The Tenth P&J Albums (and EPs) Poll!

I could have easily picked Nebraska, Shoot Out the Lights, or Generic Flipper, but decided to go with Another Day/Another Dollar (probably my favorite EP ever) instead.

Thriller over Flipper, though maybe just barely.

Somebody voted for Cotton Eye Joe! And David Lasley replaced David Lindley. And the Trouble Funk title is wrong. And I still have my copy of the Hi Sheriffs of Blue EP! (I also have one of those Disco-o-Wax Bee Bop Cut Creators LPs -- which looks more like a 12-inch single -- but maybe a different volume. Basically, it's a live hip-hop improv show):

[/i]RAJ BAHADUR: Devo: Oh No! It's Devo (Warner Bros.) 19; Joe Jackson: Night and Day (A&M) 18; Paul McCartney: Tug of War (Columbia) 13; Marshall Crenshaw (Warner Bros.) 12; the Jam: Dig the New Breed (Polydor) 11; the Who: It's Hard (Warner Bros.) 7; the Jam: The Gift (Polydor) 5; the Chieftains: Cotton-Eyed Joe (Island) 5; Shoes: Boomerang (Elektra); Roxy Music: Avalon (Warner Bros.) 5.

DEBRA RAE COHEN: New Order: 1981-1982 (Factory); Gang of Four: Another Day/Another Dollar (Warner Bros.); Hi Sheriffs of Blue (Jimboco); R.E.M.: Chronic Town (I.R.S.); Konk: Konk Party (99)

GREIL MARCUS: The English Beat: Special Beat Service (I.R.S.) 20; Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Columbia) 20; The Mekons Story (CNT import) 20; Bunny Wailer: Tribute (Solomonic import) 10; Jive Five featuring Eugene Pitt: Here We Are! (Ambient Sound) 5; Au Pairs: Sense and Sensuality (Kamera import) 5; Flipper: Album/Generic Flipper (Subterranean) 5; Jeff Todd Titon/Fellowship Independent Baptist Church of Stanley, Virginia: Powerhouse for God (University of North Carolina Press Records) 5; Warren Zevon: The Envoy (Asylum) 5; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Ice Cream for Crow (Epic) 5.

DAVE MARSH: Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Columbia) 16; Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic) 15; Richard & Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (Hannibal) 15; Steve Winwood: Talking Back to the Night (Island) 12; David Lasley: Missin' 20 Grand (EMI America) 7; Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul: Men Without Women (EMI America) 6; the English Beat: Special Beat Service (I.R.S.) 5; Bettye Lavette: Tell Me a Lie (Motown); Richard "Dimples" Fields: Mr. Look So Good (Boardwalk) 5.

JOHN MORTHLAND: Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The Message (Sugarhill) 15; Lou Reed: The Blue Mask (RCA Victor) 14; Flipper: Album/Generic Flipper (Subterranean) 13; Trouble Funk: Straight Up Funk Go in Style (JAMTU) 13; Richard & Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (Hannibal) 11; King Sunny Adé and His African Beats: Juju Music (Mango) 9; Laurie Anderson: Big Science (Warner Bros.) 8; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Ice Cream for Crow (Epic) 7; Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society: Mandance (Antilles) 5; "Live" Convention "81" Bee-Bop's #1 Cut Creators (Disco-O-Wax) 5.

KIT RACHLIS: King Sunny Adé and His African Beats: Juju Music (Mango) 15; the English Beat: Special Beat Service (I.R.S.) 30; Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (Columbia) 5; Fleetwood Mac: Mirage (Warner Bros.) 5; Ted Hawkins: Watch Your Step (Rounder) 5; David Lasley: Missin' 20 Grand (EMI America) 5; Prince: 1999 (Warner Bros.) 5; Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Columbia) 20; Richard & Linda Thompson: Shoot Out the Lights (Hannibal) 5; Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Us (Rough Trade) 5.

GREGORY IRONMAN TATE: Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic) 10; Prince: 1999 (Warner Bros.) 10; The Time: What Time Is It? (Warner Bros.) 10; Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The Message (Sugarhill) 10; James Blood Ulmer: Black Rock (Columbia) 10; Trouble Funk: Drop the Bomb (10); Bad Brains (ROIR cassette) 10; David Byrne: The Catherine Wheel (Sire cassette) 10; Kid Creole & the Coconuts: Wise Guy (Sire/ZE) 10; Aswad: New Chapter in Dub (Mango) 10.

