1989 was an enormous yr for traditional rock, with a number of the style’s largest stars closing out the last decade on very excessive notes.
Motley Crue obtained clear and sober, then hit an all-time industrial excessive with their blockbuster Dr. Feelgood. Neil Young emerged from a largely unfocused decade of style experimentation with the career-reviving Freedom, and Aerosmith one way or the other improved on their already spectacular Permanent Vacation comeback with the seven-times platinum Pump.
Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan all rebounded from disappointing albums with robust albums in 1989, with Cooper’s “Poison” additionally incomes him his first Top 10 hit in over a decade. Tom Petty soared greater as a solo artist, at the least in phrases of gross sales and chart place, than he ever had with the Heartbreakers on Full Moon Fever, and as soon as and future Eagles chief Don Henley cemented his solo superstardom with the hit-packed The End of the Innocence. Stevie Nicks additionally furthered her solo credentials, coming back from one other profitable stint with Fleetwood Mac’s most well-known lineup to launch her fourth straight platinum album, The Other Side of the Mirror.
Of course for a lot of of those artists, significantly these in the laborious rock realm, massive adjustments would arrive very shortly because of the early ’90s grunge revolution. The main edges of that cultural storm have been already hitting document shops in 1989, with Nirvana’s first album Bleach and Soundgarden’s main label debut Louder Than Love incomes essential and peer adoration if not mainstream gross sales success. They would rule the world quickly sufficient…
35 Albums Turning 35 in 2024
Some of rock’s largest stars ended the ’80s with very robust albums.
Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
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