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

OUR KATE

Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club (RCA Victor)

The Velvet Underground: VU (Verve)

As much as I love these I couldn't vote for them as picks for the best of '85.

This is probably the first year where my favourites back then (Waits/Bush/JAMC/Sprouts) are still the same now.

Right now I'd vote Scarecrow, easily.

What an awful year, as xgau himself acknowledged.

oh! i didn't see rain dogs first time around - i wouldn't vote for it over OUR KATE but it's my favourite waits album.

rep for sade, too.

Rain Dogs

New Day Rising or Flip Your Wig ? decisions decisions.

Another for Rain Dogs

It crushes me but I have to forsake VU for Fear and Whiskey for the reason Billy Dods mentions above. A silly reason, I know - few people heard these songs before 1985. And it remains my favorite Velvets (if only for "Stephanie Says" and "I'm Sticking With You"). But I voted for it in that recent Velvets poll (was the only one representing too). And Fear and Whiskey is an unimpeachably great 1985 album. Sadly (on one level), it sounds like an unimpeachably great 2007 album. I hope it sounds quaint one day.

But it looks like a fine enough year. Nothing truly hideous in the top ten. Favorite Hüsker (New Day Rising). My beloved Psychocandy which absolutely terrified a teenage me at the time. Now I think its first side is the most superbly paced side in vinyl history. Best Lootha. Best Fishbone. Great Kate (although The Whole Story renders it irrelevant by stealing its best tracks). And that Prefab Sprout record. I adore every single track on side one but have never connected with a single track on side two. I can't think of another album that's done that to me.

Hurry up with the 1985 singles poll JN$OT. I'm DYING to ask a question.

I completely courted my wife to that VU album. Didn't vote for it though because, y'know, King of Rock.

Maybe I was too hasty. I love Fear and Whiskey and Flip Your Wig more than Scarecrow, and The Night I Fell in Love is definitely peak Luther (but not superior to Never Too Much). Why am I unsatisfied though? The chart feels like a hangover, or the period before something happens – lots of good records by established acts.

(as for the P&J winner, I probably like it more than most people, though these days I'm surprised to admit I play Naked more often).

xp: Ask away, Kevin--unless you want to wait a couple of more days.

I could easily pick a decent top 10 from the above choices, so it probably wasn't all that bad a year after all. I still wish Rum Sodomy & the Lash had made the list (it ranked #17 in the '86 poll instead), though.

From the available choices: Fear and Whiskey it is.

(The T. Heads album is pretty good, although I never actually play it anymore.)

fuck it, I voted VU. what a bunch of albums I'd never want to play, for the most part.

slightly unfair to blame a year for critics at their most criticky though

Lifeboat. Not really my favorite (that would be "Fear and Whiskey"), but just because it's never been released on CD.

Little Creatures hasn't aged very well. The singles from it are all incredible, but when was the last time anybody actually listened to Walk It Down?

If we were voting for best album side, it would be Side 2 Fear and Whiskey.

Up on the Sun and Little Creatures may be the only two albums on that list I actually like.

slightly unfair to blame a year for critics at their most criticky though

I'm puzzled by this, not because it doesn't make sense, but because that's true of lots of other P&Js (like many of the ones preceding '85) that are full of great records. I'm inclined to blame the records in this case.

Oh my God, no Scritti Politti! THIS LIST IS SHIT.

MM: I was just talking about the placement of the records involved. Little Creatures at the top of the list seems to be the acme of this: "Oh man this here is a slam-dunk, world's most critic-friendly band returns with a new conceptual direction hooray!" And, while I (and my brother Tim) love Tim, its #2 spot seems very much like "Oh damn we fucked up by not loving Let It Be at first, better make up for that" to me.

But obviously I don't know the first thing about the way critics are supposed to think.

But Let It Be was #4 on the 1984 list.

But I think a lot of critics probably thought that was too low in retrospect.

Hounds of Love vs Psychocandy vs Fear & Whiskey vs Tim vs Rain Dogs vs Fables vs New Day Rising vs others

I dunno, looks like a pretty good year for music to me, at least.
I went for Kate Bush.

Tim is a really good album.

That's why I said I love it.

Mellencamp.

Top also rans: Mekons, Big Black, Sam Cooke, Meat Puppets.

Hounds of Love vs Psychocandy vs Fear & Whiskey vs Tim vs Rain Dogs vs Fables vs New Day Rising vs others
I dunno, looks like a pretty good year for music to me, at least.

Exactly. Psychocandy here, it defined a generation of imitators.

xp All in all, though, easily the most mediocre Pazz & Jop album list up to this point in time, from the winner on down to most of the EPs -- I can't think of another list we've seen that comes close. Plenty of acts who'd already peaked taking up space, plenty of acts who were never that good in the first place showing up -- some of whom, in both categories, would wind up sticking around spinning their wheels for years if not decades later. I'm not gonna name names, because I don't feel like starting any fights. (Okay, nobody will get mad if I point to Lone Justice or the Golden Palominos or Full Time Men or Dire Straits or Blasters or Jason & the Scorchers or Sting, I guess.) (Or the Artists United Against Apartheid ALBUM? How many people have listened to that thing since '85?) (On the other hand, Jesus and Mary Chain and Suzanne Vega and Fishbone would never make another record as good as the ones on the list above, which I guess counts for something.)

