1985 Grammy Awards Album of the Year poll

oh yeah, HTML doesn't work on polls does it?

Prince all the way

yep

Prince > Bruce > Cyndi > Tina > Lionel

Boy, every album is at least an A-.

Seriously! (and I wouldn't even consider myself a Bruce fan)

We haven't discussed Private Dancer much on ILM, have we? To my ears it's a precursor to Santana's Supernatural: lasso a few hundred stars to help a fellow star in need. Some of the juxtapositions are weird but wonderful (the British Electric Foundation? Jeff Beck? a BOWIE COVER?!).

Private Dancer is a really weird, great album.

(Okay "really" might be pushing it but "1984" on the same record as "What's Love Got To Do With It?" is not expected.)

"1984" is a perfect Vegas floor show number, come to think of it.

Is this the AOTY selection with the most hit singles? Tina, 3; Lionel, Cyndi and Prince, 5 each; Bruce, 7.

there can't possibly be enough 80s Bruce boosters to make this poll anything but a landslide, can there?

Re: Supernatural: Private Dancer basically invented that paradigm, of the multiple-producer blockbuster designed to move units. Thriller and Bruce and Prince and Cyndi and Lionel are all one-producer jobs; Private Dancer is in some ways the truest of the mid-'80s blockbusters in that it's a star vehicle with a LOT of script doctors and consultants, the same way movies were becoming, esp. at Paramount.

some dude: I would not actually have a problem with Born winning. It's almost as perfect as Purple Rain.

I have no memory of "Cover Me" at all!

Tina's hits: "Show Some Respect," "Better Be Good To Me," "Private Dancer," "Let's Stay Together," "What's Love.."

25 singles, right?

1978 might come closest: Running On Empty, Saturday Night Fever, Star Wars OST, Some Girls, Even Now.

I forgot "Show Some Respect." And one more, obviously. So yes, 27 altogether.

Dan: "Cover Me" was written for Donna Summer! Bruce's manager had to convince him to include it.

Hahaha okay thx Youtube, I do know this song; I just had no idea it was called "Cover Me". Maybe I thought it was called "Cummy"

She may have done a better job with "Cover Me" than with her first Bruce-penned job ("Protection"), which doesn't really take off until Bruce's solo.

I can't choose, btw. This is impossible. Three of these are among my all-time favorites, Can't Slow Down is perfectly respectable, and I love Private Dancer's singles.

voting private dancer

I should wait till this poll is finished before doing Record of the Year from the same year, shouldn't I?

Haha – you really can't wait, can you?

haha I can, actually.

I don't think anyone would have a big problem with BITUSA winning, I just think it'll be a distant distant runner-up to PR.

I just picked She's So Unusual because I need to hear "When You Were Mine" and "All Through The Night" right this second.

Earlier this year I bit the bullet and power-listened to the canonical Springsteen catalog. Wow--I think it was a combination of being older and being, you know, really fucking broke that made Born in particular finally hit home for me. I'd always liked him but had never felt him before. "Darlington County"!

And of course always always always loved "Glory Days," the most enjoyable song I think I know about how much nostalgia sucks.

i voted for Crest of a Knave - Jethro Tull

i voted for Crest of a Knave - Jethro Tull

hahaha are you my mother's ex-husband?

record of the year is gonna be one hell of a poll. 1984 was possibly the best pop-song year of my life. so far!

Mine too, but I'll say right now that there's at least one complete dog on the ROTY list.

most underrated BITUSA single: "I'm Goin' Down."

hahaha Matos, I just looked at that list

i always suspected people missed the anti-nostalgia twist in "glory days" but maybe I'm just being condescending.

they also missed the bitterness in "Born in the USA" too.

voted for Cyndie 'cause that's the one i'd most like to hear right now.

Prince > Bruce > Cyndi > Tina > Lionel

― Matos W.K., Friday, August 7, 2009 7:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

but obviously these are all great. I listened today to Private Dancer and Can't Slow Down just to be sure about my vote. They're both terrific. I'd forgotten how great a single "Running with the Night" was, and "Can't Slow Down" would have made a fine single as well. Private Dancer is all over the place as a listen; I'm not sure if it could be sequenced better, but I suspect it could. I listened to the recent remastered disk with bonus tracks (yay Spotify), mostly b-sides, and they're very good too; I like "Rock and Roll Widow" more than "Show Some Respect". "Private Dancer" remains the top song, though I was unfamiliar with the 7 minute version on the album; I own a greatest hits and it has a 4 minute single edit only. The seven minute version is more eerie, with the sax solo section longer. As a result it's more shocking when the chorus bursts in again; it sounds cut-and-pasted but no less effective for it. I didn't know the album track "Steel Claw" but I liked it a lot, a big rocker that wouldn't sound wrong on a Bob Seger album. This cd doesn't include "Let's Pretend We're Married" (another b-side at the time) but Spotify has the box set containing it and other b-sides, and it's a fine live version. That also gave me reason to listen to her cover of ZZ Top's "Legs" from a couple of years later, also worth a listen.

