RSSThe Seventh or Eighth Annual Pazz and Jop Critics' Poll
The Year of the Lollapalooza
As we know, many voters found 1980 a confusing year. When Pazz & Jop gossip began a few months ago, various critics complained about their top 10s--after three or four inescapable lollapaloozas, 20 or 30 possibilities came to mind. Although different critics naturally heard different lollapaloozas, the poll did end up with three clear leaders, each more than 100 points (274 more in one case) ahead of its nearest rival: Talking Heads' Remain in Light, Bruce Springsteen's The River, and--easily the biggest winner in Pazz & Jop history--the Clash's London Calling. Then there's a cluster of four, then a cluster of two by artists who almost certainly would have done better if they weren't black, and then the pack. The top three are the lollapaloozas, the next six inspired also-rans, and the rest varying amalgams of excellence and special interest.
Insofar as my personal take on 1980 is confusing, it's because I spent the first nine months of the year trying to get a fix on the previous decade for a book-length Consumer Guide. As a result, I was only aware of current musci--after London Calling and Crawfish Fiesta in early January, no record really imprinted itself until October, although Public Image, the Brains, Gang of Four, the Pretenders, and Hassell & Eno all made dents. So I've spent the last three or four months force-feeding, which isn't the method I prefer--popular music is meant to be lived wit. This may have distorted some of my findings--I'm committed to a top 10 prepared two weeks ago for the balloting, and already I'd drop the Jacksons a few places and give five of the Clash's points to Talking Heads and Prince. Still, I had my lollapaloozas, too--two from the collective top three and a third from the next six. But the more I listened the fonder I became of the top 10 also-rans as well, and in the end I found more than 40 A-quality records all-told. My force-fed conclusion: for quality, a good year, much like 1978 and 1979.
As our 201 1980 respondents learned late in December, the Board of Poobahs broadened eligibility this year. In the past we've limited the poll strictly to U.S.-manufactured ("released," as we say) albums from the year in question. But this year both imports and "late-breaking" 1979 LPs were eligible, a change that had worked well when we introduced singles balloting in the previous poll. As a result, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall appears in our top 40 for the second time, Pink Floyd's The Wall sneaks in for the first, and two imports--Joy Division's Closer and Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth--also make the list. My own top 40 also reflects these changes:
1. The Clash: London Calling (Epic) 25 2. Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 15 3. Prince: Dirty Mind (Warner Bros.) 12 4. Tom Robinson: Sector 27 (I.R.S.) 12 5. Wanna Buy a Bridge? (Rough Trade) 9 6. Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics (Editions E.G.) 7 7. John Lennon/Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen) 5 8. Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia) 5 9. Professor Longhair: Crawfish Fiesta (Alligator) 5 10. The Jacksons: Triumph (Epic) 5.
11. Gang of Four: Entertainment! (Warner Bros.) 12. Public Image, Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 13. Alberta Hunter: Amtrak Blues (Columbia) 14. Neil Young: Hawks and Doves (Reprise) 15. Chic: Real People (Atlantic) 16. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 17. The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (Stiff) 18. Stevie Wonder: Hotter Than July (Talma) 19. Poly Styrene: Translucence (United Artists import) 20. Si Kahn: Home (Flying Fish '79).
21. The Psychedelic Furs (Columbia) 22. Pretenders (Sire '79) 23. LPJE: Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1980 (Latin Percussion Ventures, Inc.) 24. The English Beat: I Just Can't Stop It (Sire) 25. Pere Ubu: The Art of Walking (Rough Trade) 26. Pere Ubu: New Picnic Time (Chrysalis import) 27. John Prine: Storm Windows (Asylum) 28. Smokey Robinson: Warm Thoughts (Talma) 29. Rockpile: Seconds of Pleasure (Columbia) 30. Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns (Stiff import).
31. X: Los Angeles (Slash) 32. Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson: 1980 (Arista) 33. Steel Pulse: Reggae Fever (Mango) 34. Michael Hurley: Snockgrass (Rounder) 35. The Undertones: Hypnotised (Sire) 36. The Suburbs: In Combo (Twin/Tone) 37. The Clash: Black Market Clash (Epic) 38. Bootsy: Ultra Wave (Warner Bros.) 39. T-Bone Burnett: Truth Decay (Takoma) 40. Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam (ZE).
No room in the Inn: the Brains, Junie. Wait Till Last Year: XTC (Drums and Wires), the Brides of Funkenstein (Never Buy Texas from a Cowboy), Smokey Robinson (Where There's Smoke . . .). Alternative disciplines: Arthur Blythe (Illusions), Steve Reich, Dollar Brand (African Marketplace), Big Youth (Progress), Henry Cow, Michael Mantler. Judgment reserved: Joy Division, Al Green, Bunny Wailer, Pylon, Sandanista!
