1987

The 80s are often maligned for bad music, bad movies, and bad presidents. Though it's hard to argue with that last one, you can find some good stuff in the first two categories if you just know where to look; after all, any decade that started the Coen Brothers' career can't be all bad. Musically, there were a number of great developments, two of which are featured on Coldcut's Seven Minutes of Madness mix of Eric B and Rakim's "Paid in Full." That record really began (or at least peaked) the remix craze and Rakim's modern era rhyme style featured on the duo's debut Paid in Full is basically where all modern rhyming comes from.

But now that we are really smack dab in the middle of the 80s, you can see where the reputation comes from. For the most part, this was a really, really weak year, all the more so if, like me, you think Joshua Tree is a monotonous, self-important, overrated piece of trash which committed the unforgivable crime of inspiring Scott Stapp to make music. Though I would love to forget about it entirely, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is a decent enough song for me to not ignore what was, sadly, the most important record of the year.

There are, of course, a couple great songs on here. "Alex Chilton" and "Just Like Heaven" are great rock songs, displaying the best of two different sides of the 80s rock coin. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris collaborated on Trio, an extremely traditional country record that proved there is always an audience for traditional country, even if the industry is so stupid they need to rediscover this fact every fifteen years. Their cover of "To Know Him is To Love Him" is equal to, though worlds apart from, the Phil Spector version.

Check out an early Bjork on the Sugarcubes' "Birthday," and a late Michael Jackson off his last worthwhile record on "Bad." And I even had enough to stick some true cheese on here: the quintessential eighties-ness of "I Think We're Alone Now" and the now-punchline ready "Faith" (I couldn't bare to use "I Want Your Sex").

And then there is "Boyz in the Hood," orignally released in 1986, but included on the 1987 debut by NWA, N.W.A. and the Posse. Spare and gritty, it's the beginning of a new form of hip hop, and it's an unforgiving classic. Maybe the eighties weren't so bad after all.

Download the mix here.

1. Paid In Full (7min of madness) - Coldcut - 7:09
2. Sign O The Times - Prince - 4:56
3. Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns n' Roses - 5:56
4. Alex Chilton - The Replacements - 3:15
5. Just Like Heaven - The Cure - 3:32
6. To Know Him Is To Love Him - Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris - 3:50
7. I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For - U2 - 4:38
8. Lips Like Sugar - Echo And The Bunnymen - 4:54
9. Birthday - Sugarcubes - 3:59
10. Hit the North Part 1 - The Fall - 4:01
11. The Bridge Is Over - Boogie Down Productions - 3:27
12. Top Billin' - Audio Two - 3:35
13. Push It - Salt N Pepa - 3:29
14. I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston - 4:52
15. Bad - Michael Jackson - 4:06
16. I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany - 3:45
17. Faith - George Michael - 3:16
18. Boyz In The Hood - N.W.A. - 5:38