Hideously White Seventies Album Poll - All The Results!

[Mike Boom]

And the poll wasn't about the records you liked in the seventies, it was about your favourite albums from the seventies.

as it should be. not everyone was walkin around on the planet in the 70s.

in my case, i have a hard time really separating the two ideas.

Same thing for me, The Slider was my favourite album back then, and I've pretty much come full circle and it probably is again now. I can't really think of any records I loved at the time that I have since dropped, Ive put some away for a while but have always come back around to them. I guess I just had impeccable taste in music even as a 12 year old.

[Guy E]

The only really suprise, as I said in my first main post on this, was the lack of heavy rock which would probably have been pretty popular with most of us around at the time - Quo, Sabbath, BOC, Rush, Boston etc, this has been wiped out by a massive re-education campaign that insists that we were really into The Stooges, Krautrock and Brian Eno. That is obviously bollocks as most of us in our 40s had never heard of them in the 70s, but by a bit of subtle re-editing of our past we were all Neu fans and we never liked Quo.

Great post and there is truth in what you say. But as the Comrade says, the poll wasn't about dusting-off your actual well-worn collection from 1975.

My tastes in 60's and 70's music certainly changed through the 70's, 80's and beyond. When it comes to rock music of various stripe my tastes haven't been broadened or changed all that much. I did have a couple of Neu! albums and Harmonia deluxe and a few other LP's of German persuasion. Not as many as King Feeb had back in those days, but a few. Where my tastes changed the most was in the Soul realm and I have deejaying to thank for broadening my horizons. I was expanding my tastes in any event, but when it became my JOB to get people off their asses and onto the dance floor my collection changed hue. That was a great thing.

Music is wildly more accessible these days, whether one is buying or downloading so our collections have all grown a bit.

Anyway, I don't think people are putting on airs with this. If I'd voted I would have included Al Green's Call Me, an album I did not own until several years after it came out. I would have voted for James Brown's The Payback too... same story. My favorite reggae albums from the '70's were in-hand when they were fresh releases so that's a different angle.

If I had voted I wouldn't have altered this poll in any way other than to have given Marquee Moon a bigger landslide and possibly pushing Exile On Main Street further up a notch.

[kath]

None of us in our 40s had a fucking clue who Neu were in the 70s but we all had a Quo album. That is is the great unacknowledged truth hanging over this poll like a thunderhead rumbling in a distant overture!

This is inaccurate. I never had Quo, I did have Neu -- but not until the 80's.

i didn't have neu *or* quo.

i get the principle of what copehead's trying to say with the quo example, though. and i actually kinda buy it... the idea that many of the albums critically considered to be so great now are after-the-facters. they were never spun regularly then, never in people's stacks, never on the radio. his specific examples may not work, but there's an idea there that does.

of course, being an after-the-facter album doesn't have any bearing at all on whether the album in question is actually kickass or not. that right there's the rub.

quo was one of those bands that got absolutely no airplay in my american corner of the world. the only quo anybody heard, had or knew was 'pictures of matchstik men'... not 70s piledrivin quo. i didn't hear any of that til i met reap. i think there are certain ocean-divided bands that were after-the-facters for me by necessity: there was simply zippo exposure at the time.

golden earring... everybody knew radar love. in the MTV era, everybody knew twilight zone. but the scads of worthy albums that band had, several at the least? unknown to me. (wishbone ash is a bit like that, although i got an ashy bug up my butt early, when i heard "silver shoes" on the radio, and i went and fount out all their stuff. again, though, scads of albums of primo material, almost entirely unknown by american classic-rock fans, either now or back in the day before rock had had the time to become classic.)

as i've talked about a million times before, just in america, there were regional differences in which bands got airplay, which cities certain bands hit on tour, all of it. in part, i was lucky to be in new orleans, cuz allll manner of groovy, warped bands of diff types enjoyed going there. but i was just as selectively cut off from certain other types... the very types reap was steeped in. and i definitely had to dig around for the kinds of bands in the early 80s that probably every single brit knew backwards and forwards... like the furs live.

um, i still don't own a neu album. i'm kinda skeered.

[Cage Free Brown]

they're like Kraftwerk only not as cheery!

[kath]

they're like Kraftwerk only not as cheery!

... uh... oh.

should i gird my loins first or something? i get the strange feeling i might need to gird my loins.

[Goat Boy]

The book is fictional, I was being satirical.

But I think there is a strong case for thinking 70s Soul, Disco and Reggae were all more single orientated than album orientated.

In fact it should be fucking obvious for the simple reason that people don't dance to albums and these genres are dance music.

