ELEGANNZA

ELEGANNZA

RADIO 1998 by

Richard Riegel

“Hey there, ho there, ladies and gentlemen, grandchicks and grandcats of all ages, this is Tommy Teflon of Entertainment 24 Hours, running down the Top 10 pop albums of 1998 for you. Get those keyboards ready, as I’m sure you’ll want to file this list on a floppy so you'll know all the preferred CDs to program into your headplayers when you’re out mallwalking! But first, a brief message from our sponsor.

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“And now for the Top 10 of 1998! As I’m sure all you grandchicks and grandcats are aware, 1998 was another big year for Classic Rock, that good-old-time rock ’n’ roll we all love so much. Ever since President Clark took office in 1993 and announced the stirring theme of his administration—‘And I say to you, fellow Americans, All Rock Is One, John Hiatt is merely Frankie Avalon in scruffy clothes, Bob Dylan picked up a harmonica and became The Next Neil Sedaka...' — we’ve seen Classic Rock grow stronger by the year. No more divisive categorization of pop music by style, class, or race; now All Rock Is One, and we’re all better off for that! As President Clark told Congress (those darned anti-social Democrats!) last week when they were investigating that scurrilous fabrication that Vice President McMahon had been taking payoffs from the Sansabelt Slacks Corporation: ‘I remember it like it was yesterday; John Lennon came to me and confided to me that he just couldn’t go on with the Beatles, as they would never be able to surpass the rock accomplishments of Bobby Vee! Tragically, Lennon died too early to receive the full message that All Rock Is One, that Bobby Vee and the Beatles were equal in talent because they were supposed to be!’ Inspired by Lennon’s confession, Mr. Clark began to preach the All Rock Is One message through his various broadcast outlets, and at last, in the 1992 Presidential election, the whole nation took his message to heart.

“But enough heavy politics, grandcats and grandchicks, let’s get on with the Top 10 of 1998! Bringing up the rear of the list is that latest-but-oldest smash group out of England, Impacted Hangnail, with their debut disc, / Am Sensitive And So Are You. Some folks in our Customs Dept, initially tried to block the importation of this album, as they thought Impacted Hangnail were a brand-new group, and thus in violation of the Generational Content Act of 1993, which prohibits U.S. sale of pop product by foreign musicians who first recorded on or after January 1, 1994. But when the Customs cats found out that Impacted Hangnail is actually a classic British supergroup made up of former members of the Pet Shop Boys, Housemartins, Prefab Sprout and the Woodentops—all big rock stars in the ’80s!—they gladly let the album enter our shores.

“Speaking of classic English rockers, Jethro Tull had another fantastic year in 1998, as their album Tory And Proud Of It, You Swine! finished in ninth place on our chart. Tull leader Ian Anderson showed off his finer sensibilities during 1998 by buying Switzerland and donating it to the Oxfam Relief Fund. As he said at the time, Thought those Ethiopian blighters might like a spot of chocolate by now!’

“In eighth place we find another classic supergroup, the Hollywood Allstar Real Musicians Too, made up of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Dan Aykroyd, Justine Bateman, Kevin Bacon, Mary Hart and Gary Hart, with their seventh straight Top 10 disc, We Were Into Springsteen Even Before He Shaved!

“Funny they should mention the Boss’s name in the title of their album, as Bruce Springsteen himself had the number seven album of 1998: Jesus Was An Auto Worker, Too. Springsteen capped off the year when President Clark awarded him a Purple Elvis medal for single-handedly restoring our trade balance with Japan. Seems that after each of his concerts over in the Land of the Rising Yen, cousin Bruce conducted special seminars in which he taught all his Japanese fans how to pronounce ‘Chevrolet’—now a topselling car over there!

“Coming in at number six is James Taylor’s 20th Top 10 album, Nobody Told Me My Fly Was Open. James decided he needed a little help on this one, so he whined for ex-spouse Carly Simon, fresh from her recuperative stay at the Steven Tyler Celebrity Overbite Clinic, and she was more than glad to lend a tonsil. Many rock scribes claim that it was Ms. Simon’s sympathetic harmonies on the single, ‘Eh, What Say, Sonny?’ that placed Sweet Grandcat James’s album so high in the charts.

“Heavy metal continued to be a major flavor of the 1998 rock charts, as proved by the success of Death Nurse and their fifth-place album, Get Thee To A Vampire, Harlot! As they appeared to be a brandnew import group, Death Nurse almost ran afoul of the Generational Content Inspectors, too, *until their record company pointed out that Death Nurse was made up of former members of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Death Nurse certainly captured a lot of attention on the concert circuit during ’98 with their classy performance move of having Ronnie James Dio seated on David Coverdale’s shoulders so they could sing their leads in perfect unison.

“Speaking of classic British rockers from those classic ’70s, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon continued its unprecendented domination of the charts to finish fourth in this year’s album tally. Some observers speculated that Pink Floyd would fade away after Roger Waters and David Gilmour mortally wounded each other with their laser glue guns in that notorious duel back in ’90, but the late group’s recordings actually have become more popular than ever during this decade. Dave “Limeade” DiMartino of Billboard magazine calculated that in July of 1998 there were now more copies of Dark Side Of The Moon on Earth than there were CD players, cassette decks, oldtechnology ‘stereos,’ and pay toilets put together, so you’ll have to get up early in the a.m. in ’99 if you want to spin your Dark Side\

"Third place in the ’98 charts belongs to that megastar British group formed by the three Led Zeppelin survivors, along with their close personal labelmate Phil Collins aboard as their new drummer, Penises Meet Genesis, and their smash album, Polo Shirts Hold Lotta Love. Take it from ol’ Tommy Teflon, if you want true aural-insble comfort, don’t miss that special-headplayer-remix of P.M.G.’s “Handicapped Elevator To Heaven”; it clocks in at 187:54 minutes, plenty long enough for you to mallwalk all the way around even the Rhode Island mall (whole state’s been one big mall/tourist attraction since ’95!) and still end up in front of the Designer Tofu Shoppe!

“The year 1998 started out rather disappointingly for Michael Jackson, as he was rebuffed in his $68-billion attempt to buy Michael J. Fox’s head and have it transplanted onto his own body, but Jackson more than made up for that with the success of his infiniplatinum disc, overall the second most popular of the year, Diana Told Me There’d Be Days Like This In The Falsetto Ghetto.

“I know you cool grandcats and perky grandchicks can’t wait a moment longer (especially if you took a hit of Laxograss after the commercial!), so ol’ Tommy Teflon has the #1 disc of 1998 for you RIGHT NOW! Without further ado, here’s the most popular rock album of the year: Bedpans Rich Pageant, that live all-star disc designed to benefit the American Association for Retired Rock Stars, recorded right on the spot, right from the stars’ beds in the Golden Cocoon Retirement Center of Aspen, Colorado! Featuring Elton John, Eric Clapton, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Stevie Nicks (Tommy loves her platform scuffs!), Whitney Houston, Paul McCartney and Micky Dolenz!

“Not only does this album feature some great tunes, like that megamega single, 'Ouch! Those Darn Seeds!,’ but all the proceeds go to a worthy cause, to the preservation of Rock As We Know It! As President Clark says in his now immortal spoken introduction to the album: Tragically, Jimi Hendrix is no longer with us, but since I was elected on a program that All Rock Is One, now we know forever that the contributions of Johnny Tillotson are just as valid!’

“So that’s your Generational Content Inspector Approved Top 10 for 1998, grandkittens! This is Tommy Teflon for Entertainment 24 Hours, signing off! I get the upstairs bathroom!”