LESTER BANGS: 1. Robert Quine: I Heard Her Call My Name Symphony (Columbia) 2. DNA Live at Madison Square Garden (Prestige) 3. Richard Hell Sings the R. Dean Taylor Songbook (Tamla) 4. Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Heard Ya Missed Us, Well We're Back (Factory) 5. The Clash: Rappin' with Bert 'n' Big Bird (Guest Artist: Oscar the Grouch) (Sesame) 6. Ramones: 14,000,000 Records (Epic) 7. Sue Saad and the Next with Robert Fripp: Jiggle Themes from Prime Time (Verve) 8. Lichtensteiner Polka Band: Hamtramck Oi Gassers (WEA) 9. Brian Eno: 24 New Songs with Brides & Everything (Egregious 2-album set) 10. Miles Davis: Rated X (Alternate Take) (Columbia).[/i]

Oops, sorry about the shitty coding. (And I may also be sorry that I voted for Thriller in 1982, since it winds up winning the poll in 1983, and I'm not sure there are any alternate choices as good as Flipper's debut that year. Oh well. I'll only vote MJ once.)

Re Trouble Funk titles: Drop the Bomb is right; the live album on JAMTU (which I used to own, but no more) should be Straight Up Funk Go-Go Style, I believe. (I think it was reissued a few years later as disc two of some two-LP set, maybe.)

And yeah, the Disco-O-Wax record I own is Live Convention '82. I wonder it's worth any money.

As per always with these polls, I go for a quick, facile response and choose whatever I've been getting into the most lately, which happens to be Lexicon of Love right now. Lots of great stuff, but it's always apples:oranges::pop:art for me, and without a like to like poll, I kinda feel that going with whatever thin justification is just fine.

I have never seen a copy of this, and still am not convinced it's real, since "Moody" was actually on their previous debut EP (which I did own, once) too:

ESG: ESG Says Dance To the Beat Of the Moody (99)

did not hesitate
voted 1999
never looking back

Record on the P&J list I am saddest to have gotten rid of (since I'll probably never see a copy again):

The Neats: The Monkey's Head in the Corner of the Room (Ace of Hearts)

xhuxk, according to wikipedia:

During their first incarnation, the group signed with 99 Records and issued a debut self-titled EP in 1981 that featured three live and three studio songs, the latter produced by the legendary Martin Hannett (Joy Division, etc.). 1982's ESG Says Dance to the Beat of the Moody EP continued in a similar vein, as did their first full-length album, 1983's Come Away With ESG.

So who's going to vote for Imperial Bedroom? (Other than Geir, that is.)

Looks like it was basically a 12-inch single, with either two or three tracks, depending on whether the B-side was a medley. If so, it possibly shouldn't have qualified for the EP poll! Unless it did:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.discogs.com/image/R-150-123644-1162557157.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.discogs.com/release/123644&h=150&w=150&sz=5&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=47AAdG12HyiSmM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3DESG%2BSays%2BDance%2Bto%2Bthe%2BBeat%2Bof%2Bthe%2BMoody%2B%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den

I actually voted for their Come Away album on my P&J LP list a year later (which got published in the paper, though I don't think it's anywhere on line. 1982 seems to be the final year Christgau includes individual lists on his site; 1983 was the first year he printed mine. I detect a conspiracy!)

Yeah, I probably should have put that on the singles poll instead of here. Oh well.

xp

Isn't your '83 ballot available at rockcritics.com, xhuxk?

Uh...maybe? Actually that's news to me!

Well, this much of it, anyhow:

For the record, his ballot that year included: X, the Blasters, Richard Thompson, Was Not Was, Al Green, ESG, Nile Rodgers, Rolling Stones' Undercover of the Night, the Divinyls, and Confusion is Sex.

Any regrets?

Unlike Xhuxk, I have no hangups about voting for Thriller twice.

For the record, his ballot that year included: X, the Blasters, Richard Thompson, Was Not Was, Al Green, ESG, Nile Rodgers, Rolling Stones' Undercover of the Night, the Divinyls, and Confusion is Sex.

Any regrets?