(Oh yeah, neither would LL Cool J! Which come to think of it, I rank right after Mellencamp and the Mekons.)

Nothing truly hideous in the top ten

Is there ever? Well, sometimes, maybe. But this time I'd say at least half of the top ten comes pretty close.

(Not so much in the sense of being "hideous" as the sense of being "dull.")

The one artist I'm curious about on the list is Marti Jones, who I don't think I've ever heard. Any good?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh my God, no Scritti Politti!

Oh right! Totally didn't notice that. That's my fave record of 1985. Also MIA on the EP list is "The Payoff Mix." But that's understandable. It took me three years to find a vinyl bootleg in the days before mp3.

The one artist I'm curious about on the list is Marti Jones, who I don't think I've ever heard. Any good?

An album maudit. The closest parallel I can come up with is Bonnie Raitt's Fundamental - singer-songwriter-interpreter type jams her production with weird sounds and ensemble vocals that seem stitched in.

And lookie here. The B. Simpson Xgau mentions in his review is one Bland Simpson. What a name!

http://www.gaffmusic.com/bland_new.html

I like the Marti Jones album, but I dunno if it's for you. Full of covers of dB's, Clock-era Costello, like that. B. Simpson's "Follow You All Over the World" is pretty great, though.

xpost

Was between Mellencamp and LL Cool J, both of which are excellent, neither of which, quite honestly, I have listened to in full in over a dozen years. I wish I could advocate for Hounds of Love--it's an incredibly boring male-centric list, maybe not that different from previous yrs in that regard, but somehow more noticeable here (so much of it just feels like guys music--but that would totally be cheating as I don't really know the record, I just love a few songs by Kate and think she'd have been fun to vote for! (But I didn't--I did the good Democratic thing and voted for Mellencamp. Which I really did listen to constantly at one point.)

Scritti on this list would've helped with the guy-problem, even. (And it would certainly have got my vote, too.)

lately, for some reason though, i've been enjoying large chunks of psychocandy as well--something i never thought would happen--so that would've been a consideration also.

prefab sprout >>>>>>> scritti politti but that's just my weird taste

An album maudit.

liek a french poet? as ricky said to lucy: "splain"

"Maudit" means "cursed" in French. So simply "a cursed album," one doomed to fail with many audiences. That Jones album was too weird for bar banders, not weird enough for Amerindie types, and not forceful enough for Top Ten glory.

You hear the term "film maudit" much more often.

eh it wasn't all that weird. or intersting. indie/rock take on interpretative singing, more linda ronstadt than bonnie raitt IIRC.

"Rhythm of Shallow Breathing" is a deeply weird song.

For some reason I am starting to conclude she was the Amy Rigby of her time (even if Amy writes more of her own songs), and I would be bored accordingly (whilst understanding why others might be smitten).

Yes, Amy Rigby is a decent analogy and yes, you'd probably be bored.

Toss up between Psychocandy and Fables.

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

Christ, you fucking people and your Tom Waits.

Husker Du vote got split!

they had it right first time. i love the walk a dog talk a dog song!

I'm not sure what I would've voted for - Rain Dogs, Fear and Whiskey and the two Hüsker Dü albums are all-times favorites.

I never heard of Marti Jones until I looked at this poll - #16 on the Dean's List and graded A- in "the Guide," it made #38 in the poll with only 131 points over 15 ballots. Christgau concedes in his essay, "I'll admit that Marti Jones isn't a major artist if you'll admit that Suzanne Vega isn't a major artist..."

This track is definitely a find though, as recommended upthread and by Christgau:

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

"The Element Within Her" is a bold but poor choice for an Elvis Costello cover - a few lines worth salvaging, but the song as a whole is beyond saving. The dB's cover is welcome though I prefer the dB's version - that album alone is underrated (one of my favorites from 1984).

Of the 16 I'm familiar with, Fables of the Reconstruction is the most evocative. I listened to it on a walk this time last year in the snow, and it struck me how distant it seemed from the present day. I tried imagining how difficult it might be to explain to a young person what was appealing about it at the time; the terms on which the record worked feel like they've vanished, like "college rock", and the idea of "rurality" as a quaint oddity instead of a threat.
Best record to receive no votes: Golden Palominos, which also features Stipe.
Least favourite: Sam Cooke, I'd rather hear him in the studio.
Best 1985 record not on the list: maybe Spleen and Ideal by Dead Can Dance? or This Nation's Saving Grace by The Fall?

For me, the two Hüsker Dü albums and Rain Dogs are more or less in three-way tie for first, but my favorite music from that year came from the Replacements' sessions for Tim. Had they mixed the album better and replaced "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay It Down Clown" with "Nowhere Is My Home" and "Can't Hardly Wait" (the version from All for Nothing/Nothing for All), it would have been my #1 pick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpdEnEb2zUg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LceIOZvH7M

Side A:
1. Hold My Life
2. I'll Buy
3. Kiss Me on the Bus
4. Nowhere Is My Home
5. Waitress in the Sky
6. Swingin' Party

Side B:
7. Bastards of Young
8. Can't Hardly Wait
9. Left of the Dial
10. Little Mascara
11. Here Comes a Regular