1. Amazeballs, as they say in the OED.
2. The rest of the world--Iraq and Libya, for example--may be better off with a US presidential candidate who lacks a foreign policy team.
3. Remain in Light? Murmur? Bleach?
I guess Bleach may not exactly qualify as a pop album.
And Curry did that after having his ankle bent in half by Russell Westbrook!
As far as pop albums go, if you're not listening to Carly Rae Jepsen I can't help you.
1) A while back, I said GS & Curry wasn't different., just better.
I looked at the GS stats after that, and was amazed at the number and distribution of blocks.
There are always gunners. Curry (and Kerr) are leading his teammates into Hall of Fame level performances.
2) Pass
3) Too many. Beth Orton. Tender Prey. Colour of Spring. American Idiot. The Chronic.
Punch the Clock. Systematically underrated.
Best pop albums since 1980: concur on Thriller and Appetite. Other picks would be:
Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
Jay-Z - The Black Album (and The Beatles vs. Jay-Z - The Grey Album)
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Prince - Purple Rain
Hillary is not "barely to the left of Lieberman". Lieberman is -0. 22, Clinton is -0. 39 (right next to Obama) and Sanders is -0. 52. Clinton is a lot closer to Sanders than to Lieberman. DW NOMINATE is useful that way.
Owen Pallet's album In Conflict is awfully, awfully good.
How does one even distinguish "the best" pop album? Obviously, it should have all great songs and no bad songs, but even if we assume that we can basically identify "great" songs in some consistent way, there are a lot of albums with all great songs.
Do we say that all the songs should be about serious topics? That there should be at least some songs about politics or society?
I mean, I can think of a lot of really good pop albums since 1980. (I assume "pop" is being used pretty generically if It Takes A Nation of Millions...is on there, since PE sure are no Taylor Swift. That's probably the best album title since 1980 regardless of genre, though.)
Okay, here is an old album that should absolutely be on the list: Orange Juice's You Can't Hide Your Love Forever. I think it's my favorite album right now.
Janet Jackson's Control and Rhythm Nation should probably be on there; they are awfully good. Santigold's Disparate Youth Album. Cui Jian's Rock And Roll On The New Long March. I am not super familiar with MIA but lots of my young friends would probably say she'd be on there. PJ Harvey - for me, I only really like Let England Shake, but probably Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Disco Inferno DI Go Pop.
5 is correct. I think I can still sing every song.
It always sucks to be the defender in a highlight of the year. How many times will everyone see whoever that is on OKC still backing up (barely even facing him) when he decides to take the shot because hey, he's not gonna shoot from 15 feet behind the arc.
Lord C is also correct about Purple Rain. I misread the question as referring to the best from the 80s, and not since the 80s, so I'd substitute Nevermind for Bleach. Current pop seems to suck worse than that of any other time I can remember, but, you know, kids, my lawn.
(For my purposes I'm taking "pop" to mean at least "popular" in that the albums in question hit, like, Billboard's Top 100 at some point. My other metric is "would the people making the album, at the time they made that album, have been able to hang on a stage with Michael Jackson in his prime," which narrows the field considerably. Janet Jackson' "Janet" probably belongs on the list too, though.)
Back in Black. The Joshua Tree. Tracy Chapman's self-titled album.
(And now I've discovered that my own charting criterion actually eliminates The ArchAndroid from my above list. Sadface.)
That shot stands out because it was at the end of a game and he doesn't have much time for shot selection, but what's freakish about Curry is the frequency in which he seems to say, "Fuck it, I'm shooting it from here," and it goes in.
Lord C is also correct about Purple Rain.
Hmm, I was going to vote for Sign O The Times.
From ogged's list it does seem like he's looking for albums that are both good and landmark albums (I mean, I don't know much about rap, but I'd much rather listen to Black On Both Sides than It Takes A Nation Of Millions, but the latter clearly has more historical significance.
7: I'm always skeptical of those kinds of rankings given how they're based on stuff which doesn't stand free of the actual situations involved - that's why it seems like any legislator who becomes the Democratic party nominee almost always ends up getting called 'one of the most liberal members', because they've been campaigning for a year and haven't showed up for the bipartisan or boring bills where their vote is less essential.
