Best Albums of the Year series: 1988

[Ouroboros]

I ended up voting for South Of Heaven by Slayer even though I don't particularly love the album. By this time they had become too polished and professional. The songs are just a bit too melodic and tame, especially compared to Reign In Blood, Hell Awaits and Haunting the Chapel. It also suffers from being grossly overproduced. That said - it still has its moments, and its really the only album on the list I could ever imagine myself listening to.

Anyway:

Giacinto Scelsi - Aion; Pfhat; Konx-Om-Pax [Wyttenbach/Orchestre de la Radio-Television de Cracovie]
-Normally I recommend the 3 CD compilation of Scelsi's orchestral works, but this is the original and I can't overlook it. A visionary composer who evokes the mystical and atavistic finally gets his due.

Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps [Yordanoff/Tetard/Desurmont/Barenboim]
-If you don't know the story of how and when this was written you should read the wikipedia page about it. An incredibly beautiful and tragic piece.

Voivod - Dimension Hatröss
-These guys were probably 20 years ahead of their time. Angular and dissonant at a time when metal bands weren't really doing that sort of thing.

Godflesh - Godflesh
-Totally ugly, bleak and uncompromising. Like a metalized version of early Swans. What's not to love?

Blasfemia - Guerra Total
-Primitive, unhinged, noisy and nonsensical in the way only South American bands in the mid to late-80's could achieve. Anti-art.

There were some other good things too, but I don't feel quite as strongly about them:

Sadus - Illusions
Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy For Lilith
Carcass - Reek of Putrefaction
Per Nørgård - String Quartets 1-6 [Kontra Quartet]
Bathory - Blood Fire Death
Dead Can Dance - The Serpent's Egg
Napalm Death - From Enslavement To Obliteration
Slayer - South Of Heaven

 

[plank]

Money for Nothing is a compilation album, are we counting those?

 

[Mescaleroman]

Money for Nothing is a compilation album, are we counting those?

I had two on my list so I'm hoping so.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Metallica - And Justice For All
Death - Leprosy

 

[Jussi]

Money for Nothing is a compilation album, are we counting those?

I ignored it just for that reason. Apart from the Nelson Mandela Birthday concert at Wembley (when Eric Clapton joined them), they were not together at the time. Knopfler announced the dissolution of the band in September.

 

[YoSoyLalo]

Daydream Nation is 1 for me. Nothing’s Shocking is a close second.

 

[Saturated Fats]

Well, I'll say that I'm proud of you guys for getting Daydream Nation to second. Didn't think for a moment that it would be able to beat one of the Metallica holy trinity, but second ain't bad!

 

[kook10]

Danzig - self titled should be on the list

 

[YoSoyLalo]

If 2004 is next I’ll just tell you right now that Funeral will win so we can skip it lmao

 

[Teemu]

If 2004 is next I’ll just tell you right now that Funeral will win so we can skip it lmao

I would guess it'll be neck and neck with The College Dropout

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Mm...Food is already my pick of 2004. The College Dropout or Funeral while fine, aren't in the same stratosphere.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

If 2004 is next I’ll just tell you right now that Funeral will win so we can skip it lmao

I would guess it'll be neck and neck with The College Dropout

I guess I'll be voting "other" again.

(2004 is loaded with great stuff)

 

[Saturated Fats]

Y'all gonna make me put it up today, hey?

Fiiiiiiiinnnnne

 

[Shareefruck]

Funeral went from the thing that got me obsessed with music as a college student to just absolutely plummeting down to "whatever" territory for me.

 

[Baby Punisher]

Bon Jovi's New Jersey seems like a pretty big omission from the choices. It was the #1 album in the US for a month, reached #1 in 6 other countries, produced 2 #1 hits and 3 more in the top 10 and has sold 7 million copies. I would've voted for it.

That Album was huge from when it was released in the fall of 1988 through the summer of '89. They were everywhere. Every tenny bopper in my highschool were all wearing BonJovi shirts one day and New Kids on The block the next day. It was infuriating.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Money for Nothing was off the album Brothers in Arms, released in 1985. I remember that because I got shit for wasting time in my grade 6 English class writing the lyrics to that song on the cover of one of my workbooks. Mr. Banks was right pissed off about that.

