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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 11, 1986)
Page 6 Anton The top of the heap, the cream of the beat, the tip of the hip and the back of the seat, this is the list of which you should abide by, die by and buy by. This ain't no Bruce list, this ain't no .38 Special-Jimmy Buffett-Hokus-Krokus-Give yer dog a bone list. This ain't no wimpy-ass, religious-Windham Hill-mellow-yellow, marshmallow-music-muster, hell, no! This is the list that you can sell your little sister for. Vsee, there's some people that got good taste and other's that can just sit on my . . . Cramps collection. There's some people will never have it, no mat ter how hard they try, and of course there's those who just plain got it, get it and can't go without it. 1. "License to 111," Beastie Boys 2. "Squirt it!" Big Hairy Mary 3. "Kiss the Brown Eye," Potters Wheel 4. "Raising Hell," Run DMC 5. "Louder Than Hell," Sam Kinnison 6. "Just Got My Stitches Out," Dan cin' Hooker Dancer 7. "Rules and Regulations," We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Going to Use it. 8. The Essential Astrud Gilberto," Astrud Gilberto 9. "Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolu-tionary America," Culturecide 10. "We Became Snakes," Saccha rine Trust Learn it, love it, live it, lick it, seal it with a kiss, buy these discs for your loved one, help cure their Christmas bliss. EflGCubbin -0 I 4CV CV-' r (viviw Earning the gold bars of an Air Force officer is one track to the road of success. Air Force ROTC provides the opportunity. And, you may be eligible to compete for a full scholarship that can pay college tuition and most textbooks, fees, plus $100 each academic month. Combined with your college degree, you're headed toward a challenging and rewarding future as an Air Force officer. Air Force officers manage vital engineering projects, pilot and navigate aircraft, and supervise important programs. But it all starts with Air Force ROTC. Don't settle for anything less. For a scholarship. For your future. Get on the right track. Talk to: JACK L. ROACH, Captain, USAF Asst Professor of Aerospace Studies (402) 472-2473, or in Nebraska onlv 1-800-742-8800, "86 C This isn't the 10 best records of the year, it's just my 10 favorites. I don't know what the lObest records of the year are, but I do know that they didn't go gold, didn't make the charts, and were never played on a commercial radio station. REM did a good record this year that made my list and got on the radio sometimes, but I know there were dozens of better records out there being ignored. Bob Dylan's "Biograph" and "Bruce Spring steen Live and the E Street Band were probably the two most important releases this year. I didn't want to bump a good new album off my list to make way for a retrospective. O Beastie Boys, "License to 111." Illin', chil lin', choice, prime and def. And these guys are all white. I feel good about my race for the first time in years. O Beat Farmers, "Van Go." Tough, slick cowpunk. O Big Audio Dynamite, "No. 1 0 Upping St." A near perfect blend of great dance music and important messages. O "Camper Van Beethoven ll&lll." The West Coast's best band gives us more transcend ent silliness with an amazing increase in musical sophistication. Cramps, "My Date With Elvis." Nowhere near as great as their classics, but miles better than 99.723 percent of everything else this year. O Dead Milkmen, "Eat Your Paisley." The punk equivalent of "Looney Tunes." Skads and oodles of fun. O Class Eye, "Huge." Darkly humorous, surreal songs and the best use of electric key boards since Morrison up and died on Manzarek. O "Rainmakers." Politically incorrect but energetic poprock. "Let My People Go-go" is a great party anthem. O Ramones, "Animal Boy." See "The Cramps." O REM, "Life's Rich Pageant." This album disappointed a lot of people, but I think it's their best effort ever. Of course, 1 never worshipped this band like so many did. iagnuson Best LPs: 1. Joe Jackson, "Big World." A total .it Ext 2473 Leadership Daily Nebraskan O , O success in theme and style. Definitely Jackson's best album. Yes, even better than "Look Sharp." 2. Prince, "Parade, Under the Cherry Moon Soundtrack." OK. It's a horrible movie, but his Royal Shortness is still five years ahead of everyone in R&B. 3. REM "Life's Rich Pageant." Gorgeous music. 4. The Smiths, "The Queen is Dead." Even The Smith's worst LP makes it to No. 4 on my list. 5. Lonnie Mack, "Second Sight." Fresh rock 'n' roll from a true master. 6. UB40, "Rat in The Kitchen." The year's best reggae didn't come from Jamaica this year. London's frest beats everyone. 7. Get Smart, "Swimming With Sharks." Progressive music that's truly progressing. 8. The Robert Cray Band, "Strong Persuader." It's everything the critics have been raving about, and better. 9. The Violent Femmes, "The Blind Leading the Naked." Powerful folk. Bit ing lyrics. 10. Desmond Dekker and The Aces, "Israelites." OK this album came out in 1969, but I didn't hear it until this year. Top Three Disappointments for 1986: 1. Jason and The Scorchers, "Still Standing." What a blatant act of selling out. Jason has turned country-punk to the more commercial country-metal. Maybe they should rename the band Motley Jason and the Crew. They sure can't call themselves scorchers anymore. 