The History Of Jop Part 2 aka Clap your hands everybody if you got what it takes

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The second instalment of this poll series takes us to the Pazz and Jop poll of 1980 - if you don't know what Pazz and Jop is, refer to the previous episode (or ignore it and do the poll anyway). You get to pick NINE of these.


[Poll #810979]


And now here's the results of the 1979 poll: the Joptimists Top Ten

1. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (44 votes)
2. Rapper's Delight (40)
3. We Are Family/Greatest Dancer (37)
4. Good Times (34)
5. Pop Musik (31)
6. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick/Reasons To Be Cheerful (30)
7. My Sharona (28)
8. Dreaming (26)
9. Hot Stuff (25)
10=. Gangsters (21)
10=. Life During Wartime (21)
10=. Damaged Goods/It's Her Factory (21)

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I would still question how much you can credit the DKs specifically. I mean, this is 1980 we're talking about.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Who else would you credit? I'm just struck by how much punk bands sound like the Dead Kennedies, still, and I'm not sure who actually sounded like that before. (The east coast/midwest punkers were too explicitly 50s/60s-inflected.)

[koganbot]

When were the Germs in relation to DKs? My feeling is that Germs, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains would've sounded the way they did with or without DKs, so DKs in themselves were not that crucially important. But then again, I picked Kurtis Blow for representing the most important musical movement, even though said movement wouldn't have been changed at all by his absence. So DK is a reasonable choice.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

(Plus, and again this is maybe me being American, but everyone I know owned Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables when they were a teen, which is not the case with Joy Division. Maybe I just have goofy friends.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Partially this may be a split between coasts, partially between, well, let's say "punk punk" and "crit punk." I've seen a lot of DK posters on walls, but people actually listened to Ramones, Clash, Pistols, etc.

[giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

Again this may be another histo-cult divide, but the Dead Kennedys were, relatively speaking, HUGE in the UK for a while - California Uber Alles, Holiday in Cambodia, Kill the Poor, Too Drunk to Fuck and Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables were all number one, semi-permanent fixtures on the NME alternative/indie charts for a v. v. long time. Whereas eg the Germs meant almost nothing over here.

EDIT: Doin a bit of googling I find that Fresh Fruit reached no 37 in the UK album charts, and that the Too Drunk to Fuck EP got to no 31 in the singles chart. The power of Cherry Red! (Black Flag eat yr heart out)