Now this is how it started: THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL RESULTS!!

"soul mining" is by far the best album of the the. "uncertain smile" alone is worth more than all other the the albums combined except "blue burning soul" (was that nominated?) but that was originally a matt johnson solo album anyway.

"uncertain smile" is great but i think jools holland wibbles on for just a tiny bit too long

and come on, 'infected'. oh man.

I suppose a few more are coming today, but here's the story so far:

100. Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains [1984] (75 points, 5 votes)
98. (tie) Scraping Foetus off the Wheel - Hole [1984] (76 points, 5 votes)
98. (tie) Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription [1987] (76 points, 5 votes
97. Big Black - Atomizer [1986] (77 points, 8 votes)
96. Associates - Sulk [1982] (79 points, 6 votes)
95. Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking [1988] (79 points, 7 votes)
94. Def Leppard - Pyromania [1983] (80 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote)
93. Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless [1982] (80 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)
92. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Dazzle Ships [1983] (80 points, 9 votes)
91. Run-D.M.C. - Raising Hell [1986] (80 points, 10 votes)
90. Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II [1984] (81 points, 9 votes)
89. Prince and the Revolution - Parade [1986] (83 points, 10 votes)
88. Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love [1987] (86 points, 7 votes)
87. Pet Shop Boys - Actually [1987] (86 points, 8 votes)
86. Pet Shop Boys - Please [1986] (87 points, 8 votes)
84. (tie) Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine [1989] (87 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
84. (tie) Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues [1983] (87 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
83. David Bowie - Scary Monsters [1980] (89 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote)
82. Scraping Foetus off the Wheel - Nail [1985] (91 points, 5 votes, 1 first place vote)
81. The Beat (aka The English Beat) - I Just Can't Stop It [1980] (91 points, 13 votes)
80. Various - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto [1985] (93 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote)
79. The The - Soul Mining [1983] (93 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)

and here's a spotify playlist with all the ones on there on it

http://open.spotify.com/user/thomp1985/playlist/7vewFkAlw3bKDbMNziktOF

sadly, no foetus

78. The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & the Lash [1985] (93 points, 16 votes)

http://www.ifsociety.com/img_upload/records/1661r.jpg

xp I've got a soft spot for the singles ("Pair of Brown Eyes" and "Sally MacLeanne" at the time, right?), but yeah, I'm going for the fast crazy drunken sick-bed opener too. Closest thing on here to Red Roses For Me, which I actually like even more. (This is still a great album, though. 'Twas downhill from here, though the next one was pretty good, too.)

― xhuxk, 26. tammikuuta 2009 22:01

cool, i was going to start a pogues thread because i've been listening to Rum Sodomy & The Lash non-stop all week. classic for its creation of water-tight, perfect aesthetic world, complete on its own terms - ie, for 43 minutes you live in the Pogues version of reality and there isn't a chink of light, no gaps in their vision.

POO is impossible but i'll say 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' because my girlfriend's in the video! (and it's a classic video too)

― pete b. (pete b.), 13. kesäkuuta 2003 14:59

I adore Red Roses for Me and Rum, Sodomy & the Lash in their entirety and bits and pieces after that, notably "Gridlock" and "Young Ned of the Hill" (both off Peace & Love). Completely lost interest after that. "Church of the Holy Spook" on Shane first solo album is a great, rolicking single, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), 14. kesäkuuta 2003 13:08

Re: The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, there's no question that is basks in the reflected glow of Graceland. I think its unfortunate that when Island Records chose a an African musician to promote after Bob Marley's death, they chose King 'Sunny' Ade, who is nice but akin to ambient music, with similar commercial prospects. Had a similar promotional push been made for Thomas Mapfumo, the story of 80s African pop music would be one of Zimbabwe rather than South Africa. Corruption and Nadangariro are fantastic albums that will never see the light of day on one of these lists, and I listen to them far more often than The Indestructable Beat of Soweto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1EVrKDkyk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-45xNr-udU

There's a different thread for Youtubes so this one don't get too heavy:

THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL CLIPS!!

I'm a bit surprised to see the Pet Shop Boys placing so low. I thought they were big ILM faves. Same goes for Bowie too. It makes me curious to see what's coming in higher.

well personally i used all my socks to vote for tin machine

77. Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun [1985] (94 points, 8 votes)

http://rmangum2001.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/meatpuppets_-_uponthesun.jpg

HEY PETE THIS ALBUM IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN MEAT PUPPETS II

― Mr. Que, 14. toukokuuta 2009 0:14

There's a lot to recommend on this album. It was the first Meat Puppets I heard. Bought it randomly out of the SST catalog insert from a Black Flag cassette.

