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

This list is inspiring to check out a few names that I've seen floating around in the past but never followed up on: such as Foetus and Spacemen 3.

Yay, happy to see the Chills on there -- it was my #4. Only album I voted for to show up at this point.

Wish something by The Clean had been nominated.

My #22, 27 and 30 have showed up so far. The Chills are a brand new name to me, which is surprising considering the 80s is when I was devouring the most new music.

Amateurist's take on Avalon is dead right, if the tune on the clips thread is at all representative. I like the arrangement, but the vocals are curiously flat. I never paid it any heed on my trips to the library as a teenager - the other Roxy albums always seemed more intriguing for some reason.

Didn't vote for it, but that Chills album is great. For those who don't know it, if you like the Galaxie 500 record, I can't really see you hating the Chills. Same sort of smart, sad indie pop, though a bit less guitar-ish and Velvets-y.

"Wild Gift" is the first from my top 10 to make the list. I love that Exene and John Doe had similar sounding voices and always seemed to be singing at the top of their range. It gave their music an urgent desperate quality. Their sound was completely unique. I can't even think of any bands who tried to imitate them.

I also think "Wild Gift" is their best album.

Up On The Sun rubbing shoulders with The Joshua Tree is a nice contrast. Both going after that desert vibe to some extent, but two radically different results.

For those of you who are going to check out The Chills, you should also look for Submarine Bells, from 1990. That could be their best.

Except for the ultra el cheapo ones, we've had a fantastic collection of cover art.

I'm still shut out! Though I did vote for Talking Heads and the Chills -- just not these albums. (TH live records + "Brave Words") Sort of surprised at all the "Chills, whodat?" In my (weird, I guess) conceptual universe they are loads more famous than Meat Puppets, Foetus, and the Associates, more or less comparable with Galaxie 500.

Same here. I thought The Chills were universally loved among people of a certain age and musical disposition.

Alex in NYC otm I got it on to Avalon a lot and I'm a total douchebag.

Girls tended to favor Sade, and between that and Moon Safari there was a period where the price to be paid for even heavy petting was the "Sadeness Part 1" cassingle on repeat.

LOL auto-reverse

Certainly would have voted for Speaking in Tongues in an ideal world but I rate both live records higher (maybe higher than any of their studio albums) and they squeezed it out. Me too. I've been nearly shut out of the poll so far - I'm guessing I'm going to be crowded into the top picks, which means maybe my ideas about what sounds good aren't so funny, here....

loving this list so far. 3 albums on my ballot have shown up (indestructible beat, on fire & avalon) as well as a bunch i almost voted for and decided not to for whatever reason (soul mining, kaleidoscope world, speaking in tongues, dazzle ships, more). stoked on this, fine work tuomas

so much love & respect for avalon it's not even funny. one of my favorite albums for many years. haven't listened to it in forever, dunno why.

didn't vote for it but am glad you all did.

i have always wished "india" was like 10x longer

yeah, it's kinda criminally short. funny thing about avalon is how much it sounds like something eno would've done - especially on stuff like "india". going in opposite directions, they wound up in the same place.

"avalon" and "more than this" make me feel like molly ringwald in a john huges movie, you know when andrew mccarthy looks at her from across the crowded gymasium and the whole world stops & drains away & the lights begin to whirl and there is no other moment. it's pretty good.

which is the lyrics to avalon pretty much

This is not the time to ask this, but what happened to Odyshape? I didn't see it on the nominations list, but I thought it had been nominated. I probably would have voted for it.

oh hey yeah. i think I nominated it! and almost certainly would have voted for it. boo on no odyshape!

do over!

odyshape should just share honorary #1 status w whatever wins

What happened was that the Raincoats s/t album was disqualified (for being from 1979), but then Fastnbulbous mentioned Odyshape after the nomination period was over.

Honorary joint #101 status more like. x-post

okay. i lied. i talked about odyshape on some other thread. didn't nominate it here. no one did. :(

instead i nominated a bunch of crap that's worse than odyshape. diamanda galas feh. :(:(:(

i was so wanting to take credit for that.

damn i thought 'odyshape' was a given on this thing. definitely deserves a placing.

and xpost- it IS criminally short! a great segue-track but it could have been so much more

x-post

Yeah, I would have voted Raincoats over Litanies to Satan (with all due respect to Galas as a live performer). Of course, I could have sacrificed one of my four salsa nominations that probably nobody else voted for.

ha - one salsa album would have been more canny. with 4 you risk vote splitting among contentious ilm salsa massive.

70. Laurie Anderson - Big Science [1982] (99 points, 11 votes)

http://wfs.velvet.jp/80s/img/laurie_anderson_big_science_82.jpg

a couple years ago someone who swears by it and grew up with it convinced me to buy this blind, and for a while it was just off-puttingly 'conceptual' and all that. but slowly, it's crept up on me. it really works late at night when you've been up a long time and are starting to get loopy, but aren't ready to put on something "mellow" yet.

the breakthrough definitely came when I realized that I was anticipating "Example #22" instead of wincing through it. now it's fun! still not wild about the spoken bits, but "Born, Never Asked" is great.

"Sweaters" is just almost this tremendous pop song, I kinda want to cover it and normalize it. "O Superman" has all the entrancing qualities of really good house music without all the big thumping beats distracting you from the good stuff.

then again, I might be just going through a momentary change of heart because I'm up all night working on a paper and it's just suddenly clicking with me. i dunno.

