| Modern Lovers 88 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Cover photograph by Andy Paley | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 1987 | |||
| Recorded | Three days in autumn 1987 | |||
| Studio | The Bennett House, Grass Valley, California | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 29:35 | |||
| Label | Rounder Records | |||
| Producer | Brennan Totten | |||
| Jonathan Richman chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Modern Lovers 88 | ||||
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Modern Lovers 88[a] is a studio album by American singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Recorded and released in late 1987, it became Richman's final recording alongside a backing band credited as the Modern Lovers. After a period of frequent switches from one record company to another, he released Modern Lovers 88 through Rounder Records, where he remained until the mid-1990s.
Running just under half an hour, the album features a new lineup of the Modern Lovers as a trio, with Richman joined by guitarist Brennan Totten and drummer Johnny Avila. Totten also produced the album, his first of several such projects with Richman. The three musicians had toured live together for about a year before recording the album at a studio near Richman's home in Grass Valley, California. With its acoustic instrumentation and spare arrangements, the sound of Modern Lovers 88 reflects Richman's love of early 1960s rock and roll and extreme aversion to loud amplification.
Early reviews were generally positive, but its reputation among rock critics soon stagnated. Record guides often dismissed it as unremarkable, along with most of the rest of Richman's 1980s output. Nonetheless, the album has garnered a cult following and reappraisal from critics who view it as an overlooked highlight of Richman's discography. Win Butler of Arcade Fire called it "a real classic that I never heard of as a classic."[2] For Record Store Day 2022, Craft Recordings reissued the album in a remastered 35th-anniversary edition. Richman scored a late-career debut on the Billboard charts when the reissue pushed Modern Lovers 88 to number 77 on Top Album Sales.
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