best double album of the 1980s

might be controversial to list the triple Sandanista but not the late-'79 double London Calling, but there you go.

english settlement

Metal Box, although Sandinista is my favorite multi-LP release from that decade.

1) Sheesh, I'm voting for SOTT in a lot of polls lately.
2) In a post-vinyl era, it's hard to even remember some of these as double albums.

i thought metal box was 79 (though i suppose that still kinda counts as 80s if it came out late that year).

im sure 2 live crews nasty as they wanna be was a double album...

I guess Metal Box was released in '79 and then repackaged as Second Edition in '80? I don't really understand the history of that album but wikipedia listed the latter as 1980 so I threw it in there.

2) In a post-vinyl era, it's hard to even remember some of these as double albums.

Yeah, that was kind of what I got to thinking when I had the idea for this thread...the CD era really redefined album lengths to such a degree that I kinda feel like the stuff on this list are the last 'true' double albums.

...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Seems a little surprising how few doubles there were in the 80's. I guess that the bloat which set in the 90's with every album seventy minutes plus, or feeling like it, made me forget just how unusual doubles were before then.

Phish - Junta

lol

Double Nickels On The Dime

Yeah...I haven't bothered to try and put together a similar list of doubles in the '70s (though I might after this), but I get the feeling it'd be longer. And I know it would be longer in the '90s and this decade, but that's just a side effect of the number of albums being produced in general going way way up.

I had to wittle this list down a TON from all the live albums and best-of compilations that were doubles in the 80s.

Was Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me a triple album?

Joe

1999 followed closely by Sandinista! and Sign O' the Times.

gotta be double nickels or sign o' the times. or maybe 1999. my english settlement must be the shitty american version with only one lp. wtf was up with that? you'd think folks would have realized how annoying that uk/us version stuff was with the beatles etc.

I've voted for SOOT so often that, hell, I'll vote for something else. Louder Than Bombs.

Double Nickels

Was Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me a triple album?

Joe

― Joe, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 4:02 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

damn, I kept thinking that the Cure had a double LP in the '80s but I kept forgetting to check which

I guess Disintegration was a double, too...my bad y'all.

No, Disintegration was just a single album.

ah, i just saw the wikipedia note that the vinyl version just dropped 2 songs to fit on one record...nevermind.

Kiss Me... was a double.

I guess that's your "other" vote unless someone comes up with a more prominent write-in candidate.

might be controversial to list the triple Sandanista but not the late-'79 double London Calling, but there you go.

― some dude, Tuesday, January 27, 2009 3:35 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i admire ur willingness to court controversy on this one al

I'm not voting for Game Theory's Lolita Nation, but it's gotta be the most worthy omission that comes to mind.

hmmmmm......double nickels or zen arcade or english settlement

Game Theory - Lolita Nation

Controversy was a single LP, max.

My recent favorite is Metal Box/Second Edition. SotT is my favorite Prince album (or is it Around the World in a Day... mmm). But I'll go with the one I was most excited about when it came out - I really looked forward to it after my first encounter with the band with Sister and the opening riff of "Teenage Riot" was such a payoff... Works really well as a double as well (as in distinct sides a to d).

VIP: Very Important Poll, most important musical question of the 20th century

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff275/suharOne/As_Nasty_As_They_Wanna_Be_cover.jpg

hard to argue with that

I hate to be boring and keep voting for Daydream Nation on every poll (I voted for that on the RS 5 star poll too), but I can't help it. I own most of these poll choices, but to be honest DN is the one I pull out the most.

by the listen to the most criteria, Zen Arcade.

I've only heard the single record version of the Black Album, but my understanding is the extra disc isn't more great songs, but some stuff.

really we should be polling the me so horny girls

Voted "Oranges And Lemons" ahead of "Sign "O" The Times", but I am not certain whether it actually was one (double vinyl, surely, but that was because artists had stopped caring about vinyl's playtime limitatings by 1989).

"Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" by The Cure was marketed as a double album. "Disintegration" was not, but - like "Oranges And Lemons" it still had to be released on two vinyl records because it was too long for just one.

My vinyl copy of Disintegration, bought in 1989, is single disc.

The one on my right is nice, but the one next to her doesn't have a shirt on.

jesus, i never thought i'd live to see 1999 an underdog in an 80's poll like this. i bought both 1999 and zen arcade the week they came out and it's scary to think about the difference between 1999-loving me and zen arcade-loving me. i had turned into a horror show by 1984. i'm better though, thanks. still great albums!

Metal Box is a triple EP!

