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

look, add whatever you'd like. I don't think I'm way off w/r/t the confusion surrounding the conceptual basis of the poll, and how, at this point, some stability might be beneficial. I'm really not looking for an involved argument about the shifting nature of the RS canon, or w/e. I'm merely saying that making very arbitrary last-minute additions is problematic, which I think you already acknowledge. and RS doesn't just "stand" for boredom, it actively cultivates it with zeal.

making additions to the poll at this point probably won't make a bit of difference either way. I just threw out my off-the-cuff thoughts. I'm actually hoping the poll goes well, and of course I'm really hoping to see some genuinely anti-RS albums and tracks make a good showing.

What do you all think of Spin through the ages and their canon?

See the next time I do a poll will someone remind me that when doing a youtube companion thread, that It should be shortened links only instead of embeds as the threads are murder to open?

What do you all think of Spin through the ages and their canon?

Spin initially positioned itself in the market as the anti-RS, and its lists have always been a little more interesting. the mag was definitely more engaging in the first few years, with the Byron Coley reviews and features on Foetus and whatnot, but it fairly quickly fell in lockstep with the ascendant alt. culture, and I stopped reading shortly after that. now they seem more like Pfork, which at this point is probably more mainstream than RS (a debatable point, but w/e). their recent 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time article is seemingly tailor-made for a noise curmudgeon like myself, but it would've actually had some edge thirty years ago. now it seems weirdly sentimental, and feels a lot like the lists RS was publishing in the 80s (in terms of targeting a very specific demographic). how that list is actually different from the list of tracks that I nominated is a good question without an easy answer. I think that I'm less interested in a classics-for-classics-sake approach (even w/r/t "alt." culture), and more interested in the actual music. but I could also be delusional. to get back to your question, I think that although Spin is more interesting than RS, they still have that stultifying urge to dominate the politics of canonization, which dulls their approach considerably.

I'm pretty damn sure Whiney will be working to change that. Heard lots of good things about recent Spin. The irony being wh smiths no longer stocks it here. It still does Rolling Stone but it stopped selling Spin, Hit Parader, Metal Edge years ago. (do the latter 2 still exist?)

The bigger smiths in big cities may well still stock them btw just not the towns like mine. They only still get The Wire cuz I kicked up a fuss when they stopped getting it.

Music magazines are getting to the stage where its nearly as hard here to buy them as cd's.

Is it any different elsewhere?

I think canonization requires a certain amount of mindless repetition, which results in records like Daydream Nation being pushed as the "best" SY album for over twenty years with nary a dissenting voice. this is why engaging in the politics of canonization is so fucking boring (and why Spin is still so boring, even though it's slightly more interesting than RS).

xxxp

Yeah DN is nowhere near my fave SY.

NME used to push warehouse as the best Husker Du and it's my least fave. Also the queen is dead isnt as good as the debut album to me. So I see what you're getting at. 1st Joy Division is better than Closer i think.

Still, at least people finally realised Sgt Peppers is a pile of shite and Revolver is better.......... except Rolling Stone still thinks Sgt Peppers is best, right?

The thing is, are these magazines just representing what their readers think or are they just influencing them? If you poll most people (inc ilm) they would pick daydream nation for instance.

yeah, well that particular point brings us back to the recent Pfork poll, and the clusterfuck that ensued. I don't really have anything to add to that mess, but w/r/t Daydream Nation, the record's predominance among both critics and listeners has always had a circular nature, and when combined with an almost wholesale lack of criticism from major publications has created a monster (which means it will eventually get knocked down rather forcefully, I imagine).

*which, when combined, ugh

I've never liked Daydream Nation. Sister was the last good one. Anyone who can't hear that doesn't have ears or never heard the first 3 albums.

It's a great record and I'd hate to see it knocked down, but Sister, Evol deserve as much praise. And then there's been great 90s and 00s albums.

