1980'S ROCK POLL ALBUMS/TRACKS VOTING THREAD. (Voting closes September 20) (all welcome to vote inc Lurkers)

Some recordings are horribly quiet and need to be made louder. Just not all recordings need made louder for the hell of it.

I feel sick mouthy should be posting in here. Can't have a loudness war chat without him. It's just not cricket.

Do you all think original 80s cd's sounded better or worse?

You're Living All Over Me is probably the album on this list that suffered the most in its initial CD pressing and improved the most in its more recent reissue

TURN YOUR AMLIFIER UP.

Some recordings are horribly quiet and need to be made louder. Just not all recordings need made louder for the hell of it.

You're 100% right. I'm not actually an audiophile purist when it comes to these things. For instance, I would gladly take fuller, louder (even slightly clipped!) SST records over what's currently available. My only original point is that records seem to be remastered at a much faster pace these days, and for sometimes dubious reasons, and that I'm not surprised that an initially exciting remastering job seems less-than-great over an extended listening period.

I'm also under the impression that Reign in Blood has been remastered about ten times, but I can't find the info atm.

Bowie albums seemed to get remastered every 2 years for a period

Elvis Costello is the absolute worst for this.

yeah but who buys Elvis Costello albums?

If you hate 80s Rock then this thread is for you CLASSIC POP Magazine - ILM's Ideal Magazine for Old Farts?

yeah but who buys Elvis Costello albums?

― VOTE in the 1980's ROCK POLL PLEASE! (Algerian Goalkeeper), Saturday, September 8, 2012 1:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

stop hatin, EC >>>>>> most of the shit you're reppin itt

He's so boring. I'd rather listen to Ray Charles.

For anyone who hasn't heard it, I'd like to rep for Voivod's Nothingface: I can't think of anything else that sounds quite like this. Manages to synthesize thrash, prog, punk, and postpunk art rock into a spaced-out angular sci-fi math rock that still rocks really hard. On-a-dime stops and starts, choppy chordal inversions, nasal but tuneful vocals. Highlights, nominated on the tracks list: "Missing Sequences", "The Unknown Knows"

Also try the two Sharrock albums for post-Hendrix jazz guitar noise. Seize the Rainbow has plenty of riffing rock. Guitar is more droney guitar smear.

Did you nominate the Fushitsusha and Keiji Haino, Hellhouse? They're great.

Also repping for Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime: Operatic, sample-happy high-concept pomp-metal with virtuosic vocals. Highlight on tracks list: "The Needle Lies". The Fates Warning is worth checking out too.

If you're a longtime poster, Hellhouse, I have a guess as to who you may be.

It was I who nominated them.

Still haven't had a chance to read all the noms here but I already know what my number one choice is going to be; it's also likely no one else's, not even in their top 10, but howandever...

VOIVOD always reminded me nicely of Die Kreuzen

Some albums on a Spotify playlist. Incomplete but it can be added to
http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/4mgtVe8Ccj0qC4K9zldY8D

It's no way complete but please subscribe to it and help out with what is missing.

Kind of funny listening to Evol after all this discussion about Sonic Youth and production and after listening to all these other noisy 80s albums. It's lo-fi but also really 80s in a way: almost like they were trying to get a Cocteau Twins atmosphere with budget gear. All that reverb!

A little surprised that Children of God mostly holds up.

Btw, I'll also rep for Einsturzende Neubauten - "Kalte Sternen", where they actually throw a sugary pop hook behind the buzzing guitars and bracing noise.

Ugh, "Kalte Sterne"

Maybe it was a Joy Division/New Order atmosphere they (or Martin Bisi, most likely) were going for?

Kind of funny listening to Evol after all this discussion about Sonic Youth and production and after listening to all these other noisy 80s albums. It's lo-fi but also really 80s in a way: almost like they were trying to get a Cocteau Twins atmosphere with budget gear. All that reverb!

