Anniversaries: 'Sister'

SONIC YOUTH
Sister
[SST]

While its follow-up—the much lauded Daydream Nation [Enigma-1988]—is often cited as the band’s turning point, it’s actually this, their fourth album, that saw them deviating from their previous sound and laid the musical blueprint for the band’s subsequent releases.

 

Although not a commercial success upon release, the album is regarded by many as second only to Daydream Nation in their catalog, and is frequently included in Best of the ‘80s lists.

 

Also, lead-off track “Schizophrenia” served as the inspiration for the Foo Fighters hit “Everlong”. Take that as you wish.

 

Released June 1, 1987.

Anniversaries: 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'

STING

The Dream of the Blue Turtles

[A&M]

 

Plagued by internal discord that eventually broke up the band, Synchronicity [A&M-1983] was for all intents and purposes a dry run for what became his solo career. And so, free of the other Policemen, Mr. Sumner teamed up with a cast of first-rate jazz musicians for his first full-length album. 

 

Despite the critical shorthand of this being his “jazz” album and there being a taste of it throughout, courtesy of the assembled musicians (including the great Branford Marsalis), it opens with “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”, a funky pop tune that was the album’s first single and remains the highest charting song—reaching #3 in the US—of his post-Police output. (It’s also, thematically speaking, the exact opposite of the Synchronicity hit “Every Breath You Take”. Hmm…)

 

As his old band broke up at the height of their popularity, commercial expectations were high for this one. And in that regard it delivered, as it became a Top 5 album in both the US and UK. (As well receiving 4 Grammy nominations.) But it ultimately suffers from “serious artist” disease, in this case the afflicted trying a tad too hard to shed his pop star image and history. However, there are some rewarding moments throughout, as evidenced by “Consider Me Gone” and the singles “Fortress Around Your Heart”, “Love Is The Seventh Wave” (which quotes his old band's “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”) and the aforementioned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”.

 

He would set his future musical template on his next album, but this one was a decent if flawed first step.

 

Released June 1, 1985.

Anniversaries: 'Sgt, Pepper's'

THE BEATLES

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

[Parlophone]
 

It wasn’t really until the second half of the 1960s that the album became popular music’s main format to not only disseminate an artist’s work but, in many cases, to make a musical statement by said artists. With that in mind, it’s not a stretch to state that this one marks the specific point in time in which the album format established itself in that regard.

Considered by many the greatest album in the history of popular music, time has not been quite as kind to its status over the ensuing decades, even within the band's catalog itself, as befits such a designation. But its release was indeed a watershed moment that showed what was possible for a pop combo to achieve and has proven to be immensely influential, of course.

 

As the folks over at Pitchfork acknowledged in their 2009 appraisal of the Fabs’ remastered catalog, the shadow cast by this album, even in these fractured times, is “so pervasive and so instructional regarding the way music is crafted and sold to the public that [the album format] is still the predominant means of organizing, distributing and promoting new music…decades later, well after the decline of physical media.”

 

Not too shabby.

 

Released June 1st, 1967.