FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Every Friday we set the Hot Tub Time Machine to one year in rock history and give you the best (and worst) music from that year, all day long beginning at 1:00 AM EST and running for 24 hours on Jivewired Radio powered by Live365.
This Week: 1987
Next Week: 2005
Last Week:1974
Article & Image Sources: All Music Guide, MTV.com, Viacom, Bob Minkin, Amazon.com, Rolling Stone Magazine, Previous Jivewired Flashback Articles, The Guardian, UK, Wikipedia Search on "The Year In Music 1987", Joel Whitburn, Billboard Magazine, Rob Dimery, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Getty Images, Previous Jivewired Friday Flashback Articles
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1987 Album I Wished I Owned:Sister by Sonic Youth
1987 Album I'd Give Back If I Could:Into The Abyss by Poison
1987 Nominee For Worst Album Cover Ever:Daddy's Highway by The Bats
1987 Most Underrated Song:Disturbance At The Heron House by R.E.M.
1987 Most Overrated Song:Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns 'N' Roses
1987 Most Memorable Song: In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel
1987 Most Significant Song:Fight Like A Brave by Red Hot Chili Peppers
1987 Most Forgotten Song:Jammin' Me by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1987 Fan's Choice For Most Popular Song:With Or Without You by U2
1987 Album Of The Year: The Joshua Tree by U2
1987 Most Likely To Start A Party Song:Pump Up The Volume by M/A/R/R/S
1987 Please Don't Play Anymore Song:Mony Mony by Billy Idol
1987 Song That I Like More Than I Actually Should:Rock Me by Great White
1987 Album I Liked More Than I Thought I Would:Tunnel Of Love by Bruce Springsteen
1987 Song That I Tend To Leave on Repeat:Dear God by XTC
Guilty Pleasure of 1987:Us by Peter Gabriel
Breakout Artists of 1987: U2, Bruce Hornsby, David & David, 10,000 Maniacs, INXS, Guns 'N' Roses, George Michael, Los Lobos, Midnight Oil
Overplayed In 1987: Debbie Gibson, Tiffany
Not Played Enough In 1987: Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, The Cult, The Housemartins, The Bats
Greatest Chart Re-Entry from 1987:Cry To Me by Solomon Burke (1962)
Best Cover Song Of 1987: Peace Train by 10,000 Maniacs (original: Cat Stevens), Sweet Jane by Jesus & Mary Chain (original: Lou Reed)
Worst Cover Song of 1987:I Think We're Alone Now by Tiffany (original: Tommy James & The Shondells)
An unheralded great album from 1987:Daddy's Highway by The Bats
An unheralded great single from 1987: Wild Flower by The Cult
Best Soundtrack of 1987:The Lost Boys
An Album From 1987 That Changed My Life:Joshua Tree by U2, Document by R.E.M.
Jivewired's Top Five Songs Of The Year
01. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2
02. Sweet Jane by Jesus & Mary Chain
03. I Started Something I Couldn't Finish by The Smiths
04. Can't Hardly Wait by The Replacements
05. One Tree Hill by U2
Jivewired's Top Five Albums Of The Year
01. Document by R.E.M.
02. So by Peter Gabriel
03. The Joshua Tree by U2
04. Pleased To Meet Me by The Replacements
05. In The Dark by The Grateful Dead
I'm going to start out by stating 1987 wasn't a banner year for popular music. First of all, there were a lot of songs because there was so much crossover from 1986. And on the surface, it was absolutely heinous. Look what we had to put up with - releases from Buster Poindexter, Glass Tiger, Bruce Willis, Don Johnson, Levert, Billy Vera, Herb Albert, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Henry Lee Summer and Richard Marx. There was the Lionel Richie factor, the George Michael factor, and the hair-metal-ballad factor as music was becoming a Made-for-Television entity. Thanks to MTV and VH-1, music was being built around videos rather than the videos being built around the songs. In fact, 1987 feels like one, big video music soundtrack with its closing credits rolling to the tune of Don't Mean Nothing by Richard Marx.
Richard Marx, 1987. Yup. You listened. And you know all the words to Don't Mean Nothing - admit it.
