Acclaimed Music Top 25 Albums from 1984 poll

My finalists:

Pretenders - Learning to Crawl
Prince and The Revolution - Purple Rain
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
R.E.M. - Reckoning
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Replacements - Let It Be

and am tempted to award this to either Pretenders or Tina because, you know, I've got to at some point in my life.

Minnesota was just the fucking shit this year, Mats is a sentimental favorite but I could have voted Zen Arcade or Purple Rain easy any other

some albums just missing the Top 25 include: 28 This Mortal Coil - It'll End in Tears, 29 The Special A.K.A. - In the Studio, 30 Sade - Diamond Life, 31 Bronski Beat - The Age of Consent, 34 Everything But the Girl - Eden, 37 Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel - Hole, 38 Billy Bragg - Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, 39 The Cars - Heartbeat City, 40 The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World of...The Fall, 44 Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground, 45 Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream of Trains, 46 Julian Cope - Fried, 47 Lou Reed - New Sensations and The Cure - The Top.

Reckoning, Meat Puppets, Borm In The USA, Lobos, Learning To Crawl all great too

Some monumental albums for me: 1) Let It Be, 2) Reckoning, 3) Meat Puppets II. I'll take a pass on Zen Arcade, even though I love a few songs, and I became a fan of Like a Virgin a few years later. One day, I'll revisit Double Nickels.

ridiculous year, so many good options, but goin' with Double Nickels

every goddamn poll with "1984" in the title gets my Bruce or Prince vote and Private Dancer needs its reward. I can't imagine what nail biting I would have subjected myself to had Can't Slow Down made it.

impossible. i really want to give it to like Rattlesnakes or Treasure. will probably vote for the brilliant Hatful of Hollow, which towards over the Smiths debut.

Purple Rain. If it were there, Climate of Hunter.

Wow, I own a dozen of these and love them to pieces. It comes down to Ocean Rain vs Rattlesnakes and my heart says Echo.

My year. Minutemen.

First off, I was a very disappointed young person in 1984 because all the things I understood - New Wave and early 80s English pop stuff - kind of petered out and died that year, with plenty of band breakups. I hated radio that year - some of the most godawful dreck of the 80s. The gigantic coronation of Bruce Springsteen combined with the re-election of Reagan the first year I could vote, it seemed like the world was shutting down (and I was right, except I wasn't)

I missed the truly exciting things coming out of the American underground until years later.

So cut to 2012 and this is how looking through this list went for me: gotta be Zen Arcade. Nope, gotta be Double Nickels. Nope, gotta be Meat Puppets II.

Which is where I stop, because Meat Puppets II is possibly my favorite album of the decade. But it seems really cruel NOT to vote for Double Nickels. I'm going to have to play both of these again before I vote.

My favorite REM song ever is on Reckoning: Seven Chinese Brothers.

Prince, but damn, what a year.

I hated radio that year - some of the most godawful dreck of the 80s

this is fucking insane

the great thing about 1984 is that the "underground" and top 40 radio were for once intersecting on the dance floor and radio

Holy shit!

Prince vs Husker Du vs REM

with strong contenders from the Smiths and Van Halen. I actually didn't realize there was an 80s pop year I liked this much.

Hello. I just called to say I love you, Karma Chameleon, so hold me now. I'm Dancin in the dark, getting all...Footloose. Say, say, say, Caribbean Queen, now we're sharing the same dream, but they do say the heart of rock and roll is the beat, and from what I've seen, I was born in the usa. So take a look at me now, against all odds, I'm like a virgin but what's love got to do with it?

NO, you go be trapped at a job with a transistor radio playing the hits of 1984 end to end, not only all that year but for the next fifteen or so.

Coming up next: hit songs I like (not necessarily "liked") from 1984.

Is that a sweeping statement, Alfred? The underground and top 40 were intersecting on the dance floor and radio more than they were in 1978 or 1980 or 1982 or 1987?

(or 1968)

the underground as depicted by these poll options definitely doesn't seem to have a lot of dancefloor/mainstream radio intersection

Yeah, maybe the Smiths and Frankie here.

you and me baby, twinkle twinkle

Prince will get loadsa votes... Cole might do ok-ish, so... gonna have to throw Sylvo a vote here.
It ain't "Secrets..." or "Blemish," but dude knows how to make some fine music!

i can't imagine Lloyd Cole getting any votes but then i barely have the slightest idea of who that is

Reckoning is pretty low on this list, not my fav here but def my favorite '80s REM album

Hmm. Maybe he won't then!

Rattlesnakes is beyond killer though. Gotta be good for one or two clicks.

That said, Prince could get ALL the votes and it'd be hard to complain, yo.

So now the big mainstream US hits of 1984 I like, in no order:

Romantics - Talking in your sleep
Kool & the Gang - Joanna
Sheila E - The Glamorous Life
Prince - Let's Go Crazy
Genesis - That's All
Pointer Sisters - Automatic
Madonna - Borderline
Scandal - The Warrior
Shannon - Let the Music Play
Phil Collins & Philip Bailey - Easy Lover

and my unabashed number one favorite hit of the year is:

Laura Branigan - Self Control

Self Control is crazy good.

The Shannon tune was so hot, ABC copied the production wholesale on the Millionaire single. Whatta sound!

