poptimists | The History Of Jop Part 8 aka It started with a little kiss, like this

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pazz jop

The History Of Jop Part 8 aka It started with a little kiss, like this

Away from the Hip-Hop Wars the Pazz and Jop poll moves smoothly onward to 1986 - some great singles here but very few names that had not previously appeared in P&J. You get NINE ticks from these 25 tracks.

[Poll #829550]

1985: The Joptimised Version

1. Into The Groove (45 votes)
2. How Soon Is Now? (40 votes)
3. Raspberry Beret (37 votes)
4. Running Up That Hill (35)
5. Walking On Sunshine (24)
6. The Boys Of Summer (23)
7. Money For Nothing (22)
8. And She Was (21)
9. Smooth Operator (19)
10. I Wonder If I Take You Home (18)

Surprising mass support for VER STRAITS there!

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I wonder how many of the voters here were people who put down whatever their dependable favourites were doing? Certainly this is a very familiar list, acts-wise (the Bangles are new tho! And good for them.)

Oh and the Beastie Boys of course!! (Had to remind myself that at the time the BB's weren't boring!)

i voted for james brown not having hear it (there were precisely eight SOLID GOLD songs and then a DESERT)

Weren't the Bangles on the 1983 one?

I love 1986!! This was the first year 'music' really came into my life. e.g. a few years prior to this I can remember watching Cheggers Plays Pop, but hating the bands and liking the games! So I pretty much liked everything, and I could honestly tick all of the tracks here which I had heard at the time. I can remember asking for either Madonna or Paul Simon or Five Star for Christmas, and got the Madonna album, which was probably the best bet (for me, at the time -- I liked the Paul Simon stuff but even I was aware of a certain amount of controversy surrounding it, and felt it was a bit too serious compared with my pop thrills [Is this right or am I projecting?]).

But the first record which I ever really really loved, which leapt out from all the rest and said 'hey -- something else is possible' was the Beastie Boys. I loved the single, got the tape of Licensed to Ill for my birthday in June, and played it to death. I still know all the words, and I still play it and enjoy it (unlike say The Pixies, who I still love, but whose CDs never come off the shelf). Possibly the only other band in this category for me are AC/DC, and although I liked the singles from Blow Up Your Video, it was their early albums which I got into at school which stuck with me. I've thought that everything the Beastie Boys have done since has been pretty rubbish to be honest, but nothing was ever going to compare to first love.

Actually I'm slightly surprised by the overlap between what I had heard on the commercial radio station in London I used to listen to, and what cooler-than-thou taste-master critics across the US were voting for. I think I must have known 13 of these; and I'm guessing probably also Janet Jackson, although I can't remember a note of it (I have a wierd blind-spot for her records, I honestly couldn't tell you a single thing about any of them!).

Away from the hip hop warzzzzzzzz, here's the MM top 10 (cross-overs in bold):

1. Kiss - Prince
2. Some Candy Talking EP - Jesus and Mary Chain
3. Word Up - Cameo
4. Human - The Human League
5. Rise - PIL
6. E=MC2 – Big Audio Dynamite
7. Tokyo Storm Warning - Elvis Costello
8. Panic - The Smiths
9. Papa Don't Preach - Madonna
10. Who Snatched the Baby - The Band of Holy Joy

is graceland this year? i do like a lot of that -- partly as an abreaction against the crass way the political wing of the nme attacked it -- yes yes simon (actually really) breached the cultural boycott -- but "he is an old-skool fart and therefore of no consequence" is not actually a position that ppl actively supporting say NELSON MANDELA can uncontradictorily take, i think

i guess it has always been a record i wanted to explore for the implicit politics of the music -- just to run against the way these were lost in the slightly cynical tactical jockeying (v.big name pop-star project exploited -- by being attacked -- in order to promote important political campaign)