Sadly, even MTV realized the wretched excess of it's own creation and began airing - *gasp* - regular programming to avoid shoving those awful videos down our throats, (yes I am talking to you Dancing On The Ceiling by Lionel Richie). But, something was happening in the midst of the musical atrocities that defined 1987. The inevitable backlash that followed ripped open a hole in the underground, releasing bands like U2, R.E.M., the Cult, the Smiths, Sonic Youth, the Cure, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Replacements, and the Pixies into the mainstream, generously sowing the seeds for the ’90s alternative rock movement. And there was even better stuff that was truly underground and stayed that way by The Bats, The Housemartins, Aztec Camera, Dinosaur Jr., Julian Cope and Sugarcubes.
The contrarian in me, who makes an occasional appearance now and then, can counterpoint by stating that 1987 may have actually been a pivotal year in the history of music. Absurd you say? It may make for fascinating debate. In 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree, giving them superstar status that they have maintained in the twenty-five years since. R.E.M. released Document, cracking the top ten for the first time and also giving them superstar status that has continued to this day. Hip-hop turned into an album-oriented art form in 1987, Guns 'N’ Roses debuted with Appetite For Destruction and the Pixies released their debut EP. Prince delivered another masterpiece and Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson followed up on career-defining blockbusters. The Beastie Boys released their masterpiece Licensed To Ill and The Grateful Dead tasted real Top Ten success aided by the help of a wonderful video with the release of Touch Of Grey from their monster LP hit In The Dark.
Speaking of videos, at the MTV Music Video Awards, a veritable statuette manufacturing plant was opened up backstage to handle the production of awards for Peter Gabriel. The former Genesis singer was the night's biggest winner with nine awards for his iconic Sledgehammer video, a stunning piece of animation that remains one of the best MTV has ever aired. Nine.
Among the honors Gabriel took with him that night were Best Male Video, Best Overall Performance and Video of the Year, as well as the Most Experimental Video trophy and the hugely important Video Vanguard Award. Respect. U2 walked away with the Viewer's Choice Award for With or Without You. And, 1987 was also the year that Bon Jovi won the Best Stage Performance for their enduring hit Livin' on a Prayer.
Aretha Franklin became the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987. Four albums from that year have sold more than 20 million copies since their release dates; The Joshua Tree by U2, Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi, So by Peter Gabriel and George Michael's Faith. Michael Jackson's Bad has sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Respect.
1987 was the preeminent year for college rock, a genre that oscillated with the individuality of those who craved comfort and intellect rather than the instigation and mayhem of punk rock. College rock's lionization started the regional segregation of popular music in this country. Punk was never as popular in the South as it was throughout the rest of the United States, where music clung to a moral and ethical standard that the genre defiantly failed to meet, and in its regional variations leaned more to the avant-garde rather than punk's hardcore (think Flaming Lips). On the other hand, the South's rapidly increasing college population adopted the ethos and the lush aesthetics of the romanticist, new wave movement of the earlier part of the decade and adapted it to melodic music.
Boston, ever the archetypical college town, had boasted some of the most sensitive musicians going as far back as the mid-seventies with Steely Dan, and really spoke to the intellect and philosophical viewpoint of the college undergraduate. Another college town, Hoboken, spawned a similar brand of intelli-literate pop. Pat DiNizio's Smithereens were the merriest and most exuberant, though subtly the most erudite purveyors of power-pop. Minneapolis gave us the Replacements and Philadelphia gave us the Hooters. But it was Athens, Georgia that became the epicenter of college rock. Athens spawned the quirky dance-music of the B52's, an amalgamation of new wave, disco and revivalist genres, created by a superb and surreal call/response balance of alternate male/female leads, funky guitars and Farfisa-like digital synth.
Athens had also spawned the neo-folk rock of R.E.M. and in 1987, R.E.M. burst into national prominence with their fifth release, Document.
"Without exception, their records combined a spirit of willful perversity with a healthy restlessness and a steadfast refusal to acknowledge either commercial or critical expectations — there was the Beat, and R.E.M. knew how to use it. It was the band's incomparable stage rage, Buck's Who-like slice-and-dice guitar, Stipe's steely vibrato and Mills and Berry's rhythmic tug that wowed Deep South barflies and East Coast in-crowds in the early days."