I'd go with Up On the Sun (the title track, obvs). It was always my favorite, but I saw them play it live twice during their too-brief period of stadiums and basketball arenas in the mid-90s and it was just so huge sounding.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, 14. toukokuuta 2009 15:47

I remember buying "Up On the Sun" years ago - I had no idea what it sounded like or what the Meat Puppets sounded like, it was just cheap and I had money to burn. Suffice to say, that it's one of my favourite albums - and, this is fairly important - every person I ever played it to eventually went out and bought a copy too! Alas, I've never really heard anything by the Meat Puppets that is anywhere near as good - II has some good things on it but it's not in the same league.

― Dadaismus, 24. maaliskuuta 2003 17:58

maaliskuuta, toukokuuta, kesäkuuta

haha so cool so see that higher than II!

January tammikuu
February helmikuu
March maaliskuu
April huhtikuu
May toukokuu
June kesäkuu
July heinäkuu
August elokuu
September syyskuu
October lokakuu
November marraskuu
December joulukuu

I wish people would comment on the albums instead of month names.

That was in my top ten. Couldn't really understand where it was coming from when I first heard it. It didn't sound like a lot anything else SST, and tbh I still haven't heard all that much like it since. Three fried minds getting gloriously baked in the sun.

76. U2 - The Joshua Tree [1987] (95 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://snuffleupagush.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/the-joshua-tree1.jpg

The first half of that album is extremely classic. The second half of the album is a turgid, uninvolving mess.

― Dan Perry, 25. kesäkuuta 2002 3:00

To those who dis the B-side of Joshua Tree, just remember that Eno produced it. Remember Bowie's 'Berlin Trilogy' how the A-sides were all semi-accessible singles and the B-sides were arcane ambient mood music. Joshua Tree is the same way. Straightforward Anthems of the A-side; moody, experimental stuff on the B-side. (Kind of reminds me of a prog-rock Midnight Oil, on qualuudes, especially "Red Hill Mining Town" and "One Tree Hill")
Wow, I didn't anticipate anyone would complain about "Trip Through Your Wires"; People usually get worked up about "Bullet the Blue Sky."

― Lord Custos III, 25. kesäkuuta 2002 3:00

Strange how "Red Hill Mining Town" was one of my absolute favourite song when I was 10 years old. I havent heard it in ages, like the rest of the record. It's classic, without a doubt, although the fact that I now despise U2 and have despised them for a decade now kinda prevents me from really saying anything nicer about the record or the band. That's a strange phenomenon. The Rolling Stones, for instance, released far many more bad records than U2, and made real fucking bad moves etc., but this does not change my undying love for them. On the other hand, my dislike of U2 now has a strange retroactive effect. Does this happen to you sometimes?

― Simon, 25. kesäkuuta 2002 3:00

Organic. Layered. Strained. Quiet. Windy. Dusty. Gone. Heroic. Light. Dark. Classic.

― the pinefox, 15. lokakuuta 2002 23:04

Hate me now, ILM! That right there was my #1 vote.

well at least it's outside the top 75.

the only u2 album i would've even considered -- boy -- wasn't even nominated.

It was somewhere in my top 10 too Johnny. Partly for its cultural impact - it's rare that a record makes a band the biggest thing in the world, and I want to celebrate the ones that do - and partly because that Pogues quote about the album creating its own world applies equally to this, and this world is far stranger.

75. Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual [1983] (95 points, 9 votes)

http://robsrecordscdsdvds.com/Cyndi%20Lauper%20Shes%20So%20Unusual.jpg

the big critical thing at the time was, 'madonna will go nowhere because she can't sing, cyndi lauper will have the long term career' because they were very much seen as doppelgangers when they appeared, with madonna being the 'fake' cyndi. it was in Time magazine. i prefer 'she's so unusual' and 'time after time' to anything madonna's done, but at the same time, in a certain sense, i think madonna had better taste. but i HATE taste, i absolutely despise it, and i love the terrible orchestration and use of synthesizers on side two of 'she's so unusual' so that you have to listen THROUGH the songs, you have to put in an effort, to really cry over 'witness' and so on. some of madonna's early stuff is a bit like that, but basically it's so bland you can become attached to it with an act of will, but not a very difficult one. and as for madonna's later stuff, like kylie's new stuff, it's so french, in such good taste. and of course you like it.

― maryann, 25. heinäkuuta 2002 3:00

I've only heard She's So Unusual, but based on that I'd say classic all the way. If only she'd been Madonna instead of Madonna.
-- Justyn Dillingham

EXACTLY what I was gonna say! Ya just KNOW that in an alternate universe, it's not Madonna but Cyndi who...etc.

