what does ilx think of paul morley's greatest 100 albums ever list?

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― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

bad list

― sam the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

he has afx on top! it cant be that bad. this is a more interesting list than most best albums ever lists. maybe a more honest one. or maybe morely is just choosing odd albums to make sure no one thinks hes canonical.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:17 (twenty years ago)

take out all the shitty electronic and rap-hip-hip , and youve got a pretty standart list more or less.maybe the album-order is surprising, but as you said, you got to be original in some way.

― sam the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 22:25 (twenty years ago)

thought#1: all these lists kind of look the same, even if they're not really

thought#2: i like some of these records, but they're not things i would play very often

thought#3: extricate as top fall album? i quite like it, but still

thought#4: neutral milk hotel?

thought#5: thats a really great sleeve, for the fairport convention album, i dont think ive seen that before

thought#6: the single is far the better vehicle for music, than the album

thought#7: i dont know what matching mole is, i quite like the sleeve though

thought#8: no hawaiian music:(

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

thought#9: it looks like every record&tape exchange shop in london, ever

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:27 (twenty years ago)

as boring as the man

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:30 (twenty years ago)

oooooooooh

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:31 (twenty years ago)

who is he ?

― vvvvvvv, Monday, 27 March 2006 22:31 (twenty years ago)

A cunt.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:34 (twenty years ago)

Everyone knows that VH1 empirically proved that Revolver was the best album ever in 1997. Game, set, match.

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:36 (twenty years ago)

somereally original lists are those you can find in Pitchfork, those "artist list" - if they'll choose like 10 albums - 2 will be familiar and the rest is obscure stuff,but it's kinda pathetic sometimes, the attempt to be original.

― sam the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 22:36 (twenty years ago)

I like Shooting At The Moon as #3. He might actually be right about that!

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 27 March 2006 22:47 (twenty years ago)

i dont know what matching mole is, i quite like the sleeve though

Some British shite.

(Winky face.)

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 00:21 (twenty years ago)

A lot of obvious picks that everyone makes, peppered with albums we usually don't see on these lists by artists who are always on these lists.

― Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 01:31 (twenty years ago)

alot of boring comments from the usual boring nu-ilxors who post on these threads

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 01:37 (twenty years ago)

I don't see anything wrong with his list. In fact, it's pretty good.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 01:52 (twenty years ago)

I agree. It's a great list. As usual I disagree about "The Modern Lovers" since I think Jonathan has eclipsed that album numerous times but people like Morley like to put great emphasis on how influential a record is and it's historical context etc. Whatever.

― everything, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 01:57 (twenty years ago)

I'm genuinely intrigued as to why the hell he picked some of that stuff, which I guess is a sign of a worthwhile list.

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 01:59 (twenty years ago)

http://images.ciao.com/ide/images/products/normal/052/product-1200052.jpg

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:01 (twenty years ago)

alot of boring comments from the usual boring nu-ilxors who post on these threads

you gotta especially loves the guy who thinks that if an artist lists stuff he hasn't heard of, then naturally the motivating factor's gotta be a desire to be "original"

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:09 (twenty years ago)

my fave was the suggestion that there's too much hip-hop on it!!!

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:11 (twenty years ago)

haha yes "tokenism"

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:15 (twenty years ago)

I was especially stoked to see that 2000 For Carnation album on it! that thing is wildly underrated, it's like Slint without the annoying bits

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:16 (twenty years ago)

But then he also includes Slint and their annoying bits also.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:23 (twenty years ago)

It's also the first time I ever saw Lou's The Bells Make any kind of list.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:26 (twenty years ago)

i like that list as well. mostly cuz he put swans and felt on it. but also cuz i am a big nerd too.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:38 (twenty years ago)

you have to put the bells on yer list cuz gareth never reissued disco mystic as a single. get to it, you slack key motherfucker!

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:40 (twenty years ago)

I like the majority of those albums (that I have..which is something like 52 out of the whole list). I mean, I can see arguments about the list being cliche, but I definitely see the majority of it as being truly great music and not that much more canonical than the ILM decade lists, which for God's sakes have featured Sly & the Family Stone, My Bloody Valentine, and Radiohead at their respective tops. So, I don't have a problem with it, and Aphex Twin at #1 is a pretty cool choice.

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:40 (twenty years ago)

leftfield, neutral milk hotel, and olivia tremor control are the only things i haven't heard. maybe someday.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:46 (twenty years ago)

I'm getting so tired of the word "canonical". People take these lists so seriously.

― Jeff K (jeff k), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:48 (twenty years ago)

This is better than any list for an AUSTRALIAN magazine should be.

