ILX decides the Poll. 70s Rock Poll vs 70s all genre poll.

I'm prob repeating myself now but really I don't why this has to be a difficult process. In my head it works like -
(1) People nominate albums that they think should be included in the poll
(2) If an album nominated feels like a bit of a borderline case, there will prob be a bit of discussion with people making some arguments as to whether it does or doesn't rock (these can be interesting and don't have to involve people shouting at each other).
(3) AG then gets the final say as to whether the nominations are accepted as he's the one running the poll.
Can't see why anyone would have a problem with that?

stirmonster do you agree then an all-genre poll but we trust everyone to vote in the albums that rock style of the 80s poll to get good results?
xp

xp or as Edward usefully put it in the other thread 'just nominate it dudes, it if gets shot down you can tell yr therapist about it'.

sure AG. also agree with the above that it's your poll so you should have final say. i've run out of things i want to talk to my therapist about anyway.

xp or as Edward usefully put it in the other thread 'just nominate it dudes, it if gets shot down you can tell yr therapist about it'.

― Sock Puppets II (Mr Andy M)

This is def. my attitude as well. Make yer case, and if the Emperor of Rock Polls goes thumbs-down, OH WELL -- it's not like we're going to have a shortage of other polls in the future...

But then again I'm AGs friend and have a similar "arbitrary" outlook on what rawks. I think we pretty much only disagree on Rush.

no you like Yes and Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull and ELP

Well hell, JT won a Metal grammy - isn't that rawking?? ;P

Who let Chuck on the voting panel that year?

The National Association for the Promotion of Flute Solos.

If Gentle Giant don't rock then Battles and King Crimson - Discipline don't rock.

yes you are correct, none of those 3 rock

jethro tull rocks only because of aqualung. as we determined on the other thread they are the iron maiden of prog.

ELP, eh.

I mean nobody cried because marillion was missing from the 80s poll

edward wanna help run the poll?

you and hellhouse were the ones who understood what i was after with the 80s poll from the off and you can help weed out the albums that dont rock that might slip by me (like happened in 80s poll) if we do go the rock poll route.

shouldn't these polls have to wait in the queue like the rest of them?

― la goonies (k3vin k.), Friday, October 5, 2012 9:08 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these arent artist polls k3vin

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Friday, October 5, 2012 9:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fyi that doesn't matter -- if you look at the queue Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls there are several past and future polls that are entire genres or not limited to single artists (including Disco and "The Classic Rock Canon," which would arguably be a suitable tracks poll companion to this one). the polls in that queue also take a break to give the end of year albums/tracks polls breathing room. none of this stuff is really enforced but imo you should really just get in line with everybody else instead of doing two giant polls in a row without any regard to the system that dozens of other people have had no problem operating within.

and have you and kevin said the same thing on the electronic polls that have been running?

i dunno if k3v has -- i haven't been one to force the issue but i felt like saying something since you batted off his question with faulty logic

more than anything i'm just dreading you plowing ahead with '90s and '00s polls right after the '70s one

don't forget the 10s one.

poor some dude, such troubles

the problem with acting "above it all" on a message board is you have to get your own hands dirty with trivial bullshit in order to zing other people for talking about trivial bullshit

haha i am 'above' openly and repeatedly agonizing at the possibility someone will run a poll of 90s rock albums on ilx. not afraid to get my 'hands dirty' though.

i repeatedly agonized over the 90s poll? w/e man.

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

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

Can we unlock the other thread now so I can nominate some Cactus?

edward wanna help run the poll?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Saturday, October 6, 2012 4:44 PM (6 hours ago)

I'm a lil drunk right now so sure why not

if we do a 'rock' poll we need to decide the parameters. I think sund4r said i probably mean fm rock rather than rolling stone. And hes probably right. or maybe a mix of fm rock/rs/mojo.

Its just hard to do a 70s version of the 80s poll. Things were so much more blurred then.

I just cant but help think allow nominations of any kind of rock (or even any genre) and just hope people go for the more acid fried rock of early funkadelic/black rock with punk/harder post punk/proper out there stuff like Chrome and DIJ and NWW and co that got in the 80s poll.

