1988: Top 50 Singles

I don't like to dwell on the past too much but if I had to choose my favorite year for music, I'd go with 1988 without much hesitation.

This was the year Sonic Youth gave us "Daydream Nation", their masterpiece and one of the finest guitar rock albums of all time, Pixies left us stunned with their powerful full-length debut "Surfer Rosa", The Sugarcubes came out of Iceland's glaciers with "Life's Too Good", one of the most inventive pop records ever made, The House Of Love took indie-pop to another dimension, Happy Mondays perfected the indie-dance hybrid, My Bloody Valentine revealed their true potential for greatness, Public Enemy made the ultimate hip hop album, Dinosaur Jr. discovered new ways of combining raw power with pop melody and that's only half the story. In fact most records in our Top 20 of 1988 have "Album of the Year" potential while quite a few of that year's releases have played a major role in influencing the music that we listen today.

As you would expect from a year with so many great albums, 1988 also had a considerable wealth of killer singles to choose from. Click here to check out our Top 50 Singles of 1988 topped by Sonic Youth's definitive moment, the magnificent "Teenage Riot", and press play below to listen:

PS.: Did I mention that there were not one but two great Fall albums that year?