London Calling was early '80 in the U.S.

i had turned into a horror show by 1984.

This makes me curious. At least you didn't shoplift the Husker Du record. Did you?

Second Edition, easy. (Which came out in the States in 1980, btw, just like London Calling; both released in the UK in 1979 I think -- right, the PiL one as the 3-EP Metal Box.)

Sandinista! was a triple album (not a double) everywhere, as far as I know.

Weirdest thing on that list to me: Phish, who I can't imagine as an '80s band in any sense at all. (The Fogelberg and EWF ones, I'm just obvlious about.)

The Ex had one other fantastic double album in the 80's - 1984's Blueprints For A Blackout.

That said, I'm picking Zen Arcade.

best triple album from 1980 wasn't made by stinky clash by the way but by half japanese.

There's "Concerts In China" by Jean Michel Jarre. Although more than half of the material was obviously live, there were also a few new studio recordings.

i announced the Sandanista triple caveat in, oh, the 2nd post of this thread.

HAAAAAY Louder Than Bombs is a singles comp WHAT GIIIIVES

¯\(°_o)/¯

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/27/f_s32338m_401f90c.jpg

Now that the reissue is out (I think), hopefully the above will take its rightful place of honor!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000942QL.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I mean, come on. How can you note vote for this cover?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61nLLBU2PXL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

Whereas Sports Weekend is a better one for 2 Live Crew.

everybody's looking for the secret location...

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

In the absence of KMKMKM, I'll go for Daydream Nation.

AR Kane's "i" should have been here, but I'll probably vote for Zen Arcade anyhow.

"other" all the way

This is the first one that popped into my head:
http://homepage1.nifty.com/kcs_bar/god-s.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/65/164326976_ce582bf46a.jpg?v=0

Hell yes, that one's a monster.

i'll be the solitary person that goes all 1999

Nope.

1999. bummer abt game theory though.

ooh eric we might have musical tastes in common too ?

xxxpost

Maybe, was Faces a pretty strong runner-up?

Double album I listened to THE MOST in the 80s: The Suburbs "Credit In Heaven." Still have never heard full-length "English Settlement."

Elvis Costello's compilation "Girls Girls Girls" was a double album in the 80s.

But, a compilation.

"Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" by The Cure was marketed as a double album.

.. because it was.

Athough, my copy had three discs (an extra orange vinyl one)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads

Rock City Angels - Young Man Blues and Jonathan Segel - Storytelling

are certainly double albums, but they aren't "well known" or "best" enough to be worth mentioning. Unless you feel like it.

Rock City Angels - Young Man Blues

Actually a single and a half! (Plus a 12-inch dance remix, sort of like Graham Parker's '78 Parkerilla.)

Can't believe nobody's mentioned Test Dept.'s Beating The Retreat yet. What's wrong with you people?

Real champion, obv: the Times Square soundtrack.

my fave double album released in 1980:

http://www.vinylmoon.com/activos/lp8090/kinksone.jpg

(it's the album that made me a kinks fiend at the age of 11. i bought it in june. by october (and my 12th birthday) i would swear my eternal allegiance to adam & the ants.)

Rock City Angels - Young Man Blues for years my copy was the single record promo, and then I finally ran across the double record. Now I have both.

No one has mentioned The River yet, but it could have been my selection. That's a really good record, "Point Blank", "Fade Away", "The River" etc. and the rockers feel lighter than anything that came later. "Hungry Heart" is such a great single, but I haven't listened to the album in years. That's what I'm going to do later tonight.

SOTT
Not even close.

Sign O' The Times, then 1999, then Bruce. Those were different times.

KMKMKM got the most spins, but barring that it was Warehouse, which never gets any love esp. when pit against Zen Arcade. But teenage nostalgia tells me it's all killer no filler, which is super rare when talking about double albums.

"Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" by The Cure was marketed as a double album.

.. because it was.

Not on CD no. It would never have been marketed as a double album today, or even 15 years ago.

Like, the two "Use Your Illusion" albums and Prince's "Diamonds And Pearls" were all double vinyl albums and single CDs. But they were never seen as double albums.

skot: yes! That Kinks live album is GREAT.

Yes, but "Blonde on Blonde" is a single CD. And if it hadn't been for Revolution no 9....

Just had to show some love for "Urgh! A Music War." It's not studio, nor a single artist, so I know it doesn't fit the parameters, but it's possible I played that MORE than "Credit In Heaven." Anyway, sticking with the list above: 1999.

Tusk was late '79, so alas, I must vote for Bongwater.