I know I'm wasting my time but I'd love to see a couple of Candlemass, Saint Vitus and Trouble albums make our poll so I'm urging the doom metal fans to vote for the key albums in the genre and introduce them to people who have not heard them.

https://www.burningshed.com/covers/large1751.jpg
http://karlssonz.se/images/10859f.gif
http://www.metalkingdom.net/album/cover/d49/19650_saint_vitus_saint_vitus.jpg
http://www.cargo-records.de/cover/00016184.jpg
http://www.herbmusic.net/album/cover/2012/04/4239_trouble_psalm_9.jpg

Actually what a great way to try boost albums. Post a (300x300 preferably) pic of the album cover of the albums you want people to check out/vote for.

In all my previous polls boosting has worked! Just ask aldo & jeff for starters.

xp to a doom metal guy who half agreed with me on sonic youth haha.

Hey Nate the Neurosis album you like before you think they got shit is nominated!

Pedantic shit - The album title is Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, not "Rotten"

also I don't want to rock the boat here, but is that seriously the only nommed Dead Kennedys album?!

yeah you didn't nominate any of them jjj

Try get djp not to do his usual nominate but forget to vote thing too :)

Fucking hell I just assumed they had all been nommed, arrrgghhh

never assume! The nominations period was long enough. More people should have paid attention to the thread and read it more often.

I get the feeling as far as ILM goes for the 80s people generally prefer mainstream rock,pop/synthpop and indie pop.

Actually maybe ilm consensus with the 80s canon is closer than with other decades?

daydream nation was inducted into the library of congress archive of historically important records or w/e

ultimately everyone who isn't the rolling stones gets to have one famous canonical album and in this instance it is apt

wrt the thing itself, it does usefully encapsulate sonic youth......the name, the richter cover, the sprawl of it, the vaulting ambition mostly realized; its structural integrity is greater than any of their other lps

And it's nowhere as good as the two albums before it.

well sylvie and babs by NWW is also not nommed so trust me i am angry at myself for not nomming that, but the dk oversight is kind of a poll-breaking omission imo.

daydream nation was inducted into the library of congress archive of historically important records or w/e

ultimately everyone who isn't the rolling stones gets to have one famous canonical album and in this instance it is apt

wrt the thing itself, it does usefully encapsulate sonic youth......the name, the richter cover, the sprawl of it, the vaulting ambition mostly realized; its structural integrity is greater than any of their other lps

unfortunately, I really don't have time atm to get into this, but the Library-of-Congress BS is just tautological nonsense outside of the realm of aesthetic discourse per se. I would say the record is "numbingly boring" instead of "sprawling". I also know that trad. critics go nuts for those double albums and see the form as inherently more serious than single albums, but SY's musical ambitions by that point had actually shrunk compared with the earlier records. their pop ambitions, though, had soared. and that's my problem with both pop criticism and canon building, which are almost inextricable: they both are heavily engaged w/extra-musical concerns. I like SY the form-destroying rock band, not the SY that writes catchy pop tunes. I don't expect you to agree w/me at all, but this is essentially where I'm coming from. I'm generalizing all over the place b/c I have to run, but I'm essentially looking at SY from the opposite side of the street, so to speak.

Please expand on that later!

unfortunately, I really don't have time atm to get into this, but the Library-of-Congress BS is just tautological nonsense outside of the realm of aesthetic discourse per se

lol heaven forfend the pure realm of 'aesthetic discourse' be infringed

you will have noticed that the LOC citation was wrt the construction of reputation rather aesthetics

Born Too Late was the first album I checked out because of this poll. It's great! (Mercyful Fate's Melissa was the second and is also good. I already knew and loved King Diamond's Abigail.)

It's funny: I was saying all these things about Daydream Nation on this board 12 years ago or so. Now that I'm nowhere near as much of a SY fanatic, I enjoy throwing on DN sometimes as just this epic rock album, something like an alternative Zep IV, which was how I originally liked it when I was 16. Looking at it that way, I was thinking of ranking it #1 on my ballot. Evol still moves and impresses me more, although I never really think of it as a 'rocking' album. I think "Schizophrenia" is the single best song they ever did.

ha that is scarily close to how my thoughts abt sonic youth have developed

If you dig Born Too Late Then make sure you listen to Saint Vitus (wino isn't on it but it's awesome) V is great too

And do check out all the Candlemass and Trouble albums as they're essential and rank in every doom top 10 ever.

Actually the 1st Candlemass and Trouble albums do get in most metal top 100s. Though I doubt they sold many, but their influence was massive for sure.

