held on the strongest for me.
7. Hey by Pixies
This song holds a special place in my heart.
6. Wicked Game by Chris Isaak
Easily the best song Isaak ever made.
5. The Sensual World by Kate Bush
Kate Bush as it turns out is a huge fan of James Joyce surprise surprise. This song is based on a moment in the book. She was not able to get the rights to use the actual text and so she had to edit it to fit this song. She would later obtain the rights and remake the song with the original text. This was easily the height of Kate Bush's work.
4. It's Only Love by Simply Red
May not have seen this one coming. The best song Simply Red ever made and just a great 1989 tune.
3. Lovesong by The Cure
Robert Smith is such an amazing writer. It is no wonder The Cure found their moment in pop culture with this album. And of course it would come at the end of the 80's.
2. This Time by Tracy Chapman
I think this is the best song Tracy Chapman made and it is just a hauntingly beautiful song. Again her vocal performance is unmatchable. The opening line "This time I won't show I'm vulnerable," sung with such a vulnerable voice is just wonderful.
1. Never Be Mine by Kate Bush
The best song Kate Bush ever made. As I said Bush can be both abstract and a realist and here, she blends the concept as a great artist can. I could easily turn this song into a great romantic novel or movie. Why? Because it gives us enough reality to see and feel and enough abstraction to give us a platform to build a story onto. The beauty of abstraction in art, poetry, and music is it gives the one consuming it a space to create their own story out of the chaos. At least I would say that is the beauty of good abstract art. The beauty of realistic art, poetry, and music is it gives the one consuming it a vision of what the artist themselves were seeing and thinking when they created it. When you blend the two together like Bush does on a song like this it puts you into a place in time and space but also gives you control over the story in a way that makes it so incredibly personal to you. The song will mean something to you it will never mean to another person. For me this song will always be linked to a moment in time just like it is for the singer, but in a weird, blended sort of way that is so unique to me.
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