But even without that data Clinton isn't really that close to Lieberman on anything other than a few pet issues*. Whether or not it's true (I'm skeptical personally) Hillary Clinton was always said to be to the left of Bill Clinton, and picking Lieberman as a VP candidate in 2000 was seen (reasonably) as Gore trying to run away from the Clinton administration by picking someone on his right. Whatever her views were at the time and even assuming that a lot of Clinton's new found leftism is opportunist stuff she fully intends to drop the second she hits a place where she doesn't benefit electorally from it (or doesn't think she will anyway), she's still to the left of where she was in 2000 on a lot of issues.*
*Mainly: War! Warwarwarwarwar!, with a bit of Israel! thrown in there as well.
Watching Steph Curry sink that shot from halfway between half court and the three point line reminds me of when I used to put cheat codes into video games and do stuff like that.
5: all i can think on listening to that is that Robert Wyatt's version is better in every respect.
WRT Curry, I've enjoyed Kerr mocking the hell out of Oscar Robertson for pretending like the teams fifty years ago could hold a candle to this year's Warriors.
Orange Juice is the best thing mentioned so far
You should set a constraint: has to have been in the top 100 albums of the decade for the 80s, 90s or 00s. This excludes Nations of Millions and Stop Making Sense (and, surprisingly, most hip hop, including the Chronic and 36 Chambers and a bunch of other stuff). With that constraint, I'd say Master of Puppets, Purple Rain and Nevermind. If you don't view Metallica as plausibly pop,then Purple Rain, Nevermind and Miseducation of Lauren Hill, maybe. It's stunning how bad the 90s list is and how much worse the 00's one is -- on the latter, Amy Winehouse and American Idiot are the only albums that are even good.
Re: pop albums, I'd say anything by St. Vincent is great.
24: There's actually a surprising number of solid entries on the Nineties list, though more than half of it is awful. The Oughties list is pretty terrible, though - a pity because the Oughties actually produced plenty of incredible music, much of the best of which never did crack the Billboard Top 100.
24: That criterion gets weird because of the 00's sales collapse, though--note for instance that Tha Carter III (which would make my list) was the best selling album of 2008, but is #103 for the decade.
I don't listen to Stankonia every day or anything but would hardly exclude it from "any good."
I watched the 4th quarter and overtime of that game. I can't remember a more exciting regular season game.
That was his 12th 3-pointer of the night, which tied the NBA record. That was his 2nd consecutive game with 10 or more 3-pointers. Fewer than 30 games in NBA history have someone hitting 10 or more 3-pointers.
His 11th 3-pointer broke the single season record, which he set last year, which in turn broke the record he set 3 years ago. This season he's going to become the first person to hit 300 3-pointers in a season. But what's really impressive is that he's currently on pace to finish comfortably over 400. I don't even know what to say about that.
I also liked Draymond Green's line: 0/8 shooting for 2 points, but 14 boards, 14 assists, 6 steels, and 4 blocks.
I never ever ever watch basketball but still that clip is amazeballs. I mean, if people could generally do that, the game couldn't exist.
Looking at the best-seller lists, I'm surprised to see Tracy Chapman that high (#36 in the 80s). That was a good album.
I see that P!nk makes the list. I am a fan in a slightly guilty-pleasure sort of way.
But, yes, trying to pick 5 great album from the best-sellers is painful.
I also liked Draymond Green's line: 0/8 shooting for 2 points, but 14 boards, 14 assists, 6 steels, and 4 blocks.
And one "profanity-laced tirade" at half time!
You should set a constraint: has to have been in the top 100 albums of the decade for the 80s, 90s or 00s.
Bah. It just has to be something most people who grew up in the relevant period have heard of.
Grrr. The damned Oriole's have banned post-game pie-in-the-face celebrations. This sucks.
35 -- ok easy. Piece of Mind, Unleashed in the East, Reign in Blood, Vulgar Display of Power, Leviathan, Master of Puppets, Among the Living. Those all went platinum I think.
You've never heard of Reign in Blood or Master of Puppets?!
Only Master of Puppets really passes the test in 35, which also excludes terrific pop albums like If You're Feeling Sinister and Give Up. Is Kid A a pop album?
I'd say Reign in Blood is only well-known if you know anything about metal, but Master of Puppets is pretty egregious.
Ah, I've heard some songs from the Metallica album, I just didn't know what the album was called. I could have told you that Slayer was a band and...that's it.