2. Loyd Cole and the Commotions, Excellence Starts Here "Easy Pieces." So over-produced that hearing Cole's unique voice and vocals is impossible. 3. Fine Young Cannibals, "Fine Young Cannibals." There are some great songs on this LP, Cox, Steel and Gift have too much talent to rip off Motown. Top Three Singles of the Year: 1. "Mountains," Prince. 2. "Fall On Me," REM. 3. "Smoking Gun," The Robert Cray Band. Favorite Silly Pop Song of the Year: "Crush On You," The Jets. Best Video: "Sledgehammer," Peter Gabriel. Worst Videos: Everything else. Worst Singles: 1. "Talk About It," Dweezil Zappa. 2. "Stuck on You," Huey Lewis and The News. The Partridge Family wouldn't have recorded crap this sappy. 3. "I Can't Wait," Nu Shooz. Disco lives. Lieuranc Phew, what a year. MTV played 28 hours of Madonna videos for "True Blue" ... in 28 consec utive hours. The new fad of rockers wanting to feed, clothe and house the world fizzled into a fart of self-indulgence. Even Saint Bob Geldof could bear it no longer and finally got on with his solo career. Rap finally made it to the Midwest. The Finnsters issued a new poster that made them look like working-class heroes sleveless T-shirt, faded jeans and bleak urban background . . . "We want to make music with integrity." The reunion tour was big. The Monkees, Her mann's Hermits, the Grass Roots, Gary Puckett, The Byrds, The Turtles, and the Mamas &cA the Papas all had a contest to see who could equal the self-parody of Elvis Presley's latter days, and a whole slew of sotmdalikes sprang from the sequined muse's head in case the oldies tours didn't make it your way. 1. Peter Case, self titled Ex-Plimsoul Peter Case makes John Cougar Mellencamp look like a Bolshevik. 2. Throwing Muses, self titled A sonic, folk hoedown with a iross between Patti Smith and Melanie on vocals. 3. REM, "Life's Rich Pageant" The most upbeat and lyrically profound REM to date. 160 CPS print head speed in draft mode; 32 CPS NLQ mode speed 80-column narrow carriage for correspondence Switch from draft to Near Letter Quality mode with the push of a button Prints a typical business letter in under 30 seconds IBM graphics character set built in SelecType feature gives finger tip selection of numerous popular typestyles at the touch of a button 8K internal butter aiiows you to keep working on your computer while the printer is printing Friction and p:n teed UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE COMPUTER SHOP Nebraska Union-Lower Level Thursday, December 11, 1986 4. Sonic Youth, "Evel" The thin line between agony and ecsta.iy, 5. Beastie Boys, "License to III" White-monster power chords, hip urban poetry and a little Trevor Horn thrown in to boot. Def 6. T-Bone Burnette, "River of Love" The most misunderstood, sadly ignored guita rist and songwriter in America puts out a folk album extraordinaire. Makes John Cougar Mel lencamp look like Joe Stalin. 7. Lounge Lizards, "Big Heart Live in Tokyo" With every album these New York No-wavers led by John Lurie come closer to becoming the respected peers of the free-form jazz masters they set out to camp up and parody. 8. Paul Simon, "Graceland" Paul Simon breaks cultural barriers and cul tural sanctions and creates the most jubilant album of the year. I can't understand why the critics keep pummeling Simon about the lack of critical politics on this LP. The day unbridled hope isn't worth more in South Africa than inflammatory rhetoric is the day change becomes destructive and useless. 9. Run DMC, "Raising Hell" Metal rap. Makes John Cougar Mellencamp look like Perry Como. 10. The Feelies, "The Good Earth" The Feelies take the most lyrical side of the Velvet Underground, add a wall of fuzz in the foreground and concoct a serene aural hallucin ogen. Pearl S. Buck eat your heart out. Honorable mention: Thelonious Monster, "You're Bummin' My Life out in a Supreme Fashion," Screaming Blue Mes siahs, "Gun Shy." Best Pop Song: Eurythmics, "Missionary Man" Best Major-Label Debut Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, etc." Worst Pop Song: "Kyrie," Mister Mister: Classics professors and Catholics around the world cringed. Well, pop music is a dead language .... Worst New Band: Rainmakers. The lead vocalist has terminal hic cups, they dress like kindly hobos dressed in '30s movies, and they write songs as if they've believed every Reagan anecdote they've ever hear. Naive and unforgiveable. Worst Old Band: GTR, ELP, Monkees, Boston .... Stupidest Album Title: "Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine" by Daryl Hall. In the AOR world titles like this symbolize maturity. Last year's winner was "Dream of the Blue Turtles." Almost poetry, ain't it? Most appropriate LP title: Iggy Pop's lackluster Bowie outtake album, "Blah, Blah, Blah." Best Televised Rx k Performa nee: V2 as the finale of the Amnesty International Concert on MTV. Bono seemed possessed by the spirit of Jim Morrison. The Edge seemed pos sessed by llendrix. The crowd was possessed by yuppie self-congratulation. Worst Televised Live Performa nee: Joan Baez performing Tears for Fears' "Shout" at the Amnesty International Concert. Was that a tear in her eye? TM