haha THANK GOD FOR BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE eh

I'm not one of those assholes that says, "It's gotta be black music. Everything else is bullshit." Not yet. The fact is I need some sort of punk rock basic fuck you, distancing, self-destructive edge - without it the music I listen to isn't me - it's not my music. So what's with this list? [Had just listed my 15 favorite records of the previous seven years, starting late '79, and had ended up with only two rock as such (Metal Box and Hex Enduction Hour) in the midst of a bunch of hip-hop and dance tracks] Answer: Punk of the '80s doesn't do it. Nor does avant music. Nor does alternative music. Here's my explanation. "The common quality or defect that unites apparently divergent artists like Antonioni, Truffaut, Richardson is fear, a fear of the potential life, rudeness, and outrageousness of a film." Manny Farber wrote that in 1962 in an article called "White Elephant Vs. Termite Art" - in 1980 I put that quotation upon my wall, and I wrote this under it: "The common quality or defect that unites apparently divergent artists like Costello, Gang of Four, B-52s, and Joe King Carrasco is fear, a fear of the potential life, rudeness and outrageousness of music." A few years later I put under that: "1983: Grandmaster Flash, Prince, the Police." Today I might add Sonic Youth, the Minutemen (no respect!), REM, and countless others. Most hardcore. Not that these are bad groups. They are just held back. (Like Antonioni, who is still one of the greats.)
--Frank Kogan, Readers' Poll #2, October 1986.

They're in the NME singles list too!

In fact all of these make their Top 60, except - oddly - "Papa Don't Preach". (Madonna = the real casualty of the Warzzzzzz?)

I really despised the Beasties at this point.

I still think that first BAD album is amazing!!!!

Graceland won the album poll I think; Christgau's essay, which I read last night, seems to be mostly about this. Seems to have been era-defining in terms of the music-politics link.

oh and Band of Holy Joy obv

I will actually be quite annoyed if the PSBs win this, mostly because I fear the later polls in particular turning into a boring consensus where the Jop polls generally agree with the Now! polls.

Most so-called "heavy metal," "punk," "avant garde," and "alternative" music symbolizes outrageousness without doing it. "Outrageousness" merely fulfills a genre requirement instead of deriving from genuine, wild inner outrage. And then there's the problem of white boys and girls trying to keep a beat, which they're getting worse at. Even in the '70s, disco was a lot more vulgar and free than punk was. The tyranny of the commercial dance marketplace was less tyrannical than the tyranny of the punk ideas of "anarchy" and "freedom." The problem with rock today is really in the sound. What is missing is the voluptuousness of music, the basic throb of rock and roll. The stuff on my list does this rock 'n' roll throb better than "rock" does. When I listen for the rock-and-roll raving who-knows-what shit I listen to Spoonie Gee and Teena Marie. As for punk, your ugly face is going to bland. If you accept that punk of the '80s matters, you are betraying punk in its real essence. You are betraying the punk that really did matter.

i think MM's communal identity had not yet quite got off the ground yet actually -- the slowpoke writers not yet whirled up i nthe slipstream of the vanguard -- so the poll still reflects a broader crit community consensus?

band of holy joy def had an nme fanclub -- b.kopf. d.watson, d.fadele -- but i think watson was possibly awol at this time

P.S. A reason that "rockism" is a useless term: One cannot tell from my writing whether or not I am a "rockist."

(I would have worded things somewhat differently were I writing the rant today. I love the phrase "inner outrage," but the outrage doesn't have to be inner to be real.)

this too was my break out year for really being more aggressive about listening to music and then seeking it out. i remember listening to a top 40 tape compilation that had nearly all the above on!

i ticked 17 then had to untick.

You have just described Janet Jackson's music very well.

1984:

19. The Bangles: "Going Down to Liverpool" (Columbia) 22

haha well i would call this an EXEMPLARY anti-rockist statement but i have long despaired of getting across what i appear to mean by the term to you -- which means that it must be useless (bcz i cannot use it to you)

The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades (nice sub-Dire Straits groove)

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The History Of Jop Part 8 aka It started with a little kiss, like this

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OMG

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Anger is an inner G

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Your ugly face is going to bland

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FYI