Quintessence of Old Wave (5 of ??)

 

I've observed before that Kate Bush - now a national treasure, hip reference point, influence on a whole 21st Century phalanx of female artists etc etc - was deemed thoroughly uncool during her peak years of popular success. 

Some reviews from that time gathered below indicate her general standing and credibility levels in the afterpunk schema.  

New Wave people - critics, fans, musicians - saw her as an Old Wave throwback (her famous friends and supporters like Dave Gilmour and Peter Gabriel certainly helped in that perception). 

As would the music itself, especially the second album Lionheart, and the videos.

And things like this 1979 TV Christmas special, whose existence I didn't know about until a few weeks ago. 

It's really quite frightfully unwatchable stuff - except one bit that is less mime and modern-dancey, indeed it's completely static and subdued -  which is when Kate and Peter Gabriel duet on a  version of "Another Day" by Roy Harper (another Old Waver)

[text version]

Kate Bush

Lionheart

NME, 1978.

by Ian Penman

These are the seductive voices of the year.

There's a lot of swooning, but not enough choice. Ms. Sioux, yeah, but Ms. Bush especially – she seems destined, anything from Ritz to Rolling Stone could conceivably process this coy, clean, photogenic prodigy into appealing copy. Is ours or hers a convenient age, or what?

Ritz probably is Rolling Stone, actually, and the readership could do with a new "accessible", "intellectual" pin-up. Kate Bush fits snugly, somewhere on a line from model agency cheek bones through a young Joni to Janis Ian at 17: manageable melancholy.

She got the mime troupe tuition, the Gurdjieff teaching, the vegetarianism, the beauty that stops nicely before being out of reach, and what this adds up to, as has been remarked, is the ability to "cover markets". What can stop her?

She plays cute, pastel-doldrums piano; she looks 'good' on Lionheart's cover, although a pernicious phenomenologist could question the presentation of Woman as Object or as Mystery Object – or, further, as Child Mystery Object.

All these themes run through her lyrics and this, presumably, acts as some kind of justification for the cover photosnap of our Kate crouching seductively atop a (costumer's?) crate in an empty, dusty attic. She is wearing a fancy dress lion's outfit, the head of which rests on the floor. There are songs called 'Oh England My Lionheart' and 'In The Warm Room', 'Hammer Horror' and 'In Search Of Peter Pan'.

I look at the photo and I see an object...and this, more than anything, is the David Bowie (both taught by Lindsey Kemp, mime artist) connection, as it indeed is with the pantherish, pale, prima(l) donna Banshee. And, like Sioux, Kate is sometimes rather clumsy when it comes to hanging lyrics on the image (or is it the other way round?).

Lionheart starts with words which could easily slot into The Scream: "Blue on the walls, Blue out of my mouth" ('Symphony In Blue'). But where a Banshee might follow that up with, say, "Blood on the walls. Blood out of my mouth", Kate goes for "The sort of blue between clouds when the sun comes out", and thereby covers the markets.

She can even get away with "When that feeling of meaningless sets in" – that, and "The more I think about sex/The better it gets/Here we have a purpose in life".

I hate quoting lyrics, but when they're printed on the sleeve it must be for a reason – usually that the singer in question thinks of himself as a songwriter, a communicator of meaningful messages, and as such is up for discursive analyses from the scurvy, common likes of I and you.

Kate's trick is the way she clings to thoughts of Innocence (capital Me) and Better Times, at the same time hinting that, you know, she knows and has known more than she's letting on. 'Mature' lyrics sung in that twee, irritating schoolgirl-siren voice. I know you can't help your voice, dear, but then I can't help being irritated by it.

Actually, most of the time she's nearer a vague British lineage – Barbara Dickson to Lindsay De Paul – than any Joni/Janis wonderland. It's the 'up' side of melancholy: muted, mellifluous piano backed by a lame, loveless cradle of pristine and processed acoustic/electric guitar, drums, subtle synthesiser, bass and varied additions where necessary, harmonium, recorder and harpsichord in the tree top. Her musicians add little or nothing to most of the songs, and her own piano playing is too 'nice' to merely be the prop it mostly is.

The songs range from 'In Search Of Peter Pan' ("I've been told, when I get older/That I'll understand it all") to 'In The Warm Room': "She prepares to go to bed/She'll let you watch her undress/Go places where your fingers long to linger/In the warm room/You'll fall into her like a pillow/Her thighs are as soft as marshmallows."

Now, for all I know, that last lot might well be an attack on traditional, mythical ideas and ideals about the mysterious, silent, seductive woman who somewhere waits for you and you only. But nothing in the way it is presented and nothing in the way Ms. Bush presents herself in the glossy, glazed photographs suggests that this is indeed the case.

Other cameos and scenarios flirt with the exotic ('Kashka From Baghdad') and historic ('England My Lionheart', 'Coffee Homeground') without really saying much, mostly metaphors for dewy romanticism, the pleasures and pains thereof.

Nothing wrong with that?
The Sirens, too, sing that way. Trying to disguise that which pressed them into their fame and fashion but allowed them to feel nothing but function. They lamented this aloud. They could not help it if their laments sounded so beautiful.

(Poetic, huh?)

[text version]

Kate Bush

The Palladium

NME, April 28 1979

by Charles Shaar Murray 

Two memories: recalled first are the days when rock and roll was swamped with failed classical pianists and violinists who knew that they could make it in rock and roll because certain strata of the rock audience have an inferiority complex about Real Culture and no standards by which to judge it.

Recalled second are all the unpleasant aspects of David Bowie in the Mainman era. Successfully shoved under the cerebral carpet by the passing of time and the ghosts of all those dynamite gigs, it only takes a whiff of Kate Bush's tour programme and the haughty condescension of the little notes from the Kate Bush Club that you find on your seat when you arrive to bring it all back.

No photographers. Stay in your seats and worship, you dumb bastards!

The Kate Bush show that's been wowin' 'em (as in "Wow, wow, wow, wow, we think you're unbearable") all over the country is a tribute to hard work, lots of money and the old-style ideology that defines the relationship between artist and audience as purely that between worshipper and worshipped. Described (elsewhere, natch) as some kind of apex in the mating of rock and theatre, it is simply the most complicated and expensive extant collision between theatrics (there is a difference between 'theatre' and 'theatrics', but if Kate Bush is aware of it, she certainly isn't letting on) and MOR pop.

