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101 Best Songs of 1988:#1 – Guns n’ Roses – Sweet Child o’ Mine (1 Viewer)

Encyclopedia Brown said:
1988 was my freshmen year of college so a lot of these songs hit an emotional, nostalgic chord.

The Escape Club version blasted at every dorm party. 

Heading for the nineties/living in the eighties 
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I have nostalgia in a bad way. My friend bought me The Escape Club and the second MC Hammer record (with "Turn This Mutha Out) for my 16th birthday.  Never forgiven him,

 
1988 has to be the year of epic one-hit wonders. I won't spotlight, but the Escape Club is an example of three or four acts who had an enormous song and then just completely vanished.

Ubiquitous airplay on MTV and the radio, the covers of Rolling Stone and Spin, being the musical guest on SNL.....and then poof.  

 
scorchy said:
#87 - Happy Mondays - Wrote for Luck

I think maybe half of my favorite bands are from Manchester.  It's why I picked Man City as my club back in the day (shout out to Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr).  In 1998, Manchester nightclubs like The Hacienda became the epicenter for the UK's Second Summer of Love - fueled by indie/dance/rave music and lots of cheap ecstasy.  Thus "Madchester" was born, with Happy Mondays as its most drugged out flag bearers (as the video pretty much bears out).  Now please excuse me while I go marvel at Pablo Zabaleta modeling Madchester apparel.

Wrote for Luck
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I feel incredibly lucky to have been in college when the entire rave scene hit the US. 

Getting hand massages at the bar, and having women eat candy necklaces off of my sweaty neck seemed like a very normal Saturday. 

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
1988 has to be the year of epic one-hit wonders. I won't spotlight, but the Escape Club is an example of three or four acts who had an enormous song and then just completely vanished.

Ubiquitous airplay on MTV and the radio, the covers of Rolling Stone and Spin, being the musical guest on SNL.....and then poof.  
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I don't think The Escape Club was a 1-hit wonder.  Wild, Wild West was their biggest hit, but Shake for the Sheik from the same album was a minor hit as well.  Looks like they had a top 10 hit from 1991 as well (after glancing at wiki).  

 
scorchy said:
#92  - Public Enemy - She Watch Channel Zero

My hometown was highly segregated in 1988 (and still is).  There were four bands I remember "mattering" above all others - two hip-hop and two rock/metal - and neither really crossed over.  They'll figure disproportionately in this countdown.

If you walked  down the hall of my HS that year, Africa medallions, PE t-shirts, and skidz were de rigeur among the Black kids.  "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"  was the soundtrack.  Built on a Slayer riff, "She Watch Channel Zero" seems both timeless (just substitute Facebook/Instagram) and ironic given Flava Flav's starring role in so many bad reality TV shows.  So good though.

She Watch Channel Zero
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The only way this is not a weird choice is if you have like 6 other Nation of Millions songs on this list. 

 
Ghost Rider said:
I don't think The Escape Club was a 1-hit wonder.  Wild, Wild West was their biggest hit, but Shake for the Sheik from the same album was a minor hit as well.  Looks like they had a top 10 hit from 1991 as well (after glancing at wiki).  
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LOL.  I saw the same top 10 hit on wiki and didn't remember it.  But I'm afraid to even google Shaking the Sheik without being in incognito mode. 

 
scorchy said:
LOL.  I saw the same top 10 hit on wiki and didn't remember it.  But I'm afraid to even google Shaking the Sheik without being in incognito mode. 
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It's not very good. I never cared that much for Wild, Wild West either, but MTV played the daylights out of both. 

 
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#81 - 10,000 Maniacs - What's the Matter Here?

The third single from the band's breakthrough 1987 album hit the top 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks but barely made the Hot 100.  I still have my original vinyl and throw it on often just for the richness of Natalie Merchant's voice.  I do have to say that among the hundreds of acts I've seen live, only Billy Corgan could compete with Natalie in the "I'm so miserable to be here" department."

 What's the Matter Here?

 
scorchy said:
#81 - 10,000 Maniacs - What's the Matter Here?

The third single from the band's breakthrough 1987 album hit the top 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks but barely made the Hot 100.  I still have my original vinyl and throw it on often just for the richness of Natalie Merchant's voice.  I do have to say that among the hundreds of acts I've seen live, only Billy Corgan could compete with Natalie in the "I'm so miserable to be here" department."

