"To be loved like that makes all the difference. It does not lessen the terror of the fall, but it gives a new perspective on what that terror means. I had jumped off the edge, and then, at the very last moment, something reached out and caught me in midair. That something is what I define as love. It is the one thing that can stop a man from falling, the one thing powerful enough to negate the laws of gravity." Paul Auster (Moon Palace)
Showing posts with label 1988. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1988. Show all posts

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Pacific - barnoon hill, 1988

"Barnoon Hill" is a track by the British indie pop band Pacific, released in 1988 as the lead song on their debut EP, Sea of Sand. The band, hailing from Brighton, was fronted by Dennis Wheatley (vocals, guitars, Atari computer programming, and various noises), with contributions from Vanessa Norwood, Nick Wilson, Simon Forest, and Rachel Norwood. The EP blended jangly indie guitars with experimental elements like cello, trumpet, and a spoken-word intro in Japanese on the title track."
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Friday, November 21, 2025

Pet Shop Boys - domino dancing seven inch version, 1988

"After taking some delightless turns in recent months, Tennant and Lowe swoon, yup swoon, back with their most exquisite offering for many a moon. It looks as weightless as a kite up there. It comes complete with a spoken interlude that wakes up the glowworms inside me for the first time since that heavenly respite in the middle of Human League's 'Louise'."
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Monday, November 3, 2025

Pet Shop Boys - i'm not scared, 1988

"It is entirely meaningless and is exactly what you expect it to be. This doesn't stop it roving through an empty space with a fair amount of scarlet charm."
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Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Rádio Macau - o anzol remix, 1988

"In April 1988, a remix of “Anzol” by Flak and Armindo Bastos was published in maxi-Single. “O Rapaz do Trapézio Voador”, published in October 1989, includes classics such as “Hoje é a Brincar”, “Tomorrow is Always Too Far” and “Só Para Matar o Tempo”. Beto Garcia leaves the group after recording the album and is replaced by Luís San Payo."
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Monday, June 23, 2025

Pet Shop Boys - i want a dog, 1988

"I've always found this an extremely lonely song, sung from the perspective of a narrator who considers the possibility of relying on a pet to keep him company more feasible — and perhaps more appealing — than relying on another human being. But, to be sure, this song invites a variety of other interpretations."
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Friday, June 20, 2025

The Go-Betweens - quiet heart live acoustic radio session, 1988

"At their peak, the Brisbane group featured Robert Forster, Grant McLennan, Lindy Morrison, Amanda Brown and Robert Vickers. Albums like Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express, Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane are a sample of the band's brilliance."
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Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Fine Young Cannibals - i'm not the man i used to be, 1988

"Written by lead vocalist Roland Gift and bassist David Steele, "I'm Not the Man I Used to Be" contains prominent drum beats with keyboards and finger-picked guitar accompaniment. The song utilises, throughout the track, a sample from "Funky Drummer" by James Brown. Allmusic writer Jo-Ann Greene described the song as having "a futuristic jungle beat and an almost housey production".
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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

The Go-Betweens - quiet heart, 1988

"Grant in particular didn’t want to be part of a group any more. His three-year relationship with Amanda Brown had ended and he felt like making a clean break. Robert happily agreed."
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025

The Go-Betweens - love is a sign, 1988

"Forster’s “Love Is A Sign” is very Dylan, and a major grower."
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Thursday, May 8, 2025

The Go-Betweens - dive for your memory, 1988

“I maintain that The Go-Betweens write about love better than anybody else in the world.”
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Tuesday, May 6, 2025

My Bloody Valentine - several girls galore, 1988

"On tracks like “Several Girls Galore” and especially “All I Need” MBV were beginning to emulate musically that fuzzy state on the periphery of consciousness – time lags, sudden starts, illusory shapes leaping out at you from the hailstorm of sound."
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Saturday, April 26, 2025

REM - world leader pretend, 1988

"Green marks the departure of the jangle pop and college rock styling of the band's previous albums. In a 1988 interview, Peter Buck described Green as an album that didn't feature any typical R.E.M. songs. Describing the band's standard output as "Minor key, mid-tempo, enigmatic, semi-folk-rock-balladish things", the guitarist noted that for Green, "We wrote major key rock songs and switched instruments." Singer Michael Stipe had reportedly told his bandmates to "not write any more R.E.M.-type songs".
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Thursday, April 17, 2025

