probably not the 50 best albums and singles (and/or EPs) of 1985

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..but definitely way more sane (because way less obsessively pigfucked) than the 1986 lists i posted previously. (this was another list i made at the end of the year in question, which i just found in a manilla envelope in my closet).

ALBUMS
1. replacements - tim
2. three johns - atom drum bop
3, die kreuzen
4. meat puppets - up on the sun
5. womack and womack - radio m.u.s.c. man
6. butthole surfers - pyschic, powerless, another man's sac
7. motorhead - no remorse
8. celibate rifles - quintessentially yours
9. mekons - fear and whiskey
10. robert plant - shaken 'n' stirred
11. husker du - new day rising
12. thee fourgiven - it ain't pretty...
13. plan 9 - i've just killed a man...
14. the fall - hip priest and kamerads
15. husker du - flip your wig
16. velvet underground - VU
17. the fall - this nation's saving grace
18. sam cooke - live at the harlem square club
19. john hiatt - warming up the ice age
20. minutemen - three way tie (for last)
21. professor longhair - r&r gumbo
22. pogues - rum, sodomy, and the lash
23, john cougar mellencamp - scarecrow
24. fat boys
25. sly and robbie - language barrier
26. arto lindsay - envy
27. lee dorsey - holy cow!: the best of
28. art ensemble of chicago - third decade
29. buckwheat zydeco - turning point
30. reba mcentire - have i got a deal for you
31. mark stewart - as the veneer of democracy starts to fade
32. volcano suns - the bright orange years
33. naked raygun - throb throb
34. john anderson - tokyo, oklahoma
35. *street music of panama*
36. george strait - something special
37. ronald shannon jackson - decode yourself
38. hank williams - just me and my guitar
39. robert ashley - atlanta (acts of god)
40. *luxury condos coming to your neighborhood soon*
41. mission of burma - the horrible truth
42. zz top - afterburner
43. bob wills - the tiffany transcriptions, vol. 3
44. richard thompson - across a crowded room
45. grace jones - island life
46. george clinton - some of my best friends...
47. *sun city*
48. george strait - greatest his
49. nile rodgers - b-movie
50. ??? (the numbers are out of whack on the list, it turns out)

SINGLES AND EPs
1. ramones - bonzo goes to bitburg
2. three johns - death of the european
3. the fall - no bulbs 12"
4. george clinton - double oh oh 12"
5. husker du - love is all around/makes no sense at all
6. einsturzende neubauten - yu gung 12"
7. squirrel bait EP
8. nomads - temptation pays double EP
9. big black - racer x EP
10. lime spiders - slave girl/beyond the fringe
11. beastie boys - rock hard 12"
12. pogues - a pair of brown eyes 12"
13. fishbone EP
14. redd kross - teen babes from monsanto EP
15. kate bush - running up that hill 12"
16. madonna - into the groove 12"
17. bobby "blue" bland - members only
18. george strait - the cowboy rides away
19. celibate rifles - sometimes (i would live here if you paid me)
20. descendents - bonus fat EP
21. bad religion - back to the known EP
22. bobby womack - i wish he didn't trust me so much
23. zz top - sleeping bag 12"
24. death comet crew - marble bar/scratching galaxies 12"
25. butthole surfers - cream corn from the socket of davis EP
26. breaking circus - the very long fuse EP
27. beastie boys - she's' on it 12"
28. soul asylum - tied to the tracks/long way home
29. mark stewart - hypnotised 12"
30. steve perry - foolish heart
31. roky erickson - don't slander me
32. trouble funk - still smokin' 12"
33. spikes - six sharp cuts EP
34. meat puppets - in a car EP
35. john waite - change
36. tommy shaw - girls with guns
37. fat boys - jailhouse rap 12"
38. new jersey mass choir - i want to know what love is 12"
39. don henley - boys of summer/a month of sundays
40. rosanne cash - i don't' know why you don't love me
41. rockin' sidney - my toot toot
42. paul young - every time you go away
43. dwight yoakam - guitars, cadillacs, etc. EP
44. bruce springsteen - stand on it
45. rush - the big money
46. minutemen - profect: mersh EP
47. scientists - atom bomb baby EP
48. luther vandross - til my baby gets home
49. dire straits - money for nothing
50. madonna - crazy for you

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

Hip Priest above Nation's Saving Grace? Are you sure?

