Acclaimed Music Top 25 from 1979 poll

1979 was the year I started college in Athens, so.

so many great albums! voted 154 because of it being one of the greatest things of all time

i pick the year 1979 out of a hat. when i saw what albums would be listed, i knew it would be a very, very tough poll. now that the votes are rolling in, i really wonder what will win. almost all of these albums are A's and are really, really great.

gotta be neil.

first instinct is London Calling but I really fkn love Highway To Hell

Bon vs Joe FITE

sorry Joe. Bon it is.

Ok I've been 4 hours stuck in the airport and my urge to make lists is overcoming. My top 10 of these albums just because. A really good year for music.

1. Gang of Four - Entertainment!
2. Chic - Risqué
3. Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
4. The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys/Boys Don't Cry
5. The Slits - Cut
5. The Undertones - The Undertones
6. The Clash - London Calling
7. The Specials - Specials
8. Motörhead - Overkill
9. Wire - 154
10. The Police - Reggatta de Blanc

From the ones that didn't make it I like these ones even better, Tusk would be my actual #1 for the year and possibly for the whole decade.

XTC -Drums and Wires
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
David Bowie - Lodger
and Blondie - Eat to the Beat.

― Bee OK,

demographics here are weird. would like to know more about the sources aggregated.

Statin the obvious since I think almost everyone in here agrees that Pink Floyd rules but I hate the Wall, at least music-wise. The movie and concept for the live experience are on another level.

Also maybe i like acdc better than the police.

can't believe 20 Jazz Funk Great didn't make the list

UNKNOWN PLEASURES. If it had been twenty years ago, it would've been ARMED FORCES.

/miserablist

xp It's probably somewhere in the top 50. Same w/ Half Machine Lip Moves. One of my favourite albums of all time, The Fall's Dragnet, is missing too...

I think almost everyone in here agrees that Pink Floyd rules

How ILM has changed!

Not that album. Some great guitar work, but I can't listen to THE WALL anymore.

RYM's '79 toplist, surprisingly similar:

1) Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
2) The Clash - London Calling
3) Pink Floyd - The Wall
4) Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps
5) Talking Heads - Fear of Music
6) Gang of Four - Entertainment!
7) Neil Young - Live Rust
8) Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East: Live in Japan
9) Ramones - It's Alive
10) Wire - 154
11) UFO - Strangers in the Night
12) Motörhead - Overkill
13) AC/DC - Highway to Hell
14) Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box
15) Muddy Waters - Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live
16) Elvis Costello - Armed Forces
17) The Specials - Specials
18) The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
19) Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material
20) Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Luben Yordanoff et al)
21) The B-52's - The B-52's
22) Thin Lizzy - Black Rose: A Rock Legend
23) Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
24) The Jam - Setting Sons
25) XTC - Drums and Wires

Whaaaat? ILM list has no tusk!? The wall in the top 3!? I demand a recount.

here are some of my favorite albums from 79

Heldon - Stand By
Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
Gunter Schickert - Uberfallig
Earthstar - French Skyline
Motorhead - Overkill
Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Wire - 154
PiL - Metal Box
This Heat - This Heat
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick

xp to contenderizer - Yeah, very strange that they should be so identical. There are a lot of really popular albums all the way up through the 200s and 300s if you look at the full RYM 1979 list.

205. Earth Wind and Fire - I Am
209. Van Halen II
231. Simple Minds - Real to Real Cacaphony
243. Abba - Voulez-Vous
263. E.L.O. - Discovery
325. Get the Knack
346. The Romantics - s/t
356. Led Zeppelin - In Through the Out Door
374. Adam and the Ants - Dirk Wears White Sox
375. Prince - s/t

Etc., etc.

205. Earth Wind and Fire - I Am

Would've voted.

It's just odd, when we're talking about 400 albums, that things that seem a little niche to me like Stiff Little Fingers or Motorhead are top twenty-five on both.

dang, was gonna post something just like that list, tim. anyway, i agree. the nature of the commonality is odd: anglophilic, heavily privileging punk and post-punk over whatever else was going on at the time. this makes sense, as those were the freshest sounds of the moment, but there was a lot of other stuff going on. also from '79:

Donna Summer - Bad Girls
Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones
Bee Gees - Spirits Having Flown
Sister Sledge - We Are Family
Journey - Evolution
Sugarhill Gang - Sugarhill Gang
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Nice Guys
Ornette Coleman - Soapsuds Soapsuds
Black Uhuru - Showcase
Devo - Duty Now for the Future

I guess if Acclaimed Music uses RYM numbers in their calculations, that would make sense.

They don't.

I think almost everyone in here agrees that Pink Floyd rules

lol no.

Wow, what a good year. Really puts recent years to shame, imo. I'm afraid I have to pass over some really great and classic albums that I love for either Metal Box or B-52's, which are two of my all-time favorites. God only knows which one will actually win out, though.

