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

Tuomas are you posting down to no 11 tonight?

17. Kate Bush - The Dreaming [1982] (269 points, 13 votes, 3 first place votes)

http://www.perrific.com/cds/kate.jpg

she's completely unhinged

i think she's a lot more more in control of her mind than people assume -- it's her ideas that are batty, not her. in interviews she always seems to have a very clear picture of what she wants to do creatively.

― el borracho (Jody Beth Rosen), 28. elokuuta 2006

That's a good way to put it I think - the ideas are batty, not her.

I get the impression that she's a quite ordinary person who simply has different or more flexible notions of what music should involve. There's no specific reason why it's batty for singers to impersonate braying donkeys on record, except that this somehow breaks the unwritten rules of what pop music is and isn't allowed to do.

Actually there was a funny interview recently where she was saying how a friend had told her he loved The Dreaming except for the animal impersonations. And she thought to herself, "But I like the animal parts, I thought they were the best bits!"

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), 28. elokuuta 2006 1:48

i'm really sad she never made a video for "get out of my house" (i mean, despite it not being an obvious choice for a single). i do like to direct people who've seen the "wuthering heights" video to the one for "sat in your lap," which is about 43590345x more bonkers.

um, but as far as the actual music is concerned: the most i really can say is give it time, it'll likely grow on you if you're already sympathetic to her overall creative vision. i loved it nearly instantly and i didn't approach it in the way jbr recommends (singles-first), but the donkey braying and the off-kilter production felicities didn't take long to acclimate myself to. after however-many-listens i still can't really pin down what the hell she's doing but that makes it rewarding as well as occasionally (but by all means not often) frustrating.

― joseph (joseph), 28. elokuuta 2006 2:35

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), 28. elokuuta 2006 3:27 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
the dreaming was the first kate bush album i heard, because my dad bought it on a friend's recommendation or something. i used to sit there with the lyric sheet trying to make sense of it. it's still my favorite of hers. i think it's her weirdest in a lot of ways, although i know that is not in itself an automatic selling point. it's murkier and noisier and artier than hounds, but with at least as many good tunes. i love hounds too, it has its own diaphonous mystery thing going on. i just feel like there's more to claw into on the dreaming.

and the cover!

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), 28. elokuuta 2006 3:43

My votes that have placed so far:
1 - Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless
2 - ABC - The Lexicon of Love
3 - Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85
6 - XTC - Skylarking
11 - Roxy Music - Avalon
13 - The Cure - Disintegration
15 - Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
17 - Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual
22 - Prince - 1999
25 - Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
27 - Cocteau Twins - Treasure

Pretty sure the following will show up:
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Kate Bush - The Dreaming <---------- xpost ding ding ding (thought it would place higher...)
Michael Jackson - Thriller
New Order - Technique
Madonna - s/t
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

The rest fall into two categories at this point: first, the "unlikely but I'm still hoping" albums, and second, the "even as I cast my vote, I knew it wouldn't happen" albums. In the first category:
Joe Jackson - Night and Day
Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

But realistically, Simple Minds aren't going to outscore The Dreaming. (Are they?)

No chance!

If there's no surprises in my schedule I'll probably post 15-11 tomorrow, and the top 10 on Wednesday. Number 16 still to come tonight.

Not when The Cult's Love has yet to place!

Hurrah, Kate has made it after all - there's a weight off my mind. 'Suspended in Gaffa' is amazing, all the more so for being named after gaffer tape.

YES MORE THAN ONE KATE BUSH ALBUM WILL BE IN THE TOP 20

Which Felt record did you vote for?

forever breathes... just because i didn't want to split votes. probably should have gone for both of the albums nom'd

Yeah I went for that one too it's perfect. Strange Idol Patterns would have been just outside for 30.

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

18. Closer (255 points, 24 votes)
17. The Dreaming (269 points, 13 votes)

averaging more than double the points-per-vote

i was starting to be afraid the dreaming wouldn't show up at all. glad it did.

and those points-per-vote aren't surprising. as the kate poll showed, it's the kate bush fan's kate bush album.