My album choices are somewhat eccentric--four of my top 10 finished toward the bottom of the Pazz & Jop top 100, and 13 of my top 40 didn't make the top 100 at all. But this is the kind of thing that happens to hermits--my singles list is positively weird. I didn't get to go out dancing much in 1980, and listened to the radio only on vacation. (When I could stand it, that is--commercial broadcasting has really regressed. I'm hanging a red ribbon out my window till PIX comes back.) I've always believed that singles transcended consensus and objective judgment--there are so many that those you love aren't just good, but enter your life. Here are 10 that affected mine:
1. Pylon: "Cool" (Caution) 2. The Beat: "Twist and Crawl" (Go-Feet 12-inch import) 3. Diana Ross: "Upside Down" (Motown) 4. John Anderson: "She Just Started Liking Cheatin' Songs" (Warner Bros.) 5. Joy Division: "She's Lost Control" (Factory 12-inch) 6. Stevie Wonder: "Master Blaster (Jammin')" (Talma) 7. Pretenders: "Brass in Pocket" (Sire) 8. The Slits: "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Antilles) 9. Lenny Kaye: "Child Bride" (Mer) 10. Suzanne Fellini: "Love on the Phone" (Casablanca).
The top of the singles poll is pretty weird, too, in a way--and exciting. When "Rapper's Delight" tied for 22nd last year, who would have figured that a rap record would take it all 12 months later. I like other rap records even more than "The Breaks," but there can be no doubt that it was Kurtis Blow (later for Deborah Harry) who took a genuine (New York!) street form to all of the people some of the time. Almost as remarkable (later for Deborah Harry) is the passionate support of Joy Division, who--unlike the Pretenders, last year's import champs--did it with little radio. As for Deborah Harry, I figured "Call Me" for a shoo-in--she's even got a Spanish-language disco disc out on Salsoul. But after that I think the singles list gets boring--commuters enjoying favorite album cuts outnumber the voters who live for all the one-shots that make 45-rpm so speedy these days. Other noteworthies include this year's domestic-indie champs, the Bush Tetras of Gotham's own 99 Records; John and Yoko; destined-to-be-mythic one-offs from the Vapors (the exotically slanted "Turning Japanese"), Lipps, Inc. (the tract-disco "Funkytown"), and Martha and the Muffins (the post-surf "Echo Beach"); imports from the Jam and the Pretenders (again); indies from Pylon and the Dead Kennedys; is-it-an-indie-or-import from Joy Division; and almosts by Richard Hell, Suicide, Delta 5, the English Beat, and, er, Queen.
For the second year, voters were also asked to list three local bands, defined as groups without major-label affiliation that gig regularly in their hometown areas (which need not be the voter's--Token Uptown Poobah Dave Marsh threatened to vote for Fela Ransome-Kuti, and that would have been fine with me). Here I indulged my own subjectivity once again by honoring my fondest club memories of 1980 with no attempt at balanced long-term assessment: thank you to Material (at CBGB in February and the late lamented Tier 3 in July), DNA (at Irving Plaza in January and CBGB in November), and the Babylon Dance Band (at Trax in December).
Since about half the Pazz & Joppers live in New York, the local band category favors this locality, especially given its mushrooming (if clouded) club scene. Last year, though, Austin's Joe "King" Carrasco (whose debut album placed 70th in 1980) finished a surprising second, and this year Los Angeles's X (also a favorite last year) was the overwhelming winner--26 votes to 10 for New York's Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Boston's Human Sexual Response. Working Poobah Debra Rae Cohen (who voted for X herself) thinks New York is too factionalized to champion one act, although Poobah in Absentia Tom Carson's theory that the action is now elsewhere also has its merits. In any case, only four other New York bands--the Bush Tetras and the Nitecaps with eight votes, the dB's with six, and the Dance with four--made much of a showing. Other names to remember include Los Angeles's Blasters (eight), Wall of Voodoo (four), Go-Go's (four), and Falcons (four); Boston's Mission of Burma (eight), Peter Dayton Band (five), and Stompers (four); Minneapolis's Wallets (five) and Curtiss A (four); Kent, Ohio's Human Switchboard (five); San Francisco's Romeo Void (four); and Lawrence, Kansas's Thumbs (four).
But what's most interesting about the local band competition brings me back around to the crux of the poll, the LP ballot. Not only did X's album--on Slash, outgrowth of an L.A. punkzine--come in 16th, but two runners-up also had minor-label albums, Kid Creole on Antilles (77th) and Human Sexual Response on PVC, a domestic arm of import biggie Jem. Other locals with indie LPs include the Blasters, the Human Switchboard, Curtiss A, and Thumbs. And while three indie albums made our top 40 in 1979, this year two imports brought the total to six. The indies finished higher, too. In short, as the big corporations opt out of marginal music, small entrepreneurs figure out how to make money off it (X's Los Angeles is up to around 50 thou with Jem distributing, and the band tours a lot), and journalists spread the news. In short short, to reprise an old theme: avant-garde pop.
