Taking Sides: "Dare" Vs. "The Lexicon Of Love" Vs. "Rio" Vs. "Tin Drum" Vs. "New Gold Dream"

I have to say I find it hard myself, althought I think I have to go for "Tin Drum" in the long run.

Btw. the two last covers are hidden there somewhere too, could some moderator help correct the html so that the images are visible too?

laxicon of love

haha i mean lexicon obv

it had my favourite bunch of singles of the lot, for a start

rio coz i'm listening to it at the moment hence weird psycho-symmetry shit

Dare. best pop music ever made = best album in this poll

Rio FTW

It would be interesting to compare the albums each released earlier... Gentlemen Take Polaroids vs. Duran Duran vs. Travelogue vs. Sons And Fascination

Also, Vienna needs to be on the list

As a kneejerk reaction, I clicked Dare, as it was the light going on in my head for synth music when I was a kid, but yes jim is right about Lexicon. As for Tin Drum, very good too.

ATTENTION: THERE IS NO REASON THAT ANYONE SHOULD NOT VOTE FOR NEW GOLD DREAM

WHY BECAUSE EVERY SONG ON THAT ALBUM IS A+

^^^^ this

Also, Vienna needs to be on the list

It was probably closer than most, but it isn't on quite as many critics lists as the five others.

have only heard one in its entirety; will download and listen to the others.

Geir, Images are 3 maximum (except for the actual poll options), also polls cannot be edited.

Rio, duh.

After only owning it on cassette, I've only just really noticed the 'OAD NW3' on the front of Lexicon. What is that, Hampstead or something? Can't believe it's not a deliberate placement of that sign, but it's never really struck me as a London record.

Anyway, NEW GOLD DREAM 81-82-83-84 for me.

Lexicon, obv.

I am afraid I will be standing very much alone voting for "Tin Drum" here. Then, I realize I have put it up against some extremely tough competition too. If ILM ever made a best albums of all time list, it is possible most of these would be Top 10 items (the rest of the Top 10 would probably consist of R&B and hip-hop, with the occasional Cure or MBV title possibly thrown in).

You sayin' we're formulaic?

Haha, Curtis OTM!

I'll vote for Tin Drum but I think it's the wrong album to put in this grouping; Gentlemen Take Polaroids fits better as a comparison. Tin Drum had moved out of new romantic and into art-rock pop, I feel. Plus Sylvian isn't wearing much makeup on the cover. The covers of Gentlemen and Nagel's Rio could almost be portraits of the same person.

Geir, I voted Tin Drum without a second thought. The rhythm section is just too next-level to pass up. When it comes down to it, the others are pretty MOR in comparison (except maybe New Gold Dream, which I quite like). Lexicon of Love has always been a chore for me to get through!

I'll vote for Tin Drum but I think it's the wrong album to put in this grouping; Gentlemen Take Polaroids fits better as a comparison.

I understand where you're coming from, but for some weird reason "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" has never done particularly well in critics lists. It isn't in the entire Top 3000, not even mentioned as "bubbling under" from 1980, at www.acclaimedmusic.net.

1. "Rio" – 5:33
2. "My Own Way" – 4:51
3. "Lonely In Your Nightmare" – 3:50
4. "Hungry Like the Wolf" – 3:41
5. "Hold Back the Rain" – 3:57
6. "New Religion" – 5:33
7. "Last Chance on the Stairway" – 4:21
8. "Save a Prayer" – 5:33
9. "The Chauffeur" – 5:13

I am gonna be so goddamn mad if Dare wins.

As a constant collection of work, I would have to go with Tin Drum as I would not skip any track on that album. However, Dare and Lexicon and New Gold Dream have moments that outshine (this doesn't mean better, of course - "Ghosts" is just too jaw-dropping worthy to be in that same new romantic range). Gentlemen Take Polaroids really should be the Japan album here.

Rio did give us some decent fashion. Not Martin Fry gold lame level fashion, but good fashion nonetheless.

Geir, I voted Tin Drum without a second thought. The rhythm section is just too next-level to pass up.

slyly done.

I'd like to know who you are, because you sure aren't Hoos, and you sure aren't Grimly.

hahahah, no, but i'm amused.

and bimble, sorry, but the correct answer here is dare, and my vote was so goddamn without-thinking that it was a reflex reaction.

i should listen to tin drum again. this is all the stuff i was exploring 16 or 17 years ago, when i was a synthpop- and early-eighties-obsessed teenager, and i couldn't feel japan at all (except for the track "oil on canvas" itself) ... i'm pretty much certain i'd feel very differently now, but something sort of stops me finding out. sometimes those early prejudices are hard to shake.

for some reason simple minds fall into a similar don't-really-listen-to category (bimble, i'm sorry: really) but i think some of that is down to what they became later. that was a fucking good album, wasn't it?

the first few simple minds albums are wonderful, the later ones are just dull

I would definitely say "New Gold Dream" belongs to the great part of their albums discography.

Although personally, I find that "Street Fighting Years" and "Real Life" were both quite nice. After that they became blander than ever though.

Hello.

I have nothing to say on this thread, as I have either not heard, or have heard and not cared that much, about any of these albums.

Carry on, have a good thread you lot.

Tarra.

