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

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?

I am just having a little bet with myself that if 101-200 happens my vote will be the one Tuomas mentioned with "(40 points, 1 vote)" next to it

on reflection I did get a little over-excited, but still

i reckon if m the g had voted we'd have had cardiacs in at 90-odd with something like 80 points, 4 votes, 2 first-place XD

right it was even 40 points for a top vote. the difference between #55 and #100.

are you sure? i participated and without me meat puppets ii would not have been in the top 100. and i just gave it ten points like all my 30 albums. there are only 30 points (a top vote) in between #65 and #100. exactly because of that the poll is not very significant. there were not enough participants.

haha yeah, good example cause number #65 was my #1 and I noticed that had I not voted it wouldn't have even placed. (you guys can also thank me for most of the springsteen placings - yw, yw.)

I remember being frustrated by a lot of 80s albums because of the production. So much stuff was too slick and glossy, or cluttered with stupid gated drum effects and other trendy technologies that just made the music sound brittle. On the other hand, some of the indie stuff didn't sound so great either, like some of the Husker Du records, Soul Asylum, etc. Surfer Rosa was such a revelation because it had some of the abrasive attack of Albini's Big Black, but cleaner, with more space. Yet there was a bit of sugar coated beauty in there too. In a way it anticipated both Slint and Nirvana. I recall from interviews at the time that Albini didn't think much of the band. He would later reveal his favorites in the early 90s to be Fugazi and The Jesus Lizard. I definitely preferred those bands live, but they never did anything that could replace the surreal beauty and decay of Surfer Rosa.

Surfer Rosa was such a revelation because it had some of the abrasive attack of Albini's Big Black, but cleaner, with more space.

Exactly. It was a watered-down version of Big Black.

pixies = abrasive attack + space + melody!

Surfer Rosa was my #1 pick...didn't even put Doolittle on my ballot...

14. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden [1988] (274 points, 18 votes, 2 first place votes)

http://bbblog.ubisonic.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/talk_talk-spirit_of_eden.jpg

Greatest album ever made by man or beast. If there was such a thing as a greatest album ever.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), 9. lokakuuta 2003 15:59

There's no way around this: you MUST Have TT's Spirit of Eden AND Laughing Stock. Hell, go and get Mark Hollis' solo album too, which is admittedly a bit patchy, but the first track (called 'Colour of Spring', co-incidentally, a title of a TT album) gives me goosebumps.

The bizarre recording process for the TT records is becmoing a bit of an urban legend as well (recording musicians individually in complete darkness, etc).

The music is very different from the previous TT 'hits' - obtuse, strange, and beautiful. The first time I listened to Spirit of Eden, I knew it was something special, because it confused me - I couldn't decide if it was complete crap or pure brilliance.

Absolutely essential - full stop.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), 9. lokakuuta 2003 17:56

Is it true that they once spent an entire day recording a virtuoso violinist, just hours and hours of tape... and the only thing they kept on the record was a little mistake by the violinist? How about that other legend where they spent another entire day recording a choir and then delted the whole thing the next day because it was "too perfect"?

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), 15. lokakuuta 2003 7:01

It's all about the arrangements and the incredible dynamics. There are bits in the record that would be mistaken for Stockhausen or something if you lifted them out of context. The production technique is fantastic.

And I like the sense of mystery that pervades: I could never make out what Hollis was singing, and I couldn't read what was written on the lyric sheet exactly. I started to read up on the production history of the record - how they recorded certain things, how the work was done in the studio - and I had to stop as I just didn't want to know.

― Brakhage (brakhage), 19. lokakuuta 2005 18:20

Is it true that they once spent an entire day recording a virtuoso violinist, just hours and hours of tape... and the only thing they kept on the record was a little mistake by the violinist?

haha this sounds like it was 'chinese democracy' or something

it's up for grabs now