Favorite P&J No. 3 Album (1971-2005)

Voted for Trust, long my favorite EC and long one of my favorite albums.

I voted for Cornershop, just to piss off the Rev.

I remember when New Adventures in Hi-Fi came out thinking, "This isn't going to be four No. 3s in a row, is it?" (it finished 11th.)

OH god, what a poll!

Every Picture Tells a Story is the one I listen to most often, I guess, although The Clash, Trust, Scarecrow, Rid of Me, Fear of a Black Planet are some of my favorites.

Marquee Moon's got it locked.

Top Ten
1. The Clash (US Version)
2. Every Picture Tells A Story
3. Marquee Moon
4. Good Old Boys
5. How Will The Wolf Survive?
6. Remain In Light
7. Out Of Time
8. Scarecrow
9. Call The Doctor
10. Midnite Vultures

Even though I'm not voting for it I'm kinda surprised to see how well Midnite Vultures did. It's my favorite Beck album and feels pretty underrated now.

pure pop for now people

Ooh, forgot about Fear Of A Black Planet! Shoulda put that in there near the bottom.

Never Heard Entirely, Curious:
Strong Persuader
Everything Is Wrong
Illinois (I think I turned it off after the third fanfare, hoping I can get my girlfriend or somebody else who's paid more attention to the guy to make me a best-of mix)

Never Heard Entirely, Only Will If A Copy Lands In My Lap And I'm Feeling Frisky:
Born To Run
The Pretender
Trust
Nebraska
Tracy Chapman
Live 66
Van Lear Rose

The worst of these that I've heard is EASILY Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. wtf.

lou reed's new york may not be worst, but that record dated almost immediately (liked it at the time, haven't had any desire to hear it in at least 15 years

It's good that SOMEBODY wrote a song about the "hymietown" controversy, the kids will never forget now that its on a Lou Reed album.

As a not-sober man at the moment, "Rain on the Scarecrow" sounds great.

"Daddy, who's Mr. Waldheim?"

i still remember eleanor bumpers & michael stewart, they must appreciate that!

TS: Lou's "There is No Time" vs PE's "Pollywanacraka."

The Clash.

Runners-up:

Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story (1971)
Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (1974)
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (1975)
Television, Marquee Moon (1977)
Nick Lowe, Pure Pop for Now People (1978)
John Cougar Mellencamp, Scarecrow (1985)

Slightly more marginal runners-up:

Talking Heads, Remain in Light (1980)
Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Trust (1981)
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska (1982)

Even more marginal:

Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976)
Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive? (1984)

After 1986: Fuck it. I dunno, I guess Sleater-Kinney and Cornershop and probably a couple others are good, but I'm kinda drunk right now and to be honest even those two I named seemed really really marginal.

When you're kinda drunk everything marginal sounds classic.

I'm not drunk (sadly, I find it hard to get drunk lately). But I'm sleepy. And I'm voting for SLEATER-KINNEY! They got robbed in the 1996 poll. But it's not their fault that the greatest album of the 1990s came out the same year. And it's my third fave album of the decade after Shanté (p.s. I was at a very intermittently boring conference all day hence the sleepiness and I entertained myself by rapping "Trick or Treat" in my head over and over cuz OF COURSE I know it by heart...thanx Shanny).

So yeah, S-K. "I Wanna Be Yr Joey Ramone" was the best music song since "Lost in Music." I think. That bored "It's what I thought, it's rock & roll." Rock & roll is this THING up there on stage that has only ever spoken halfway to these women. So they want to cross the floodlights and take it all the way in the form of a Joey Ramone/Thurston Moore-style rock & roll hero for other bored women out there. And on "Words + Guitar," they get to be. Epic stuff here, folks. Epic.

Hate to not vote for Every Picture, Marquee Moon, The Clash, or Born to Run but it's gotta be Remain in Light for me. That one has never been far from my record, cassette, CD, or MP3 player ever since I first bought in 1980. Same as it ever was.

PH43R is probably one of my five favorite albums ever made, or at least ten, so that.

Wow, what a crazy list! It was between Rod, the Clash and PE for me. Had to go with Every Picture Tells a Story, mainly because I really regretted not voting for it on the '71 poll (hey, what do ya want, Riot is undeniable); The Clash and Fear of a Black Planet got my '79 and '90 votes respectively, so...

Why you break heart by not including Fishscale(another serious contender for my vote), Matos? (j/k--please don't hurt me!)

even if you'd tear me to pieces each piece would hiss, spitting blood, "won't tell which one i voted for!"

Album on this list I am most curious about (didn't like him at the time; quite possibly didn't give him the chance he deserved):

The Robert Cray Band, Strong Persuader (1986)

but if i hadn't voted for what i actually voted for, i'd have chosen prolly from amongst these three: public enemy, randy newman, björk.

