Twenty years ago today, on August 24, 1990, the film Men at Work was released. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, the film stars Estevez and his brother, Charlie Sheen, as two eccentric California garbage men who find themselves caught up in some political and criminal intrigue. Fun fact: Leslie Hope plays the love interest of Sheen; she would go on to play Teri, Jack Bauer's wife in "24," with Estevez and Sheen's Young Guns co-star, Keifer Sutherland, eleven years later. Nearly three years ago, we here at this site did a piece on this film and our very favorite scene therein. See it here.
Twenty years ago today, on August 22, 2010, the film Pump Up The Volume was released. Written and directed by Allan Moyle, and starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, the film chronicles the exploits of a pirate radio deejay adjusting to a new high school. The soundtrack was impressive, as it included Concrete Blonde, Soundgarden, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains with Henry Rollins, Peter Murphy, and the Cowboy Junkies. Not bad for 1990. Of course, I need not write the perfect nostalgic piece on this film, as that task has already been accomplished by someone else. On August 27, 2008 (coincidentally, the week of the film's 18th anniversary), Ryan S. at The League of Melbotisrevisited the film and gave it the nostalgia treatment. Check it out, as we here could not have said it better ourselves.
Twenty years ago today, on July 11, 1990, the would-be action comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine was released in theatres. What to think of this film looking back two full decades? Directed by Renny Harlin, and written by a whole host of writers, , the film was shot and conceived in the dying days of the 1980s, and it shows. Brash, rude, and obnoxious, the film served as a vehicle for Andrew Dice Clay, who at that time was attempting to mainstream himself in an attempt to reach greater stardom. His effort failed, and pretty badly, at that.
I remember seeing this film in the theatres, and the experience was literally an accident. I had won a free pass from a radio station contest for a showing of Air America, which was overbooked. So, the theatre usher suggested I see another film, that being Ford Fairlane.
But for a mostly dumb film about a rock and roll detective featuring a reviled comic, Ford Fairlane has an odd charm to it. Clay plays the title characters, whose investigation leads him through the seedy ins and outs of the music profession, meeting a bizarre cast of characters along the way. With a range of star cameos (including Vince Neil, Tone Loc, and Priscilla Presley) and featuring Wayne Newton as the villain, the film offers some amusing pop culture moments, though it's not great cinema. (Although the film does feature Ed O'Neill performing a dance called "Booty Time," which makes it certainly worth the rental, don't you think?).
Perhaps they thought they were creating a franchise? Few emerged from this experience unscathed. Harlin also directed 1990's Die Hard II, released just a week before hand. After the Cutthroat Island debacle, though, his career never really recovered. Clay's attempt at mainstreaming failed utterly, and he is mostly remember for being a vile comic whose career never made it past the early 1990s. For the most part, this film was the end of the line for him.
I remember being particularly fond of the soundtrack to the film, which featured a new tracks by Motley Crue ("Rock and Roll Junkie"), Queensryche ("Last Time in Paris"), and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora (covering Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary."). To boot, the soundtrack began with Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love," the video for which is probably the most remembered artifact from this would-be Hollywood comedy blockbuster.
The film even spawned a brief four issue comic book series:
Here is the trailer to the film, which is heavy on Clay's obnoxious behavior:
Released twenty years ago yesterday, on July 4, 1990, Die Hard II began the process of squandering the good will earned by the first film, released just two years before. Again starring Bruce Willis as John McLane, the film boasted a new director, Renny Harlin (who would also direct that summer's The Adventures of Ford Fairlane). The film attempted to hit some of the beats of the first film, and despite a brief cameo by Reginald VelJohnsen, the sequel did not have the heart and characterization that made it's predecessor more than a mere action movie.
This is not to say the film didn't at least try to be a solid action movie. Bonnie Bedelia returned as Holly, John's wife, and even William Atherton was back as the obnoxious television news reporter, Richard Thornburg. But the film was essentially a remake of the first film, this time set in an airport instead of a skyscraper office building. Like the Back to the Future sequels, it was fun, because we as viewers so enjoyed the first chapter, but in the end, the sequel felt too cheap and easy, like so many sequels inevitably do.