This is the time, then, when I should begin analyzing the two critical camps into which our increasingly enormous electorate is divided--the avant-gardists versus the traditionalists, the radicals versus the conservatives. With myself, of course, firmly on the side of the former, a/k/a The Good. But while I was certainly an avant-garde radical type five years ago, before there was a punk/new wave and a ditto press, I've since been outflanked by youngsters who wouldn't think of putting old farts like the Clash and Talking Heads on their lists. Anyway, my tastes aren't always even on the respectable left--The River and Double Fantasy aren't my chart-toppers, but I prefer them to Entertainment! and Crazy Rhythms and The Art of Walking, enjoyably significant though I think those pop experiments are. And just exactly how does one categorize Triumph? Or for that matter Crawfish Fiesta and Amtrak Blues?
I mean, there are other ways to run it down. How about formalists versus expressionists, for instance? For, in general, those of us who were championing the Ramones (81st) in that their tastes have improved and ours have broadened (or vice versa, if you prefer). I'm not entirely comfortable with this alliance. I don't sympathize with the blues-and-country limitations of those who delve no further into "new wave" than Rockpile and the Pretenders, who seize upon every reworking by the Stones and the Who and Van Morrison as manna from rock 'n' roll heaven. But I also dissent from the affectlessness, the mannered despair and/or passion of so many rock vanguardists.
If these generalizations seem a mite broad, take them as hints and consider Triumph and Crawfish Fiesta again. One indication of how rich and basic black popular music is, how essential it ought to be to anyone who claims to like rock and roll, is the way black performers confound our already contradiction-ridden categories. Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson are committed formalists--they revel in music-for-its-own-sake above all. But without second-guessing themselves they also employs form to express (or simulate, doesn't matter) the most elementary (which doesn't mean simple) human emotions. To dismiss such artists as "corny" or "commercial"--the usual racist commonplace--is to misapprehend their context, tradition, and aesthetic aims. And what kind of vanguardism might that be?
One way of making sense of this mess might be to refer (gingerly, I hope) to auteur theory. Say Smokey and Stevie and maybe Van Morrison and John Lennon and Ray Davies are the equivalent of Ford and Siegel and Haks--intentional artists, sure, but unselfconscious even when they're pretentious. Ambitious craftsmen who think about their place in history--Pete Townshend, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley--are more like Preston Sturges (when they're good) or John Huston (who offers more than meets the eye but can still be a real jerk). All the new guys, meanwhile, are like, how about that, Godard and de Broca and Bourguignon. La nouvelle vague, they used to call it.
To extend the metaphor, you could say that each of the latter two groups has produced its Allens and De Palmas, too, and while away the tween-sets trying to figure out who's who. The question then becomes--where's Francis Ford Coppola? I think 1980 was when various contestants made their bids. No more tightly controlled genre pieces for these boys; they were going for grand, sweeping--perhaps even popular!--statements. The rhythmic expansiveness of what just two years ago was a resolutely stiff-necked music--John Lydon's reggae immersions, Talking Heads' Africanisms, the Clash's excavations in every rock and roll style--is one sure sign. Even more convincing is that three of the fop five Lps were doubles: London Calling, The River, and Second Edition. Not counting last year's 10th-ranked Bad Girls, you have to go back to the '76 and '75 winners--Songs in the Key of Life and The Basement Tapes--to find another two-album set in the Pazz & Jop top 20. Clearly, a new generation of artists has achieved enough commercial stability and artistic scope to think big. It's like 1968 or 1969 all over again, with the hubris of the new hierarchy kept in check, I hope, but their less than hegemonic control of the marketplace. And if the Clash and PIL and Talking Heads are (very roughly speaking) our Beatles and Stones and Byrds, can Van Morrison and Randy Newman be very far behind? Presumably, they're not far behind at all--which is as good a reason as any for me to devote the rest of this annual wrap-up to a rundown of the albums the critics chose as the best of 1980.
40. Pink Floyd's The Wall: Nothing like a big single to attract belated attention to a struggling young band--"Another Brick in the Wall" got four votes and catalyzed enough album points to push this late-1979 release into the bottom slot. I take the song so seriously myself that I may go for my doctorate in social psychology.
39. Diana Ross' Diana: Chic album of the year on the strength of "I'm Coming Out," an all-purpose sell-the-gays hit that received four votes in the singles competition, and the tenth-ranked "Upside Down," a good time for sure. Not since Lady Sings the Blues has Ms. R. been forced into such a becoming straitjacket. But I still prefer Chic's own Real People, where Rodgers & Edwards get to, well, express themselves.
38. Joan Armatrading's Me Myself I: The perennially unclassifiable London West Indian meets Instant Records' Barry Gottehrer (Blondie, the Strangeloves) for her hardest music ever. The title tune is to narcissism as "Brown Sugar" is to racism, which serves somebody right.