I know the night is not as it would seem!

tempted to go through the born in the usa and purple rain tracklists and counting the number of tracks i have wept to in order to decide b/w the two

Je vais aller avec M. Roth et les frères Halen.

Rattlesnakes is an absolute brilliant album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSVDJwnrQKI

Lloyd Cole never got close to repeating it but we have Rattlesnakes.

What a crazy year. Whole bunch of other stuff that came out that I like a lot:

Arvo Pärt - Tabula rasa
Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4
The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair
The Waterboys - A Pagan Place
Coil - Scatology
Tones on Tail - Pop
Laurie Anderson - Mister Heartbreak
Black Flag - My War
Television Personalities - The Painted Word
Die Kreuzen - s/t
Dead Can Dance - s/t
Scott Walker - Climate of Hunter
This Kind of Punishment - A Beard of Bees
Talk Talk - It's My Life
Ghédalia Tazartès - Une éclipse totale de soleil
Leonard Cohen - Various Positions
News From Babel - Work Resumed on the Tower
Tom Verlaine - Cover
Sun City Girls - s/t
Current 93 - Dogs Blood Rising

1. Talking Heads
2. Minutemen
3. Run-D.M.C.
3. Prince

Hello. I just called to say I love you, Karma Chameleon, so hold me now. I'm Dancin in the dark, getting all...Footloose. Say, say, say, Caribbean Queen, now we're sharing the same dream, but they do say the heart of rock and roll is the beat, and from what I've seen, I was born in the usa. So take a look at me now, against all odds, I'm like a virgin but what's love got to do with it?

I'll grant you that particular Huey Lewis song; otherwise this is heaven.

I'm not gonna lie, I clicked Purple Rain without even reading the rest.

I mean I love love love about 85% of this list and listen to it all on the regular, but Purple Rain.

i look at this list and all i can think is that 1984 is one of the weakest years for music. there's lots of stuff i like, but almost nothing i love.

Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4

OMG, didn't realize/remember this was 1984. An all-time classic for me.

Lets not forget Swans - Cop here

Voted for The 'Mats.

My top three: REM > Replacements > Los Lobos

anytime someone at worked asked why my aim name ended in "84" i had to note that a) 1984 was a very good year for music and b) i came up with my aim name as a college freshman.

someone at work, rather

it is really lame that Prince is going to lose this poll because everyone is assuming someone else will vote for Purple Rain

Double Nickels on the Dime. It would get my vote for best overall record of the 1980s.

Double Nickels, no question.

i have no idea who will win, and am cool with any american option, really, save the dream syndicate.

Hello. I just called to say I love you, Karma Chameleon, so hold me now. I'm Dancin in the dark, getting all...Footloose. Say, say, say, Caribbean Queen, now we're sharing the same dream, but they do say the heart of rock and roll is the beat, and from what I've seen, I was born in the usa. So take a look at me now, against all odds, I'm like a virgin but what's love got to do with it?

I'll grant you that particular Huey Lewis song; otherwise this is heaven.

Your heaven is my hell.

And hell came complete with data entry in the 90s, when they had special radio stations "designed for your work day" and spritzed this bland excrement out nonstop with the air conditioning.

I also remember a college era job from 1984 where, more amusingly, the teenage girls I worked with would scan the stations to pick up "Hold Me Now" so that they could hear it about fifteen times a shift. 1984 was when the playlists of the formerly "top 40" stations got INCREDIBLY SHRINKING.

at the time, i would have broken my brain trying to decide between let it be, double nickels, meat pups II and zen arcade.

at nearly 30 years' remove (holy shit, btw), i'll take tracks from most of those and break my brain trying to decide between purple rain and double nickels. ride the lightning's up there too.

really oughtta be prince, but i'm going with the minutemen for sentimental reasons.

this might have been my favorite year in music, the moment when i was most happily and completely engaged. somewhere between 84 and 87, anyway...

Since there's plenty of time for arguments, why doesn't someone explain to me the "obvious" superiority of Purple Rain.

i am ultra burned out on purple rain and pretty much never listen to it at this point but that is the fault of it being an amazing album that i couldnt stop playing over the years, unlike most of the rest of these, as much as i love them.

I HAVE RECKONING REMORSE.

Should have went with Brilliant Trees.

My question might not deserve an answer, to be honest. I just went and played the title song and it sounded as awful as the last time I heard it a quarter century ago. If you think the title song is some self-evident work of genius, then we probably don't see eye to eye enough to make it worth trying to convince me.

I was just wondering if there is some hidden gem on this record that would appeal to somebody who thinks the big decision in 1984 is picking Meat Puppets II or Double Nickels. Or who can't decide whether "Automatic" is a better single than "Easy Lover." Or to get out of 1984 specifically, whether Fresh is a better album than Riot. Genuine quandaries for me.

there is no hidden gem on purple rain; the entire album (with one exception) and all the b-sides (with one exception) were all over radio (in 1984, the greatest year for top 40 radio in america since 1966), and the exception from the album was widely played enough anyway it prompted congressional hearings and the b-side that didn't get radio play is probably the most famous prince b-side there is. there are also no hidden gems on born in the usa, you can generally repeat the above minus masturbation, the option of fucking til dawn, congressional hearings but plus presidential campaigns, alleged cunnilingus, natalie cole/clint eastwood vehicles.

