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

I know they're a band beloved by C******s.

whaaat?

feel like the nba draft lottery up in here

Tusk is ok, but as i said much earlier it's not in the spirit of an alternate poll if they're in the top 5

Is Tusk actually canonical? I've never seen it on a Rolling Stone list or anything.

LJ i think you would like fear of music btw

This last run's been fantastic. This really is shaping up into something like an alternative canon. Well done! Thanks to everyone who voted whole hog for the over-the-top, so eccentric it might as well be crazy, sui generis works of genius. I LIKE.

I know Third is nothing like RB! It's way less intimate, way less ornate or 'perfect' but it's wilder, weirder and for me at least more mindblowing. Plus, Moon In June is as exquisite an evocation of the uncertainty of youth that I've heard. And the instrumental blow-out is to die for. However, no problems with RB ranking higher. It's certainly more of a sophisticated construct.

Have *never* got Talking Heads. May have to try.

Devo's profile in the UK is close to zero as far as I can tell.

Naaaaah. That's not true. They're probably not considered as pop over here as in the US, but they're incredibly well-known.

Seriously, everyone start videotaping themselves, making sure your socks and the space 15 in front of them is in the frame, because lots of socks are about to be blown off.

I want to join in the butthurtedness. No Randy Newman on the first poll. And none here? BUTTHURT I TELL YOU

But doesn't the fact that Fear of Music and Tusk didn't crack the original top 100 already make for a kind of non-canon gestalt?

Abbott, you know who! (Clue: I rather like them) Timmy S has always been a big Devo fan. Also, take a random straw poll of 22 year-olds here and see how many of THEM have heard Devo ffs

They're probably not considered as pop over here as in the US, but they're incredibly well-known.

I have literally never met anybody who has so much as mentioned them in passing.

I'm starting to get terrified that my full ordered ballot never reach Johnny Fever (for some reason 2 of the votes kept disappearing off of it, no matter how many times I sent it) and that my #1 won't get the full 40 points.

I've just finished an MA course where most people on it were around 22, and I bet a large proportion of them have heard Devo. I can think of at least 5 of them who definitely had. So ner.

ALSO, they were the big draw at ATP not so long ago.

tbf the only lol indies I talk to nowadays are like 16 year old screamos.

I've heard Devo! Just never a full album! I've liked what I've heard.

also plz hook me up with these ppl (I know for a fact that emil.y's MA course was with one of the great modern British poets, stands to reason that he's got a few acolytes in there)

Cosign the lack of Boston lamenting. Was in my top 5.

Haha, yes, a good couple of these Devo-aware 22 year olds are KS poetry types too. You should hang out in Brighton more.

xpost

*cough* can we have the top 3 now please?

I voted for Boston also, in the 20s though.

I *really* should. If there's a particularly good poetry reading, lemme know! Anyway, yeah, what's 3...

I'm starting to get terrified that my full ordered ballot never reach Johnny Fever (for some reason 2 of the votes kept disappearing off of it, no matter how many times I sent it) and that my #1 won't get the full 40 points.

― chicken sandwich CARL!! (Z S), Saturday, January 9, 2010 3:06 PM (5 minutes ago)

Fear not, I got the whole thing after going in and reading the raw email data.

RE-EXCITED!!

:)

3. Curtis Mayfield - Curtis (1970) [310 points, 28 votes, 3 first place votes]

http://i48.tinypic.com/2ymx7w9.jpg

CLASSIC, at least until Short Eyes, which was about 1977-78. his entire oeuvre up to then is better (IMO) than the better-known 70s heavyweights like stevie wonder or marvin gaye or donny hathaway. i don't buy a lot of soul albums on vinyl because they're always to spotty, but anything by curtis from that period is just amazing wherever you drop the needle.

― Jah Q Areas, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:42 AM (2 years ago)

Mayfield vs. White or Gaye, I think the quality Mayfield's recorded output started to become quite uneven in the mid-70s (despite singular gems hidden in almost all of his albums), and he never managed to make a proper comeback later on, like Gaye and White did. Also - and in no way am I dismissing Gaye or White here - I think Mayfield was less interested or less capable of composing obvious hit material. If you listen to his 70s solo albums, most of the tunes on them are rather complex both musically and lyrically, with not that many clear hit tunes on them. I guess he did try a more populist approach in the late 70s and early 80s, but by then he was pretty much behind his time already.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:39 PM (1 year ago)

Curtis Mayfield is one of the most exceptional singer / songwriters of the 20th Century. There are three truly great socially-conscious songwriters of the 1970s and Mayfield is an equal with his more heralded colleagues Wonder and Gaye. All three managed to write deeply spiritual songs, powerful songs that attacked society's faults and beautiful love songs.

