 | Dave’s Faves:My Album Collection in 1988 |
By year’s end, this was what my collection looked like. Albums acquired in 1988 are marked with an asterisk.
Resources and Related Links:
First posted 8/31/2021. |
DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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Saturday, December 31, 1988
Dave’s Faves: My Album Collection in 1988
Saturday, December 24, 1988
Guns N’ Roses “Patience” charted
 | PatienceGuns N’ Roses |
Writer(s): Guns N' Roses (see lyrics here) Released: April 4, 1989 First Charted: December 24, 1988 Peak: 4 US, 4 CB, 6 RR, 7 AR, 10 UK, 10 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 319.5 video, 185.72 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:After the success of their 1987 Appetite for Destruction album, Guns N’ Roses released G N’ R Lies as a sort of stopgap. The collection packaged the group’s 1986 Live Like a Suicide EP with four new songs. They included an acoustic reworking of “You’re Crazy,” which had appeared on Appetite, the eyebrow-raising “Used to Love Her” about killing one’s girlfriend, and the highly controversial “One in a Million” which insulted homosexuals and immigrants. The song’s big hit, however, was the ballad “Patience” about “waiting it out in a relationship.” SF The song has often been assumed to be about Axl Rose and his troubled relationship with Erin Everly, but the band has said Izzy Stradlin wrote the song about his ex-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti McCoy. WK The song was originally recorded with all acoustic instruments and no drumming, although they use electric guitar and drums when performing the song in concert. The song also features Axl Rose whistling – something he also does on the GNR hits “Paradise City” and “Civil War.” The song is a favorite for karaoke, but Kimberly Starling of The Karaoke Informer says it is one of the top 5 songs that tends to bomb. SF A version of the song by Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) was released posthumously in 2020. He recorded the song after helping his daughter, Toni, learn it. He took it to #1 on the Billboard mainstream rock chart. Resources:Related Links:
First posted 8/6/2022. |
Thursday, November 24, 1988
50 years ago: Roy Acuff charted with “Wabash Cannonball”
 | Wabash CannonballRoy Acuff & the Smoky Mountain Boys |
Writer(s): J.A. Roff, adapted by A.P. Carter (see lyrics here) First Charted: November 24, 1938 Peak: 12 US (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, -- UK, 10.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 3.31 video, 1.97 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:This is “a genuine knight-of-the-road ballad with a touch of the Paul Bunyan flavor,” RA “perhaps the greatest of all train songs.” SS The song originated in the 1880s, In 1882, J.A. Roff wrote words and music for “The Great Rock Island Route!,” a song about a mythical train which traveled coast to coast. It became an anthem for hoboes. In Southern America in the late 19th century, the railroad offered a different form of work for those wishing to escape the farms and served up a touch of romanticism for those who wanted to live a less conventional life, riding the rails and going wherever the trains would take them. William Kindt adapted Roff’s piece in 1905 under the title “Wabash Cannonball.” There were several Wabash Railroad passenger trains dating back to the 1880s while the term “cannonball” was used to reference a fast train. When the song entered the public domain in 1928, it was reworked and claimed by A.P. Carter whose group, the Carter Family, recorded the song the next year, but didn’t release it until 1932. In the meantime an unissued version was recorded by Clark & Edans in 1928 and Tennessee singer and guitarist recorded and released the song in 1929. Roy Acuff, who was billed as “the King of Country Music,” SS recorded the song in 1936 with Dynamite Hatcher on vocals, but didn’t release it until 1938. NRR He didn’t record it with his vocal until 1947, although he performed it regularly on the Grand Ole Opry, SS where he first appeared in 1938 and was its top star by 1942. NRR His “voice was pure country and he was one of the first to carry the title ‘hillbilly’ proudly.” AC He embraced the plain and simple values of poor, rural Americans and gained an audience via his recordings, tours, and movie appearances. NRR In 1962, he was the first living artist elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame. NRR Resources:
First posted 11/24/2014; last updated 8/26/2022. |
Tuesday, November 15, 1988
Journey’s Greatest Hits released
| First posted 7/24/2008; updated 9/17/2020. This page has been expanded, reworked, and moved here. |
Saturday, November 5, 1988
Fleetwood Mac released Greatest Hits
| First posted 4/6/2008; last updated 9/17/2020. |
Greatest Hits |
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Released: November 5, 1988 Recorded: 1975-1988 Peak: 14 US, 3 UK, -- CN, 3 AU Sales (in millions): 8.0 US, 0.9 UK, 16.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock Tracks: (1) Rhiannon (2) Don’t Stop (3) Go Your Own Way (4) Hold Me (5) Everywhere (6) Gypsy (7) You Make Loving Fun (8) As Long As You Follow (9) Dreams (10) Say You Love Me (11) Tusk (12) Little Lies (13) Sara (14) Big Love (15) Over My Head (16) No Questions Asked Total Running Time: 64:19 |
Rating:  4.370 out of 5.00 (average of 9 ratings)
Awards:
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A Brief History: Fleetwood Mac started in 1967 as a British blues band. Over eight years, members came and went with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie being the only constants. By 1975, they’d settled on the lineup that over a dozen years, would bring them to their greatest commercial heights. The American folk-duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band in 1974, giving the band a poppier, classic rock feel.
