NME Album Of The Year Poll

A lot of really good albums here and some which might seem surprising in retrospect. Voting for "Heroes" (my favourite Bowie album) narrowly over Maxinquaye.

I've never read any issues of the NME from the mid-to-late 80s, but that soulboys vs indie kids period that I've seen described on ilx seems interesting? It's bizzarre to think that the Smiths never won and they were giving aoy to Bobby Womack and Public Enemy, considering the NME's later focus

I'd like to see the full lists, try to get better understanding of the rise and fall of different factions over time

post-1990 literally only three albums here that aren't dogshit, this list mostly serves as a reminder why i hated the uk music press growing up and why even now i have nothing but contempt for the nme as an institution

you tell 'em lex

Huh, they gave QOTSA album of the year before they got big. How bout that.

I was prepared to scoff but there are some surprisingly interesting choices. I'll probably vote for Rain Dogs.

xp if by "before" you mean "precisely at the time that", then yeah

xp Rain Dogs and Psychocandy was a good year!

By the way, I've never wanted to harsh anyone's vibe by saying this on a dedicated thread but I just want to take this opportunity to say Spiritualized are probably the dullest band that has ever existed and I do not get their appeal one bit.

The utter horror of the past decade only makes me feel a bit embarrassed for PJ, like, seriously, that album is great, but what on earth is it doing on *that* list.

i suppose it's Blood on the Tracks vs. Fear of Music, though i guess Rain Dogs could snatch it if i was in a certain mood.

"Biggest Effect On My Life, Personally" would definitely be Psychocandy, but there are better albums on that list, even if they didn't have the bomb-like detonation in my life that the JAMC did, at that time. This is why "best" is so impossible to do over "favourite".

I'll still rep for Hidden by These New Puritans. Very good record. That and PJ are the only things from the last... 13 years I care about. I like that QOTSA record but it's not AOTY stuff.

voted Arctic Monkeys

Far of Music, Rain Dogs, and Psychocandy stand out.

I know it won't win and I might be the only person who votes for it but Sugar "Copper Blue" is one of my favorite albums ever. To me, it took what Husker Du did but cleaned it up. Some fans of the band who hate Sugar say that removed what made Husker Du special, but I completely disagree; it added the elements that held Husker Du back from being truly great (and I say this as a very big fan of Husker Du too). I still play that album on road trips and it never lets me down even after all these years.

Rain Dogs.

Horrors – Primary Colours (2009)

WTF?

It's between these for me:

De La Soul – 3 Feet High And Rising (1989)
Talking Heads – Fear Of Music (1979)
Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks (1975)
Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy (joint first, 1985)
Tom Waits – Rain Dogs (joint first, 1985)
Spiritualized – Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (1997)
The Strokes - Is This It? (2001)

I think I'm going with De La

Horrors – Primary Colours (2009)

WTF?

Geoff Barrows produced this and it's actually pretty good. Much better than their first one. I wouldn't call it album of any year but not a totally baffling choice for the NME.

Horrors – Primary Colours (2009)

WTF?

― voodoo chili, Friday, February 14, 2014 4:19 PM

Absolute desperation to find a band-as-brand they could hitch to, post Arctic Monkeys, Strokes, and Oasis, for identity calcifying purposes.

It is a decent record,tbf.

It was the only one I'd never heard of, I guess.

For people wondering Where Were The Smiths, this is how they scored in the NME polls:

1984: S/t debut album at 9, Hatful Of Hollow at 23; split vote?
1985: Meat Is Murder at 11
1986: The Queen Is Dead at 9; not only NOT the highest-ranking British album of its year, but not even the highest-ranking Manchester album of its year
1987: Strangeways Here We Come at 3; World Won’t Listen/Louder Than Bombs exiled to separate compilation poll
1988: Rank at 22 (Viva Hate was at 4)

NME otm

like the proverbial stopped clock

Voted for Parade. Kind of surprised that was the only album of the year for Prince.

These are all worthy winners.

Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic
David Bowie – “Heroes”
Grace Jones – Nightclubbing
Happy Mondays – Pills ‘N’ Thrills ‘N’ Bellyaches
Björk – Debut
Spiritualized – Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Mercury Rev – Deserters Songs
Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
Strokes – Is This It?
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

Agree that the Horrors album is good but shouldn't have bean quite that high. Wild Beasts would have been a more deserving winner.

Everyone agrees that Klaxons album is the worst thing here, right? I mean the Coldplay album isn't much cop but at least they had the good grace to go on and become the biggest band the in the world with it.