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

Dan Fogelberg - The Innocent Age 2

lol

The lol is ain't nobody bragging about it.

Dan Fogelberg - The Innocent Age 2
Husker Du - Warehouse: Stories And Songs 1

Well, fuck me sideways...

Sott is a better album than 1999 but 1999 is a better double album than sott. Sott is just a great, long set of songs, 1999 was prince messing around quite a bit with typical pop structure, and ok, sometimes just indulging himself, but in a really exciting way. Those songs would just not be as good edited. Whereas with sott, yeah he covers more range, but apart from play in.. and I could have take... its more a showcase for just how many great songs hes got rather than pushing the format.

Oranges and Lemons is a double album ?

I would have been another one writing in Lolita Nation by Game Theory.
Of the titles on the list, I would pick Metal Box or maybe Warehouse.
It's far from consistent, but 1985's Asylum by the Legendary Pink Dots is a sort of essay on the idea of the freaked-out experimental double LP, like Twin Infinitives in 1990.

Also, I think of the Fogelberg album as the tombstone of the singer-songwriter movement that started around 1970 with James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. The culture had moved on from this kind of unflashy, earnest autobiographical craftsmanship.

From the list, I would probably vote for Sign... now, though I listened to Double Nickels... basically every day my entire junior year of high school, and I can't believe ...And Justice For All was omitted (OK, yes I can).

Would vote for justice over all this shit but is it a double album

On vinyl it was. 65 minutes long. When I bought it it had a promo sticker that said "9 New Songs/Over 65 Minutes Of Music/2 Record Set...Superior Sound (Because If We Put It On One Record It Would Sound Like S**T)".

Ok then

Oranges and Lemons is a double album ?

The answer is Double Nickels, but our boy forgot HE'S THE DJ, I'M THE RAPPER

Will smith can suck a csck

"9 New Songs/Over 65 Minutes Of Music"

Now THATS a real double album :)

Also, I think of the Fogelberg album as the tombstone of the singer-songwriter movement that started around 1970 with James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. The culture had moved on from this kind of unflashy, earnest autobiographical craftsmanship. Oh man---I'm tempted to add, "If only that were true! But no, there's a place for it, well done or not. Some people must vent in that way, as others must in others. If it ever went away, it came back---I remember actually buying some much-acclaimed tape by the American Music Club (AKA Mark Eitzel, basically), and soon thinking, "What does he need *me* for?" So lonely in the mirror, so perfectly self-absorbed.
Flash fwd to the present day, there's still tons of it in my in-box, though I often try to avoid having to write about it, but get hooked often enough that there's still tons of it in my inbox, mostly by women, who do it---more? Better? I do think female voices are often more flexible and expressive, in whatever subgenre or genre. And then along came Covid, so even more messages from home---but not so many double-albums of this stuff at any time, that I can think of.

Oh, sure, it is going to be a template for some artists for the foreseeable musical future, but I meant that it was the capstone to the movement's moment of cultural relevance. As far as I know, nobody now talks about "songpoets" and acts like they are leading art and society into an era of greater insight and introspection.

How did labels in the late '80s/early '90s determine which records got the double-LP treatment? Oranges and Lemons was a double, but it's shorter than both Freedom and Ragged Glory, which were released as single LPs.

Also, I think of the Fogelberg album as the tombstone of the singer-songwriter movement that started around 1970 with James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. The culture had moved on from this kind of unflashy, earnest autobiographical craftsmanship.

― Halfway there but for you,

And it sold bucketloads! The career of Dan Fogelberg fascinates me. An L.A. airhead with New Age overtones coating his music, but the meticulousness of the arrangements and his own intensity almost transforms it. The Innocent Age is the Avalon of dolphin rock.

Dan Fogelberg ahead of Husker Du in a poll--can't process that.

And where does Christopher Cross fit in? He had a big hit singer/songwriter album the next year, but was faceless and devoid of personality (even compared to Dan Fogerberg!).

To be fair, there was a Husker-Fogelberg-Husker sandwich in this poll.

Zen Arcade was tied for third place, yeah.

A Husker-Fogelberg-Husker sandwich--can't process that.

(I'm the rare person, I think, who prefers Warehouse to Zen Arcade, as much I love "Something I Learned Today" and "Newest Industry," and as much as I realize that Warehouse is just sort of craft, and that they're on their way out rather than right in the middle of their peak.)