37. John Lennon & Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy: The only rockcrit-estab Voice-Phoenix-Stone types to vote for this besides co-fantasists R. Christgau and C. Dibbell were John Swenson and Martha Hume (cohabiting, though not with each other). The single finished hight, however, so maybe more tastemakers will catch on after "Beautiful Boy" and "Watching the Wheels" top the charts.
36. Graham Parker's The Up Escalator: By most accounts, the latest from last year's victor-by-consensus is the downer of the year, following up on everything pinched in his singing and mean-spirited in his vision. But it's hooky--"the hummable Graham Parker," Tom Carson called it--and for some that's apparently enough.
35. Carlene Carter's Musical Shapes: Mother Maybelle's most famous granddaughter and Nick Lowe's most famous wife has been touted as the next Marshall Chapman since she surfaced in 1978, and here she comes up with the nasty, compassionate songs to justify it. Producer Lowe puts the likes of "Cry," "I'm So Cool" and "Too Drunk (to Remember)" into musical shape.
34. Arthur Blythe's Illusions: Due more to demographics than to narrowing tastes--this is a rock critics' poll, despite its silly but immutable name--jazz fared worse in this year's P&J than in 1979, when the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Nice Guys placed an unprecedented 29th and LPs by Mingus, Ulmer, Davis, Blythe, Coleman & Haden, Old and New Dreams, and Monk also finished in the top 100. In 1980 the Art Ensemble's Full Force came in 91st and Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition 54th, and unless you count Weather Report (82nd) or, no kidding, George Benson (62nd), that was it--except for the more avant-garde of Blythe's two 1980 offerings (his In the Tradition also got two mentions). In 1979 I voted for Blythe's Lenox Avenue Breakdown, which had a lot of witty, almost danceable things to say about body rhythms. Illusions didn't make my list, mainly because it hit me as a "pure" jazz statement--the best I heard all year, a bracingly concise all-hands-in-top-form synthesis. Special plaudits to cellist Abdul Wadud, bassist Fred Hopkins, and guitarist Blood Ulmer. P.S.: Ulmer's Are You Glad to Be in America? came out as a rather thin-sounding Rough Trade import in 1980; I eagerly await Artists House's American mix.
33. Neil Young's Hawks and Doves: This met with scorn from skeptics but was welcomed affectionately by Young's admirers--only Neil would make a deliberately minor record about war and peace after three successive masterworks about himself. Not all of his admirers voted for it, though--me, for instance. And those who did gave it about 10 points per ballot--last year's second-ranked Rust Never Sleeps averaged 13.
32. The Specials: Ska is/was a reactionary fad in England--white kids turning on to the black music of a time safely past. In America, it's just another Anglophile exoticism, and not a bad one--integrated bands are always an up. The Specials are on the catchy, jokey end of the continuum, their beat rapid and insistent but light, their politics liberal. The follow-up, More Specials, steepened their pop proclivities and was hailed for its brazen irony by some, but only two voters mentioned it.
31. Professor Longhair's Crawfish Fiesta: The first blues album to make the poll was cut shortly before the death of the man who passed New Orleans piano from Jelly Roll Morton to Allen Toussaint. Part-time producer and full-time entrepreneur Bruce Iglauer deserves double thanks--it's the best music 'Fess ever recorded, and it's earned him the esteem he's always deserved. The secret of the album isn't so much standout tracks like "Big Chief" and Fats Domino's "Whole Lotta Loving" but its jaunty, bow-legged gait, which 'Fess didn't develop sailing the seven seas.
30. The Iron City Houserockers' Have a Good Time (but Get Out Alive): Springsteen has always had imitators--take a bow and pose for the trades, Johnny Cougar. Joe Grushecky is more like a slightly self-conscious soul brother, shorter on talent but close to the roots. It's poetic justice that the critics prefer him to Blondie ("Now they're playing your song in all those places/They won't let me and Angela in"), but I still prefer Autoamerican (three mentions).
29. Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam: I've walked out on three different bands led by this dame, but she's come up with a funny, sexy little record, exaggerating her flat Cleveland accent into a hickish, dumb-and-dirty come-on and playing her foolish nihilist poetry for laughs. Pat Irwin's big-band atonalisms are interesting in themselves and suit Lydia's city-of-night shtick perfectly. And "Spooky" is the cover of the year.
28. The Police's Zenyatta Mondatta: Not to be confused with 1979's 35th-place Regatta de Blanc, except perhaps by yours truly. Jon Pareles said it all in his January 14 Riff, including my main point: De do do do, de da da da.
27. Van Morrison's Common One: As somebody who considers Moondance an apotheosis and has never gotten Astral Weeks, I think this is his worst since Hard Nose the Highway--sententious, torpid, abandoned by God. I know lots of Astral Weeks fans who agree. But Morrison has a direct line to certain souls, and they still hear him talkin'.