I tried to nominate as many things as I could but I have some pretty big blinders -- most of the stuff I thought of nominating turned out to actually have been made in the early 90s. I'm pretty stoked that Re*Ac*Tor is nominated, though!

btw I am still working on the albums playlist but I'm only to the Cs...

I hope it's finished by the end of voting!

I'm deep in the D's now!

Counting really quickly, I've heard about 88 of the nominated albums in their entirety. I'm working through the Saint Vitus debut right now, which is awesome.

Told ya!

They ruffled some feathers being on SST and supporting Black Flag. Nowadays all the vitus fans i know are flag fans too

Some Dude are you checking any albums out?

::rolls eyes, sighs loudly, turns off the laptop, goes to bed::

not last night then he didnt(which is what i was asking but n/m)

unfortunately, I really don't have time atm to get into this, but the Library-of-Congress BS is just tautological nonsense outside of the realm of aesthetic discourse per se. I would say the record is "numbingly boring" instead of "sprawling". I also know that trad. critics go nuts for those double albums and see the form as inherently more serious than single albums, but SY's musical ambitions by that point had actually shrunk compared with the earlier records. their pop ambitions, though, had soared. and that's my problem with both pop criticism and canon building, which are almost inextricable: they both are heavily engaged w/extra-musical concerns. I like SY the form-destroying rock band, not the SY that writes catchy pop tunes. I don't expect you to agree w/me at all, but this is essentially where I'm coming from. I'm generalizing all over the place b/c I have to run, but I'm essentially looking at SY from the opposite side of the street, so to speak.

― Hellhouse, Saturday, September 1, 2012 7:36 PM (Yesterday)

didn't reply to this in full earlier so

if u don't actually listen to rock music that much, it is striking to find all of these betrayal narratives and essentialist fallacies

they were releasing madonna covers years before daydream nation, they were fully invested in that west-coast pop maudit shtick, karen carpenter, charles manson & the age of aquarius (death valley 69 then expressway...)

so not really 'a form destroying rock band', maybe their very earliest hollowed out no-wave could be described thusly but by the time of evol they were deploying forms in parodic fashion, using strange tunings and so forth but still quite recognisably rock music

daydream nation is a lot more ambitious than either of its predecessors, the weight of a 70s concept rock lp in the service of entropy and dislocation, distended guitar workouts, concrete interludes, thrashy expulsions, the thrill of going nowhere

which summons that tired old question about antonioni 'how do you make a film about ennui without being boring?'......i suppose you don't worry about the ones you lose along the way

This has to be one of the oddest reviews ever: http://www.allmusic.com/album/watashi-dake-mw0001127080

I'm listened to the album a second time now. The first track is mostly vocal with a little feedback. Everything else is clearly noisy electric guitar and voice. I'm not sure there's any piano on this at all. I'm listening to a downloaded copy but the track lengths match up + I checked a clip on Youtube. It doesn't seem like the reviewer was even listening to the same album.

Wouldn't be the first time a hack did that would it?

re: Daydream Nation:

you will have noticed that the LOC citation was wrt the construction of reputation rather aesthetics

it's telling that you would phrase it this way: SY's reputation is ostensibly built upon aesthetics, but the mechanics of canonization IMO involve the establishment of reputation above and beyond aesthetics, so "reputation rather [than] aesthetics" is an inadvertently apt description of the true nature of the record's "importance".

daydream nation was inducted into the library of congress archive of historically important records or w/e

ultimately everyone who isn't the rolling stones gets to have one famous canonical album and in this instance it is apt

wrt the thing itself, it does usefully encapsulate sonic youth......the name, the richter cover, the sprawl of it, the vaulting ambition mostly realized; its structural integrity is greater than any of their other lps

of the seven criteria you mention to bolster your claims for DN's canonicity (LOC, encapsulation, the name, the cover, the "sprawl", the "ambition", the structural integrity), only "vaulting ambition mostly realized" addresses the music per se, and then only abstractly. (“structural integrity” is I think the perception of how the preceding criteria mesh to form a unified impression, which may then be “heard” [recognized, really] in the music; in any event it doesn’t address the strength of the individual tracks allegedly making this whole that is greater than the parts).

essentially, you’re trying to tell me why the record is “important” without discussing the music in any meaningful way. it’s this sort of dislocation/recontextualization of value that is at the essence of canonization, which is why I don’t give a fuck about any of your arguments w/r/t the actual music found on the record.

