1987. The year I graduated from Central Michigan University. It was a solid year for albums. There was a battle for supremacy between the two biggest alternative bands of the eighties. However, they finished second and third to my number one. A couple things before we get to the Mt. Rushmore. First, the contenders that didn't make it were: The Replacements Pleased to Meet Me, 10,000 Maniacs In My Tribe and The Bats Daddy's Highway. Second, I wanted to mention a compilation album that would have made the cut if it was an actual studio album, Juvenalia by The Verlaines. Juvenalia is a collection of singles and B-sides that is basically a greatest hits album. Check out the tracks "Death and the Maiden", "Doomsday", "Joed Out", "You Cheat Yourself of Everything That Moves" and "Pyromaniac". This is a stellar comp.
Number one is Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust. I love this album, even though I have no knowledge of Australian politics or history, which is what they are mostly on about. Midnight Oil tend to be written off as one-hit wonders for "Beds are Burning". This album alone has at least three hits, "Beds", "Dreamworld" and "Dead Heart". Every song is a banger; my favorite being "Sometimes". Most powerful and passionate political album.
Number two is the album that could not be avoided in 1987, Johua Tree by U2. Obviously, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "With or Without You" are great songs, but I have hear them too many times. Can't deny them, though. My favorite tracks are "Where the Streets Have No Name", "In God's Country" and the incendiary "Bullet the Blue Sky".
Number three is by the other alternative rock behemoth of the eighties, R.E.M.'s Document. Even though many don't care for Document as an album, it did break the band into the mainstream with the huge singles "The One I Love" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It". It also has one of my least favorite R.E.M. tracks, "Finest Worksong". I really love everything else on Document, especially "Disturbance at the Heron House" and "Oddfellows Local 151". Spoilers: Every R.E.M. album from the IRS years will be on my Mt. Rushmores. Sorry, not sorry.
Finally, a brilliant album I came to later in life, Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me". This is a DYI indie underground classic. And it has a crazy cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven".
Looking ahead, these mid-80's years are going to be a little thin on albums, but we'll come up with four every year. If nothing else, there's more R.E.M. Peace.
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