I'm not sure any of those would make my 1983 top ten LP list if I were to make one now -- X and the Divinyls would probably have the best shot, with the Blasters and Sonic Youth maybe remote possibilities. Haven't even owned copies of the other six for years (actually, I don't think I own the Blasters one now either, come to think of it. I do have good CD collections of ESG and the Blasters, though.) However, I am proud to have been possibily the first person ever to vote for a Sonic Youth album in Pazz & Jop -- or, at very least, the first whose top ten containing a Sonic Youth album was documented by being printed in the Voice. It's still somewhere between my second and fourth favorite album by them.

That '83 Was (Not Was) album, Born to Laugh at Tornados I think it was called, featured guest appearances by Ozzy Osbourne, Doug Feiger, and Mel Torme, and was basically when they shifted from being a great art-funk band to being a "wacky" joke band. I'm not sure what I saw in it then, though maybe if I heard it now I'd decide it wasn't so bad.

So who's going to vote for Imperial Bedroom? (Other than Geir, that is.)

Geir, will surely vote for Tug of War.

What Al Green was that, Chuck? One of his gospel records I imagine.

I'll Rise Again--which, if I remember right, was on the gospel label Myrrh, but did have at least some passingly secular tinge to some of it, maybe. (I haven't listened to it in at least two decades.)

I still love Born to Laugh at Tornadoes because under the wacky jokeness there were some great-ass songs.

I never did get a chance to hear that one. My favorites on Chuck's list are probably Non Fiction, Confusioin is Sex and the X album (although More Fun is likely the worst of their first four, imo).

Haven't heard that Divinyls album in over 20 years, though.

More Fun is likely the worst of their first four

Yeah, I'd definitely agree with that (though it was still far better than any album they did later.)

Divinyls album was clearly the best album on my '83 list (and the best album that band ever did, too--though I guess I never heard Monkey Grip, or whatever that early Aussie-only EP thing was called.)

1982 seems to be the final year Christgau includes individual lists on his site; 1983 was the first year he printed mine. I detect a conspiracy!)

I think it's just that when I retyped it for the site, as well as a bunch of earlier ones, I included the lists. I didn't do them after '82, so no lists.

I voted for 1999.

I'm stuck between Thriller, 1999, and a couple entries in the singer-songwriter category, which, as this list proves, was particularly well-served this year (the last time perhaps?) -- Lou Reed, Donald Fagen, Marshall Crenshaw.

I don't know, Alfred; imo Legendary Hearts and Field Day are as good (or better) than their '82 equivalents.

You're right about the Crenshaw, but New Sensations is better than its predecessors.

I went with the Thompsons.

New Sensations is great, but I prefer his two previous albums myself. Still, Lou had quite a three album run during the first half of the '80s.

xp

1982 was the first year I voted in P&J tho damned if I remember for who: probably prince, ornette, dream syndicate, rank & file, rich & linda and an album called something like CORNFUZION = SEXX by this obnoxious new york band that xgau hated. or was that early 83?

and if this includes eps howcome no new order 1981-82?? in its tragic absence I'll vote for avalon, roxy music's melancholy masterpiece.

and jesus xhuxk the neats were wet noodles

<i>Lexicon of Love</i> but only because <i>Sulk</I>'s not on the list.

xpost to self: confusion is sex came out in 83, so scratch that.

the neats were wet noodles

Yeah, that might be true. And no doubt that's why I got rid of their EP. I basically remember it having one pretty catchy song (an instrumental maybe?) called "Six" or something. Which probably was even less good than I remember it. (Maybe they had another halfway okay tune on the Propellor Product cassette or whatever that thing was? How would I know; I wasn't in Boston!) So no doubt my nostaliga is misplaced, but that doesn't mean if I saw a copy of the EP for a buck I wouldn't buy it.

hey it might sound better than rem at this point, time is funny that way

Yeah, that's occured to me, actually... But okay, Google reveals "Six" wasn't on the EP, but rather on the Propellor Product 7-inch (not cassette -- maybe the cassette had a different name?), which I may or may not have owned once. I'm still pretty the EP had at least one song I liked on it, though.

I have a single by them, you know i think it is "6" these strumming guitars & farfisa with a stiff voice chanting the number over & over. don't think it has anything to do w/666 unfortunately.

it's always interesting who is remembered and/or forgotten. file the brains next to human switchboard in the lost critics fave files. someday I should take my vinyl records out of storage...