An endless stream of sets, costumes, pantomine-conjuring special effects, back projections sound effects (ranging from wind and rain to her brother's awful crypto-poetry read in a portentous, echoing elocution-competition voice to audible sniggering from people who hadn't paid the statutory fiver for their tickets) and things that would be described as 'gimmicks' if they occurred in the course of a performance with less lofty ambitions as this one, the KATE BUSH (she prefers capitals) experience is an exercise in the time-honoured art of battering an audience to death and making them like it.

Ms Bush herself is the evident product of an awful lot of strenuous self-improvement. One can only imagine all those years of ballet training, mime classes, piano lessons...she is Supergirl: the range of her skills aspires to be breathtaking and the end result is that she is capable of doing enough things passably to convince large numbers of people (only a few of whom are equipped to know better) that she is doing them brilliantly.

Her piano playing is competent but characterless: unlike Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell – whose work she evidently admires – the style is neither distinctive nor expressive. Her songwriting hints that it means more than it says and in fact means less: she hints at mystery and uses it as a cloak whereas true mysteries always stand naked. Her singing is at least unusual: her shrill, self-satisfied whine is unmistakable.

Altogether, a lightweight talent with one good song ('Wuthering Heights') to her credit.

Her dancing is more perspiration than inspiration: completely lacking in sensuality or funk, it relies instead on a supple, well-exercised frame and enough ballet moves to impress people who know nothing about ballet just as the Emersons and Wakepersons of yesteryear were able to bullshit people who knew nothing about classical music.

Her mime is elegant sham: great mime expresses everything, good mime expresses something and bad mime expresses nothing other than somebody's been to mime classes.

Backed by a cast of a dozen (seven musicians, two dancers, two singers and the real star of the show, illusionist Simon Gray), Bush twirled and skittered and trilled her way through a series of tableaux vivants which almost disguised that if it had actually been performed and staged as a straight concert it would have been tedious in the extreme.

For the climax – centred around 'James And The Cold Gun' – she dressed up in cowboy togs and methodically shot Gray and the two dancers, complete with fake blood, rimshots and dry ice, before retreating to the stylised womb at the back of the stage from which she had originally emerged, shooting at the audience. It was the first time that she played direct to the crowd and the only emotion expressed was hatred.

It has been pointed out that she's terribly young and oh, so talented. She certainly works hard: the show runs over two hours and except for when she's seated at the white piano, she's in constant motion, using a radio mike on a kind of telephonist's headset so that she can move freely the whole time. The trouble is that she's completely entranced with the idea of her own stardom and the concept of presenting an almost superhuman facade.

Tony DeFries would've loved you seven years ago, Kate, and seven years ago maybe I would've too. But these days I'm past the stage of admiring people desperate to dazzle and bemuse, and I wish you were past the stage of trying those tricks yourself.

Sure, what you do takes talent, but it ain't the kind of talent I respect.

Enjoy your success.

Kate's fluctuations in critical standing is one of the main things (see also Graham Parker) that led me to the concept of Drops Away Syndrome (and it's less common counterpart,  Rises Up Syndrome)

However I guess in Kate's case it's a critically speaking Dropped From the Start, and then Rises  Up

Drops Away Syndrome is more about figures who are deemed (by critics and hipsters, the rock intelligentsia) to be central and crucial but with time that just completely erodes away, and you are left scratching your head a bit (G. Parker classic case, especially in America)

More Kate being utterly Old Wave even as the New Wave raged and rearranged around her 

The big live comeback residency thing Before The Dawn some years ago was a giant volcanic eructation of this kind of thing

Here's what my friend Samantha had to say about it 

"What a monumental disappointment. The show was little more than a prog rock Jackanory, wish I had never seen it and had saved ourselves the best part of 300 quid."

"My heart sunk right at the beginning when Kate and co 'conga-ed' onto the stage like some waifs and strays from an office party. Still, I tried to rally and remain optimistic. As things went on it seemed like the show was a vehicle for middle aged release, as I looked around the audience, everyone obediently in their seats, it struck me that some of these folk needed to get out more often. Was it a collective amnesia about what really comprises a great gig?.... . In the second half, I cast a glance at [my 15 year old daughter] who was falling asleep.

"Kate felt the need to plug her son, tell us all how much she loved him, 'more than anything else in the world'. Son, Bertie had been given a lead role in the excruciating panto. It did strike me that Bush had seen War Horse a few years ago and had been hopelessly influenced by it. 

".... I never want to hear Aerial again...am so disappointed, she was such a heroine, wish this concert had never happened to us."

Dropped Away, Pt 3 - the 1993 Consensus

Onto the third installment of this series - the NME's list of the Greatest Albums of All Time, published on October 2 1993.

Here, it's interesting to look at what has Dropped Away from the present's vantage point, but also to compare to the previous Greatest Albums List from 1985 - to see what's Dropped Away and what's Risen Up.

First, though, an attempt to clarify the comparative approach at work here.... I suppose what I am attempting to imagine is what a NME-like publication of today, with a similar selectorate (mostly under thirty), would take to be the Canon of Rock & Pop: the major achievements that everyone should listen to. 

Of course, there are publications that still do this surveying-recorded-history type of list - Pitchfork, Rolling Stone - but I'm going with a more Britcentric perspective. And I don't think there is an equivalent to NME anymore...  everything's too specialized, fragmented, gone down its own narrower path. 

Mind you, I'm not sure NME itself was "NME" by 1993, if you get me - i.e. the broad, we-cover-everything music paper I grew up reading.  Indeed the first striking aspect of this list is the backtracking from the hugely improved inclusion of black music in the '85 list, which would probably have been the high point of the NME's critics's (if not the NME readership's) assimilation of anti-rockist values. There's still a decent amount of non-white artistry but it's discernibly decreased. And Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On has slid from #1 to #4. 

Okay, the full list in text form is here (and also at the bottom of the post)

I'll do Dropped Away first, and then Risen Up next. 

DROPPED AWAY

5 The Stone Roses The Stone Roses 1989

I expect the generation that's now aging firmly into their fifties-and-older clings fast to their collective  adoration of this record, but the one after, and the one after that, surely find its eminence to be mystifying. Classic "you had to be there, you had to be then" record.

9 Public Enemy It takes a nation of millions to hold us back 1988

Personally I prefer the first and third albums; never quite understood why this is the Accredited Classic. But that's beside the point; I don't think PE are really on the list of things people feel they need to hear. Also, some of their opinions ("Sophisticated Bitch", "Meet the G that Killed Me") would be given less allowance today.