But back in 1990, we didn't know how awful this franchise would ultimately become. Just five years later, theatres would see the release of a second sequel, Die Hard with a Vengeance, about which we here at Chronological Snobberyblogged a bit on its fifteenth anniversary. But even then, this series of films had further to sink with its most recent sequel, Live Free or Die Hard.
Let's hope there's not another chapter in the works.
This past weekend saw the twentieth anniversary of the release of Sonic Youth's Goo album, which originally hit stores on June 26, 1990. That was about the time I first became aware of the band, whose "Titanium Expose" would appear on the soundtrack to that year's film, Pump Up The Volume. Featuring "Dirty Boots," "Kool Thing," and Disappear," the album had a number of Sonic Youth staples (though the band apparently rarely sees fit to play them in concert any longer). Arty punk, the band's music is simultaneously powerful and pretentious.
Interestingly, the album cover is based upon this famous photograph:
That photograph depicts Maureen Hindley (sister of Moors murderer Myra Hindley) and her then husband, David Smith. The photograph was apparently taken in the mid-1960s when Maureen Hindley and Smith, trial witnesses, were in their car. You may have seen the film based upon Myra Hindley's life in which actress Samantha Morton played the villainess in question. Or, you may also be familiar with The Smiths' song, "Suffer Little Children," about the Moors murders themselves. Whatever the case, what a creepy aesthetic choice for an album cover, eh?
Released twenty years ago today, on May 29, 1990, was Bloodletting, the third studio album by Concrete Blonde (who is now touring to celebrate the album's twentieth anniversary). The album contains "Joey," the band's most popular song. I became familiar with Concrete Blonde later in 1990 when their cover of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" appeared on the soundtrack of the teen film, Pump Up The Volume (a film responsible for introducing me to a number of bands, in fact). From then on out, I've been a follower and fan. Happy anniversary.
Released twenty years ago today was Hell to Pay, the second studio album by the Jeff Healey Band. Healey, of course, is remembered not just for being a hell of a guitar player, but also being one hell of a guitar player who happened to be blind. I must confess that this record came to my attention sometime in 1990 for one reason and one reason alone: its inclusion of a cover of The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Learning of that, I quickly bought the record, and I dug it. But I've not thought about it in years and years and years. In fact, I did not learn until my preparations for this piece that Healey passed away in 2008 from cancer. Rest in Peace.
Twenty years ago today, on May 12, 1990, the controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay hosted "Saturday Night Live," something which provoked much controversy at that time. I can't say that I was ever a fan of Clay; I've never heard any of his comedy albums, and from what I understand of the material, I wouldn't particularly enjoy it. I did like his 1990 flick, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, mainly because of its connection to and depiction of the music industry. I'm not certain that I even watched this particular episode of "SNL," but I certainly remember the uproar prompted by it, including cast member Nora Dunn and originally scheduled musical guest Sinead O'Connor's boycotting of the show due to Clay's participation therein. (Interestingly, O'Connor would court controversy on the show two years later when she held up a picture of the Pope to the camera and tore it in half to protest sexual abuse in the church.).
There were not one, but two musical guests that night, Julee Cruise and the Spanic Boys. A detailed breakdown of the episode and its sketches can be found here.
On May 14, 1990, Caryn James of The New York Timeshad this to say about Clay's appearance:
It's impossible to tell from his ''Saturday Night Live'' appearance, which was apparently meant to be the next shrewd step in the mainstreaming of Andrew Dice Clay. With two movies (a comedy and a concert film) coming out this summer, he can no longer afford to spit out expletives on live television, the act that got him banned from MTV and bought him just the kind of bad-boy publicity that has propelled his career. But instead of testing whether he can be more than a one-note performer, the show turned into a media event that gnawed at the controversy in one toothless skit after another.
