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

can't wait to see the cramps in the top 10

if the eurythmics dont make it i am going to be really angry at u all

same, but sub out eurythmics, sub in upstairs at eric's

i have been really enjoying the results of this poll. thanks Tuomas, you have done an amazing job.

i say do five a day over the next three days. make us wait, build the excitement and anticipation even more as this has been great fun.

If Low-Life makes it, I'll eat my shoe. This is getting exciting.

<3 <3 <3 broad majestic shannon

still holdin out for Architecture & Morality :-/

^ It got my OMD vote.

Me, I'm still deluding myself that the Blue Nile are gonna show up. Surely if they didn't place already they must be in the top 10!

Ned's piece here made me put on Technique for the first time in a long time, and I'm very glad I did.

Movement is my personal favorite of NO discography, followed by Low-Life and Power, Corruption and Lies. Hearing Technique when it came out I was disappointed, but I'm excited to hear it again. I may feel very differently about it now.

Daydream Nation was my personal #1 in this poll for various reasons (will explain later), but in the light of all of the above comments, I'm kind of hoping it doesn't win the poll. It would be almost too predictable. It would be nice if something like Spirit of Eden (which I almost voted for) or two that i did vote for - Remain In Light or Nation of Millions - were to win.

didn't have time to vote, but my number 1 vote will probably take the whole thing. what can i say, i love funk, i love surreal lyrics and i love dense production and this album had all 3 to spare.

i say do five a day over the next three days. make us wait, build the excitement and anticipation even more as this has been great fun.

I considered doing it like that, but once we get to number 6, most people can probably guess what the remaining 5 albums will be, so I think it's better to just post the whole top 10 tomorrow. Also, I have more time to do this tomorrow than on Thursday.

Bah, there goes my #1. You won't persuade me there are 16 better records than The Dreaming released in the 80s.

― Jeff W,

The Dreaming was my #1 vote...glad to see it earn so high a place.

― mascara and ties (Abbott)

And I was the third one.

I considered doing it like that, but once we get to number 6, most people can probably guess what the remaining 5 albums will be, so I think it's better to just post the whole top 10 tomorrow. Also, I have more time to do this tomorrow than on Thursday.

Yeah I think that's smart. The TV poll a few weeks ago pretty much went down like that, by the time we got to the top 10 everyone was like "we know what it is, just show us the order they're in already." There's still a little more mystery here than there was with that poll, though, at least for me.

15. Pixies - Surfer Rosa [1988] (273 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://www.aggona.org/gallery/albums/album39/surfer_rosa.sized.jpg

Oh crap I can't decide. Maybe Vamos, maybe Broken Face. The album's such a time capsule for me: it immediately conjures up final year high school and my first boyfriend (whos name was Tony and whos mom was Rosa, which amused us when it came out). Funny thing is I dont get anywhere near as much out of it now as I did then. Just nostalgia.

― Trayce, 19. marraskuuta 2007 7:12

by the way this was the last great "indie" album ever made imho - there were some decent/good ones afterwards, but basically it was all downhill from here.

</ducks, runs for cover, rapidly puts on flame retardant suit while hiding behind a door with a chair wedged under the doorknob etc etc>

― messiahwannabe, 18. toukokuuta 2009 8:17

When these were out I had Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa on either side of a cassette, and thought of them as two sides of the same album; I never really thought about how much more I like Come on Pilgrim. Though of course "Gigantic" is one of the best 3 Pixies songs probably and is a clear winner here. Loved, I think, because it's so majestically simple and strips out from the idea of song every element apart from "Pixiesness," and still flies.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), 18. toukokuuta 2009 16:34

Far and away my favorite Pixies, and "Broken Face" has always been the top track; the way it moves from the hanging sustained note to the full-on crush. If their legacy is the loud-soft thing, that's my favorite example of it. Also, I think the "I got no lips / got no tongue" expresses paralysis and confusion better than "Where is My Mind"

― bendy, 18. toukokuuta 2009 19:38

Way the best Pixies album and still worth a place lower down on this list but hey, here comes your zzzzzzzzz

I somehow managed to not vote for Pixies :/

Not into them.

the 2 best pixies albums came out in the 90s.

http://www.mynighttimehealth.com/images/snore.jpg

Like this a lot but in a way happy to see it now rather than top 10 as it leaves more breathing room for Doolittle to take the high place it deserves.

