NME Top 10 Albums 1985

[Count Machuki]

12. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes
over
13. The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground

GTFO

[clive gash]

As if the 1985 list isn't a bit Rolling Stone?

Yeah the Rolling Stone of today, definitely not the Rolling Stone of 85.

[Matt Wilson]

As if the 1985 list isn't a bit Rolling Stone?

Yeah the Rolling Stone of today, definitely not the Rolling Stone of 85.

Nope. All of those albums in the top ten have always been on greatest LPs of all-time lists. Rolling Stone, NME, Q, etc. There's not an offbeat choice to be found. In fact, in the entire NME top 100 for 1985 there's only a few idiosyncratic choices (the second Suicide record, for instance).

[sloopjohnc]

It's between What's Going On and Plastic Ono Band for me. Most days, I'd rather save the babies, so I'll go for that (deeply unfashionable) choice.

I went for What's Going On?

Perfect to my ears.

[clive gash]

My perennial number 2, an Easter Island statue.

[clive gash]

*Painful*

[Quaco]

12. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes
over
13. The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground

GFTO

Yeah Going for the One is every bit as good as those two!

[soundchaser]

12. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes
over
13. The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground

GFTO

Yeah Going for the One is every bit as good as those two!

[The Modernist]

Interesting to see how far The Beatles stock had fallen in 1985.
Barney Hoskyns seemed to had a lot of sway over some of the writers -hence the high placings for The Band, Tom Waits and Van Morrison.

My own top three from there:
1. Highway 61
2. Unknown Pleasures
3. The Clash.

All superb.

[sloopjohnc]

NME, baby!!!

If it's not NME or John Peel it's the class system.

You can bank on it.

[pcqgod]

'Swordfishtrombones' probably wouldn't even make the top 50 if this list were made today.

[clive gash]

Interesting to see how far The Beatles stock had fallen in 1985.
Barney Hoskyns seemed to had a lot of sway over some of the writers -hence the high placings for The Band, Tom Waits and Van Morrison.

My own top three from there:
1. Highway 61
2. Unknown Pleasures
3. The Clash.

All superb.

The Beatles had been out of favour for nearly 10 years at this time hadn't they? Your parents music. It took another 10 years (thanks to Mojo/Oasis/Anthology) for them to attain untouchable status I reckon.

[naughty boy]

Yes, but can't you still feel why?

I can. It's hard to put into words. It's just that there was a strong sense that we'd moved on, that what they did was fine but rooted in its time.

[Rayge]

My memory was that the fuckers never went away, but I've learned to set much store by my memory.

[The Modernist]

Yes, but can't you still feel why?

I can. It's hard to put into words. It's just that there was a strong sense that we'd moved on, that what they did was fine but rooted in its time.

I think it was exactly that, they were still too recent, strange as it seems. Plus I think the punk attitude towards the 60s - self indulgent, hippie silliness blah blah - still held sway in 85. Even someone like Hendrix was viewed with suspicion.

Also thought it was strange there was no Bowie in there. I guess he was suffering the Tonight backlash.

The 60s stuff they do choose is stuff like The Band and Van Morrison, the "brown" stuff. But this was the year you started to get all those rootsy US bands ( I remember the UK music press went mad for the now forgotten Jason & The Scorchers) like Green On Red and The Long Ryders and so those choices chime with all that.

[The Modernist]

Mind you Lennon is in there. I guess that album again fits with punk values -brutal honesty, naked emotionalism, stripped down arrangements. It's a good album (though not one I've ever played much) but it's crazy to think it's better than every Beatles album.

[Matt Wilson]

Christ, you guys are more in thrall to the NM fuckin' E than any American ever was to Rolling Stone.

[George P. Smackers]

Weird list, and it came out when I used to pay attention the NME. I would have thought VU, in 1985 NME brains, would be placed above the Band for god's sake. Contrarianism I suppose, since VU was "obvious" back then.

The aggressive disenchantment with the Beatles is very much of that time (and has stayed with me!).

Besides the Tom Waits and Band records, each of the top ten has meant a lot to me at different times (the Bob Dylan ones when I was quite young though). I vote Marvin Gaye.

[clive gash]

The VU were certainly on the NME's radar but with three records in the top 100 the votes were split (and Psychocandy ffs!).

The release of VU earlier in 85, and the JAMC name dropping, had made em hip again. The VU South Bank Show was just around the corner too, and Another View.

It was only in the next couple of years, with the minimising of NME's Jazz, Reggae and Soul coverage and the influx of indie fanzine-ers, that the VU became, er, Beatlesize in NMEland.

[Bent Fabric]

I, too, came here to save the babies.