RYM voters can be peculiar. The soundtrack for Empire Strikes Back is listed as the 8th best album of 1980, lol.

And it's not like there was a dearth of musical choices here...

Impossible choice. I've tried to pick one at least five times and just get hung up in "but...but..." Even if Tusk was on the list, I'd click it and then regret not clicking at least five others.

I think almost everyone in here agrees that Pink Floyd rules

How ILM has changed!

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, 2 June 2012 04:47 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, more American. Agree that "The Wall" is shit.

I'm American. The Wall is (half) shit.

The Wall has some decent disco-metal

I love love love Pink Floyd. Not so crazy about the band that wore the skin of Pink Floyd's corpse after Syd Barrett left.

(But yeah, at the very least, 50% of it is like the worst prog ever)

xp yeah, um they had a good run up til at least Meddle

I haven't listened to The Wall in ages. If anything, I remember it as an AOR move more than anything else.

I don't understand "My My, Hey Hey"/"Hey Hey, My My". They'd make sense if he were singing about Sid Vicious. However, Johnny Rotten had clearly not 'burnt out'. In fact, he released a high-profile album in the same year, as shown on this list. If Neil was actually referring to PiL as burnout, however, then those are classic and I should probably vote for Rust Never Sleeps.

I'm wondering if I should actually vote for AC/DC. Hillage would easily take my vote if it were on the list.

Oh, I guess 'Johnny Rotten' had died and been replaced by John Lydon? That makes a certain kind of sense, nm.

the wall definitely has moments, but it's at least half turgid, ugly monstrosity. the first pink floyd album i can't honestly say i like (though i'm on the fence about animals, too). hell of a lot better than the final cut, though.

I actually find it a little surprising how popular The Wall is, considering that its narrative would seem to be hard for the average person to relate to. Maybe it's all about the massive singles.

i think a lot of people really do relate to angsty, narcissistic bombast, whatever the context

i voted for risque but i should have voted for the pop group

i'm pretty sure lydon has expressed extreme annoyance about the neil young song more than once down the years.

i've come to like post-barrett floyd but i never could get into any of 'the wall.' feels like a dumbed-down version of their best stuff.

I forgot how great some of the stuff on 154 is. It only occurred to me how proto-Radiohead "A Touching Display" is. I think this album might actually hold up better for me than Unknown Pleasures, surprisingly.

"only occurred to me now"

Kind of a weak year, IMO, at least for albums. Surprising, since it seems like so much was going on around that time. I guess I'd vote for B-52s.

yeah '79 looks kind of like a falloff compared to '77 and '78.

A weak year based on these lists? I don't know how someone could look at the top 1,000 albums from '77, '78, and '79 and make any comparative judgment at all.

yeah that seems unbearably wrong. 79 is one of my favorite years easy.

If no one votes for Y, I will be very sad.

"Armed Forces"

As my tastes go, looking at the top 50 albums on Acclaimed Music, 1977 does seem like a much better year while 1976 is about unbeatable.

Voted AC/DC in the end. Chic is good though.

As my tastes go, looking at the top 50 albums on Acclaimed Music, 1977 does seem like a much better year while 1976 is about unbeatable.

yeah, but why would you want to use some bullshit aggregator site's top lists as a basis for comparison?

Entertainment over 154 by a smidge.

Dan Peterson that is

oh shit I forgot about "6060-842"

Your number's been disconnected
Your number's been disconnected
Your number's been disconnected
Your number's been disconnected

Wow, "52 Girls"... I guess I need this record.

Another track which may convert the unconverted: the longer alternate mix of "Cake' from Mesopotamia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu1cgHWI6iM

Love how virtually overnight ILM has come to regard itself as an enclave of massive B-52's worship

Ten years ago, before my time here, the worshippers were outnumbering the naysayers by a pretty wide margin.

B-52s: Classic or Dud.

See, "Rock Lobster" on SNL was epic but "Love Shack" was a piece o' crap as far as I'm concerned.

The phoenix-like rebirth of The B's after Ricky's death, and the massive mainstream success of the Cosmic Thing album, is heartwarming and wonderful to me. And I still love Love Shack.

― Such A Hilbily (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 10 June 2009 20:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

True for me two years ago, true today.

Three years ago!

Cosmic Thing is still one of my favourite 80s albums. Bouncing has a lot of gems as well.

Cosmic Thing is fine (I loved it when I was in jr. high), but I love introducing people who are only really familiar with that later period to the early stuff. I rep hard for the first three albums + Mesopotamia (which is a close second to their debut in my esteem and one of the best EPs ever).

Actually I'm willing to bet Mesopotamia is right up my alley.

Didn't see this until just now. I'd probably have voted for Off the Wall, but The B-52s is a close second.

Love how virtually overnight ILM has come to regard itself as an enclave of massive B-52's worship

i have been a massive enclave of B-52's worship since fall quarter 1980