Cosmic Thing
Artist: The B-52's
Community Score: 7.05
Fuck
Artist: The Leaving Trains

With a new lineup anchored by the band's sole returning member, singer/guitarist Falling James, the Trains begin to solidify around the atavistic paeans to dissipation and alienation that quickly are becoming James' stock-in-trade. The roaring guitars still rumble, but many of the last album's softer moments are lost in a preference for... Read More

Vermillion
Artist: The Three O'Clock

It's said that Prince signed the Three O'Clock to his Paisley Park label after they were dropped by IRS having never heard a note of their music but knowing that they were friends of the Bangles, for whom he had previously written "Manic Monday." It seems like the Three O'Clock's paisley underground pop would have been a perfect fit for Prince's... Read More

Witchdoctor
Artist: Sidewinders

Though it was released in the same year as Cuacha!, the Sidewinders' debut album, Witchdoctor, is a major advance. The band sounds more focused and powerful from the first note, which still has the Hüsker Dü guitar roar but a more pronounced western character. True, the title cut has a guitar lead straight from Bob Mould territory, but there are... Read More

Eponymous
Artist: R.E.M.
Community Score: 6.64
Document
Artist: R.E.M.
Community Score: 8.21
Huevos
Artist: Meat Puppets
Community Score: 6.60

Recorded and released just a few months after the experimental Mirage, 1987's Huevos was a return to the Meat Puppets' earlier, more straight-ahead direction. The band (guitarist/singer Curt Kirkwood in particular) had always voiced their admiration of ZZ Top, and Huevos contained Billy Gibbons & Co.'s influence more than any other Puppets... Read More

Lick
Artist: The Lemonheads

Although it's fairly incoherent, bouncing back and forth between punk-pop and folky pop, Lick is a thoroughly engaging record. The tensions between Evan Dando and Ben Deily are fairly evident throughout the album, especially since Dando's songs, with their immediate hooks and melodies, outshine his bandmate's, but that unevenness makes the... Read More

Bent by Nature
Artist: Glass Eye

Very edgy, angular pop. Deconstructed? Visionary! ~ Robert Gordon, All Music Guide Read More

Pop Said...
Artist: The Darling Buds

The Darling Buds' first studio LP is a potent mix of Blondie and Velocity Girl. Not as streetwise as the former but rougher than the latter, it's a solid collection of 12 straight-ahead pop-punk songs, some of which were re-worked and glossed up from earlier EPs released on the Native label. It's not earth shattering, and the relentlessly upbeat... Read More

Boylan Heights
Artist: The Connells

Their second album shows a great improvement over its predecessor. With help from producer Mitch Easter, the band effectively combines Southern rock's jangly guitars with Celtic influences. One of the more distinctive, though generally overlooked, college rock albums of the late '80s. ~ Chris Woodstra, All Music Guide Read More

The Bears
Artist: The Bears

The debut album from the Bears is a solid slice of great guitar-driven pop tunes. Although Adrian Belew was seen nominally as the frontman, this was truly a band; four friends who had known each other for years, playing for pure joy. Songwriting duties were shared, with each member contributing at least one track, and they also wrote several... Read More

George Best Plus
Artist: The Wedding Present

This huge collection summarizes the early portion of the Wedding Present's career, the C-86 era of jangly, revved-up indie-pop. The release compiles the band's first album and its first two singles ("Nobody's Twisting You Arm" and "Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now") -- 23 tracks worth of the hyper pop the band is known for. Apart from the... Read More