Tedious MTV* inseminated inevitability, from 1984 to whenever it stopped.

*Monoculture Television

Started hitting the local church/firebarn/middle-school dances in 84, where I started hearing these for the first time:
Hard Times - Run DMC
Roxanne Roxanne - UTFO
New York New York - Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Which was pretty exciting for a 12 yr old!

Was funny hearing these tracks shoe-horned into sets alongside Bob Seger's "Turn the Page," The Firm's "Radioactive," Bryan Adams, REO Speedwagon, etc... (the night ALWAYS ended with Always & Forever. heh). In a handful of years, the local under 18 clubs started splitting into "rock" and "non-rock" (which would usually be continuous freestyle) rooms, but... not yet.

Oh shit. "Jam on It" by Newcleus was 84 too!

wikki wikki wikki

why doesn't someone explain to me the "obvious" superiority of Purple Rain.

i dunno, you're the one who introduced "obvious" to this thread, so you'll have to explain that part to me. personally, i think the title track makes the case for the album about as any other song on it - which is to say about as well as any piece of music written/performed over the last half century or so could hope to - but you might prefer "when doves cry", "computer blue", "let's go crazy" or "erotic city" (tricky non-album b-side there).

somewhere out there, there's a great 1983-vintage video clip of the live recording of the basic track. i think this is it, but i can't be sure, cuz this computer doesn't have speakers, and i don't have my headphones with me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYEiDOEEae0

"...the title track makes the case for the album about as well any other song on it..."

Also, Escape by Whodini has loadsa goods too. GREAT singles.

1984. Who knew?

As for Purple Rain, always thought Die 4 U and Take Me With U were brilliant singles. Haven't been spoiled by overfamiliarity either.

Purple Rain or Ride The Lightning.

purp

ok "monoculture television" kinda tipped yr hand. well played though. better than coopdoggydogg fwiw.

I so totally did NOT introduce obvious to this thread:

That said, Prince could get ALL the votes and it'd be hard to complain, yo.

I'm not gonna lie, I clicked Purple Rain without even reading the rest.

it is really lame that Prince is going to lose this poll because everyone is assuming someone else will vote for Purple Rain

weaker effort, try again

Any other year in the 80s and Prince would walk all over this for me, and he's definitely got my vote in 1987 over pleased to meet me and warehouse don't worry (not that i'd pick zen over purple anyway). If Prince loses this to a more slovenly twin cities resident or anyone else he can wipe away his tears with dollar bills and panties.

yeah i thought about voting purple rain when the prospect of the smiths beating it seemed real but that vote should be split (though watch out for lloyd cole apparently). mats or any of the sst masterpieces winning is fine by me, esp since prince is the OBVIOUS winner in 87 by a healthy margin. voted double nickels.

purple rain is probably my favorite album by a bonafide superstar ever (maaaybe let it bleed gets close) but it's also an album about how fuck and love are both 4-letter words and well, Let It Be hits me in the untucked plaid button-down a little more

pupps just barely over purp. prince and the kirkwood bros. basically define this era in music for me

with the exception of the butthole surfers: psychic powerless is 84, no? that album is awesome

powerless is 85, i think

voted ocean rain

Purple Rain is so intense, it's like taking LSD

not really, that opens up a different world...

i did own a cassette version of Purple Rain.

it should be a tough call, but 'II' by meat puppets is - most of the time - my favourite album ever, so that makes it easy. 'purple rain' could be a contender, tho.

Metallica, obviously.

Hatful Of Hollow

Voted for Zen Arcade, which I still think of as a monument to teenage pain and confusion that I don't think anyone has really bettered. Something very real and scary about that record.

Have been listening to Ocean Rain a shit to lately though, even though in this era it kind of sounds like a faustian Coldplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEThL6WcgF4

^ how great is this though?

Honestly don't think Vic Perry is trolling itt. I don't have super fond memories of a lot of these. It may have something to do with the fact that I wasn't all that young: 26 in 1984.

I was doing a lot of dj gigs then, and it strikes me that a lot of this list I bought back then not so much because I loved it as it was music others liked: Prince, Springsteen, Tina, Frankie, Madonna, Run-DMC... No interest in Van Halen or Metallica. At home I was listening to the American indie stuff: 'Mats, Huskers, REM, Dream Syndicate, plus The Smiths. Probably most of all Double Nickels.

i was a huge fan of what was bocoming indie rock in the mid-80s, and i was also a snot-nosed, pop-saturated, MTV-watching american teen. as such i was both in love with and alienated from/suspicious of mainstream pop music and culture, a position sketched out quite cleverly by sonic youth and mike watt on their "ciccone youth" madonna covers.

at the time, my list of favorite albums would have tipped heavily toward stuff on SST, homestead and slash, toward a deliberately "unpretentious" (and perhaps even "authentic") vision of rock music as something hacked out in garages, divey clubs and budget studious by people very much like me: young, white, disaffected, lowbrow bohemian, punk and "trash" besotted, at least slightly college educated, neither dirt poor nor truly rich. the myopia of this didn't trouble me much because i was young and naive and because the music i loved took pains to establish itself as outside, above and opposed to the corruption and emptiness of commercial culture. i loved it because it was at once close to home and seemingly radical, seemingly new.

