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

i didn't hear pere ubu until after i'd heard tons of post-ubu stuff influenced by them. it was one of those things that filled in a lot of missing pieces. it was sort of a tough call between modern dance and dub housing for me, but went with dance for iconic-ness.

close to the edge was my #2 neato! it's catchy as hell, full of pop hooks, and doesn't feel nearly as laborious as some other prog "classics". glad to see prog at least make a cameo up here.

Pere Ubu are less reigned-in I think

Much as Wire's grasp of composition, tension and restraint is godly, this could be a very very awesome thing indeed.

x-post

i think you will like "the modern dance", louis. if you have open ears that is. it's a mind-shattering album, weirder than "trout mask replica" but also more variate. that blurb about armaggedon, nuclear war and apocalypse nails it quite well. it's an album from outer space, imagine the music of extraterrestrians arriving on planet earth when there is nothing left there. or something like that. it was my 1978 pick in my 40 years, 40 albums project.

I will eat my hat if LJ doesn't like The Modern Dance.

if you have open ears that is

i am well-known for my musical conservatism and refusal to be challenged

ha ok guys i'll be ON IT in the ASAP. AIM i may even read your piece!

I'm not sure Pere Ubu did anything much worth listening to after Dub Housing, but those first 3 (including Terminal Tower) still haven't been surpassed for alienation.

8. Kraftwerk - Autobahn (1974) [230 points, 25 votes]

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My favorite Kraftwerk album (also the first I knew well.) Title track is loads of fun and holds my interest throughout, amazing considering its length. But the instrumental B-side I probably listen to more now. Love "Morning Walk" and the 2nd "Kometmelodie." Warm and shimmery, unlike the next three records (which are still great.)

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, March 24, 2004 10:18 PM (5 years ago)

Agreed on the greatness of side two -- Autobahn (the track) can sound a bit primitive these days, but the ambient side has aged much better. It predates the fluffy bunny ambient of the KLF/Orb et al by fifteen years.
Classic, obviously.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Thursday, March 25, 2004 12:22 PM (5 years ago)

How in gods name do you write a 22 minute track and keep in interesting the entire time? How do you write motifs that keep people's attention through that kind of duration of time? I mean Kraftwerk slam-dunked the concept of making audio portraits with Autobahn. When you listen to that track you don't think of the programming, the writing, the performances... You think of a beautful spring day in a well designed german automobile elegantly travelling through the german countryside. You can see the hills and roadsigns, you climb and decend through a winding valley.

― The Rebukes of Hazard (mjt), Friday, March 26, 2004 1:09 PM (5 years ago)

Fantastic record (PU not Yes) but, I have to say, a record I admire more often that play.

3 of my votes in a row! 666 by Aphrodites Child next please.

Great to see Kraftwerk in the top ten again, they were number 8 in the 80's poll too.

Really glad to see Pere Ubu so high, Dub Housing got my vote but they are both classics.

the barbaric teutons strike back and beat the knights of engeland! to be honest i thought "autobahn" was a joke in 1974 and still think the same now. at least it is not unpleasant...

I meant to warn everybody I'd be SBing anyone who dropped a challop on Autobahn.

That makes three albums in a row that were absolutely crucial to the development of my appreciation of music. Autobahn was the first album I played on my first stereo system, Christmas 1975.

Anyone looking for a place to start w/Minnie Riperton should look at the 2-CD collection Petals bcz it has some of her earliest stuff, some stuff w/Rotary Connection, all her singles, and the best tracks off otherwise weaker albums "Minnie" and "Love Lives Forever." It's really solid.

7. Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda (1970) [248 points, 19 votes]

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Journey In Satchidananda has possibly the best opening minute of anything ever recorded by anyone.

― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, August 13, 2009 12:06 AM (4 months ago)

Journey in Satchidananda - definitely my favorite of all of her albums (and one of my favorite albums of all time). the addition of the tamboura, oud and bells really sets this album over the edge for me. and pharoah's playing is just amazing. i put this on for dinner parties and even though it's kinda out, after a few glasses of wine, we're all passed out on the floor in bliss.

