Favourite SST Release of... 1987

in a just world

103 Opal Happy Nightmare Baby 27
82 Saint Vitus Born Too Late 25
132 Screaming Trees Even If And Especially When 12
150 Meat Puppets Huevos 10
96 Sonic Youth Confusion is Sex 8
130 Dinosaur Jr You're Living All Over Me 8
134 Sonic Youth Sister 5
100 Meat Puppets Mirage 5
195 Husker Du Land Speed Record 4

opal opal opal

(i'm not going to vote just yet)

(p.s. when did Ultramega OK get released?)

(p.p.s. what got left off?)

this is the first one i'm really torn about, You're Living and Huevos and Sister are all favorites

For reals, Negativland's Escape From Noise changed the way I experienced music.

Steve Fisk's 448 Deathless Days is going to deserve more votes than it gets though. Listen to the cover of 'Break on Thru': http://nonpopradio.com/ia/12%20Steve%20Fisk%20-%20Break%20on%20Through.mp3

But I spose Sister's (one of the/the) best SY record so that'll piss it in.

i cant remember now, but only a real sad fucker would check the discography and complain that an album they've never heard of and wouldn't vote for is not in the poll :P

xp

and i hope a few people give that screaming trees album a vote

dont underestimate my sadness herman

i wasn't meaning you (but it was ones near the end of the list)

Why is Land Speed Record on this? It was released in 1982 (and re-released on 1987)

Anyway, OPAL OPAL OPAL

to annoy shasta!! ;)

'87 versus early polls: much more of it, not nearly as good...I skipped the '86 poll; when Husker Du left, that's more or less when I tuned out too. I liked You're Living All Over Me, though, then and now, so I'll vote for that. I assume it'll finish second behind Sister. How far behind, not sure.

I think there's a helluva lot of great stuff on here, just that there's way too much other stuff.

there are a number of early 80s records here also by the Huskers and the Sonics, so i guess 87 was the year SST started getting heavy w/ reissues

That Flesheaters one is a greatest hits, but I voted for it anyway. I almost voted for SY, but I realized I really couldn't really remember any of "Sister" but the cover and the schizophrenia song.

What I consider good stuff

82 Saint Vitus Born Too Late
96 Sonic Youth Confusion Is Sex
97 Sonic Youth Sonic Youth
100 Meat Puppets Mirage
103 Opal Happy Nightmare Baby
119 Saint Vitus Thirsty And Miserable
130 Dinosaur Jr You're Living All Over Me
132 Screaming Trees Even If And Especially When
133 Negativland Escape From Noise
134 Sonic Youth Sister
138 Minutemen Post-Mersh Vol. 1
139 Minutemen Post-Mersh Vol. 2
150 Meat Puppets Huevos
152 Dinosaur Jr Dinosaur Jr
166 Black Flag Wasted...Again
175 Black Flag Louie Louie
195 Hüsker Dü Land Speed Record
262 Grant Hart All Of My Senses

Other stuff i dont know that might be good. But if the poll was that list only, would people be saying it's a shite year? (ok yes, some comps & reissues but still)

i dont hate sister, but I def rank it below EVOL, DN & Dirty, so it gets my vote for most overrated SY album...i think You're Living All Over Me is pretty overrated too...

Mirage has great songs but crappy production...I have a full concert of the Pupps in 87 in NJ that have them playing all the Mirage material and its awesome!!! (do you still want that Herman?)

Sister is better than DN

yes please mate!

I love Mirage so if the live versions are better then count me in!

How I ranked them and a couple more SSTs (within my year-end top 150) then:

9. dinosaur - you're living all over me
29. screaming trees - even if and especially when
32. sonic youth - sister
50. henry kaiser
85. opal
93. crazy backwards alphabet
114. minutemen (pretty sure this is ballot result, though, which I don't see up there)
121. dc3 (probably their late '86 album, whatever it was called)
124. tar babies
125. flesheaters - greatest hits (shouldn't this be up there too?)
138. meat puppets
144. slovenly

probably not the best 150 albums of 1987

No idea why Saint Vitus didn't make my list that time.

Voting Sister, which I still own, though I'd love to hear the Blood On The Saddle, Crazy Backwards Alphabet, and Slovenly ones again someday. (Also Paper Bag -- what the heck is that? Some avant studio wank thing? Oddly, I think I might've briefly liked it. Pretty sure I never heard Treacherous Jaywalkers, whatever they were, though.)

xp alright Herman how do i do this?

actually tell me how to do this via email...bigstarz✧✧✧@ya✧✧✧.c✧✧

seriously chuck you are going to have to tell me where to find more of these lists...

