Best Album on My Favourite Albums of......1977!

and go for your guns!!! damn

'Pink Flag is a load of demos, they didn't nail it until Chairs Missing'

yeah I'm not having that j/k

I am the anti-you, the Live at the Roxy version of 12XU is better than the version on Pink Flag

Yeah I'm gonna have a really tough time choosing here. Some other records I listened to a lot from the summer of '77:

Steve Harley - Face to Face (live)
Be Bop Deluxe - Live in the Air Age
The Tubes - Now
Steve Miller Band - Book of Dreams

12XU and Lowdown are the worst tracks on Pink Flag is my (apparently) controversial opinion.

Lots of great punk/punk-adjacent albums but my vote will almost certainly go to one of the great Bowie/Bowie-adjacent albums.

Aja although I feel bad for not voting for Cheap Trick - In Color

That's a ludicrous list. Probably Aja or the Congos but yeesh, could be 1 of 10.

Chairs Missing is my favourite Wire record but all of those first have something different and great to offer.

toughest year yet for me
went with Congos
the obv reggae omission here is Culture - 2 Sevens Clash. still a fantastic sounding record, props to ET Thompson.

He does. Oh fuck though, this year is impossible.

― Lammy's Show (Tom D.), Wednesday, March 20, 2019 3:10 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was to McBoing-Boing, not to Pfunkboy.

tough to choose but cant see eddie getting 0 votes and that LP is my most treasured possession as it took a decade to track down (pre ebay days) so my vote goes to it even though its not as good as i hoped it would be at the time.

though funkentelechy may well be my fave Parliament album.

Going to be a lot of vote splitting going on with those double entries.

and it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around...

Yeah, I thought the Eddie Hazel record would be better than it is, too. As for Parliament, it's hard for me to choose between Mothership Connection, Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome and Motor Booty Affair. That's the holy Parliament trinity for me. Osmium feels more like a Funkadelic record.

I love "physical love" from guitars and thangs

This is Aja for me, total desert island disc

Pink Flag is glorious furious racked out heat. The next two are fine/admirable art rock I guess

Wacked out

Titles I immediately want to vote for: Aja, Animals, Lust For Life, "Heroes"
Less obvious choices: Leave Home, Lights Out, Zombie, Radios Appear

I think I'm probably gonna vote for Radios Appear just 'cause I don't think anyone else will and because I once played "Descent Into the Maelstrom" for Jim Thirlwell as part of a Wire Invisible Jukebox - I thought it might have been an influence on Foetus's "Satan Place" but he said it wasn't and in fact wasn't familiar with RB at all. He liked it, though.

Gut vote this time is Dancing In Your Head, where Ornette, though unmistakably himself, made a revelatory leap. Top Ten would of course incl. Marquee Moon, Paliament, Bowie, Ig etc, etc. (already sweating the rest of the 70s).

I almost voted for Dancing In Your Head over Zombie but against all odds Kerr included Rumours so

Isn't "second hand news" the hottest shit? So punchy and heart palpitation inducing. Sexy.

Surprised you don't have L.A.M.F.!

I have "Live At Max's Kansas City '79" which I prefer to the umpteen versions of "LAMF".

pink flag is fucking awesome regardless of whether chairs missing is an improvement or not

Indubitably.

I once played "Descent Into the Maelstrom" for Jim Thirlwell as part of a Wire Invisible Jukebox

Ok, every part of that sentence is friggin' cool!

i feel like "marquee moon" will walk this but i went with the rym pick of "animals", it's not perfect but man it's an album that's meant a lot to me over the years, i can't deny it

when i was in astoria last week every store had posters for some tribute band doing the "animals" album in its entirety, clearly the event of the month there, i probably wouldn't have gone but i approve of the idea

so my records of '77, limiting it to albums obviously biases it towards certain genres as clearly "i feel love" is _the_ record of '77. album of '77 is "saturday night fever", but it's a compilation...