Actual vote goes to Nation of Millions or Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Haha according to Wikipedia the Coldplay album went top ten everywhere except Mexico and Poland. Go Mexico and Poland!

They were rumours that The Coral actually won the 2002 list but they changed it to Coldplay as a more acceptable winner. Same with Bloc Party beating Arcade Fire in 2005.

wow NME otm again who knew?

how democracy works

Primary Colours isn't a bad album at all.

it seems for every obvious choice (Nirvana, Oasis, the laughably predictable run from 2001 to 2006...) there's something vaguely left-field (Bobby Womack, Sugar, These New Puritans). the blend of tired and unexpected selections keeps you guessing, i suppose.

I dunno, there's a very rigid Party Line from 2001 to about 08 or 09, then it starts to fragment a bit after that. That's more or less the duration of both the commercial guitar pop boom and the Conor Mack editorship, so hardly surprising.

how democracy works

― Kim Wrong-un (Neil S), Friday, February 14, 2014 3:55 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good post content/display name synergy here

my immediate thought was that either Closer or Nation of Millions will be the strongest ie ILM-iest candidates by a fair distance but both are yet to be mentioned itt

I shall have to look at the 1983 list to see just why "Punch the clock" is top of that particular pile. There's some good LPs from the 90s but it all goes wrong in the 21st century - the list looks more like what the NME readers would pick than what their writers would pick. So is the tail wagging the dog now? Ah, you've already mentioned that. OK...

(Voting for "Deserter's songs")

would dispute "the list looks more like what the NME readers would pick than what their writers would pick" for the whole 08-12 run, although few if any of the others granted

1983 xp: Punch The Clock was the soulboys’ choice. Also, reward for years of EC always being the bridesmaid in these polls. The rest of the top ten looked like this:
2. Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones
3. Billy Bragg – Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy
4. Soft Cell – The Art Of Falling Apart
5. Michael Jackson – Thriller (hangover from being slagged off in 1982)
6. Yello – You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess
7. Culture Club – Colour By Numbers
8. Wynton Marsalis – Think Of One
9. Malcolm McLaren – Duck Rock
10. King Sunny Adé – Synchro System

As questionable as the NME has been and will probably continue to be, I think this is probably a much better list than the equivalent Rolling Stone list for the same time period.

Is there a list of NME readers' albums of the year, from their yearly poll, to see how the two correlate?

Xp thanks Marcello - interesting list for '83.

Wynton Marsalis? Woah.

I've got some nostalgic affection for NME's Klaxons love- surely the ultimate example of Trade Descriptions Act breaching gulf between what was promised (second coming of Acid House meets P-Funk meets Pynchon etc) and then actually hearing them for the first time? Making it album of the year possibly taking the joke a bit far, though.

Surprised to see that Soft Cell album so high. Didn't realise they were that critically acclaimed at all.

Just looked at the rest of the 83 list. Most of the albums I'd have in my top ten are lower down. High Land Hard Rain at 12, Power, Corruption and Lies at 16, 1999 at 28 and Murmur at 33. No sign of Dazzle Ships though. Very surprised at some those bands missing the top ten.

Arctic Monkeys – AM (2013)

This really is a new low, right? I mean, they are not even new and shiny anymore, now it's just nostalgia for seven years ago...

what has being shiny and new got to do with being a great rock band?

You forgot to change your DN to Barry Normal NV!

i think i tried to use Party Sausage for playing this game

what has being shiny and new got to do with being a great rock band?

― the undersea world of jacques kernow (Noodle Vague), 14. februar 2014 18:45 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nothin, it's just a less sad excuse than 'boy how great it was seven years ago...'

Omg the second half of the list.
http://i.minus.com/ibhftV1dxRez94.gif

Ignoring the offensive choices, I picked the Legend and Icon that is Polly Jean Harvey.

Surprised to see Hidden by TNP in there, I thought it might be a bit too "weird" for them by that stage. Have to vote for Rain Dogs, though.

Whoa, that list of post-2000 albums is like Turrican trollbait.

Yeah, talk about losing the plot. Did they get new owners in the mid-00s or something? Who the fuck is Tame Impala?

Lol

There's some great stuff here but I'm gravitating towards Fear of Music

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand (2004)

noodle vague still votes in polls I see

Not Pubic Enemy getting twice as many votes as 2nd place. Shame on you.

I'd like to thank the other 3 people who gave Sugar some love.