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

And there goes my #1. Double Nickels On The Dime. Just typing it gives me chills.

A lot of the best punk rock makes it sound easy, like anyone can do it. And that's a big part of the appeal. But when you play Double Nickels, you think, Those guys are way better than me. I could never do that.

Even the Central American references have aged well.

Do the Housemartins have a proper best-of album? I'd consider throwing it a vote if so, but their as-is albums never hung together really well for me.

im relieved the minutemen made it. Was beginning to think it missed out along with black flag, bad brains etc

btw i voted crimson so im not giving up hope just yet

the Housemartins had better tunes than the Smiths, I shocked myself by realising recently

youre crazy

That comp. I listed above works as a good best-of, though it's somewhat long for that.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Juju for the top 11? will they got the goth block vote

Propaganda - A Secret Wish - are the popists going to spring a big surprise?

the goths on ilm dont admit to being goths so they might not want to blow their cover

I voted Crimson & This Heat, got no hope for either of them charting.

not with PSBs so low xp2

The Housemartins do have a 14 track 'Best Of', though I'd say Quite Good or the Live at the BBC are better buys.

the Housemartins are NME endorsed vermin Rodents

Q: which Melody Maker scribe would have said such a thing?

how many Prince albums to come?

People Who Grinned is hit or miss for me, but London 0 Hull 4 is close to perfect and represents the high point of the "pretty" side of 80s college rock for me. It's ABSOLUTELY UNABASHED about striving for effect, maybe because it believes itself in the service of a higher political aim...? L0H4, the Now That's While... comp (which grabs the best off both LPs but has too much filler) and maybe even their amazing demo tape Themes for the Well-Dressed Man would have made my top 100 album list.

Crim's in my top 10, but I don't see it happening at this point.

Sign of the Times
Purple Rain

anymore?

BTW I'm listening to Alphaville right now and I'd laugh really hard if they placed

Ha King Crimson is now 'Crim.'

11. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead [1986] (307 points, 26 votes, 1 first place vote)

http://littlepatchofyellowwall.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/thequeenisdead.jpg

This really is a great question -- and it is, oddly, something I was thinking about last night. I've just recently procured a car with only a tape deck, and therefore went rummaging through all of my old tapes for something decent; given that most of my tape-buying comes from the high-school period, I found myself pretty well stocked on the Smiths' back catalog. Thus it was that I was driving around last night listening to The Queen is Dead and thinking about how, despite their presence and influence and normalization over the years, the Smiths really are a very weird band, even by today's standards.

The duality you point out is an apt one, but I'd even add a few things to that. First is the fact that while Marr is overshadowed by Moz as the source of oddity, it's worth noting that Marr was pretty interesting as well. He tends to get defined as some sort of godfather of indie jangle, but listening back through those records, you realize how all-over-the-place he tended to be, from those funky little instrumentals he'd play live (funky in the sense that, say, "Rubber Ring" is funky) to the occasional rockabilly turn ("Vicar in a Tutu") -- leave alone the wide swath of pop/rock he cut through.

And then you pair that with Morrissey, whose inclinations were even more unusual and in a completely different fashion. This is what fascinates me about Morrissey -- the fact that he seems to be essentially a social deviant, the sort of person who would be sitting creepily in a flophouse or hanging around libraries scaring people had he not been given a near-magical opportunity to be odd for a living. The fact that his pre-Smiths life was allegedly so creepily sheltered explains quite a bit -- the camp mentioned above seems a direct result of the only two musical influences he claims from his youth, those being (a) sixties British pop of the Lulu / Twinkle / Sandy Shaw variety, and (b) glam, e.g. his New York Dolls obsession. (That background also explains his least appealing traits: (a) his gynophobia, common to pretty much all sheltered, awkward, creepy boys, and (b) his homoerotic attraction to hypermasculinity in the form of hooliganism. This all makes so much sense if we believe the stereotypical accounts of his youth that have him basically sitting home reading Wilde and being terribly, debilitatingly awkward and sickly and etc.)

Add to that the funkiness of Andy Rourke and the perpetually shuffly drumming of Mike Joyce. It's hard to tell, though, how much of this was Marr's doing, as both of those traits seem to be intended to work with his funky/shuffly guitar leanings.

But maybe someone who is older than me and was living in the U.K. in the early 80s can offer a better take on exactly how odd they sounded at the time. Surely "Hand in Glove" was a big surprise when it first hit the radio?

― [nabisco], 24. syyskuuta 2001 3:00

Beyond classic. I was just listening to The Queen Is Dead last night, actually, and it hadn't lost its luster. I don't feel the lyrics as much as I did when I was young (they were life savers back then), but the craftsmanship is still there. Brilliant, they were.

― Mark Richardson, 18. maaliskuuta 2001 3:00

YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!!! THE QUEEN IS DEAD IS THE BEST ALBUM EVER AND THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG EVER !!!