26. T-Bone Burnett's Truth Decay: Having put the omega on smarmy Alpha Bandmate Steve Soles (Soles does show up in the credits, but not--unlike the ever-adroit David Mansfield--as a band member), the Christer who's reputed to have pointed out the Way to Bob Dylan turns his attention to benighted rationalists like me and I hope you. On John Fahey's Buddhist blues label. Since no Alpha Band record ever did much in this poll, grand Burnett is succes d'estime and pray that he'll take on the Moral Majority next time--he's got the guts. P.S. Dylan's Saved didn't make a single ballot.
25. Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth: I'd call this modern romance--two brothers, a girl, and a rhythm machine--the cult music of the year, only it doesn't have the requisite high-points-to-voter ratio (cf. Closer, Queen of Siam). Maybe that's because its cult like is not getting excited about something. Call it cult muzak of the year--quiet, tuneful, passing weird. Me, I prefer Hassell & Eno.
24. Squeeze's Argybargy: Popophiles Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook don't settle for have-fun fall-in-love fear-girls. They pen short stories worthy of early Rupert Holmes, and with a beat. Next title: Herkyjerky.
23. Smokey Robinson's Warm Thoughts: To me, this was the biggest surprise of the poll, not because I don't agree he's come back, but because I thought the turnaround was 1979's Where There's Smoke . . ., which received zero votes last year. My guess is that a groundswell began with "Crusin'," the late-breaking single off that album and his biggest since "Tears of a Clown." The follow-up LP is, well, slower--make-out rather than dance music, a more songful version of 1975's unmoored A Quiet Storm.
22. Joy Division's Closer: A controversial band, due mostly to the mysterioso torments of singer-lyricist Ian Curtis, who committed suicide from the apex of a love triangle last spring. I only began to hear the band when I ignored Curtis and concentrated on the other musicians' dark, roiling, off-center rhythms. And now Curtis sounds pretty good to me.
21. The English Beat's I Just Can't Stop It: Known simply as the Beat in England, and rightly so--their ska is deep and driven. The bassline on "Twist and Crawl" (10 votes b/w "Hands Off She's Mine") moved moved more feet than anything Bernard Edwards came up with in 1980. Electoral-politics song of the year: "Stand Down Margaret."
20. The Rolling Stones' Emotional Rescue: You can tell this is an ordinary Stones album because it finished so far out of the money. World's greatest rock and roll band, y'know.
19. David Bowie's Scary Monsters: Bowie's best-received LP since Station to Station is also his hardest-rocking since Diamond Dogs and Aaladdin Sane, and the first time I've been fully convinced that his fascination with fascism is a species of repulsion. Wish I could say I liked the thing--he's always tried to sing like a mime, ornate and overstated, and after a decade he's really learned how.
18. Dire Straits' Making Movies: If any up-and-coming rock-and-roller aspires to auteur status it's Mark Knopfler, and among those with a taste for his rather corny plots this establishes his claim. Me, I'd rather hear him work on somebody else's stories--his guitar has emerged from Eric Clapton's shadow into a jazzy rock that muscles right past Larry Carlton and ilk. Steely Straits, anyone? Or could that be Dire Dan?
17. The Feelies' Crazy Rhythms: Out-of-towners provided nine of the 19 mentions but only 72 of the 219 points for this New York cult band, and as a longtime cultist I go along with them: I can see listing this, but only near the bottom of a top 10. The band's minimalist raveups have a body that doesn't come fully alive on record--at least not this record which is exciting in a disturbingly abstract way. Of course, that's probably how these so-straight-they're-cool weirdos want it.
16. X's Los Angeles: Combining raw tempos and abrasive lyrics with sawed-off Chuck Berry guitar lines, the punkest album of the year almost justified the desperate stupidity of the rest of the band's ingrown scene. But I was taken with this comment from L.A. critic Jay Mitchell: "Their death and gloom aura is closer to the Eagles, which is to say it is all Hollywood."
15. Rockpile's Seconds of Pleasure: Solo LPs by Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe finished 13th and 14th in 1979. In 1980 the ace revivalists joined forces and dropped a place. Hmm. To me, this one proves Lowe's conceptualist bravado, not his voice, is what stamps his albums. Another collection of good rock n' roll songs in Edmunds' neoclassicist manner, neither as dark as its detractors claim nor as meaningful as rock 'n' roll loyalists wish.
14. Peter Townshend's Empty Glass: Townshend has said the only reason this isn't a Who record is that it wasn't time for a Who record, which must be his oblique way of apologizing for not being able to sing like Roger Daltrey. On his earlier solo ventures, the casually reflective mood suited his light timbre. Here he tries to voice urgency and anger, with results that nonbelievers find whiny. Who fans, rock's oldest and most steadfast critical fraternity, find the gap between aspiration and achievement touching and apt.