That's why I'm such a good stand-in for the man on the street. Vote Trump.
That shot was over 38 feet. This season, Curry is now 11 for 22 (50%!) on shots of more than 30 feet. That doesn't even make sense.
I don't know any Slayer songs either. But that game was the first time I ever saw Curry. Probably the first NBA game I've watched more than 1 minute of since Jordan retired. I just happened to catch the last four minutes of regular time and got hooked until the end of OT. People made fun of me for calling him "Stephen" and pronouncing it "Steven."
I forgot about 69 Love Songs which surely, on a total poundage basis, is the most significant work of indie pop songcraft of the past 20-or-so years, and also doesn't pass the test in 35.
I've always wondered why more end of game shots aren't like that when a team is down by three. You always see people try to get as close as possible to the line before time runs out, which often means awkward, contorted shots up against a defender. A few more feet and they'd have a non-rushed open shot.
(Of course, in this situation, the Warriors weren't down three and I wouldn't expect anyone to make shots like that at the rate Curry does.)
Remain in Light, Girls Can Tell, Midnight Marauders, Reckoning, Time The Revelator
Kid A is pop. Radiohead are pop, if only because it makes their fans mad.
People made fun of me for calling him "Stephen" and pronouncing it "Steven."
His name is "Stephen". It's not your fault he pronounces his own name wrong.
It will be my fault if my son pronounces "Parmesan" as "Par-mes-i-an", but I'm trying to watch that.
All will be forgiven if only Mad Max: Fury Road wins best picture and best director.
Best doc really should have gone to The Look of Silence.
69 Love Songs sure doesn't pass the "no bad songs" hurdle articulated upthread. Get Lost might.
Of course, the most perfect pop album ever is Another Green World.
You're going to have a few duds on a triple-CD collections. Still, the quantity of great songs is absurdly high and most of the bad songs are obvious throwaways (e.g., "Love is Like Jazz").
Another Green World... released in 1975.
59 Eno so ten years ahead of its time
Very disappointed that Mustang didn't win best foreign film. See it if you haven't.
59: I said "ever", not for the purposes of this exercise.
I was going to say that any list would be wrong if it didn't include Get the Knack, but then I went and looked and it was released in June 1979, so.
And London Calling was December '79. Hmph.
I want to make a curmudgeonly or maybe normative argument that records sold is not the definition of "pop", but it's really late.
I'm willing to accept that, in the OP, ogged only meant pop to indicate well-known, but I still tend to think that allows too much space for idiosyncratic works that hit a nerve. Again, too late for me to mount a coherent argument, but look at some of the examples above: non-mainstream albums that hit, rather than "pop" in any predictive sense.
Put it this way: band X produces (catchy, competent) mainstream music that sells but never approaches mass success; band Z produces weird, eclectic music, one album of which has a catchy tune and captures some bit of zeitgeist, and sells a bunch. It seems weird to me to say that Z is a more or better pop product than X. Especially in the modern era where hardly anybody shifts vast numbers of records.
Attempting to define "pop" is a mug's game.
My idiosyncratic definition of pop is a specific sound (which is a too limited definition obviously but that's why it's idiosyncratic). Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, Marshall Crenshaw's Someday, Someway, and Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy would all be on my list.
also: Pretenders first, Cars first
Yes to the Pretenders, no to the Cars.
In a sane world, Violent Femmes' first.
Yes.
I'd also add Dolittle but that's also from the 80's. I feel like we should be able to come up with some more post 1990 albums.
I'm disturbed to realize that the album from the 90s which would be most likely to make my list of desert island disks is Nirvana Unplugged -- it's a great album, but it feels weird because I've never been a fan of Nirvana's main albums.
One of Tori Amos's first two albums?
Also, for Castock, I'd be curious why you like Archandroid more than Electric Lady, I've find myself listening to the latter much more.
some more post 1990 albums
Rid of Me, 36 Chambers, Elliott Smith, Tallahassee, One Beat, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, None Shall Pass, In Rainbows, Run the Jewels 2.
Mass Romantic, Graduation, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, For Emma, Forever Ago...
