As the click-addicted rock media reflexively celebrates the 30th anniversary of every album released in 1988 (except mine, yuk yuk), it has become strikingly clear that only a few albums released during that fateful year are truly worthy of a victory lap thirty years after the fact.
Living Colour's Vivid, is one of those albums.
Despite the obvious musical merits of the band's debut, it must be said that if it were not for the efforts of one of rock's biggest stars, that album might not have ever happened. After all, back in the late '80s, the number of African-American rock bands could be counted on one hand and, despite the novelty of an all-black band kicking out the jams, motherfucker, the industry was stubbornly resistant to signing any such act.
Sadly, in the thirty years since this album's release, little has changed in that regard. Much like the dearth of all-female bands that have graduated to the big leagues in the wake of the Go-Go's and the Bangles well over thirty years ago, the absence of any comparable rock bands of color in the 21st century is staggering.
Thankfully, Living Colour are still here, still vibrant, and still kicking out the aforementioned jams in the face of deeply entrenched resistance that, in hindsight, hints at two things:
1) Epic Records likely saw the band as little more than a novelty act (a la Ugly Kid Joe), signing them at the urging of another major artist on their label (Jagger), and
2) Resistance from MTV and radio to continue playing the band's music after the initial novelty wore off seems to hint at the same industry-wide resistance to a black rock band that kept the band from getting signed in the same timely fashion as, say, any white rock band in New York City with a demo produced by Mick Jagger.
In hindsight, the band's smash hit single "Cult Of Personality" was an undeniable slab of jazz-inflected funk-rock that overcame any and all resistance by sheer force of will. Meanwhile, songs like "Open Letter (To A Landlord)" and "Memories Can't Wait" bristled with a similar social commentary and urgency that a yet-to-be-formed Rage Against The Machine would ride to prolonged platinum success through the '90s.
Even more ironic: Rage would be signed to the very same Epic Records within a year of forming, whereas it took Living Colour four years and a Rolling Stone to bust through that wall.
Considering that 1988 was still "the golden age of the power ballad" and that five songs from Vivid were released as singles, how did the wistful "Broken Hearts" manage to not be one of them?
To the band's credit, rather than turn in Vivid, Pt 2 to make the label happy, they chose to take some truly remarkable chances on their second album, Time's Up. In doing so, they perhaps lost a bit of support at the label by collaborating with the likes of Little Richard, Queen Latifah, and Maceo Parker, among others, but used their hard-earned stardom to wear their social conscience on both sleeves.
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not the TV show