13. Michael Jackson's Off the Wall: Nothing like four big hit singles to attract belated attention to a struggling young man--why else did eight new voters regard this 18th-place 1979 finisher as a 1980 album? I hope that when "Heartbreak Hotel" and two or three others make their mark, the Jacksons' Triumph (83rd this year) will repeat the trick.
12. Steely Dan's Gaucho: Another painstaking step toward the intellectual cocktail rock they've sought for almost a decade--after half a dozen hearings, the most arcane harmonies and unlikely hooks sound comforting, like one of those electromassagers that relax the muscles with a low-voltage shock. Craftsmen this obsessive don't want to rule the world--they just want to make sure it doesn't get them.
11. Peter Gabriel's Peter Gabriel: The first man of Genesis comes back even stronger than Mark Knopfler after hitting a sophomore jinx with Peter Gabriel, on Atlantic. His post-progressive art-rock minidramas won support from formalists and expressionists both, fulfilling the promise of Peter Gabriel, on Atco. Personal fave: "Biko," a different kind of Africanism.
10. Gang of Four's Entertainment!: This suffers a bit from Feelies syndrome--the tense, zigzag rhythms sound thinner on record than from the stage, where the Gang also get to make their chanted non-melodies visible. But the band's progressive atavism is a real formal accomplishment--by taking punk's amateur ethos up a notch or three without destroying its spirit, they pull the kind of trick that's eluded avant-garde primitives since the dawn of romanticism. And if you want to complain that their leftism is received, the same goes for your common sense.
9. Prince's Dirty Mind: Although the vocals are love-man falsetto, the metallic textures and simple drum patterns are as much Rolling Stones as Funkadelic. And where the typical love man plays the lead in "He's So Shy," Prince is aggressively, audaciously erotic. I'm talking about your basic fuckbook fantasies--the kid sleeps with his sister and digs it, sleeps with his girlfriend's boyfriend and doesn't, and stops a wedding by gamahuching the bride on her way to church. I mean, Mick Jagger can just fold up his penis and go home.
8. Stevie Wonder's Hotter Than July: "Side two is the perfect example of an artist doing his job and doing it well. With fun and grace at that," saith the surprisingly quotable Jay Mitchell (never heard of him myself), who didn't vote for it. I didn't vote for it either, but I just played side one and found it only a little less of the same. Except for the all-embracingly Afro-pan-American "Master Blaster," there's no great Stevie on this album, but between his free-floating melodicism and his rolling overdrive, his hope and his cynicism, he seems more and more like the best thing the '60s ever happened to. Sure outlasted Jerry Garcia, didn't he?
7. Elvis Costello's Get Happy!!: When this Stax-based twenty-song loss leader failed to take either critically or commercially, I thought Costello had blown it--no shock to me, but obviously a major disappointment to Mr. Costello, his many believers, and the Columbia Broadcasting System. But while Get Happy!! fared somewhat worse than any of his other albums in Pazz & Jop, it received such strong and varied support that I'm now convinced of the opposite--that Costello's craft and commitment bespeak the kind of staying power that keeps some critical faves in the running till they finally break through on sheer persistence.
6. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's Doc at the Radar Station: Beefheart is a genius and an utter original, but that doesn't make him the greatest artist ever to rock down the pike--his unreconstructed ecoprimitive eccentricity impairs his aesthetic as well as his commercial outreach. But never before have his nerve-wracking harmonies and sainted-spastic rhythms been captured in such brutal living color--if only he'd saved some of his melodic secrets for side two, this might be the undeniable masterpiece he's always deserved.
5. Public Image Ltd.'s Second Edition: In which former three-chord savage J. Lydon reveals himself as yet another arty primitivist--a sharp, sophisticated one. PIL reogranizes the punk basics--ineluctable pulse, attack guitar--into a full-bodied, superaware white dub with disorienting European echoes, an ideal counterpart to the civilized bestiality of Lydon's vocal drama. Much of this music is difficult, and some of it fails, but just about all of it makes me stop and listen. And "Poptones" could have been my single of the year.
4. Pretenders: It's dumb to put them down as pop--pop hasn't come this far yet and I'm not sure it ever will. They get on the radio, sure, but their structures are too open-ended (compare the anal-compulsive neatness of Squeeze or Elvis C.) and their passions too out-front. And no matter where they get their hooks, they have their own melodic style. Admittedly, though, Chrissie Hynde is a little thin in the soul--even her nastiness doesn't sound as if there's much behind it.
3. Talking Heads' Remain in Light: In which David Byrne conquers his fear of music in a visionary cross-cultural synthesis--clear-eyed and rather detached yet almost mystically optimistic. One song celebrates a young terrorist, another recalls John Cale at his spookiest, a third turns failure into a religious experience. Yet when Byrne shouts out that "the world moves on a woman's hips"--not exactly a new idea in rock and roll--it sounds as if he's just discovered the secret of life for himself. Which he probably has.