19 De La Soul 3 Feet High and Rising 1989

To not drop away, it probably helps to have done a string of great and/or impactful records - it bolsters the artist's purchase on the pantheon, their chance of having a perch. Beyond De La Soul's self-cancelling, quick-withered career, I think this record also probably would sound a bit... rickety to modern ears. If it places at all, it would be much lower. 

21 Primal Scream Screamadelica   1991

See the Stone Roses.

23 R.E.M. Automatic for the People 1992

This seems like "parochialism of the present" -  going with the album released a year before this poll was taken, as opposed to, say, Murmur (to me, far and away this group's best chance at a pantheon perch). I've no real sense of whether R.E.M. are a group that people keep discovering generation after generation, as appears to happen with Joy Division, The Smiths, The Cure.  But I suspect not.

24 Elvis Presley The Sun Sessions 1976

This inclusion, which I don't remember being in the previous two Greatest Lists, seems like your classic "obedience to the rockcritic superego" genuflection.  Monumental music, obviously. But in the same way that no one would have a reproduction of the Mona Lisa on the living room wall, I find it hard to believe that any of the selectorate in '93 had this platter spinning on their turntables regularly. Today, even less so.

27 the Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy 1985

I suggested that pantheonic prestige for a classic album is bolstered by having done a bunch of other classics or very-good albums. This would be the opposite syndrome: where persistence, a mounting but steadily less startling discography, slowly chips away at the stature of the one classic album, which starts to seem like a fluke. J&MC's music from Automatic onwards  - perhaps really from Darklands onwards - slowly blows their cool, blows it away. They come to seem like a fairly conventional and surprisingly cautious alternative rock band, chuntering on way beyond their moment. In '93, the memory-imprint of what they were in '85 was strong enough to ensure this high placing. Three decades later, it's faint, if not completely faded. 

29 Jimi Hendrix Are you experienced? 1967

30 James Brown Live at The Apollo, october 24, 1962 1963

31 Patti Smith Horses 1975

32 Stevie Wonder Innervisions 1973

These were all in the '85 List (maybe it was a different Wonder album - same string of masterpieces though) and seemed to me Dropped Away.

34 Frank Sinatra - Songs for Swingin' Lovers! 1956

This is a great record - a personal favorite from childhood, as one of the 20 or so LPs my parents owned. The first side especially, I know inside out, could probably sing all the way through. I'm a little puzzled by its out-of-the-blue appearance in this list - I wonder what revisionisms and rehabilitative processes it reflected (the easy-listening revival was still a few years off - not that this is exactly EZ, but it's smooth, it's sophisticated, it's got the swinging Nelson Riddle arrangements). At any rate, I can't imagine today's under-30s selectorate selecting it. 

35 Otis Redding Otis Blue - Otis Redding Sings Soul 1965

A survivor from the previous List...  my thoughts on soul already aired there.

37 Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet 1990

A great record -  their best in fact. I wonder if it's on the radar of today's hip listeners. I doubt it. 

39 Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Blood & Chocolate 1986

If any EC album clings to canonic status (my doubts about that expressed in the previous go-round), it wouldn't be this turgid effort, with its low count of memorable tunes. 

42 New Order - Technique 1989

Classic single after classic single, but I'm not sure there is a classic album in New Order's discography. Power Corruption and Lies? I remember the high point ("Your Silent Face") but little else. Low Life? I have a stronger memory of the packaging than the contents.  I have met people who rep for Movement, a barmy opinion. Brotherhood - nah! But this album Technique seems the most undistinguished of the lot of them - I can't imagine it's any fan's favorite. 

 Now if it was the Top 100 Singles being done today, I can see people still voting  for "Blue Monday" or even "Everything Gone Green" or "Temptation" . They just don't seem like an albums band to me.  There's no Queen Is Dead in their back catalogue. More to the point, there's no Closer or Unknown Pleasures.

45 The Orb - The Orb's Adventures beyond the Ultraworld 1991

Parochialism of the present again. The indie-dance, baggy, techno-that-rockpapers-can-get-with moment still lingering into '93. If this List had been drawn up a year later, probably Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyhead would be on it.

47 Iggy Pop - Lust for Life 1977

It's a great song.... is it a great album? I don't think this would be Iggy's inclusion on Today's List. I'd like to think it would be Fun House, or at least Raw Power.... and if we're talking solo, then The Idiot, surely? 

49 Hüsker Dü Warehouse : songs and stories 1987

In the comments to the 1985 post, David Gunnip mentioned the twilight of the Dü. I sadly concur - and also think if they had a presence on a contemporary equivalent list, it would be Zen Arcade or New Day Rising. I wonder if this appearance is a knock-on of Sugar-love (never acquired the taste myself).

50 New Order - Low Life - 1985

See earlier comments on Technique.

51 Echo & the Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here 1981

They don't seem to be part of the contemporary conversation, as far as I can gauge. A shame. I would personally rate Crocodiles as the closer to perfect album. 

52 Blondie - Parallel Lines 1978

I can picture people today still rating Blondie as a Great Singles Band, but the idea of listening to a whole album all the way through, even one as hit-packed as Parallel Lines, it doesn't compute for me - in terms of a contemporary consciousness, as opposed to a personal evaluative statement. (That said, I don't think I would ever feel the impulse to listen to a Blondie album all the way through, and I'm not sure I ever have. They seem like the New Wave ABBA - a Greatest Hits album, especially a Greatest Hits CD with the longer running time, is unbeatable... a family favorite for the car. But who really wants to plod through the original elpees looking for 'deep cuts'?).

I wonder if this sudden appearance was a knock-on of all those groups like the Primitives and Darling Buds, and more recently Garbage, bringing Blondie back as a reference point? 

53 Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel 1974

GP was very hip right in the middle of the '80s, at the height of the trad Americana boom, the country-ish flavor that entered into alternative rock for a few years... He was a real reference point... I remember being quite enamored of that "and I thought about a calico bonnet / from Cheyenne to Tennessee" song. I cannot imagine he is anywhere on the map today, though.

54 Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis 1969

Puzzled by this one, I must say. Did the Pet Shop Boys put her back on the map? (Question: where are the Pet Shops Boys on this list? Nowadays they are widely revered as the greatest pop writers of their day, or right up there. But in '93, they don't seem to be on the map).

