Best Album on My Favourite Albums of......1979!!

"Modern Dance" was on the previous poll.

"New Picnic Time" is on this one.

No "Dub Housing"?

Explanation required.

Should've been in the last poll.

Hard to pick between Unknown Pleasures, Metal Box, Force Majeure, Overkill...

1979 is my second favorite year, after 1980. Could go for 154, Dragnet, Fear of Music, Lodger.... My list would also include:

Chic - Risqué
Ann Steel (Roberto Cacciapaglia) - The Ann Steel Album
Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven

xps

maybe i just dont have that album

1979, ok

good stuff this year. rock in opposition hits and hits hard, great diasporic post-punk and disco, an unexpected resurgence of the kosmische scene, city pop really starting to get good, and that's on top of all the usual awesomeness

a. vuolo & e. grande - desert
aksak maboul - un peu de l'ame des bandits
alcides neves - tempo de fratura
armande altai - atavisme
avalanche - perseverence kills our game
bill evans - we will meet again
bruford - one of a kind
camaron de la isla - la leyenda del tiempo
can - s/t
candido - dancin' & prancin'
cheikh tidiane fall, bobby few, & jo maka - diom futa
chet baker - no problem
chic - risque
chou pahrot - live
devo - duty now for the future
emmanuel booz - dans quel etat j'erre
essential logic - beat rhythm news
flamen dialis - symptome-dei
freddie mcgregor - bobby bobylon
henry cow - western culture
hiroshi sato - orient
honeyelk - en quete d'un monde meilleur
joe mcphee - zurich
kevin coyne & dagmar krause - babble
kha-ym - 10" gmt
lizzy mercier descloux - press color
lo borges - a via lactea
mbaraka mwinshehe & orchestra super volcano - the last recording of soloist national
mccoy tyner - horizon
metabolist - hansten klork
michele fromenteau - l'art de la vielle a roue vol 1
muck grohbian - muckefuck
national health - of queues and cures
niteflyte - s/t
orchestra njervudarov - con le orecchie di eros
osamu kitajima - dragon king
peter hammill - ph7
red noise - sound-on-sound
renaldo & the loaf - songs for swinging larvae
robert fripp - exposure
robert rental & the normal - live at west runton pavilion 6-3-79
ann steel - the ann steel album
the roches - s/t
shingetsu - s/t
sparks - no 1 in heaven
sun ra - on jupiter
sun ra - sleeping beauty
sund4r popo - come dance with the champ
sylvester - stars
terry allen - lubbock (on everything)
tatsuro yamashita - moonglow
thomas leer & robert rental - the bridge
tom verlaine - s/t
the toms - s/t
uk - danger money
univers zero - heresie
vagif mustafa zadeh - jazz compositions
veronique chalot - a l'entree du temps clair
witch queen - s/t
you - electric day
zeze gonzaga & quinteto de radames gnattali - valzinho: um doce veneno
zolar x - timeless

i want to particularly recommend camaron de la isla, essential logic, coyne/krause, the toms

out of what's here my gut says "cut" is the one to go with, so i'm going with that, the rest of y'all can fight it out between fleetwood mac and the clash.

oh and you're totally missing out for not having "dub housing", it's my fave of theirs

sund4r popo - come dance with the champ

oh come fucking on there's more than one person in the world with that first name

Rust Never Sleeps or Einstein on the Beach. At the time, the former. Now, the latter. I still haven't decided if I like Tusk...

London Calling vs. Fear of Music, impossible choice.

Squeeze, Cool For Cats, is one I'd add to the runners-up.

Dragnet just over Cut. This is def the best year

Arrrrrrgh!

David Bowie - Lodger
Japan - Quiet Life
Magazine - Secondhand Daylight
The Human League - Reproduction
Tubeway Army - Replicas

^ One of these.

the toms - s/t

my choice from what has been mentioned itt

from poll options it’s einstein on the beach

As someone said upthread, Risqué should definitely be on that list. Wonderful album.

