The 17th P&J Albums (and EPs) Poll!

Back by semi-popular (har!) demand:

The 10th P&J Singles Poll!

My two faves aren't on here:

Pussy Galore: Dial 'M' For Motherfucker
The Frogs: It's Only Right and Natural

So I gave it to "Would you like some Janet Jackson with your Jam & Lewis?"

And yeah, thanx for starting 'em up again, JN$OT. Never stop.

A crapulous disc: lots of auteurs scoring comebacks; the best of the bunch is Freedom. I choose the Mekons' best album.

Paul's Boutique then, Paul's Boutique now. The more things change, the more they stay etc.

What's a crapulous disc, Alfred?

er, "list." I like 3 Feet High & Rising a lot, but it's not De La's best, and seems weak even beside Paul's Boutique, Doolittle, Cloudland, and Like A Prayer.

You could get a really nice mix tape out of those albums, but there isn't one I feel strongly about voting for.

I still get pretty damn excited about Pump, to tell you the truth.

This list feels mostly kind of blah. Seriously missing Dial M, the first Royal Trux, and Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire ... the hiphop up there destroys the rest.

Is this the last time MC Elvis C would chart this high?

One would hope.

Strong year. I went with The Mekons.

I went with Beasties, narrowly over De La. I'd have happily voted Mekons or Neil Young, too.

I don't love a single album on this list. Neneh, Beasties (on which I basically like three songs, I eventually decided), Madonna, and NWA definitely have their moments; Henley and Aerosmith (in their only P&J album charting, right?) and Petty and Jungle Bros are probably alright but I don't even own copies. Finally listened to the De La Soul album all the way through last month for the first time since the '80s, and thought it was, um, tolerable. I'll vote for Neneh, I guess, since somebody wrote a stupid essay in the Voice this year making fun of Pazz & Jop voters who liked it in the first place. Probably I'm overrating it regardless. Either way, any way you stretch it, this is by far the worst Pazz and Jop list up to this point in time.

Never had any use for that Mekons album, or that Neil Young album.

(Honestly, my gut feeling is NWA deserve my vote, but I don't own a copy of that album, either -- just the "Gangsta Gangsta" 12-inch.)

Also, fwiw:

some records i apparently liked in 1989

Also, I forget: Are these all EPs? Did the Voice only publish a top five? Or is the Lucinda an album, and they only published a top four? (Judging from the list, a top zero might've been more appropriate, but whatever):

Lucinda Williams: Passionate Kisses (Rough Trade)
Fugazi: Margin Walker (Dischord)
Dinosaur Jr: Just Like Heaven (SST)
Lush: Scar (4AD)
John Wesley Harding: God Made Me Do It--The Christmas EP (Sire/Reprise)

The one album I think I might like if I heard it now by the way is Soul II Soul, who I found irritating then.

Quincy Jones is possible too, but an extreme longshot. (I remember it being really long, with lots of guest rappers, but with maybe an halfway decent single? Probably it would be impossible to get through. A harbinger of CD-length horrors to come, maybe?)

...And guest non-rappers, too I bet. (Hardbinger of the eternal "album as trade magazine photo opportunity" concept.)

"Oranges And Lemons" by a huge stretch. XTC couldn't possibly fail between 1985 and 1999.

I'm pretty sure my room-mate had the Quincy Jones album and I heard it on more than one occasion, but I can't remotely remember what it sounded like.

xhuxk - those are indeed all EPs, including the lucinda.

and this is indeed an awful list of albums or, rather, just a very average list of albums, which makes for an awful top 40. i think my vote's gonna go to madonna.

oh but wait i think i loved that BDP album too. but i haven't heard that one in soooo long.

you people are dorks! This is a great year, with the Mekons, Neil Young, Pixies, Beastie Boys, De La Soul...

1990...now that was a bad year.

1986-91 was generally a very bad period for music.

there are plenty of exceptions, but that is truly a list full of mid-career mediocrity.

Not much to add to what a lot of people seem to be saying--list doesn't do a whole lot for me, though I agree with Chuck that some of them (actually, I'd say a bunch of them) "have their moments." I'd have to look at what other albums came out in '89, but I see this list and wonder: do rock critics just tend to play it really safe when it comes to albums, or was it just a particularly lame year? and do they just have much more, I don't know, curious taste when it comes to singles (i.e., voting for Paula Abdul?), or was this just a particularly interesting year? All of the above? (I guess I'm just saying there's a marked disparity between the singles list and the LPs list this year, though I might insist as well that the same thing is true for all the years ahead from this point forward.)

Paul's Boutique is still good enough for me to vote for. It's really the only thing on here I would play from beginning to end.

not that i have played it all the way through in some time, but i can definitely see it happening again.

though I might insist as well that the same thing is true for all the years ahead from this point forward.

Actually, that's dumb, I think I was saying this as far back as '85 (in here, I mean--not necessarily at the time).

I'm going with Doolittle here, since it seems to me the quintessential Pixies album (yes, I know there is much disagreement on that score) - and I think it holds up pretty well -and was pretty influential on lots of corny indie fux0r music to come as the '90s got underway (which I'm sure lots of people might hate it for).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

what the fuck

Happy to see someone voted for Lush besides me.

Um, I think "Passionate Kisses" is one of the greatest song ever written. But who in gay hell voted for the EP?

er...Mary Chapin-Carpenter's not on ILM, is she?

I mean, <I>Workbook</I>?!? De La with THREE VOTES? What planet is this again?

ILM revisionism at its most lurid.

Yeah, cosign on the WTF. I thought the Cure would do a little better, too.

OK. Let's see now, the Lucinda album received a grand total of zero votes in the previous year's poll. But the friggin' EP wins!?! I smell voter fraud!

It's also suspicious that no one has come forward on this thread to claim that they voted for that Lucinda EP (and no one indicated an intention to vote for it before the poll closed either).

Well, "Passionate Kisses" is so good that it belongs on one of those "Which Song Have You Played 100 Times In A Row" threads, it does. So maybe nine folks felt that what is essentially a CD single eclipsed all of the albums above. I thought of voting that way myself (no, this isn't a confession).

P.S. Didn't Costes: Rape GG come out around this time? I listened to that like mad (well, the title track at least).

I voted RN1814 thinking De La had it in the bag. The results have me convinced these polls should probably cease.

The result is indeed ridiculous (and yeah, as much for that half-assed Mould record as for Lucinda), but the threads are still worth continuing, JN$OT. So no, please don't cease them. (I never read them for the end result anyway.)

Me neither. Pretty please with sugar sugar on top, continue them.

Yeah, that was just crazy talk, really. I like voting for Janet Jackson over and over.

Who the hell is Bob Mould? (I know, I know, lex.argument.)

Husker Du, Sugar, solo. Voice like foghorn, guitar like tornado. Has done amazing, amazing things. (I also liked his last solo album, Body of Song.)