― JasonD (JasonD), Monday, July 7, 2003 6:04 PM (6 years ago)

omigod. thank you guys for convincing me to get "journey in satchidananda". within 5 seconds, i was knocked on my ass by this album. now, 5 whole minutes in, im comatose with awesome-music-shock.

― peter smith (plsmith), Wednesday, June 23, 2004 6:26 PM (5 years ago)

wow.....

Tuomas is happy at last

I need to check that out.

I just hope Headhunters makes it too

Abbott you need to, it's awesome.

Love this (and voted for it) but I still think I prefer the Pharoah Sanders albums from the same period. He's such a big presence on the AC albums I think of them as extensions of his records anyway.

Ooh. I don't know nearly enough Alice Coltrane, I shall check this one out, definitely.

I have so far voted for all of the top 10

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD @ Alice making it. <3 u ilm.

xxp

yeah Pharoah is my fave too

Top 11 so far is doing very, very well for itself :) and I would like to hear all the records from it that I haven't

Alice Coltrane was my no. 3, really didn't think it was going to make it in so am happy with this.

6. X Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents (1978) [263 points, 20 votes, 3 first place votes]

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X-Ray Spex couldn't possibly be punk - they were far too technically proficient on their instruments!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, August 18, 2003 5:11 AM (6 years ago)

Sure, the lyrics and ideas don't stand up to any kind of analysis. Who cares? This is great, great rock and roll! The sax is like a foghorn and the guitar is a late 70's son-of-Mick Ronson glam-punk chug. And Poly - tea cosy hat, teeth braces and dirty mac! God, what I'd give to see a band like X-Ray Spex on TOTP today!!

"IIIIIIIdentity is the Crrrrrrrriiiiisssis, can't you seeeeee?"

― Dr. C, Monday, April 9, 2001 8:00 PM (8 years ago)

I think Germfree Adolescents stands up better than most of the other firstgen punk records. The lyrics aren't cringeworthy, they're FUNNY! The title track is excellent pop, there are some massive rockers, and Poly Styrene is one of the three or four most compelling personalities that U.K. punk ever produced.

― J, Thursday, April 4, 2002 7:00 PM (7 years ago)

The high positions of that and XTC have been the biggest shocks in the list for me.

Which album is going to join Tusk, Curtis, Fear of Music and Rock Bottom in the top 5?

i havent even heard of x-ray specs until this thread is that bad?

Headhunters hopefully
xp

the high xtc was my fault though!

i can confirm that sarahel, currently on self-imposed ilxile, had x-ray spex as her #1. apparently i might like it.

the high xtc was their own fault for being so damn saucy

5. Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom (1974) [307 points, 19 votes, 5 first place votes]

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Rock Bottom is clearly some kind of achievement and often very moving and beautiful -- even if I do sometimes find it to be willfully arty when I want it to be direct and distant when I want it to be emotional. As a result, it often feels a bit more like an extraordinary and unique experiment than Wyatt's raison d'être. And given how remarkable the rest of his career has proven to be, I'm not sure that's an altogether bad thing.

― Knave Tin Odle (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:27 PM (1 year ago)

the album is very melancholic--it's the urgent combination of melancholy and whimsy (blended such that you often can't tell them apart) that is a big part of what makes this record so special to me. the wordless vocalizing at the end of the first track (??) is one of the most powerfully ... desolate stretches of music i know. such things are in the ear of the listener, of course. but considering the circumstances under which it was made it's not hard to imagine depression being one of many states that is being evoked in rock bottom.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Friday, September 17, 2004 3:30 AM (5 years ago)

Rock Bottom is about someone finding their way back to the world and - vide closing Cutler recitative - learning to laugh again.

― Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid, Friday, September 17, 2004 5:02 AM (5 years ago)

I didn't mean to imply the position of Xtc was bad I actually voted for them too. I do like the X Ray Spex album quite a lot too I'm just shocked they both did so well. Maybe Devo or Magazine are in with a shot?

*whew* now I don't have to feel bad about leaving Rock Bottom off my list

ok

x-post I didn't hear X-Ray Spex until a few years ago and it was like a revelation--explaining all of those local bands I heard in the 90s with a shouting female singer and a skronky sax.

