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Post by kds on Sept 8, 2021 17:49:27 GMT
One of the big events of 1989 was the Moscow Peace Festival, organized by Doc McGhee, featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Cinderella, and Motley Crue.
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Post by carllove on Sept 8, 2021 18:20:27 GMT
The year 1989 - I was newly married to my first husband - and learning to play the guitar (he had a nice Martin acoustic and a Jackson electric that was so easy to play).
I was still into Elvis Costello, so I owned Spike on CD, as well as The Indigo Girls second release Indigo Girls containing the song "Closer to Fine", which I used to like to sing and play guitar to.
My favorite album of the year was Disintegration by The Cure. It has "Pictures of You" AND "Lovesong". How much better can you get than those two songs? Also - Pretty Hate Machine by NIN is a great album, but I didn't buy it until after The Downward Spiral came out, so I don't remember hearing anything from that release other than "Head Like a Hole" that year.
Nirvana and Soundgarden had their debut LP's released in 1989, but I hadn't started my Grunge obsession yet, so I don't remember them. That would have to wait until the next year, when I took a job with a company based in Redmond, Washington.
That video for "Epic" from Faith No More, was both mesmerizing and disturbing, with it's flopping fish out of water. Great song. Lenny Kravitz was on MTV singing "Let Love Rule" in a trippy video. "Love Shack", by the B-52's was fun both visually and musically.
Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique came out that year, but I think it was a disappointment after Licensed to Ill.
And - How can I forget - "Personal Jesus" - by Depeche Mode. Violator- one of my top 10 albums of all time, wouldn't come out until the following year, but the single came out in 1989, so I'm going to mention it because I love it SO MUCH! My daughter also did a Modern Dance to it and it was a cool routine.
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Post by kds on Sept 8, 2021 18:31:51 GMT
Oh wow, I actually didn't realize FNM's Epic was released in 1989.
That's a hell of a song, and one that really hasn't aged at all.
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Post by carllove on Sept 8, 2021 18:52:20 GMT
Well, the video is dated with a release of 1989, but the single wasn't officially released until January 1990. You are correct that that song still sounds fresh. I didn't realize that Mike Patton had a 6 octave vocal range, or that Chris Cornell had auditioned for FNM. What a choice!
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Post by kds on Sept 8, 2021 18:56:49 GMT
According to Wikipedia, Epic was released as the second single from the album The Real Thing (which was released in June 1989) in January 1990.
It's too bad that Faith No More are generally regarded for that one song.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 8, 2021 19:12:49 GMT
The year 1989 - I was newly married to my first husband - and learning to play the guitar (he had a nice Martin acoustic and a Jackson electric that was so easy to play). Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique came out that year, but I think it was a disappointment after Licensed to Ill. Oooh, Martins are beautiful. Not always the easiest acoustic to play for some people with smaller hands (Taylors are always easier, for a similar level instrument). But they sound AMAZING. I learned on my dad's late '50s Martin ... once I was old enough and had the means, I got one for myself. I never owned a Jackson electric, but they definitely had a nice run in that era.
On Beastie Boys, interesting take. I think at the time it was seen as a disappointment because they weren't quite so silly and cartoonish as they were in Licensed to Ill. But I think Paul's Boutique was a more impressive album (production-wise), in hindsight. It also, along with De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising, really pushed the industry to change laws because of all the sampling.
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Post by kds on Sept 8, 2021 19:43:26 GMT
I'd mentioned in another thread my fondness for Prince's Batman soundtrack, an album I still listen to at least once each summer.
But, another one from the same year was the soundtrack from Ghostbusters II - featuring Glenn Frey, Elton John, Run DMC, and Bobby Brown. By 1989, rap was really becoming a force in mainstream media (MTV launched Yo! MTV Raps that year), so it was a pretty big deal that the big song from the highly anticipated Ghostbusters sequel was Bobby Brown's On Our Own, and Brown even had a bit part in the movie. From what I remember, Run DMC's new Ghostbusters theme wasn't as big a hit, probably because the Ray Parker Jr theme from the original movie was so iconic.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 8, 2021 19:51:36 GMT
Was it only 1989 that Yo! MTV Raps debuted? I would have guessed earlier ... though now that I think about it, I wouldn't have thought it could be much earlier. That certainly was a big point of interest for me at the time, along with its afternoon companion Hard 30 (or Hard 60). Rap and hard rock, that pretty much had 13-year-old me covered.
There was simply no challenging the Ray Parker Jr original Ghostbusters theme. Honestly I don't even recall the Run-DMC song at all.
