Best Album on My Favourite Albums of......1988!!

My least favourite year for music in the '80s by miles, although there's still some strong records.

Tough choice for me between ...And Justice For All, Introspective, Surfer Rosa, Green, Spirit of Eden (which I predict will top this poll in a landslide), Lovesexy and Isn't Anything.

I'll have to think about this one.

Stuff I also liked from '88 includes:

808 State - Newbuild (an acid house classic)
Erasure - The Innocents (a synthpop classic)
Gary Numan - Metal Rhythm (his most underrated '80s record)
Hugh Cornwell - Wolf (ex-Stranglers frontman's attempt at being Phil Collins)
The Style Council - Confessions of a Pop Group (side one in particular is some of Weller's most interesting music)
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane (a glaring omission!)
Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw and the Cooked (yes, really)
The Proclaimers - Sunshine on Leith (a stronger record than their debut which appeared on the '87 poll)

(I should have said "soon to be ex-Stranglers frontman" re: Wolf, actually)

sade's best album (as opposed to her greatest or her most perfect respectively)

*their!

The Go-Betweens "16 Lovers Lane" is there, Turrican

Looks like a tough one. Now if you had included Fingers Inc.’s Another Side (double) album...

my vote falls, as it must do, to Rudimentary Peni - Cacophony

<3

:)

we shouldn't do this beyond 1989 imo - people's actual favourites will start to differ too markedly from the valiantly all-pleasing choices here. like, even here, Spirit of Eden is very nearly my overall favourite, but I think things will start to get a bit much very soon

Boogie Down Productions – By All Means Necessary
Janes Addiction – Nothings Shocking
Ministry – Land of Rape and Honey
Mudhoney – Superfuzz Bigmuff
My Bloody Valentine – Isnt Anything
NWA – Straight Outta Compton
Pixies – Surfer Rosa
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
REM – Green
Slayer – South of Heaven
Slick Rick – The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Soundgarden – Ultramega OK
The Church - Starfish

All of these are pretty great. If I short list it:

Jane's was an important record to my musical evolution.
That is Ministry's best album.
NWA was important to my musical evolution, and also important in a dozen other ways.

Gonna have to go with NWA.

xpost LJ, speak for yourself! your choices will always be determinedly off the beaten track either way

The Go-Betweens "16 Lovers Lane" is there, Turrican

― . (Michael B), Friday, June 7, 2019 4:47 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah, so it is! Fuck, that's just made considering what to vote for even harder, then!

Put On Land And In The Sea in the 1989 poll and we'll talk ;)

lol Cardiacs

Put On Land And In The Sea in the 1989 poll and we'll talk ;)

― imago, Friday, June 7, 2019 5:18 PM (one minute ago)

I'll give it a listen!

we shouldn't do this beyond 1989 imo - people's actual favourites will start to differ too markedly from the valiantly all-pleasing choices here. like, even here, Spirit of Eden is very nearly my overall favourite, but I think things will start to get a bit much very soon

― imago, Friday, 7 June 2019 18:09 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mike and I are doing the 90s. 25 choices each per year. I reckon it will be fine.

fine fine

I'd probably find casting votes in '90s or '00s polls far more difficult than these '80s ones, tbh.

didn't A Little Man and a House come out that year

Gary Numan - Metal Rhythm (his most underrated '80s record)

respect, I think that record blows but I'm glad someone likes it. ain't that the one that straight up rips off Prince?

anyway - I'm goin with the Mondays here...especially its the version w/ all the B-sides and singles. It's got such a trippy, disorienting sound to it. It makes me feel like I'm drunk. I can't think of another record quite like it.

A Little Man was 1987 wasn't it? Anyway, it's the only Cardiacs album I'd call less than perfect so I'm not so fussed it didn't show up (I still love it obv)

Oh it was '88. Whatever

to the hague

Yeah, Metal Rhythm is very Prince influenced, but I feel that he does it well on that album in comparison to, say, Outland or Machine + Soul (on which he actually feels the need to do covers of Prince songs and is, for me - and I guess for Numan himself too - his actual worst) ...