The 1979 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

Albums

1. Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks (Arista) 767 (63)
2. Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps (Reprise) 652 (50)
3. The Clash: The Clash (Epic) 638 (50)
4. Talking Heads: Fear of Music (Sire) 620 (51)
5. Elvis Costello: Armed Forces (Columbia) 619 (55)
6. Van Morrison: Into the Music (Warner Bros.) 474 (41)
7. The B-52s: The B-52s (Warner Bros.) 371 (37)
8. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA) 340 (31)
9. Pere Ubu: Dub Housing (Chrysalis) 334 (28)
10. Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca) 330 (30)
11. The Roches: The Roches (Warner Bros.) 292 (30)
12. Dave Edmunds: Repeat When Necessary (Swan Song) 222 (21)
13. Nick Lowe: Labour of Lust (Columbia) 201 (24)
14. Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine (Elektra) 192 (22)
15. Iggy Pop: New Values (Arista) 190 (20)
16. Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island) 185 (20)
17. Blondie: Eat to the Beat (Chrysalis) 184 (20)
18. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (Epic) 179 (16)
19. Rickie Lee Jones: Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros.) 176 (20)
20. Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady (I.R.S.) 172 (18)
21. Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Bros.) 160 (17)
22. Neil Young with Crazy Horse: Live Rust (Reprise) 158 (15)
23. Ry Cooder: Bop 'Til You Drop (Warner Bros.) 155 (18)
24. David Johansen: In Style (Blue Sky) 136 (15)
25. Lene Lovich: Stateless (Stiff/Epic) 125 (13)
26. Linton Kwesi Johnson: Forces of Victory (Mango) 122 (13)
27. Chic: Risque (Atlantic) 112 (11)
28. Joe Jackson: Look Sharp! (A&M) 111 (11)
29. Art Ensemble of Chicago: Nice Guys (ECM) 108 (10)
30. Roxy Music: Manifesto (Atlantic) 107 (11)
31. David Bowie: Lodger (RCA Victor) 104 (12)
32. The Slits: Cut (Antilles) 99 (10)
33. Philip Glass/Robert Wilson: Einstein on the Beach (Tomato) 98 (9)
34. Bob Marley & the Wailers: Survival (Island) 94 (9)
35. The Police: Regatta de Blanc (A&M) 92 (10)
36. The Shoes: Present Tense (Elektra) 90 (12)
37. The Jam: All Mod Cons (Polydor) 89 (9)
38. Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming (Columbia) 88 (11)
39. Stevie Wonder: Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (Tamla) 88 (9)
40. The Kinks: Low Budget (Arista) 85 (9)

Stirmonster is going to be displeased with me as I forgot to include the Nurse With Wound album from this year.

Missing Nurse With Wound, but especially Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing'.

fwiw I personally think the 1st NWW is the weakest of that early run

much prefer the Ashley

don't even know that.

it's very, uh, austere. whispers and scrapes for 40 minutes, plus the distant sound of music playing in another apartment. I love it.

Adding P&J reminds me that this is probably my fav vintage year for music, or maybe tied with 1969. Has any record's critical standing dissipated as fully a Squeezing out the Sparks? Most of the next 20 have seen their reputation rise, and many of them rise a lot.

Which reminds me of another favourite missing from this poll, Sparks, "No. 1 in Heaven".

Also, I notice you don't like ABBA.

That's not true but they are a singles band to me.

I never got into Sparks bar a couple of songs

(xp) A bit like me and the Clash.

My parents do have all the Abba LPs up in the loft.

how come that there is no joy div in the pazz & jop top 40? did critics sleep on them in the beginning?

It’s also curious that P&J has the s/t Clash album instead of London Calling. But it looks like that matches up with US release dates.

yeah that's the US release which is kind of a different album entirely, still weird that LC isn't in there

Doubt Joy Division had been released in the US, just as the Clash's debut wasn't issued right away. I wonder if P&J rules required releases that readers could actually buy. Gotta assume the Village would have been one of the first places with indie import bins. Wonder how many people outside of NYC would have read these lists in 1979?

some kind of bizzaro universe that I don't want any part of

New board description, certainly?

The absence of B-52's is problematic

My album of 1979, certainly!

I've never heard it more than once truthfully but Rock Lobster would certainly be my #1 single of that year.

