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

e2-e4 seems to have an interesting role as a stepping stone between Kraftwerk & Berlin school electropop towards both 90s IDM and minimal house, though its a role that only critics seem to attest to.

heard it for the first time last night and liked it a lot. like world of echo, it seems to be one of those albums that's much more popular and well-known now that it ever was in its day. or maybe i was just reading the wrong magazines, i dunno...

Like so much else from the 80s, I knew about E2-E4 at the time from college radio play (but that station played a lot of prog., Krautrock, and electronic music).

It was largely unknown in the day (at least outside of krautrock revenant mags). I first heard of e2-e4 on a number of ambient music mailing lists in the mid-90s. Ie, krautelectronica fans postulating roots for Aphex etc.

i think there are documented stories of the first generation detroit techno guys listening to e2-e4.

I don't know why people are saying certain entries are "too low." There's easily a couple hundred worthy albums that won't make the list at all.

Most of these probably won't make it:
Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever
Wipers - Youth Of America
Comsat Angels - Sleep No More
Mission Of Burma - VS.
The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire
King Sunny Ade - Aura
U2 - War
This Heat - Deceit
Gang of Four - Solid Gold
The Au Pairs - Playing With A Different Sex
Bad Brains - I Against I

Surely not even ILM could have a list with def leppard in it but not metallica and slayer.

it boggo the mind

and i like that def leppard album. Wonder if Hysteria will make it?

Infact I'm changing it to Surely not even ILM could have a list with def leppard in it but not metallica and slayer AND AC/DC.

Listening to the Feelies "Original Love" for the first time right now and it's kind of amazing -- like Peter Murphy fronting the Modern Lovers.

Dear alex in mainhattan,

Dirty Mind was my #1. Poop on you.

personally I was hoping for some more white guitar bands tho

yes please let's make this about race

I feel like that's one element that always gets ignored in these poll threads

elvis costello was a hero to most

if i'm not mistaken, several of these bands have a fairly traditional gtr/bass/drums lineup, and at least three involve white people.

though this isn't reflected in my ballot, i'm thinking that arthur russell might be my favorite producer of music in the 1980s. tonight anyways. he for instance was in large part white to some degree.

25. The Clash - Sandinista! [1980] (211 points, 11 votes, 3 first place votes)

http://quimby.gnus.org/circus/jukebox.php?image=display.jpg&group=The%20Clash&album=Sandinista!

No Clash fan can be without this one.

How about a little love for Broadway, which is easily one of Joe Strummer's best vocal performances.

Plus, there's Charlie Don't Surf, Something About England, and The Street Parade.

A sprawling, weird classic. Much better than Combat Rock.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), 17. lokakuuta 2005 20:40

If the "filler" and dub versions (which I like to an extent) were chucked and replaced with the circa-'80 material that appears on Black Market Clash ("Bankrobber/Robber Dub" and "Armagideon Time") and the single "This is Radio Clash" then Sandinista! would be the best album of the decade up to '84. Without them, it's their second-best, maybe third by hit-miss percentage and best by sheer number of great songs. So go for it.

― disco violence (disco violence), 18. lokakuuta 2005 3:05

Definitely the best Clash album, followed by Combat Rock.

I always thought the orthodox view regarding Clash albums was strange. The two worst (the debut and "London's Calling") were lauded to the skies, and the two best were vilified. And this by their "fans"!

I think the original band of Clash groupies (Tony Parsons et al.) just didn't like music at all. The Clash were an action-adventure, so when they disappeared for months in the studio to actually craft something worth listening to, they were spoiling the fun of the accolytes.

If more people started with "Sandindista", there'd be a lot less Clash-hate in the world today.

― PhilK, 1. syyskuuta 2007 18:03

I also prefer the US version of the debut. But yeah, Sandinista and Black Market are my favorite Clash albums. A pox on whoever decided to leave the single version of Bankrobber off Super Black Market Clash, though, making it less super than the 12" version.

"Looking for music" sums up this phase of the Clash perfectly. They were totally fearless and confident that having summed up where rock had been with the last testament of London Calling, they were going to discover the future. It was so diverse and challenging that it would shake the attention span of a casual listener, and only a music nerd was going to find it fulfilling.

I still remember the weekday night as a teenager when I first played it. As the needle came up on the 6th side, I thought this is the most ambitious and mind expanding thing I'd ever heard. Of course it's a rambling mess, but like a Cassavettes or Wim Wenders movie, it uncovers feelings that can only be brought about by meandering.

― bendy (bendy), 23. marraskuuta 2006 16:34

3 first place votes!