Well, the videos are all excruciating, but at least Cyndi had Lou Albano in hers.

-- Ned Raggett

Sorry Ned, couldn't disagree more. I hated "Girls..." and Cyndi herself when I first heard her, mostly because she didn't sound like Black Sabbath. But the video for "Time After Time" was quite moving, and won me over. Utterly Charming & Disarming: The bit right at the start when she awakens her boyfriend by allowing a ceramic dog (modeled after RCA Victor's "Nipper", I think) to "lick" his cheek. And later, in the "She Bop" video, she endeared herself to me all over again with her fairly clumsy (and so what!) top-hat-and-cane soft shoe number. And there was even a little animated bit accompanying the synth-break! I was always fairly indifferent to video - most of 'em were forgettable, which means that I've forgotten them! Cyndi Lauper's videos I never forgot.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), 12. toukokuuta 2005 12:20

i'll fuck with "time after time" til the end of days

― prostitutes all over the place (k3vin k.), 5. huhtikuuta 2009 8:55

At the wedding reception, Madonna can make your gay friends dance, but Lauper can make your 30-something aunts get on the dancefloor. I vote Madonna.

That's one of my favorite album covers ever, btw.

30-something aunts, eh?
xp

Anybody else still waiting for something they voted for to show up?

Cover shot here?

"Also in 1981, Mark played with Ian Lloyd, (Louie, Louie) highlighted by the Halloween Rock Jam two shows at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico 10/31/81. (Blue Angel featuring Cyndi Lauper, was the opening act for those shows.)"

As for U2, we all lost by not getting the Martin Hannett produced album that would have made the Comsats and Chameleons hide in their bedrooms. Our post-1987 feelings are inextricably tied to how we feel about Bono's public persona - Eno and the band are always quietly competent, but "all bad poetry is earnest".

xp: kornrulez, I'm still waiting. Lots of stuff I'm like "how did I not vote for this?" until I look at what I actually voted for. Cyndi Lauper a good example. Non-vote because: as much as I love the singles, I never owned or listened to the album; I excluded all such records as a means of getting my list down to 30.

I've only had one show up - The Beat - and if we're up to the point of albums getting around nine votes I don't hold much hope of seeing too many of my other choices, the obvious big hitters aside.

I'm still hoping that a lot of the stuff I voted for will show up higher on the list.

On my list of 20 records, there are 10 that are firmly in the canon and will definitely place somewhere. I don't have much hope for the Vulgar Boatmen, though.

U2 and Cyndi were the first things on my ballot to appear. 30 seems like a lot of choices, but it really isn't.

74. Galaxie 500 - On Fire [1989] (96 points, 10 votes)

http://www.maths.dundee.ac.uk/~sanderso/music/on_fire.jpg

On Fire was beyond seminal for me when it came out. I couldn't believe music could be so beautiful. So classic, hell yes.

― Mark, 5. joulukuuta 2001 3:00

They were a classic group!.. but "This Is Our Music" was not perfect... although it had many gems, it was their weakest of the 3.. "On Fire" is perfect... an amazing Lp.. perfect from start to finish.. "Another Day" is amazing!

Damon & Naomi is great and Luna is cool too.. but Galaxie 500 is amazing!

Did you ever see the movie HIGHBALL?.. Dean Wareham is in it and does the music.. He plays Justine Bateman's date... He sings "Frankie And Johnny" kereoke.

― Todd, 6. joulukuuta 2001 3:00

Sundar --

I'm thinking your question deserves a thoughtful reply, so I'll offer this: the value of On Fire lies in the fact that it's surprisingly un-like "slowcore," as that particular genre happened to accrete. "Slowcore" gradually became concerned with its own sonic smoothness: low bubbling organ lines, richly-processed guitars, a pervasive sense of stillness, comfort, a fluffy-pillow phenomenon. On Fire has some resemblances in this sense. But On Fire is one of few records I can think of which are tagged as "slowcore" despite sounding surprisingly real, almost garage -- despite the only processing being reverb, really, and tracks like "Strange" letting you hear the band very much as you'd imagine them sounding in a really large garage. "Slowcore" went for this richness and softness, whereas G500 had a hollowness to their sound that's always really appealed to me.

More importantly, On Fire is not really slowcore, when you get down to it: if you get a chance, go back and listen to "Strange" and notice how really active and passionate it is. (The guitar solo practically makes me imagine fireworks launching.) Quite a bit of the record feels this way to me: what I tend to marvel at is the way three instuments, free of much processing or adornment, lock together to form these fairly dramatic constructions. Hyperbolic as it sounds, the word I'm looking for is probably "glorious." Honestly, the starts of those guitar solos on "Strange" sum it up: they come sweeping in so gloriously.