The most clever was the opening sketch, a parody of ''It's a Wonderful Life,'' with Mr. Clay threatening to throw himself off a bridge because of the fuss about his appearing as host. His guardian devil reveals what ''Saturday Night Live'' would have been without him: Ms. Dunn would have shown up and been squashed when Ms. O'Connor's amplifier fell on her. A distraught Ms. O'Connor would never show her nearly shaved head to sing in public again. ''That's too bad; she was a cute bald chick,'' says Mr. Clay in the Jimmy Stewart role.
This mild self-mocking does not begin to suggest the offensive tirade of sexism that is typical of Mr. Clay's stand-up routines, and anyone who turned on ''Saturday Night Live'' without having seen him at his most vile might have wondered what the fuss was about. His usual comments about women are mostly unprintable, but a typical one involves whiling away time in line at the bank by molesting the woman in front of him. The chain-smoking, leather-jacketed ''Diceman'' is clearly a persona, but it is a role without any redeeming irony.
...
Mr. Clay and the writers must have thought they were capitalizing on the controversy, instead of being sunk by it, but they made the wrong choice. The one truly funny episode was ''Ridiculous Bull,'' a black-and-white-parody of ''Raging Bull'' with Mr. Clay doing a mean impersonation of Robert De Niro as the out-of-shape boxer Jake LaMotta saying, ''Hit me with the sledgehammer, Joey. I'm your older brother, Joey, hit me with the refrigerator,'' in Mr. De Niro's nervous, repetitious delivery. The Diceman disappeared and a comic actor took over, raising new questions. Does Andrew Dice Clay have a future in the mainstream after all? And if he does, should women ever forgive him for the way he got there?
James's final questions are easily answered in 2010. Clay had no future in the mainstream, and of course, he had little future in entertainment at all after 1990, save for a few appearances here and there, mostly the type bestowed upon D-list performers. (Rumor has it, though, that Clay is now planning a comeback on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Ford Fairlane.). The second question, then, answers itself: women have not forgiven Clay, they have simply forgotten him, as have most denizens of popular culture. There is no worse fate in show business.
Twenty years ago today, on May 8, 1990, Iron Maiden lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson released his first solo album, Tattooed Millionaire. It's a mostly forgettable album, really, other than that chorus of the title track curiously refrained, "I don't want to be a tattooed millionaire," a strange goal to avoid, particularly for the lead singer of a famous heavy metal band. (Another historical footnote: The album also included a cover of David Bowie's "All The Young Dudes," originally made famous by Mott the Hoople and covered five years after Dickinson's ablum by World Party on the soundtrack to the 1995 film, Clueless.). The Times (UK) noted that the solo album was "[g]enerally more melodic than Maiden, with a distinct AC/DC flavour in places."1
I myself remember this Dickinson album for two reasons. First, at that time, I was listening to Maiden's The Number of The Beast (an album previously reminisced about at this site in more detail here). Second, at a 1990 radio station promotional event at the local Sound Warehouse, I won a copy of the promotional single, which made me feel very metal.
1. "Rock update; Records," The Times (UK), May 26, 1990.
Above: Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint in TV's "Alien Nation."
Twenty years ago today, on May 7, 1990, the television series "Alien Nation" broadcast its final episode, entitled "Green Eyes." Based on the 1988 film of the same name (which starred James Caan as a hard-boiled human cop and Mandy Patinkin as his alien sidekick), the spin-off series featured two new and lesser known actors assuming those two lead roles: Gary Graham (Robot Jox) in the Caan role and Eric Pierpoint in Patinkin's. Debuting in 1989, the series lasted but one season, thought it returned for five television movies from 1994 to 1997.