 What's the Matter Here?
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Seeing them in February assuming it still happens 

 
scorchy said:
#81 - 10,000 Maniacs - What's the Matter Here?

The third single from the band's breakthrough 1987 album hit the top 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks but barely made the Hot 100.  I still have my original vinyl and throw it on often just for the richness of Natalie Merchant's voice.  I do have to say that among the hundreds of acts I've seen live, only Billy Corgan could compete with Natalie in the "I'm so miserable to be here" department."

 What's the Matter Here?
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Super impressed that you got this one.  I used to play it and luv me some Nat.

 
scorchy said:
#81 - 10,000 Maniacs - What's the Matter Here?

The third single from the band's breakthrough 1987 album hit the top 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks but barely made the Hot 100.  I still have my original vinyl and throw it on often just for the richness of Natalie Merchant's voice.  I do have to say that among the hundreds of acts I've seen live, only Billy Corgan could compete with Natalie in the "I'm so miserable to be here" department."

 What's the Matter Here?
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Apparently her band mates felt the same way about her.

 
scorchy said:
She was "tired of making art by committee." Common enough sentiment for sure, but the particular phrasing makes her sound insufferable. 
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I saw them like literally 2 weeks before they broke up.  And as you mentioned, she was at absolute zero on the ####s given scale by then.  I also remember my college friends playing way, way too much of Tiger Lily after that.  And I hated that record with the heat of a thousand sons.

 
#80 - Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible

Robert Palmer was a smooth, smooth man. Looking back, his videos though were, ummm, problematic.  Not that I was aware of that at the time - I was always more than happy to indulge.  Revisiting the "Simply Irresistible" video for the first time in 30-plus years, I'm guessing lots of teenage boys shared that view.

Simply Irresistible

 
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scorchy said:
#80 - Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible

Robert Palmer was a smooth, smooth man. Looking back, his videos though were, ummm, problematic.  Not that I was aware of that at the time - I was always more than happy to indulge.  Revisiting the "Simply Irresistible" video for the first time in 30-plus years, I'm guessing lots of teenage boys shared that view.

Simply Irresistible
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A very underrated musician and expert on music history imo. RIP

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I saw them like literally 2 weeks before they broke up.  And as you mentioned, she was at absolute zero on the ####s given scale by then.
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It wasn't a surprise, Natalie had told the others that she was going to leave when she turned thirty. The enormous success of  Because The Night probably got her itching to break away and get started immediately on her solo career.

I have never seen her in person, but a favorite live clip is of a young, sweaty and quite intoxicated Natalie singing My Mother The War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAEvyERuyI

 
#79 - Erasure - A Little Respect

Erasure released an unbelievable 32 top 40 singles on the UK Pop charts (14 made the top 10). They managed three in the States.  "Chains of Love" reached #12 on the Hot 100, but "A Little Respect" (#14) is the song that's really held up (though the video is painfully bad). No idea how Andy Bell hits those notes in the chorus.

A Little Respect

Bonus: The video for Wheatus's faithful cover features a young Brittany Murphy and Shawn Hitosy.

 
scorchy said:
#79 - Erasure - A Little Respect

Erasure released an unbelievable 32 top 40 singles on the UK Pop charts (14 made the top 10). They managed three in the States.  "Chains of Love" reached #12 on the Hot 100, but "A Little Respect" (#14) is the song that's really held up (though the video is painfully bad). No idea how Andy Bell hits those notes in the chorus.

A Little Respect

Bonus: The video for Wheatus's faithful cover features a young Brittany Murphy and Shawn Hitosy.
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There is no song that I have more consistently massacred singing along in the car.  Just a Blutarsky-esque 0.0 GPA on that chorus.  

EDIT:  I'll knock I Love to Hate You out of the park, though.  

 
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Ghost Rider said:
I don't think The Escape Club was a 1-hit wonder.  Wild, Wild West was their biggest hit, but Shake for the Sheik from the same album was a minor hit as well.  Looks like they had a top 10 hit from 1991 as well (after glancing at wiki).  
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shake got some play on alt radio, remember it on MTV also.  Call it Poison on the next album had a lot of play, was pretty big actually.

 
zamboni said:
Man, this brings back memories of stale college beer - was played at every single keg party back in the day.
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I feel like I'm learning so much about the rest of the world in this thread.  When I was putting together my list, I couldn't believe that either Chains of Love or a Little Respect made the Billboard charts - neither were played a bit on the local Top 40 station.  And Erasure definitely wasn't played at keg parties on the eastern shore of Maryland when I was in HS, which tended to take place in large fields with Steve Miller's Greatest Hits 74-78 blasting from a classmates jacked up 4x4.