It's the only album I can listen to and enjoy in full from his post-Beggars/pre-Sacrifice "middle years"

Kind of surprised Workbook didn't make the cut. Every time I put it on I think it's stunning.
anyway, Daydream Nation.

Beat Happening - Jamboree
Boogie Down Productions – By All Means Necessary
Butthole Surfers – Hairway to Steven
Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knol
Dinosaur Jr – Bug
EPMD – Strictly Business
Eric B & Rakim – Follow the Leader
Galaxie 500 – Today
Janes Addiction – Nothings Shocking
Jungle Brothers – Straight Out The Jungle
Pixies – Surfer Rosa
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
The Sugarcubes – Lifes Too Good
Tracy Chapman - s/t
Ultramagnetic MC’s – Critical Beatdown

A lot for me to choose from.

This list is seriously missing out on Duran Duran's Big Thing. Don't @ me.

There are very few entries on the actual list itself that excite me, so I leapt upon the Spirit of Eden option like a starving hyena.

Tracy

Not that i'm gonna vote for them, but weren't the first two House of Love albums both self-titled?
1988 was this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Love_(1988_album)#Title_confusion

1990 one is often referred to as "The Butterfly Album"

Leaning Dino Jr for this year

I went with Bug instead of Daydream Nation or Surfer Rosa (why not)

Really appreciate your careful lists, you kept up with the times.

Don't see Mary Margaret O'Hara - Miss America in your list
There could be some death metal as well surely, but I only have Leprosy to propose

O'Hara is there!

Oh god, it's Introspective cos it's one of the greatest albums ever made

Had to go with The Church over Throwing Muses. "Starfish" is one of those perfect albums.

A Little Man was 1987 wasn't it? Anyway, it's the only Cardiacs album I'd call less than perfect so I'm not so fussed it didn't show up (I still love it obv)

interesting, I think it's my probably my favourite Cardiacs album. sometimes anyway

there's not much in the poll list I don't like (there's a few I don't know but not many)

Weakest year of the 80s, but Galaxie 500, Pixies, Sonic Youth, House of Love, NWA and Public Enemy are all great.

This is simply R.E.M. for me again, though.

My initial response is that this is either BDP or Talk Talk

At least 15 of my favorite albums this time.

I'm Your Man

on second thought, as much as i love the dinos, there are at least 4 albs better:

Mary Margaret O’Hara – Miss America
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
The Go Betweens – 16 Lovers Lane

really good list though

My initial response is that this is either BDP or Talk Talk

― Vape Store (crüt), Friday, 7 June 2019 21:54 (thirty-six minutes ago) Permalink

My brother used to go to college in England and he'd come back every summer and Xmas with tapes. That BDP tape was one in particular that I liked. First proper rap album I ever heard. I did enjoy the swearing a lot too. It still bangs!

"The Story of 1988" is on BBC4 now

BROSMANIA

Hm, Metallica vs Public Enemy, probably

between Sonic Youth and Public Enemy for me, same as for 1987, although these are arguably two even greater albums

Also loved (and still do) albums released in 1988 from Richard Thompson, Robyn Hitchcock, The Primitives, Wire, Peter Murphy, The Wonder Stuff, The Sun And The Moon, and Bill Nelson (US CD release).

Every year is a good one.

Surfer Rosa
69
Hairway to Steven
Bevis Frond - Triptych
Loop - Fade Out
F/I - Space Mantra
Daydream Nation
I'm Your Man
Blue Bell Knoll
Bug

As much as I love Cave and Cohen, their'88 records aren't particular favourites of mine.

I'm going for REM over Talk Talk.

Go-Betweens, with Pixies close behind.

I got many of these records as they came out or the hype was rising, and each of them displaced the previous as the best thing ever. Can still retrace the order I heard them: Nation of Millions, Hairway to Steven, Tender Prey, Daydream Nation, Isn't Anything, Surfer Rosa. So at the time, I was left with Surfer Rosa being the favorite. I vote in these polls with what I'd want to play a bunch right now, though. And that would be Isn't Anything

What a year. Probably 'Today' by Galaxie 500 retrospectively (I became aware of them when 'On Fire' was released) so I'll vote for 'Bug' which I bought and loved when it was released.