anyway, i'm not ashamed that so many of my favorite albums of the era were so clearly of this rather narrow type, but i am a bit surprised that people would, at this remove, still stake so much on those aesthetics and stances. i mean, i still love the proto-indie guitar rock of the era, but it's hard for me to imagine elevating it so far above the likes of prince, metallica, madonna and run-DMC. it's sufficient for me to think of these worlds as on par with one another.

are people elevating it so far above those likes or just voting for their favorite album on a poll

oh wait i forgot your the guy who hand-wrings about the indie canon irrelevant to what else is going on in a thread, carry on

See, in 1984 I was a 14-year-old kid (I turned 15 that fall) living in the ass end of northeast Ohio who didn't know there was such a thing as non-mainstream culture. It didn't get delivered to us in friggin' Perry, OH and I had no idea where to look for it. As a result, I didn't even HEAR of many of these bands until I went to college in 1987. R.E.M. I had heard because MTV played "Pretty Persuasion" from time to time, but otherwise the only albums or artists I heard contemporaneously were:

Prince and The Revolution - Purple Rain
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Madonna - Like a Virgin
Run-D.M.C. - Run-D.M.C.
Van Halen - 1984
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Pretenders - Learning to Crawl

Of those albums, "Purple Rain" just seemed to me to have been delivered fully-formed from another planet. It was clearly pop music, but its concerns and its shapes and its sonic pallet were just so different from anything else on that list that it captivated me like no other record I heard that year.

wow croup are you ever not a huge dick? xpost

sorry that was bitchy but anyway, i'm not ashamed that so many of my favorite albums of the era were so clearly of this rather narrow type, but i am a bit surprised that people would, at this remove, still stake so much on those aesthetics and stances. i mean, i still love the proto-indie guitar rock of the era, but it's hard for me to imagine elevating it so far above the likes of prince, metallica, madonna and run-DMC seemed outta fucking nowhere

Seemed perfectly in context following all those Vic Perry posts?

even that outlier posted a list of his top ten favorite 84 pop hits topped by laura branigan

was a response to a bunch of posts itt, though i don't want to single anyone out. also, of course, to my own reflexive, "hand-wringing" analysis of the culture of my youth. i dunno, it seems to me that the american college rock/indie of the mid 80s through early 90s (along with the kind of UK guitar rock that dominates this list) continue to loom almost comically large in a certain collective critical imagination. it's like a less populist version of classic rock's fixation on the the "countercultural" hitmakers of the late 60s and 70s. modern rockism. i suppose i should be pleased by the validation of my own youthful tastes, but it sometimes bothers me in the same way that classic rock's self-satisfied and self-congratulatory nostalgia does.

i just really don't see anyone lionizing the indie aesthetic over pop so much as admitting that one album from a great year for american indie rock is their favorite album of 1984 despite bruce, prince, cyndi etc bringing big guns as well

vic perry obv being a more complex individual than the rest of us

sorry for the harshness croup

all good, i knew it was a dick post before i hit "submit"

also lol that i assumed cyndi lauper was one the umpteen pop classics of 84

My own experience of 1984 is very close to Dan Peterson's, minus the DJ'ing. I was slightly younger--turned 23 in the fall. I was obviously aware of all the huge chart music, bought some of it too, and I kept up with the Voice, so I think a had a sense of how critics were writing about the year as a Top 40 benchmark reminiscent of the mid-'60s. I think I did, anyway--maybe that came later with Pazz & Jop. But Purple Rain and Born in the U.S.A. just didn't mean anything to me personally the way that the Amerindie stuff did. (Not that some of that didn't not-register either.) I think it's a mistake to assume everyone was enamored of Prince/Springsteen/Turner etc.

Most every She's So Unusual hit was '84, so that more properly belongs with this list, I'd say (but realize the album came out late '83).

If you were 11 and growing up in MN, Purple Rain should be seared into your blood.

That makes perfect sense. Every one of these lists depends so much on age and circumstances.

vic perry obv being a more complex individual than the rest of us

? ? ?

you dismissed 84 radio as dreck but loved a laura branigan song! that's complex, dude

DJP--did an 11-year-old in Minnesota in 1984 have any awareness at all of the Replacements or Husker Du? Not necessarily their music, but the fact that there were these two Minnesota bands getting lots of attention in places like Rolling Stone. Or were they just obliterated by Prince?

this 11-year-old hated The Replacements and used to run around his parents' living room dancing like a madman to "Hare Krishna" for upwards of 45 minutes at a time

actually I really, really, REALLY loved Zen Arcade and was super pissed when my brother had to take it back to the library

that's right, my brother checked Zen Arcade out of the library (where my mother worked)

(he was 16)

You missed the boat, SST--you should have been marketing Husker Du as a boy band.

Huskey Dudes.

I am playing "Hare Krsna" right now and still feeling the same rush of awesome

also I think I now realize why I gooned out over shoegazers so much

anecdotes of 11-year-old DJP loving Zen Arcade are coming close to making my day tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZfVX5R9-Fw&feature=fvwrel

I was not aware of this until this minute.

You missed the boat, SST--you should have been marketing Husker Du as a boy band.