GTF tbh

I definitely would not have expected that.

so we don't all have to go into the show all message minefield:

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)
78. The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & the Lash [1985] (93 points, 16 votes)
77. Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun [1985] (94 points, 8 votes)
76. U2 - The Joshua Tree [1987] (95 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)
75. Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual [1983] (95 points, 9 votes)
74. Galaxie 500 - On Fire [1989] (96 points, 10 votes)
73. X - Wild Gift [1981] (97 points, 9 votes)
72. The Chills - Kaleidoscope World [1986] (98 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote)
71. Roxy Music - Avalon [1982] (99 points, 10 votes)
70. Laurie Anderson - Big Science [1982] (99 points, 11 votes)
69. Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 [1985] (100 points, 7 votes)
68. New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies [1983] (100 points, 16 votes)
67. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes [1983] (101 points, 12 votes)
66. Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen [1985] (104 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote)
65. Donald Fagen - The Nightfly [1982] (105 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
63. (tie) Tom Waits - Rain Dogs [1985] (106 points, 12 votes)
63. (tie) Cocteau Twins - Treasure [1984] (106 points, 12 votes)
62. Grace Jones - Nightclubbing [1981] (106 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote)
61. Arthur Russell - World of Echo [1986] (108 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote)
60. Eric B. & Rakim - Paid In Full [1987] (111 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote)
59. Mekons - Fear and Whiskey [1985] (111 points, 8 votes, 2 first place votes)
58. The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me [1987] (112 points, 7 votes, 2 first place votes)
57. Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa [1984] (112 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote)
56. R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant [1986] (112 points, 12 votes)
55. Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me [1987] (115 points, 13 votes)
54. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. [1984] (118 points, 14 votes)
53. Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska [1982] (120 points, 14 votes)
52. Brian Eno / David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts [1981] (120 points, 17 votes)
51. Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man [1988] (121 points, 11 votes)
50. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms [1980] (123 points, 13 votes)
49. The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane [1988] (125 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote)
48. XTC - Skylarking [1986] (127 points, 16 votes)
47. Steely Dan - Gaucho [1980] (128 points, 9 votes)
46. R.E.M. - Reckoning [1984] (131 points, 14 votes)
45. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Doc at the Radar Station [1980] (133 points, 11 votes)
44. The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace [1985] (136 points, 13 votes)
43. Sonic Youth - EVOL [1986] (143 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote)
42. Hüsker Dü - New Day Rising [1985] (146 points, 14 votes)
41. The Cure - Pornography [1982] (148 points, 9 votes)
40. Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels [1980] (148 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote)
39. Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4 [1984] (154 points, 12 votes, 2 first place votes)
38. New Order - Substance [1987] (156 points, 16 votes)
37. De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising [1989] (164 points, 23 votes)
36. The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour [1982] (166 points, 14 votes, 1 first place vote)
35. ABC - The Lexicon of Love [1982] (173 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote)
34. The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow [1984] (173 points, 16 votes)
33. The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs [1987] (174 points, 20 votes)
32. Prince - 1999 [1982] (191 points, 17 votes, 1 first place vote)
31. Sonic Youth - Sister [1987] (199 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)
30. Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade [1984] (200 points, 13 votes)
29. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth [1980] (200 points, 17 votes, 1 first place vote)
28. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses [1989] (201 points, 15 votes, 2 first place votes)
27. Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction [1987] (201 points, 18 votes)
26. Prince - Dirty Mind [1980] (210 points, 14 votes, 1 first place vote)

the 20s have been teh worst so far (except prince.)

no wai! i'm happy to see young marble giants, gnr, prince and the clash. neither abstruse nor slavishly canonical - just some stuff that people like to listen to. which is as it should be.

I definitely would not have expected that.

― _Rudipherous_, Monday, November 30, 2009 1:01 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

satisfying nonetheless.

hate the tendency to view the clash in oppositional terms, as though you gotta either LOVE the experimental dub twaddle and turn yr nose against the lumpen punk, or vice versa. they did equally fine work on both sides of that line, wherever you draw it.

i personally have a lot more use for sandinista than for london calling, but i'm not gonna argue that LC is less successful or important. it's probably more influential and artistically coherent, and it's almost as brave. i just happen to like it less.

24. The Cure - Disintegration [1989] (218 points, 19 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://img.imeem.com/ai/ERMCGYTJ3W5QWHVR7SXSFOLNEHGDJWFV.jpg

I remember when I first heard this album, it was like nothing I'd ever heard before. Very dark, very pretty. My favorite Cure album, definitely in my top 5 all-time.

