Category: 1986

1986, Music

The Way It Is (1986) by Bruce Hornsby and the Range

I know basically nothing about Bruce Hornsby. I remember seeing his name on a Mix 99.9 ad on the subway in high school. And I know he toured with the Dead. That’s all I got.

1986, Music

Duotones (1986) by Kenny G

Upon reflection it seems kind of cruel to assume that Kenny G isn’t actually a good saxophone player just because he doesn’t have taste. If I learned one thing from this preposterously popular record, it’s that Kenny G can indeed play. Now, that begs the question, what is worse, someone who has talent and uses …

1986, Music

Express (1986) by Love and Rockets

I spent way too much time in my review of Earth Sun Moon obsessing over how these guys weren’t Bauhaus. It’s a weird review that I find hard to read now. I wish I had focused on the music so I could try to compare the two records and understand why I appear to have …

1986, Music

Blood and Chocolate (1986) by Elvis Costello and the Attractions

At some point a career goes on long enough where it starts to divide the true fans from the people who just got into the artist because they were in the ether, but sometimes the critics will continue to care and sometimes they won’t. I don’t know where exactly that point is with Costello but …

1984, 1986, Music

Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (1984, 1986) by Dwight Yoakam

Country is a weird genre. It’s like folk or R&B in the sense that genre purity makes a little more sense than it does in other genres. Every so often in country and folk, there is a return to something (mostly) more traditional. And there always seems to be a need for it. But, unlike …

1986, Music

Slipper When Wet (1986) by Bon Jovi

Bon Jovi broke when I was too young to really be aware of them – I was not yet five when this album came out. And they had peaked before I was really conscious of the music on mainstream radio – my family listened to oldies stations – and before I was conscious of my …

1986, Music

Especially for You (1986) by The Smithereens

Like many people, I’m probably listening to this – and taking it seriously – in part because of Kurt Cobain. I did not enjoy Green Thoughts but it’s been long enough that I forgot about that, so I was able to approach this with fresh ears and be more charitable to it than I would …

1986, Music

Back in the High Life (1986) by Steve Winwood

Traffic are one of those bands I want to love more than I actually do. They’re one of those bands who might have been All Time great had they just had a great songwriter. There are so many moments in their music that I get really excited about, but then the quality of the songs …

1986, Music

Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986) by Candlemass

The search for the “beginning” of a particular genre can be really fraught with difficulties, from the sheer effort of figuring out which albums might be the best candidates, to the inevitable bickering over alternatives or whether or not the artist is close enough to that genre. Given that no genre was ever invented whole …

1986, Music

Raising Hell (1986) by Run-D.M.C.

Full disclosure, as usual: I know little about hip hop. But, that being said, the more I learn about hip hop the more I get at least some idea of what matters and what doesn’t. And I feel like I might be able to say that this has to be one of the most consequential …

1986, Music

Top Gun Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1986) by Various Artists

Like everyone else my age, I have seen Top Gun more than a few times. Unlike virtually every other boy my age, I didn’t like it. I think it’s because I recognized it was dumb but more because everything else I knew seemed to love it. And I was already watching old war movies and …

1986, Music

Parade: Music From the Motion Picture Under the Cherry Moon (1986) by Prince

I have never seen Under the Cherry Moon, just like I haven’t seen his other movies. But everything I read says that this is a lot better than the movie, so I should be okay.

1986, Music

Born Sandy Devotional (1986) by The Triffids

There’s this weird thing which happens with what we might call “colonial bands,” specifically bands from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, places like that. If these bands produce decent music, British and American critics sometimes lose their shit, as if they cannot imagine such small, quaint countries producing decent music. I understand why we Canadians lose …

1986, Music

Black Celebration (1986) by Depeche Mode

The theoretical appeal to me about Depeche Mode was always that they were moodier and “darker” than other synthpop bands. But I must admit it took me some time to get there, both because it’s synthpop (a genre I don’t particularly like) and because their distinctness from other synthpop bands has always been somewhat overblown. …

1986, Music

The Colour of Spring (1986) by Talk Talk

I have come at so many bands backwards, listening to their peak stuff before their early stuff, and it really distorts a band’s evolution. But few bands changed as much as Talk Talk in their somewhat brief existence did and so it’s extra ridiculous that I’ve come at their discography completely backwards and it makes …

1986, Music

Control (1986) by Janet Jackson

I need to preface this by saying that I only know “New Jack Swing” as a name, I don’t really know anything about the genre and its history and have added it as a label to my reviews only when told by someone that “this music is New Jack Swing.” But if it’s true, it’s …

1965, 1967, 1985, 1986, 2004, Music

Kagel: Pan; String Quartets I-III (2004) by Arditti String Quartet

This disc collects the first three of Kagel’s quartets and pairs them with a piece he wrote for string quartet and piccolo. (Dietmar Wiesner guests on that piece.)

1986, Books, Non-Fiction

Uncoupling (1986) by Diane Vaughan

I interrupted my normal reading schedule to read this book specifically because I was going through a breakup – a relationship of nearly five years, the longest romantic relationship of my life, had ended. I chose Uncoupling of the books recommended to me because I found it the easiest but also because it appeared to …

1986, Music

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis et al. (1986) by Orford Quartet, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Simon Street

This is one of those nonsensical compilations of pieces of “classical” music that are put together because all the music is performed by a similar ensemble, in this case String Quartet with Orchestra. So you have two very late romantic British composers (though Vaughan Williams music could be seen as something else, I guess) with …

1986, Music

The Queen is Dead (1986, Rough Trade) by the Smiths

I usually don’t have trouble liking rock I’m “supposed” to like. (I.e. the generally accepted rock canon.) I can’t say the same about pop I’m supposed to “like”. (Frankly, I just prefer inventiveness, grit, rhythm and other such things to melody, aesthetic angles to precision arrangements, appropriate to clean production and mixing, etc.) I usually …