The mythology of the film and the series was that a large ship of alien visitors, called the Tectonese, or colloquially, the Newcomers, have come to Earth and must be assimilated into Earth culture. (Thus, in theme, and in tone, the original film was not unlike last year's District 9, which obviously appropriated a number of elements from it.). As the film progressed, viewers learn that the 300,000+ Newcomers were actually part of a slave labor force, and that the drug used to pacify them during their interstellar journey, has now hit the streets of Los Angeles. The film was much darker than the later series, which was significantly watered down, no doubt due in part to the constraints of early 1990s network television. What made the original film most interesting, and the series somewhat interesting, was the at times tense relationship between the human cop and his alien partner. Both Caan and Graham played their shared character with a touch of xenophobia, which ebbed and flowed as they worked alongside an alien officer.
Sure, it was a low budget, mostly tacky sci-fi series on the Fox Network (exactly the type of series that would now be shot in Vancouver and aired on the Sci-Fi Channel). But back then, the series, despite its faults, captured my interest, mainly due to the good will earned by the original film. I've not watched an episode of the series since its original run (though it's possible I caught one or two rerun episodes somewhere in the mid-1990s). I don't recall watching any of the subsequent TV movies which aired in the mid-1990s, as those were my college years, and it was quite difficult in those days to learn what shows aired and when without the assistance of a DVR.
Whatever slight fondness for the series remains, I do not plan on revisiting the series here. Looking back at it from 2010, it seems to be precisely the type of show that would not hold up well, both because the television viewers of today are more sophisticated than they were in 1990, but also because I myself like to think I have a more refined taste than my young 1990 self. Thus, were I to rent the series, I'd do violence to whatever memory of it remains, as I can't imagine that I would enjoy it in the least if I elected to view it again these days. Oh, well.
Released twenty years ago today, on May 4, 1990, was Short Time, a silly comedy written by John Blumenthal and Michael Berry and starring Dabney Coleman, Matt Frewer, and Teri Garr. The premise: Burt Simpson (Coleman), a soon to retire police detective, learns two critical facts: He has but two weeks to live, and his family will not be entitled to his retirement benefits if he dies of natural causes. The problem: The diagnosis is in error, and he is in fact perfectly healthy. However, he spends the bulk of the film taking wild risks in an effort to be killed in the line of duty, thereby ensuring his family's security. Those attempts are played for comedy. I'm not certain that I ever saw this film, and if I did, it was sometime in the early 1990s on basic cable.
This concept cries out for a remake. Imagine a dark, gritty revisiting of this film done for drama rather than slapstick comedy. Denzel Washington stars as Burt Simpson, a grizzled cop whose imminent retirement plan is disrupted when his doctor (Philip Seymour Hoffman) informs him that he has but two weeks to live. Simpson uses the opportunity to recklessly pursue the villainous drug lord (Russell Crowe) against whom he could never quite build a case. But that is surely not to be. These days, Hollywood only remakes old big budget action and horror flicks.
The film apparently never made it to DVD, which is unfortunate, as we enjoy the work of Dabney Coleman. After all, he starred in 1983's Cloak and Dagger, which we here at Chronological Snobbery remember fondly. And who could forget his 1980s sitcom, "The Slap Maxwell Story?"
Twenty years ago today, on May 1, 1990, Billy Idol released Charmed Life, his fourth solo album. Most recall that album today for one reason and one reason alone: the video for "Cradle of Love," that album's first single. That video featured 18 year old Betsy Lynn George, dancing lasciviously in the apartment of a shy geek. Of course, then, no one knew her real name; she was to everyone simply "the girl from the 'Cradle of Love' video." George played Devon, a young neighbor of the geek in question, who knocks on his door and asks if she might possibly use his cassette player to listen to a song, "Cradle of Love." As the song plays in the geek's apartment, she dances ever more provocatively, and then kisses him. The song ends, and her boyfriend appears at the geek's door to locate her. She leaves, as if nothing happened.
The video was directed by none other than David Fincher, five years before he made waves with Seven. In it, Idol himself is depicted only from the waist up due to a recent motorcycle injury. (You may recall his brief cameo in Oliver Stone's The Doors, shot about this time, in which he is featured as a roadie on crutches.) The video also featured clips from the film, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, which would be released in July of 1990. None of those clips included that film's lead, Andrew Dice Clay, who was then banned from appearing on MTV. Interesting, Spin magazine's original 1990 review of the album (from its July 1990 issue) makes no reference to "Cradle of Love." Perhaps the video did not achieve its notoriety until after press time.