125. flesheaters - greatest hits (shouldn't this be up there too?)

That's what Destroyed by Fire is, Greatest Hits - Destroyed by Fire

Okay, gotcha. And oops, left out this one from my list:

128. blind idiot god

Like I said, I wrote a 3000-word-or-so magnum opus SST roundup for the Voice that year; my faves in it (with their pictures at the top of the first page) were Dino Jr, Screaming Trees, and Blind Idiot God.

im afraid i cant make out your email, lol. you could gmail me by adding my nickname i go by before the @gmaildotcom (not the herman one)

Herman was just my joke krautrock name made for the watercooler thread years ago. pfunkboy has always been my ilx name

I'd really like to hear Bl'ast again, never been able to track it down. The stuff on their myspace sounds good. However, Opal by a long stretch. Last twist in the SST story that I really surprised me and made me rethink my listening. Sister felt like a disappointment at the time, less weird sonically than I wanted.

bigstarz404 at yah00dotcom

or else Ill just email you okay...

done

sweet thx

This year is so filled with good stuff but I can't not vote for Negativland because

For reals, Negativland's Escape From Noise changed the way I experienced music.

is OTM.

Paper Bag more live improv than avant studio, apparently, but the LP cover definitely rings a bell for me:

http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue21/paperbag.html

way way harder than 86. sister, born too late, you're living all over me & happy nightmare baby = four of my very favorite records of the 80s. wanna vote opal, but i'm torn. sister doesn't need my help of course, but born too late got me through some v dark days.

between these:

82 Saint Vitus Born Too Late
95 Das Damen Jupiter Eye
96 Sonic Youth Confusion Is Sex
97 Sonic Youth Sonic Youth
100 Meat Puppets Mirage
119 Saint Vitus Thirsty And Miserable
130 Dinosaur Jr You're Living All Over Me
132 Screaming Trees Even If And Especially When
134 Sonic Youth Sister
195 Hüsker Dü Land Speed Record

will probably go for you're living all over me... when did das damen's triskaidekaphobe come out? did i miss a chance to vote for that?

Blind Idiot God get my vote, that record was one of my most played that year and still gets regular airings. I'll also rep for :
Meat Puppets - Mirage (odd attempt to go commercial, dunno why they bothered as they were still never going to get paid)
Elliott Sharp & the Soldier String Quartet - Tessalation Row (scrapy microtonal string quartets, played by Dave Soldier of Thai Elephant Orchestra / The Most Hated Music fame)
Various Artists - No Age: A Compilation Of SST Instrumental Music (OK, large amounts of this is dire but it was a useful gateway album for me at the time)
Negativland - Escape From Noise (their best album, I still have the bumper sticker with my copy!)
Steve Fisk - 448 Deathless Days (esp. the creepy track with the slowed-down voices, "the grass is more important than me, the table's more impoertant then me, the RUG'S more important than me, then maybe a little tear rolls up in my eye, because that's my hero, that's my daddy" or whatever it was)
Grant Hart - All Of My Senses (winner of the post-Huskers solo releasese, in retrospect)

Triskaidekaphobe was 1988 I think.

Treacherous Jaywalkers Sunrise

Wasn't this Josh Haden, later of Spain, also brother of Petra Haden and son of Charlie Haden? Just looked it up, yes it was. As I recall they were 3rd-rate Minutemen copyists but I could be wrong.

Glenn Phillips Elevator

Ex Hampton Grease Band!
1987 was a far better year for SST than 1986 imo.

Never heard the Hampton Grease Band, but that Glenn Phillips album is so awful imo. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I first heard that. First (and only) time I saw Pavement, Malkmus was wearing a Glenn Phillips shirt, and I knew there and then that this guy had to be shitting us.

Not sure that Grant Hart EP is supposed to be on this poll...

My possible not-Sister-or-YLAOM vote would be Bl'ast's Power Of Expression, although I think that's just another reissue.

i cant remember now, but only a real sad fucker would check the discography and complain that an album they've never heard of and wouldn't vote for is not in the poll :P

I know I know I know, but THESE IMMORTAL SOULS are a bad choice of band to leave off the list. Fucking class band. Rowland S. Howard not long in the grave and all...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKw5dRktWys

Thought you might have had If'n in there too, cos at least that has a big picture of Husker Du on the cover right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orH3GBNYFLA

^ so fucking kick-ass.