"Pictures of You" is the weak link and it's still great.

― Curt1s Stephens, 28. lokakuuta 2007 22:04

You know, I had a horrible experience where I played Disintegration (admittedly) on a crappy boombox when we were drywalling and repainting our living room, and a friend came by to lend a hand and part way through "Plainsong" she actually turned it off and said "now can we play something we can actually listen to?" I was gobsmacked and weirdly saddened by this episode.... so much so that this is the first time I've mentioned it to anyone and it must have happened, oh, three years ago or so!

(Needless to say, at the time, I said "no, you can't do that, you really fucking can't" and hit play again.)

― Lostandfound, 29. lokakuuta 2007 8:33

This album alone really shaped my whole musical (and to a very large extent non-musical) world when it came out and I was 13. A friend had lent me a huge batch of tapes he got from Columbia House and after checking out the Midnight Oils, the Simple Minds and the Eurythmics, I finally put on that one tape. I knew straight from the opening synths of Plainsong that things would never really be the same for me. Utterly awesome.

― baaderonixx, 29. lokakuuta 2007 16:56

yeah, this is the best thing they put out alright

the captivating and altogether enchanting mystique pervading this record lends tracks like 'last dance' and 'prayers for rain' a true dreamlike and ethereal quality. each track is approached with more lyrical sincerity and subtlety than smith had been able to muster before or since. fantastically engaging moody pieces and unforgettable singles. perfect mix and wash of instruments.

and i should mention that the last two minutes or so of the title track is pure bliss

― Charlie Howard, 30. lokakuuta 2007 18:35

Thought that was top 5 for sure.

Yes, thought that would place much higher!

really should get around to listening to a cure record that isn't 3 imaginary boys/boys don't cry. one of these days...

Same here. All my illusions about the top 25 are now being shattered.

xp

This is one of those albums that, no matter what format I have it on now, will always be mentally split in half for me because I listened to it on cassette about a zillion times. I'm usually either in the mood for Side 1 or Side 2, but almost never listening to the whole thing in one sitting. Either grouping of songs puts me in a different mood.

And late to the party but I'm suprised at the complete "buh?" UK response to the first Femmes album. I thought it was one of those embedded 80s canon albums - it certainly has been in Australia for decades. Even little kids recognise the opening riff of "Blister".

I know it, because my Dad (who was into a lot of 'alt-country' stuff) bought it when I was about 10, but that was very unusual in Britain. I think mainstream recognition of Violent Femmes was almost zero in the 80s in Britain. When I went travelling around Australia (in 1997) I kept hearing 'Blister in the Sun' being played, and I couldn't understand why something so obscure (and old) was so massive.

I'm wondering about Rock 'n' Roll - The Mekons. It seems unlikely it will place high enough to get mentioned now, but I thought it would have been higher than Fear & Whiskey.

Fear & Whiskey seems to be the de facto Mekons album when it comes to consensus lists. Fewer people like Rock 'n' Roll, but are more passionate about it. More people like Fear & Whiskey, but not as passionately, and thus it ends up somewhere in the middle. I guess if more than 14 or 15 people voted Rock 'n' Roll really high on their ballots it could still appear here, but I don't see it happening.

maybe because it's all over grosse point blank? i think violent femmes have been enduringly pretty popular in the uk in a cult-y as opposed to music press sense. looking at the list now that it's starting to turn predictable, the real anomalies are 2 x appearances by both foetus and meat puppets.

Thirlwell love on ILM is strong, so the Foetus double shot isn't surprising. Didn't ever realize people cared that much about Meat Puppets, though. (I like 'em fine, but they probably wouldn't even crack my personal '80s list even if I expanded it to 200.)

I'm surprised The Cure are placing at all. I suspect I may be using ILM in a different way to everyone else.

Does a day ever go by where there's not some new or revived Cure thread on the front page?

I'm surprised The Cure are placing at all.

― Ismael Klata, Monday, November 30, 2009 2:14 AM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark

that's way more surprising than the cure's landing a few records on the list.

me, i was wtf surprised by the associates' sulk and manuel gottsching's e2-e4 (neither of which meant a thing to me), and pleasantly surprised by the relatively high placement of arvo part's tabula rasa. everything else seems pretty reasonable, if not exactly predictable.

Cure, fantastic singles band, albums a bit meh. (Ducks brickbats from ILX Cure massive)

xpost I expected Sulk to be top 50, but they're like the Violent Femmes in that they meant nowt, apart from the usual Anglophiles, in America.