I'm trying to imagine which members of all of the boy bands that followed would be forced by management to rock the obligatory Greg Norton 'stache...

when I was 11, my favorite albums were:

Men Without Hats - Rhythm of Youth
Prince - Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Thompson Twins - Into The Gap
Red Hot Chili Peppers - s/t
Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

I was 11 in '92 and iirc I was not much into music, mostly into Infinity War

you dismissed 84 radio as dreck but loved a laura branigan song! that's complex, dude

Looking at top 100 songs for things that I like, I found less than 15. And the stuff I didn't like had extra enforced exposure - a lot - so I'm extra sure I don't like it.

I didn't like Self Control at the time, but about ten years ago I heard it again and thought it was a great obsession song. And that video is some kind of high water mark in Euro-Trash-Porn MTV, really uncomfortable-making creepiness there.

xp (I wanted all the crossover issues!)

(but still that's a pretty great list Dan; a bit younger than that & I was totes listening to Billy Joel and Wilson Phillips)

oh I forgot:

Pink Floyd - The Wall
Rush - A Farewell to Kings, 2112, Moving Pictures
Led Zepplin - IV
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper

my tastes were very deeply influenced by my dad and two older brothers

lol and Steely Dan - Aja, Gaucho

yeah the Wilson Phillips I got from my mom

I think the one album my mom played a lot was the Chariots of Fire soundtrack

in summation, I love my family

I love Aura by King Sunny Ade too. That's one I actually did hear that year, and still play alot. Saw King Sunny for the second time that year, opening for Black Uhuru, but the crowd showing up for them didn't really get into it.

While I love Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All, I've never heard all of Ride the Lightning. I am rectifying this now.

Oh, PCPPEP is 1984 too! I really do love that one. Aye, Calypso.

Lloyd Cole never got close to repeating it but we have Rattlesnakes.

― Bee OK

Totally agree with this, just played it the other day and enjoyed every second. I'm voting for that ahead of Purple Rain.

My favourite album from 84 would be The Strange Idol Patterns & Other Short Stories by Felt which is sadly not listed.

If you were 11 and growing up in MN, Purple Rain should be seared into your blood.

I was a decade and a half older and it still was, for sure. You know what I'm sure I played more that year, though?

http://www.twintone.com/minies/suburbs_love.jpeg

made a mistake. somehow I read 'stop making sense' as 'speaking In tongues'

still a great album, I'm not ashamed.

I would have voted minutemen otherwise.

Contenderizer's post reminded me that this is exactly the milieu that Carducci's proudly rockist tract emerged from

Oh FUCK YES re: The Suburbs

one of them is the cousin of a dude I sang with in an opera (he had a role, I was a chorister) and in my pro church choir; I discovered this connection after he moved to San Francisco and I made some offhanded Suburbs reference on my wall and he was all "oh funny, did you know Chan's my cousin" and I basically bugged the fuck out

Awesome!

xpost For some reason, probably doubting my need for another Heads live album despite loving the film, I didn't buy a copy of Stop Making Sense for a number of years after its release. It is still a great album, one of my favorites up there, just not one I actually loved in 1984. (Which I realize is not the point of this poll...)

a tangent from the issues raised by contenderizer:

There's still a possibility in 1984 that the SST bands can become popular rock music instead of a permanent pop subculture. And these great albums are full of good ideas, hooks, melodies, playing, lyrics - real good pop music in short. The problem with defining everything in terms of "rockist" or not, or thinking it is more "critically mature" to praise the gigantic success over the cult favorite, is that you surrender a lot to the question of what the industry backed at the time it appeared. When Nirvana actually becomes hugely popular several years later, suddenly deciding that they must therefore have had better pop instincts than the 80s bands is awfully convenient. (Not that anyone has done that here...yet?)

that's a good point. i sort of do think that nirvana had "better pop instincts" than their predecessors, but not in any objective sense. they just happened to have the right sound, look and hype at the right time in a way that i can't imagine the meat puppets, husker du, the vaselines or whoever providing, no matter what. but that's just me agreeing with history, and it means nothing.

i do think there's reason to beware a canon stacked deep with "smart", "edgy" and/or "artful" guitar pop bands helmed by middle-class white boys, but that's like every "generalist" best list ever, seemingly, and i've made the same gripe too many times to be really interested in it.

I appreciate the sociable response, contenderizer. Might I point out that there might not be anything more middle-class white boy (or white girl) than worrying about being too middle-class white boy (or girl)? Or presuming automatically that the guys from San Pedro were more "privileged" than Prince Rogers Nelson in their upbringing?

Might I point out that there might not be anything more middle-class white boy (or white girl) than worrying about being too middle-class white boy (or girl)?

oh god yes. that's the terrible, hilarious, pathetic and bitterly ironic conundrum at the center of all such thinking. i tear my hair nightly, but if i didn't love the mortification, i wouldn't worry so at the wound.

fwiw, i've expressed frustration in several of these "acclaimed music" that the lists tilt so absurdly heavily towards these particular sounds and cultures. it doesn't bother me at all that pitchfork or even pazz & jop might build this particular canon. it does, however, bother me that "critics in general" march in such uniform step. i'm shocked by how similar these lists are to the RYM yearly top lists, and to the GOAT lists published periodically by "generalist" (but rock-oriented) magazines and sites. i don't really know why i'm shocked, but i am. i guess i like to think that there's a little more diversity of opinion out there, even if i'm as willing as anyone to low in time with the herd.

