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

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

Totally dig that first wave of Rough Trade(-affiliated) albums.

The reflexive answer for me is Dragnet or Fear of Music as they've probably been most firmly embedded in my brain for the longest time but I could probably happily choose from at least a dozen others.

I always thought Fear of Music was the equal of Remain In Light

those two for me were everything in 1979-1980

can understand if Tusk, London Calling, Entertainment!, Metal Box, Unknown Pleasures, Off the Wall, 154 or one of the others here is the favorite though

gah that list almost makes me regret voting for This Heat but not quite

Yeah, I think I'll vote for This Heat. Really fantastic band.

I should listen to Einstein on the Beach one of these days.

it's so good!

my favorite Glass by far mostly because of the voices & narration

Listened to a couple of songs from that Graham parker album. Not bad, but not some forgotten gem imo. Vocal style reminds me of elvis costello for sure

I love the This Heat album, it was proto-post rock, foreshadowing Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, Bark Psychosis, Ben Frost, and others

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

Yes, I think Graham Parker was like gold dust to rock critics in their late 20s upwards - esp. in the US.

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

― Thus Spoke Darraghustra (Oor Neechy), Thursday, 4 April 2019 23:24 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw him plus Rumour at the first Reading Festival, he was very good. Next up was Thin Lizzy.

Oh, he did a sort-of encore (never seen that happen since for a non-headliner at RFest), where the power had been cut except for the microphones, and he got the audience to chant "Turn The Power On!" while he improvised some lyrics, then when the power was restored, they broke into "Hold back the night" seamlessly. Some years later, I found that the first bit was a 'pastiche' of "Out Demons Out".

Anyway, he put it quite well recently when he said that the main difference between himself and Elvis C was that Elvis could actually sing.

Some years later, I found one of his first two albums at a car boot, and was pleased. Then I played it, and was "hmmm... nah, sorry. It's OK, but".

There you go.

(at the first Reading Festival I went to, not the first ever, obv)

NME 1979 Albums of the Year

1. Fear Of Music - Talking Heads
2. Metal Box - Public Image Ltd.
3. Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division
4. Setting Sons - The Jam
5. Entertainment - Gang Of Four
6. Armed Forces - Elvis Costello
7. Do It Yourself - Ian Dury
8. London Calling - The Clash
9. Squeezing Out The Sparks - Graham Parker
10. The Specials - The Specials
11. Forces Of Victory - Lintin Kwesi Johnson
12. The B52's - The B52's
13. Bop Till You Drop - Ry Cooder
14. The Raincoats - The Raincoats
15. Tom Verlaine - Tom Verlaine
16. I Am - Earth, Wind & Fire
17. The Undertones - The Undertones
18. 154 - Wire
19. Repeat When Necessary - Dave Edmunds
20. Drums & Wires - Xtc
21. New Panic Time - Pere Ubu
22. Cut - The Slits
23. Risque - Chic
24. Regatta De Blank - Police
25. Humanity - The Royle Rasses
26. Same Song - Israel Vibration
27. Katzenmusic - Michael Rother
28. Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young
29. Brudder Des Schattens, Sohne Des.. - Popol Vuh
30. Dragnet - The Fall
31. Even Serpents Shine - The Only Ones
32. Eskimo - The Residents
33. Slow Train Coming - Bob Dylan
34. Blue Valentine - Tom Waits
35. This Heat - This Heat
36. A Train To Marineville - Swell Maps
37. I’m The Man - Joe Jackson
38. Soldier Talk - The Red Crayola
39. Reproduction - The Human League
40. Lodger - David Bowie

1979 NME Singles

1. Eton Rifles - The Jam
2. Gangsters - The Specials
3. London Calling -The Clash
4. I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
5. Strange Town - The Jam
6. Message In A Bottle - The Police
7. Oliver's Army - Elvis Costello
8. Spacer - Sheila B Devotion
9. Shake Your Body - The Jacksons
10. Memories - Public Image Ltd.
11. Death Disco - Public Image Ltd.
12. My Feet Keep Dancing - Chic
13. Rock Lobster - The B52's
14. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
15. Making Plans For Nigel - Xtc
16. Queen Of Hearts - Dave Edmunds
17. The Pictures On The Wall - Echo & The Bunnymen
18. Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
19. She's Beyond Good & Evil - The Pop Group
20. Boogie Wonderland - Earth Wing And Fire
21. Rowche Rumble - The Fall
22. Living On The Front Line - Eddie Grant
23. The Prince - Madness
24. Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
25. Touch - Lori & The Chameleons
26. Transmission - Joy Division
27. Get Over You - The Undertones
28. Memphis Tennessee - Silicone Teens
29. On My Radio - Selector
30. Pop Music - M
31. Girls Talk - Dave Edmunds
32. Heart Of Glass - Blondie
33. We Are Family - Sister Sledge
34. Stop Your Sobbing - Pretenders
35. Where’s Bill Grundy Now - Tv Personalities
36. Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palms - Leighton Buzzards
37. Time Goes By So Slow - Distractions
38. Protection - Graham Parker
39. A Message To You Rudi - The Specials
40. Electricity - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Anyway, he put it quite well recently when he said that the main difference between himself and Elvis C was that Elvis could actually sing.

Other way surely?