I honestly do not see a point in a poll with styx or journey or foreigner (nothing against them but theyre in shitloads of 70s lists) yet i cant really say hey vote for the isley brothers and exclude them.
an all-genre or at least loosely rock based poll but hope ppl vote for the harder/weirder/experimental/fuck you stuff like in the 80s poll.
But then you get hit with the "i want disco i want reggae i want salsa" type stuff.

I honestly just dont know.

Anyone got any ideas we can try agree on? Remember the poll is to be fun, crazy results and introduce a lot of music that gets ignored to wider ilx as well as celebrate some obvious classic albums. But we dont need a top 100 of the same old albums either. Its been done twice on ilm.

Thanks edward btw.

And as for heavy rock. Who decides whats heavy rock? Things that were heavy then aren't now.

Its just not as clearcut as the 80s poll was for rock.

And the reason the 80s poll turned out as it did was because a lot of stuff wasn't allowed to be nominated. If it had been allowed the results would have been different. But clearly it did put off some from participating.

I think it'd help to look at it on a genre by genre (or subgenre by subgenre) basis? Like look at the parameters for funk, for fusion stuff, for punk or whatever.

I just cant but help think allow nominations of any kind of rock (or even any genre) and just hope people go for the more acid fried rock of early funkadelic/black rock with punk/harder post punk/proper out there stuff like Chrome and DIJ and NWW and co that got in the 80s poll.

This could work too - I know in the '80s poll I was quite strict and eschewed some favourites on the basis that I didn't feel they rocked enough. Not everyone is going to agree with my definition of rocking though, obviously.

Well first of all it's worth remembering that we don't have to rush in to this, there's plenty time to thresh out parameters itt before we go any further.
Also something that occurred to me - if & when we reopen the nomination thread it might be useful to include quotes from/links to the parameters that were set up for the 80s poll, maybe also the results of the 80s poll too, that way people joining in will have some idea of the aesthetic we're looking for and hopefully nominations would be guided in a sensible direction.

Posting at length in a meta discussion about how to run a poll = I feel like I belong here now. ;)

Its just hard to do a 70s version of the 80s poll. Things were so much more blurred then.

I just cant but help think allow nominations of any kind of rock (or even any genre) and just hope people go for the more acid fried rock of early funkadelic/black rock with punk/harder post punk/proper out there stuff like Chrome and DIJ and NWW and co that got in the 80s poll.

I honestly do not see a point in a poll with styx or journey or foreigner (nothing against them but theyre in shitloads of 70s lists) yet i cant really say hey vote for the isley brothers and exclude them.
an all-genre or at least loosely rock based poll but hope ppl vote for the harder/weirder/experimental/fuck you stuff like in the 80s poll.
But then you get hit with the "i want disco i want reggae i want salsa" type stuff.

you're OTM re: "things were so much more blurred then". my 10 cents (ha!): a number of books covering punk and postpunk and no wave of the 70s refer to the disco, electro, dub, funk, etc. influences of the music, acknowledging them w/out delving further into the matter b/c they’re are simply not the topic at hand. in other words, excluding these various types of non-rock-based music is somewhat necessary f/focus. I think what you’re looking for is an exploded view of hard rock that is in some ways a map to the present. to that end, I would include hard rock, psych, krautrock, punk, postpunk (including early industrial, no wave and even new wave, which before the 80s tends to be weird and interesting), and any music that is heavy and substantially rock-based, “noisy” (ie: aesthetically aggressive) anti-rock, or hybrid music that rocks hard enough to fit v. comfortably within rock parameters. for instance, there was a lot of free/out/underground jazz in the 80s, but the 80s list had only Naked City and Massacre (and maybe a couple of others I'm overlooking), both of which have clear ties w/no wave/punk. admittedly, there’s a lot more “fusion” in the 70s, especially of the jazz-rock variety. you also have the “problems” of VU, who are a seminal punk influence but not always rocking, and the Stones, who have a handful of influential recs and a lot of crap. f/the Stones, I might include anything up through and including Exile (and that’s it). f/VU, most of their real work was IMO done in the 60s, so I might either exclude them as being somewhat irrelevant f/a 70s poll, or perhaps just include their live documents like 1969 Velvet Underground Live w/Lou Reed, which do indeed rock. re: jazz-rock fusion like Miles, doesn’t his “rock-ish” era basically just encompass three recs (Bitches Brew, Live Evil, On the Corner)? I suppose similar judgments could be made re: other fusion recs. you can see that I’m basically laying out the approach of the selective discography (generally by aesthetic period).