The Go-Betweens - the devil's eye, 1988

"Unbelievably brilliant, I think the whole album was incredible. Normally if you have an album with two singers and two writers, there's always one that you like better. Not in the case of The Go-Betweens, two equally talented guys, just like Lennon and McCartney."
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Saturday, April 12, 2025

The Go-Betweens - streets of your town, 1988

"Written by Grant McLennan, the sunny, upbeat music is contrasted with darker lyrics: "Don't the sun look good today but the rain is on its way, watch the butcher shine his knives, and this town is full of battered wives". McLennan said of writing the song, "I was listening to 'Under the Milky Way' and I was just working it out – cause I'm a big fan of The Church. And that afternoon I came up with a chord progression and a chorus." The song was written in McLennan and Amanda Brown's apartment in Bondi. Brown said, "It was written in, I would say, 10 minutes. I was singing along and I sung that "shine" line, which is like the call and response answer in the verses. And I don’t collect any songwriting royalties for that song, because that was a condition of my joining the band."
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Saturday, March 22, 2025

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - dreaming, 1988

"Stewart Mason, in a retrospective review for AllMusic, described the song as "dynamite", and wrote: "['Dreaming'] is easily the group's best single since 1983's 'Telegraph'... It's a near-perfect pop song, perhaps the last great single by an '80s synth-pop band." Classic Pop's Mark Lindores called it a "massively underrated OMD anthem". Conversely, McCluskey named "Dreaming" as a track he wishes OMD had never released, while criticising its lyrical content. The song has nevertheless been ranked among the best of 1988, and of all time."
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Friday, March 21, 2025

Pet Shop Boys - left to my own devices seven inch version, 1988

"Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat" – Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) was a Marxist revolutionary born in Argentina who became a major figure in the Cuban Revolution of Fidel Castro. (His visage has become such a commonplace symbol of the counterculture that it's now a virtual cliché.) Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer, one of the leading figures of the impressionist movement (though he himself apparently disliked having the term "impressionist" applied to his own work). Both Guevara and Debussy may be viewed as revolutionaries in their respective realms. Their juxtaposition and association with a "disco beat" has often been interpreted—rightly or wrongly—as the Pet Shop Boys' own encapsulization of their musical style and ambitions."
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Thursday, March 20, 2025

Prefab Sprout - cars and girls, 1988

"Lyrically, "Cars and Girls" is a comment on Bruce Springsteen's use of romantic metaphors in his songs. McAloon felt Springsteen utilised "a poetry that an Englishman can’t understand". The song is often seen as indicating a personal distaste for Springsteen, but McAloon elaborated on the lyrics in a 1992 interview; "The point of the parody is this: not that I think Bruce Springsteen is crap, it's that I think a lot of his audience get into him on a patriotic level that he doesn't intend. They misinterpret him, their enjoyment of him is inaccurate, all very imperialist American. I wanted to write a song about someone who was thick white trash, listening to Springsteen, and saying 'But our lives aren't like that'".
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Monday, March 17, 2025

The Housemartins - there is always something there to remind me, 1988

"I’m constantly amazed and humbled that people still listen to it after 32 years. I write kids’ books now and work in schools engaging primary school children in reading and writing. Sometimes I joke with them, “Hey, I used to be a pop star! Who believes me?” They never do"
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Friday, March 14, 2025

The Housemartins - hopelessly devoted to them, 1988

"To me, it never mattered whether people got the lyrics or not. I didn’t have that snobbery. I listen to a record purely on the strength of the music and vocals, nothing to do with whether it says something profound or whatever. Like Smokey Robinson – there are all sorts of his songs that I’ve liked and then later on thought, “Jesus, what a good lyricist.” I still love Smokey. He could’ve been singing the alphabet for all I cared, the lyrics are an added bonus. But then, when people say to me, “I don’t like your politics,” I think, “So what?”
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Thursday, March 13, 2025

Pet Shop Boys - domino dancing extended version, 1988

"Neil says that the title of this song was inspired during a stay on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. "In the evening there was nothing to do except play dominoes; this friend of ours [their personal assistant and Chris's roommate, the late Pete Andreas] always used to beat us, and he used to do this celebratory dance."
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