Yeah, surely Devo are going to be top 5? Unless there is some massive ilx wrongheadedness that I have hitherto missed.

i cant see devo missing out and sadly i can see headhunters missing

Oh yes! It's (going to be) Devo.

starting to realize the rest of ILM does not consider early Joe Jackson the crowning achievement of humanity, btw

I put "I'm The Man" 20th in my ballot!!

also FIVE first-place votes for RB well I'll be

I mean it is *awesome* and all

(I maintain that Soft Machine - Third is better, as I've said!)

Really enjoying this reveal as unlike the other polls I've no idea what's going to be posted, though I'd be gobsmacked if Iggy, Roxy and Tusk missed out.

Yeah Alice! Journey was my #3 as well, but depending on my mood it could have been #1 as well.

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned McCartney's Ram! That was one my "boring" picks that I figured would be way up on the list, but it's nowhere to be found.

ilx is pretty anti-mccartney as a whole though

4. Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo (1978) [310 points, 27 votes, 1 first place vote]

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Haven't done one of these is a while, but I feel truly remiss in not bestowing this honor on an album as magnificent as this. So, joining the ranks of Destroyer, Nothing's Shocking, It'll End in Tears, Group Sex, The Fat of the Land, The Kings of the Wild Frontier, and Mothership Connection, I give you....Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Devo

Inspired by recently picking up their dizzyingly exhaustive new bio of the same name by Jade Dellinger and David Giffels, I was recently struck by how very few albums make me a unabashedly happy as this positively seminal classic. I do remember seeing them on "Saturday Night Live" and thinking they were just another surreal sketch until a few weeks later I wrapped my ears around this record. They seemed a thousand times more subversive than conventionally 'dangerous' bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and Kiss. There was truly NOTHING like them (before or since).

But beyond their singularly bizarre and unique aesthetic, there were actually hugely satisfying tunes on this debut album. Even if you were put off by the yellow suits and the whole schtick, "Uncontrollable Urge", "Praying Hands", "Gut Feeling" and of course "Mongoloid" and "Jocko Homo" (to say nothing of their notorious cover of "Satisfaction") are just simply great, great songs. Eno's production is sharp and suitably alien sounding, retaining their raw edge, but filtering it through a patina of strangely sythetic sounding elements. And unlike some of their later records (wherein they truly succumbed to de-evolution, quality-wise) this album quite literally ROCKS!

As an extra bonus, I remember my older sister getting actively disquieted by their unflinching weirdness (most evident on "Shrivel Up" and "Too Much Paranoias"...to say nothing of the thoroughly inexplicable faux-Chichi Rodriguez-morphing cover art) and what's not to love about that when you're a perpetually disagreeable twelve year old? The fact that this album acted as a palpable irritant to my family (way more so than Kiss etc.) as well as thoroughly rocking made it a virutally priceless addition to my then fledgling record collection.

It's younger brother, Duty Now for the Future is also positively brilliant in the same wonderfully deranged manner, but after than, the band seemingly acquiesced to the demands of the music industry. The albums were still dazzlingly fresh and unfailingly interesting, but they seemed a bit de-fanged and housebroken after Freedom of Choice, the album that firmly tied the one-hit-wonder albatross that was "Whip It" around their collective neck. They would never again sound so alive and frantic as on Q:Are We Not Men?..

If you can't appreciate this album for the thing of unique brilliance that it is, truly someone has sucked the marrow of life out of your joyless bones. Discuss.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, October 7, 2003 9:40 AM (6 years ago)

I think "Space Junk" deserves its own thread. It's arguably the best song on the album which makes it arguably the best song ever. The main riff is seriously pretty: melodic and taut and simple. The one-note vocal melody is almost stupid, but you don't notice that, you notice how it meshes with the rest of the song, completely unobtrusive but an essential part of the whole, like a grain of sand on an Ohio lake beach. Then the middle part kicks in, the weird part, the part that makes you completely confounded, coalescing with the pretty part, but separate and new. Tex-aaaasssss, Kan-saaasss. Then the Americana guitar, the early rock n roll roots, to remind us where we came from, and how in the world we got to be so odd, and how in the world, indeed, Are We Not Men?

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, October 7, 2003 3:18 PM (6 years ago)

Devo is a lock for top five, I'm calling it now.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Friday, January 8, 2010 10:57 PM (Yesterday)