 
FairWarning said:
shake got some play on alt radio, remember it on MTV also.  Call it Poison on the next album had a lot of play, was pretty big actually.
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The one-hit wonder thing is sort of fascinating to me.  Before checking Wikipedia, I would have sworn that Escape Club fit the bill.  I bet if you did person on the street interviews with people who knew of the Escape Club, maybe 1 in 20 could name a second song.  The fact that Shake the Sheik hit #38 (and Call it Poison #44) makes the one-hit tag a bit debatable, but I'll Be There (a song that neither me nor my wife remembered a bit when we played the video) making the Top 10 answers the question definitively.

 
#78 - Biz Markie - Vapors

This single from the Biz's debut album was an instant classic and became one of the most sampled records in hip-hop.  After all, everyone can relate to Biz explaining "the meaning of this word without no doubt means nobody want to be there when you're down and out."  That skeezer Fran actually appears in the video.

Vapors

 
scorchy said:
I feel like I'm learning so much about the rest of the world in this thread.  When I was putting together my list, I couldn't believe that either Chains of Love or a Little Respect made the Billboard charts - neither were played a bit on the local Top 40 station.  And Erasure definitely wasn't played at keg parties on the eastern shore of Maryland when I was in HS, which tended to take place in large fields with Steve Miller's Greatest Hits 74-78 blasting from a classmates jacked up 4x4.
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I'd have no idea if Erasure was a thing when I was in high school.  Because I didn't go to parties in high school.  I certainly remember Chains of Love and A Little Respect from MTV.

At college, they were popular with my friend group and we kind of wore out both the Pop! collection and the Abbaesque EP, but I'm not sure I ever heard them at parties that we didn't throw.  So it's hard to know, because if I just go by the parties we threw then Shaggy's Oh, Carolina!  and Big Audio Dynamite's Rush are  the two biggest hits in American popular music history.

And as I've said before, Steve Miller seemed to arrive in college despite nobody I had yet known listening to that greatest hits collection in high school.

 
#77 - Soundgarden - Flower

Like I wrote upthread, I had never heard of Soundgarden until I got to college in the fall of 1990.  Apparently, the video for "Flower," off the band's debut album Ultramega OK, was played a few times on 120 Minutes in late '88 and '89 but I have no recollection.

Even the Rush and Queensryche fanboys on my floor- who hated all the lo-fi pre-grunge stuff our friend Kyle played for us - loved "Flower." No doubt because it flat-out rocks.

Flower

 
scorchy said:
#79 - Erasure - A Little Respect

Erasure released an unbelievable 32 top 40 singles on the UK Pop charts (14 made the top 10). They managed three in the States.  "Chains of Love" reached #12 on the Hot 100, but "A Little Respect" (#14) is the song that's really held up (though the video is painfully bad). No idea how Andy Bell hits those notes in the chorus.

A Little Respect

Bonus: The video for Wheatus's faithful cover features a young Brittany Murphy and Shawn Hitosy.
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Even today, this band is great live. Highly recommend. 

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I'd have no idea if Erasure was a thing when I was in high school.  Because I didn't go to parties in high school.  I certainly remember Chains of Love and A Little Respect from MTV.

At college, they were popular with my friend group and we kind of wore out both the Pop! collection and the Abbaesque EP, but I'm not sure I ever heard them at parties that we didn't throw.  So it's hard to know, because if I just go by the parties we threw then Shaggy's Oh, Carolina!  and Big Audio Dynamite's Rush are  the two biggest hits in American popular music history.

And as I've said before, Steve Miller seemed to arrive in college despite nobody I had yet known listening to that greatest hits collection in high school.
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I know it wasn’t a thing here.  When radio stations scrambled to change formats to the alt format in 90(?), you still didn’t hear Erasure.  A couple of years later, some of the very early alt and others that fell the cracks finally got airtime.  I’m sure KROC and WXRT were playing this early.  Actually the only real alt I can remember before the format became a thing was old REM, U2, some RHCP from Mothers Milk and whatever MTV was playing.  I don’t think they get enough credit for breaking new formats to the masses.   

