Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to 1989!

Yes, the Blerd Radio team (Big Money, Michaels Parr & Cunningham, and the Incredible Edible Doctor Z) are hopping in the old time machine and turning it back a quarter century (!)

George Bush I is president, the World Wide Web is in its infancy, the Berlin wall came down, and baby Taylor Swift made her way into the world. We talk about none of these four things during the course of this podcast.

We do, however, discuss…

-The San Francisco earthquake and the differences in the reporting of natural disasters in the ’80s vs. our instant news via social media.

-Dr. Z goes apeshit over The Wizard, co-starring Fred Savage.

-Cunningham gives props to the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack. Too hot to handle, too cold to hold!

-Big Money discovers that We Were Promised Jetpacks were named after a line in Back To The Future 2.

-WHITE BOYS LOVE CHRISTIAN SLATER!!

-The Batman phenomenon…Jack Nicholson as The Joker, Hot Kim Basinger, and more…oh yeah, there was a soundtrack too. Some dude we all like recorded it. And may originally have meant to record it with someone else we all like.

-Madonna’s Like A Prayer, a fount of dissenting opinion. And we are remiss for not mentioning the anniversary piece written by our friend Annie Zaleski.

-What were The Jacksons doing in 1989? Moonwalker & Rhythm Nation.

-Hair Metal-palooza, which is very closely tied in to Power Ballad-palooza. Special shouts to Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood and Aerosmith’s Pump. Cunningham is definitely not the strongest link in this particular conversation.

-Black rock takes over: introducing Living Colour & Lenny Kravitz, which dovetails into a conversation about the exquisite and gorgeous Zoe Kravitz.

actress and singer Zoe Kravitz

-Apparently, hiding your musical tastes from your friends (or separating that from different groups of friends) is a thing?

-Hip-hop underwent a transitional period in 1989. Pop hits from Tone Loc & Young MC ruled the roost, but there were great not-as-recognized records by MC Lyte, Big Daddy Kane and more. There was also the debut of MC Hammer. And classic albums Paul’s Boutique and 3 Feet High & Rising, which was the winner of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll that year.

-Alternative rock begins to go mainstream: Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana debut, and The B-52s and The Cure have their biggest hits.

-What was Trent Reznor doing on an album by these guys?

-New Invention: Fred Schneider GPS. We’re copyrighting that shit.

-TV in 1989: the debuts of Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Arsenio and Saved By The Bell, starring TAT AKA Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (apparently she’s got an acronym thing happening now.)

-“We Didn’t Start The (Fucking) Fire”

N.W.A. and the (muppet) Posse

…and so much more…

Listen in the player below, or…

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And here’s a bonus piece of 1989…oops, guess it was ’88. Still, worth watching.