Underrated dope year.

Without Workbook I am voting for Trinity Sessions

Workbook is '89 according to Wikipedia, folks

Jeez, what a year. This is the first poll I've seen where there are about six or seven albums I could choose. But I voted Kurious Oranj for personal reasons....

I ended up voting for Introspective, which is the one I most feel like listening to right now.

tough to choose between Isnt Anything or Critical Beatdown

plus Bug, Follow The Leader, Straight Out The Jungle, Straight Outta Compton, Surfer Rosa, South Of Heaven, Great Adventures of Slick Rick are all some of the best records ever.

you are not going to force me to choose in between miss america and spirit of eden, are you? i'd rather cut myself a finger off.

Fuck it, believing the hype, switching to channel zero, and going with Public Enemy,

Voted for M2OH, but only because - Dee is right - This list is seriously missing out on Duran Duran's Big Thing.

(I would have also voted for Sylvian/Czukay’s Plight & Premonition, and - even more glaring omisshun - Talking Heads’ Naked! Sigh.

This one's ridiculously hard. It may be significant that it is the first year in which I was old enough/clued-up enough (ie. I discovered non-commercial radio) to hear most of the contenders during the year in question.

It's basically impossible so I might just choose The Sugarcubes if I only because I distinctly remember hearing them as direct (and early) result of my newly expanded radio menu.

I love the Tracy Chapman album

and am interested in Galaxie 500 again after seeing 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which was scored by Dean & Britta

I voted for Tracy when the poll went up, and I mostly stand by that, but listening to it again just now I'm remembering how front loaded the record is.

Introspective!

Happy Mondays, w/ shout outs to Dinosaur Jr, Metallica, Pet Shop Boys, Public Enemy, Pixies, Go Betweens, Ultramagnetic MCs. A good year!

Straight fight, Talk Talk v. Sonic Youth. Talk Talk won.

those two should have been on my shout out list as well

voted talk talk

love the 80s ali farka toure albums, tho I think my fav is the 84 red album. I'm going public enemy tho

I ended up voting for Introspective, which is the one I most feel like listening to right now.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Sunday, June 9, 2019 9:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Irony is dead.

They took a picture
And from this cold lightning

MM O’Hara, Cowboy Junkies, and Tracy Chapman over here. And oh shit just seeing Fisherman’s blues now, which might have gotten my vote otherwise.

Missing contender: Short Sharp Shocked.

Nice to see Cowboy Junkies get a few props, I somehow thought they weren't well liked here. That'd be my vote.

Blue Bell Knoll, followed closely by Surfer Rosa and From Langley Park to Memphis

Voted Jane's Addiction to make sure it got a vote.

A top 100 rock album for me. Still ebbs and flows and shimmys and shines

An annus mirabilis, to be sure, but only one of these is Spirit of Eden.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

In '88 I listened to Surfer Rosa and Daydream Nation all the time. Lovesexy not far behind. I wasn't that fond of Green after discovering R.E.M. through Life's Rich Pageant two years earlier. Other favorites I only discovered a few years after they were released: Tender Prey, Bug, Today, Stairway to Steven, Isn't Anything, Spirit of Eden and 69. I still haven't fully grasped the latter, it's awesome though. Mmmmm ok, Surfer Rosa gets my vote.

I wonder how many people secretly voted for Viva Hate.

The hardest pick of these polls for me...I could have happily voted for 69, SoE, Isn't Anything, 16LL or ITANOMTHUB but went with Blue Bell Knoll in the end as I thought it probably wouldn't attract as much praise as the others (but has always been my favourite Cocteau's album).

I wonder how many people secretly voted for Viva Hate.

Or Lies

Went with Jane's in the end.

I too am PE or Sonic Youth. But what a year! All the rap records are great.

Trinity Sessions with mot even a hint of regret

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

👍

To think I'd live long enough to see Morrissey get zero votes in an ilx poll...

You own a question
It's a body

Glad I wasn't the only one to vote for Today. So many good memories of that record.

Good top 4 but I missed the fact that "Isn't Anything" was in this poll.

Michael B's list is smarter than Pazz & Jop's