When my new album is released, it will be NUMBER ONE!

― Esteban Buttez Goes To College, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:48 (twenty years ago)

That is one uber-hip list. I guess at least he didn't try to throw in a few markedly unhip choices to make himself seem even more hip.

Also, Todd is a terrible terrible album.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:51 (twenty years ago)

Also the Richard and Linda Thompson album I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is much better than Fairport Convention.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:52 (twenty years ago)

that is not a very hip list if i have heard almost everything on it. lemme tellya, i am not that hip. i wanna see a jack cole list. then i would be stumped. except for maybe a sun city girlz album or two.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:53 (twenty years ago)

I guess at least he didn't try to throw in a few markedly unhip choices to make himself seem even more hip.

No, I take that back. He could at least have shown the balls to throw in a few pre-1990 albums that haven't benefitted from hipster revival in the last few years.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:55 (twenty years ago)

i'd totally like to see a jack cole list

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:55 (twenty years ago)

It did have Van Dyke Parks on it. I think some crappy magazine once marked Song Cycle as the "coolest" album of all time, whatever that means.

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:55 (twenty years ago)

xpost I don't think I'm using the word hip the way you're using it (the latter being "in the know," "ahead of everyone else.")

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:56 (twenty years ago)

i'm kinda hep when i smoke tea.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 02:57 (twenty years ago)

I'm hip to that.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 03:03 (twenty years ago)

Damned arty poseurs.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 03:06 (twenty years ago)

Jack Cole did a list once! kinda. it was actually on the "best albums of every year" thread. I remember becuz it was great. he might not agree with it anymore, but:

starting from the year I was born, and only temporary for the moment -- all choices bound to change in a split second.

1969: Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band Trout Mask Replica
1970: The Stooges Funhouse
1971: Funkadelic Maggot Brain
1972: Curtis Mayfield Superfly
1973: The New York Dolls S/T
1974: Brian Eno Here Come The Warm Jets
1975: Robert Wyatt Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard
1976: Debris' Static Disposal
1977: Ramones Rocket TO Russia
1978: Pere Ubu The Modern Dance
1979: Buzzcocks Singles Going Steady
1980: Motorhead Ace of Spades
1981: P.I.L. The Flowers Of Romance
1982: Dream Syndicate Days Of Wine & Roses
1983: ESG: Come Away With ESG
1984: Half Japanese Our Solar System
1985: Great Plains Naked at the Buy, Trade & Sell
1986: Vertical Slit Underneath the Blood Red Lava Lamp
1987: Big Black Songs About Fucking
1988: Ultramagnetic MCs Critical Breakdown
1989: Dead C Eusa Kills
1990: Daniel Johnston 1990
1991: Love Child Okay?
1992: Pavement Slanted & Enchanted
1993: August Sons Plants, Planets and Insects
1994: Killdozer Uncompromising War on Art Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
1995: Mudhoney My Brother The Cow
1996: Souled American Notes Campfire
1997: Quasi R&B Transmogrification
1998: Six Finger Satellite Law Of Ruin
1999: New Waver The Defeated
2000: Boom Bip & Dose One Circle
2001: Dirtbombs Ultraglide In Black
2002: Don Howland Land Beyond The Mountains
2003: too early

-- jack cole (jack_col...) (webmail), March 3rd, 2003 9:05 PM.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 03:20 (twenty years ago)

no STEELY/FLEETWOOD, no credibility

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 06:28 (twenty years ago)

making lists like that are weird and also spurious at best, including that one which stormy dug up which i don't even really remember making. definitely would not be my favorite albums or singles or wax cylliders or whatever -- more like trying to remember what came out what year and throwing shit against the wall or something like that. also depends if im in a song mood vs sound mood or how many teeth i've had removed that day.

― Jack Cole (jackcole), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 06:36 (twenty years ago)

I was surprised that there wasn't much pop at all on this list. It's a very Woebot list actually, once you remove the "middlebrow" (but usually actually great) picks like Debut.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 07:58 (twenty years ago)

I think it is a nice list. I don't know more than about half the records, but they seem to have been chosen for the pleasure they give/have given rather than for any other reason.

Matching Mole is Robert Wyatt and chums. I think that record features O Caroline, or whatever it's called, which is a nice song to have in your list.

See, I will defend Morley if he is being a boring fart.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:01 (twenty years ago)

at which speed should one play the vinyl 'dusk at cubist castle'?