And without further ado, here is the official video to the song:
Two other singles were released from Charmed Life: a cover of The Doors' "L.A. Woman" and "Prodigal Blues," neither of which were particularly successful or remarkable. "Cradle of Love" was also the first track on the official soundtrack to The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (while an apparently uncut video - featuring clips of Clay - appears on the Ford Fairlane DVD).
Born in June of 1971, George appears to have vanished into the pop culture ether since the 1990s. (According to IMDB, her last formal credit is from 1997, and most of her credits were not exactly A-list flicks. See, for example, the racy trailer for this 1996 softcore film, Petticoat Planet, about a world of women visited by a single male extra-terrestrial, in which George appears as the character, Lily). She did, however, appear in an episode of "Twin Peaks," as well as in "Melrose Place," "Baywatch," and "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Apparently, in 2000, and again in 2002, VH1 investigated her whereabouts in a series of specials entitled "Where Are They Now? Video Vixens" (videos for which I've been unable to locate online). It's unclear whether a new interview of George was done for that series. However, in one online summary of that broadcast, it is noted:
Betsy Lynn George used every sexy contortionist move she knew in Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love". She now teaches young girls her techniques - in gymnastics classes.
A more recent picture of George:
In 2008, Katie Charles of New York Magazine, writing about an upcoming Billy Idol concert, referenced George and her role in popular culture:
Few songs offer as pure a dose of 1990 a "Cradle of Love," and nostalgists won't want to miss Billy Idol. the MTV star who blasted the image of Betsy Lynn George doing a striptease for her yuppie neighbor onto your retinas. August 26 at Hammerstein Ballroom.1
In fact, here is a link to the video of Idol performing "Cradle of Love" at that very concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom. For good measure, here is a link to a video of Billy Idol performing the song on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1990.
Twenty years ago today, on April 20, 1990, the film Miami Blues was released. It starred Alec Baldwin as Frederick Frenger, a con man and murderer who impersonates a police officer. Rounding out the cast were the lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh as Baldwin's pixie-esque love interest and Fred Ward as his police foil. Surely, the film received some attention at the time, as only a month and a half before its release, The Hunt for Red October, featuring Baldwin as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, had been released to popular and critical acclaim. But these days, little is remembered about Miami Blues, a film based on the book by Charles Willeford and written and directed by George Armitage, who would go on to direct the wonderful GrossePointe Blank seven years later. (Not everyone has forgotten the film, though: Two years ago, The Onion A.V. Club featuredMiami Blues in its New Cult Canon series.).
But look how different Baldwin looks on the poster as opposed to how he looks now as we know him as an older, much funnier comic actor on TV's "30 Rock." My, how time flies. And look at how cute the then 28 year old Leigh was at the time with her incredibly short haircut:
Of course, if you're doing an Internet search for any other screen captures from the film, good luck finding anything other than nude pictures of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Oh, well.
I should pause to note that twenty years ago today, on April 15, 1990, the sketch comedy series "In Living Color" debuted on the Fox network. I rarely, if ever watched the program, but I certainly encountered my fair share of references to the show at school. (In fact, my most vivid memory of the show was not the show itself, but the band Living Colour objecting to its similar name. I remember seeing two members of Living Color presenting at some type of awards show and introducing themselves as follows: "We're Living Colour, and we don't do comedy."). But the program does have a very special place in pop culture history. It brought the Wayans Brothers to national prominence as well as Jamie Foxx and Jim Carrey, both of whom would go on to have very successful careers in Hollywood. David Alan Grier wasn't so lucky, I guess.
Above: The cover of the October 10, 1990 issue of Time.