― Tim Roxborogh, Monday, July 23, 2001 8:00 PM (8 years ago)

^ Impossible to find album-specific blurbs seeing as how the album is named Curtis.

Yay :)

Hurrah!! One of my votes in the top 3!!

Oh well I guess number 3 isn't bad.

just forget about the top 2 and just do a rundown of 200-101 now Johnny ;)

Big buzz in the UK around Devo with the first two singles, and the quasi- bootleg single and album (Mechanical man and Workforce). First album generally felt to be disappointing and that was it in the style obsessed ephemeral world of Britishness.

X-Post clearly

Since we all already know what the top 2 are, should I just make up something for a controversial ending?

yes

LA DUSSELDORF.

IMO a good place to start w/Devo is the DVD of their videos: all great songs, all their aesthetic & philosophy, an amazing commentary track that will tell you their whole story, and just pure entertaining weirdness in the videos.

the LA DUSSELDORF vs VDGG fite in the 101-120 regions will be entertaining imo. bring it on, emil.y

I can't believe Sparks are going to be numbers 1 and 2. Well done everyone!

would love to see some evidence of tusk being canonical or overrated. for years i was told it was either a) the most coked-out album evar or b) a huge flop

LA WOMAN

socks still on

I don't understand, from what I know of the votes, a very unexpected album made the top 100 (more than 80 points) that hasn't been listed here yet.

also thanks Abbott! will bear in mind.

If you invert the results it's much better. Looks like the album I picked 29th (The Royal Scam, #15 here) will be the highest placed one I'll get. Definitely not part of the ILX hivemind!

This is why my camera is still filming in the area where I expect the trajectory of my flying socks to pass through.

xxxp are you just setting up for your fake #1

No way, it's legit.

2. Talking Heads - Fear of Music (1979) [405 points, 28 votes]

http://i45.tinypic.com/j5kn15.jpg

Total gateway album for me. It was the first really strange new wave album I ever bought. I was 13, and had already heard the Police, Elvis Costello and Squeeze (I think). I didn't know what to make of the LP - at 13, how could I have known about Eno's solo albums, Hugo Ball, or the other highbrow influences therein? - but there was something addictive there that made me keep listening. I'm certain that Fear of Music prepared me for Red Krayola, Essential Logic, Wire's 154, etc.

― mike a, Monday, November 29, 2004 9:37 AM (5 years ago)

I never get sick of this record, ever. The extreme dance-worthiness of "Cities" keeps whacking me in the face, and the way you can almost hear him gritting his teeth through the last lines.

― Z S, Tuesday, February 12, 2008 7:58 PM (1 year ago)

This album spans the entire range of the human experience. It would be perfect if it weren't for one song: I Zimbra. Barf and a half. Luckily, you can just start the CD on track 2 and not worry about having to get up and skip it -- whereas "It ain't easy" is number 5 on Ziggy and totally breaks the mood.

― Klamm, Friday, November 26, 2004 10:08 PM (5 years ago)

"It would be perfect if it weren't for one song: I Zimbra. Barf and a half."

You're insane.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, November 26, 2004 10:10 PM (5 years ago)

(xposts^100000)
Devo and Kraftwerk both things which could easily have been my #1 had I compiled votes on another day. Nice to see Pere Ubu as well, though after much deliberation my Ubu vote went to Dub Housing instead.

LJ you would probably like PU, you ought to like Devo (hell, you'll like "Gut Feeling" even if not the other tracks) and anyone who likes Max Tundra's last album should definitely check out Todd Rundgren.

(have heard Mongoloid and Girl U Want both at indie discos in my ancient past and waiting for gigs to start more recently, so they are still on the Britisher indie radar imo)
(possible irony of "synthy" and "wacky" being considered maybe more British than American pop traits and then the British Devo pick is maybe the most straight-forwardly rocking that they've ever been?)

Thread moves fast! Still have literally no idea what #1 is, though I haven't really been keeping count. Exciting!

ZS, if it got 80 points and only 2 votes, then it won't show up, whatever it is.

It got more than 80 (according to what people said in this thread), and at least 3 votes.