I would, as per my krautrock/postpunk inclusion, include Can, but also Throbbing Gristle, NWW, Gary Numan, etc. I would also consider the Residents and other art bands, as they operated within/pushed back against a rock framework (and are part of this imaginary map to the present). again, I think that you’re going f/an Exploded 70s Hard Rock Map to the Present. at least that’s what I’d be trying to go for. you may have an entirely different approach in mind. I would also throw out “rock” that is more “folk” or “prog” than rock, as well any mainstream recs operating p. clearly w/in rather established singer-songwriter/vaudeville/showtune/showbiz parameters (f/me that would mean goodbye to Springsteen and Randy Newman and Jackson Brown and maybe Bob Segar; idk, it all gets into alien territory f/me, so I can only speak v. generally about this crap). as f/Styx, Journey, Foreigner, Boston, etc., I suppose that you could let people nominate mainstream hard rock in the same way that they were allowed in the 80s poll to nominate Bon Jovi and Van Halen, and the voters can decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not these recs in a sense bring us to the present or represent aesthetic dead ends. just throwing some ideas out there, feel free to use or not use any or all of them.

I honestly do not see a point in a poll with styx or journey or foreigner (nothing against them but theyre in shitloads of 70s lists) yet i cant really say hey vote for the isley brothers and exclude them.
an all-genre or at least loosely rock based poll but hope ppl vote for the harder/weirder/experimental/fuck you stuff like in the 80s poll.
But then you get hit with the "i want disco i want reggae i want salsa" type stuff.

I may be totally off-base with this assumption, but I'll bet there are plenty of people on this board who have never actually listened to a Styx or Bad Company record all the way through, who have just heard the big singles on rock radio and beer commercials and feel like they know the band (which of course one one level they do). If one of the overarching aims of this poll is truly to introduce people to new-to-them music, then I think there's room to explore here.

One of the things I loved about the '80s poll is the way it unearthed a lot of stuff that is both slightly too old for people my age (early 30s) to have been involved with during its time and not quite at the level of canonization for people my age to have necessarily checked out later. I guess I feel like early postpunk and "protopunk" and krautrock has all been pretty much thoroughly canonized, anthologized, etc, in certain circles, at least far, far beyond the degree to which much of the most interesting stuff on the '80s poll has been. Maybe that's not the case for younger listeners who don't remember as well the whole krautrock and postpunk revivals of the recent past, but I dunno. (Maybe listeners 8-10 years older than me felt similarly about the '80s poll?)

Either way, my hope for this '70s poll would not just be to rehash a bunch of alternate-canon '70s records from various genres that only qualify as rock by some "clever" "stretching" of the notion, but to really explore the roots of punk, hard rock, proto-metal, post-garage, straight-up butt rock, stomping swamp rock, etc. This poll runs the danger of many of us just patting ourselves on the back from liking all these art bands that are really just as firmly canonized in their alternate canons as Springsteen and the Stones are in the world of Rolling Stone and FM radio.

lol, I was thinking of an "exploded" diagram, which may not really apply to a map, so maybe refer to it as an Expanded 70s Hard Rock Map to the Present or w/e (no matter what it'll be a freeze-frame of a car-wreck-in-progress).

xp

x-post

Also, I love Miles Davis's '70s work with a fierce burning intensity, but the only records that I think maginally qualifies for this poll are Aghartha and Pangaea. People talk about Bitches Brew having "rock influences" and all that, blah blah, but if you actually LISTEN to the damn thing it is about as far from rock as you can get.

Just because there's a guitar involved doesn't mean the music is in any sense rock music. That's like saying a sax makes something jazz.

Hellhouse, I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think the danger in drawing such an exploded diagram is that it potentially involves a sketchy reliance on the power of influence.