Also, is the soi-disant rockist vs poptimism debate in play here? If not, Daydream Nation seems like an obvious choice. Also Slanted & Enchanted, Loveless, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Bee Thousand, Dear Science, Separation Sunday. & Life After Death has to count hip-hop-wise, while from Late Registration on Kanye seems the only artist who imagines (& delivers) albums that matter in the way we who grew up pre-1990 expect.
The Go-Be/tweens Lib/erty Be/lle and the Bla/ck Dia/mond Exp/ress
The Tri/ffids Bo/rn San/dy Dev/otional
Gal/axie 500 On Fi/re
Ni/ck Ca/ve He/nry's Dre/am
The Wh/ite Str/ipes Wh/ite Bl/ood Ce/lls
The Str/okes Is Th/is It?
My Bl/oody Val/entine Is/n't Any/thing
The Fie/ry Fur/naces Gallows/bird's Ba/rk
Not exactly pop, but not exactly not. (It's a slightly idiosyncratic list that my friends know well, hence the slashes.)
70: I like Boys For Pele best out of the Tori albums. I think it might be like Bond movies, where the first one you hear (see) is the paradigm you then measure all the later ones against.
Surely Rum Sodomy and the Lash belongs on this list somewhere.
Either the US list of best selling albums is much worse than the UK one, or you guys are being ridiculously picky. I can think of dozens of fantastic albums that would meet RT's criterion, let alone Ogged's.
To name a few:
His 'n Hers
Different Class
Franz Ferdinand
Dog Man Star
You Could Have It So Much Better
XX
Black Cherry
Straight Outta Compton
Youth and Young Manhood
Experience
The White Room
Smile
I Should Coco
Boy In Da Corner
Someone To Drive You Home
Time Out Of Mind
Love and Theft
Why are we googleproofing Nick Cave?
Where to begin?
First thought was where the fuck are Double Nickels on the Dime and Zen Arcade?. Yes to Violent Femmes
Fear: The Record
Black Flag Damaged
X Los Angeles, Wild Gift, Under the Big Black Sun (what a fucking run!)
Agent Orange Living in Darkness
The Red Crayola Kangaroo?
Siouxsie and the Banshees Kaleidoscope, Juju
Joy Division Closer
New Order Power, Corruption & Lies
Elvis Costello Imperial Bedroom
Meat Puppets Meat Puppets II, Up on the Sun
I'm barely into the mid-80s here too. Fuck me I'm old.
78 not according to Tigre's criterion obviously, though I tried. Otherwise I would have left the Raincoats Odyshape and the Butthole Surfers Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac and Big Black Atomizer on the list to say nothing of Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel or Swans.
It is impossible to overstate how much I do not care who won any of the academy awards.
I don't understand any of the parameters of this album game. It's unclear to me what we mean by "pop", although that's at least been discussed somewhat upthread. It's also unclear to me what we mean by "best". Are we just listing our personal favorite albums released since 1980?
81 I don't either and was going to keep out of it until someone broke out with the Violent Femmes.
80: Word. But I'm even more baffled at people who are fascinated by what people wear to the Oscars and so spend two hours watching people arrive.
86, 80: I don't get it, but I understand why people who follow fashion/celebrities would watch the red carpet bit. I don't get why people who follow films (other than professionally) would watch the actual ceremony.
Red carpet watching makes a lot more sense to me than caring about the Oscars.
Caring about not caring is the worst caring of all.
84: I, for one, am excluding albums I personally love which are not either pop-the-genre or so popular it hardly matters. I definitely don't think Slayer is "pop" by any definition. I don't think Metallica or Nirvana are, either, but they are significant-enough pop culture phenomena that, eh. You could certainly quibble with Neutral Milk Hotel, both on generic grounds and for reasons of obscurity, but I don't list them just because I love them: (a) the album is a masterpiece and (b) it has beautiful soaring melodies that wedge themselves in your brain (so, pop).
... but, per 67, I also not interested in rat-holing on what is or is not "pop."
I like number 11's reaction to Curry's shot. Look at him spread his arms on the sideline. 'Yes, of course he shot from just past the half court. Yes, of course it went it. Yes, of course it was at the buzzer to win the game. Of course.'
He's not even surprised.
I like number 11's reaction to Curry's shot.
They have names, and it's not difficult to look them up.
He's not even surprised.
Appropriately so, given the shots that Curry had been making in the forth quarter. But, beyond that, after this play in pre-season I imagine his teammates are ready to believe anything from him.