Those old P&J EP lists are made for lost critics faves, partially because I think most of the voters were like "oh yeah, I have this Neats EP, I saw them live in August and I stayed awake, guess I'll vote for them" or "oh yeah, the Brains put out an EP this year, and they actually made a really good album a couple years ago so I guess I'll vote for them." (Brains really did peak with their debut; followup Electronic Eden or whatever was okay, but I remember the EP up above being fairly lame.) EP winner on the list above is T-Bone Fucking Burnett, who's a bit of a lost critic fave himself. (I swear he had a completley different EP a couple years later called Under the Trap Door, but maybe that was just a German bootleg or something.)
Also love seeing the Meat Puppets' best record ever, i.e., their debut when they were still almost a no wave band, up there, even though nobody has ever really thought of it as an EP (despite its brevity.)

Oops, it was Behind the Trap Door (and apparently an import indeed, if maybe not German):

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Trap-Door-T-Bone-Burnett/dp/B00000116Q

Lostest critic fave on the actual album list would probably be Ted Hawkins, I guess. (The real shock for me, though, is how high the Fleshtones finished. I always thought they were extremely half-assed, but somehow their dorkiness finishing that high makes me smile. Maybe lotsa their friends were rock critics?)

Is Ronald Shannon Jackson lost, too? Nobody seems to talk about him much anymore -- not even fans of Ornette and Blood Ulmer, unless I missed it. And then there's King Sunny Ade, who obviously had his only huge year with critics in 1982. After that, maybe he finished in the middle of the Pazz & Jop list once or twice, if that, I think. So fourth place is pretty astounding, when you think about it.

Actually, looks like Ade finished #38 in 1983, then #30 in '84. After that, not at all, I'm pretty sure.

the fleshtones were the nyc version of the lyres, middling garage revialists who sounded alright when you were drunk in a club but made pointless records (one of which I reviewed in the voice).

the dbs were the critics' freinds, nice guys but dull as doing the dishes. I saw them on the same bill w/glenn branca once, no kidding.

ronald shannon jackson's records were dense and knotty, less accessible (ha) than primetime ornette and james blood ulmer. and I've never been much on african music but those early 80s king sunny ade albums were hot and sweet, my non-critic friends went nuts about him too.

IIRC ted hawkins got busted for child molestation at some point, so he should probably remain lost. he was a caribbean folkie or something?

An African-American folkie, I thought; not sure about the Caribbean part. Achieved fame as a street busker, or something. I'd never heard of the child molestation stuff, but it's there when you google it.

Ronald Shannon Jackson did make one partially electronicized attempt at accessibility a few years later -- called Decode Yourself. I liked it at the time, and liked a few of his other records as well -- put a different one, When Colors Play I think, in my P&J top ten in 1987 -- but stupidly they didn't survive the vinyl purges I've done since.

Nor did Juju Music -- a shame, since I agree it was easy to love, especially the song "Ja Funmi".

Fleshtones always hit me as an entire band of Fred Schneiders. Which yeah, when drunk, could make for a fun night regardless. (The Lyres struck me as better on record, though for sure not a lot better.)

Imperial Bedroom is one of the most boring P&J winners ever - would probably be the worst if it wasn't for Arrested Development. I like the Ted Hawkins album a lot, I didn't know it had become so obscure. My vote would go to Thriller or Nebraska (1999 sounds like singles + filler to me, and all the songs are too damn long).

Definitely Generic Flipper from this list, which is also one of my favorite albums of all time, although I believe it was Gone Fishin' and not Generic that came out in '82.

No, Generic was '82. Gone Fishin' was '84.

Imperial Bedroom is one of the most boring P&J winners ever - would probably be the worst if it wasn't for Arrested Development.

I still like half of Imperial Bdrm, at least (in '82 it was probably my #1--that or ABC...I guess I was into clever wordplay or something), but let's not forget 1979 if we're talking about boring winners.

I'd probably say Flipper's the best/most interesting thing on that list, but I don't know it well enough to vote for it. Just for the hell of it I may vote for Special Beat Service, the top half of which I still think is pretty amazing. Also like Marvin, Roxy, Michael (probably next yr for me), Prince (I prefer the non-singles, myself), Springsteen, Kid Creole, Fleetwood Mac, and maybe my favourite Gang of Four album when it comes right down to it.

