[This Flashback Will Eat Itself, Maybe] -- I cannot truly consider this week's album a Flashback, at least not for me. I discovered it in late 2020 and I've been saving it for around this time of this year. I actually emailed the links and the album graphic to myself (and then I used Gmail's "Snooze" feature to ensure I'd be prompted early this month). But, hey, maybe some of my fellow 80sphiles will recognize this 1989 release, thereby qualifying my latest efforts as a true Flashback.
Anyway, industrial rockers Pop Will Eat Itself (or PWEI for short) released their sophomore album -- This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! -- on May 1, 1989. That was a mere 32 years ago! Flood, a producer who had worked with the likes of Nine Inch Nails, U2, and Depeche Mode, was on production duties for this record, the second of three PWEI releases for which he had twiddled knobs and dials. Flood can be credited for pumping up the thick sound on this record, but PWEI themselves also deserve some credit for, as AllMusic reviewer Ned Raggett puts it, their "mesh and mix of U.S. and ... U.K. pop culture in with the metal riffs, disco backing, monster drum stomps, and more." If you're familiar with their influences, you might be able to catch where they ape such acts as the Beasties or Spinderella (I, however, am not as familiar, so I won't even try to point them out).
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! charted at #24 on the UK Albums Chart and at #169 on the US Billboard 200. The album's UK success was likely helped by spawning two Top 40 hits (and greater local familiarity, of course): "Can U Dig It?" (#38) and "Wise Up! Sucker" (#41). Oh, and I should point out that "Can U Dig It?" is rife with comic book references, so I'm digging it a little more each time I listen to it, particularly when I watch the music video (which is linked in this paragraph and included in the embedded playlist below).
So, you tell me: Can you dig this, or should it have eaten itself?
Flashback: This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! (1989)
Well, that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
I'll see you in seven!
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