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Sunday, September 9, 2012 4:45 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah hearing Evol for the first time after some later SY albums what really strikes you is the big cheesy snare drum

Thanks Hellhouse for topping the Spotify playlist up
Everyone should subscribe http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/4mgtVe8Ccj0qC4K9zldY8D

Here's the correct version of Grauzone's Eisbär. It's awesome.

spotify:local:Grauzone:Eisb%c3%a4r:Eisb%c3%a4r:255

http://open.spotify.com/local/Grauzone/Eisb%c3%a4r/Eisb%c3%a4r/255

oh shit just realized it's my own library. Move on, nothing to see here.

i see those SY records pretty much as experiments with recording techniques. funny thing is, prob no other band from that era had a run of 5 or 6 albums sounding so different from each other. the EVOL production is too sterile, sure, but bad moon rising sounds absolutely fucked up in a really amazing way. it's like they tried to make a bombastic sounding record with very limited resources and to achieve those goals they viciously pushed everything into the red and didn't look back. so they ended up having the guitars jumping out from the speakers and these mammoth, bonham kinda sounding drums from a parallel universe or something. the cymbal sound in "society is a hole" always gets me and the bass tone is fantastic all through the record. i think nothing beats BMR in terms of twisted, one of a kind production.

yeah i love that about them, that despite certain very specific hallmarks in the band's sound, they were constantly learning how to sound on record or trying different approaches. i would go as far as to say of their first 10 or 11 full-lengths each one had a pretty distinctly different character to its production compared to its predecessors, with one exception (Goo and Daydream being pretty similar)

Bad Moon Rising is the last of the 80s albums I need to re-listen to for this poll/current revival of obsession. I'm looking forward to it. Does that count as an industrial album btw?

Something I've been thinking about is how much the greater experimentation with e.g. prepared guitar techniques on the band's earliest material (esp the first album) was something they may have just done to compensate for more limited technical proficiency, which they may have abandoned to an extent as they became more comfortable with their instruments and with playing with each other. Thurston has always seemed more passionate about the Ramones and Television than about e.g. Fred Frith or Keith Rowe (favourite albums list: http://www.listology.com/richie-dagger/list/thurston-moores-favorite-albums ). I wonder whether Daydream Nation or even Murray Street may be closer to the album he'd been aspiring to make even early on.

(Also, The Eternal sounds a bit better than I remembered!)

Even if it wasn't Frith and Rowe, it was being passionate about the no wave groups and Branca. Thurston wrote the liner notes to a Swell Maps compilation where he talked about how they seemed to be mixing fairly radical things with, iirc, something like "ahead of its time songcraft awareness," and how that spoke to his own interests at the time.

Another ballot overnight, thanks!

I think we may have got to the 40 ballots point for the albums, thanks!

Sonic Youth – Smart Bar – Chicago 1985

2xlp/ CD / digital

Release Date : November 14, 2012

In August 1985 Sonic Youth were touring across the states following the

release of their recently released LP ‘Bad Moon Rising’. This performance

from August 11, 1985 at Chicago’s Smart Bar was recorded on 4-track

cassette. This live recording consists of much of Bad Moon Rising and early

performances of Secret Girl + Expressway to Yr Skull later to be released on

EVOL, as well as a rare never before released live rendition of Kat ‘N’ Hat.

Mixed and mastered by the band from the original tape source for this double

LP edition w/ download card (or CD or digital edition) along w/ liner notes by Gerard

Cosloy and Sonic Youth engineer Aaron Mullan and photos by Pat Blashill and

Steven Koress and released by Sonic Youth on their own label Goofin’

Records and distributed via Revolver USA.

Sonic Youth – Smart Bar – Chicago 1985

1- Hallowe’en
2- Death Valley ’69
3- Intro/Brave Men Run(In My Family)
4- I Love Her All The Time
5- Ghost Bitch
6- I’m Insane
7- Kat ‘N’ Hat
8- Brother James
9- Kill Yr Idols
10- Secret Girl
11- Flower
12- The Burning Spear
13- Expressway To Yr Skull
14- Making The Nature Scene

Now That's What I Call A Setlist

I'm excited about this.

Just to remind everybody of the Spotify playlist
http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/4mgtVe8Ccj0qC4K9zldY8D

And here is the tracks playlist
http://open.spotify.com/user/1234500846/playlist/1PUCleswca5SrhrBqNMOuD

OK we've barely talked about 80s psych-rock on the thread so it's time to discuss Spacemen 3 , Loop etc.

And no, it's not just a brazen attempt to get Matt M and Hows Life to come to the thread. Oh no.

It wasn't even them who nominated F/i

Thanks, Ned! We now have rid of the unwieldy title ,and no sod got the George Formby reference anyway.

PLAYING WITH FIRE or GTFO.

And it's a pity that GILDED ETERNITY came out in 1990 or 1991, since that's my faaaaave.

You could always do a 90s equivalent of this poll after this one.

We will assume he volunteered

So good: http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Ragin+Full+On/268355