There was obviously a move by some Soul artists away from the dance floor and towards a more album orientated singer songwriter material and these are the albums we see turning up in the poll - Marvin Gaye. There is little you could class as dance music in there beyond, from memory, Chic. And there is a fairly obvious reason for that.

I also exclude Funk from that as it was also album orientated and as the closest "black" music to white rock it also features quite strongly in the poll.

Satirical? I'ver heard The Onion are recruiting, you should apply! You can't reduce 70s soul to simple 'dance music' to suggest it's not album based. It's a lot more than that, of course. Something like Sam Dees The Show Must Go On is clearly not 'dance soul'. It's deep soul in fact and a fantastic album. The thing is, if you said 60s soul was single based I'd agree with you.

Not really, rap as genre didn't really hit its stride until the late 80s and it immediately became an album based genre.

Hang on a minute....

From getting into its stride as a genre in the mid 80s Rap was an album based genre

Earlier on it was the mid 80s and now it's the LATE 80s. Just like I claimed from the beginning. You're floundering Copey.

Look we get it, you like 70s Soul, you like it better than 80s rap, that is an opinion not a fact.

I like 80s Rap more than 70s Soul and I think there are more good 80s rap albums than 70s Soul albums, I am not wrong because that is an opinion based on personal taste.

What isn't an opinion is that we just had a poll of ALBUMS and so it is going to highlight musical genres that are ALBUM based.

And that is exactly what we see.

Earlier on you were suggesting that this poll was proof that 70s soul didn't produce many great albums etc and now you're going all subjective on my ass and again using this poll as proof somehow when it's just a bunch of opinions. You're on a roll! Rap, as you concede above, didn't become album based until the 'late 80s' and yet you still claim it has more great albums than 70s soul which you admit to not knowing much about. Good one, Cope!

[Dizzley tha Fat Boy]

I hate to admit,but I largely agree with Copehead. Old orthodoxies have just been replaced with new ones. Not that I am gonna get worked up about it. I have chosen to spend my time talking music with a bunch of folks who assume that kraftwerk is more influential and worthy of veneration than Ray Charles. I'll never understand the thinking, but I'm also not going to expect sanity to reign where Insanity is clearly king.

Or put another way: why argue with Copehead about soul when he clearly has none?

[Goat Boy]

I hate to admit,but I largely agree with Copehead. Old orthodoxies have just been replaced with new ones. Not that I am gonna get worked up about it. I have chosen to spend my time talking music with a bunch of folks who assume that kraftwerk is more influential and worthy of veneration than Ray Charles. I'll never understand the thinking, but I'm also not going to expect sanity to reign where Insanity is clearly king.

Or put another way: why argue with Copehead about soul when he clearly has none?

You agree with copehead that 70s soul didn't produce many great albums?

[Dizzley tha Fat Boy]

I hate to admit,but I largely agree with Copehead. Old orthodoxies have just been replaced with new ones. Not that I am gonna get worked up about it. I have chosen to spend my time talking music with a bunch of folks who assume that kraftwerk is more influential and worthy of veneration than Ray Charles. I'll never understand the thinking, but I'm also not going to expect sanity to reign where Insanity is clearly king.

Or put another way: why argue with Copehead about soul when he clearly has none?

You agree with copehead that 70s soul didn't produce many great albums?

Of course not. I agree with him that all sorts of revisionism is at play here when we imagine a world where Big Star was more popular than Deep Purple. Other than that, on the substance of any musical argument you. An count on Copehead being wrong.

[trans-chigley express]

None of us in our 40s had a fucking clue who Neu were in the 70s but we all had a Quo album.

That is is the great unacknowledged truth hanging over this poll like a thunderhead rumbling in a distant overture!

Certainly true for me though I still have Quo albums. I bought my first Neu album just three years ago.

[Jeff K]

I was looking over my list again and there's only three albums on there that I got into well after the 70's were over and they are Future Days, NEU! and Here Come the Warm Jets. All the others I had as they were happening, so to speak. The strange thing about Eno was, I had Before and After Science, his two Roxy albums and a couple of his ambient albums but I didn't bother with Warm Jets until much later.

[trans-chigley express]

Stormcock - Roy Harper 7 points

I can't believe I forget this. One of my favoruite albums of any decade!

