A lot of folks have been trying to rewrite history and, in doing so, attempt to convince us that the late '80s was nothing but gangsta rap and power ballads. Well, it was pretty much all gansta rap and power ballads, but it wasn't for a lack of effort and ingenuity from the likes of Soul Asylum and Guadalcanal Diary, who gave us the best albums of their career as the '80s were rolling their final credits.
Soul Asylum - Hang Time (A&M 1988)
After three albums, Soul Asylum had yet to prove they were anything more than "The Replacement Replacements" but, on Hang Time, all of that changed and one can almost argue that the student became the master within months of Soul Asylum inking a deal with A&M Records and entering the studio with Ed Stasium and Lenny Kaye.
Graduating to a major label gave the band just enough of a budget to present their material in all of its polished, yet ragged glory and the support system at A&M gave the band the confidence to embrace who they were instead of trying to be the Mats or Husker Du.
In that sense, Hang Time could easily be mistaken for a debut album, cancelling out all that came before and causing a ripple effect in the alternative rock community that saw just about every Midwestern four-piece band ditch their sound for one that emulated Hang Time.
Back in those days, you could rack up college radio airplay by the bucket load, get your video played on MTV's "120 Minutes", and influence a thousand bands across the land, yet still never come within a mile of the Billboard Top 200.
Despite this being an ambitious record full of great songs, the band seems to take an almost fatalistic joy in their performances, with Pirner doing his dang best to fray every last vocal cord and guitarist Dan Murphy throw every riff in his arsenal into this punk-adjacent masterpiece.
Guadalcanal Diary - Flip-Flop (Elektra 1989)
I dunno about you, but the first time I heard "Always Saturday", I thought I was gonna get real tired of hearing it get played to death on Top 40 radio, but, somehow, that day never came.
That the same band could also write and record the best damn Smithereens song the Smithereens never wrote in "The Likes Of You" yet get absolutely no mainstream traction by doing so stills defies logic.
Of course, if you happen to spin "Pretty Is As Pretty Does" without carrying that ear worm of a hook around in your head for the rest of the week, then maybe that song too didn't deserve a harder look by the Elektra brain trust. Was it ignored because the drummer (John Poe) wrote it?
Sadly, the more you listen to this album, the harder you'll be scratching your head as to how or why such a well-crafted, hooky-as-hell album wasn't a commercial success. That same year, 10,000 Maniacs' Blind Man's Zoo (also on Elektra) goes gold....
Ahh; always Saturday via the headphones on my Discman. Much better than the car stereo as the vocals alwways blow me away. I'm also partial to 'The Likes of You' but Flip-Flop is their best. I've been listening to the live 'At Your Birthday Party' lately and enjoying it very much. Too bad I never had the opportunity to see them live but most of my fav bands from the era never hit spots outside of Toronto/Vancouver. Attaway's solo CDs never found the sweet spot of GD but still enjoyable.
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