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
Did not expect so much Kool Moe Dee reminiscence in this thread.  Gonna have to throw on a pair of British Knights.
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Did not expect to wake up this morning and suddenly feel nostalgic for my beat up pair of "BKs". Not as cool as Nike, but the pair that you could get your parents to spend money on that weren't generic kicks.

scorchy said:
#79 - Erasure - A Little Respect

Erasure released an unbelievable 32 top 40 singles on the UK Pop charts (14 made the top 10). They managed three in the States.  "Chains of Love" reached #12 on the Hot 100, but "A Little Respect" (#14) is the song that's really held up (though the video is painfully bad). No idea how Andy Bell hits those notes in the chorus.

A Little Respect

Bonus: The video for Wheatus's faithful cover features a young Brittany Murphy and Shawn Hitosy.
Click to expand...


Missed out on Erasure in 1988, but in 1993, when I had my first serious girlfriend (me 18, her 23 and all college music taught), I received a crash course in all things Erasure, Depeche Mode, Echo and others and really gravitated to The Innocents.

 
Bogart said:
Did not expect to wake up this morning and suddenly feel nostalgic for my beat up pair of "BKs". Not as cool as Nike, but the pair that you could get your parents to spend money on that weren't generic kicks.
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I hadn't thought of BKs in decades. Just googled and you still can find them at Kohls. Who knew?

I'm partial to Le Coq Sportif myself - also still around. Eyeing up a sweet pair I just found on amazon.

 
scorchy said:
I feel like I'm learning so much about the rest of the world in this thread.  When I was putting together my list, I couldn't believe that either Chains of Love or a Little Respect made the Billboard charts - neither were played a bit on the local Top 40 station.  And Erasure definitely wasn't played at keg parties on the eastern shore of Maryland when I was in HS, which tended to take place in large fields with Steve Miller's Greatest Hits 74-78 blasting from a classmates jacked up 4x4.
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That was also a keg party staple for sure.

 
scorchy said:
#80 - Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible

Robert Palmer was a smooth, smooth man. Looking back, his videos though were, ummm, problematic.  Not that I was aware of that at the time - I was always more than happy to indulge.  Revisiting the "Simply Irresistible" video for the first time in 30-plus years, I'm guessing lots of teenage boys shared that view.

Simply Irresistible
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Instant go-to memory burned into my cranium of a tall hot blonde dancer and a strip club in Boulder Colorado and this song.

Pretty good knee-jerk song memory.

 
#76 - Lita Ford - Kiss Me Deadly

Not too many songs in 1988 had better opening lines than "I went to party last Saturday night, I didn't get laid, I got in a fight."  For her third solo album, Lita mainly dropped any metal pretense and aimed straight for the glam-pop center (with a big assist from  new manager Sharon Osbourne and a video featuring Lita in leather writhing around with a guitar).  It worked.  "Kiss Me Deadly" reached #12 on the Hot 100, with 1989's second single with Ozzy making the top 10.  

At 2:51 of the video, it always killed me how she switches up to "dancin' 'wit-chu'" after perfectly enunciating "with you" in the rest of the song.  Was this on purpose?  Did she come up with it on her own, or did some producer say "you need to sound tougher - add a wit-chu" in there somewhere?

Kiss Me Deadly

 
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scorchy said:
#77 - Soundgarden - Flower

Like I wrote upthread, I had never heard of Soundgarden until I got to college in the fall of 1990.  Apparently, the video for "Flower," off the band's debut album Ultramega OK, was played a few times on 120 Minutes in late '88 and '89 but I have no recollection.

Even the Rush and Queensryche fanboys on my floor- who hated all the lo-fi pre-grunge stuff our friend Kyle played for us - loved "Flower." No doubt because it flat-out rocks.

Flower
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I had typed something up, but it wasn't really all that interesting. I still like this song, and I'm not a Soundgarden guy by any stretch of the imagination. I think I liked Screaming Life/Fopp and Ultramega OK way more than I liked their later, Cornell-vocal heavy songs. They were an interesting band at first, a band that had a bunch of sonic diversity going on. Later they turned to more sludgy stoner rock with Cornell in fine form, for sure, but they lacked the charm of those first early recordings. Badmotorfinger is where we (meaning young rock and I) really tune them out, to be honest. 

 
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