*strukk speechless by the hugeness of the benefit of the doubt awarded robert cray by xhuxk*

Strong Persuader is excellent, xhuxk; it's way better than the sorta similar A Woman Like Me, for instance. But you probably won't like it if you don't think much of Bettye Lavette's albums. Maybe.

xp

Yeah, me too.

Strong Persuader is pretty good; it's what I keep imagining what a strong Richard Thompson record sounds like.

Maybe, if Richard wasn't so damn British.

The Strong Persuader album itself is great, but the song that the title comes from, "Right Next Door," is one of the monster cheating songs of all time, especially because it comes from Jody's perspective. Any male country singer you can name would have a massive #1 hit with that baby, but I would kill to hear Wynonna's version.

Matt OTM about "Right Next Door"--it's just too bad that Bettye's version isn't quite as gripping.

great song with awful keyboards.

Boy, the first ten are all great, except maybe the Jackson Browne, which I'm not familiar with. I even like that Randy Newman LP. After that, hardly anything I care for, except Mellencamp and Sleater-Kinney (and Dylan live, which only partly counts).

I still recall the Robert Cray record as being pretty terrible, though.

(not counting dylan 66)

top ten
marquee moon
fear of a black planet
every picture tells a story
remain in light
call the doctor
automatic for the people
rid of me
scarecrow
born to run
good old boys

bottom ten
yoshimi
welcome interstate managers
new york
vespertine
tracy chapman
the pretender
out of time
speaking in tongues
pleased to meet me
the clash

marquee moon/vespertine. Tough choice.

Good Old Boys, closely followed by Fear of a Black Planet

in actual listening-time terms I should have probably went with Everything Is Wrong, which I was obsessed with in 1995. I could also have easily voted for Automatic for the People. I'm so ILM-uncool.

Remain In Light gets my vote. There are a few others I like a lot, but not nearly as much as this one.

actual listening-time terms everything is wrong would definitely make my top ten (nearly did anyway) as well as midnite vultures and probably trust.

matos did you stop in 05 cuz that's the last 'real' pnj?

If you know Matos, you know the answer to that question.

It's still unclear to me that Live 66 should count, but since it's here I'm going to vote for it. Even on the strength of the acoustic disk I'd vote for it, just over Every Picture Tells A Story, Everything Is Wrong, Nebraska, and one of the REM records (can't decide).

Remain in Light

randy newman

For me it's
The Clash UK version
Remain in Light
The Clash US version
Strong Persuader
Call the Doctor
everything else

But I still voted for the Clash.

lou reed's new york may not be worst, but that record dated almost immediately (liked it at the time, haven't had any desire to hear it in at least 15 years

Strangely enough, this applies to a lot of albums on the list (IMO). I'm actually shocked at the number of albums here that I enjoyed at the time but have barely thought about since (Flaming Lips, Mellencamp, Cornershop ...).

I think "Born To Run" edges "Rid of Me" (barely), "Automatic for the People", and "Everything Is Wrong". Even two or three years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd prefer Springsteen to PJH, but there's something about the rage and bluster of "Rid of Me" that hasn't been kind to the passing of time.

The Clash, predictably enough

least favorite: Vespertine.

Voted for Remain In Light but Clash, Trust, Vespertine and Rid Of Me were all contenders.

...oops, and Fear obv. On some days, I like that even more than RIL.

Born To Run

Tied for 2nd:

Trust & Every Picture Tells A Story

Many LPs I like; very few I (still) love. I choose Pure Pop, or Jesus of Cool more precisely - my copy has the tracks from both. But my own ideal version of The Clash, similarly combining the UK and US versions, would've beaten Nick.

I went with Pure Pop, or, more precisely, how Nick Lowe sounded coming out of my mom's 1968 Cutlass radio in 1980. Simple, but effective

So has anybody asked how come R.E.M. finish third so much? Three years out of four at one point!

They shoud write an autobiography called I Am Third! (But I think Gale Sayers beat them to it.)

Pavement finished in second place a couple of times back then, too, which kinda had me convinced that they were the new R.E.M. (as far as year-end crit lists were concerned) for awhile there.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

rightfully so:

The Robert Cray Band, Strong Persuader (1986) 0
R.E.M., Out of Time (1991) 0
The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) 0
Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976) 0
John Cougar Mellencamp, Scarecrow (1985) 0
Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive? (1984) 0
Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues (1983) 0
Lou Reed, New York (1989) 0

really surprised by the Nick Lowe showing (no slight on the album).

rightfully so:

The Robert Cray Band, Strong Persuader (1986) 0
R.E.M., Out of Time (1991) 0
The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) 0
Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976) 0
John Cougar Mellencamp, Scarecrow (1985) 0
Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive? (1984) 0
Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues (1983) 0
Lou Reed, New York (1989) 0

Half of which deserved to get a vote or two.

marquee moon>>>>remain in light