You mention Bobby Brown as being on that soundtrack for Ghostbusters II. While I don't remember that, he was also HUGE that year. As noted above, he had the top-selling album. Honestly, I never got it. I hadn't been a fan of (or maybe even known?) New Edition, and didn't care about him. That hip-hop influenced R'n'B never really hit home with me, either. Rap, yes. Classic R 'n' B, yes. But somehow, never the twain shall meet...
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Post by jk on Sept 8, 2021 19:53:27 GMT
Worthy mentions besides Still Cruisin' are: The worthiness of Still Cruisin' is up for debate! I should have seen that coming.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 8, 2021 20:00:47 GMT
One of the big events of 1989 was the Moscow Peace Festival, organized by Doc McGhee, featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Cinderella, and Motley Crue. Was that the event that also included the Russian hard rock band Gorky Park? I remember them being promoted on MTV for a song called "Bang." As I listened back then, the words sounded phonetically like this to me:
Bang Sadat dot adah Turnee dop Avantu heera yes
Which it turns out was not them singing in Russian, but me not understanding through their accents the words "bang, say "da da da da." Turn it up, I want to hear a 'yes.'"
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Post by jk on Sept 8, 2021 20:06:52 GMT
One of the big events of 1989 was the Moscow Peace Festival, organized by Doc McGhee, featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Cinderella, and Motley Crue. Was that the event that also included the Russian hard rock band Gorky Park? I remember them being promoted on MTV for a song called "Bang." As I listened back then, the words sounded phonetically like this to me:
Bang Sadat dot adah Turnee dop Avantu heera yes
Which it turns out was not them singing in Russian, but me not understanding through their accents the words "bang, say "da da da da." Turn it up, I want to hear a 'yes.'"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorky_Park_(band)
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 8, 2021 20:12:14 GMT
Not TOO far off for a 32-year-old memory, eh? They were indeed there, and I was more or less close on the lyrics. I remember really being fascinated by the idea of a Russian hard rock band, presumably just because of the politics of that era.
As an American kid my age, the previous five years or so were loaded with Top Gun, Iron Eagle, Red Dawn, and any number of other militarized, US-v-Russia media. And then of course the fall of the Wall, the Soviet Union, and more or less communism itself made it just a fascinating time/topic. What would happen to these, "our enemies?"
EDIT - to be clear, I didn't ever think "the Russians" were our enemies. But it was hammered into kids like me in no uncertain terms that the USSR government (and Iranian government, etc.) absolutely were. We saw it in movie after movie, not to mention in Reagan's speeches. So it was just a feeling of euphoria for those people, whom barely-teen me almost expected to burst out as previously repressed American wannabes. After all, what the hell did I know? I was a kid!
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Post by kds on Sept 9, 2021 12:10:23 GMT
One of the big events of 1989 was the Moscow Peace Festival, organized by Doc McGhee, featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Cinderella, and Motley Crue. Was that the event that also included the Russian hard rock band Gorky Park? I remember them being promoted on MTV for a song called "Bang." As I listened back then, the words sounded phonetically like this to me:
Bang Sadat dot adah Turnee dop Avantu heera yes
Which it turns out was not them singing in Russian, but me not understanding through their accents the words "bang, say "da da da da." Turn it up, I want to hear a 'yes.'"
Yes, that's the one. I'm actually a little surprised there's never been any official releases from the show.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 9, 2021 15:03:54 GMT
I thought it was interesting that GnR Appetite For Destruction hit #1 the week of February 11, 1989, considering the album was released in July 1987!
The reason for the bump is presumably the release of "Paradise City" as a single in January 1989. It was a Top 10 single and hugely popular video. I'd say it also, along with "Sweet Child o' Mine" (the previous single, released in June 1988 and probably responsible for pushing the album to #1 in August 1988), was the most commercial/mainstream sounding song on the album.
But to hit #1 a solid year and a half after release is pretty cool. I know it isn't unprecedented, but I wonder how often it has happened that an album 18 or more months old topped the charts.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 10, 2021 18:58:28 GMT
Before we move along, I ought to mention 1989's music for me. It included a lot of ... Jimi Hendrix, KISS, Led Zeppelin, and an assortment of other much older classic rock. I was just a couple years in to playing guitar, so while I was still very into modern music at the time, I was also getting into the guitarists of classic rock and learning to play their songs.
Beyond that, as we've discussed on other threads, I was fully interested in the guitar-based hard rock that was current at the time. Poison, Motley Crue, Skid Row, Warrant, and Whitesnake all had albums that year, among many others. Thirteen-year-old me was learning how songs were built around those bands' material. Especially Poison, because the songs were simple and constructed (like KISS's) along very traditional, classic-rock lines.
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