...by which I mean Songs of the Free, not the EP.

also, in regards to boring P&J LP winners: don't disagree about Arrested Development (even tho' I still like their first two singles), but for me their victory is probably just the first of an almost unending string of boring and/or predictable P&J winners, with maybe a few exceptions along the way. I guess I'll have to wait and see if I'm just making this up or not.

Hmm, someone (not me) should probably do a most boring/predictable P&J winner poll. I wonder what would win: Imperial Bedroom; Little Creatures; Arrested Development; something else?

I can't believe I agree with Greil Marcus.

Maybe "boringness" is a better example than "predictability" since I don't know how a poll as such couldn't be at least somewhat predictable, most of the time.

"Predictable" is probably kind of a red herring, unless it's the only piece of rock criticism you read all year.

Yeah but some winners have been far more predictable than others (Love and Theft probably being the most obvious example).

Yeah, but again...how could it not be? A non-predictable result would be a few hundred critics awarding the Dylan album 4 or 5 out of 5 stars and then come poll time not voting for it. I just don't see how that could happen (though I guess there are examples where the balance has shifted some in the interim).

The predictablity in many ways has nothing to do with P&J--it has to do with the reception every new Dylan album will get. Which is merely reflected in the poll.

True. Actually, now that I think of it, Parker's '79 win seems kind of surprising to me. I mean, was he just riding punks/Costello's coattails or what? A more predictable choice to win the poll that year would have probably been Rust Never Sleeps.

Yeah, that one's hard to place, I agree, and at least in retrospect is a surprise. I'm thinking at the time Parker appealed to the more tentative new wave voters--the Springsteen and Van Morrison fans--as well as to the new wavers themselves (someone might've said that on the '79 thread--or maybe Christgau mentions it in his essay?). Though having said that, yeah, you'd think Neil Young would've swept. (Though maybe the Young album was released late in the year?)

But it wasn't. Live Rust was actually his late-year release, and probably did end up splitting the Young vote a bit. But probably not enough to have really made a difference either way.

I just think there was some anti-Canada sentiment taking place with that. Damn Americans...

Christgau going on and on and on in every P&J about how critics don't pay enough attention to black music, blah blah blah, but I ask you: where's the love for Canada?

Canada absorbs blackness into itself.

One nation under a groove, we are.

Said 'groove' amply supplied by Gordon Lightfoot.

Actually, I just noticed that if you combine the scores of the two Young albums from that year, he wins the poll by 43 point (and 2 votes). So I guess you could blame vote-splitting for the results after all.

xp

Anyway, yeah, I had some theories on that 1979 thread about what combination of voters (new wavers plus old wavers) might have handed Parker his P&J victory--sort of similar to what Scott says above. (Unlike Scott, though, I'd definitely take Squeezing Out Sparks over Imperial Boredom or Arrested Development -- not to mention over Love and Theft and lots of other winners in the past couple decades.)

Kind of. Here's what you posted on the '76 thread, Chuck:

Obvious theory that for some reason I never thought of until right this second: All-time historical double-blipper Graham Parker did so well by luring in both the boring aging singer-songwriter folkie fans and the wild hard rockers who were ready for punk to happen (an intersection that likely helped Zevon and maybe Seger and Thin Lizzy as well).

And yeah, I'll definitely take Squeezing out Sparks over those others (except for the Dylan, which I love).

Ok, wait, don't be pegging me as a fan of the Arrested Development album. I've never heard it, and never had a desire to. I said I liked the singles. I would take Squeezing Out Sparks over it as well (though not over IB).

Pretty sure I'd take AD's "Tennessee" over BD's "Mississippi," though.

Ha ha, I read "BD" as "Banner, David" at first. (I definitely prefer *Mississippi: The Album* to "Tennessee").

Hey, I think "Tennessee" is pretty fucking great. And the rest of the album isn't that bad, just a tad boring.

The Costello I never really got into, despite catching Elvis on tour back in '82; and he did indeed rock, except during many of the new slow songs that were pretty boring (which may have kind of biased my perception of that record, actually).

Woah, gotta look at the dates on these things--I hadn't voted yet.

I still like Imperial Bedroom, just like I did in high school. Eat that, suckaz.

I still love the first side, definitely, but maybe only a couple tracks from side two.