The Studio Albums:
Under each album snapshot, songs featured on the Greatest Hits are noted. Song titles are followed by the names of writers in parentheses, the song’s length in brackets, and then the date the song charted and its peaks on various charts. Click for codes to singles charts. Fleetwood Mac (1975): After ten studio albums, Fleetwood Mac leapt into the arena of commercial stardom with a self-titled release. On the strength of three top-20 hits in the U.S., the album which introduced Lindsey Buckingham to Stevie Nicks, hit #1 and became a multi-platinum seller. The band had previously never reached higher than #34 on the Billboard album chart.
Rumours (1977): Expectations were high and so were the band members. They were also fighting so much as a band that the success they’d just found looked certain to derail. Instead, the broken relationships behind the scenes fueled their songs and the album became one of the most successful in history. Sporting four top-ten U.S. hits, it sold 40 million copies worldwide and spent 31 weeks atop the Billboard album chart in the U.S.
Tusk (1979): Fleetwood Mac got ambitious the next time out, releasing a double album. It didn’t match the success of the previous outing – which would have been damn-near impossible – but it still gave the band two more top-ten hits in the U.S.
Mirage (1982): Since their last album, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had each found solo success. Nicks had gone all the way to #1 on the U.S. album chart with Bella Donna, which had two top-ten hits, and Buckingam hit the top 10 with his song “Trouble.” Audiences were eager to hear the band as a whole again. Ironically, though, it was Christine McVie who had the highest-charting single from the album with “Hold Me.”
Tango in the Night (1987): After some more solo forays, which now included a solo album and top-10 hit from Christine McVie, the band came together again for what would be the last studio album with the classic lineup that brought the group its biggest taste of fame. Seven songs from Tango in the Night hit various charts with four of those reaching the top-20 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Greatest Hits (1988): “Greatest Hits is a fine overview of Fleetwood Mac’s hit-making years, containing the bulk of the group’s Top 40 hits of the late ‘70s and ‘80s,” AMG which included such fare as top-10 hits Go Your Own Way, Tusk, Sara, Hold Me, Big Love, and Little Lies and their only #1 hit, Dreams. Minor hits like ‘Think About Me’ [and] ‘Love in Store’… are missing, making room for the new songs As Long as You Follow…and No Questions Asked, but overall, Greatest Hits is an excellent choice for casual listeners.” AMG
Notes: “Seven Wonders” was added to the 2006 reissue. |
Resources and Related Links:
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Monday, October 31, 1988
The La’s released “There She Goes” - for the first time
 | There She GoesThe La’s |
Writer(s): Lee Mavers (see lyrics here) Released: October 31, 1988 First Charted: January 14, 1989 Peak: 49 US, 47 CB, 2 MR, 13 UK, 7 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.6 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 13.8 video, 242.25 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:Rolling Stone called “There She Goes” “a founding piece of Britpop’s foundation.” RS “Credit Lee Mavers’ insistent falsetto bringing the song’s sad-sack protagonist to life as the never-ending guitar hook intensifies his desperation.” RS Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie called it “the perfectly written pop song: an instantaneously recognizable melody and lyric set to simple, economic musical structure.” WK Mike Badger formed The La’s in 1983 and singer/songwriter/guitarist Mavers joined the next year. Badger departed in 1986 and bassist John Power came on board. Mavers and Power ended up the nucleus of the group with a revolving door of other guitarists and drummers. The band lasted until 1992, but only released one album. Mavers said of the Steve Lillywhite-produced album, “We [hate] it…It never captured anything that we were about. To cut a long story short, too many cooks spoil the broth.” RS The album featured four singles, of which only “There She Goes” dented the UK top-40. Even that song was a minor hit initially. It was first released in 1988 and reached #59 on the UK charts. It was remixed in 1990 for their debut album and that version – released as a single in October of 1990 – finally charted in the UK and United States. The lines “There she goes again / Racing through my brain / Pulsing through my vein / No one else can heal my pain” have led to the song being viewed as an ode to heroin. Mavers denies the song is about heroin, although admits to trying it. However, he says he didn’t try it until 1990 – after he wrote the song. WK Resources:
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First posted 10/13/2021; last updated 8/24/2023. |
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