57 The Jam - All Mod Cons 1978

I suppose mod had become a bit of a reference point again, and Weller was stirring into solo life, after the dwindling away of the Style Council, the unreleased house-influenced album. Britpop would firm up his stature considerably. But I don't think there was any Jam staining the '85 List, so puzzled that it's popped up here. 

59 Mothers of Invention We're only in it for the money 1968

Surprised that this clings on in the affections of Britrockcrits circa '93.

69 Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey 1975

Great record... I think this is its first appearance in an NME List .... perhaps it's a question of timing... dub didn't really exist enough yet in '74 to make an impression on that List.... by '85 it would have seemed passé... indeed with Jamaican music now deep into the dancehall era, reggae as a whole had faded as a critical interest or influence on new emerging bands .... but by '93, dub and roots are much more present in the music culture as an inspiration and a revered ancestral source. There's also been a lot of reggae reissuing going on by this point. Not that this inclusion is indicated as the dub version, Garvey's Ghost.... but as I recall, Island's CD reissue included both versions, so I suspect the dub factor is part of the album's elevation. 

70 Tom Waits Rain Dogs 1985

Waits plummeting hugely since Swordfishtrombones's appearance at a ludicrous #6  in 1985.... and now Rain Dogs, the follow-up, has displaced that album. Clearly the hardcore fan's choice.  Today - I should think nobody gives a monkey's either way. 

71  PJ Harvey - Dry - 1993

She does strike me as someone that younger generations don't know much about....  if she was to be on a List, I think it would be either Rid of Me or the one after that or maybe England's Shaking. But what do I know?  (And in fact Dry would the one I would pull out, if I was ever to feel the impulse, which I never do. Unlike, say, Liz Phair's Exile). 

73 Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies 1992

I listened to this again not so long ago, for the first time since the time.... it's a rather lovely listen, still.... but I cannot imagine it figuring much in the contemporary consciousness.

76 The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane 1988

I guess this placing is down to survivors on the NME staff from the period when they had the 'Tweens on the front cover and thought they were the saviors of literate pop. I would not have picked this attempted pop-crossover album if I was to vote for any of theirs...  Before Hollywood or Liberty Belle maybe.  Decidedly Dropped Away

79 Jam - Sound Affects 1980

See comments on All Mod Cons

81 The KLF - The White Room 1991

This episode in Brit popcrit - this escapade in Brit pop - seems lost in its little pocket of time. 

82 Birthday Party  - Junkyard 1982

I am going to save my thoughts on BP until I do my Purely Personal Wholly Subjective Dropped Away List... I should think if any trace of this outfit would make it to a contemporary canon, it would be one of Cave and the Bad Seeds later albums. "Later' meaning '90s or even from the last decade or so.

84 Dexys Midnight Runners Searching for the Young Soul Rebels 1980

This episode in Brit popcrit - this escapade in Brit pop - seems lost in its  little pocket of time. 

86 The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & the Lash 1985

When Shane shuffled off, I was staggered by the flood of testimonials about the greatness of his songwriting and his singing - they came from fellow musicians and songwriters, but also from literati, people who wield words for a living. Such that I gritted my teeth and actually listened to some of the songs cited as poetic marvels - read through the lyrics too -  just to see if my original opinion would survive. 

Anyway, thinking back, I don't believe any of the tributes came from an admirer under the age of 50.

87 The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope 1978

Where Strummer & Jones & the Other Two stand in the scheme of things came up for discussion in the comments of the previous outing...  As I combed through this '93 list, the debut and London Calling passed on through, but the line must be drawn at this stodgy effort.  Is this some sort of knock-on effect from the New Wave of New Wave, Manic Street Preachers et al, bringing them back as a reference point? 

88 Elvis Costello - King of America 1986

This was the point in the real-time timeline when I started to feel exhausted by EC...  it's an album I never warmed to (even less so than the other LP he released in '86, Blood and Chocolate) and remember little about it,  beyond a general "T-Bone Burnett ick" aura to proceedings. The album cover doesn't help. Critics, at the time and probably for quite a while after, thought EC was at a new peak of his powers on these two albums. For reasons explored in the previous go-round, I don't think he is on today's map - and if he was, it would not be for this album.  

89 Billy Bragg - Talking with the Taxman about Poetry 1986

Mid-80s esteem / relevance, already fading, destined to fade more. As with Dylan, I like his songs so much more covered by others (but really in his case, it's song singular: Kirsty MacColl's 's version of "A New England")

91 Madonna - Like a Prayer 1989

Early in her career, one of Madonna's songwriting partners lived in our old NYC apartment - so she was around there a bunch, pre-fame, hatching atrocities. We found this out long, long after we started living there, otherwise we might have had to conduct some kind of ritual spirit-cleansing before moving our stuff in there.  

I have no sense of what kind of figure Madonna is in terms of younger-leaning  pop awareness. I should think any standing or affection is based around singles rather than albums. 

92 The Sundays - Reading, writing & arithmetic 1989

Nah. 

95 The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace 1985

The Fall might make a Today's List, but not for this album.

99 The Who - Who's Next - 1971

This is where the ascendance of Queen finds its inverted mirror-image descendance - a group whose huff 'n 'puff bluster and epic-ness is perhaps insufficiently queered to thrive in today's climate. And yet they invented the rock opera - you can't get much gayer than that.  Klaus Nomi has more of a hold on today's hip taste. 

100 Happy Mondays - Bummed 1988

At the risk of upsetting Stylo... I don't think Happy Mondays have much currency today. Bummed's their best, though, Curiously, in terms of discovery by subsequent generations, they suffer from being both an utter anomaly and utterly bound to a historical moment, a drugGeist that is difficult to reconstruct. 

So by my count that's 44 of the 100 that have Dropped Away or Hugely Slipped Down - the biggest proportion so far, almost half the total.

RISEN UP 

A couple of striking developments in terms of artists from the rock past whose reputations have soared since '85 

1 Beach Boys Pet sounds 1966

46 Beach Boys Surf's up 1971

Beach Boys have dramatically risen and indeed pip The Beatles to the #1 spot. (The Beatles's rep has also recovered since '85).  Pet Sounds placed in the 1985 List but only at #20, so that's quite a massive leap. This seems to be a side-effect of them being namedropped by indie rockers and joining the Creation pantheon (Screamadelica etc).  

It's also a restoration - Pet Sounds was the #3 album in the NME 1974 List.

The effects of New Wave and postpunk fading a bit? The settling towards a perma-canon, a Mojo / Uncut sense of history? 