The pilot of "Twin Peaks" aired 20 years ago today, on the night of April 8, 1990. What to say about that? This strange series not only altered narrative television, but it was popular enough to prompt the nation to ask "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" - a question which in and of itself became a pop culture catchphrase. There's much to say about that, and there will certainly be more exhaustive reviews and summaries of the anniversary on the Internets (such as Pop Candy's "Ten Unforgettable Moments" from the series). I loved the show, despite, and probably because of, its overt and wonderful oddness. Believe it or not, it was actually my mother who alerted me to the series and encouraged me to watch its premiere, as she had, somehow, discovered David Lynch and his work prior to 1990. It was fun, it was intriguing, it was campy. I was glued to the set each week (although I recall that the series was not as popular with my classmates as I had initially expected it might be). It apparently lasted only thirty episodes (fewer than I remembered, too few for it to be truly profitable in syndication) and vanished from the airwaves for good by June of 1991. A feature film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, came in 1992, bringing it all to an end.
The series was unavailable on DVD for some time, and when it first came to the format, the two hour pilot episode was only available as import, while the remainder of the first season - without the pilot - was released domestically. This, I understand, has been remedied with subsequent releases, including a far more definitive edition which includes both versions of the pilot and the entirety of the series. Several years ago, I watched most of the first season again on DVD and was surprised that the performances seemed as wooden and stilted as they did. That of course, is a hazard of watching something you enjoyed immensely in your youth and revisited in your adulthood. But here, the experience was a bit more startling, because I did not think of "Twin Peaks" as something that would suffer with age as it apparently had (to me). Alas. Perhaps I should give it another shot in the coming weeks and watch the entire series start to finish. Or, more likely, maybe I should simply let it exist in my memory as a series I very much enjoyed watching as a teenager. Yes, I think I'll do the latter. It is safer for my well being.
Twenty years ago today, on February 2, 1990, the film Flashback was released. It's a mostly forgettable road movie in which conservative, by the book FBI agent John Buckner (Kiefer Sutherland) must escort aging New Left radical Huey Walker (Dennis Hopper) to trial for allegedly disconnecting Vice President Spiro Agnew's railcar back in the 1960s. Think of it as lowbrow version of Midnight Run meets a severely watered down Easy Rider. Eleven years later, both Sutherland and Hopper would appear together in the first season of TV's "24."
The film's promotional materials made use of two quotations made by Hopper's character (one of which was particularly self referential, though no on said "meta" back then):
"It takes more than going down to your local video store and renting Easy Rider to become a rebel."
"Once we get out of the '80s, the '90s are going to make the '60s look like the '50s."
You see, it's supposed to be clever because Hopper is playing a '60s radical who references a 60's counterculture film in which Dennis Hopper himself appeared. Get it? You see? Oh, well.
The original theatrical trailer for the film is as follows:
Above: The album cover for Slaughter's Stick It To Ya.
Twenty years ago today, on January 27, 1990, the hard rock band Slaughter released its debut album, Stick It To Ya. Yeah, yeah, I've lost any indie street cred by professing a fondness for this album, but if you were a young teenager in 1990, and you didn't like the band's single, "Fly To The Angels," you simply had no soul. It was an ethereal and nearly perfect rock power ballad.
In fact, the album had not one but two versions of "Fly To The Angels," the first being the extended version that was familiar as the popular single, the second being a shorter, purely acoustic version. (This was, after all, the dawn of the "Unplugged" era.). Whatever the case, the song must have drawn some initial criticism, for on Stick It Live, a five song live EP also released in 1990, lead singer Mark Slaughter introduced the song as follows:
This next song's about losing somebody very important in your life whether that be your mother, your father, your best friend, or whatever. It's not a song about glorifying death and it's not about suicide, because it sucks.
The PMRC need not have worried. As far as hard rock went, Slaughter was lighter and far less sordid fare than many groups. (They had songs called "Spend My Life," in which Mark Slaughter sang about wanting to spend the rest of his life with a particular paramour. Compare that to Motley Crue's "She Goes Down," released in 1989, and you get the idea.).
