Acclaimed Music Top 25 from 1979 poll

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Oh, I guess 'Johnny Rotten' had died and been replaced by John Lydon?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.

What makes it bullshit? The lack of transparency about its algorithms?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

If those 25 albums were the only albums I owned, I'd be pretty satisfied. I'm glad they're not, of course, but hypothetically - I could live with these.

I saw Waters do "The Wall" last year, and it may have been the first time I'd heard the album (as such) in almost 25 years. It was weird how much of it I had forgotten about but immediately remembered. (Still don't really like it, but I won't begrudge it its moments).

so i decided to vote for The Cure Three Imaginary Boys/Boys Don't Cry as it got absolutely no love on this thread, so i will be that single vote.

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

Only because it's the poll we're discussing and voting on.

i don't care about 'acclaimed music,' but many times i've looked at my favorite albums of 76, 77, 78 and then 79, and seen way more albums i am fanatical about in each of the first three years than in the latter. that's all i'm saying.

i mean 78 may be my favorite year of the decade and 79 my least favorite, albums-wise.

Only because it's the poll we're discussing and voting on.

Otherwise, I basically never think about music in this way, especially since plenty of music I care about is written on paper and then performed or recorded at various times by various people.

Undertones. (but only the late-'79 release with "Teenage Kicks" and "Get Over You" on it - I didn't know until now that early pressings didn't have those two essential singles on it).

B-52's and Marianne Faithfull runners-up.

Boys Don't Cry was released well into 1980, not sure why it's on this list, even if five of its tracks were recycled from the previous year's Three Imaginary Boys

I assume it's because it was the US debut of that material. The same way you might list The Clash's UK/US self-titled first album together as a 1977 release, even though it did not have a Stateside release until 1979, and then with a modified track listing.

It was their US debut, but the same album with the same track listing was also released in the UK a few months later in the summer of 1980

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Very happy that B-52's squeaked it out over the Clash

bullshit

Ha. Yeah, that's about right. I love London Calling but I LOVE the first B-52's album.

Looks good to me. Love the first two in that order, though Highway To Hell would be in third.

lol joy division, fuck is wrong with y'all

i'll take unknown pleasures over b-52s and london calling

though i'll take cosmic thing and clash s/t over unknown pleasures

voted rust. the only album i haven't heard of this list is the pop group, but even the albums i think are overrated (london def being one) have some golden tracks on them.

i guess i wasn't the only one to vote for the cure.

this order seems like the ranking ILM would have with only two albums not getting any votes.

nice, was hoping the B-52's would take this