The Best Record of 1989 Day 50: #62 Violent Femmes, 3 vs. #67 Queen Latifah, All Hail the Queen
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a quick look at records from Violent Femmes & Queen Latifah
Note: As many of you know, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 1989 challenge and noted that I’d occasionally write some of these up.
I’ve started doing some quick hits of each matchup and posting them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There’ll probably definitely be some typos.
Check ’em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags and hot takes are welcome! Sharing and restacks are always appreciated.
In case you missed any from earlier this week:
Day 46: The The’s Mind Bomb vs. the Record Matt Johnson Should’ve Made
Day 47: Grebo vs. Folk? 1989 Truly Had Something For Everyone
Day 48: Fast Jangle Pop Meets Fast…Everything
Day 49: Hey Buddy, Come Anytime
KA—
The pitch: After three years, the Femmes got back together and got back to basics. As good as Hallowed Ground and The Blind Leading the Naked may be, this is a band at its best when it’s stripped down to its core parts. Brian Ritchie’s bass, a quiet beat, and whatever of Gordon Gano’s neuroses he feels like talking about today.
3 (actually the band’s fourth record) starts strong with “Nightmares” and “Just Like My Father.” Deserved or not, Gano always seems like the type of guy we’ll hear about on the 6 o’clock news, invariably with a neighbor describing him as “…nice guy, kept mostly to himself.” Part of that is down to his habit of writing/singing songs from the perspective of some people with, well, some issues. The 1-2 punch of the first two tracks won’t do anything to disabuse people of those notions.
That theme keeps right on going on “World We’re Living In,” with Gano singing:
I can’t go out no more
I just better stay at home
I just better stay all alone
’cause what am I gonna do
if I see someone I’d like to do
something to
“Fool in the Full Moon” might just be the closest thing to a rock song the Femmes ever put to tape. But the rest of it is what most people would come to expect from the band: Gano’s nasally vocals, a mildly chaotic racket, and lyrics that’ll have you singing along until you realize what’s coming out of your mouth.
3 is a fun, enjoyable record. It isn’t quite up to the level of their band’s self-titled classic or even the maudlin atmosphere of Hallowed Ground, but it let everyone know the band was back, and that was enough.
I’ve mentioned it before, but the first time I heard Queen Latifah’s “Dance For Me,” it was thundering out of my friend Kiki’s Honda as he took the corner onto our block at an impossibly high rate of speed.
With A Tribe Called Quest and Jungle Brothers having already dropped releases, it only made sense that another member of the Native Tongues crew would come out, and it was never going to be anyone else but Queen Latifah. And that opening track put everyone on notice that she wasn’t going anywhere.
I’m sure the way I found the record has something to do with it, but to my ear, this LP had an urgency to it. DJ Mark the 45 King put his unique stamp on much of the record, diving deep into the crates, corralling some unruly sounds and reforming them as dance-floor fillers.
This was also the era when MCs became infatuated with house music—sometimes with mixed results. All Hail the Queen is no exception with “Come into My House.” A solid if unremarkable track. And it wouldn’t be a 1989 record without some friends coming along for the ride. Fellow Native Tongues De la Soul are here (“Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children”) as is KRS-One (“Evil That Men Do”).
The former has something like 14 samples in it-everyone from Otis Redding to Billy Squier. When I said Mark the 45 King dug deep, I wasn’t kidding.
As a whole, All Hail the Queen is solid, but standouts like “Dance For Me” carry a lot of the weight, and trimming a couple of tracks would’ve elevated this from good to great.
My vote: I’m a fan of the Femmes, and the fact that they’re from Milwaukee scores some points for them. Both records are good, neither is great. I went with a nod to my old neighborhood for the tiebreaker, and threw my vote to the woman known to the New Jersey DMV as Dana Owens.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
Check out the full bracket here.
Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.
As always, thanks for being here.
KA—
Kevin Sent 