Game Theory frontman Scott Miller made a 1979 mixtape - POLL! (click here)

my first instinct says Powderfinger, but Dancing Barefoot, Dance this Mess Around, Diff't for Girls, Map Ref all give me pause...

"they don't know" just barely over "different for girls," just barely over about 7 other things. ("cruisin'"!)

(and at a glance, dude's tastes get worse and worse the farther he goes into the '90s and beyond.)

that seems a bit unfair...he steers clear of rap, techno, and metal, and willingly admits that he lost most of his coolness as a result, but the stuff he does like is pretty damn decent...esp. 1993, I thought his list (both the mixtape blog one, and his top 20 albums) was v. useful...its how I got into Flop!...plus he introduced me to The Dandy Warhols' "Nietzsche" & Midlake...

plus me and him are in sync when it comes to The Beatles...during the "big" years, he tends to play it safe...I mean I could really give a f*ck about Help! or Hey Jude...but he also tends to exalt some of my favourite Beatles songs that nobody else really talks about (Two of Us, All My Loving, If I Fell)...

(btw tipsy i just googled the kirsty maccoll song...yowza! thats almost too good!)

Powderfinger, beating out Map Ref & Big Boys.

"It's Different for Girls," the best song Joe Jackson ever recorded, a full length ahead of the many other worthy contenders on this list. Making talky, prosy, narrative vocals sound heartfelt is a brutally hard trick and JJ never again pulled it off as he did here.

yeah i'm stuck right now on "different for girls" & "they don't know"...i've listened to both these songs prolley about 30 times each today

also this is really good

this aint bad either

and don't forget this:

almost makes up for the absence of Fleetwood Mac in the playlist...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted "they don't know"

For the playful, jittery guitar solo alone - 'Life Begins at the Hop' - but dang Map ref, Powderfinger and In The Evening sure were close for me.

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

not bad! that was a lot more votes than I expected...

FWIW, I used to be a big GT/LF fan (clever chord changes don't age as well as I'd expected) and this book is just barely better than any given bit of Nick Hornby writing. Elvis Costello, check. Beatles, check. Talking Heads, check. REM, check. Biggest waste of $3.50 in recent memory. Anyone who thinks that a Pussy Galore album was the biggest waste of money ever is a waste of time for me...

Oh come on man. That book rules. It's like pornography for music geeks. Geez.

Ugh, it's like somebody's dad trying to explain rock and roll. And I am somebody's dad.

Pretty sure I voted Kirsty MacColl here.

I didn't know they'd made that blog a book. I'll buy it. Good bathroom reading.

I still have lots of Game Theory records, but I got rid of my only Pussy Galore record. It was so old.

Book's just a print version of the blog, right? Couldve just clicked on the link above and read the whole thing for free...

The book is based on the series created for this web site, but Scott re-examined and rewrote much of the text; in addition, it's all been edited and fact-checked (though we still anticipate the odd error might sneak through, and if you find one, you're welcome to send in a correction—we'll fix it in the next printing). The book also contains three bonus chapters (2007, 2008 and 2009) that don't appear online, as well as a foreword and an interview with Scott by his longtime friend and fan Bob Lloyd.

Still: read the blog to know what you're getting into...everything dlp is complaining about was there already