The fates were not kind to Slaughter after 1990. Although the band's debut album spawned a number of notable singles (including "Up All Night"), the group could not withstand the changing tastes of the album buying public in the early 1990s. Their 1992 follow-up LP, The Wild Life was far less popular (and far less interesting), and even an appearance on the soundtrack of the 1991 film Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey could not insulate them from the onset of grunge. The band's original guitarist, Tim Kelly, died in an automobile accident in 1998.
These days, they are mostly forgotten, save for "Fly To The Angels." Here's to you, Slaughter.
Above: The album cover for Slaughter's Stick It Live.
On the twentieth anniversary of the release of the 1990 film Tremors, we here at Chronological Snobbery pause to ask the following five questions about the film's place in history.
1. Has it really been two decades since Tremors was released on January 19, 1990? 2. What would have become of "Family Ties" actor Michael Gross had he not been cast in this film, its several sequels, and a resulting spin-of television series? 3. As this was the first film in which country singer Reba McEntire appeared (and really, her first meaningful acting role), do we have this film to blame for starting her down the path to "Reba," her television series which aired from 2001 to 2007? 4. When Kevin Bacon (now a Golden Globe winner) pauses to reflect upon his career, what enters his mind when his wandering thoughts turn to this film? 5. What does it suggest that Gale Anne Hurd produced blockbusters like The Abyss in 1988 and Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, but Tremors in 1990?
I am somewhat disconcerted to learn that I own a television soundtrack featuring a cover of Rod Stewart's "Reason to Believe," done by Wilson Phillips, of all groups. Yes, yes, I know the song wasn't originally done by Rod Stewart, but of course, his is the most popular version, and probably, the only one you know, dear readers. I picked the right week to reflect upon this pop culture gem, as Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" was featured this week (ironically) on the season premiere of "Chuck." But, in 1990, it was difficult to resist the charm, the allure, and the gravitas of TV's "China Beach," which featured the lovely Dana Delany. (It also featured Marg Helgenberger as a madam of sorts; although the supermajority of modern viewers would only know her as Catherine Willows from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.). I understand that the series - never released on DVD - may never reach that medium due to disputes over the licensing rights for the songs originally featured during its broadcast run. (Ah, curses to the television producers who did not have the foresight to license the songs featured on their episodes in perpetuity for all media, including that not yet in existence.). But, its soundtrack, released in 1990, featured not only Diana Ross and the Supremes (their song, "Reflections," was the theme of the series), but also covers of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by Katrina and the Waves (with Eric Burdon!) and "Time of the Season" (originally by the Zombies) by Wendy Wall. Ah, 1990. Believe it or not, I originally bought this soundtrack 19 years ago, but sold it or lost it somewhere along with way, and repurchased a copy through the Internets just a week or two ago. I suspect that the disc may be out of print and/or hard to find, as it was more expensive than most used discs are these days. For good reason, perhaps?
Released twenty years ago today was Flood, the third album by They Might Be Giants, then an offbeat alternative pop group, now, from what I understand, a band making children's records. At 19 tracks and 43 minutes, it's perhaps the most well known TMBG album. The band was certainly in my consciousness in 1990, with song's like "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (the album's first single), "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "Particle Man," and a favorite of mine, "Dead." The album holds up well two decades later, due both to its quality and place in my memory.
It's always fun to revisit original record reviews, particularly when an album later become popular or garnered a cult following. So what was said at the time? Twenty years ago, Chris Willman of TheLos Angeles Times described the album as "quite like the iconoclastic, independent gems that preceded it, full of socio-romantic musings disguised as absurdist, minimalist, Dada demo-rock, not to mention ample, accordion-accompanied power pop helpings of humorously opaque symbolism . . . sorta like Joseph Campbell meets Weird Al Yankovic," ultimately concluding that "[p]ublic radio programmers, repentant intellectuals and very small children should all love it."1 (Based on his verbiage, we must assume that Willman received his student loan statement that day and reminded himself he needed to justify having spent all of that money on liberal arts courses. That, or he consciously disregarded Ferris Bueller's advice that a person shouldn't believe in an -ism but instead should believe in himself.).
Meanwhile, Jon Pareles of The New York Times was a bit more skeptical of the effort:
Musicians who are smart enough to know better still put out albums like "Flood" by They Might Be Giants, the duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell. Its 19 songs and fragments riffle through so many styles and pile up so many non sequiturs - or are they? - that it could well overload ordinary pop-music receptors. It's mentally hyperactive and proud of it.
They Might Be Giants crack jokes in "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," get serious in "Your Racist Friend," envision a population explosion in "Women & Men" and free associate elsewhere about terminated romances, human duplicity and cosmogony; they pour out catchy tunes but switch arranging gambits in mid-song, lurching from currently hip styles like organ-driven garage-rock to the corniest movie music. After working too hard to prove they weren't just zanies on their previous album, "Lincoln," They Might Be Giants shrug off most typecasting - emotional, musical, rhetorical - on "Flood"; they flaunt their multiplicity. And they're bound to draw flak for packing too much into their songs, for revealing that they're clever in too many ways at once.
....
Rock has always prized honest excess over artificial restraint, and in their own way, groups like They Might Be Giants join rock's tradition of excess. Where rock's founding fathers were happily hormone-crazed, They Might Be Giants are intoxicated with allusions and associations and ideas, both musical and verbal, and they've got to let them out. In fact, records are too slow an outlet for them; They Might Be Giants have an answering machine called Dial-a-Song, 718-387-6962, with a new song daily.2
Ouch. (Although was Pareles suggesting that ordinary listeners could not process the craziness of TMBG, but that he, as a critic, could humbly do so on behalf of the less sophisticated record buying public?) One wonders what these particular writers would say if they were given a second chance to review the album two decades later. Equipped with the knowledge that many of its songs became a part of the soundtrack of the lives of many young Generation Xers, would they offer more positive - or more straightforward - assessments? Would they be influenced by all this later acquired knowledge? Or would they stick to their guns?
Perhaps coming closest to the mark was Forrest Rogers of The Atlanta Journal Constitution, who wrote that the band had not:
. . . sacrificed any of the loopy humor and herky-jerky sound that charmed fans of their two previous indie-label LPs.
The latest from The Two Johns - Linnell (accordion) and Flansburgh (guitar) - contains songs every bit as quirky and clever as college radio favorites "Don't Let's Start" and "Ana Ng." These two masters of the mixed metaphor continue to write with a sense of humor and clarity that is never condescending. They always let you in on the joke.3
Indeed.
You can thank the YouTubes for the below, the video for "Birdhouse in Your Soul":
1 Willman, Chris. "They Might Be Giants "Flood." The Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1990. 2. Pareles, Jon. "Pop View; Mentally Hyperactive and Proud Of It," The New York Times, January 28, 1990. 3. Rogers, Forrest. "Reviews Records Pop," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 27, 1990.
Thirty-something suffering from nostalgia but, thankfully, not from bouts of irony. Here, I will revisit artifacts of popular culture not sufficiently explored elsewhere, though I may perhaps stray from that mission at times.
Click the image above to review Chronological Snobbery's in-depth coverage of the tenth anniversary of the 1998 film, Zero Effect, starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller
High Fidelity (2000 - 2010)
Click the image above to review Chronological Snobbery's in-depth coverage of the tenth anniversary of the 2000 film, High Fidelity, starring John Cusack and Jack Black.
Twenty years ago today, on August 24, 1990, the film Men at Work was released. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, the film stars Estevez and his brother, Charlie Sheen, as two eccentric California garbage men who find themselves caught up in some political and criminal intrigue. Fun fact: Leslie Hope plays the love interest of Sheen; she would go on to play Teri, Jack Bauer's wife in "24," with Estevez and Sheen's Young Guns co-star, Keifer Sutherland, eleven years later. Nearly three years ago, we here at this site did a piece on this film and our very favorite scene therein. See it here.