60 Neil Young Harvest 1972

66 Neil Young After the Goldrush 1970

63 Neil Young Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere  1969

94 Neil Young Tonight's the night 1975

Four albums from Neil....  although it's notable that the first two belong to his soppier, singer-songwriter-ish side, as opposed to the harder-rocking-stuff on Rust Never Sleeps style side.  This new stature reflects his evident influence on Dinosaur Jr and Teenage Fan Club....  the touring alongside his admirers Sonic Youth... perhaps the idea of him as a grunge ancestor... a haggard uncle to Pearl Jam et al...  a symbol of integrity and perseverance.

In '85, Neil Young didn't feature at all in the list! 

Then again, this would have been at the height of his muddled 'Eighties, shit album after confused / confusing shit album ... and when he also dis-endeared himself by making some pro-Reagan remarks.

There's an element of restoration here too, although Young didn't feature that high on the 1974 List - indeed his two appearances are much lower than Crosby, Stills & Nash's two appearances. 

A couple of other notable first-time appearances in the List

61 Scott Walker - Scott 1967

74 Nick Drake- Five leaves left 1969

THE NME 1993 LIST IN FULL

1 Beach boys Pet sounds 1966

2 Beatles Revolver 1966

3 Sex pistols Never mind the bollocks, here's the Sex pistols 1977

4 Marvin Gaye What's going on 1971

5 Stone roses The Stone roses 1989

6 Velvet underground Velvet underground + Nico  1967

7 Clash London calling 1979

8 Beatles The Beatles (= the white album) 1968

9 Byrds Younger than yesterday 1967

9 Public enemy It takes a nation of millions to hold us back  1988

10 Smiths The queen is dead  1986

11 Rolling stones Exile on Main street 1972

12 Nirvana Nevermind  1991

13 Clash The Clash 1977

14 Bob Dylan Highway 61 revisited 1965

15 Van Morrison Astral weeks 1968

16 Prince Sign o the times 1987

17 Bob Dylan Blonde on blonde 1966

18 Love Forever changes  1967

19 De la soul 3 feet high and rising 1989

20 Joy division Closer 1980

21 Primal scream Screamadelica 1991

22 Rolling stones Let it bleed  1969

23 R.E.M. Automatic for the people 1992

24 Elvis Presley The Sun sessions 1976

25 Doors The Doors  1967

26 Television Marquee moon 1977

27 Jesus and Mary chain Psychocandy 1985

28 Joni Mitchell Blue 1971

29 Jimi Hendrix Are you experienced?  1967

30 James Brown Live at The Apollo, october 24, 1962 1963

31 Patti Smith Horses  1975

32 Stevie Wonder Innervisions 1973

33 Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely hearts club band 1967

34 Frank Sinatra Songs for swingin' lovers! 1956

35 Otis Redding Otis blue - Otis Redding sings soul  1965

36 John Coltrane A love supreme 1964

37 Public enemy Fear of a black planet 1990

38 David Bowie Hunky dory 1971

39 Elvis Costello and the Attractions Blood & chocolate 1986

40 David Bowie The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars 1972

41 Smiths Hatful of hollow 1984

42 New order Technique 1989

43 Joy division Unknown pleasures 1979

44 Pixies Surfer Rosa 1988

45 Orb The Orb's adventures beyond the Ultraworld 1991

46 Beach boys Surf's up 1971

47 Iggy Pop Lust for life 1977

48 Bob Dylan Bringing it all back home  1965

49 Hüsker dü Warehouse : songs and stories 1987

50 New order Low-life 1985

51 Echo & the Bunnymen Heaven up here  1981

52 Blondie Parallel lines 1978

53 Gram Parsons Grievous angel 1974

54 Dusty Springfield Dusty in Memphis  1969

55 Lou Reed Transformer  1972

56 Led zeppelin Led zeppelin 4 1971

57 Jam All mod cons 1978

58 Velvet underground Velvet underground  1969

59 Mothers of invention We're only in it for the money 1968

60 Neil Young Harvest 1972

61 Scott Walker Scott 1967

62 Stooges The Stooges  1969

63 Neil Young Everybody knows this is nowhere  1969

64 Beatles Rubber soul 1965

65 Aretha Franklin Greatest hits 1971

66 Neil Young After the goldrush 1970

67 David Bowie Low 1977

68 Talking heads Remain in light 1980

69 Burning spear Marcus Garvey 1975

70 Tom Waits Rain dogs 1985

71 PJ Harvey Dry 1992

72 Smiths The Smiths 1984

73 Spiritualized Lazer guided melodies 1992

74 Nick Drake Five leaves left 1969

75 Captain Beefheart and the Magic band Clear spot 1972

76 Go-betweens 16 lovers lane 1988

77 Wire Pink flag 1977

78 Bob Marley and the Wailers Natty dread 1974

79 Jam Sound affects 1980

80 Sonic youth Sister 1987

81 KLF The white room 1991

82 Birthday party Junkyard 1982

83 Kate Bush The kick inside 1978

84 Dexy's midnight runners Searching for the young soul rebels 1980

85 Bob Dylan Blood on the tracks 1975

86 Pogues Rum, sodomy & the lash 1985

87 Clash Give 'em enough rope 1978

88 Elvis Costello King of America 1986

89 Billy Bragg Talking with the taxman about poetry 1986

90 Big star The third album/Sister lovers 1978

91 Madonna Like a prayer 1989

92 Sundays Reading, writing & arithmetic 1989

93 Michael Jackson Off the wall  1979

94 Neil Young Tonight's the night 1975

95 Fall This nation's saving grace 1985

96 Public Image Ltd Metal box 1979

97 Massive attack Blue lines 1991

99 Who Who's next 1971

100 Happy mondays Bummed 1988

Dropped Away, Part 2 - the 1985 consensus

Okay, let's see how things had shifted, in terms of the canon, slightly more than a decade after the 1974 appraisal by the critics of the New Musical Express (said to be the first time anyone had ever done such a look-back summation of Rock's Achievement So Far). 

Here's NME re-adjudicating the 100 All-Time Greatest Albums in November 1985.

 

The list in easier to peruse form. 

Much has changed since '74 - obviously there's a whole swathe of punk and postpunk potential inclusions, as well as reggae and soul and funk contenders in that eleven years elapsed.... 

But it's also the case that the shape of rock history -  what should be included and what gets to be taken seriously -  that's gone through some convulsive shifts - i.e. the rockism discourse. 