I recently listened to all of SY’s 80s records for the purpose of this poll, having not heard some of them for years. again I was struck by the intensity, innovation and forceful noise/rock juxtapositions of Confusion is Sex, Kill Yr. Idols, Bad Moon Rising and Evol. by comparison, Daydream Nation sounds so tepid, so half-hearted, so pointless and rote. I’ve always thought that SY were a notably untalented pop band who never had a true taste or ability for catchy hooks and fleet songs like Husker Du or Dinosaur Jr. Daydream Nation’s pop is lumbering, and its noise is tired. the record IMO falls flat by either standard. whenever I listen to it, I find myself wondering why these songs were written, why someone felt they had to be heard. all of the urgency of SY’s earlier music has disappeared, and the record is at best a pleasant diversion. in a sense, DN is like the LOC “honor” itself: it confers value that’s pre-existing, or to put it another way, references value that’s long past. some people actually have a taste for this sort of second-hand representation (often flying under the banner of “refinement”), but I don’t. you don’t agree with me, and that’s fine, but I’m not particularly interested in referencing the band’s “worth” outside of the context of aesthetics.

if u don't actually listen to rock music that much, it is striking to find all of these betrayal narratives and essentialist fallacies
they were releasing madonna covers years before daydream nation, they were fully invested in that west-coast pop maudit shtick, karen carpenter, charles manson & the age of aquarius (death valley 69 then expressway...)

so not really 'a form destroying rock band', maybe their very earliest hollowed out no-wave could be described thusly but by the time of evol they were deploying forms in parodic fashion, using strange tunings and so forth but still quite recognisably rock music

daydream nation is a lot more ambitious than either of its predecessors, the weight of a 70s concept rock lp in the service of entropy and dislocation, distended guitar workouts, concrete interludes, thrashy expulsions, the thrill of going nowhere

which summons that tired old question about antonioni 'how do you make a film about ennui without being boring?'......i suppose you don't worry about the ones you lose along the way

you’re addressing the band as artists, not musicians, and the record as a piece of conceptual art, not a collection of rock songs. this skewed perspective exactly addresses the point that I’m making above: I think that too often pop criticism is really just a branch of literary criticism that is far too involved in privileging ideas about the music over the music itself. I generally listen to rock music the way I listen to techno or house: as riffs and rhythms, as texture, speed, dynamics, weight, volume, dissonance, tone. I’m not particularly interested in SY’s conceptual art strategies, except to the degree that these strategies - in the early years based around notions of channeling the dissonance and aesthetic deconstructions of no wave through more conventional hard rock structures - intensify the music and push it to greater heights. consequently, the early music is forcefully engaged with the mechanics of music while the later music prioritizes the conceptual strategies over the music (ie: the music becomes more pop than rock). I’m not succumbing to an “essentialist fallacy”, I’m talking about the conceptualism serving and feeding the music in the early years and dominating it in the later years. the issue obviously isn’t black-and-white, because we’re dealing with a gradually sliding scale. I’d agree that DN is bearing the weight of “70s concept rock”, but to its detriment. the riffs and rhythms are tired, perhaps because they’re acting as mere placeholders for lame concepts involving semi-ironic retro appropriation of AOR. look, we’re never going to agree on this issue because ultimately I think that we’re using entirely different metrics. you can say all day long that DN as a conceptual package is somehow “more ambitious” than the earlier records, but the actual music patently is not, and in no way supports your argument. the “thrashy expulsions” and “distended guitar workouts” of DN are watery retreads of their earlier work, and as such do indeed “go nowhere”, and the “thrills” derived are so mild-mannered as to seem wholly irrelevant.

we could back-and-forth on this forever, but the bottom line is that you like the record and will place it high on your list, and I won’t. there’s no point in dragging this out ad nauseam.

/DN dead-horse flogging (apologies for the tl;dr post)

You should never apologise for a long post. Its like back in the old days of ILM