-- Rolling Stone Magazine
The entire college rock scene was a monumental tribute to the guitar-driven pop of Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton, and R.E.M. was, and has remained, the best of that sound for over thirty years. To this day, 1987 remains immortal and iconic in the annals of rock history.
In retrospect, there was a lot going on in popular music in 1987, which is why it is such an important and pivotal year in music history. Needless to say, at 211 total songs, this week's playlist is extraordinarily extensive........
Gone Too Soon
- Liberace, no age given (February 4)
- Buddy Rich, aged 69 (April 2)
- Paul Butterfield, aged 44 (May 4)
- Peter Tosh, aged 42 (September 11)
- Clifton Chenier, aged 62 (December 12)
The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987: The Coasters, Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Bill Haley, B. B. King, Clyde McPhatter, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Smokey Robinson, Big Joe Turner, Muddy Waters, and Jackie Wilson
Oh, That Makes Much More Sense, Doesn't It?
For the 1989 movie Say Anything, director Cameron Crowe couldn't find the love song he wanted until he heard Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes from Gabriel's 1987 release So. Gabriel asked to see part of the movie. Crowe had the production company send him an unfinished cut. Gabriel responded by saying he would let them use the song, as he liked the film. He was, however, wary about the part where the lead character overdosed at the end. It was then that Crowe realized that Gabriel had been sent a copy of Wired instead.
The Smithereens were originally commissioned by Crowe to write the theme song for the movie, and they came up with A Girl Like You. Crowe thought that the lyrics were too leading (they outline the entire plot), so he rejected it in favor of the Gabriel song. A Girl Like You went on to be included in The Smithereens' next album, 11, and in the movie Backdraft directed by Ron Howard.
I've Glimpsed The Future, And All I Can Say Is "Go Back"........
Steve Winwood was such a sensation in 1987 that the 1982 single Valerie was re-released and charted in the Top Ten. Aerosmith mounted a huge comeback with the release of Permanent Vacation, an album which redefined their sound and was pretty much awful, though they garnered a legion of new fans. Not quite as interesting, both the Pretenders and Sting charted on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart with Jimi Hendrix covers: Room Full of Mirrors and Little Wing, respectively and even far less interesting, Tommy James had two Top Ten hits as Tiffany covered I Think We're Alone Now and Billy Idol reworked Mony Mony into the vomit-inducing sleazeball club hit of the year. The Bangles had a minor hit with a cover version of A Hazy Shade Of Winter from the movie Less Than Zero. The song was originally performed by Simon & Garfunkel. Likewise, the debut release by 10,000 Maniacs featured the Cat Stevens hit Peace Train. Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies nay have been the best cover song of the year, however.
The movie Dirty Dancing also helped a lot of acts from the 1960s reach a new, younger audience. Songs by Solomon Burke, Micky & Sylvia, The Ronettes, Bruce Channel, the Contours and Otis Redding all saw somewhat of a revival in 1987 because of the movie's soundtrack. Bill Medley (formerly of the Righteous Brothers), who sang co-lead on the song (I've Had The) Time Of My Life with Jennifer Warnes actually experienced a mainstream career resurgence for a short time as a number of Righteous Bros. hits from the sixties made somewhat of a comeback.
The Monkees had an historic revival in 1987 with That Was Then, This Is Now, though it was nothing compared to twenty years earlier in substance nor legitimacy and screamed of legacy stumping.
Why Exactly Again?
March 13, 1987 was an historic day in rock music.
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on that date. I guess getting Tom Cruise to dance around in his underwear brought legitimacy to Seger's career. He reached soundtrack saturation when Forrest Gump jogged cross country and back to the song Against The Wind years later.
Also on that date, Bryan Adams' Heat of the Night became the first single to be commercially released on cassette. The purveyors of the cassette singles tried to brand them as cassingles, but in actuality they were merely a waste of money and ingenuity as well as a terrible insult to the intelligence of discerning consumers.
Go Forth For You Are The Future Of Rock & Roll.......
The following bands all formed in 1987: Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Green Day, The Roots, Gin Blossoms and Uncle Tupelo. Sadly, 1987 also gave us Color Me Badd, Kid 'N Play and Pepsi & Shirlie.
To listen to 200+ songs from 1987, tune into Jivewired Radio all weekend long and thanks for reading and listening!