TURN THIS MUTHA OUT! It's the Alternate 1970s Albums Poll on ILX — Results Thread

was my first place vote, figured it would be much higher!

lol xxp

I voted for this excellent record. My ballot was unordered which is maybe not very strategic but once I got down to 40 it felt ridiculous to pretend one album was better than another.

One album is always better than another. A scenario to imagine for those who have difficulty with this -- in the next five seconds, all your top 40 albums are going to disappear forever, never to be heard again, save for the one you grab. Repeat as necessary.

(Tie) 65. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) [99 points, 9 votes]

http://i50.tinypic.com/2hp1tog.jpg

[T]he downside to much of post-Meddle Pink Floyd is that the songs are generally more interesting when they were still kicking them around on stage before going in to "properly" record them. Everyone owes it to themselves to track down a 1972 bootleg of DSOTM when it was still called "Eclipse." Radically different in places and occasionally more interesting.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, June 15, 2005 11:44 PM (4 years ago)

The Coldplay of the '70s!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, June 16, 2005 5:26 AM (4 years ago)

i wouldn't consider a top 100 of the seventies complete without pink floyd. dark side of the moon has to be the one.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, April 23, 2005 1:27 PM (4 years ago)

somehow that confuses me

the album with more votes should win any tie, shouldn't it? i can't imagine the other joint-65 getting only 9 votes. DSOTM is beloved of a few ilxors, but it's REALLY beloved

(predictable response time) This is the other top 100?

OK, now there's two albums I really detest here.

I used to hate it, but I enjoy it in a, er, blue moon. I still enjoy this too though: http://www.mr-agreeable.net/story.lasso?section=Reaper&id=51

Pretty astonished "20 Jazz Funk Greats " didn't place on the first poll – I thought that thing had its own church here.

xxp Whats the other one, sonofstan?

gonna guess 'imagine'

(Tie) 65. Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark (1974) [99 points, 9 votes]

http://i47.tinypic.com/4sbjmv.jpg

Both For the Roses and Court and Spark are arguably better than Blue.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, August 29, 2003 9:49 AM (6 years ago)

She's got so much stuff going on in each song, so good, like if Kate Bush was a creepy old lady who made you eat dusty circus peanuts when you visited her house as opposed to K8 who would, I don't know, let you paint her dog or something.

― kind-hearted, sensitive keytar player (Abbott), Monday, July 6, 2009 3:09 PM (5 months ago)

Lyrically she is much more than the fay hippie she's been portrayed as. She's got a great gift of observation re. people and relationships, which I guess puts her in the 'mature' category... Also, that kind of hippie outlook, she started out with, gave her a great perspective on the end of that dream during the 70s, as fantastically displayed on her classic trilogy: Court & Spark, Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Friday, August 29, 2003 4:02 AM (6 years ago)

*mind explodes*

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 22:58 (Yesterday) Bookmark

RE: DSOM

The Coldplay of the '70s!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, June 16, 2005 5:26 AM (4 years ago)

That's like some serious frickin' zen koan shit being thrown there.

64. The Pop Group - Y (1979) [99 points, 10 votes]

http://i47.tinypic.com/280qzwk.jpg

Strikes me that Y is a bit more accessible (however fleetingly) given the comparatively spacious production, the seemingly more varied instrumentation and the fact that guitarist Gareth Sanger actually coughs up an honest to goodness riff on occaision. There's also stubborn albeit skewed elements of jazz and dub to Y which make it just a tad easier to digest than the thorny, blackened No New York.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, September 20, 2005 2:39 PM (4 years ago)

'y' contains two of my all time favourite songs - 'thief of fire' and 'we are time' but it has a couple of weak moments.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Tuesday, September 20, 2005 3:31 PM (4 years ago)

Maybe I'm projecting, but it seems to be an album that music snobs use to outdo each other in bouts of oneupsmanship. "Oh, you don't have Y on disc, eh? You're missing out, man!" "No, I actually have it on vinyl, if you must know!"

