An Album For Every Year I've Been Alive: 1988

The Full Roster

Louis Armstrong, Hot Fives, Vol. 1
The Beatles, Past Masters: Volume 1
The Beatles, Past Masters: Volume 2
The Clash, The Story of the Clash, Volume 1
Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew, The World's Greatest Entertainer
The Kinks, Live: The Road
Oingo Boingo, Boingo Alive
Pink Floyd, Delicate Sound of Thunder
Pixies, Surfer Rosa
The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
They Might Be Giants, Lincoln

It's not quite as complicated as it looks.  1988 is a compilation-and-live-album-heavy year, with only "true" albums from the Pixies, the Pogues, They Might Be Giants, and Doug E. Fresh. 
There's three very solid albums from among that group, however, so 1988 ends up being much the same as the years that came before.  Speaking of which...

Favorite Album:  They Might Be Giants, Lincoln

I was somewhat surprised at how easy it was to pick Lincoln as my favorite album, given the relatively stiff competition for 1988, but maybe it shouldn't have been surprising because Lincoln has always, in my opinion, been They Might Be Giants' finest hour (or 39 minutes, if you're being pedantic). Improving on its predecessor with each passing song, Lincoln holds up over time far better than They Might Be Giants, in part because of the incorporation of a few more actual instruments, but mostly on the strength of their increasingly clever songwriting. "Kiss Me, Son of God" is a stripped-down piece of lounge music about a phony cult leader; "Purple Toupee" is a confused recollection of the 1960's ("I remember the book depository where they crowned the King of Cuba") set to a typical TMBG guitar-and-accordion arrangement; "They'll Need a Crane" is perhaps the most light-hearted song about a crumbling relationship ever written, epitomized by the one-sided phone conversation in the bridge: ("I'm just tired / And I don't love you anymore / And there's a restaurant we should check out / Where the other nightmare people like to go").

But it's "Ana Ng" that most people will remember from Lincoln, kicking off the album with a classic ode to a woman in a far-away land that the singer has never even met: "Ana Ng and I are getting old / And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence."  They Might Be Giants have dabbled in all kinds of musical styles in the two-plus decades they've been a band, with varying results, but rarely have they hit upon the correct formula as often as they did on Lincoln.  "Ana Ng" is an excellent representative from an excellent album, showcasing the youthful energy and certain je ne sais quoi that made them so special for such a long time.



Honorable Mention:  Pixies, Surfer Rosa

I came to the Pixies late--I certainly wasn't listening to them when I was six years old--but like most people, I started listening to them in college.  Intrigued by the fact that "Where Is My Mind?" played over the end credits to Fight Club, I decided to give the Pixies a whirl and got a hold of one of their CD's the same way I usually did--by "borrowing" it from my sister's collection.  That wasn't Surfer Rosa--it was their compilation Death to the Pixies--but it was enough to get me delving into their catalog proper, and while Surfer Rosa is not my favorite Pixies album it's good enough to be a solid Honorable Mention.  For one thing, it has "Where Is My Mind?" on it, which for reasons of both quality and nostalgia remains my favorite Pixies song.

Other highlights include the gloriously unhinged "Broken Face," the euphemistic "Gigantic," and "Tony's Theme," which is a song about a superhero named Tony.  Surfer Rosa (and by extension, the Pixies) has been cited by various sources as a hugely influential album, inspiring countless "alternative" bands that would come after them (Nirvana in particular).  But it's the album's sense of playfulness--something you wouldn't necessarily associate with their followers--that really warms me to it.  That playfulness would taper off a bit with each subsequent album, but it remains my favorite weapon in the Pixies' arsenal, "importance" be damned.



Narrow Miss: The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God

The Pogues' third album is often hailed for its diversity, bringing in far more influences and trying out more styles than the fairly straightforward Irish folk-punk of the first two albums.  I agree that it is a nice change of pace, but it seems to come at the expense of some of the urgency and aggressiveness that made the first two albums so enjoyable.  Nonetheless, If I Should Fall From Grace With God is still a very good album, which at its best serves as a shining example of all that the Pogues were capable of in their heyday.  "Fairytale of New York" is perhaps the best-known song from the album, an unlikely Christmas classic featuring a duet between Shane MacGowan and guest singer Kirsty MacColl, where the two play a broken couple reminiscing and hurling insults at each other.  The title track is more like their previous output, with a somewhat tempered MacGowan toning down the howling, while the Phil Chevron-penned "Thousands Are Sailing" is an evocative ode to Irish emigres to America, and "Turkish Song of the Damned" is a splendid little maritime ghost story you could dance a jig to.



Most Ridiculous Song:  Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, "The Plane (So High)," from the album The World's Greatest Entertainer

I'm not super-familiar with Mr. Fresh, or indeed much of the old-school rap scene of which he was a part, but The World's Greatest Entertainer is a pretty solid little album, upbeat and humorous and rarely melodramatic or posturing like so much hip-hop can be.  That's really what makes "The Plane (So High)" so odd; its ponderous tone and slow rhythm coupled with uncharacteristically introspective lyrics make it stand out from the songs around it, to its detriment.  It sounds like a proto-version of the kind of earnest, rapper-grimacing-in-the-rain style of song that would plague gangsta rap nearly a decade later.  Echoing The Who's lamentable "One Life's Enough" is the following love scene, something out of a weird Ginuwine/Tupac mash-up:  "And as we become one we feel no pain / Our bodies so wet that we make rain."  I'd rather have more Human Beat-Boxing, please.



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