Rock of Life: 1988
In the Rock of Life series I will be recounting my music listening history throughout the years. Each year, starting with 1982, I will describe what I was listening to at the time and then pick my “Album of the Year”. Some (arbitrary) rules: the album will have been released in that year, although some could be from late in the prior year. It must be an album I actually listened to back then, not an album I discovered later. It can’t be a “greatest hits” album.
In many ways, 1988 was an extension of 1987. Two of the biggest albums for 1988 were Hysteria and Appetite for Destructions, albums that had both been released in the summer of 1987. In fact, Appetite was #1 for three weeks in 1988 and Hysteria was #1 for a total of five weeks in 1988!
Another 1987 thing related to 1988 that I did want to mention is that I did see Def Leppard again in July 1988, this time at The Ballpark in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. This was a big, outdoor show with about 20,000 people attending if memory serves. The opening band was Europe. I remember that concert fondly, with the crowd going absolutely nuts for The Final Countdown by Europe and Pour Some Sugar on Me, which was peaking on the US Billboard chart about that time. I also remember Animal and how loud the snare was from Rick Allen’s drum kit.
But aside from 1987 stuff leaking into 1988, there were several 1988 albums that I bought and enjoyed, including:
Long Cold Winter, Cinderella
New Jersey, Bon Jovi (#1 for 4 weeks)
Open Up and Say… Aah!, Poison
G N’ R Lies, Guns N’ Roses
Beast from the East (Live), Dokken
1988 is when I graduated high school and my graduation present was a CD player. So this was also the year when my music purchases started transitioning from cassette tape to CDs.
Moving from cassettes to CDs was huge, so it’s worth noting what that was like at the time. The sound quality of CDs was miles better than cassettes. There was always a slight background hiss with cassettes that you could never really get to go away. Cassettes that were played a lot had a habit of getting jammed in the cassette player if you did not clean it regularly. If you were not careful trying to unjam things you could rip the cassette tap and ruin the cassette, requiring a “splice” to fix it. But regardless, once a tape was “eaten” that part of the tape always had some minor damage and would have a warble or weirdness to it when it was played.
Cassettes had a side 1 and side 2, so you had to flip them over unless you had a fancy “auto-reverse” player. You had to fast-forward and rewind cassettes to move around between songs of even just to go back to the beginning, which was a pain.
CDs were a revelation. They sounded immaculate. You could skip instantly to any song on the album. There was no such thing as sides, which did start to change how artists sequenced song order, I think, but not right away.
The only advantage that cassettes had over CDs is that they were smaller and could be used on the go. Portable CD players and car CD players were not really a thing in 1988. So to listen to music in the car or in a Walkman, you had to first record it onto a cassette.
Since 1988 is also when I started college, commuting about 50 miles each way, so I had plenty of time to listen to tunes in the car (on cassette).
Getting back to the albums, when I listened to the ones above again recently, it strikes me that none are very good. Of them all, perhaps Lies was the best, but it was really an EP. I enjoyed Beast from the East at the time, but rumor was that it was heavily edited in the studio to sound better.
New Jersey was easily the one of the bunch that I listened to the most and it also had many of its hits leak into the next year. New Jersey was #1 for four weeks on the Billboard chart and Bad Medicine was a great leadoff single. I still like that song, although it gets a bit cheesy at the end — it could stand to be a minute shorter.
Listening to New Jersey today, I don’t really like it all that much overall.
Other albums that came out in 1988 that were also popular include:
Savage Amusement, Scorpions - Not a favorite of mine.
…And Justice for All, Metallica - Excellent, even without the bass.
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Iron Maiden - A good album, but I’m not really a big Iron Maiden fan
Winger, Winger - Super-cheesy hair metal
Of these, …And Justice for All is easily my favorite. One is a great song and the album is also great, even if it is missing all bass. Unfortunately I was not a Metallica fan in 1988 yet, although One was the first song from them I really liked and it started me on the path.
Since I can’t pick Metallica, my pick for 1988 album of the year is New Jersey by Bon Jovi, making Bon Jovi my second two-time winner. New Jersey was highly anticipated and definitely was a smash hit at the time. Even if I don’t think it has aged well, it is a reasonable pick.
The Rock of Life list so far: