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Apr 4, 2024 · The Best Albums of 1989: 57 Full-Lengths Worth Your Time From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the premiere of Seinfeld, 1989 was a year of significant cultural shifts. Musically, the tides were ...
- Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw And The Cooked: release date 13th January 1989. The British trio issued their second and final album, which included the hits She Drives Me Crazy, Good Thing, I'm Not The Man I Used To Be and a cover of Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have?).
- New Order - Technique: release date 30th January 1989. New Order release their fifth album (and their last one to be released on Factory Records), which included Fine Time, Round And Round and Run 2.
- De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising: release date 3rd March 1989. The rap collective release their debut album, which included the hits The Magic Number, Eye Know and Me Myself And I.
- Madonna - Like A Prayer: release date 21st March 1989. Madge's fourth studio album included the controversial title track, Express Yourself, Cherish, Dear Jessie, Oh Father and Keep It Together.
- Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine. There are debuts, and there are debuts, and then there’s Pretty Hate Machine. In one album, Nine Inch Nails made a bold declaration, not only about their presence on the music scene, but also about the tenor of the fast-approaching ’90s.
- Faith No More – The Real Thing. While Angel Dust is arguably Faith No More's masterpiece, The Real Thing put them on the map. Hit single Epic propelled the band to mainstream fame (who can forget the impactful video and its iconic flopping fish, only further immortalised by genius commentary from modern music critics Beavis And Butthead?)
- The Cure – Disintegration. Sometimes, incredible art can only come from disgust and confusion. Disintegration is heralded by many as The Cure’s greatest album, but its creation was heavily informed by Robert Smith’s disillusionment at the band’s newfound fame and his return to psychedelic drug use.
- Morbid Angel – Altars Of Madness. While Morbid Angel eventually grew into a Lovecraftian beast that took death metal to new places, it’s their debut, Altars Of Madness, that shows the band at its rawest.
- Louder
- Aerosmith - Pump. Pump continues the unlikely career revival that began with 1987’s Permanent Vacation, and ramps it up another few notches. Collaborators Bruce Fairbairn, Jim Vallance and Desmond Child are still in evidence, although the album’s standout tracks, such as Love In An Elevator, are resolutely all Aerosmith.
- Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique. Marking the Rubicon-crossing moment when record producers became collage artists, curators of ‘found sound’, Paul’s Boutique mystified critics and punters.
- The Cult - Sonic Temple. The making of Sonic Temple saw The Cult relocate Stateside, hook up with producer Bob Rock in Vancouver and embrace a more streamlined rock sound in favour of the psychedelic leanings of their earlier releases.
- The Cure - Disintegration. The mood of Disintegration is neatly encapsulated in its opening line: ‘I think it’s dark and it looks like rain’. The Cure take heartbreak, desolation and melancholy and shape them into a series of shimmering, stately epics such as Pictures Of You and the opening Plainsong.
- De La Soul: Three Feet High and Rising. Here’s high praise for De La Soul’s 1989 debut: It’s one of the only hip-hop albums in history whose skits are as good as the music.
- The Pixies: Doolittle. At the tail end of the ’80s, an album came out that would continue to influence rock for a couple more decades and counting. The Pixies followed Surfer Rosa with the band’s magnum opus that—although it only reached #98 on the Billboard chart—would eventually get certified Gold in 1995.
- Madonna: Like a Prayer. Upon the album’s release, a Rolling Stone critic wrote that Madonna’s Like a Prayer was “as close to art as pop music gets.” Despite that being a repulsively rockist declaration, it tells you a little something about how people viewed Madonna the pop star at this point in her career.
- Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique. Paul’s Boutique changed the game of rap music forever. The trio’s heavy use of sampling and name-dropping soon became industry standard.
What are the best albums of 1989? BestEverAlbums.com brings together over 60,000 charts and calculates an overall ranking of the best albums of all time. The top ranked albums of 1989 are 1 - Doolittle by Pixies, 2 - Disintegration by The Cure, 3 - The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses, 4 - Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys, 5 - On Fire by Galaxie 500, 6 - 3 Feet High And Rising by De La Soul, 7 ...
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Julee Cruise. 12 September 1989. Ambient Pop Dream Pop. Jazz Pop Ethereal Wave. 3.92 / 12k 110. Altars of Madness. Morbid Angel. 12 May 1989. Death Metal.
