So why is Living Colour’s Vivid on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I played the double bass in my school’s orchestra back in the day, sometimes referred to as the bass violin or even the bass fiddle if we’re being cute.*
* I love when Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ frontman Dicky Barrett gives a shoutout to “Joe Gittleman the bass fiddleman” on the ecstatically brilliant live album, Live from the Middle East.
When I was a high school freshman, my sister, Lisa, was a senior and dated a guy named Mike. Mike and I were both bass fiddlemen in the orchestra. He was great back then and would go on to become a professional musician. I would go on… to write about music and pop culture, among other digital activities.
In the winter of 1988, we were hanging out at school waiting for a concert to begin. And I’ll never forget that Mike reached for one side of his late ‘80s Walkman-style headphones and said to me, “You’ve got to listen to this.”
Seconds later, Vernon Reid’s blistering guitar riff from “Cult of Personality” flooded my ears. A moment after, we were both scampering down the school hallway like a pair of fools, each with one side of the headphones held to the side of our head.
It’s a fond memory, but more importantly I still get the same jolt of electricity and excitement when I throw “Cult of Personality” on to this day.
Overall, Vivid represents the elite tier of late ‘80s hard rock and metal, and holds up magnificently. But more than that, it’s a rangy album that holds surprising depth both in terms of its musicianship and production, but also in terms of the themes and issues it tackles. Vivid is so much more than that one (incredible) track — it’s a masterclass in genre fusion, righteous fury, and sheer musical muscle.
This is also well put, from All Music’s Greg Prato: “In 1988, few heavy metal bands were comprised of all black members, and fewer had the talent or know-how to inject different musical forms into their hard rock sound (funk, punk, alternative, jazz, soul, rap) – but N.Y.C.’s Living Colour proved to be an exception.”
But before I get too much further, I also need to call out Corey Glover’s sensational vocals. The entire band is of course crazy talented, but it’s the Glover/Reid combo that elevates Vivid, putting it on the cusp of the Top 50 of this wild best 1,000 albums ever project.
By the time I was midway through college, I was hanging out in New York City as often as possible during breaks, and “Middle Man” reminds me so much of the best kind of hard rock energy that NYC bands brought during that era (with Living Colour and other bands like Fishbone influencing the scene heavily by that point).
Also, importantly: hooks for days. For days.
“Glamour Boys” is a really fun, offbeat number brimming with Caribbean flavor, and it’s also a pointed and satirical statement. As much as Living Colour experimented musically on subsequent albums (most of which are at least really great in their own right), this is the song I think of when it comes to a successful LC experiment moving off their core sound.
Also, it has a really cool, period specific, and offbeat music video that weirdly reminds me of the Season 1 of The Real World aesthetic in some ways.
“What’s Your Favorite Color?” is a bit of a throwaway track, but if it is then it has one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time on a throwaway track.
On a more serious note, “Desperate People” and “Open Letter (To A Landlord)” show off a serious-minded side to Living Colour that would carry through their entire career. The former is powerful and rocking while the latter is funky and emotional at turns.
Really strong lyrics here as well on the chorus of “Open Letter (To A Landlord)”:
Now you can tear a building down
But you can’t erase a memory
These houses may look all run down
But they have a value you can’t see
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with Living Colour’s Vivid
I’m kind of (very) surprised that Vivid isn’t on Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums list. And as Forrest Gump once said*, that’s all I have to say about that.
* Timely reference, I know.
Some stats & info about Living Colour – Vivid
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Alternative Metal, New York Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Vivid released? 1988
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #57 out of 1,000
Living Colour’s Vivid on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Living Colour’s Vivid that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Look in my eyes, what do you see? The cult of personality.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.