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, September 21, 2005 12:04 PM (4 years ago)

court and spark should be higher! so so so so so good.

63. Al Green - The Belle Album (1977) [100 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]

http://i49.tinypic.com/1222sf5.jpg

the oft-maligned "The Belle Album" - the transitional one - is quite good.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, April 7, 2003 10:45 AM (6 years ago)

"Belle Album" as far as I can tell has never been maligned. I have the orig. old Hi LP of it--I feel safe in asserting that it's Green's greatest album.

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Monday, April 7, 2003 11:39 AM (6 years ago)

al green is the ramones of soul, bitches. all his songs sound damn near the same but are perhaps more brilliant because of this. can i copyright this analogy? ha

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, June 5, 2005 3:14 PM (4 years ago)

The Belle Album is...wonderful way of dealing with born-again-ism ("it's you I want but Him that I need"...the holy trinity love triangle)..."Feels Like Summer" couldn't be a more appropriate song title, and "Dream", well, if I ever get hitched (ILM Poster In Unmarried SHOCKER!) that will be "our" song...(if I can sell it, which I'm sure I can)...

― henry s, Monday, December 31, 2007 11:29 AM (2 years ago)

Speaking as the guy who had this as his #1 pick, this should be much much higher. It's my default answer to the desert island disc conundrum. I also consider it one of the half dozen or so greatest pieces of religious art ever made - one of the very few that effectively communicates the sensation of religious ecstasy. I'm glad that at least by placing it at #1, I made sure it placed.

Also I enthusiastically endorse the Green/Ramones analogy, since they're tied as my favorite recording artists of the 70s.

I'm nearly ashamed to say that all the Al Green I have is the Greatest Hits album. I'm definitely about to expand my familiarity with him, and The Belle Album seems like a fine place to begin.

If you at all put off by ostensive displays of religiousity, you might want to try I'm Still in Love with You first. That said, one the things that makes Belle such a great piece of religious art is because it's so much of a piece with everything else Green ever did. Unlike gospel, for example, this can't be mistaken as religious hysteria, and it's not a collective experience at all - it's Green's personal, idiosyncratic embrace of the Lord - made on Green's own perverse terms. It's like Green is alone in his own private universe with his Lord, and sorry babe, but no one else is invited. It's way it's essentially the narrative climax of the entire saga of Southern Soul - religious ecstasy gets folded back into the language of seduction, of secular cockmanship. He resolves the sex/manna/self/collective/relgion tensions that motivated soul by eliminating all meaningful distinctions between the multiple dichotomies that had generated the form.

If you *are* at all...

it's wayBelle is essentially...

Belle (the title track) is a near perfect song.

The story of Al Green through the 70s is one I want to read -- is there a good book?

i've never heard the Belle Album, but if it's so religiously charged why does AMG call it "the last secular work he would make for many years"?

I don't want to gum-up this thread with a YouTube video, but the songBelle is here.

It's not a gospel work, so I won't begrudge somebody calling it a secular album, even if it can largely be understood as somebody's expression of their Christian fervor to a secular ear. And certainly not every song directly relates to that experience mind you - nothing about Georgia Boy communicates much beyond the obvious. Also, AMG doesn't know that the hell it's talking about - Truth n Time is his last secular studio album until the 90s, and the secular Live in Tokyo was released in 82, so I don't know how they arrive at that judgment.

xxp Whats the other one, sonofstan?

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

gonna guess 'imagine'

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Tuesday, January 5, 2010 11:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That predictable, I'm afraid...

62. Steely Dan - Katy Lied (1975) [100 points, 9 votes]

http://i45.tinypic.com/hskkf9.jpg

Except maybe for Gaucho, I find this their most despairing album and as such, an extremely unpleasant listening experience, great though it is. I can very much see why anyone would think twice before playing it ... "Doctor Wu," in many ways the ultimate Steely Dan song, for how it amps up both the catchiness and the nihilism and how it burdens single words with so much meaning.