I think Slovenly's Riposte came out in 1988; come to think of it, I think Thinking of Empire came out in '87, too. But I wasn't around at the time (I was only 7). No worries, though - this one was always going to be an impossible year for me anyway, even though it's the infamous Year of a Gazillion Releases.

But... where is BL'AST!'s It's In My Blood!? Power of Expression is there, but as Col Pool points out that's a reissue (from 1985 on some other unrelated label), and School's Out is just a single/EP that was tacked on the end of the Blood CD anyway.

Pool? I meant Poo of course - apologies for the Colonel.

cant please everyone

Had to leave out a few albums due to 50 options poll rule.

should've left off the albums that were previously released reissues - e.g. confusion is sex.

and the EP that came out in 1990 :P

I voted Dinosaur back on the 13th. love the others to death but come on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnaMpzgHMn8

yeah, i voted dinosaur too.

I threw a point to Where You Been -- awesome album, v. underrated.

xpostin' to MacDara and contenderizer: didn't mean to imply that 86 or 87 was some sort of death knell -- If anything 87 feels like they were resurgent, getting more of the audience and attention they'd long deserved. Just saying that the bad blood Ginn brewed within Black Flag had a chance to be directed fulltime at the home office by this point, and no doubt that had an effect, eventually.

But I know better than to dump so much blame on him for bands leaving or breaking up. SST sounds like it operated something like a collective of otherwise autonomous anarchist bands that shared some aspects of a similar vision/sense of purpose, but each with its own internal issues/divisions, and with its own conflicted relationship to the collective. And all of them (bands and relationships) evolving rapidfire, and with everyone pretty much broke. An absurdly unmanageable proposition. Without much public attention/outside financial support, it's miraculous that SST held together so long.

And held together so well. Here's this poll for 1987, a time 8-9 years after the label started up, when many main bands had departed, and their output still was colossal - another year whose ten best SST releases stack up just fine against any year from any other label anywhere. Ginn deserves so much credit and praise for that. Impossible without him, I'd think. The indie distribution network was so patchwork at this point compared to even a few years later, even the best support SST could muster could never have matched what major labels routinely did (and do) for records they plan to quickly cutout in bulk. No surprise when bands tired of their greatest efforts getting limited exposure; the surprise is how long the big name bands held on.

Also: his primary gig was awesome BF guitarist, any further achievements only serve to shine that reputation. Decades of post-peak Cruz releases shouldn't change that.

Also: In The Land of the Yahoos still holds up.

Yeah, i voted dinosaur too.

Heard Litttle Fury Things for the first time on John Peel and it was instant <3<3<3

Screaming trees and dinosaur jr appear to be doing well then judging by the posts on the thread, I expect the doom guys to vote st vitus into double figures but I still cant see Sister getting beat.

^ astute

Ginn deserves so much credit and praise for that. Impossible without him, I'd think...
Also: his primary gig was awesome BF guitarist, any further achievements only serve to shine that reputation.

Agreed. One can bring up the dodgy accounting practices and the Negativland thing and whatnot, but no one disses him as a guitarist. And besides, the shady dealings surrounding Homestead Records make SST seem like a model business!

voted for Huevos, which is really up there with II and Up On The Sun as one of the Puppets' best imo

Mirage and Huevos are both great.

I hope they get some votes

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

ok I would not have called pell mell to come in at #9

rest seems about right

tho this is kinda o_O

Sonic Youth Confusion Is Sex 0

considering the first EP got a vote

Glad that this wasn't the Sonic Youth / Dino Jr walkover I was expecting.

i don't think i've ever heard the negativland album. i didn't know it was so popular.

Still got over 100 votes in the poll, I'm impressed.

Man, if Zoogz Rift ever sees these polls, we're in for a suicide for sure. I mean, what does the man have to do to get some respect?

i don't know why anyone would vote for a reissue of a 1983 record in this poll no matter how much they like it

it was kinda hard to get a hold of until SST reissued it tbh

does that mean when you think of the album, time-wise, you think of it as a 1987 album? i mean i didn't hear any of the old SY albums until Geffen reissued them in '93, but it makes no sense for me to think of them in those terms.

not really, it's definitely an album of its time

but if you were actively buying SST records in 1987, seeing confusion is sex get issued was sort of a big deal if you were an SY fan at the time, which I was

ok can anyone tell me what 8 albums i should leave off the 1988 poll? It appears there's 58 albums.