Can't decide between Tin Drum and NGD. Though Tim Drum's more *consistently* good, as in no trax I skip... but then again I can listen endlessly to New Gold Dream....

http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/06/paulmorleyL210606_175x125.jpg

Dare makes me proud to be english, it should be in a glass case in the tower of london

Alright you lot, then, alright, see I'd put Lexicon at the bottom, actually, Dare is better than Lexicon. I'll say that much. I flirt with ABC but can't seem to form a long lasting relationship with them.

And Grimly, you were *SO* OTM with this bit:
i should listen to tin drum again. this is all the stuff i was exploring 16 or 17 years ago, when i was a synthpop- and early-eighties-obsessed teenager, and i couldn't feel japan at all (except for the track "oil on canvas" itself) ... i'm pretty much certain i'd feel very differently now, but something sort of stops me finding out. sometimes those early prejudices are hard to shake.

Cause that is exactly how I feel about Tin Drum!!! I came to that album really late, long after developing an appreciation for Japan, and I didn't get the feeling it held together very well, though of course I love Art of Parties, etc. I feel exactly like you do about it - that if I heard it again now, I would probably be far kinder to it.

Japan seemed way too advanced for me at the time. And the fact that David Sylvian got more and more "out there" as a soloist probably didn't help either. It wasn't until the late 90s that I really discovered how fantastically great that three album run from "Quiet Life" through "Tin Drum" was.

Great list of records, tho I don't really know New Gold Dream. Rio is fun and popular but by no means canonical record. Tin Drum is brilliant and canonical, but by no means popular. Lexicon of Love is amazing, but one or two songs short of peerless.

Thus, Dare

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

But Naive Teen Idol! You don't know New Gold Dream!

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

I did not vote in this poll but I probably would have voted for the winning album, because I gave it co-Album of the Year status in my high school newspaper music column (haha with "Security" LOL). But I listen to Rio more, I miss my cassette copy of New Gold Dream more, and I dance a lot more to Dare. Tin Drum eh too British for me.

well, i for one am surprised. i must go and listen to tin drum.

Tin Drum eh too British for me.

I would've thought that Tin Drum was the least typically British album of this group.

But Naive Teen Idol! You don't know New Gold Dream!

Your point? That I am a cretin unqualified to vote in this poll?

No, it was a jokey comment in hopes of encouraging you to hear it. I also forget that sometimes people vote in polls where they're not familiar with all the choices. ;)

wtf only 5 votes for New Gold Dream!

A bit surprised the "New Gold Dream" got so few. Surely it would probably be my last pick here, but there have been so many people going for it in the thread that I thought it would almost be a contender.

Wow, the totally wrong one won.

Honestly don't know what would be your choice in turn, though!

81, 82, 83, 84.

Dream with me.

Lexicon of Love is so much better than all the other candidates here

love LOL. lol.

Dare would get my vote

DARE would probably be my runner-up.

why no:

http://heaven17.com/blog/uploaded_images/album-penthouse-and-pavement-713394.jpg

I think I explained upthread that I picked the early 80s new romantic/synth albums most often featured in "canon" polls. I agree that "Penthouse And Pavement" is an excellent pick from this era too though, as are also "Organisation" and "Architecture & Morality" by OMD and the first couple of Depeche Mode albums. And I might even add Culture Club's "Kissing To Be Clever".

The Durans were totally robbed here.

Maybe by Japan...

Alex in NYC. What are you, a man of good taste in rock music, doing, repping right and left for the abomination known as Duran Duran, enemy of the good, opponent of the true, dishonourer of all fires everywhere, yea even unto the ends of their frosted tips? for God's sake man what has gotten into you.

Hearing that Love and Dancing remix album kinda blew my mind in re: to how good Dare actually is. Martin Rushent is a badass.

There are some days when Lexicon of Love seems like the best album of this group of five. But on other days it seems like the BEST GODDAMN ALBUM OF ALL TIME.

These are literally five of my favourite albums ever made. Dare and The Lexicon of love would both be in my all time top three. ABC would get my vote but it's close.

I agree that Penthouse & Pavement is also an excellent album. Sulk by the Associates would fit nicely in this list too.

ABC really dated quite badly compared to much else in this list (Duran aside perhaps, though I do love Rio)

Simple Minds were robbed :(

New Gold Dream would be so much better if it had less cavernous production.

i disagree

i really wish i felt the love for Lexicon of Love, i love the other albums here and i feel like i should love LoL but i just don't feel much when i listen to it.

lotsa love in that post

I love the production on NGD! Its part of my fave thing about it!

But then again I'm a sucker for 80s production styles of immense over-the-topness (cf 80s Genesis, Scritti Politti etc)

Sulk by the Associates would fit nicely in this list too.

I feel "Sulk" is a lot more experimental and "underground" than this lot. Would fit better in with Orange Juice and some other "indie pop" acts of this era.

I love the production on Cupid and Psyche and I enjoy Collins-era Genesis, but the sound of NGD just seems to obscure a lot of (probably good) lyric writing and Kerr's voice. This wouldn't be a problem normally but it seems like a mistake for it to be applied to this album as opposed to the Cocteau Twins or something where covering everything in an obscuring haze is kind of the point.