Our Melody Man: Geir Hongro's #1 Albums of Every Year, 1972-2012

probably Skylarking? Seeing this I can't help but feel that Geir didn't do a very good job of moulding his absolutist aesthetic theory around the contingencies of his taste.

elo.

no contest. no surprise.

selling england by the pound.

skylarking vs ok pewter vs smile

lol Muse

I don't really roll hard with any of these. Would maybe have picked Violator if it were here. I suppose I'll throw a point at Cotton Mather just because I sort of knew the guitarist.

skylarking

scritti > japan > skylarking

Dukes of the Stratosphear

voted for Jellyfish

The Cars.

ooh shit i missed The Cars, that's def my overall fav

Seeing this I can't help but feel that Geir didn't do a very good job of moulding his absolutist aesthetic theory around the contingencies of his taste.

Yes, considering how repetitive his posting style I found it quite difficult to predict what would be on his lists, every time I thing i 'get' his taste something would turn up that blindsided me (though this is more the case in the bottom half of the lists).
Voted for Tin Drum

OK Computer

dodgy?? DODGY????

wait, they're on there TWICE?

oh dude, The Cars by a huge distance

Yeah I kinda can't believe that's there...maybe '78 was a really weak year in Geir's view.

A few brilliant albums here but none more so than Rio

^^^

The Cars and Skylarking not far behind, but yeah.

Wonder what geir thinks of crowded house

thnking either the Cars or Smile

This is much harder than expected

until you get to the 2000's

Tin Drum so exquisitely breaks most of Geir's own tenets that it feels rude not to vote for it.

plus, y'know, it's better than most of this cack

Ascertaining Geir's 2000's is simply a matter of squaring off one of SFA's lesser albums with one of Beck's better ones, which isn't something I feel particularly inclined towards

Voted Cotton Mather, cause I'm thinking no one else will.

this is just not my kinda music for the most part but that Cars debut is Roy Thomas Baker in seek-and-destroy mode, so many hits it's hard to believe it was ever new

Surprised how many of these I actually like. Tough choice between Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Rio and Skylarking.

Anyone voting for Ellie & Elliot by Julian Berntzen or those recent Crowded House albums?

the cars

Voted Cotton Mather, cause I'm thinking no one else will.

No, why?

man that list is DIRE. i can basically sum up that list as a genre called "i don't give a shit about that"

kudos

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

All of those are 'not bothered' or 'yeah, but not that one'

Except for the DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR!!!

I can get behind Crowded House, the 'craftmanship' of Neil Finn I can see plus his ability to actually write a memorable melody

But Dodgy...never mind voting twice...I cant for the life of me see how they were adept at their craft in anything like the same way as say XTC or Finn himself, nor particularly adept melodically. I mean surely there were hundreds of powerpop bands doing something better in 1994.

See also... Coldplay, Travis

I am a bit amused that someone obsessed with melody has picked artists that arent exactly world beaters in the melody dept

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

Dodgy - Free Peace Sweet (1996) 1

oh, hi Geir ;)

Jellyfish - Bellybutton (1990) 3
Duran Duran - Rio (1982) 2

the cars? that's a joke isn't it? a band which was already derivative and unoriginal in their time wins the poll, very strange.

hate the way derivative unoriginal things sound

the cars are the best band, fuiud

even if the only thing they had ever released was the buildup to the synth hook on "Just What I Needed" they would still be better than 99.9999% of music

Yeah, I can't believe The Cars topped this list of albums either.

I like the Cars pretty well, but I can't see ever needing anything other than the Greatest Hits comp that my parents had when I was a kid.

first Cars album is just spectacular is the actual fact guys

First Cars album is killer. You whiners better get on board.

don't dream it's over

first every Cars album is just spectacular is the actual fact guys

well maybe not Door to Door or Move Like This, they're still pretty good though.

I'm not nuts about the cars but it's clearly high quality guitar pop, c'mon

i enjoy people being baffled about the popularity of popular things tho

even if the only thing they had ever released was the buildup to the synth hook on "Just What I Needed" they would still be better than 99.9999% of music

catch me at the right moment and i'll swear "Just What I Needed" is the pinnacle of human culture

cars are so far ahead of the rest of the bullshit on this list it isn't even funny.

Gonna test that hypothesis by listening to The Cars

Paul Ockenden 4 weeks ago
The cars really fused rock music with synthesizers to create perfect poo rock.
Reply · 4 Vote UpVote Down

was expecting this to be all like drive but it isn't. prefer drive tbh. this has some nice touches but I'm more into the sweeping euphoric melodrama of yer duran durans (who have better melodies as well, seeing as this is the geir thread, as well as cooler synth textures)

haha! you funny man!!

JWIN is one of the first rock songs i remember hearing as a kid and it kinda blew my head open & still does

"You're All I've Got Tonight" is the best song IMO.

yeah, yeah, alright...

DUKES!

well yeah I think a lot of this is about what we heard when we were young. I loved Rio aged, what, 8?

Duran Duran are just fine but tbh if that was what you're after they're a pale substitute for Japan on this list alone

couldn't really get with that Japan album on first try. I'm built wrong, I know

well they do slightly different things, i'm exaggerating a touch maybe. it's kind of fun watching you champion the empty poptimist option on this one

I have a theory that the albums you loved at a very young age will always be among your favourite albums no matter how your taste subsequently shifts.

i didn't really know what albums were when i was very young!

wtf is Dodgy, also I voted for it

3 roadies playing at being the Troggs

euler gets polls imo

Also, Rio is pretty complex for a pure pop record! Intricate basslines, slow-building song structures, close sonic detail, contrapuntal keyboard melodies, dark themes, even a bit of arty atonality & multivocal fuckery (check out New Religion). Yeah, when viewed from a certain distance it's a pure pop record, but it's full of gorgeous subtle touches and odd spaces in the mix.

I'll defend Free Peace Suite, actually

quiet life or polaroids are the japan albums closer to duran's sound.

FPS is an album fucked over by its lead single being by a fucking mile its worst and most loathsome song. The rest ranges from half-decent to really quite good

rio is all killer no filler. peaks on the last song, "the chauffeur"

The first Cars album is great but the more synth-heavy second one (Candy-O) is even better. Surprised at the love for Cupid & Psyche, I love the singles but the rest of it is pretty mediocre.

Homegrown is kinda well-produced. Dodgy did a lot of stupid ornamentations of their stupid pop-songs, which I will always prefer to something 'raw' and 'authentic'. Other than that, I've got nothing...

"You're All I've Got Tonight" is the best song IMO.

― arctic mindbath (President of the People's Republic of Antarctica), Sunday, October 20, 2013 4:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This wasn't on the Greatest Hits I grew up with, so I actually didn't know this song until I got the (awesome) Rhino DiY comp Mass Ave: The Boston Scene (1975-83) sometime in the mid 90s, which features an early demo version of the track.

Every track on The Cars got AOR play; on that early 2000s comp it only omitted one of its tracks. I prefer Candy-O but both are all you need

Japan is a pretty pale imitation of Japan.