Here's my list - all white, largely British and just the one token female:

1.Ommadawn - Mike Oldfield 8pts
2.Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd 7
3.The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd 7
4.IV - Led Zeppelin 7
5.Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield 6
6.Meddle - Pink Floyd 6
7.Selling England By The Pound - Genesis 6
8.The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - Genesis 6
9.Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin 6
10.Going For The One - Yes 6
11.The Kick Inside - Kate Bush 5
12.Close To The Edge - Yes 5
13.Rumours - Fleetwood Mac 4
14.The Man Machine - Kraftwerk 4
15.Vol IV - Black Sabbath 4
16.All Things Must Pass - George Harrison 3
17.Aqualung - Jethro Tull 3
18.Heaven and Hell - Vangelis 3
19.Red - King Crimson 2
20.Kimono My House - Sparks 2

Innervisions would have been the first album by a black artist to have been listed but it would always fall outside my top twenty.

[Copehead]

None of us in our 40s had a fucking clue who Neu were in the 70s but we all had a Quo album.

That is is the great unacknowledged truth hanging over this poll like a thunderhead rumbling in a distant overture!

This is inaccurate. I never had Quo, I did have Neu -- but not until the 80's.

You didn't have Quo Live?

Everyone I knew had Quo live

Not really, but you get the point

[Cage Free Brown]

.The strange thing about Eno was, I had Before and After Science, his two Roxy albums and a couple of his ambient albums but I didn't bother with Warm Jets until much later.

I hope you didn't make the same mistake with "Tiger Mountain"

I think my heart is a big and complex enough organ that it can hold both Kraftwerk and Ray Charles.
"revisionism" is always something we see in others. all that fucking matters is if something makes your nose light up or not. if it does, who cares what somebody else calls it?

[Jeff K]

.The strange thing about Eno was, I had Before and After Science, his two Roxy albums and a couple of his ambient albums but I didn't bother with Warm Jets until much later.

I hope you didn't make the same mistake with "Tiger Mountain"

I think my heart is a big and complex enough organ that it can hold both Kraftwerk and Ray Charles.
"revisionism" is always something we see in others. all that fucking matters is if it makes your nose light up or not. if it does, who cares what somebody else calls it?

I remember getting Tiger Mountain at a shop that sold used vinyl back in the early 80's, way before Warm Jets. I still don't know why I waited so long to get that album!

I completely agree with the last part of your post too but you aren't going to sway Davey's opinion.

[Dizzley tha Fat Boy]

[
"revisionism" is always something we see in others

Not true. I'll cop to truckloads of it. I think it is often a good thing. Big Star really are better than Deep Purple. Revisionism is great when it rights old wrongs. But just as often it tends to reduce the stock of the universally great in favor of the obscure. Like when our pal solarskope imagines a world in which Rex Garvin looms larger than Stevie Wonder.

What else can you do but laugh at it?

[Copehead]

[ Where my tastes changed the most was in the Soul realm and I have deejaying to thank for broadening my horizons. I was expanding my tastes in any event, but when it became my JOB to get people off their asses and onto the dance floor my collection changed hue. That was a great thing.

It was.

I think a BCB majority would consider I feel Love the greatest single of the 70s and yet none of us would even consider a Donna Summer album for a place in a greatest album poll

Music is wildly more accessible these days, whether one is buying or downloading so our collections have all grown a bit.

All of us have swathes of music we will probably never get around listening to.

I got through my Leadbelly and Son House but something tells me I will die with my Louis Armstrong albums never fully assimilated

Anyway, I don't think people are putting on airs with this. If I'd voted I would have included Al Green's Call Me, an album I did not own until several years after it came out. I would have voted for James Brown's The Payback too... same story. My favorite reggae albums from the '70's were in-hand when they were fresh releases so that's a different angle.

I was too young to have fully mature musical tastes in the 70s, but I would hate to deny that guy who lived with Boston on his first Walkman ( style thing ) for a year, the guy who thought that Secret Treaties was the best album ever or perhaps it was A Farewell to Kings or Highway to Hell.

He had to have his say as well

I felt shutting him up because he was young and dumb and filling my list full of Nick Drake and Brian Eno would have been a betrayal.

I had great taste, if narrow taste, when I was young, I'm not going to let an old fart who'd rather listen to Two Sevens Clash or Five Leaves left vote for me.

If I had voted I wouldn't have altered this poll in any way other than to have given Marquee Moon a bigger landslide and possibly pushing Exile On Main Street further up a notch.

For shame

But true to your 70s self no doubt.

[Cage Free Brown]

I completely agree with the last part of your post too but you aren't going to sway Davey's opinion.

that's true but the image of Davey swaying is just too beautiful to resist!

[zphage]

ENo may be the overall winner
Eno may have the overall greatest presence
via his albums, Roxy, Bowie, Talking Heads, etc.,

[Cage Free Brown]

Copehead, I hear the christian heaven is filled with Louis Armstrong music. you might want to think about converting.