I Love 1989: Pixies & 3rd Bass

Don and Dude crash headfirst into 1989’s alternative basements and hip hop boomboxes, where quiet loud guitar nightmares share airspace with sample stacked punchline barrages and label side eye. One of us dives into a twisted surf rock carnival that helped teach the 90s how to go loud quiet loud, while the other rides a brainy, boom bap Def Jam debut packed with Beastie Boys disses, Hammer threats, and the first appearance of a future underground legend.

The Albums

Pixies – Doolittle (1989)

Pixies turn their Boston art punk chaos into a tightly wound alt rock statement, mixing sugar sweet hooks, violent surrealism, and that now classic quiet loud dynamic. "Debaser," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," and "Wave of Mutilation" spin eyeball slicing cinema, environmental dread, and surf rock murder suicide into songs that feel like pop songs and panic attacks at the same time.

3rd Bass – The Cactus Al/Bum (1989)

MC Serch, Prime Minister Pete Nice, and DJ Richie Rich plant a Def Jam flag with dense golden era beats and back and forth verses that blend jokes, battle bars, and real talk about New York and hip hop credibility. From "Sons of 3rd Bass" and its anti Beastie mission statement to "The Gas Face" and "Steppin to the A M," the record plays like a long, funny, aggressive brief on who gets to be taken seriously in rap.

Diggin’ Albums

Zach Bryan – With Heaven on Top (2026)

Raw, heart on sleeve Americana and country stories about love, loss, and faith, delivered over rough hewn acoustic strums and fuller band swells.

Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule (1989)

A retro soaked debut that welds late 60s and early 70s rock and soul influences into warm analog grooves and idealistic love and unity anthems.

GUM – Blue Gum Way (2026)

Australian multi instrumentalist Jay Watson drifts through jazzy psych pop vignettes, each track a little mood world of woozy synths and warped guitars.

Katherine Priddy – These Frightening Machines (2026)

Intricate modern folk songwriting about technology, anxiety, and everyday life, wrapped in fingerpicked guitar, immersive atmosphere, and literary minded lyrics.

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“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." - John Keating Dead Poets Society (1989)