2. Bruce Springsteen's The River: All the standard objections apply--his beat is still clunky, his singing overwrought, his sense of significance shot through with Mazola Oil. But his writing is at a peak, and he's grown into a bitter empathy. These are the wages of young romantic love among those who get paid by the hour. Maybe he's giving forth with so many short fast ones because the circles of frustration and escape seem even more desperate now.
1. The Clash's London Calling: Oh yeah, and then there was the Clash. If this was the Year of the Lollapalooza, the Clash was the Lollapalooza of the Lollapalooza. Their triple-LP, Sandanista!, finished 55th as an import and is sure to come in a lot higher next year, and they also put out a 10-inch "EP" that had 34 minutes of music on it. But this was the biggest one, supported by all but the bared-teeth brigade and the shameless sticks-in-the-mud. It generated an urgency and vitality and ambition (that Elvis P. cover!) which overwhelmed the pessimism of its leftist world-view. And it was good for an actual hit single. I mean, what else is there?
Selected Ballots
BILLY ALTMAN: Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia) 15; T-Bone Burnett: Truth Decay (Takoma) 15; the Cars: Panorama (Elektra) 15; Public Image Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 10; Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Royal Albert Hall Concert (Fantasy) 10; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 10; Joan Jett (Blackheart) 10; Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 5; Squeeze: Argybargy (A&M) 5.
LESTER BANGS: Public Image Ltd.: The Metal Box/Second Edition (Virgin import/Island) 30; Otis Rush: Groaning the Blues (Flyright import) 30; Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 5; the Sex Pistols: The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin import) 5; the Clash: Black Market Clash (Epic Nu-Disk) 5; Rolling Stones: Emotional Rescue (Rolling Stones) 5; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 5; Ramones: End of the Century (Sire) 5; Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam (Ze) 5; Sid Vicious: Sid Sings (Virgin import) 5.
LESTER BANGS: Au Pairs: "Diet"/"It's Obvious" (021 import); Teenage Jesus & the Jerks (Migraine EP); Mars (Lust Unlust EP); Mekons: "Snow" (Red Rhino); the Clash: "Bankrobber" (CBS import); Lipps Inc.: "Funkytown" (Casablanca); Ramones: "I Wanna Be Sedated" (RSO); Was (Not Was): "Wheel Me Out" (ZE/Antilles); Public Image Ltd.: "Memories"/"Another" (Virgin import); Bush Tetras: "Too Many Creeps" (99).
TOM CARSON: The Clash: London Calling (Epic) 20; Public Image, Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 20; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 12; Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia) 9; Peter Townshend: Empty Glass (Atco) 9; The Brains (Mercury) 9; David Bowie: Scary Monsters (RCA) 6; Ramones: End of the Century (Sire) 5; Iron City Houserockers: Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive) (MCA) 5; The Rossington Collins Band (MCA) 5.
BRIAN CHIN (all 12-inch disco discs): S.O.S. Band: "Take Your Time" (Tabu); Queen: "Another One Bites the Dust" (Elektra); George Benson: "Give Me the Night" (Warner Bros.); Rod: "Shake It Up (Do the Boogaloo)" (Prelude); Cameron: "Get It Off" (Salsoul); Gayle Adams: "Your Love Is a Life Saver" (Prelude); Gene Chandler: "Does She Have a Friend?" (20th Century); Kurtis Blow: "The Breaks" (Mercury); Teena Marie: "Behind the Groove" (Gordy); the Brothers Johnson: "Stomp!" (A&M).
DEBRA RAE COHEN: Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 14; the Clash: London Calling (Epic) 14; Public Image, Ltd.: Second Edition (Island); Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (Factory import) 12; Arthur Blythe: Illusions (Columbia) 10; The Brains (Mercury) 7; Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia) 8; Steely Dan: Gaucho 8; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 7; the Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (Stiff) 5.
DEBRA RAE COHEN: Joy Divison: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Factory import); Joy Divison: "Atmosphere"/"She's Lost Control" (Factory 12-inch); Delta 5: "You" (Rough Trade import); Robert Wyatt: "At Last I Am Free" (Rough Trade import); Pylon: "Cool"/"Dub" (Caution); Suicide: "Dream Baby Dream" (Red Star); Rolling Stones: "Emotional Rescue" (Rolling Stones); Kurtis Blow: "The Breaks" (Mercury); NRBQ: "Me and the Boys" (Red Rooster); the Jam: "Going Underground" (Polydor import).
BARRY MICHAEL COOPER: Junie: Bread Alone (Columbia) 15; Bootsy: Ultra Wave (Warner Bros.) 15; Devo: Freedom of Choice (Warner Bros.) 12; Herbie Hancock: Mr. Hands (Columbia) 12; Stevie Wonder: Hotter Than July (Talma) 8; Al Green: The Lord Will Make a Way (Myrrh) 8; Cameo: Feel Me (Casablanca) 5; Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 5.