I prefer Warehouse, I just think the songs are better, and performed better.

same

and will take FYW over both

i never understood why everyone said the earlier albums sounded like shit considering the state of the sound on those last few. horrible

as for the songs, warehouse is consistently good and ZA is inconsistently great. the diversity helps if you're listening to a double album all the way through on CD or in a CD-derived form

FYW = "Flip Your Wig" or "Fogelberg Your Worship"?

Fuck You Westerberg

Another write-in for Lolita Nation ffs

god enough of this too cool for zen arcade talk

za is consistently great, try hearing it

it's the album i'd vote for here probably

That it's not consistently great is what makes it a fun listen! That's why I love double albums.

turn on the news is too anthemic cock rock for me. the rest is great but i loved it too much when i was 15 and i rarely want to relive that time

god enough of this too cool for zen arcade talk

OTM

one of the greatest side twos of all time

they may be "better" songwriters on warehouse but none of it quite feels like an anxious mind gaining mass and exploding over the course of six fucking blistering hardcore songs and capped by the most haunted early dü tune ("standing by the sea")

and the next side starts with "somewhere"! zen arcade: a feat of sequencing

I like Warehouse and Zen Arcade probably about equally — more tunes on Warehouse, more inventive crazy stuff on ZA. Zen Arcade made everyone go, wait, what are these guys? By Warehouse, they'd turned out to be a more conventional band than ZA made them appear to be, albeit a great one.

But also put me down in the Lolita Nation camp. I think it really fulfills the double-album criteria in being full of utter weirdness side by side with excellent songs. If anything ever sounded like an actual Paisley Underground, it's that.

too cool for zen arcade talk

Don't really think that way, least of all with Husker Du. A quarter to half of it is them trying to sound like they did in 1981, at a point where they're way past that--as they proved brilliantly on the two albums that followed.

Brad is otm about "Standing by the Sea." But "Pink Turns to Blue" is my earworm.

did husker du invent emo and/or shoegaze

Had to check the song, and which one side 2 was. The hardcore side, the side I actually hate--that and "Turn on the News."

Believe me, on release I wanted very much to love that album (suspect I bought it the day it came out). Metal Circus affected me like no record since possibly when I discovered Neil Young in high school. And New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig hit me just as hard. Zen Arcade just seemed like a mess, with a couple of incredible songs and two or three good ones.

how can you possibly hate the hardcore side oh my GOD

lol sorry i feel so passionately about that particular side of music, total psychedelia achieved through amphetamine-driven pummeling

Again, I'm hearing that album in the here and now; the follow-up to an EP that affected the 22-year-old me tremendously. For me, "It's Not Funny Anymore" pointed the way forward, and that's indeed where they ended up on a lot of New Day and Flip Your Wig. The hardcore stuff on Zen Arcade just reminded me of how much I disliked Land Speed Record, which I tracked down after Metal Circus. "Why are they wasting their time with this? They're capable of so much more."

If you hear that differently, no problem--many do. It's the idea that my reaction had something to do with "being cool" that made me bristle a bit.

i don't think that measured songcraft is necessarily a point beyond hardcore madness but fair if you were close enough to the band to feel like it was a regression

i think zen arcade is just kind of an "all of the tools in the toolbox are being used to achieve this singular effect," and that effect is the weird watery hauntedness that rises up through the bodies of the songs whether they're hardcore or approaching power-pop or 14 min jazz fusion odysseys. also the riff of "i'll never forget you" is 2 badass 2 deny

... also against all odds the raw and shitty sst production is perfectly suited to the material. they never achieved this again

I should have mentioned "Eight Miles High," which came out a little before Zen Arcade. The awesomeness of that also contributed to my letdown.

The only albums I genuinely love on this list are Daydream Nation and Metal Box.

This is pretty easily Daydream Nation for me. I love Louder than Bombs but don't really consider it a double album.

If I had to pick just one song from these albums, "Teen Age Riot" would probably be the one--that or "Newest Industry."

One song from all these albums? "Poptones" by PIL.

Would choose Sign O' The Times, just ahead of Metal Box.

Daydream Nation remains a total blind spot for me, as it felt like a real drop in quality after EVOL and Sister, both of which I love. A couple of good tracks and a lot of double-album sprawl.

no

my OPO would def be “1999”

Daydream Nation is a great first disc with a couple of good extras on the second ("Candle", "Hyperstation").

no way side 2 owns

“hey Joni”

Indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCwI386yz-g

"Candle" is often my favorite Sonic Youth song.

Daydream Nation is the only good Sonic Youth album.

def my favorite of theirs by far, i know that’s a poser take

uh, not when it’s end to end great tracks