alain markusfeld - le desert noir
alceu valenca - espelho cristalina
anonymous - inside the shadow
archaia - s/t
v/a - saturday night fever
begnagrad - tastare
beto guedes - a pagina do relampago eletrico
bill evans - you must believe in spring
the boys - s/t
claude bolling - suite for violin and jazz piano trio
dickie landry - fifteen saxophones
douglas adams - light rain
eddie hazel - game, dames, and guitar thangs
eik - hríslan og straumurinn
the equals - mystic syster
feliu i joan albert - s/t
george-edwards group - 38:38
gianni safred and his electronic instruments - electronic designs
henri texier - varech
the heptones - party time
island - pictures
jacques brel - les marquises
jethro tull - songs from the wood
v/a - New Music For Electronic and Recorded Media
john greaves & peter blegvad - kew. rhone
kamuran akkor - alaturka
kunnakkudi vaidhyanathan - violin
le mystere jazz de tombouctou - s/t
libra - schock
locanda delle fate - forse le lucciole non si amano piu
magical ring - light flight
mark charig, keith tippett, & ann winter - pipedream
mccoy tyner - supertrios
michael finnissy - english country-tunes
miriam backhouse - gypsy without a road
morita doji - a boy
the mystery kindaichi band - adventure of kohsuke kindaichi
ocarinah - premiere vision de l'etrange
pat patrick & the baritone saxophone retinue - sound advice
peter gabriel - s/t
ravjunk - uppsala stadshotell brinner
renato zero - zerofobia
richard schneider jr. - dreamlike land
santana - moonflower
sensations' fix - boxes paradise
som nosso de cada dia - som nosso
stephen whynott - from philly to tablas
tangerine dream - encore
v/a - tea house music of afghanistan
tim blake - crystal machine
townes van zandt - live at the old quarter, houston, texas
uniao black - s/t
univers zero - s/t
yochk'o seffer - ima
yosuke yamashita trio - may 23, 1977
ziad al rahbani - bil afrah
zoldar & clark - s/t

christ! now try and tell me '77 isn't a better year than '76!

oh you had the eddie hazel album on there already, sorry, wasn't reading closely enough!

Dreamlike Land! Oh blimey.

I've ranked the American top tens of a weeeeird year.

The 1977 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

Albums

1. Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Warner Bros.) 412 (32)
2. Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia) 367 (33)
3. Television: Marquee Moon (Elektra) 327 (26)
4. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros.) 318 (26)
5. Steely Dan: Aja (ABC) 266 (23)
6. Ramones: Rocket to Russia (Sire) 238 (23)
7. Talking Heads: Talking Heads: 77 (Sire) 170 (17)
8. Randy Newman: Little Criminals (Warner Bros.) 160 (16)
9. Garland Jeffreys: Ghost Writer (A&M) 153 (15)
10. Cheap Trick: In Color (Epic) 121 (11)
11. Jackson Browne: Running on Empty (Asylum) 113 (9)
12. Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane: Rough Mix (MCA) 105 (10)
13. Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Dancer with Bruised Knees (Warner Bros.) 104 (12)
14. Al Green: The Belle Album (Hi) 89 (10)
15. Ornette Coleman: Dancing in Your Head (Horizon) 83 (8)
16. Bryan Ferry: In Your Mind (Atlantic) 80 (9)
17. Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (Atco) 75 (6)
18. The Kinks: Sleepwalker (Arista) 74 (8)
19. Graham Parker & the Rumour: Stick to Me (Mercury) 72 (10)
20. Neil Young: American Stars 'n Bars (Reprise) 69 (8)
21. David Bowie: Heroes (RCA) 66 (7)
22. The Persuasions: Chirpin' (Elektra) 63 (7)
23. James Taylor: JT (Columbia) 61 (7)
24. The Jam: In the City (Polydor) 61 (6)
25. Ramones: Ramones Leave Home (Sire) 60 (8)
26. The Beatles: The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (Capitol) 60 (7)
27. Linda Ronstadt: Simple Dreams (Asylum) 59 (7)
28. The Beach Boys: Love You (Brother/Reprise) 59 (6)
29. Mink DeVille: Mink DeVille (Capitol) 57 (5)
30. Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express (Capitol) 55 (4)