Amusing interlude from the Wikipedia page:

"Minutemen's anti-rockist eclecticism was perhaps the best exemplified on 1984's double album Double Nickels on the Dime."

See, The Minutemen are "anti-rockist," it says so right there on the Wikipedia!

I do think there's reason to beware a canon stacked deep with "smart", "edgy" and/or "artful" guitar pop bands helmed by middle-class white boys

It's hard to imagine what else the canon could be considered it was mostly assembled by white middle-class male rock critics and considering that it's easier to appreciate music when one has an acquaintance with the social context that produced it and when that music tends to affirm one's own social identity and status. If anyone seriously believes that the "canon", as represented by lists like this, really represents the best music produced on planet Earth (or even in the English-speaking world) in a particular year, then well, I don't know what to say to them. But taken with a sufficiently large grain of salt these things are fun to argue about.

It's hard to imagine what else the canon could be considered it was mostly assembled by white middle-class male rock critics and considering that it's easier to appreciate music when one has an acquaintance with the social context that produced it and when that music tends to affirm one's own social identity and status.

Didn't most white middle-class male rock critics subsequently decide that Madonna or Prince was the artist of the decade? I do agree such a decision would "affirm one's own social identity and status" as well - for one thing, they could self-congratulate on not picking any middle-class white guys as artists of the decade.

Actually the whole quote from Wikipedia is funnier:

"Minutemen's anti-rockist eclecticism was perhaps the best exemplified on 1984's double album Double Nickels on the Dime. Though still somewhat obscure to mainstream audiences, Double Nickels has been cited as one of the more innovative and enduring albums of the 1980s American rock underground."

You know, I was cited by a police officer once.

I do agree such a decision would "affirm one's own social identity and status" as well - for one thing, they could self-congratulate on not picking any middle-class white guys as artists of the decade.

i'm less concerned about what middle class white guys do or don't like (hey, i'm one, i like sonic youth) than sort of bummed when a site that allegedly makes a point of aggregating all the criticism it can possibly find winds up endorsing ... exactly the same familiar shit that populates pitchfork and RYM lists. i get a weird, sinking, "is that all there is?" feeling. like i thought there was supposed to be a dead monoculture around here somewhere...

i need to stop talking about this non-issue. it's obvious at this point that these acclaimed music lists are gonna consist almost entirely of indie-friendly music mag guitar favorites (padded out with a few big names from other streams), and i've played the "surprised and concerned" card way too many times in these threads.

Ocean Rain.

Isn't it possible that there is, more or less, some consensus about what to praise, after almost thirty years? I believe in the perception of aesthetic superiority, most specifically where I can't see it --- like, I respect that people love Purple Rain, or even Born in the USA, if they are still willing to argue for them now when it can't possibly matter any more. Canons are not conspiracy.

I count 6-9 "indie-friendly music mag guitar favorites" titles at MOST on this list of 27 albums by the way. By definition people who are still investigating music from this long ago might be, well, more involved in music appreciation, than the people who bought albums because they were on television at the time.

that's a good point. i sort of do think that nirvana had "better pop instincts" than their predecessors

I was going to say! Vic's points are very valid but I'm surprised that anyone would dispute that Nevermind has more of a pop sensibility than the sprawling, noisy Zen Arcade or early Meat Puppets.

(And I'm a fan of Zen Arcade btw. Like the Meat Puppets fine too. I'd be the last person to claim that "pop instincts" are a necessary component of good music.)

I think the groundwork for hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Lithium" or "Heart-Shaped Box" as "pop songs" was laid specifically by these groups. No way would these have been hits if it had been possible for them to have appeared from 84-87 (talk about speculative argument, Vic!)

Great videos could have been made out of "Whatever" and "Plateau." The more jazzy Minutemen might have been a tougher sell, except "This Ain't No Picnic" already had a really great video - something that as I recall MTV used to be very douche-y about using in their promos but not fucking playing....

Frankly, almost anything played on the radio could get some kind of audience. My local "rock of the 80s" station used to play "blocks" of Oingo Boingo, and if there was ever proof that exposure is everything....

What I should have said was - no way would Nirvana have been a "pop group" if they hadn't enjoyed an industry push and enjoyed MTV support and been on SNL and etc. Instead maybe they would have been about Pixies level famous --- and maybe Kurt Cobain would have lived past 1994 too? I'm getting too sci-fi alternate universe now...

I don't disagree with any of that but I also think the music on Nevermind is more accessible than the other bands you're talking about, especially the vocals (more in tune than the Meat Puppets, less screaming than Husker Du). Zen Arcade contains psychedelic instrumentals, entirely-screamed hardcore, etc mixed in with the more tuneful songs while Nevermind is a concise collection of melodic verse-chorus tunes. Nirvana's other albums are another story, mind you. (Similarly, I think Fall Out Boy are much more accessible than the Get Up Kids, even though the groundwork for FOB was being laid by the bands in the emo canon thread.)

That said, who knows what Nevermind would sound like if it had lo-fi 80s indie production instead of glossed-out Butch Vig production?

Like, REM had no trouble crossing over from indie-world in the 80s. I don't think it's an accident. Major labels did try to push Husker Du and the Replacements, right? They just didn't catch on like either REM or Nirvana.