I would also throw out “rock” that is more “folk” or “prog” than rock, as well any mainstream recs operating p. clearly w/in rather established singer-songwriter/vaudeville/showtune/showbiz parameters (f/me that would mean goodbye to Springsteen and Randy Newman and Jackson Brown and maybe Bob Segar; idk, it all gets into alien territory f/me, so I can only speak v. generally about this crap).

This one's easy for me; Newman doesn't rock, Seger does!

Either way, my hope for this '70s poll would not just be to rehash a bunch of alternate-canon '70s records from various genres that only qualify as rock by some "clever" "stretching" of the notion, but to really explore the roots of punk, hard rock, proto-metal, post-garage, straight-up butt rock, stomping swamp rock, etc. This poll runs the danger of many of us just patting ourselves on the back from liking all these art bands that are really just as firmly canonized in their alternate canons as Springsteen and the Stones are in the world of Rolling Stone and FM radio.\

I'm not sure if you're addressing any of my particular arguments, but I don't think we really disagree. when I say "punk" or "postpunk" I'm obv not just talking about throwing in the token Sex Pistols, Clash and PIL records, but rather going much further underground into, again, industrial and other noise-related weirdness.

regarding Styx, Boston, Foreigner, you're essentially talking about a "deep cuts" approach to well-known recs (lol at AOR talk), which might more usefully be employed in a tracks poll. the other issue is that because the 70s are now roughly forty years ago, almost everything has been "canonized" by someone, but I think that AG wants to make a hybrid canon that breaks out of the traditional classification ghettos while still maintaining a rock underpinning. more-or-less, I think that including music that has already been "canonized" (if even on a smaller, more specialized level that might contradict the all-encompassing notion of canon), is inevitable. that being said, yeah, the emphasis should be on introducing as much "undiscovered" music as possible (though w/any hybrid canon everyone will find a bit of undiscovered music).
'

Also, I love Miles Davis's '70s work with a fierce burning intensity, but the only records that I think maginally qualifies for this poll are Aghartha and Pangaea. People talk about Bitches Brew having "rock influences" and all that, blah blah, but if you actually LISTEN to the damn thing it is about as far from rock as you can get.

Just because there's a guitar involved doesn't mean the music is in any sense rock music. That's like saying a sax makes something jazz.

this is exactly why I made my particular suggestion; it's IMO a workable compromise between the pro- and anti- Miles camps.

Hellhouse, I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think the danger in drawing such an exploded diagram is that it potentially involves a sketchy reliance on the power of influence.

not sure exactly what you're talking about here.

Also, I love Miles Davis's '70s work with a fierce burning intensity, but the only records that I think maginally qualifies for this poll are Aghartha and Pangaea. People talk about Bitches Brew having "rock influences" and all that, blah blah, but if you actually LISTEN to the damn thing it is about as far from rock as you can get.

Just because there's a guitar involved doesn't mean the music is in any sense rock music. That's like saying a sax makes something jazz.

I'll also say that I'm not in any way a Miles expert. if he has a different period, or group of touchstone recs that most people agree are closer to rock than the three I mention above, then I would obv suggest going w/those. my real point is, again, the notion of a selective discography based around periods when it comes to borderline artists (or, if absolutely necessary, individual recs, though this is something of a last resort b/c of the inherently contentious nature of trying to include only one rec).

all these art bands that are really just as firmly canonized in their alternate canons as Springsteen and the Stones are in the world of Rolling Stone and FM radio.

this actually brings up the v. real issue of the necessity f/an "alt." canon re: the 70s. it's possible that the passage of time has been such that most sectors of 70s rock have been mapped, and that more useful alt. canons can (and should) focus on the 90s and 00s. of course, there's a difference between saying that "everyone" knows about postpunk and saying that "everyone" knows that Throbbing Gristle's First Annual Report is fucking great. and, of course, the paradox is that while the lengthy passage of time means that quite a bit of of excavation has been conducted, it also means that there are more and more people to whom the 70s are v. far off and alien. splitting the diff, I think that giving an oddball canon like the one I've described would still be useful and interesting, but there are prob. people who might think a true alt. canon would right off the bat boot Zep, Sabbath, Stooges and Pistols.