So there's a LOT more black music - Sixties 'n' Seventies soul... reggae.... even jazz makes an appearance.

This kind of self-correction work resembles what's been going on in U.S. pop criticism in the past decade or so - attempts to be inclusive and retroactively compensate for the slighting of certain genres in the past.

In the NME list, there's also, interestingly, some early rock'n'roll, via the 'Greatest Hits' album, which I don't recall being counted as proper albums on the 1974 list. Perhaps that's a kind of "anti-rockism" in so far as it's breaking with the privileging of the album-album as the canon-worthy format, and reorienting things in favor of the single. 

And then - partly to make room for new inclusions, but also reflecting changed values in the after-punk era, many things that were on the 1974 List have simply disappeared. Other eminences remain but have diminished significantly in estimation, surprisingly so (the Beatles).

But let's look at 1985's Brit-crit consensus from the present's vantage point. What on this list has Dropped Away, in the sense of no longer being something that an entry-level aspiring-to-be-informed young listener would feel some kind of pressure to hear? What artists are no longer on the menu, in terms of stuff that a forming band might take up as an influence? 

Get your disagreements ready, it's going to be a contentious ride. 

Right away, we have a possible contender for Dropped Away - at the very summit of the chart!

1 Marvin Gaye - What's Going On - 1971

I know, I know... sacrilege, "what are you thinking Reynolds?" And yet, and yet, I do not think this record, once considered an imperishable classic, has much currency for today's listeners. 

This, despite the fact, that young hip listeners are generally more likely to listen to R&B and treat it as a genre inhabited by auteurs. They listen to Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino, FKA Twigs....  

But strange as it may seem, love of R&B does not necessarily imply any knowledge of or liking for soul. (Even though the contemporary artists they're into often themselves love 70s soul, replicate its sonix,  sample it as Ocean did with a clip of Stevie Wonder doing a vocoderized cover of "Close To You")

One of the classes I teach is "Headphone Soul and Album-Oriented R&B". And I came away with the sense that things like "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" or "Pusherman" or "Shaft" were unknown to the students...  There's A Riot Going' On too.  Stevie Wonder. Al Green. Philly. 

And then if '70s soul, with its lushness and orchestration and even the odd synth seems long-long-ago, just imagine what Otis Redding or Stax sounds like. Positively antediluvian. 

For this generation, R&B starts with... maybe Aaliyah.  And even that is a quarter-century ago now. 

(Another reason What's Going On may have slid is also that it is a bit over-rated. "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" - c'mon!  I prefer Gaye in sensual-not-sententious mode:  "Got To Give It Up")

6 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones 1983

A classic example of the parochialism of the present - there was such a BUZZ about this album (was it NME's Album of the Year? I think so) that it must have seemed inconceivable to the crits that the artist's stature would rapidly plummet. But #6 Greatest Album of All Time - what were they thinking?

I don't think I've listened to Swordfishtrombones all the way through since the year it came out, when I esteemed it highly; I did play a few tracks from it recently though in a class titled the Blues: Uses, Abuses, Mutations. Back in the mid-80s, Waits lost me with the next few, even Partch-ier albums and I've never quite got it together to get to grips with all the barfly albums of the 1970s.  

My favorite at the time, "Frank's Wild Years" is kind of a nasty track, isn't it?  Probably if I was to reach for a Waits song, it would be "This One's From the Heart" - but the impulse never comes. 

I might be mistaking my own weak cathexis to the artist for objective standing here, but I don't think so. 

(Rain Dogs, astoundingly, would be NME's #1 album of 1985)

17 James Brown - Solid Gold 1976

Same with Marvin Gaye - completely off the map for young listeners today. I  venture also that the breakbeat connection that might have kept JB current during the hip hop era has completely gone, given that breakbeats have not been a significant element in 21st Century hip hop.  As for the ballads, that kind of rasping, volcanic kind of singing is very different from R&B modes favored today, which are smoother and more poised.

18 Patti Smith - Horses 1975

A landmark record - but in that sense, rather like a historic building in a foreign city that people go to see because they are supposed to go see it.  Like tourists reading up in their travel guide or listening on those headphones they give out as you go in, this is an album that requires historical back-filling and zeitgeist-reconstruction. Perhaps the pure spirit of "Gloria" leaps across time, jumps out of its own moment. "Free Money" maybe. But "Birdland" and "Break It Up" and "Landed"...  inexplicable stuff, I feel. 

19 James Brown - Live at The Apollo, October 24, 1962 1963

See JB above. 

23 Otis Redding - Otis blue - Otis Redding sings soul 1966

26 Temptations - Anthology 1973

27 Aretha Franklin - Greatest hits 1971

More soul!

28 Jimi Hendrix - Are you experienced? 1967

Phil Knight proposed Hendrix as a Dropped Away contender in the comments to the previous post, causing me to respond in sad agreement: "It feels like the Hendrix sound and all that it represents just wouldn't compute for modern ears. Too excessive, too grand, too utopian.... maybe even too liberated.  In a recent class on the Blues.... I played "I Don't Live Today" (it has the classic blues AAB structure but blown out cosmically) and I could tell that it wasn't connecting."

The blues base of much of the music is one reason Jimi Hendrix has Dropped Away... but the Experience are part of it too: the freeness in the rhythm section, Mitch Michell's jazz background. 

From the guitarist on down, the virtuosity required is beyond anyone's aspiring, but also, even more, beyond anyone's desiring.

Yes, they don't know what they are missing. But they don't care. 

29 Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance 1978

Fantastic album, as is the one after it, and the Datapanik collection of early singles. But as much as postpunk seems to be quite hot...  still firmly on the listening-list of young people... what they think of as "postpunk" has significant gaps... areas of droppage...  I think Ubu are one, whereas Devo (the group I paired them with in Rip It Up) are not. 

30 Robert Johnson - King of the Delta blues singers 1961

The blues in general, really.

31 Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Imperial Bedroom 1982

I feel like the function of Elvis Costello - in his time, in his prime - is one of the most unrecoverable things for a modern listener.  What even is this music for? It's sort of pop, yet simultaneously sniping at pop...  pop and anti-pop combined in some combustible, internally unstable blend of catchy vitriol...  I can't imagine what a modern ear would make of the verbosity.... the puns and wordplay.... perhaps, most of all, the tone of voice.  A seriousness, or sneeriousness even, that just doesn't travel across time. 