― Kevin John Bozelka, Tuesday, July 22, 2008 7:45 AM (1 year ago)

Ellington would've dug the horns in the bridge of "Throw Back the Little Ones."

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Wednesday, August 13, 2008 4:59 AM (1 year ago)

Katy Lied was my first Dan album, and it was "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" (perfectly evokes shag carpeted basement porn screenings) and "Dr. Wu" that sold me on 'em.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:49 PM (3 years ago)

the way the album ends, the last few notes..

― jabba hands, Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:13 PM (1 year ago)

Fulfillingness' First Finale has always bugged the shit out of me.

― The Reverend, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 8:10 AM (2 years ago)

I read this and was like "Why would I say that?" I mean, it, along with Sextant are the first two albums here I voted for! Turns out I was talking about just the title "Fullfillingness' First Finale", not the music contained on the album.

I second whoever is hoping for a Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band placement, but I have my hopes up!

Sorry to take you out of context Rev. Sometimes I'm going through the ILM archives so fast looking for matching blurbs, that I forget what threads they relate to.

haha, no problem

61. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (1971) [100 points, 11 votes]

http://i45.tinypic.com/33uc2vm.jpg

Well I've just finished the album and I must say my mind has been completely blown. I am absolutely speechless and will not play music for at least another half hour in sheer reverance.

― Bimble, Saturday, May 5, 2007 3:25 AM (2 years ago)

paranoid is probably the biggest step, but master of reality is a solidifying of their sound.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:57 PM (3 years ago)

Master of Reality on the whole is an explictly Christian album, I am actually writing every single day about exactly that aspect of it!

― J0hn D., Wednesday, June 6, 2007 4:51 PM (2 years ago)

^ I still need to buy this book.

40 down, 60 more to go...

100. ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (1973) [80 points, 7 votes]
99. Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges - Clube de Esquina (1972) [80 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]
98. Chic - C'est Chic (1978) [80 points, 14 votes]
97. John Lennon - Imagine (1971) [80 points, 15 votes]
96. Patti Smith - Horses (1975) [80 points, 17 votes]
95. Van Halen - Van Halen (1978) [81 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote]
94. Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac (1975) [81 points, 8 votes]
93. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory (1970) [81 points, 11 votes]
92. Blondie - Eat to the Beat (1979) [82 points, 9 votes]
91. Miles Davis - Agharta (1976) [82 points, 10 votes]
90. Ian Dury - New Boots and Panties!! (1977) [83 points, 6 votes]
89. Neu! - Neu! 2 (1973) [83 points, 10 votes]
88. Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973) [84 points, 6 votes]
87. Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 (1972) [85 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
86. Hawkwind - Space Ritual (1973) [85 points, 11 votes]
85. Aerosmith - Rocks (1976) [86 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
84. Tubeway Army - Replicas (1979) [86 points, 9 votes]
83. Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak (1976) [86 points, 11 votes]
82. The Who - Live at Leeds (1970) [87 points, 6 votes]
81. Comus - First Utterance (1971) [87 points, 9 votes]
80. Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece (1974) [88 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
79. Electric Light Orchestra - Out of the Blue (1977) [90 points, 10 votes]
78. Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (1973) [92 points, 9 votes]
77. Flamin' Groovies - Shake Some Action (1976) [92 points, 10 votes]
76. Pere Ubu - Datapanik in the Year Zero EP (1978) [93 points, 6 votes]
75. ABBA - Arrival (1976) [93 points, 8 votes]
74. David Bowie - Lodger (1979) [93 points, 12 votes]
73. Cluster - Zuckerzeit (1974) [93 points, 14 votes]
72. Pere Ubu - Dub Housing (1978) [94 points, 12 votes]
71. The Rolling Stones - Some Girls (1978) [95 points, 13 votes]
70. Neil Young - Harvest (1972) [96 points, 9 votes]
69. Herbie Hancock - Sextant (1973) [96 points, 12 votes]
68. Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) [97 points, 10 votes]
67. Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) [98 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
(Tie) 65. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) [99 points, 9 votes]
(Tie) 65. Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark (1974) [99 points, 9 votes]
64. The Pop Group - Y (1979) [99 points, 10 votes]
63. Al Green - The Belle Album (1977) [100 points, 7 votes, 1 first place vote]
62. Steely Dan - Katy Lied (1975) [100 points, 9 votes]
61. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (1971) [100 points, 11 votes]

for the record, I am down for having some Obama babies with Geir

If ever there were a reason for genetic engineering to exist, this is that reason.