I never had any doubt it would. I voted for Hounds of Love, but I could've just as easily voted for The Dreaming.

I didn't think 'The Dreaming' would be so high, I expect 'Hounds of Love' to be top 10 at least, if not top 5.

Not surprised Kate should prompt such deep love, but a little surprised Joy Division don't. Not a single #1 vote for it.

i never understood the appeal of kate bush's singing. liz fraser's voice is so much more angelic. so much more from another world.

I love Liz Frasers voice, I'm still hoping that This Mortal Coil may feature, but it's Kate Bush's sensuality which ultimately winds for me.

um, 'wins' for me.

lol

16. New Order - Technique [1989] (273 points, 15 votes, 2 first place votes)

http://img.maniadb.com/images/album/179/179125_1_f.jpg

Technique may well be the best album of the 80s. It may as well be. In Feb '89 I listened to it on my Walkman each morning on the bus to Redditch, I always remember the piercing winter sunlight being strobed as we passed the bare tree-lined, frosty fields. For New Order's TOTP appearance Barney mimed the "sophisticated laydeeee" bit in Fine Time, that was quite amusing. It sounds so colourful and crisp. I love this album.

― David Merryweather (DavidM), 21. lokakuuta 2003 21:13

I read some weird dismissal of it somewhere recently. I was like 'I thought everyone realised this was the best New Order album??' They seemed to be implying that one just needed a couple of tracks from it.

The whole point of it for me is that it's a whole album. I adore the sweep of it. It's all of a piece. With grinning confidence it introduces itself in the hi-hats of the glorious 'this is where we all are' Fine Time, sets the emotional 'this is where we've come from' note with All The Way and then spins through five perfect whirls of sun-bleached pop, feet never hitting the floor. Is Vanishing Point a shining pinnacle or the comedown? Depends on whether I'm dancing, maybe. Either way, it's the brilliant heart of the album. Then Dream Attack comes along to shoot you through the heart again, an epilogue, the most beautiful of all mornings after.

― N. (nickdastoor), 22. lokakuuta 2003 1:17

Some of the aptest comments on this thread have been about the splendid unity of the album, how it feels of a piece. Listened to it for the first time in a while last night and then again right now and that unity is if anything stronger with time -- and is perhaps further built upon by the album's brevity. I was honestly startled when I noticed that not even half an hour has passed by the start of the next to last song "Vanishing Point," something that honestly struck me and which I don't think I had ever noticed about the album before. In an era of CD bloat and constant complaints about 'only the hits being good,' the briskness is something which stands out all the more -- but even at the time it had to be something notable for its relentless focus.

It's hard to say that there's anything extraneous on the album as a result -- about the only thing I can actually think of that is is intentionally so, that cough and drone at the start of "Love Less," a 'mistake' or fillip that calls attention to itself by being there. Otherwise, the album is rigorously, almost maniacally precise, and though the comparison is not exact I am reminded of the particular precision of much modern day pop, where the beats and space and delivery is so tightly wound and cossetted to achieve an often brilliant perfection. Similarly Technique -- the 'rock' songs do not sprawl, there is no sloppiness, the 'solos' -- think the break on "All the Way" -- fit tightly within the songs, everything is a specific piece to the puzzle. The 'dance' songs similarly seem to draw on everything they had done before and increase the impact to a slippery, endless shifting that is so fantastically and frenetically effortless. "Round and Round" in particular -- after the stop-start-shift of "Fine Time," itself a razor-sharp exercise in element interacting with element and then spinning off from it at a right angle, this is even more insanely spot on. Listen to the difference in rhythms between verses and choruses, how Bernard has a ridiculously good anti-flow flow (and even a call and response with himself at one point, all the more striking for being the sole moment like it -- if it wasn't there it might never have been missed, now that it IS there it can't be ignored), and how nothing STOPS -- everything is pure fluidity at high speed. Compared to, say, the slow burn build of the extended "Perfect Kiss" or the triumphalist progression of "True Faith," this is spiralling choreography that gets more involved as it goes until it smashes into echo and dies.

