GNMD Poll: Top Ten Albums of 1979

[HamburgerBoy]

1. The B-52's - The B-52's
2. Punishment of Luxury - Laughing Academy
3. Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
4. Random Hold - Random Hold
5. The Human League - Reproduction
6. Sparks - N° 1 in Heaven
7. Donna Summer - Bad Girls
8. Electric Sun - Earthquake
9. Devo - Duty Now for the Future
10. Pleasure - Future Now
Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Rufus & Chaka - Masterjam
Ann Steel - Ann Steel
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Armed Forces
This Heat - This Heat
Fashion - Product Perfect
Univers Zéro - Hérésie

As always a lot of stuff I'd like to (re)listen to that might change my rankings, but the top 3 is is very steady (the first five songs from the B-52's S/T is better than almost any five song run from any band) and there was tons of great stuff. The Chrome album from this year is one I need to get more familiar with in particular.

 

[dwellerINTHEdark]

1. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
2. Stephen Sondheim - Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
3. Lalo Schifrin - The Amityville Horror
4. The Boys Next Door - Door, Door
5. The Clash - London Calling
6. The Raincoats - The Raincoats
7. The Pop Group - Y
8. The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
9. Pink Floyd - The Wall
10. The B-52s - The B-52s

 

[Slayed Necros]

1. Hank Williams, Jr. - Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound
2. Thin Lizzy - Black Rose: A Rock Legend
3. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
4. Merle Haggard - Serving 190 Proof
5. Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle
6. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Armed Forces
7. Blondie - Eat to the Beat
8. Tubeway Army - Replicas
9. Emmylou Harris - Blue Kentucky Girl
10. Terry Allen - Lubbock (On Everything)

 

[crimsonfloyd]

1. Joy Division- Unknown Pleasures
2. Pink Floyd- The Wall
3. Michael Jackson- Off the Wall
4. Prince- Prince
5. Bob Marley- Survival
6. Robert Fripp- Exposure
7. The Cure- Imaginary Boys
8. Rick James- Bustin Out of L Seven
9. Van Morrison- Into the Music
10. Funkadelic- Uncle Jam Wants You

Man this might be the worst year in the album era of music. A moment when most of the best styles of the 70s had already faded but the best sounds of the 80s hadn't emerged yet. If you're not a fan of punk, post-punk, and boomer rock, there isn't a lot going on.

 

[CiG]

Definitely a transitional year.

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

In the interest of closing this in the near future, I hope to procure more votes, including but not limited to:
@Krow
@Allfader
@Sirjack
@challenge_everything
@Somethingface
@Oblivious Maximus
@Einherjar86

 

[Somethingface]

1. Public Image Ltd - Metal Box
2. The Pop Group - Y
3. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
4. Gang of Four - Entertainment!
5. Wire - 154
6. The Fall - Dragnet
7. This Heat - This Heat
8. Chrome - Half Machine Lip Moves
9. Talking Heads - Fear of Music
10. The Raincoats - The Raincoats

 

[Allfader]

Alright:

1 Quilapayún - Umbral
2 Inti Illimani - Canción para Matar una Culebra
3 Bob Marley - Survival
4 Serú Girán - La Grasa de Las Capitales
5 Pink Floyd - The Wall
6 Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle
7 Madness - One Step Beyond
8 Journey - Evolution
9 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

I'm tired of the JD album. Not sure if in your area happens the same, but here you find some mofo with the UP shirt fucking EVERYWHERE.

 

[Sirjack]

yeah man give me another couple of days please

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

• Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
• The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
• Igra Staklenih Peril - Igra Staklenih Perli
• The B-52's - The B-52's
• Univers Zéro - Hérésie
• Arachnoïd - Arachnoïd
• Flamen Dialis - Symptome Dei
• PiL - Metal Box
• The Residents - Eskimo

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

yeah man give me another couple of days please

It's been a couple. Soon it'll turn into a threesome.

 

[Sirjack]

posting in the next hour

 

[Sirjack]

1. Stephane Grappelli - Young Django
2. Talking Heads - Fear Of Music
3. Brand X - Product
4. UK - Danger Money
5. Van Halen - II
6. Bruford - One Of A Kind
7. Weather Report - 18:30
8. Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti
9. AC/DC - Highway To Hell
10. Michal Urbaniak - Urbaniak

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

#10 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Survival
(14 Points)

Genre(s):
Roots Reggae​

Anything and everything by Marley is great. Awesome chillin' music.

Bob Marley is classic reggae and great music too.He is the only reggae artist that the average person knows when talking about reggae.

Pink Floyd and Bob Marley (Reggae in general actually) are both horrible, what's wrong with you mon?

Bob Marley ftw!

I don't know any other Reggae.

Reggae/dub is pretty decent music to sit around and drink to. It's more agreeable than other genres, and far less tiresome than crappy pop. I don't mind when bars play it.

Those who voted:
@crimsonfloyd #5
@Allfader #3

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

#9 PiL - Metal Box
(15.5 Points)

Genre(s):
Post-Punk, Experimental Rock
Dub, Art Punk, Krautrock​

Public Image Ltd.

Great band, sometimes.

If by "some" you mean "all", then yes.

POST PUNK IS JOY DIVISION, PERE UBU, AND PUBLIC IMAGE LTD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_punk

not fucking Green Day.

Those who voted:
@Somethingface #1
@Serjeant Grumbles N/A

 

[Krow]

full disclosure: I thought I posted a list but it’s sitting here in my drafts as I check this page...