'70s critics really loved singer-songwriter mor

Taylor, Ronstadt, maybe Beach Boys = 3 out of 30? I guess Rumours and Aja could count but I don't think of them as SSW albums

that Beach Boys album is too wacked out to consider it singer-songwriter mor

I mean I do wonder what Rough Mix and Sleepwalker are doing in there but the rest mostly makes sense in context?

i'm sort of saying "singer-songwriter mor" in an expansive sense. all of these records on p&j the list are good records, but they're also, by and large, generally very sophisticated records by established and, well, aging figures. "sleepwalker", for instance, is probably in there because it fits a "return to form" narrative (i.e. it's better than their last one), and because ray davies at his best is a clever writer.

it just seems like the critical consensus at the time offered a fairly narrow slice of what the year had to offer, either through deliberate omission (arbitrarily declaring all jazz music "out of scope", all "hard rock", bands like pink floyd and led zeppelin, probably also bob marley, though american critics were much better at ignoring reggae than british critics were) or just not having access to some of the more interesting music.

Too bad not more jazz on there, but yeah Dancing In Your Head, and is punk not a form of hard rock? F Mac always did seem like a convergence of singer-songwriters--highly skilled instrumental and production-smart ones--ditto Steely Dan, even if Becker didn't sing ---Rough Mix ditto---Al G. and Garland J. count as singer-songwriters too here, the latter as one of the first and last American artists to adapt reggae to his own self-expression on occasion, and Ghost Writer def on my Top Ten of this Top 30. Aja has always seemed about half-good-to-great, though, and self-pitying middle-ageing male wine-sipping behind drawn drapes---- smellin' you, "Deacon Blue"----sure pissed me off in '77---oh wait, it's *about* that, right? BS/who cares

one of the first and last to do it well, that is.

went for Aja, cause it's the one i've listened to the most in the past year and for that glorious side one.

I thought people fought and died so our generation could listen to something better.

Exactly. And how is "Aja" about middle-age when Becker and Fagan weren't even 30?

Although to be fair I've long passed the point that I'll sneer at any band, but back in the day Steely Dan was certainly sneered upon quite a bit.

oh god why are we reviving the Dan Wars again

Sorry, I couldn't help it. I've actually never listened to a Steely Dan album in its entirety, although I will admit to strongly disliking what little I've heard on the radio. I'll have to give them another chance some time.

From this list in '77 in would probably have been Rumours and that's how I'm voting now. If it was all the albums from '77, as a kid I would have voted Hotel California.

I'd love to give the Stranglers a vote but it's Low for me.

christ, don't listen to steely dan on my behalf, i'm not a fan either, it's just an argument that's been beaten to an exceptional pulp around here :)

NME Albums 1977

1. Heroes - David Bowie
2. New boots & Panties - Ian Dury
3. My aim is true - Elvis Costello
4. Never Mind the Bollocks - Sex Pistols
5. Marquee Moon - Television
6. Exodus - Bob Marley & the Wailers
7. The Clash - The Clash
8. Lust for life - Iggy Pop
9. Leave Home - The Ramones
10. Rattus Norvegicus - The Stranglers
11. Rocket to Russia - The Ramones
12. Get It - Dave Edmunds
13. When two sevens clash -Culture
14. Before & after science - Brian Eno
15. In the City - The Jam
16. Little Criminals - Randy Newman
17. Talking heads '77 - Talking Heads
18. In Colour - Cheap trick
19. Blank generation - Richard Hell
20. Aja - Steely Dan
21. One World - John Martyn
22. Live! - Burnin Spear
23. Rock n' Roll with the Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers
24. Spectres - Blue Oyster Cult
25. Bad reputation - Thin Lizzy
26. Pink Flag - Wire
27. Low - David Bowie
28. Blondie - Blondie
29. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel
30. Hard Again - Muddy Waters

Honourable Mentions to...