I've been listening to BITUSAin the car lately-- "Bobby Jean" "No Retreat, No Surrender" "Goin' Down" & "Workin' on the Highway" are all fantastic but how did I not remember that "I'm On Fire" had a line like this: "It's like someone took a knife baby, edgy and dull & carved a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull"?

My pick is Prince, because, you know, Prince. I spent the summer of 1984 visiting my dad, who was stationed in Hawaii at the time, and my constant soundtrack on my old Walkman was "Purple Rain," "Born in the USA," and Stevie Nicks' "The Wild Heart." I just about wore all through of those cassettes straight through.

(Dad listened to "Private Dancer" all the time in the car that summer, though -- along with the Police "Zenyatta Mondatta," "Best of Blondie," and the Eurythmics' "Touch." Dad was pretty cool at one time.)

Also, the live video Cyndi released for "Money Changes Everything" was just fucking great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBaEB_zL3ZE

I don't remember that video! Great, great version.

Cyndi was my first idol and that album is amazing.

"I Might Have Been Queen" is another fine PD album track.

She's So Unusual breaks down after "All Through the Night," but rights itself with "I'll Kiss You."

There's great stuff about all these albums (esp BITUSA) but sometimes I think Purple Rain has the most amazing filler in the history of music.

Purple Rain is a near flawless pop album that stripped away the excesses of the excellent 1999.

"Beautiful Ones", the legendary title track, "When Doves Cry"...hell, "Computer Blue" might be my least favorite and it's still a solid track.

Bruce > Prince > Cyndi > Lionel > Tina

I like all five, though.

Weird thing, though, is that it's not outlandish at all to think both Bruce and Prince have several better albums (for me, a bunch for each proceeding their '84 ones), but most everybody agrees that Cyndi's, Lionel's, and Tina's '84 albums represent career peaks (in Tina's case, it's certainly her most acclaimed album, even by people who think she peaked as an artist years earlier. She never came close to Pazz & Jop otherwise, did she?)

just to bring a note of orneriness into this festive thread, the only one of these albums I would rep for at all is Purple Rain, and I still don't think it's as good a record as Dirty Mind

Sadly, the only one of the artists whose next album was a total dud is Lauper. I dislike Around the World in a Day, but it's not the farrago that True Colors is.

Dancing on the Ceiling and Break Every Rule are okay holding-pattern albums that I never feel the urge to listen to.

Actually, I guess somebody could convincingly argue that Lionel had peaked in the Commodores -- I might even believe that myself; I'd have to think about it more. But I don't think even then he ever made an album as good as All Night Long, unless All The Great Hits counts. (Plus, "Stuck On You" crossed over to the country chart; "Sail On" didn't.)

As good as Can't Slow Down, I meant!

Prince, Bruce, Lionel, Cyndi, Tina and the last 3 are pretty much tied.
Jeez, this is one year the Grammy's actually got something right. Interesting, all these were each artists biggest selling albums.

"Stuck On You" crossed over to the country chart; "Sail On" didn't.)

My Joel Whitburn tells me that someone by the name of Tom Grant had a #16 hit with "Sail On" in 1979 on the Country charts.

I think Purple Rain is probably my least favorite of Prince's 80s albums (except for the Batman sdtrk, at least). So it's out.

The Bruce album has great singles, and "I'm on Fire" is one of my favorite songs of all time, but no.

Private Dancer is a really good record.

I've never heard Can't Slow Down outside of its singles (which is probably most of it, right?).

She's So Unusual is an album I still pull out and play all the time, or several times a year at least. It's so good the whole way through.

But yeah, this pool of nominees is REALLY strong.

I don't really get the point of calling Purple Rain worse than Lovesexy or Around the World in a Day, et al.

I'm not saying it's not good. Maybe I've just heard it 1000 times too many.

Lovesexy and Around the World in a Day are solid albums tho.

I second that Dirty Mind might be as good or better though...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Lionel Richie, [i]Can't Slow Down (Motown) 0[/i]

oh come ON.

nice turnout! thanks all. 1971 is next.

Prince > Bruce > Cyndi > Tina > Lionel

lol nice work matos.

hahaha I hadn't even realized

Lol Lionel was the Ross Perot of this competition