The run from This Year's Model, through Armed Forces, Get Happy!, Trust, (let's forget about the country album), to this record, Imperial Bedroom, is the  astonishingly sustained  peak of something, but also the ending of something. The last blast of Dylanism-Lennonism: the idea that words - finding the exact right formulation of language - have an inherent power.   Words as weaponry against the Powers That Be.

 Around "Oliver's Army" you can still believe, in part because EC believes it...  by "Pills and Soap", belief is tottering... "Tramp the Dirt Down" is just an impotent whimper, as ineffectual and silly as "Margaret On the Guillotine". 

 

32 Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Anthology 1973

Soul, again.

34 Dexy's Midnight Runners - Searching for the young soul rebels 1980

Meta-soul! So doubly inexplicable. 

37 Bobby Womack - The Poet 1981

The apotheosis of Womack, by the criterati of the NME, is one of the stranger episodes in UK music journalism. I mean, for sure, he's a great singer... he's written some good songs... but even in his mid-1970s heyday Womack was not really a soul superstar. He had a few big Billboard R&B Chart hits, some solid-selling albums... but we're not talking Al Green here. 

At the time, though, I totally bought into it. Went to see him at Oxford Apollo (pretty great - but then again, I'd never seen a full-blown soul revue, so there was an element of first-time blown-away syndrome). Bought The Poet II and some of the '70s albums.... enjoyed them... honestly cannot remember anything much about them. For some reason I never heard and still haven't heard The Poet, the '81 album, on which his elevation was constructed. Perhaps that was because it was an import? 

At any rate, I feel in the annals of artists who have Dropped Away, few have Dropped Away more  precipitously. Perhaps precisely because of this mystery about the Rising Up in the first place. I think the framing was to do with him being the last of the Soul Greats still standing.... a '70s survivor. Part of it had to do with his contiguity to the Greats: guitarist for Sam Cooke,  accomplice to Sly Stone during the coked-out making of There's A Riot Goin' On. 

The warm feelings during that Eighties moment seemed to extend to anyone with name "Womack"  - e.g. Womack & Womack, the duo of Bobby's brother Cecil and his wife Linda (Sam Cooke's daughter). I suppose it's the dynastic thing - people do seem to love that.

This conjunction in the NME top 50 albums of 1985 chart seems significant

7 Sam Cooke

Live At The Harlem Square Club

8 Bobby Womack

So Many Rivers

Also noticed that the Poet II was NME's #1 album of 1984!

40 Elvis Costello - This Year's Model 1978

See the entry on Imperial Bedroom.

44 Parliament -  Mothership Connection 1976

Pretty certain none of the P-funk stuff was on the 1974 List... another sign of the huge transvaluation made as a knock-on of postpunk, the anti-rockist discourse, and soul-boyism. I feel fairly confident that this is not music on the radar of young listeners or music-makers today. 

45 Al Green - The Cream of Al Green 1980

46 Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On 1973

50 Impressions - Big 16 1965

More soul. 

52 Alan Vega & Martin Rev - Suicide 1980

Debatable, but I think Suicide have faded in the hip memory. A great shame, but the Canon is cruel in its ever-shifting reconfiguration. 

55 Madness - Mad Not Mad 1985

Christ on a bike, talk about the parochialism of the present! I'm frankly amazed that this, out of all the Madness albums, would be chosen as a Top 100 contender -  7 or Rise & Fall are surely far better, and the first of their greatest hits albums would be better still. I shouldn't think even Madness rate this  record. 

58 Various - The Harder They Come (soundtrack) 1972

Generally surprised how much reggae music has dropped away. If there's any continued currency, it would be the dub side of things. Even there, it's much diminished as a force of influence, compared to the 2000s and even more so compared to the '90s.  

61 Isley Brothers - 3+3 1973

Soul, but also black rock...  Not part of the conversation, more's the pity. 

66 Captain Beefheart and the Magic band - Clear Spot 1972

Trout Mask Replica retains some of its "can you handle this?" avant-cred - one of the canon of "out" records.  But Clear Spot, comparatively "in", is low down on the list of things a young hipster would check out.  Far and away my favorite Beefheart record.... they don't know what pleasures they're missing... 

67 Elvis Costello - Get Happy! 1980

See entry on Imperial Bedroom.

70 Lou Reed - Berlin 1973

The Velvet Underground remain in hallowed elevation, I think, but I can't imagine any Reed solo outing having much allure to the younger sort - maybe Transformer, for its Bowie connection and the queer aspect... perhaps Metal Machine Music for the same reasons as Trout Mask Replica...

71 Buddy Holly & the Crickets - 20 golden greats 1978

77 Chuck Berry - Chuck Berry's golden decade 1973

Rock'n'roll seemed old even when I first heard it, which must have been the early '70s. Give or take a "Summertime Blues" or a "Shakin' All Over", whose starkness still cut through, the songs and the legends - Holly, Berry, Haley, Little Richard, Presley, Fats Domino, and especially Jerry Lee Lewis - just seemed to come from another era altogether. The olden days - golden but long-gone.  The music  sounded creaky -  even next to contemporary records, like T. Rex or Glitter that drew on early rock'n'roll.

Oh it's great obviously - all this stuff that has dropped away is, for the most part. But History is cruel. Cruelest to that which is Historically Important, in fact. 

78 Jackie Wilson - The very best of Jackie Wilson 1995

More soul. 

82  Magazine - The Correct Use of Soap 1980

C.f. Pere Ubu and the things that have dropped-out of a beginner's guide to post-punk....  Magazine - once enormously fussed about, discussed about, taken seriously, seen as central.... have drifted to the outside of everything. I really liked Correct Use of Soap at the time, but in retrospect this music's claim to newness is not as starkly achieved compared with other groups considered to be Magazine's fellow travelers.  

88 Howlin' Wolf - Chess Masters 1981

See Robert Johnson.

89 Elvis Costello - Armed Forces 1979

Even more EC. See Imperial Bedroom.

91 John Cale - Paris 1919 1973

What I said about Lou Reed solo, applies doubly to Cale solo. 

92 Abyssinians - Forward On To Zion 1977

As per the comments on Harder They Come, the vocals-forward style of roots reggae is lost to time, unlike the dub side of things, which still has a weak grip on present ears. 