― dave q (listerine), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:08 (twenty years ago)

A five-year-old list which was published, together with half-a-dozen other Morley "top 100 albums" lists, in his book three years ago - where's the fire?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:12 (twenty years ago)

It's a very "I am a 40+ year old man, sitting in a room" list.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:26 (twenty years ago)

"different to the one you are in now."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:28 (twenty years ago)

I'm in more of a corridor.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:32 (twenty years ago)

The artist names at the top all begin with 'A', and then 'B,' and then 'C'. What a weirdo.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:36 (twenty years ago)

Some odd choices high up the list: Shooting at the Moon, Happy Sad, Cluster II, Leg End, Canaxis. I like all of those albums but none of them are the best albums by those artists.

Also, Todd is a terrible terrible album.

No it isn't, it's grebt, you silly person you.

Matching Mole is Robert Wyatt and chums. I think that record features O Caroline, or whatever it's called, which is a nice song to have in your list.

Except it's not on that album! Also "Little Red Record" at #46 but "Rock Bottom" at #94??!?!?!

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:37 (twenty years ago)

er, "alphabetical order," chaps?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:38 (twenty years ago)

though admittedly this does not explain Hendrix at #98.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:40 (twenty years ago)

Aha, right, it's in alpahbetical order, I'm a dope!

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:43 (twenty years ago)

I do like this idea of having a greatest 100 albums ever list with only 98 albums on it

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:44 (twenty years ago)

loopy. so far it reads like select's december 1995 'best of the 90s' list. i haven't got beyond bjork.

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:44 (twenty years ago)

oh, well, it's ok, though i don't trust him on dance/hip-hop.

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:46 (twenty years ago)

Oh. I am a dimbo about Matching Mole.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:50 (twenty years ago)

i think the list is great. he has bjork, afx, station to station and burning spear in the top 10. i salute mr morley.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:54 (twenty years ago)

It's alphabetical!!!!!!!

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 08:56 (twenty years ago)

What kind of joey decides their top hundred on alphabetical grounds alone?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:00 (twenty years ago)

They, it should be numerical according to the ISBN.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:19 (twenty years ago)

Oh bollox, it's alphabetical? I was just getting really really excited that someone would put a Kevin Ayers album in their Top Three. Even if it's the wrong Kevin Ayers album. (I mean, "Pisser Dans Un Violon" - really, come ON.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:21 (twenty years ago)

Why are there only 98 albums on it?

― flowersdie (flowersdie), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:23 (twenty years ago)

He only likes 98 albums

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:26 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps two of them are doubles.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 09:35 (twenty years ago)

It has at least inspired me to do a quick Top 100 of my own which is not appreciably more exciting but may prove to be of minor interest to selected readers. My only rules were: first album that comes to mind, one album per artist only, no albums for which Rate Your Music could not find a cover (which ruled out several promising contenders), list obv subject to constant change at whim of author kthxbye.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 11:10 (twenty years ago)

Nice! Mike Heron AND Spike Jones!

― Dadaismus sinks his soul in Mother Nature's bower (Dada), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 11:24 (twenty years ago)

Yes! DC Basehead! You never see that album on anyone's list ever.

― Jamie T Smith (Jamie T Smith), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 11:51 (twenty years ago)

marcello's list is nice too. the only thing i really don't like on it is the hugo largo album.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Yes! DC Basehead! You never see that album on anyone's list ever.

*whistles*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 14:06 (twenty years ago)

No Beatles.gasp! No Pretty fuckin far from OK Computer. splutter! No Van Morrison. omigod. THE MAN'S A WITCH!!

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 01:03 (twenty years ago)

Meet the Residents is my favorite Residents record, too (not that I've heard more than like seven or so).

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 03:00 (twenty years ago)

Can't trust a list that chooses Debut for the Björk album, but I can trust an list that choose STITI for Underworld and ONUAG for Funkadelic.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 03:16 (twenty years ago)

My 2 favorite albums on that list are Exile on Main Street and Stone Roses S/T. However, I admit, I've only heard about 10% of that shit. For someone that listens to a lot of music, I'll fully admit to not hearing SO many albums that people consider indespensible. But the fact is, the limited stuff that I do hear from a lot of them just doesn't appeal to me. I've heard at least a few songs from a good majority of the artists on this list, and yet very few turn me on.

I don't see the appeal of the Fall in the slightest bit. Similarly, what limited stuff I've heard from Leonard Cohen didn't really appeal that much to me. Bjork I want to kill. Lou Reed/V.U. are good, but I cant' listen to them for more than 5 songs in a row at any given time. Call it shitty musical taste, but I just can't bring myself to like a lot of that stuff. Is there something wrong with me for feeling this way?

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Thursday, 30 March 2006 04:35 (twenty years ago)

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