1. Pink Floyd - The Wall
2. Molly Hatchet - Flirtin With Disaster
3. Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
4. Blackfoot - Strikes
5. ZZ Top - Deguello
6. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
7. Tom Petty - Damn the Torpedos
8. Jerry Goldsmith- Alien OST
9. Nazareth - No Mean City
10. Fabio Frizzi - Zombie OST

If it’s too late for this to count oh well

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

Too late

full disclosure: I thought I posted a list but it’s sitting here in my drafts as I check this page...

1. Pink Floyd - The Wall
2. Molly Hatchet - Flirtin With Disaster
3. Thin Lizzy - Black Rose
4. Blackfoot - Strikes
5. ZZ Top - Deguello
6. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
7. Tom Petty - Damn the Torpedos
8. Jerry Goldsmith- Alien OST
9. Nazareth - No Mean City
10. Fabio Frizzi - Zombie OST

If it’s too late for this to count oh well

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

#7 Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
(16 Points)

Genre(s):
Disco, Pop
Funk, Pop Soul, Contemporary R&B, Dance-Pop, Boogie​

As strange as the man is, I can't get enough of his music.

I have "Off the wall" by him and it's actually a quite cool LP! I think there's one song on it I skip. Okay, I sometimes go out and DJ and I play 70's funk, but all the chicks come up "Hey, play play some disco. We want something to dance to. Play some disco!", so I have to play all those hits that I have they know and "Don't stop 'til you get enough" is one of them, so I've grown pretty tired of that!
The stuff I've heard from "Thriller" was also pretty cool! I haven't bought the record, but kind of planned to do so, but I don't know if I'll ever do so. I kind of suspect it to be one of those records that I'll just listen to a few times and then it'll just be standing on my shelf for a decade!
My big brother had "Bad" on tape back in the days. Compared to the rest of the 80's crap it's okay, but it's not a record I would ever go out and buy and listen to it. I had the picture disc once, but that was just to make some money off it. The song writing on it may be alright like "Smooth criminal" and shit, but the whole 80's thing drags it down IMO. Gross keyboards and electric drums like any other crap in the 80's!
I don't like what I've heard from "Dangerous". I don't think I've heard the entire album, but I've heard the singles and they were all pretty crappy IMO!
Can't remember much of "History". Was it the one with "You are not alone", "Earthsong" and stuff like that, or was that "Blood on the dancefloor"?
"You rock my world" from "Invincible" was just mediocre at first, but after I've heard it 5-10 times I got REAAAAALLLY sick of it!! Terrible song now! The rest of the album was maximum mediocre if you ask me. It sounds like he's really trying to keep up to date with shit and has gotten all these producers to make beats and stuff! I was into hip hop once, but got bored of it so that he made such stuff wasn't a good thing for me. The song "Break of dawn" was okay though. I just feel like I've heard it somewhere before.
I also have "Music & Me" by him, but I wan't to sell it. It's from 1973 and really "sweet". Quiet music that's too "nice" in a way.

I disagree that jazz is disassociated with rock. If you listen to Michael Jackson's classic 'Off the Wall' LP you can clearly hear the influence of Sun Ra, John Coltrane, and other avant-jazz innovators in tracks such as the immense sounding title track and the wistful interpretation of Wings' 'Girlfriend'. So great was the swirl of hype surrounding the album at the time before it's release, that Epic considered ushering in Jan Hammer and Jean Luc Ponty as guest players on his sophomore effort, however, this was scrapped as it was rumored Herbie Hancock and other greats were going in a more 'pop' direction, making the daring jazz direction of the debut passé. Thus 'Thriller' was born and sold out to the tune of 109 million copies worldwide.


Only the debut is 'true' Jackson tbqh.

Those who voted:
@HamburgerBoy #3
@crimsonfloyd #3

=ex aequo=​

#7 Gang of Four - Entertainment!
(16 Points)​

Genre(s):
Post-Punk
Dance-Punk, Art Punk​

so do I. I like a lot of non-metal stuff, stuff like Wire and Gang Of Four and other shit like that, but girls don't want to hear about music that doesn't radio airplay around here.

I mean it's a whole sub-sub-style of post-punk that tries its hardest to be crap, try-hard art-school garbage with no riffs. "Zolo" stuff, I enjoy. Outsider experimental stuff like Pere Ubu, I enjoy. Punchy political bands that are maybe a bit repetitive but to the point like Au Pairs and Gang of Four, I enjoy. Artsy stuff that's actually more progressively composed like Dog Faced Hermans, I enjoy. The Fall can fuck off, less is not more when you regularly have several minute songs.

Those who voted:
@Bloopy #2
@Somethingface #4

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

#5 Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle
(16 Points)

Genre(s):
Synthpop, New Wave
Minimal Wave​

Because of Srontgorrth's sig I checked out that Gary Numan album. Holy fuck is it terrible.

The Pleasure Principle has been rocking my fucking life lately. So cheesy and simplistic, yet so brilliant!

I think that more people should like Gary Numan and Tears for Fears, but I wouldn't start a thread about it. Music is considered subjective to most people, so it's not really something that you can debate.

Those who voted:
@zabu of nΩd #5
@Slayed Necros #6
@Allfader #6

=ex aequo=​

#5 Talking Heads - Fear of Music
(16 Points)

Genre(s):
New Wave, Post-Punk
Funk Rock​

Joy Division are mostly a painful dirge. Talking Heads are good post-punk

So RAW. I need this album.

This is solid post-punk. This isn't the sound I figured for Talking Heads.

Those who voted:
@zabu of nΩd #6
@Somethingface #9
@Sirjack #2

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

#4 AC/DC - Highway to Hell
(19 Points)

Genre(s):
Hard Rock
Blues Rock, Rock & Roll​

Those who voted:
@Slammed #3
@zabu of nΩd #2
@Sirjack #9