Essential Studio Albums

[bada]

David Lee Roth - Skyscraper

There’s this little section of the album, Skyscraper and Damn Good, where I was starting to wonder if DLR was growing up a little. I mean, these songs are sonically complex and seem to tap into something more. Then Hot Dog and a Shake comes on and we know where we are, and it’s still fun. Add in Stand Up and Just Like Paradise and we have another fun and solid album.

The Essential Track: Just Like Paradise

Up Next: Talking Heads - Naked

Hina's a cool song on that one too...

I keep expecting the other shoe to drop on DLR and it just hasn’t yet. He really was a world class entertainer in the 70s and 80s.

The album after this one has a handful of good songs and then it kinda falls apart for DLR.

[liebzz]

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Up Your Alley

After the Runaways and her debut solo album, both fantastic, seems like Jett fell into a particular pattern of releasing albums just good enough that you feel pretty good about them, but also so by the numbers that there’s nothing to really get excited about. A perfunctory and decent lead single followed by a few decent covers and middle of the road originals. We are in this space once again with Up Your Alley, as I Hate Myself For Loving You is our decent lead single, and there’s a few decent covers and the remainder of this is good enough, but probably not anything to get excited about. Shame because those first couple albums I mentioned are pretty great and you leave these nearly every time wishing she would push as hard as she did then.

The Essential Track: I Hate Myself For Loving You

Up Next: The Waterboys - Fisherman’s Blues

[liebzz]

David Lee Roth - Skyscraper

There’s this little section of the album, Skyscraper and Damn Good, where I was starting to wonder if DLR was growing up a little. I mean, these songs are sonically complex and seem to tap into something more. Then Hot Dog and a Shake comes on and we know where we are, and it’s still fun. Add in Stand Up and Just Like Paradise and we have another fun and solid album.

The Essential Track: Just Like Paradise

Up Next: Talking Heads - Naked

Hina's a cool song on that one too...

I keep expecting the other shoe to drop on DLR and it just hasn’t yet. He really was a world class entertainer in the 70s and 80s.

The album after this one has a handful of good songs and then it kinda falls apart for DLR.

That could be why. I remember having A Little Ain’t Enough on CD somewhere and that was my impression way back then.

[wease]

David Lee Roth - Skyscraper

There’s this little section of the album, Skyscraper and Damn Good, where I was starting to wonder if DLR was growing up a little. I mean, these songs are sonically complex and seem to tap into something more. Then Hot Dog and a Shake comes on and we know where we are, and it’s still fun. Add in Stand Up and Just Like Paradise and we have another fun and solid album.

The Essential Track: Just Like Paradise

Up Next: Talking Heads - Naked

Hina's a cool song on that one too...

I keep expecting the other shoe to drop on DLR and it just hasn’t yet. He really was a world class entertainer in the 70s and 80s.

The album after this one has a handful of good songs and then it kinda falls apart for DLR.

You’re quite generous. I felt this is the one that really drops.

[bada]

David Lee Roth - Skyscraper

There’s this little section of the album, Skyscraper and Damn Good, where I was starting to wonder if DLR was growing up a little. I mean, these songs are sonically complex and seem to tap into something more. Then Hot Dog and a Shake comes on and we know where we are, and it’s still fun. Add in Stand Up and Just Like Paradise and we have another fun and solid album.

The Essential Track: Just Like Paradise

Up Next: Talking Heads - Naked

Hina's a cool song on that one too...

I keep expecting the other shoe to drop on DLR and it just hasn’t yet. He really was a world class entertainer in the 70s and 80s.

The album after this one has a handful of good songs and then it kinda falls apart for DLR.

You’re quite generous. I felt this is the one that really drops.

I like A Lil' Ain't Enough, Baby's On Fire, It's Showtime and Drop In The Bucket. I suppose 4 out of 12 is a small handful and I freely admit it could just be the nostalgia talking.

[liebzz]

The Waterboys - Fisherman’s Blues

This is a complete change of direction for The Waterboys. I was fully enthralled with This is the Sea, and of course part of you wishes for more of that - an album that drooped out of the sky and was near perfect epic rock. This is a bit more of a folk rock record, and in moments, it’s as good as This Is the Sea, though it does sort of lose its momentum in the last third. We Will Not Be Lovers is beyond exceptional, a killer propulsive track leading with violin. World Party, the wild cover of Sweet Thing (Van Morrison), the title track, And a Bang on the Ear, and When Ye Go Away are all just fantastic - such a great band.

