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

(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?

... other way round, that is.

29. Brudder Des Schattens, Sohne Des.. - Popol Vuh

This was '78, NME guys.

btw tom to answer an earlier question by you i simply haven't heard any of the later 70s popol vuh

Any albums missing from my lists should be assumed ive not heard them or the odd case where i forgot about them.
In the case of Rush, Kiss , Later Pink Floyd or Yes, I simply dont like them

nme's list is actually very good! way more interesting, and much better albums, imo than the fairly boring us critical consensus of the era. honestly, reading a list like that just makes me pity the american critics more for being stuck with such a tepid and blinkered view of music

Was that because so much of 'punk' was UK centric and not available in the US or were they just too old and 60s hangovers looking for music like they had as a youth?

Here's the acclaimed music list for 79

http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1979a.htm

Rolling Stone 1979 Critics

Album

• Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young

Single Of The Year

• Tusk - Fleetwood Mac

Melody Maker End Of Year Critic Lists - 1979

Albums

1. Fear Of Music - Talking Heads
2. Bop Till You Drop - Ry Cooder
3. Entertainment - Gang Of Four
4. Forces Of Victory - Linton Kwesi Johnson
5. Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young
6. The Undertones - The Undertones
7. Off The Wall - Michael Jackson
8. I Am - Earth, Wind & Fire
9. Metal Box - PIL
10. London Calling - The Clash
11. The Original Sin - Cowboys International
12. Squeezing Out Sparks - Graham Parker
13. We Are Family - Sister Sledge
14. Armed Forces - Elvis Costello
15. Tom Verlaine - Tom Verlaine
16. 154 - Wire
17. Drums And Wires - XTC
18. Exposure - Robert Fripp
19. Rock On - Raydio
20. Bad Girls - Donna Summer

Single Of The Year

• Public Image Limited - Death Disco

Most critics were on board with punk, though boundaries have shifted since. Elvis Costello's vitrol got him called punk. There was a year or more lag for a lot of those NME records getting issued in the States, Metal Box becoming Second Edition. Mid-eighties, when I started buying these records, Slits, Wire, The Fall were all still hard to find. Urgh A Music War is a pretty good example of the New Wave acts that were promoted and distributed more thoroughly in the US.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-URGH-A-Music-War/release/1104550

btw found a person on ilx who is a graham parker fan. He's a former ilxor from way back in the early days.

tough one. went with Throbbing Gristle.

do you know what Throbbing Gristle is Yorkshire slang for?

I wouldn't call myself a Graham Parker *fan* exactly but Squeezing Out Sparks is a decent pub rock LP

Was that because so much of 'punk' was UK centric and not available in the US or were they just too old and 60s hangovers looking for music like they had as a youth?

― Thus Spoke Darraghustra (Oor Neechy)

i don't know what the hell was wrong with american critics in the '70s, i was three, and i'm a little grumpy about it because complaining about their utterly tepid and anodyne tastes makes me sound like fucking lj or something, i try to be a live and let live person, but jesus fucking christ their list looks like the shit the grammy voters come up with.

"60's hangover" gets closest to the vibe imo, it is very distinct and I mostly blame Dave Marsh

yes. also agree about the lag in US availability of a lot of the UK albums

this IS The B-52's, but in absence of that Joy Division.

this was the very first year i did the acclaimed series, which i ended up doing over five summers and then singles in the fall. what happened when i did the 1979 one is that the B-52's won. i did not know the B-52's at that time and knew that if it won a poll on ILM that it must be a special album. flash forward to 2018 and here i am doing the B-52's artist poll for ILM which Karl Malone ended up having to finish for me. i will never forget my reaction on the winning of the poll and being introduced to a band that i now love with all my heart. all thanks to ILM and why i love this place.

Acclaimed Music Top 25 from 1979 poll

15 The B-52's - The B-52's 12
1 The Clash - London Calling 11
2 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures 10
3 Michael Jackson - Off the Wall 10
14 Chic - Risqué 8
9 Talking Heads - Fear of Music 8
4 Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps 7
22 Wire 154 6

There was a CD compilation of Graham Parker and the Rumour from about 20 years ago called You Can't Be Too Strong that collected everything you'd ever need to hear by them. It's well written and executed pub rock but I always found his voice was like nails on chalkboard. At the time, I couldn't understand what critics saw in him, especially because they were ignoring that Van Morrison was still in peak form.