It does seem like it would be a lot of fun to play on the Warriors this season.
The 11 referenced in 92 was on the opposing team.
And that's why names would be helpful . . .
93.1 is weird. Sure they have names but they also have numbers, and it's not like identifying unfamiliar (or even familiar) players by their number is in any way unusual. Or disrespectful. Or whatever-it-is that you seem to think was wrong with it. What benefit would looking up the player's name have added to comment 92? If Megan had identified the player by name instead of number, I'd have had to look up the number in order to figure out who in the clip she was talking about.
As an engineer, I should properly have listed name and number both. We love redundancy.
and it's not like identifying unfamiliar (or even familiar) players by their number is in any way unusual. Or disrespectful. Or whatever-it-is that you seem to think was wrong with it.
It just felt weird to me. Sure, when watching a game, I will say (or think) things like, "who is #28, that was a great play?" But given the opportunity to look up the name I will (and, I agree, in this case it would make the most sense to say, "I love the reaction from Enes Kanter (#11)").
In defeat, a member of Project Thunder has a name. His name is Enes Kanter.
I think Holiday is better than 69 Love Songs, and is much more consistent in quality.
Also, surely at least one of the Pet Shop Boys' first few albums belongs on this theoretically best pop list.
As to saying that X and Red Krayola and so on belong on a best of pop music list - I could maybe be persuaded that Wild Gift or Under The Big Black Sun does, because those are pretty poppy for that type of thing. (Although honestly I've gone off X because Exene seems to make some unapologetically racist comment every few years.) But Red Krayola? Look, "pop" has some relationship to "popular", and what part of anything by Red Krayola has ever been popular except in the sense of "popular among a narrow spectrum of record nerds"? Indeed, "Don't Talk To Sociologists" is one of two songs I have ever been asked to turn off. (The other was Dalida's "Achète-moi un juke-box", which I love but one has to have a lot of tolerance for French novelty pop. Dalida is pop, though.) I don't even like Red Krayola, and I like them, so to speak.
The others on that list have some pretension to actual popularity.
OK, so I get carried away. Anyway what's not to love about an album that has songs with titles like "Portrait of V. I. Lenin in the Style of Jackson Pollock, Part II", "(Transactional Analysis With Gestalt Experiments)", "The Principles of Party Organisation", "The Mistake of Trotsky," and "Plekhanov"?
Also Soldier Talk is a fucking great guitar album.
Look, "pop" has some relationship to "popular"...
The reason I think Violent Femmes came to me is that it was an album that despite the fact it would never be on an all-decade best seller list in our fallen world), for those with open ears it almost immediately became indelibly and blissfully carved into the depths of the brain. I have no idea how one could be immune to it (at least at a young age). I've had that experience with a handful of records (some mentioned above), but the experience felt personal and idiosyncratic, whereas that VF album just seemed preternaturally broadly compelling.
Apologies for tortured grammar and extraneous end parenthesis.
81 was my sense, too.
Also, pop music is a singles genre, no? I mean, the greatest pop music in the history of the world* produced an uncountable number of great songs, and great records, but not really that many great albums.
I mean, you could pick a dozen songs by Smokey Robinson alone that would feature in the canon of great popular music, but how many great Smokey (and the Miracles) albums are there? There are exceptions, obviously, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, and many others released great entire albums but the basic idea that pop music is a singles art form still stands.
* broadly speaking, African American music, 1935 - 2005**
** I'm only half kidding.
But seriously, that first Violent Femmes album versus Red Krayola illustrates the limits of pop/popular pretty nicely. The Violent Femmes album was in print in 1990, seven years after release, and was available at large suburban record shops. It was of interest to the sort of teenagers who listened to the Pixies and various popular "alternative" acts. Kangaroo? Was not, and was not. I'm not trying to run down Red Krayola - "Microchips and Fish" is one of my favorite songs and a chronic mix tape choice. Oh gosh, and "Pig Ankle Strut"...and "Wives In Orbit", that might be my favorite one.
What an awful couple of weeks for the OKC Thunder. First the wife of one of the assistant coaches who was very well liked by the team was killed in a car accident. Shortly after that one of the owners of the team (likely) committed suicide, and now the younger brother of one of the players was shot and killed Tuesday in Philly. Horrible.