The Essential Track: We Will Not Be Lovers

Up Next: John Hiatt - Slow Turning

[liebzz]

We’ve still got about a dozen albums to go in ‘88, so we’ll be there for a bit still, but why not get a beat on ‘89. Bring me what I’m missing:

Miles Davis - Amandla
Miles Davis - Aura
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother’s Milk
Alice Cooper - Trash
Aerosmith - Pump
Great White - Twice Shy
Warrant - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich
L.A. Guns - Cocked & Loaded
Motley Crue - Dr. Feelgood
Tesla - The Great Radio Controversy
Skid Row
The Stone Roses
Fugazi - 13 Songs
Uncle Tupelo - No Depression
Neil Young - Freedom
Lou Reed - New York
Warren Zevon - Transverse City
Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever
Tragically Hip - Up to Here
The Cure - Disintegration
Faith No More - The Real Thing
Mudhoney
Soundgarden - Louder Than Love
Nirvana - “Bleach”
Pixies - Doolittle
Bob Mould - Workbook
The Replacements - Don’t Tell a Soul
XTC - Oranges and Lemons
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising
Prince - Batman Soundtrack
The B-52s - Cosmic Thing
Grateful Dead - Built to Last
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels

[LoathedVermin72]

Madonna - Like a Prayer
Killdozer - Twelve Point Buck
Neil Young - Eldorado
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic
Billy Joel - Storm Front
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

[wease]

Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814
Paul McCartney ‎- Flowers in the Dirt
John Cougar Mellencamp – Big Daddy
Don Henley – The End Of The Innocence I know, I know…
Neil Young- Freedom
KISS- Hot in the Shade
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble- In Step
The Smithereens- 11
Eric Clapton- Journeyman
Mother Love Bone- Shine
Tesla- The Great Radio Controversy

[Birds in Hell]

Julee Cruise - Floating Into the Night
Rollins Band - Hard Volume
Slint - Tweez
Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis - Deep Listening

[liebzz]

All added unless it was already there. We ain’t letting this decade go without a fight! Already like 55 albums for ‘89.

[liebzz]

Between finishing ‘88 and moving into Miles’ final albums in his lifetime, planning to spend a minute with Miles both as tribute and to hit a bunch of his albums I missed the first time through. Including those final two, that will be a dozen. Kind of like an intermission for those with no Miles interest. EVEN AFTER THAT, I have a list of another 10 I will fit in somewhere. Dude had a lot of albums.

[liebzz]

John Hiatt - Slow Turning

This was a nice fusion of country and rock that took me a bit by surprise. Drive South immediately takes you to a solid space and Trudy and Dave leans a little more country. Sometime Other Than Now, Slow Turning, and Paper Thin were other highlights of note. I am not well versed in country but this hit just the right spot for me with the genre.

The Essential Track: Drive South

Up Next: Dwight Yoakam - Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room

[coptheriotact]

I’m interested in the Miles intermission

Also
89 bad religion - no control

[VinylGuy]

ey put on some Roxette, probably Look Sharp from 88 and Joyride from 91

[Higgs]

1989

Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls ('Messengers' in the US) - So Much Water So Close to Home
Weddings Parties Anything - The Big Don't Argue
John Lee Hooker - The Healer

[liebzz]

Dwight Yoakam - Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room

I certainly have spots where I appreciate country music, most often when it is blended with rock, folk, or some other variation that makes it more palatable for me. I am not on the country music is bad bandwagon - more like it’s a bit more challenging for me to connect with perhaps. John Hiatt’s album I just heard is a good example of my point. This is whole twang, and much of this was quite tough for me. There’s certainly plenty of good material here, from the Latin influenced title track to Streets of Bakersfield and personal favorite What I Don’t Know. In the end though, might just be a little too much twang for my taste.

The Essential Track: What I Don’t Know

Up Next: Graham Parker - The Mona Lisa’s Sister

[liebzz]

I’m interested in the Miles intermission

Also
89 bad religion - no control

By my rough count, we’ve already covered 11 of his albums so 12 more now and another 10 I think in my count for later.

[Jorge]

1989
The Blue Nile - Hats

[liebzz]

Graham Parker - The Mona Lisa’s Sister

It’s clear from the very start of this album that this was going to be the sort of soul inflected classic rock and pop reminiscent of Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, and this album delivers to that end. OK Hieronymus, Get Started Start a Fire, and Don’t Let It Break You Down are serious keepers from this one. The bonus track Ordinary Girl is pretty killer, and the cover of Sam Cooke’s Cupid is spot on. A very solid album here.

The Essential Track: Get Started Start a Fire

Up Next: The Jeff Healey Band - See the Light