No love on this board for Doll by Doll, who released two superb albums in 79, Remember and Gypsy Blood. They were a vicious live act too.

There was something in the air then. Every week there was a new album that left your jaw on the floor. Even acts like the Slits and Joy Division, who could come across so unfocussed and sloppy live, would startle you with releases as good as Cut and Unknown Pleasures. I voted for Entertainment, GO4 were pretty special that year.

"There was something in the air then. Every week there was a new album that left your jaw on the floor. Even acts like the Slits and Joy Division, who could come across so unfocussed and sloppy live, would startle you with releases as good as Cut and Unknown Pleasures. I voted for Entertainment, GO4 were pretty special that year."

love this post

aw shucks

I think my first exposure to Gang of Four was "I Love a Man In a Uniform" in 1982, I looked but couldn't find Entertainment! for the longest time after that

GO4 feels predictable after reading thread but was immed at top for me. london calling is jan 80 in my mind tho i wouldnt hear it til later when i begged a classmate to tape it for me

I still reckon Tusk will win, its ILM

even with the typo

20 Jazz Funk Greats. It's one of the most urgent and beautiful records I've ever heard.

Is there a tribute act based in the NW England, called Fleetwood Manc?

Tubeway Army is on the list but 1979 was also the year that Gary Numan went solo. The Pleasure Principle isn't the best album of the year but it's better than a couple on that list.

Went solo in name only. Tubeway Army was as much of a solo project as anything he did under his own name.

Except Tubeway army carried on without him, under a slightly modified name

Er, no they didn't.

"slightly modified"?

https://www.discogs.com/artist/45761-Dramatis

Numan's backing band circa '81 formed Dramatis after Numan announced his "retirement", but none of its members were on Tubeway Army or Replicas. Paul Gardiner (who was) continued to work with Numan on 'Stormtrooper in Drag' etc. and Jess Lidyard (the drummer on those records) featured on Dance. None of the members of Dramatis had any legal claim to the name Tubeway Army.

In fact, Denis Haines was only ever on Telekon. Payne, Bell and Sharpley would be back with Numan on Warriors etc.

If I had voted anywhere in '79, think it would have gone something like this, based on the ones I heard then---didn't yet know XTC, Slits, Tom Verlaine's s/t, or Metal Box ever (though did get Second Edition eventually) and remember best---10 points each:
1. Entertainment!- Gang of Four
2. Rust Never Sleeps- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3. Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division
4. Into the Music- Van Morrison
5. Entertainment - Gang Of Four
6. The B-52- The B-52s
7. Do It Yourself - Ian Dury
8. London Calling - The Clash
9. Squeezing Out Sparks - Graham Parker
10. The Raincoats- The Raincoats

Also didn't hear Bad Girls and Risque 'til later, though would have been a source of my Singles list.

don't think I heard The Raincoats' first album until a reissue in the early '90s, or The Slits' first album until even later

Re Tubeway whatever..

I'm sure I saw it at the time, but can't remember it and can't find it now.

Put it into the unconfirmed pile, then.

Wait, I didn't hear Dury right then, did I? Can't swear---make it Blondie, Eat To The Beat, I know I played the hell out of that for most of the year. Regarding glaring omissions, late entries etc,, the Voice used to make allowances for "year of impact" (on the voter, not nec. the charts), so that may be why Entertainment! didn't show up on the 1979 P&J (says here release date was Sept. 25).

there were so many great albums from 1978-1981

I remember in 1980 or 81 visiting my sister and her older boyfriend in Austin and being driven out into the middle of nowhere - seemed like it took hours - into some vast desert landscape to visit a friend of theirs. Drums and Wires was blasting from the stereo. I was such an odd disconnect and I fell in love with it instantly

*It was

also remember the Rickie Lee Jones album being a favorite at the time, and I got to meet her!

I never got into XTC either but you probably realised that by now

i could probably do a poll like this for a few years of the '80s but the record selection would be way stupider

there were so many great albums from 1978-1981

Agreed, an embarrassing amount of great music!

Michael B is taking over for the 80s series of polls
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