― [nabisco], 28. joulukuuta 2001 3:00

On Fire was my #31 album. Barely missed my list.

great album, should be higher than a bunch of records i haven't heard coming up.

A friend of Finnish descent with a particularly fine booty had other friends calling it "The Pride of Finland."

YSI?

The only thing so far to appear from my list has been Pet Shop Boys – Please, though I voted for other (i.e., better) Spacemen 3 and Prince albums that I’m hoping will make the countdown. I enjoy the NIN, U2, Talking Heads and Bowie albums as well, but none made my top 30 and I figured they’d get enough votes anyway.

Oh wait, I voted for Please too. I forgot because I ranked it #22 on my ballot, and at that point I was just shooting blind because I'd never truly be satisfied.

how far are you going tonight tuomas?

73. X - Wild Gift [1981] (97 points, 9 votes)

http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/r-925952-1183073207.jpg

this is embarassing but when I was a kid I'd heard of them but I never actually botherd to buy any of their records until I read 'Less Than Zero' *ducks* the same applies to Elvis Costello *cowers* I was very, very young. Anyhow, the cd with 'Los Angeles' and 'Wild Gift' is on any top x00 cd list I'd ever make, though I do wish I could go back in time and keep Ray Manzarek the hell away from them.

― James Blount, 18. tammikuuta 2003 7:42

Eh I object to both albums being smooshed together like this. So best song off the debut is the title track. Best song off Wild Gift is "We're Desperate." "We're Desperate" gets the vote.

"White Girl" was a contender. But I've never been 100% certain what it was about. 90% certain but not 100. And "Adult Books" always eluded me. The singles scene clearly repulsed them, esp. the one at The Masque. But what's with the Tomata Du Plenty reference?

"Some Other Time" I get, esp. this great line: "This midnight I will/Turn into a beer I will." Perfect way to get John's attention.

― Kevin John Bozelka, 21. tammikuuta 2008 2:59

the double cd of los angeles/wild gift might very well be my #1 DID, if i had such a thing

― ron (ron), 16. tammikuuta 2003 22:59

if that cardiacs album doesn't show up on this i'm gonna regret having missed voting

a little man... i mean

I'll be posting the results up until 71 tonight. Since it turned out I have time tonight but I'm quite busy tomorrow, I thought I'd do 15 today in the case I won't have the time for this tomorrow. I'll try to slow down to 10 albums per day after 71.

Pretty wacky mixture of stuff so far.

Pretty wacky mixture of stuff so far.

True. Yet I like all of it.

That X album was my #5, the highest-placing album from my ballot to have shown up yet. It's become almost a bit too familiar to me through over-playing, but it's amazing how not-dated it sounds. Could have been recorded yesterday.

Alright! I am finally on the board. Thanks X.

This is an astoundingly great record. Their best, but Los Angeles will probably finish higher.

glad to see that nail made it (go foetus) as well as pogues & up on the sun, tho i didn't vote for either.

re a hoy hoy: the album i was actually banging on about ("best american album of the 80s") = speaking in tongues

72. The Chills - Kaleidoscope World [1986] (98 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/152406988_d5bad5d319.jpg

I've still got the Kaleidoscope World album on vinyl! God loves me!

― Ozzy Goth Beatles (Bimble), 1. helmikuuta 2009 7:47

Well, well, well. Hello, Selzer. I only know "Kaleidoscope World." Does "Brave Words" sound different than that album? Because "KW" arguably sounds "muddy," but it's got a cool echo-y timelessness to it. I love the reverb drench in "Pink Frost." Goosebumps, man. Goosebumps.

― Ben Boyer (Ben Boyer), 17. lokakuuta 2003 0:31

You are a mean mean mean old man Mr K. CLASSIC, "Heavenly Pop Hit" got me into pop music. That and "STand", I guess. "Lost EP"! Fantastic shit! Kinda stands up the best now I think, tho I could stand to hear the Lps again. My fav band up till I heard the Beatles. My taste ranges far and wide obv... anyway dunno if it's been mentioned but if the Cd of "Kaleidoscope World" has the Lost EP on it (and I think it does) yr kinda fine, yeah get Brave WOrds next... really really weird rememebering how for about 3 yrs they were meant to be Nz's big rockpop hope for Us sales, haha. HAHA cos they synced up w/NIRVANA'S BOOM rather than w/REM's, which might've worked. And they had a better Lp at the time. Oh well.

― 808 the Bassking (Andrew Thames), 28. tammikuuta 2007 9:06