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

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]

http://i47.tinypic.com/2zf785j.jpg

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]

http://i45.tinypic.com/2num6as.jpg

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]

http://i49.tinypic.com/250l57c.jpg

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)

xposts:

happy for x-ray spex! thx ilm. for more enthusiasm, see the poll currently in progress.

i was saying to a friend the other day that every time i go through an x-ray spex phase, i become at least briefly convinced that poly styrene was the punk genius.

woot! My #6 :)

So I'd uh like Devo, right

Hell yes!

i've always wondered if that's supposed to be a golf ball on the cover

How have you never heard Devo?

ciderpress I always thought it was a golf ball

I really really really hope Curtis beats Tusk and Fear Of Music, would be a shame if boring ilm canon takes the top 2 places in an alternate poll.

How have you never heard Devo?

He's Britishes.

The Britishes don't pay attention to Devo?

I've never heard Robert Wyatt tbh

WAIT A SECOND

This top 10 is looking pretty great.

Curtis was my number one but I really think Tusk will come out on top, which would be a huge shame. Fear Of Music is great album but they had their moment in the 80's poll.

HOLD THE PHONE, I JUST HAD A CRITICAL REALIZATION

Devo's profile in the UK is close to zero as far as I can tell. "Whip It" was a minor hit I think but that's it.

The alacrity of your response (7 seconds!!!) has convinced me

...I've seen that video with the clown face and the spinny cube! It's GREAT. No idea how I haven't heard any yet. I know they're a band beloved by C******s.

Pfunkboy otm; the entire top 11 has been awesomeness itself so far, but I don't think Talking Heads or Fleetwood Mac are for me really. This said I have a CD copy of Tusk with me right now and am in a good position to judge! It's not like I'm going anywhere.

EEPHUS OMG rectify this situation

oops big xp

cool to see Alice (even though i put UC higher on my ballot) and Rock Bottom. i'm one of five who put RB at #1 btw, that probably is the last of my influence on this poll.

LJ, Third is also great but not in many ways the same thing as Rock Bottom.

LJ is still the only britisher who hasnt heard devo

Comparing my #1 vote with what someone else said upthread, I know what one of top 3 is, and it will BLOW YOUR SOCKS OFF

SO EXCITED