MIKE FREEDBERG: Prince: Dirty Mind (Warner Bros.) 15; Change: The Glow of Love (Warner Bros.) 15; Smokey Robinson: Warm Thoughts (Talma) 15; Geraldine Hunt: No Way (Prism) 10; Diana Ross: Diana (Motown) 10; Earth, Wind and Fire: Faces (Columbia) 10; George Benson: Give Me the Night (Warner Bros.) 10; Stevie Wonder: Hotter Than July (Talma) 5; Teena Marie: Irons in the Fire (Gordy) 5; Cameo: Feel Me (Casablanca) 5.
VAN GOSSE: Joy Divison: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Factory import); Generation X: "Dancing with Myself" (Chrysalis 12-inch import); Kurtis Blow: "The Breaks" (Mercury 12-inch); the Tamlins: "Baltimore" (Taxi 12-inch import); Pylon: "Cool"/"Dub" (Caution); Siouxsie & the Banshees: "Christine" (Polydor import); Stevie Wonder: "Master Blaster (Dub)" (Motown 12-inch import); Bush Tetras: "Too Many Creeps" (99); Split Enz: "I Got You" (A&M); Siouxsie & the Banshees: "Israel" (Polydor import).
JOHN PICCARELLA: The Clash: London Calling (Epic) 15; Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia) 12; Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 12; Public Image Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 10; Art Ensemble of Chicago: Full Force (ECM) 10; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 9; Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia) 8; Neil Young: Hawks and Doves (Reprise) 8; Peter Gabriel (Mercury) 8; The Psychedelic Furs (Columbia) 5.
GREIL MARCUS: Gang of Four: Entertainment! (Warner Bros.) 15; Image Publique S.A.: Paris Au Printemps (Virgin import) 15; Iron City Houserockers: Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive) (MCA) 15; the Clash: London Calling (Epic) 15; Carlene Carter: Musical Shapes (Warner Bros.) 15; X: Los Angeles (Slash) 5; Roxy Music: Flesh + Blood (Atco) 5; Black Uhuru: Sensimilla (Mango) 5; Robin Lane & the Chartbusters (Warner Bros.) 5; Dire Straits: Making Movies 5.
GREIL MARCUS: The Beat: "Twist and Crawl" (Go-Feet 12-inch import); J. Geils Band: "Love Stinks" (EMI America); Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: "Refugee" (Backstreet); Blondie: "Call Me" (Chrysalis); the Clash: "Train in Vain" (Epic); Red Crayola: "Born in Flames" (Rough Trade import); the Beat: "Stand Down Margaret (Dub)" (Go-Feet 12-inch import); Delta 5: "You" (Rough Trade import); Tommy James: "Three Times in Love" (Millennium); Anemic Boyfriends: "Guys Are Not Proud" (Red Sweater).
DAVE MARSH: Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia) 30; Donna Summer: The Wanderer (Geffen) 17; Stevie Wonder: Hotter Than July (Talma) 12; Smokey Robinson: Warm Thoughts (Talma) 10; Van Morrison: Common One (Warner Bros.) 8; Peter Gabriel (Mercury) 8; J. Geils Band: Love Stinks (EMI America) 5; Public Image Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 5; the Clash: London Calling (Epic) 5; Peter Townshend: Empty Glass (Atco) 5.
JON PARELES: Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam (Ze) 20; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 10; Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire) 10; Steve Reich: Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase (ECM) 10; David Bowie: Scary Monsters (RCA) 10; Gang of Four: Entertainment! (Warner Bros.) 10; the Cars: Panorama (Elektra) 10; Laraaji: Ambient #3 Day of Radiance (Editions EG) 10; ; Bootsy: Ultra Wave (Warner Bros.) 5; Peter Gabriel (Mercury) 5.
JON PARELES: Siouxsie & the Banshees: "Happy Home" (Polydor import); Glenn Branca: "Lesson No. 1" (99); NRBQ: "Me and the Boys" (Red Rooster); the Dance: "Dance for Your Diner" (ON import EP); Bush Tetras: "Too Many Creeps" (99); Joy Division: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Factory import); Rod Stewart: "Passion" (Warner Bros.); Paul Simon: "Late in the Evening" (Warner Bros.); the Method Actors: "This Is It" (Armageddon import EP); Colin Newman: "B"/"Classic Remains"/"Alone on Piano" (Beggars Banquet).
ANDY SCHWARTZ: The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (Stiff) 22; X: Los Angeles (Slash) 13; Joan Jett (Blackheart) 13; The Decline of Western Civilization (Slash) 12; Lydia Lunch: Queen of Siam (Ze) 10; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Doc at the Radar Station (Virgin) 8; Echo & the Bunnymen: Crocodiles (Sire) 7; Public Image Ltd.: Second Edition (Island) 5; Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia) 5; Jack DeJohnette: Special Edition (ECM) 5.
Village Voice, Feb. 9, 1981
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1979 | Critics Poll | Dean's List | 1981 |  |