― Al (sitcom), 23. huhtikuuta 2003 8:40

Hmm. I've got mixed feelings. My instinct is to say CLASSIC!!! because Laurie Anderson is awesome, and she's totally hot (even in her fifties), and "From the Air" is ridiculously good (one of my mix-tape faves), and I love that "O Superman" became a hit in the UK, and the album cover is gorgeous. But I also think that "O Superman" is too long -- it only starts to get good toward the end -- and a couple of songs seem a little too fragmented, or don't follow through on their potential. Still, better than her late eighties stuff.

― jaymc (jaymc), 23. huhtikuuta 2003 17:24

Ha, dude, don't worry about it, I'm just being picky. Your opinion itself makes sense, I guess -- sounds like you just think it's too static, and want more variation.

I don't recall the repeating syllable "thickening" anywhere (though there are a couple moments where it gets put on a short on-beat delay, so that the rhythm skips forward a bit) -- what happens at the end is that a big dark synth line starts playing counterpoint on bass! During the "your ____ arms" part. That's kind of the "payoff," I suppose.

If you ever get sucked into real close listening to this, you may (or may not) find that the minor embellishments throughout wind up providing the variation you're looking for -- or anyway, for me, it's stuff like that moment of delay, or the dollop or birdsong, or the weird asymmetry of the little synth arpeggio that comes ... those are the things that provide constant change and interest, to me.

― nabisco, 26. joulukuuta 2007 21:16

Big Science is the first album I voted for to show up, btw. When the voting was on, for quite a while it looked like it wasn't gonna place in the top 100, but it had an upsurge towards the end.

haha funny to see the thread i started about that album all those years ago quoted there. i haven't listened much to Big Science since then but I still found room for it on my ballot, pretty neat record.

I love how this album slows synth pop down to a contemplative mode, which makes you appreciate those sounds in a different way than with more upbeat stuff. And despite the artsiness it never really sounds indulgent.

Would have voted for the amazing _Home of the Brave_ if it had been nominated. I had no idea anything like this existed until I saw this movie and I was shaken for a month afterward.

as someone who contributed to that upsurge i gotta rep for this record here - albeit that 'from the air' and 'o superman' are the standouts...the last two tracks are a REALLY strong closing pair and cement this as a totally sweet record, rather than a decent art-pop album with two massive hits

Oh man "It Tango"

Another awesome album cover too, I think.

^^^yes

Another one of mine, too - although actually I've always felt it patchy, but it gained a high placing on my ballot because the tracks that are great are truly awesomely astounding (and other superlatives). Not been on heavy rotation for a couple of years, so maybe I should give the other ones more of a try again.

I'm also still surprised that On Fire is so low - I'm assuming that's because others are coming up higher, but maybe I'm wrong about that?

69. Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 [1985] (100 points, 7 votes)

http://www.lpcd.de/10/F1616_01.jpg

I just realized like a bolt: Scritti Politti (well, C&P 85, all I've heard) invoke in me the very same, very strange, very difficult-to-articulate sense of strangeness and wonder that Steely Dan do! I want to explore this a little further when I have more time and mental energy, but what do you all think of this comparison?

― Clarke B., 13. marraskuuta 2002 10:43

"Cupid & Psyche" is one of the greatest albums ever recorded. I second (or third) the qualitative comparison with Steely Dan - there's a similar "sheen" to the music and an almost obsessive workmanship they share. Indescribable, really. I never warmed up to "Provision", though. (I think Miles is an over-rated prick so maybe that had something to do with it.) I'll have to gove it another listen. I still haven't heard any of the the early Scritti stuff or "Songs to Remember".

― Larry Tremblay, 11. marraskuuta 2003 23:02

cupid and psyche is one of my favorite albums ever. it's so bright and shiny and capitalist sounding. it reminds me of nyc for some reason. every once in awhile i'll pull it out and it turns into a brief obsession of superlatives in my head. i haven't heard any other scritti albums though.

― basquiat (disco stu), 28. helmikuuta 2005 1:40

I missed lyrics like I'm in love with a Jacques Derrida / Read a page and know what I need to / Take apart my baby's heart / I'm in love

Much as I love Songs to Remember, love it the most in lots of ways, Cupid & Psyche 85 is so far ahead of it. Green didn't have to sing about Derrida once he'd found a way of making his records deconstruct themselves even as they dazzle and shine.

I don't know anything about Scritti Politti. Records deconstructing themselves sounds interesting but also sounds like work to listen to (I'm sorta joking but only sorta). Is this album a jam?

It's a total jam.

I am never sure how seriously you should read Green's interest in post-structuralism into his music, but he definitely uses the playful aspects of it to take the piss out of himself and the listener even at the same time as he's making you groove/cry.

I'll pick it up, then!

Would have voted for the amazing _Home of the Brave_ if it had been nominated.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Same. Big Science has never felt to me like a standalone and I had trouble voting for the Reader's Digest version. But I'm glad 11 of you could look past that. I might actually have voted for Mister Heartbreak too if it had made the list.

glad to see Nail placing, anyone who is interested in the studio side of Foetus would be well off seeking out Thaw, and if the more brutal heavy side is what appeals to you, the live official "bootleg" Rife (which is basically Foetus backed by the Swans) is AMAZING. Foetus live (back in the day, not so much now) was a scary intense thing.

Big Science is totally sequenced as its own thing and tbh I prefer those songs in that context.