The album that is. Obviously I've heard Rock Lobster thousands of times. It even was a reissued hit in the UK late 80s

The 1979 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
Albums

1. Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks (Arista) 767 (63)

literally never heard of this guy

I have but I've still never met anyone who claims to be a fan of him. Not sure I've ever heard any of his music.

He would've been on Stiff Records in the UK.

I've never seen even Mark Grout mention him or Stewart O formerly of this parish ever mention him and they would be the likeliest two

dude was considered the savior of rock in the late 70's if you read Rolling Stone back then

I was born in '73, in Scotland.

Missing Nurse With Wound, but especially Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing'.

― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, April 4, 2019 6:58 AM (nine hours ago)

Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella and Automatic Writing both feel like all-time great albums to me

Pazz & Jop voters were and are cross-country, but even so why isn't Gang of Four in P&J '79? It couldn't have been that hard to find; I got mine in Tuscaloosa. Something about release dates?
Parker was punk in attitude, white r&b-based musically, with some Highway 61 Revisted in there: either way, a mid-60s-to-mid 70s honking at rotting traffic jams, a more illin' and more fun Elvis C., fi in some ways--- ehich incl. a limited range, vocally and otherwise, but xgau got it right about these peaks (and some uneven ones in between; I stopped listening later and so did most people apparently):

Howlin' Wind [Mercury, 1976]
Parker builds his white r&b of such familiar materials that it takes awhile for the songs to sort themselves out, but their fury is unmistakable--in the time-honored English manner, bass and drums play the house-rocking rhythms of Chicago and Detroit for righteous anger rather than good-time escape. Then songs come clear, marred at times by the white bluesman's chronic romanticism of the blood--"Gypsy Blood," to be precise--but so passionate that every personal animus takes dead aim at the great world...A

Graham Parker and the Rumour: Squeezing Out Sparks [Arista, 1979]
An amazing record. Parker's mood, which has narrowed into existential rage with a circumstantial root, makes for perfect, untamable rock and roll. Guitar, drums, vocals, lyrics, and hooks (and more hooks) mesh into ten songs so compelling that you're grateful to the relative lightweights for giving you a chance to relax. And if Graham is pissed off merely because he's not a big star yet, he translates his frustrations into credible, emotionally healthy anger--the kind you feel when they can't fit the real news into print. A
The Real Macaw, from the early 80s, is the last one I heard; some good stuff on there. Still at it, the last I read!

the blue Rolling Stone guide had a similarly ridiculous 5-star review of that Parker LP

I never got into Sparks bar a couple of songs

― Thus Spoke Darraghustra (Oor Neechy)

fair enough but how do you feel about giorgio fucking moroder

Entertainment! was in the P&J top 10 in 1980. I don't think I heard it until sometime in the mid '80s

I've never heard Graham Parker and the Rumour, always wondered they sounded like but never bothered to check them out

The B-52's, Bowie, Gang of Four, Fleetwood Mack, Germs, Holger Czukay, Joy Division, Japan, Pere Ubu, PiL, Swell Maps, Tangerine Dream, Talking heads, The Clash, The Cure, The Fall, The Jam, The Pop Group, The Specials, The Undertones, This Heat, Throbbing Gristle, Wire………. there were so many great albums from this year

I have to believe we going to feel that way about 2018, 2019 in the coming decades

*Fleetwood Mac

Nope, Oor Neechy's right to have it in this year's poll: https://www.discogs.com/Gang-Of-Four-Entertainment/master/6309
CD versions of 'Entertainment!' all include bonus tracks from the Gang Of Four EP and other material. Also available the compilation Entertainment! & Yellow EP. Did not know that, only have the old LP.

listening to Squeezing Out Sparks now, it's nice, surprised it's been so forgotten

it's in the Springsteen, Garland Jeffries, Nick Lowe, Replacements bar-band continuum that The Village Voice seemed to really love

Oh God these results are terrible😖😖

London Calling 16 is like the '16 election of ILM

LOLLLLLL

i like the pop group better than gang of four myself, i guess that's a minority opinion?

100% blindingly obvious & correct opinion

I tell you what, this is an outrage, and we need to re-distribute some of the vote-wealth of the top percentage to the equally deserving albums who only got one or two or even zero votes

119 votes!