6. Fishbone, Truth and Soul Fishbone decided to open Truth and Soul, their second full-length release, with a track that signaled a clear understanding of their forebears. Their ferocious take on Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddie’s Dead” is a clarion call to the rock ‘n’ roll faithful. Fishbone is going to do right by the mélange of genres in which they traffic. “Freddie’s Dead” is steeped in funk authority, but it also blasts forward like a headlong hard rock anthem. Their earlier releases sometimes got Fishbone pigeonholed as an empty party band, maybe in part because it was all too easy … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 6

7. Let’s Active, Every Dog Has His Day Back around #15 on this particular countdown, I noted the elevated stature of North Carolina-based producer Mitch Easter at the end of the nineteen-eighties, at least within the aspirational, twentysomething Neverland of college radio. That minor key fame primarily stemmed from his work behind the boards on the earliest R.E.M. albums — which were less than ten years old at the time but already achieved iconic status as left of the dial masterworks — but that certainly didn’t stop I.R.S. Records from using expectations of brilliance to hype the release of the … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 7

8. Screaming Trees, Invisible Lantern When I was flipping through albums on the new releases shelf in my college radio station twenty-six years ago, the potential longevity of the artists before me was hardly at the forefront of my mind. If at that point I cast backward the same span of time, for example, Elvis Presley was still the dominant artist, and the likes of Joey Dee and the Starliters and Bobby Vinton were topping the charts. In short, it seemed like ancient history in the curation of the music wing in the pop culture museum. Even if I did … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 8