I thought about going full on Steely Dan stan and voting for all their eligible albums, but Katy Lied is really my least favorite of their '70s albums and I figured I should make room for other bands on my ballot.

Observation about this list so far: Fastnbulbous is probably right in that the '70s canon is so giant that even a second list of 100 albums is bound to be largely familiar. Not that this makes these albums any less good, but we'd probably have to poll, exclude, re-poll, exclude and re-poll another couple times before we get the kind of completely deep and provocative list we were hoping for. That said, I think the top half of these results will be more interesting to people than the bottom half when it's all over.

This poll really facilitated contemplation of the giantness of the giant 70s canon, with that amazing nominations/shopping/want list. I'd also just point out that this is a pretty rarefied crowd, ~20% of the voters gave points to Zuckerzeit, & so what's overly familiar to ILX poll voters & watchers is largely hopelessly obscure to most others. And we all don't share the same canon WITHIN the larger canon, so there are plenty of opportunities for surprise here. I was sure I was a mega-canonical voter, but only Dub Housing and Agharta have shown up from my ballot so far. I'd be curious to know who winds up with the most picks from their ballot on the final list.

Replicas, Imagine, Harvest and Master of Reality are from my ballot, but my other 36 are safe for now.

the thing is you're never going to get a truly interesting, surprising, unique list by polling a large group of people anyway, especially something that would interest and surprise that group itself. you only get that with a good individual list (and i can't wait to see everyone's ballot after this is all over).

six of mine on the list so far, if i'll get an additional six on it i'll be mildly surprised

So far seven of mine have placed - Tres Hombres, Van Halen, New Boots and Panties, Space Ritual, Jailbreak, Lodger and Master of Reality. I figure another five or six have a good shot, though I'd love to see more (like my top two, for example).

Master of Reality on the whole is an explictly Christian album, I am actually writing every single day about exactly that aspect of it!

― J0hn D., Wednesday, June 6, 2007 4:51 PM (2 years ago)

^ I still need to buy this book.

― Johnny Fever

You really do. Incredibly moving book.

That's the spirit! The more we revel in the vastness of awesome 70s music, the less cranky I get. I just had a flashback to a class my freshman year in high school in 1983 when we were having some sort of discussion about music and culture. I was ejected from the class because a girl said the 70s was a total wasteland, and I called her a "silly twat." Oops!

I was ejected from the class because a girl said the 70s was a total wasteland

That's how I feel about the 90s now, but I'm sure I liked it at the time. One day, I might get there again.

Only three I voted for i think, but I stuck to my pig headed 'one album one artist' rule in order to get the list down, so a few of my alternate choices have come in - for example I only listed 'The Modern Dance', but could have voted for all three Ubus, I went for St. Dominic's Preview, but Veedon Fleece was a close second there, I went for Al green Explores your Mind......

Eight off my list are in. Glad to see my #1 (Veedon Fleece)and #2 (The Wild, the etc) make it. I thought I knew my 70s music pretty well but damn if there aren't a number of discs from bands I'd never knew existed. ILX in long tail shocker.

i thought my ballot was pretty conventional almost-canon stuff but only 4 of 40 have shown up so far...

88. Tom Waits - Closing Time (#27)
83. Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak (#12)
80. Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece (#18)
62. Steely Dan - Katy Lied (#15)

hope a couple of my prog picks get in, as obvious and canonical as they are

Only 2 from my list so far (Comus and Sabbath Vol 4), hoping for another 10 or so but I get the feeling Blue Oyster Cult won't make it...