Mindcrime and Rage for Order (Queensryche's 1986 album) were the soundtrack of my grade 10. Massive albums.

South of Heaven was the first Slayer album I ever bought. I'm glad I saw this thread because I bought the CD just the other day and have been blasting the title track, Behind the Crooked Cross, Mandatory Suicide and Ghost of War in my car as loud as the stereo can handle.

Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction was such a landmark album in the alternative scene its influence cannot be understated. At the end of the 80's, everyone was looking around saying, where do we go from here? Hair metal was ending. That was obvious. Thrash, death and grind were their own musical cul de sacs. Never going to break big as mass movements. But then along came Nothing's Shocking. Every song is good, but every song sounds different. Such a breath of fresh air from the guitar tone to the lyrical diversity shifting every song; creativity flowed in every song. Psychedelia mixed with metal mixed with folk...potential streamed off into the distance when you heard it. Utterly unlike anything any band was recording at the time. Too bad they only had enough inspiration for one good album...but what an album that was. If you never lived through that time, here's what you do to realize how different it really was: Listen to Def Leppard's Hysteria album from front to back, then the Whitesnake album front to back, then maybe MC Hammer or some other late 80's warmed over rapper...then put on Nothing's Shocking. That's how different it was back then.

 

[Aladyyn]

Missed the vote but that probably mattered very little for the result

My unofficial votes goes to.... Bathory - Blood Fire Death, which just beats out Blind Guardian - Battalions of Fear

 

[Baby Punisher]

Money for Nothing was off the album Brothers in Arms, released in 1985. I remember that because I got shit for wasting time in my grade 6 English class writing the lyrics to that song on the cover of one of my workbooks. Mr. Banks was right pissed off about that.

Mindcrime and Rage for Order (Queensryche's 1986 album) were the soundtrack of my grade 10. Massive albums.

South of Heaven was the first Slayer album I ever bought. I'm glad I saw this thread because I bought the CD just the other day and have been blasting the title track, Behind the Crooked Cross, Mandatory Suicide and Ghost of War in my car as loud as the stereo can handle.

Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction was such a landmark album in the alternative scene its influence cannot be understated. At the end of the 80's, everyone was looking around saying, where do we go from here? Hair metal was ending. That was obvious. Thrash, death and grind were their own musical cul de sacs. Never going to break big as mass movements. But then along came Nothing's Shocking. Every song is good, but every song sounds different. Such a breath of fresh air from the guitar tone to the lyrical diversity shifting every song; creativity flowed in every song. Psychedelia mixed with metal mixed with folk...potential streamed off into the distance when you heard it. Utterly unlike anything any band was recording at the time. Too bad they only had enough inspiration for one good album...but what an album that was. If you never lived through that time, here's what you do to realize how different it really was: Listen to Def Leppard's Hysteria album from front to back, then the Whitesnake album front to back, then maybe MC Hammer or some other late 80's warmed over rapper...then put on Nothing's Shocking. That's how different it was back then.

We can relate somewhat, I am 46. In the late 80's, Saturday night was Headbangers ball on MTV, Sunday was 120 minutes of "alternative Rock." That sound was so different from any thing else out there. It took me a while to warm up too. I remember not being able to relate to what I was listening too. But, by the time Janes Addiction, Alice in Chains etc...began to rise in popularity I knew who they were. Not many people I hung around with knew these bands or really liked them. Not until Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog hit the scene and I think that had more to do with the movie Singles that really opened up that genre of music mainstream. I am just as guilty. As I said earlier, I knew of some of these bands but I didn't particularly like them enough to walk, bike or take a bus the 2 miles each way to Crazy Eddie or the Wiz to buy the cassette or CD.

With regards to Queensryche, I knew of Mindcrime from MTV, but I wound up with the Rage to Order album that my neighbor lent me and I really liked it. Took some getting used too. But Mindcrime is an album I will on occasion listen to cover to cover.

My number 1 will always be Def Leppard. That was the first band I ever truly loved ❤

 

[Perennial]

How dare you not include this as an option in the poll!

 

[Stylizer1]

How dare you not include this as an option in the poll!

Op's not tough enough.

 

[Baby Punisher]

How dare you not include this as an option in the poll!

I find this offensive.