Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released on June 4, 1984, by Columbia Records.
Robert Thomas Christgau is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became an early proponent of musical movements such as hip hop, riot grrrl, and the import of African popular music in the West. Christgau spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. He has also covered popular music for Esquire, Creem, Newsday, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Blender, and MSN Music, and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. CNN senior writer Jamie Allen has called Christgau "the E. F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen."
The Feelies are an American rock band from Haledon, New Jersey. They formed in 1976 and disbanded in 1992 having released four albums. The band reunited in 2008, and released new albums in 2011 and 2017.
Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper The Village Voice and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year absence from the Voice, each year from 1974 onward. The polls are tabulated from the submitted year-end top 10 lists of hundreds of music critics. It was named in acknowledgement of the defunct magazine Jazz & Pop, and adopted the ratings system used in that publication's annual critics poll.
Strong Persuader is the fifth studio album by American blues singer and guitarist Robert Cray. It was recorded by Cray at the Los Angeles studios Sage & Sound and Haywood's with producers Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker, before being released on November 17, 1986, by Mercury Records and Hightone Records. Strong Persuader became his mainstream breakthrough and by 1995 it had sold over two million copies. The record was later ranked #42 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 80's.
Let It Be is the third studio album by American rock band The Replacements. It was released on October 2, 1984 by Twin/Tone Records. A post-punk album with coming-of-age themes, Let It Be was recorded by the band after they had grown tired of playing loud and fast exclusively as on their 1983 Hootenanny album; the group decided to write songs that were, according to vocalist Paul Westerberg, "a little more sincere."
Lucinda Williams is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released in 1988, by Rough Trade Records.
M'bilia Bel is a rumba and world music singer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She is known as the "Queen of Congolese and African Rumba". She rose to fame after first being discovered by Sam Manguana and later by Tabu Ley Rochereau who helped her gain confidence, master her powerful soprano voice, and achieve acclaim as one of the best Congolese female singers.
Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu, better known as Tabu Ley Rochereau, was a leading African rumba singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was the leader of Orchestre Afrisa International, as well as one of Africa's most influential vocalists and prolific songwriters. Along with guitarist Dr Nico Kasanda, Tabu Ley pioneered soukous and internationalised his music by fusing elements of Congolese folk music with Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American rumba. He has been described as "the Congolese personality who, along with Mobutu, marked Africa's 20th century history." He was dubbed "the African Elvis" by the Los Angeles Times. After the fall of the Mobutu regime, Tabu Ley also pursued a political career. His musical career ran parallel to the other great Congolese rhumba bandleader and rival Franco Luambo Makiadi who ran the band TPOK Jazz throughout the 1960s, 1970s and '80s.
Jungle Fever is a soundtrack album by American R&B singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder, recorded for the film Jungle Fever. It was released by the Motown label on May 28, 1991.
Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Ornette Coleman. It is a free jazz record that was produced in a three-day recording session in 1985. The album was released in June 1986 by Geffen Records.
Sun City is the first and only album by Artists United Against Apartheid, released on October 25, 1985, by EMI Manhattan Records. The Little Steven-led project features contributions from more than 50 artist from the rock, hip hop, soul, funk, jazz, reggae, latin, and world music genres. The album contains two versions of the "Sun City" protest song against apartheid in South Africa as well as other selections in the same vein from that project.
Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics is an album by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno. It was recorded at Celestial Sounds in New York City and released in 1980 by Editions EG, an imprint label of E.G. Records. "Fourth world music" is a musical aesthetic described by Hassell as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." Upon its release, the album received praise from a variety of critics.
The Big Heat is the debut solo album by American musician Stan Ridgway, released in 1986 by I.R.S. Records. Named after the 1953 film noir of the same name, the original release consisted of nine songs, including the No. 4 UK hit "Camouflage". In 1986, the album reached No. 131 on the Billboard 200. The album was re-released in 1993 with six additional tracks and again re-released in 2007.
Radio One is a live album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was released posthumously in November 1988 by Rykodisc and compiles tracks recorded between February and December 1967 for broadcasts by BBC Radio. The album peaked at number 30 on the UK Albums Chart, while in the United States, it charted at number 119 on the Billboard 200. After Hendrix's family gained control of his legacy, Radio One was supplanted by the more comprehensive BBC Sessions in 1998.
Sama Layuca is a studio album by American jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, released in 1974 by Milestone Records. It was recorded on March 26, 27, and 28, 1974, featuring oboist/flautist John Stubblefield, alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Billy Hart and percussionists Guilherme Franco and Mtume.
Babeti Soukous is a 1989 studio/live album by DR Congolese soukous musician and pioneer Tabu Ley Rochereau and his band the Afrisa International Orchestra. Recorded for the duration of only one night as a live studio session at Real World Studios, Wiltshire, England in 1989, the album was one of the four albums released to establish Peter Gabriel's world music label Real World Records, and was one of the first recordings Rochereau created after exiling to France in 1988. Rochereau used the album as an opportunity to re-record highlights from the previous 20 years of his career.
Songs for the Poor Man is the first studio album and second album overall by Tanzanian soukous musician Remmy Ongala and his band Orchestre Super Matimila, released in 1989 on Real World Records. The album follows Ongala's acclaimed appearances at the WOMAD Tour and WOMAD'S release of Naillia Mwana, a compilation of early music by Ongala, two events which gave Ongala international recognition. Songs for the Poor Man was recorded at the WOMAD-affiliated Real World Studios in Wiltshire over three days in May 1989 with production, engineering and mixing help from David Bottrill.
Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s is a music reference book by American music journalist and essayist Robert Christgau. It was published in October 1990 by Pantheon Books as a follow-up to Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).
The Curse of the Mekons is the ninth studio album by English rock band The Mekons, released in 1991. Due to a disagreement with A&M Records, the album was not released in the U.S. until a decade later, being available only as an import from their British label Blast First. It has been hailed by critics as one of the best of the Mekons' career.
