Log
Top 100 Albums of the Eighties
The Pitchfork Top 100 Albums of the 1980s.
Ignore most of the commentary and it’s a pretty good list. Of course it all open for debate—was REM ever good enough to deserve three entries? I’m not so sure about that, but there are some interesting items on the list. Highlights include: Minor Threat, Out of Step; NWA, Straight Outta Compton; Sonic Youth, Evol, Sister, and Daydream Nation; Public Enemy, Nation of Millions; Eric B. and Rakim, Paid in Full. Pretty non-mainstream stuff, with the notable exception of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which was the seminal album of fourth and fifth grade, even though I wasn’t allowed to own or listen to it, or any of the devil’s music, for that matter…
In ninth grade, my parents took away all of my tapes, including the Black Flag compilation, Wasted Again. My dad decided to make a lesson of it.
He called my into his study, pressed play, and “TV Party” starts playing somewhere in the middle:
We’ve got nothing better to do
Than watch TV and have a couple of brews.
My father hit stop. The ironic critique was entirely lost on him.
Do you know what they’re saying? Have a couple of blues. Do you know what blues are?
I did, thanks to the outdated terminology in Health class.
They’re downers, barbituates. They’re for losers!
Little did he know, he was barking up the wrong tree. I had already discovered straightedge and wasn’t about to take any “blues” or reds or even drink any brews.
I never got most of those tapes back. I managed to sneak the Misfits and a few others from his study the next day, and I did find Licensed to Ill snooping around a few years later. I’ve always imagined the rest are still hidden somewhere in his things.
He would have really lost it if he had done it a year later. I learned that my music collection had to be carefully concealed, so he never discovered NWA, Eazy-E, Ice T, Public Enemy, and countless other rap artists that would have outraged his sense of morality.
Oh, the irony—a straightedge white suburban kid listening to gangsta rap about 8-balls, bitches and peeling caps back, all as a means to distance himself from his preppy peers and over-zealous, passive-aggressive parents.
11/24/02 11:55AM Movies, Music, Media
Recently Played on iTunes
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“Heroin”
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
11/17/08 16:26 -
“All Tomorrow's Parties”
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
11/17/08 16:20 -
“Run Run Run”
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground
11/17/08 16:16