I would, as per my krautrock/postpunk inclusion, include Can, but also Throbbing Gristle, NWW, Gary Numan, etc. I would also consider the Residents and other art bands, as they operated within/pushed back against a rock framework (and are part of this imaginary map to the present). again, I think that you’re going f/an Exploded 70s Hard Rock Map to the Present. at least that’s what I’d be trying to go for.

I think I have a problem with including the art bands that feel like they're just playing with rock-as-form. I used to really prize music that could "wrily comment on rock" or whatever, but I've lost a lot of that. I'd much rather listen to (and heap praise upon) a band that can actually just inhabit rock and do it really well. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, as I think Can and Faust both rock pretty mightily when they want to. But the Residents? No way. Nor NWW. That's, to me, the danger of defining the parameters of this poll in a micro-genre way or a super-specific way rather than a looser, more intuitive, more direct "does this rock?" way. It strikes me that you'd have to do a fair bit of intellectual calisthenics to say that the Residents rock. I'm not necessarily satisfied with the circularity of it all (it's in if it ROCKS), but I do think there's a certain level on which the '80s poll reflected a collective intuition about rocking that we are having a lot more difficulty achieving thus far with the '70s.

x-post to Hellhouse: I think you're OTM about "it's possible that the passage of time has been such that most sectors of 70s rock have been mapped"... That's one of the things I think that's making it hard for us! But I just know there's a ton of stuff out there that fewer of us know about. The problem is, it's even more hidden than the '80s stuff if it's neither part of the canon nor the alternate canons. I mean, I think someone like Scott could pull 20 records out of the ether in 30 seconds that would blow our minds and that we've never heard or likely even heard of. I mean, I just bought my first Uriah Heep record the other day, and they were a huge band. It rocks!

A Tribute to Jack Johnson is the most rock Miles, right?

I'll have much more to say when I have a moment later on.

I think I have a problem with including the art bands that feel like they're just playing with rock-as-form. I used to really prize music that could "wrily comment on rock" or whatever, but I've lost a lot of that. I'd much rather listen to (and heap praise upon) a band that can actually just inhabit rock and do it really well. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, as I think Can and Faust both rock pretty mightily when they want to. But the Residents? No way. Nor NWW. That's, to me, the danger of defining the parameters of this poll in a micro-genre way or a super-specific way rather than a looser, more intuitive, more direct "does this rock?" way. It strikes me that you'd have to do a fair bit of intellectual calisthenics to say that the Residents rock. I'm not necessarily satisfied with the circularity of it all (it's in if it ROCKS), but I do think there's a certain level on which the '80s poll reflected a collective intuition about rocking that we are having a lot more difficulty achieving thus far with the '70s.

I know what yr. saying, but f/the 80s poll AG v. specifically accepted nominations like SPK and Neubauten and DAF, b/c even though they don't necessarily rock in trad sense, they're engaged in an aggressive aesthetic dialogue w/rock that in a sense constructs rock (in its "fuck-you" essence, or as I mention in the 80s album rollout thread, "[from] a distillate of the contrarian euphoria of rock and roll") out of anti-rock. this is obv v. different from a band like REM that simply takes a straightforward but v. light approach to rock. I'm not saying that you're wrong, btw, I'm just trying to convey my understanding of the parameters of the 80s poll.

Including transgressive non-rock things really overemphasizes transgression as a significant factor in rock.

I haven't read the Carducci book in twenty years, so I don't remember the extent to which he might have been making this argument, but I'll say this: I've always thought there was too much reactionary response to melodicism as something that counters rock qualities in music. One example would be the Bobby Fuller Four and the Remains, who were a couple of the most bad-ass bands of their time.

I understand the premise of light vs. heavy, but the melodicism argument is more about light vs. dark. The Raspberries were sunshine but they were heavy.

Come on you titans of intellect! I want someone to start gunning for Dark Magus and Get Up With It to be included. All I can weakly offer is that Miles alienated the jazz purists so it must be rock! It would be very offside and even slightly suspect to include Can/omit Miles. I have just blasted out Honky Tonk on the Bose and can confirm it fucking rocks!