I feel that skank as a riddmic mode - the ambling mellowness, the warm keyboards, the gentle bubble of bass, the chick-a-chick smallness of the guitar - is something that the modern listener would find it hard to get their heads around. And then you factor in the cooing softness of the harmony vocals. The disjuncture between the mellifluousness and the militant / millenarian lyrics would confuse. 

Mind you, lover's rock seems to have won a small contingent of hip support (part of that self-correction poptimistic revisionism thing - a formerly demeaned young women's sound, bright and treble-toppy and syrupy sweet.... almost the hyperpop of its own time). Maybe this could lead some listeners through the back door into the non-secular and solemn sort of roots-vocalism. 

93 - Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True - 1977

You know the drill by this point - see Imperial Bedroom. 

 94 Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Rattlesnakes 1984

Love this record... I cannot imagine it coming into the earshot of contemporary music-discoverers. Like, what would the mechanism be... how would you know it exists, even? 

I thought about passing the same verdict on another inclusion in this Top 100 - Prefab Sprout, Steve McQueen, also a record I adore and still dig out now and then. But I feel like the Prefabs have just a smidge more of a cultural half-life. Feel like it's come up in things I've read recently. The ultra-detailed, super-pristine production would appeal to the modern ear. 

99 Undertones - The Undertones

Dunno why ... but the Undertones's brand of simple punk-pop perfection is not as widely known as rough equivalents like the Ramones or Buzzcocks...  Perhaps because they weren't quite as much the pioneers as those two bands... they came along that little bit later... they had bigger hits in the UK than either, but haven't lingered. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So that's 38 Dropped Away - quite a bigger chunk, nearly 40 percent, than with the 1974 list. 

Once again, here's the list in full - check if there any droppers-away here that I have missed.  I am already having second thoughts about letting through The Scream, Strange Days, Darkness on the Edge of Town...

1 Marvin Gaye What's going on 1971

2 Van Morrison Astral weeks 1968

3 Bob Dylan Highway 61 revisited 1965

4 Clash The Clash 1977

5 Television Marquee moon 1977

6 Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones 1983

7 Band The Band 1969

8 Bob Dylan Blonde on blonde 1966

9 John Lennon John Lennon/Plastic Ono band 1970

10 Joy division Unknown pleasures 1979

11 Beatles Revolver 1966

12 Elvis Presley The Sun sessions 1976

13 Sex pistols Never mind the bollocks, here's the Sex pistols 1977

14 Love Forever changes 1967

15 David Bowie Low 1977

16 Velvet underground Velvet underground + Nico 1967

17 James Brown Solid gold 1976

18 Patti Smith Horses 1975

19 James Brown Live at The Apollo, october 24, 1962 1963

20 Beach boys Pet sounds 1966

21 Miles Davis Kind of blue 1959

22 Bob Dylan Bringing it all back home 1965

23 Otis Redding Otis blue - Otis Redding sings soul 1966

24 Doors The Doors 1967

25 Rolling stones Exile on Main street 1972

26 Temptations Anthology 1973

27 Aretha Franklin Greatest hits 1971

28 Jimi Hendrix Are you experienced? 1967

29 Pere Ubu The modern dance 1978

30 Robert Johnson King of the Delta blues singers 1961

31 Elvis Costello and the Attractions Imperial bedroom 1982

32 Smokey Robinson and the Miracles Anthology 1973

33 Beatles The Beatles (= the white album) 1968

34 Dexy's midnight runners Searching for the young soul rebels 1980

35 Velvet underground White light/white heat 1968

36 David Bowie Young Americans 1975

37 Bobby Womack The poet 1981

38 Kraftwerk Trans Europe Express 1977

39 Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the edge of town 1978

40 Elvis Costello This year's model 1978

41 Brian Eno Another green world 1975

42 Captain Beefheart and the Magic band Trout mask replica 1969

43 Kraftwerk The man machine 1978

44 Parliament Mothership connection 1976

45 Al Green The cream of Al Green 1980

46 Marvin Gaye Let's get it on 1973

47 Sly and the family Stone There's a riot goin' on 1971

48 Ramones Rocket to Russia 1977

49 Sly and the family Stone Greatest hits 1970

50 Impressions Big 16 1965

51 Bob Dylan Blood on the tracks 1975

51 Bob Dylan Blood on the tracks 1975

52 Alan Vega & Martin Rev Suicide 1980

53 Buzzcocks Another music in a different kitchen 1978

54 Joy division Closer 1980

55 Madness Mad not mad 1985

56 Roxy music For your pleasure 1973

57 Siouxsie and the Banshees The scream 1978

58 #s The harder they come (soundtrack) 1972

59 Gang of four Entertainment! 1979

60 Velvet underground Velvet underground 1969

61 Isley brothers 3+3 1973

62 Joni Mitchell The hissing of summer lawns 1975

63 David Bowie Heroes 1977

64 Smiths Meat is murder 1985

65 David Bowie Station to station 1976

66 Captain Beefheart and the Magic band Clear spot 1972

67 Elvis Costello Get happy! 1980

68 Talking heads Fear of music 1979

69 Iggy Pop Lust for life 1977

70 Lou Reed Berlin 1973

71 Buddy Holly & the Crickets 20 golden greats 1978

72 Band Music from big pink 1968

73 Beatles A hard day's night 1964

74 Roxy music Roxy music 1972

75 Ramones Leave home 1977

76 John Coltrane A love supreme 1964

77 Chuck Berry Chuck Berry's golden decade 1973

78 Jackie Wilson The very best of Jackie Wilson 1995

79 Miles Davis In a silent way 1969

80 Roxy music Stranded 1973

81 Talking heads Talking heads '77 1977

82 Magazine The correct use of soap 1980

83 Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA 1984

84 Joni Mitchell Court and spark 1974

85 Doors Strange days 1967

86 Talking heads More songs about buildings and food 1978

87 Doors L.A. woman 1971

88 Howlin' Wolf Chess masters 1981

89 Elvis Costello Armed forces 1979

90 Prefab sprout Steve McQueen 1985

91 John Cale Paris 1919 1973

92 Abyssinians Forward on to Zion 1977

93 Elvis Costello My aim is true 1977

94 Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Rattlesnakes 1984

95 Beach boys Best of 1968

96 Augustus Pablo & King Tubby King Tubby meets Rockers uptown 1976

97 Beatles Rubber soul 1965

98 Suicide Suicide 1977

99 Undertones The Undertones

Bonus beat: David Stubbs from Monitor magazine writes in to the NME to take issue with the Top 100 and attendant discussion, which continued sputtering on into January '86: