John Cale album poll

I'm cool+wrong btw

Voted for Slow Dazzle, for collecting the dangerous, pretty, and dangerously pretty better than anything else he recorded: "Ski Patrol," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Mr. Wilson," "Guts," "Taking It All Away." The tracklist is practically a greatest hits comp.

i gotta be uncool+right here sorry

Fear, easy.

yeah, lame+right here. what a fucking album.

hobosapiens was good

slow dazzle is a really interesting album, not his best but what a bizarre mix of pastiche & menace. also, ski patrol is lol X infinity

I voted Fragments because:

1. It was the album that took me from "I really like some John Cale songs and albums" to "I should probably search everything he's done"
2. More good versions + good songs than any other album - serves as a greatest hits better than any collection would
3. Definitive version of 'Dying on the Vine' - which is probably his single best song (though the studio version has a lot going for it too)
4. On that note, a lot of other songs that I had heard before and didn't really like - made a lot more sense after hearing the Fragments version.

So, more than just a live collection of good songs - for me at least it's a lens through which everything else makes sense.

Paris 1919 (Reprise) March 1973
Fear (Island) September 1974

Tough choice between these. "Hanky Panky Nohow" may give the former a slight edge (for me, at least).

"Paris 1919" when I'm feeling up, "Music For A New Society" when I'm feeling down

Decided to ignore Fragments and view this as a studio albs poll-- Music For a New Society

Paris 1919 -- it simply has to be. One of my top ten albums of all time, so ... Lotta good choices here, though! Fragments is killer -- probably the best intro to Cale. The last half of that album is stunning.

BUFFALO BALLET

Vintage Violence is pretty damn untouchable for me.

Slow Dazzle for me

I hope Helen of Troy gets at least one vote, cause that's a damn good album

That's the only one of the classic sequence that feels unnecessarily histrionic.

iatee perfectly summed up why "Fragments" is so great ... I agree with all of that comment -- even #3 as long as I can swap out "Dying On the Vine" for "Style It Takes".

it's not unnecessary! he has a straight-jacket album cover to live up to

they kind of undermined the straightjacket cover by taking off "Leaving It Up To You"

I'd probably go with Fear, but maybe just because I can't not vote for the album with "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend." Paris 1919 might be more consistent, but shit, that song.

Paris 1919 is to Transformer as Fear is to Blue Mask

I'd vote 'Church of Anthrax,' because I'm not a huge fan of singer-songwriter-mode Cale.

new option:
uncool + wrong

Vintage Violence, appropriately enough, kills.

i'm uncool and vote Paris 1919

been a few years since i had my huge cale love story. maybe it's time for a second phase seeing there are still a few things here i haven't heard

Fragments, since it's like a best of + all great cover versions of his own songs in one.

Sabotage is pretty cool. That spoken intro to "Mercenaries" is vicious. Also: Captain Hook.

not to mention the great "Hedda Gabler", which is on the cd version of Sabotage!

GUTS GUTS
GOT NO GUTS

I'll come back to this in a week once I've got through everything on Spotify.

Hedda Gabler = 2nd greatest song of all time

but it can't count towards Sabotage in this poll
because I included Animal Justice

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

AAAAAAAAH! OH MY GOD! THE JOHN CALE ALBUM POLL IS CLOSING TOMORROW!!! WHAT??!?!?!?!

I'm just now only getting into the meat of his career! Please give me a break! Wow. Oh shit. Woah.

There should never be polls at all.

bimb you should just vote CS so it gets some respect

fear

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

I would like to hear from this Walking on Locusts person

3 votes for "Music For A New Society"? You fools. I didn't vote for it, of course.

Only 3 votes for "Slow Dazzle" and for "Music for a New Society" ??? What's wrong with you people ???

Paris 1919 should not have won by that much

and none for Helen of Troy???

dunno, that poll looks about right to me. If I didn't vote for Paris, I probably would've voted for Vintage Violence or Music for a New Society. I like the Island trilogy a lot, but as albums, those are my faves. Didn't vote for Fragments because that is more like a greatest hits to me.

I would kill for a decent recording of the Even Cowgirls Get the Blues period.

has everyone heard the Ocean Club bootleg from 1976? Guest starring Lou Reed, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Chris Spedding, etc. Not as good as you want it to be, BUT PRETTY GOOD.

I want that to be pretty good

I saw some video of that, I think.

why hasn't someone reissued Honi Soit, Music For A New Society, Carribean Sunset, and Comes Alive? aside from there not as good as his other stuff.

?? MFaNS is one of his best records. Honi Soit is pretty great, too...

yah so you'd think they would get a reissue instead of costing a crapload for used copies on amazon.

They're not as good (or even okay) as the other works!

music for a new society is great, esp. if you're in the mood for some bleak stuff

His "unplugged" versions of those songs are superior.

agreed but please never use the term "unplugged" again

Pretty nifty double live set just released:

http://www.amazon.com/John-Cale-Band-Live-Rockpalast/dp/B003BWBA6M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288558270&sr=8-1

Way, way better than "Comes Alive", and rehabilitates some of the "Carribean Sunset" material nicely.

Paris 1919 or Music for a New Society for me....never could choose between the two, both nigh on perfect!

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/john-cale-paris-1919-round-16-toms-selection/

Having recently re-listened to both albums, I reckon MFANS is his true masterpiece, but I would always prefer to listen to Paris 1919.

He's 70 today!

(I unwittingly posted as such on the De Subjectivisten board; my browser was set to auto-translate Dutch and I didn't notice)

Penblwydd Hapus!

well said, willem, well said
:)
i'd put it just slightly differently, though:
john cale on kõigiti äge säga ja õnne sünnipäevaks ja kanget tervist talle!

happppy birthday. one of the greatest.

interesting that it's also Ornette Coleman's birthday, and that the artwork for Ornette's Free Jazz album was Pollock's "White Light." Interesting to me anyway.

lol, Cale and Lou born in the same year and a week apart!

I seem to remember some wanky discussion panel item on Lou last week. This hasn't been as dubiously celebrated and it sucks!

Sabotage is pretty underrated, methinks. Mercenaries is enormous. Listening to it a lot lately.

When I could take you apart
And if you give me half a chance
I'd do it now, I'd do it now, right now, you fascist

this guy

It is cruel to choose. He is the only interesting lyricist of paranoia. Even when no guns or threat of foul play are involved, his paranoia is exquisite. Here is a lyrical sequence of non-violent paranoid bits from three consecutive records: "Nothing frightens me more than religion at my door," "You know more than I know," "They're taking it all away."

The ones you need.

Nice. I just joined twitter and I follow you. I commented on your twitter about Honi Soit and the great Hungry For Love.

The ones you need🕸.

Yo La covered "Hanky Panky Nohow" *and* "Andalucia," which is pretty cool. Paul Kelly did a lovely cover of "Buffalo Ballet" that makes me wonder why more people don't cover John Cale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4cBcd0IaIA

Btw, it's getting to the point where every time a dormant thread pops up I assume the person is dead when really I should start assuming it's a Soto list.

I heard Paul Kelly's cover before the original, it's close but I still prefer Paul's version.

Cale has a rare ability to be equally convincing in crazed punk mode as well as evocative wide-screen mode a-la "Buffalo Ballet"

Btw, it's getting to the point where every time a dormant thread pops up I assume the person is dead when really I should start assuming it's a Soto list.

Soto lists always come in threes.

like my dates!

lol. have to listen to Fear again, but I love Paris 1919

Don't sleep on Tyler's excellent Unreleased Cale comp on his blog!

Hedda Gabler had a very funny face