The division between 'rock' and 'dance' is ultimately artificial though, thus the quotes. The fluidity of this album, how it does feel of a piece, lies in how easy the whole idea between switching from, say, live to synth drums and back again is, how sometimes synths are more prominent and sometimes the guitars are and sometimes it's all a specific balance and then it changes again. It's so ridiculously unforced.

Also, this album is so beautifully bright -- not without darker moments, the unnerving sense of threat and desperate clawing back in "Guilty Partner" led specifically by Peter Hook's bass, but something about it calls to mind the description I read once about eighties pop being an incarnation of the reflection of CD lasers bouncing off glittering cocaine. The high synth melody on the second verse of "Round and Round," the acoustic guitars Dr. C mentions above, the sweet rising/falling electronic chime on "Vanishing Point," much more. Combine that with the sense granted by the album's precision and one can imagine this as a high-flying instance of collage, like the album was never written and conceived as a series of songs in a 'classic' sense, however you wish to define classic.

And then of course there's "Run," their 'John Denver song' -- except John Denver never made me feel so perfectly on-point melancholy as that part Alan talks about way upthread where it all strips back to synth string and drums and then Steven Morris quickly switches to a louder but just as steady beat. Absolutely beautiful.

Quite possibly my favorite album of the eighties at least. One of the best ever for me, definitely.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), 30. heinäkuuta 2004 20:44

Yes!!! I'll take #16.

somehow i like it that new order beat joy division.

That's such a beautiful cover.

there is something optimistic about it: brightness beats darkness. life beats death.

here is the closer cover again as it did not work before (i hope it will appear now):

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s545.jpg

xpost agreed, though I think that the vinyl sleeve of Low Life is my favourite.

So here's what's left...

Remain In Light
Daydream Nation
Doolittle
Surfer Rosa
Thriller
Purple Rain
Sign O the Times
Double Nickels
Paul's Boutique
Straight outta Compton
Murmur
Back In Black
Spirit Of Eden
Nation Of Millions
Mistrial

and Rio!

Maybe Queen is dead instead of Mistrial

Mistrial as in LOU REED Mistrial? No way.

xpost

And Arcadia, So Red The Rose.

Kidding about Mistrial. But I'd love to see Blue Mask finish

Technique may well be the best album of the 80s.

― David Merryweather (DavidM), 21. lokakuuta 2003 21:13

Me of 2003 otm. Which is why I gave it one of the #1 votes. Was really hoping, waiting, praying for a top 10/5/1 placing.
16. Daft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYu2cnei5H0

wasn't somebody whining there wasn't enough wrapping on this list?

Are people really that fond of Mistrial? I'm pretty ambivalent on the album itself, but didn't realize it had a possible fanbase that could squeeze it into this poll (especially this high up).

okay, too many xposts :(

no chance that van halen will make this list?

if Rio doesn't place in a top 100 of the 80's then there's actually no hope for ILM

ok so what youre saying is that master of puppets and reign in blood arent even going to place?

MADNESS WTF

I liked all the New Order albums up until Technique, which I found painful. It's overly busy and brittle, like they realized their peak has passed and they're trying to hard to keep up with trends. I bought a used copy several years ago to give it another chance. It still sounds like a dud.

Wait, speaking of squeezing... there's no SQUEEZE in this poll!

unless i missed them somewhere down the line? xxpost

Can't believe 'Computer World' won't make it, and to a lesser extent 'Bug'.

Haha, what? Think I got the formatting a tad wrong in my last post.

I'm trying of think of an '80s album better than Technique... I just can't.

Mine was the other #1 for Technique. Ned's blurb is brilliant, and makes we wonder what he voted #1 (assuming he voted)?

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

if ned voted in ilx polls we might have seen chameleons in the top 100

...but he doesn't

Can't believe 'Computer World' won't make it, and to a lesser extent 'Bug'.

I really think Computer World might sneak in, I really hope so.

I'm really glad Technique made it in so high although I thought Low-life would be there too, I voted for both.