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:18 (twenty years ago)

1985 was the worst year ever then. i was still listening to vandenberg.

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah, definitely. *hip priest* is probably still my favorite fall album ever, give or take *live at the witch trials* and (less likely) *hex enduction hour* (which shares most of its tracks with *hip priest* but lacks "lie dream of a casino soul", which might be my favorite song by them).

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

I like all those songs fine, I just think Saving Grace was their most cohesive album. Also, "Paintwork" is prob'ly my favourite Fall song. "Lie Dream" was also on some versions of Room to Live.

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:24 (twenty years ago)

Your closet must be awesome.

I love that the Fat Boys make it, but LL Cool J is nowhere to be found. Although I'm not entirely sure if that album made it's impact in 85 or 86.

Do you remember your stance on Run-DMC's King Of Rock that year--dissapointing mess or hub of a few essential singles?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

No Remorse by Motorhead is a compilation, not a proper album, and the best album of 1985 is, of course, Night Time by Killing Joke.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:33 (twenty years ago)

well, lots of the albums on this list are best-of reissue type things (lee dorsey, george strait, etc).they are still "albums," even if not "proper" ones!

last killing joke i ever liked much was i think *revelations* (or that *ha!* live 10-inch thing, if that counts - i forget which came first). but i know some people have other opinions about the matter!

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

well, I certainly feel better about the fact that I can't think of an album from 1985 I like more than Tim.

― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:38 (twenty years ago)

though Scarecrow comes close

― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

yeah, *scarecrow* should have been #1, easy. (*tim* should've been, um...much lower. somewhere.)

i think the (improper but so what) album that got mysteriously left off the list, somehow (judging from my pazz&jop ballot from that year, whereon i voted for it) was *terminal tower: am archival collection* by pere ubu (which might technically be even better than *scarecrow*, actually, come to think of it.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

I prob'ly haven't heard that Sun City album since 1985. I'd guess it hasn't aged well.

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

>Do you remember your stance on Run-DMC's King Of Rock that year--dissapointing mess or hub of a few essential singles?<

I liked it okay, I guess, despite the fact that I thought (and stil think) my favorite track "CanYou Rock It Like This" was not much better than the worst tracks on the debut, and "King of Rock" samed like an extremely sub-par wheel-spinning attempt to do "Rock Box" (which I've always loved) again. I still own the debut on its original vinyl; havent' owned the 2nd LP for years, and don't miss it much.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

Definitely underrated that Cool J debut, (whatever year it came out) though. What I really loved at the time (and wish I still owned) was the12-inch mix of "Rock the Bells," which as I recall was WAY more rocking than the version that made his album (I dunno, maybe that's why the LP pissed me off; I forget!)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

The album filler can get annoying. Maybe you cared more about consistency back then!

― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

Wow, the Minutemen must have been really special for the same album to make the list two years in a row.

― Michael Copeland, Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i think that happens with the soul asylum 45 too, and maybe one or two others -- they must have come out on the cusp of the years or something!

― xhuxk, Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" is great.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 5 June 2005 17:40 (twenty years ago)

"King of Rock" samed like an extremely sub-par wheel-spinning attempt to do "Rock Box" (which I've always loved) again.

That's what I thought at the time as well. The "Rock Box" baton wasn't properly picked up for a surprisingly long time.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Monday, 6 June 2005 09:14 (twenty years ago)

some stupid album ommissions:

debarge - rhythm of the night
the flirts - blondes brunettes & redheads
billy joel - greatest hits volume I & volume II
kix - midnite dynamite
lady pank - drop everything
the nomads - outburst
quarterflash - back into blue
alexander robotnik - ce n'est qu'un debut
(various) - fuzzdance
(various) - vision quest

― xhuxk, Monday, 6 June 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

thirteen years pass...

I'll settle on these.

― Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 March 2019 03:28 (seven years ago)

I caught some typos: you have "Voices Carry" under Meh and "Can't Fight This Feeling" under Solid, Sound Entertainments.

― Timothée Charalambides (cryptosicko), Friday, 8 March 2019 03:38 (seven years ago)

Feel free to spell it Mehry Jane Girls - In Meh House if you must, but that song is so obviously Good to Great.

― breastcrawl, Friday, 8 March 2019 07:48 (seven years ago)

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