One name that hasn't come up so far on predictions (on this thread anyway) for the top of the list (not the very top, certainly) is Siouxsie & the Banshees. Hard to see how they wouldn't make it, but maybe vote-splitting would cause that (especially since there's a lot of overlap between the Cure contingent and the Siouxsie contingent).

i've always thought of sulk as a pretty big ilm record. yeh the cure are behemoths, i don't think their presence here is at all surprising, disintegration is a big 'un for their fans though so maybe thats the last for fat bob? i'm wondering how more arena-y staples like jamc & the bunnymen are going to do now, i assumed they'd have a couple each but now....

I'd make the argument for Siouxsie that Dods did for The Cure. Great singles band, and I probably should've voted for Once Upon a Time, but I probably wouldn't toss a vote in the direction of any of their albums proper (okay, maybe Peepshow, but even there the first half totally dominates the second half).

The Cure were consistent hitmakers, and got to be fairly regularly top ten, until "Friday I'm in Love", and that was the end of it!

Would never have guessed.

23. The Human League - Dare [1981] (219 points, 17 votes, 2 first place votes)

http://991.com/newGallery/Human-League-Dare-230383.jpg

The story behind this album and how the label were just about to write off the League as a failure, given that Marsh and Ware had left Oakey to the contract on his own is far more fascinating than even the going to the bar to find the two female singers story. Basically, Oakey being super-crazy and persistent, and Martin Rushent being a producer god allowed Dare to be what it is.

― System Jr. (Mackro Mackro), 22. helmikuuta 2009 6:21

it's always been 'things that dreams are made of' for me. Those sawing noises in the middle eight that power up into the reedy mock-tudor squall of the chorus! that alien elegance-inelegance, the huge distance between his voice and the synths, the storybook hopefulness of the lyrics. A bunch of remixes of it were released in 2007 and none of them could satisfy, i think because they all somehow smoothed out the edges of the weirdness, made it either screechy or too dreamy.

though the lightness of touch in 'don't you want me' never fails to astonish: i think it wasn't until i heard the 12" dance mix that i even noticed how bright the chorus is.

god i love this album so much.

― c sharp major, 22. helmikuuta 2009 14:35

If Seconds (my vote) wins this, I'll be delighted. But really: it's almost a perfect album, isn't it? Much weirder, way more unsettling and far less obviously of its time than -- I think -- received wisdom has it. I've read countless articles about how it came about, and I'll not deny the genius-level input of Martin Rushent -- but I think the key thing is that the departure of Ian C-M and Martin, and the arrival of Ian B and Jo, got rid of a lot of the self-consciousness and simply gave rise to an eight-legged tune-making machine. I still prefer the MkI League, but Dare is the sound of a slightly unlikely collection of songwriters absolutely nailing the moment; music-box melodies with no musicianship.

given that Marsh and Ware had left Oakey to the contract on his own

Adrian Wright's lack of recognition saddens me enormously!

― Special topics: Disco, The Common Market (grimly fiendish), 22. helmikuuta 2009 20:59

Well, sure, but maybe people are avoiding that one the better to rave about the lesser known equally good ones. The two that really got me back then were 'Sound of the Crowd' and 'The Things That Dreams Are Made Of'. I liked their tough, strident rhythms and highly musical use of sound effects. Phil's voice has always had a slightly cold, brutal quality that went with the music. But fundamentally, yeah, great rhythms and sounds. 'Seconds' - soppy, slightly unchallenging chords, cliched lyrics and perspective (not as weak as Dolores O'Riordan Cranberry's effort on the same subject, good song compared to a lot of synth pop at the same time though, and a big warm production. Hmm yeah, but Do Or Die, a modernist classic of early techno. Melodically so obvious as to be oddly not obvious, especially when carved in the blaknk grey slate sounds of that big System 700 or whatever it was. In 1981 I found that track a bit of a challenge, but nowadays it's just a kickass piece of modernist synthpop. I'm with you Geir! Except I am a little surprised you like it, being as how it's not exactly brimming with melodic invention, relying more on subtle textural, arrangement and rhythmic shifts to hold interest. I mean, basically, it's a groove, once Phil's alarming/alarmed and thrusting vocal section ends. Hilarious lyric - 'Alsatians fall unconscious at the shadow of your call'. How does he come up with this stuff?

― moley, 23. helmikuuta 2009 7:20

Was just listening to this not three hours ago. I figured it was coming, just didn't know how soon.

Apparently this album was called "Dare" in the UK and "Dare!" (with an exclamation mark) in the US. I wonder what's the story behind that?

Oh wow, I'd never noticed.

i always wondered about that too.

booming album.