Well, they played REM on my radio station. They didn't play Husker Du. I have no idea why they didn't play The Replacements, who sound at times about as aurally challenging to mainstream tastes as Bryan Adams. But yeah. It's a closed system: nobody actually played The Meat Puppets, The Minutemen, or Husker Du on any radio station I heard, so arguing later that it would not have been a hit anyway is about as valid as my setting-Nirvana-in-the-80s arguments.

(I'm being modest - it's less valid, actually. Lake of Fire could have totally hit, man. People would have dug that one with one of those Peter Gabriel claymation videos, man).

I think "I Will Dare" could have been a big big hit with just enough radio play to get it going...

"Lake of Fire" is pretty dissonant and jammy compared to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Lithium". I mean, it may well still be less 'out there' than some of the Hendrix and Zeppelin stuff that gets heavy classic rotation airplay but it does seem more challenging by the standards of 80s-early 90s radio. (Something like the Replacements' "I'll Be You", on the other hand, would fit fine between Bryan Adams and Tom Petty, you're right.) You're saying that if radio stations simply chose to repeatedly play the Meat Puppets or the Minutemen (or perhaps some John Zorn?), a mainstream audience would latch on eventually? I'm actually curious whether that could work. It's an interesting idea in any case.

xpost

(OK, I was being an ass about John Zorn but I started becoming curious to what extent this could work.)

(Also, I see that "I'll Be You" did go to #1 on the modern rock and album rock charts while it made the bottom half of the general Billboard chart.)

(Makes sense since it was the only Replacements song I remembered seeing on Muchmusic.)

This got me to put on Meat Puppets II in any case.

Oh shit, I was actually thinking of the Too High to Die version of "Lake of Fire" when I said it was jammy! The 1:54 version on II isn't that jammy, obv, but I wonder if those voices could have made it on 80s radio.

All I know is Kurt Cobain sounded totally comfortable, right and by definition commercial singing it a few years later on MTV Unplugged.

Prince is probably the most sensible answer here, but I went with Meat Puppets II

the Rate Your Music list is not even close to the same albums:
1 Metallica - Ride the Lightning
2 Iron Maiden - Powerslave
3 Arvo Pärt - Tabula rasa
4 Prince - Purple Rain
5 The Replacements - Let It Be
6 Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
7 Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
8 Cocteau Twins - Treasure
9 Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
10 The Smiths - The Smiths
11 Ennio Morricone - C'era una volta in America
12 Erik Satie - 3 Gymnopédies & Other Piano Works (Pascal Rogé)
13 Various Artists - Amadeus
14 Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphonie No. 9 (Berliner Philharmoniker/Karajan)
15 Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
16 Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith
17 Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
18 Lloyd Cole and The Commotions - Rattlesnakes
19 R.E.M. - Reckoning
20 Metal Church - Metal Church
21 Fabrizio De André - Creuza de mä
22 Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4
23 Warlord - And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun...
24 The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall
25 Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand the Weather

that list is a joke, Metal Church over something like Born In the U.S.A.?

no U2, no Madonna and no Van Halen...

Yeah. Acclaimed Music is just supposed to document the hegemony. This kind of canon-building is precisely the reason why lex and deej get all sneery about indie rock

RYM is something else entirely; a schizoid list that is half prog-metal technique geeks and half hegemony

I still am v much vulnerable to the garage-rock romance but ILX has broadened my horizons quite a bit. I do feel like ILX is probably the best place to build a "shadow canon"

god what is my favorite 1984 album not much hey now

Well, the RYM list reflects hardcore listener obsessions, including classical music and metal as well as what is laughably referred to as "hegemony". (Rock critics and indie cred people controlling your mind, man, fight the power).

Score a big one for Prince for landing high on this list by the way - the only finisher who was a superstar in 84. Meanwhile, the upstanding non-elitists whom we know would support Springsteen, U2, Madonna and Van Halen are apparently too busy leading productive lives to go "rating their music". It couldn't possibly be that they don't care any more.

also don't forget Run-D.M.C...

Minutemen's anti-rockist eclecticism

Whoever wrote that was probably referring to lack of guitar solos, rock and roll-oriented chord progressions, etc.

I count 6-9 "indie-friendly music mag guitar favorites" titles at MOST on this list of 27 albums by the way.

to flesh that argument out a little more thoroughly, i'm talking about the dominance on the six acclaimed music lists that have been polled so far of a few different strains of largely (but not exclusively) guitar-based rock and pop. here's a cursory map of the territory i'm trying to corral, as defined by the trends of the era in question: punk, new wave, pub rock, modern or alternative rock, synthpop, UK postpunk, college rock, and american proto indie - along with the sort of mainstream and art rock that's typically described as "literate", "sophisticated" and/or "subversive". i count about 15 i'd slot into that umbrella genre this time around, give or take a couple borderline cases.

throw in pedigreed rock-canon eminences like bruce springsteen and other sorts of mainstream rock, and you account for about 75% of this list - more like 95% of some others. meanwhile, the presence of nonwhite and female artists in acclaimed music lists often comes across as condescending tokenism at best, outright indifference at worst. happily, this particular list is relatively diverse in that four of the 27 artists are women (or bands fronted by women), and six are nonwhite/anglo. a good deal of the music listed exists beyond the conventional boundaries of what most would call "rock music". still, year after year, the pronounced skew in favor of white and especially male artists is hard to miss.

