Which year was better for personal memories (if you were alive back then), and for pop-culture, news events, etc.

I pick 1988. Overall had a great vibe. In the summer I went on a cross country road trip with my family. For Christmas I got a Nintendo with the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo. The music was pretty good. Movie wise 1989 was better. The 1988/89 school year was one of my best (I was in 4th grade).

Both years have a right to be bigger for:

1988 was a Leap Year and had that extra to welcome it more

and

1989 was like a preview to what was to come for the 1990s.

I started going out with my now husband in 1989 so that year gets my vote.

I was still in my "clubbing" days in '88-'89.  For the record, I was a changing person (late 20s).  But so was pop culture.  I wasn't thrilled with the direction music was taking in those days - it was getting darker, more "in your face", more irreverent, too electronic.  I wasn't too happy with the TV direction from that time either, suffering from the same "in your face" irreverent tone.  To sum it up, I was becoming disenfranchised by 1988, and it just got worse.  (As I may not have stated it before, for me the mid-80's was a fun time and I mostly liked pop culture - although I considered 80's pop culture to be inferior overall to that of the mid-60s through mid/late-70s.  The exception being movies - I love 80's movies.)

1988 was one of the worst years of my life. 1989 wasn't that great either because I was dealing with the fallout of 1988.


Cat

In 1989 some rock stars of the 60s and 70s who had floundered direction-wise during the 80s rallied and made strong albums to finish off the decade. Most specifically Bob Dylan with "Oh Mercy" and Neil Young with "Freedom" (which contained "Rockin In the Free World").  Many rock stars of the 60s and 70s struggled in the 80s because suddenly there was no place for their type of meaningful music in the new frivolousness of 80s pop culture. Many of these, however,  would go on to thrive in the 90s and beyond once the frivolousness and frothiness of the 80s was blown away. 1988 was still too "core" (as some say here) 80s, but by 1989 at least some light could be seen at the end of the tunnel. Even if the light was darkness, so to speak. In other words, a seriousness or earthiness lacking from much 80s pop culture.

Oh, and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

1988
"Handle with Care" was released by supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. I was listening to that on my walkman while on the nightshift.

Which also saw the release of the critical success of "Watermark" by Enya.

1989 was a great year for me. I got my first Walkman and made mixtapes and started getting into my own music. I still have my mixtape which I titled The Summer Of 89. It was a short lived period when my dad had a good job so we did all sorts of things. We went to Mackinac island, Niagara Falls (including MarineLand), probably went camping too. There was one sad moment when we were on our way back from fireworks and 2 horses got loose and hit in the highway about a mile from home. I still remember the cars, a brand new Cutlass Supreme, and a VW Rabbit pickup. And the radio playing Don’t Wanna Lose You by Gloria Estefan.

1988 was pretty good too. We went to Mackinac, just going over the bridge was a big deal for me because I loved it so much. (I go there all the time now.) I won a bunch of spelling bees and got the Schwinn bicycle which I still ride today. I went with my friend’s family to Michigan Adventure (at the time it was Deer Park Funland) and to the musical fountain in Grand Haven. I also went to Project Nature which was a very short lived animal preserve maybe a half hour from here.

Probably 1989, a lot of events were going on such as a new president, the fall of the Berlin wall and obviously much more which made the year very interesting. 1989 was a fantastic year for movies and it would of been an interesting year to be a gamer with the immense popularity of the NES (which became popular around late 1987/early 1988). The only bad things about 1989 was the mainstream music (which was pretty bad) and the television for most of the year was boring, family sitcoms were really oversaturated in the latter half of the 1980s. The technology was good enough though but, still slightly on the primitive side (much much better compared to 1980 - 1985ish though). The only thing I can currently think of that 1988 beat 1989 on was, the mainstream music (even then, that wasn't particularly great in 1988).

1988. The music was better.

1988, going by my observation and intuition.  ;D
1989 just seems bland and stale by comparison.

Oh, and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
Yep, that was perhaps the biggest event of my life. Though I didn't realize it as such at that time as I was just to turn 8. But it was nice that we could now visit relatives in the former DDR without a boarder crossing that took hours and included the searching of our whole car by commie boarder agents. ::)