Doolittle isnt better than Surfer Rosa

^^Truth.

Doolittle isn't better than No Jacket Required.

Yeah, but No Jacket Required wasn't nominated.

No Nomination Required.

Sure it was: VERILY, IT'S THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL VOTING THREAD! Voting ends on Sunday, November 22nd.

Right between Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and Colourbox.

where it belongs

Don't know how many albums are on that list but Doolittle isn't better than most of them.

I still don't "get" the Pixies but I prefer to keep it positive; it does seem weird to me that in 2009 we're still talking about their work as top 10 material.

you guys are nutso but I'm saving all discussion of Doolittle for its inevitable later appearance

xpost EXACKLY

it does seem weird to me that in 2009 we're still talking about their work as top 10 material.

Don't get this -- you mean, because it's well in the past? So is everything else from the 80s! Is it weird we're still talking about Murmur as top 10 material? (I know you and I both think not.) Surely _Disintegration_ is 1000x more an artifact of a bygone time than _Surfer Rosa_.

Surfer Rosa very much their best 80s album, Trompe le Monde best overall. Because I said so, and that makes it true.

I actually never really cared for Doolittle as an album but have a guilty feeling that I voted for it anyway because I looked at the tracklisting again and went "how do I not rate this when it's got so many big obvious great tracks on". Their inevitability in the top 15 sorta makes me wish I hadn't voted for SY or Pixies, even though I've listened to and loved them at least as much as everything else I voted for.

If Computer World doesn't place then the whole thing is a terrible sham etc etc. Weird though, having albums where I could genuinely see them either missing completely or being top 10, even at this late stage with so many inevitables and so few places left.

I admire the faith of the people who are sure the Minutemen will place in this list instead of Kraftwerk.

Mostly I can't back up the sentiment b/c I was never on the Pixies bandwagon at the time, so this is still just puzzlement on my part---I mean, I tried, I've owned all their albums at one point or another, gave them lots of listens (and fwiw I like Surfer Rosa just fine, though it never occurred to me to vote for it). But what I mean is that it seems weird, after having twenty+ years to hear and think about these albums not merely through the lens of the moment as it were, that the Pixies work would stand out with the best of the 80s....I mean, we're talking about Thriller and Purple Rain and Nation of Millions, and I want to say: do any Pixies albums belong alongside those works? Because I think those three albums are among the very finest works of music, well, ever, and it's hard for me to understand how someone could think that about a Pixies album. But obv. this is mostly subjective and that's why I said it seems weird rather than wrong.

Pixies are like the Strokes or Vampire Weekend for me

also, just looked back at my ballot and Computer World was waaaay too low. what an oversight.

also, just looked back at my ballot and Computer World was waaaay too low. what an oversight.

Same here, I've been listening to it a lot recently and it should have been in my top ten for sure. The same with Nightclubbing by Grace Jones.

xp to Matt Double Nickles is a pretty big lol college rock touchstone as well as being a real critic's choice type thing as well as not being everyone's fourth or fifth favourite album by them a la Computer World, I think that's the logic there

xpost: Nightclubbing was the highest climber in my ballot: up sixteen places!

I am not sure why I completely ignored this poll until the voting was all done but I (a) am enjoying following the results and (b) am pretty sure that if I'd voted it would have had virtually no impact on the results at all

DJ Mencap is right. Double Nickels WILL be here, maybe top 10. I haven't heard it yet, need to.

i remember when double nickels came out, and yet i never listened to it, or even heard it until this decade. when i did, it sounded nothing like i expected. i like it lots though. i have a hard time putting it back into the 80s somehow.

for someone of my demographic and tastes, its like hearing someone go "i never even heard of thriller til 2004"

There's lots of weird stuff that probably won't place at all, stuff you'd think might be beloved by ilx -- Nick Cave, Elvis Costello and Madonna are the three that come to mind. I wonder if it will be possible to find a common thread among the stuff that did place...

Guitars, boredom?

(b) am pretty sure that if I'd voted it would have had virtually no impact on the results at all

I think a couple of my higher placings definitely helped them creep into the top 100.

Tuomas, any chance of posting #200-#101 or however many there were after the big #1 reveal?