069 Various Artists Chunks
092 Various Artists Cracks In The Sidewalk
105 Screaming Trees Other Worlds
127 Cruel Frederick The Birth Of The Cruel
131 fIREHOSE Sometimes
142 Descendents Milo Goes To College
143 Descendents I Don't Want To Grow Up
144 Descendents Bonus Fat
145 Descendents Two Things At Once
146 Sylvia Juncosa Nature
147 Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends?
153 SWA Arroyo
154 Pat Ruthensmear Ruthensmear
155 Sonic Youth Master-Dik
160 Bad Brains Live
161 Saint Vitus Mournful Cries
162 Sister Double Happiness Sister Double Happiness
163 Descendents Liveage
168 Ras Michael Zion Train
169 Tar Babies No Contest
172 Fred Frith The Technology Of Tears
173 H.R. Now You Say
176 Divine Horsemen Handful Of Sand
178 Painted Willie Relics
179 H.R. It's About Luv
180 Universal Congress Of Prosperous And Qualified
181 Sonic Youth Sonic Death
182 Everett Shock Ghost Boys
184 Zoogz Rift Non-Entity: Water III, Fan Black Dada
185 Alter-Natives Group Therapy
186 Brian Ritchie Nuclear War
187 Brian Ritchie Atomkrieg
188 Screaming Trees Invisible Lantern
189 Last Confession
190 Das Damen Triskaidekaphobe
191 Mofungo Bugged
192 Run Westy Run Hardly, Not Even
193 Always August Geography
194 Elliott Sharp/Carbon Larynx
196 Paul Roessler Abominable
197 Trotsky Icepick Baby
198 Henry Kaiser Those Who Know History Are Doomed To Repeat It
199 Run Westy Run Run Westy Run
200 Paper Bag Music To Trash
201 Soundgarden Ultramega OK
202 Brian Ritchie Sonic Temple And Court Of Babylon
203 Roger Manning Roger Manning
204 Universal Congress Of This Is Mecolodics
205 Descendents Hallraker
206 Angst Cry For Happy
207 Treacherous Jaywalkers Good Medicine
210 Volcano Suns Farced
216 Dinosaur Jr Bug
218 Das Damen Marshmellow Conspiracy
219 Grant Hart 2541
222 Henry Kaiser Re-Marrying For Money
223 Kirk Kelly Go Man Go
227 Brian Ritchie Sun Ra-Man From Outer Space

142 Descendents Milo Goes To College
143 Descendents I Don't Want To Grow Up
144 Descendents Bonus Fat
145 Descendents Two Things At Once
are all reissues right?

man, why bother

I mean I remember liking that volcano suns record but boy what a bunch of middling records

I said I'd take it up to 89 then macdara will takeover for the 90s

so please help me out with what needs left out so i am under 50 options

is there anything special about the v/a comps? leave them off otherwise

actually chunks and cracks in the sidewalk are both new alliance reissues so leave them off

iirc

ok the two comps and the 4 descendents. anymore?

sonic death a reish as well

Leave off these:

155 Sonic Youth Master-Dik
181 Sonic Youth Sonic Death
188 Screaming Trees Invisible Lantern
201 Soundgarden Ultramega OK
216 Dinosaur Jr Bug

nice try with the last 3

Better not really leave off Master-Dik, I may vote for that sucker.

i wasnt going to

"WARNING: not as good as Atomizer so don't get your hopes up, cheese"

I say leave off that live Descendents album.

based on this result you can leave off Zoogz Rift.

isn't that frith/kaiser album a comp of previously released stuff?

grasping at straws here tbh

I'm always up for bagging on zoogz tho

ok Favourite SST Release of... 1988

Feel free to discuss 87 and the results here though.

I said I'd take it up to 89 then macdara will takeover for the 90s

Thanks for the reminder! I'm gonna need a couple of weeks to find the hour or so I need to put it together.

Well you have 2 weeks til the 88 then the 89 are over.

Oh nice, 14 votes for the Screaming Trees! I really do love that album.

yeah that was great to see