it's not that i don't think people should like such stuff, or that there's anything wrong with listing it among the best music ever made. i have no problem with people liking whatever they want, and i personally love a lot of rock music made by white guys. given, however, that these lists are presented not merely as some individual or institution's taste, but instead as the aggregate historical verdict of "music critics" in general, the narrowness of the vision surprises and bothers me. hell, though there's less RYM overlap here than there has been in the past (only 11 of 27 appear on both lists), the RYM list arguably casts a broader net.

it doesn't surprise me that there isn't much jazz here. jazz was in steep decline both as a commercial genre and a cultural force by this point. but why so little composed music? why so little soul, funk and R&B, even if these weren't exactly peak years for those genres? why so many moderately successful releases from artists in the "umbrella genre", and so few big pop smashes of the sort enjoyed by millions? why so little country, metal, dance music, vocalists, adult contemporary, reggae and african music? aren't there influential critics who concern themselves with those genres, approaches and regions? and why, in god's name, are there so few women represented?

this all troubles me more than it really should. i understand that i'm making a mountain of a molehill. it's unsurprising that a largely white and male critical establishment in a few largely white countries might tend most to celebrate the work of their (*ahem*) close cultural peers. more charitably, it's unsurprising that, regardless of factors like race or gender, "published critics" might in certain respects be a culturally distinct group unto themselves, with shared tastes, interests and values. this is no mystery, no conspiracy, nothing that really requires my hand-wringing concern. but still my hackles go up when i see something like the 1980 list, with one nonwhite lead artist, and only three women in lead roles. that shit is just weird.

fwiw, I think my most played album of 1984, bar none, was American Dream by Tetes Noires: a drummerless sextet of women from Minneapolis who used the new wave as a springboard for launching their own concoction of feminist folk, diy rock and performance art; sort of a melting pot of Roches, Raincoats and maybe Camper van Beethoven. I saw many, many of their shows, and they became friends, ( helped silkscreen t-shirts before their first east coast tour) so the release of their debut lp was a huge event at my house.

The Pearl - Eno Budd came out in 1984. That's the album I've literally heard the most, as it was the "everybody go to sleep now" album when my kids were little. But I would often stay awake for the whole thing, hundreds of repetitions in - it's a unified composition, not just soothing sounds.

The most-acclaimed lists aren't nearly as interesting as what you'd get from, say, a poll of 150 ILMers (with, say, a ballot of 40). That would probably result in the diversity contenderizer craves. Though it seems fairly diverse for just 27 albums. It does have Youssou N'dour and Rubén Blades for example.

Some from my top 40:

King Sunny Ade - Aura
The Blue Nile - A Walk Across The Rooftops
Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Zulu Rock
Justin Hinds & The Dominoes - Travel With Love
Junior Murvin - Muggers In The Street
Ambitious Lovers - Envy
23 Skidoo - Urban Gamelon

There's some women, just not high enough profile or good enough to be in the top 40 let alone 25:

Rock Goddess - Hell Hath No Fury
Laurie Anderson - Mister Heartbreak
Cristina - Sleep It Off
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Hyaena
The Bangles - All Over The Place
Kukl - The Eye
Joan Jett - Glorious Results of A Misspent Youth
The Go-Go's - Talk Show
Bananarama

Voted R.E.M. over the fantastic Run-D.M.C. debut.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Meat Puppets II. Might get the bronze, but I'm guessing fourth.

Voted Prince in the end. I'm pretty sure I prefer the RYM list.

Bruce and Prince were where it was at in the US, and Frankie in the UK, but nowadays I'd rather listen to the Pretenders' best album than any of those monsters of 1984. (yes, Learning to Crawl > s/t)

Dang, I have to get Learning To Crawl (s/t is pretty much flawless, imo)

ditto

voted for LTC.

I should admit I've never heard the Minutemen, Youssou N'Dour, Ruben Blades, or David Sylvian albums, all of which I think I could like.

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

hi fives to those who chose Treasure. that was easily my number two album. i remember hearing it for the first time and it absolutely blew my mind that someone could make music that beautiful. then i had no idea what they were saying but tried to understand it anyway. excellent album that i'm glad got some major love.

also two Rattlesnakes votes!

biggest shock: 14 Madonna - Like a Virgin 0

Everyone that might have voted for Madonna voted for Prince?

I voted for Reckoning!

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/06/07/vote-for-best-albums-of-1984/

my POX:

Cocteau Twins, ‘Treasure’
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, ‘Rattlesnakes’
The Cure, ‘The Top’
Dead Can Dance, ‘Dead Can Dance’
Echo & The Bunnymen, ‘Ocean Rain’
New Model Army, ‘Vengeance’
The Pogues, ‘Red Roses for Me’
Section 25, ‘From the Hip’
This Mortal Coil, ‘It’ll End in Tears’
Tones on Tail, ‘Pop’

Forgot to vote in that one. After the vast greatness of 1979-82, hard to be nostalgic for '84.

I can't find the P&J poll. So let's do this one.

I think the Smiths debut deserves better than a Meh. And no Blue Nile?

not on that chart!

Ah, I see. I like your '84 singles list better. That was a formative year for my listening.