― ivan mandic, 10. elokuuta 2001 3:00

i think the album needs SGABTO, it's somewhere between a raspberry and a sigh. it's "forget it, this is chinatown england" after the preceding moment of almost transendence. i know you can't really blame them but you can see the worst paraochial tenedencies of the next twent years of brit rock formenting here. it's an album about decline and stasis that doesn't point a way forward, it leaves you there with moz. that's what the scott walker docu got me thinking about, eno complaining about bands just imitating talking heads and so on and never going as far out as nite flites and then you have all these bands jus refining what was said, what was done in 1986. the smiths couldn't say anymore really and morrissey only had things to say about himself afterwards.

― acrobat, 23. toukokuuta 2007 12:57

Sign is a lock. Wouldn't be altogether surprised if Purple Rain is overlooked in ILMSHOCKA.

The TOP 10 is upon us (tomorrow)!

I Know it's Over

no11? shocked how low

would say the lex will be happy its not top 10 but i dont think hes interested in an 80s poll.

Remain In Light is arguably TH's canonical album and easily their canonical 80s album, it's not even up for debate that it'll be here.

For what it's worth, last.fm has 1.3m plays for Remain In Light vs. 1.2m for Stop Making Sense (vs. 900k plays for Fear of Music) so I don't think it's totally clear cut. Plus Stop Making Sense has the better version of "Once in A Lifetime" and is better generally.

does the lex remember the 1980s?

Nah, that placement seems about right. I love it, but only put one Smiths album on my ballot (Louder than Bombs). If anyone else voted like I did, spreading votes around and not going to heavily on any one artist, it could easily have slipped to 11.

controversial! hoping it would make top 5

Hounds of Love is top 10!

I think we can safely say Master Of Puppets, Back In Black, Number Of The Beast and Reign In Blood wont be placing now.

Could Meat is Murder make still it???

Otherwise the only one left on my ballot that has any chance of appearing is Hounds of Love.

uh... "still make it"

:(

The only "metal" albums I voted for were Appetite and Hysteria, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to see more of it on the list.

Meat is Murder won't make it - the Smiths' albums received wisdom is exactly as per this poll. Shame as I think Meat is Murder is their best and it was my #4, also because it was the album that blew me away first all those years ago and led to me ending up here eventually I suppose. I love the sound - it's just let down by the shocking title track.

(Tuomas, that's your cue if it's #10)

I was hoping "Strangeways, Here We Come" would chart. That's my favorite Smiths album. Don't remember if it was even nominated.

I do love the Smiths as a singles band. But ranking an album that high that has arguably up to four duds (Frankly Mr. Shankly, I Know It's Over, Never Had No One Ever, Some Girls Are Bigger) versus three killers (Bigmouth, There Is A Light, The Boy With A Thorn) is madness.

I used to really dislike Purple Rain's The Beautiful Ones, Computer Blue and Baby I'm A Star, but I guess they're alright. Just not top 30 material for me. In regards to Thriller, I have these words, "Th' doggone girl is mine..."

In no context is "I Know It's Over" a dud.

11 albums, 10 slots.

Doolittle
Paul’s boutique
Murmur
Thriller
Hounds Of Love
Daydream Nation
Remain In Light
Purple Rain
Sign o’ The Times
Thriller
Nation Of Millions

Paul's Boutique was #13. Pay attention.

you have Thriller twice, problem solved. xp

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)
25. The Clash - Sandinista! [1980] (211 points, 11 votes, 3 first place votes)
24. The Cure - Disintegration [1989] (218 points, 19 votes, 1 first place vote)
23. The Human League - Dare [1981] (219 points, 17 votes, 2 first place votes)
22. My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything [1988] (229 points, 19 votes, 2 first place votes)
21. Paul Simon - Graceland [1986] (237 points, 17 votes, 1 first place vote)
20. The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy [1985] (243 points, 23 votes, 1 first place vote)
19. The Replacements - Let It Be [1984] (252 points, 18 votes, 1 first place vote)
18. Joy Division - Closer [1980] (255 points, 24 votes)
17. Kate Bush - The Dreaming [1982] (269 points, 13 votes, 3 first place votes)
16. New Order - Technique [1989] (273 points, 15 votes, 2 first place votes)
15. Pixies - Surfer Rosa [1988] (273 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)
14. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden [1988] (274 points, 18 votes, 2 first place votes)
13. Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique [1989] (291 points, 25 votes, 1 first place vote)
12. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime [1984] (300 points, 15 votes, 3 first place votes)
11. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead [1986] (307 points, 26 votes, 1 first place vote)

really shocked @ no depeche mode

really shocked @ no madonna

Straight Outta Compton
Doolittle
Murmur
Thriller
Hounds Of Love
Daydream Nation
Remain In Light
Purple Rain
Sign o’ The Times
Nation Of Millions

Heh i find this amusing

43. Sonic Youth - EVOL [1986] (143 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote)
42. Hüsker Dü - New Day Rising [1985] (146 points, 14 votes)

31. Sonic Youth - Sister [1987] (199 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)
30. Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade [1984] (200 points, 13 votes)

I voted for all 4

Computer World, not Straight Outta Compton. Mark my words. xxpost

Does that mean Warehouse will come in ahead of Daydream Nation? xxp