Stick to me - Graham Parker & The Rumour
Out of our skulls - The Pirates
Feelin’ bitchy - Millie Jackson
Music to kill by - Afrika korps
Listen now - 801
American stars and bars - Neil young
Heavy weather - Weather report
Live at the Hollywood bowl - The Beatles
Twilley don’t mind - Dwight Twilley
Trans-Europe express - Kraftwerk
Police and thieves - Junior Murvin
Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
Joe Ely - Joe Ely
Greg Kihn Again - Greg Kihn
Ahh, The name Bootsy, Baby - Bootsy’s rubber band
African dub - Joe Gibbs

before and after science, especially the second side.

http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1977a.htm

That Billy Joel seems so out of place, but it is a really good album.

What, no Bat Out of Hell????

one world.

(. . .like it or not☮)

neil i meant as in
Went East Of The River Nile
Went Dancing In Your Head

geddit?

I don't know the Ornette record A better title would have been Electric Music For The Mind and Body, but that was already taken. It's based around that "dah dee dah dah, dah dah dah" motif in his symphonic Skies of America: sort of hippity jiggity okay yeah more for actual dancing in your head than feet, but word gets around, and you can't sit down, at least in your head, especially of you're stoned, and a friend of mine thought of it ot at the time as somewhat like an all-instrumental Beefheart & Magic Band, if the Captain aimed his sax a little closer to home. Kind of. Should be said that some longtime Ornette fans, of different ages, haaate Prime Time (this was his first with them). But it's worth checking out if you like him at all. It's not like what got tagged as fusion, it's not like no wave (well kinda the same idea in some ways), but really finds its own space in the 70s.

All of these warrant consideration...

AC/DC - Let There Be Rock
Chrome - Alien Soundtracks
David Bowie - Heroes
Dead Boys - Young Loud and Snotty
Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Kraftwerk - Trans Europa Express
Pink Floyd - Animals
Radio Birdman - Radios Appear
Ramones - Leave Home
Ramones - Rocket To Russia
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
Suicide - Suicide
Talking Heads - 77
Television - Marquee Moon
The Clash - The Clash
The Damned - Damned Damned Damned
The Saints - (I'm) Stranded
Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation
UFO - Lights Out
Wire - Pink Flag

Jesus Christ, who to pick!

I think the last poll got the most votes of all so far but more chat than this one so I'll be interested to see how many vote in this supposedly better indeed stellar important year

brian what did you pick? I can see heavy rock not getting much votes so maybe a wee vote for ufo from your shortlist?

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

results are kind of what I expected. really so many great albums from this year

I picked Rumours, sort of regret not picking Marquee Moon, which would have made it tie for first. impossible choices

Only 1 vote for the Pistols! Times have changed...

that is surprising

I was only paying attention to music in 1979 on a basic level and hadn't heard a lot of these. Of all of the ones I listened to for the first time later, Suicide made an impression

*1977

pretty good mix of votes, surprised "low" took it over television, i guess rym is well into its "bowie stan" phase

surprised to see that many votes for john martyn, i finally got around to "solid air" last year and thought it was ok

respectable showing for the floyd. i expect one vote AT MOST for "the wall", if it's even on the list. i don't even know what records came out in '79 other than maybe "beat rhythm news" and "number 1 in heaven" but there have to be twenty or thirty records better than "the wall" from that year. "duty now for the future" maybe. love all these votes for the one-offs. after all the "before and after science" talk it wound up pretty low.

Am pleased "Heart of the Congos" is up there

I am too.

Went with Suspiria in the end cos I fancied listening to it but should probably have stuck with Suicide. Some of the most frightening sounds on any rock records between those two?

My problem with Bowie is I don't like his voice or most of the songs LOL.

yeah Heart of the Congos was in the running for me also, great album.

dow- your description makes that Ornette record sound really interesting, I will check it out.

Neechy- got it! Sense of humour failure there...

Best Album on My Favourite Albums of......1978!

one world.

(. . .like it or not☮)

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Sunday, March 24, 2019 10:53 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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