It was around this time of year in 1988 that I purchased my first CD player. It was during my second year of grad school, the year that John and I shared an apartment with Jim, a chemistry grad student. Jim had one of those new-fangled devices as part of his stereo system, and somewhere along the way I began checking out disks from the public library and renting them from a Campustown business called That's Rentertainment for ripping onto cassette tapes. Maybe John and I already knew that come summer we'd be parting ways with Jim, maybe I just wanted to catch a ride on the latest wave in music media--regardless, I took the plunge and bought a Yamaha model in my price range. And of course, I started accumulating my own CDs; foreshadowing what would turn out to be an early trend, the first two were albums I already owned on vinyl: Time Passages and 4.
For some reason though I didn't stop buying new vinyl for several months, likely until close to the end of the year. Here's a decent chunk of my vinyl from 1988, all of which I ultimately also got on CD:
(Missing from the picture is Michelle Shocked's Short Sharp Shocked, which I must have sold in a yard sale a number of years ago.)
One of these is very likely the last 12-inch album I bought new. Forced to guess, I'd say it was the Edie Brickell, but it's also possible it was Under the Sun, the second release from Aussie band Paul Kelly and the Messengers. It's a fine, fine rock record, with a generous fourteen tracks. Kelly has a great ear for hooks and a keen eye for detail in his songwriting. I've continued to enjoy Under the Sun over the years, though I'm realizing it'd been a while since I'd pulled it out for a spin. Let's correct that by checking out a few choice cuts.
I think I had previously read positive reviews of the Messengers' first record, Gossip, so I may have been primed to react favorably when lead track "Dumb Things" started receiving play on WPGU, Champaign-Urbana's AOR station. This finely wrought jam is about a fellow who's unable to get out of his own way.
It may have been WPGU's subsequent promotion of "Same Old Walk" that pushed me into purchasing Under the Sun, though. I like the storyline: guy has a chance encounter with a former lover, and along the way we learn that in the interim a fire has claimed his house. He can only think of losing the artifacts he'd kept from their time together.
Full credit for stretching to rhyme "smilin'" with "diamonds," and especially "actress" with "practice."
Next up is "Forty Miles to Saturday Night," a rocker in which Kelly's everyday Joe anticipates the end of the work week. This was the second single released from Under the Sun in Australia. If "Dumb Things" wasn't the first, what was?
Kelly's biggest hit in his home land led off side two of the LP. "To Her Door," about a couple gingerly approached a possible reconciliation, reached #14 there and apparently was notable enough to get played on MTV2 here. It prominently features the muscular guitar sound I associate with Australian music from this period.
Under the Sun includes a wide variety of styles and influences, wider than what I'm sharing here. Toward the end of side two, we get "Little Decisions," an organ-driven slice of wisdom about favoring small changes over "big resolutions."
In the late 80s I allowed myself to join the Book-of-the Month Club; one of my early purchases was Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding. Started but never finished it, still resides on a shelf down in the basement so maybe there's hope yet. It didn't occur to me at the time that the land down under was rapidly approaching the 200th anniversary of its settlement by whites. Kelly, of course, knew all too well, and he was in no mood to celebrate, as he relates in "Bicentennial," the album's closer: "I have not the heart for dancing/For dancing on his grave."
Kelly turned 75 just a couple of months ago, and he's still touring. He has dates in Australia with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit later this year, but I learned this past week that he's currently playing shows here in the States. In fact, he'll be a special guest of Keb' Mo' and Shawn Colvin in Knoxville this coming Saturday; I'm sorely tempted to go.
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