And Lo, I bring unto the world another list.

50 Favorite British Post-Punk Albums

I have no definition of Post-Punk beyond "I know it when I hear it." And I have chosen the years 1979-82 as the time period just because that seems to be the time period usually referred to as Post-Punk, though I stretched it to 84 for the Smiths & Cocteau Twins.

Don't know when exactly Post-Punk morphs into College Rock, but I think it's around the time Vaughan Oliver started doing more album covers than Peter Saville. (yes, I'm campaigning for my own entry in the next edition of the Rock Snobs Guide.)

So, without further ado:

1. Joy Division - Closer
2. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
3. Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
4. The Clash - Sandinista
5. Gang of Four - Entertainment
6. Ultravox - Systems of Romance
7. Kate Bush - The Dreaming
8. Wire - 154
9. U2 - Boy
10. Buzzcocks - A Different Kind of Tension
11. OMD - Architecture & Morality
12. XTC - Drums and Wires
13. The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
14. Siouxsie & the Banshees - Juju
15. Magazine - Real Life
16. Public Image Limited - Metal Box
17. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (III)
18. Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
19. Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless (original version)
20. Ultravox - Vienna
21. Marianne Faithfull - Broken English
22. The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
23. John Foxx - Metamatic
24. Killing Joke - What's THIS For
25. The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
26. The Smiths - The Smiths
27. David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
28. Siouxsie & the Banshees - A Kiss in the Dreamhouse
29. Echo & the Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here
30. OMD - Organisation
31. Robyn Hitchcock - Black Snake Diamond Role
32. Joe Jackson Band - Beat Crazy
33. The Raincoats - The Raincoats
34. Gary Numan - Dance
35. Cocteau Twins - Head Over Heels
36. King Crimson - Discipline
37. Teardrop Explodes - Wilder
38. New Order - Movement
39. Josef K - The Only Fun In Town
40. Simple Minds - Sons and Fascination
41. Bill Nelson - The Love that Whirls
42. XTC - Black Sea
43. Japan - Tin Drum
44. Cowboys International - The Original Sin
45. Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk
46. Fingerprintz - Beat Noir
47. John Foxx - The Garden
48. Empire - Empire
49. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
50. The Vapors - Magnets
50a. Shriekback - Care
50b. Gary Numan - Telekon
50c. Danielle Dax - Pop Eyes
50d. OMD - OMD
50e. Flying Lizards - Flying Lizards

And of course, honorable mention: Henry Badowski - Life Is A Grand

Only Ones - Even Serpents Shine 1979........... Doesn't have "Another Girl, Another Planet" but is stronger than the debut. It's in my top 20 of all time.

wreckless eric - wreckless eric
do you remember a band called medium medium who's hit was "so hungry, so angry"
i don't quite understand this list - post punk. would urban verbs be too quirky?
are the rich boys too rock n' roll.
i lost my feel for music so...
i like these lists. there is a structural quality that i have been missing from my life for maybe too many years.
la roca
traffic
cowboys international



Post Edited (01-19-06 23:57)

Okay, so, the one I don't have is John Foxx.
What do I need to know?
(turn me on dead man)

Cowboys International get 2 mentions here and didn't make the Synth Pop list?

"Cowboys International get 2 mentions here and didn't make the Synth Pop list?"

Any attempt to find consistency between any of these lists will be punished.

Actually, I can't believe I forgot Cowboys Int'l on the synth pop list.

John Foxx fyi for Paganizer:

METAMATIC is very robotic & synthetic - minimalist synthesizer music as Foxx plays up the whole dislocated in the modern world angle that worked out well for him on SYSTEMS OF ROMANCE. It has "Underpass" and "No one Driving" on it, two of his best singles. Also has "Touch and Go," which musically is identical to "Mr. X" from VIENNA.

THE GARDEN - much more lush than METAMATIC, lots of acoustic guitars mixing in with the synths. Robin Simon reappears, fresh from his brief stay in Magazine. Foxx goes Catholic on everyone's asses. "Europe After the Rain" makes you want to put on a turtleneck and a beret and read poetry in an outdoor cafe.

THE GOLDEN SECTION - Foxx discovers the Beatles and early Pink Floyd. "Endlessly" is great, but the earlier, very Beatle-ish single version was better than the syncopated album version.

IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS - Foxx discovers girls and attempts to go mainstream in order to make enough money to impress them.

Then he retired to become a graphic designer. Has come back recently as a new wave revivalist type - still very worthwhile, although the lyrics on his most recent album are dreadful.



Post Edited (01-21-06 10:27)

Got Metamatic. Got it, too. Science rock.

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to
be understood by everyone, something that no one
ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." - Kafka

Still don't get Deerhoof.

hey yoo missed all the good ones!

swell maps first two
colin newman's debut
this heat
elvis get happy
undertones s/t
where is the love for the jam???????
adverts (second?)


Hom Mention to the great aussie music of that time

Did mean to mention Sound Effects by the Jam and forgot.

Undertones - first album I still consider to be punk, but that can be argued. Thought about Positive Touch, but didn't list it.

For reasons I can't explain nor understand Get Happy falls outside whatever criteria I was using. I considered it, but ultimately nixed it, but don't ask why because I don't know. Then rejected the first Dexy's album because I rejected Get Happy.

Bands with great singles but no album good enough to put on the list:

Altered Images
Modern English

Bands I STILL need to hear more of or re-listen to to see if I would get them better now than I did 25 years ago:

Au Pairs
Passage
Delta 5
Pop Group
Throbbing Gristle
Early Fall
The Passions

snips
monochrome set
p.i.l.
pylon
richard hell
ian dury
x
human switchboar
plastic bertrand



Post Edited (01-20-06 14:28)

I always delineate the difference between post-punk and new wave in terms of abrasion and attitude, not necessarily dates. So I can understand why Get Happy! wouldn't be on there. I'd put This Years Model on, though. And that gets XTC's Drums and Wires and Black Sea on there, but not English Settlement, which is less abrasive, sound and attitude-wise. Otherwise, a bloody great list. I kept reading it and saying, "what about..." and then finding what I was looking for on down the list. I liked the fact that you'd allow bands that didn't work primarily in that genre in, such as the King Crimson stuff and David Bowie. BTW, The "Early Fall" album is about all you need from that period, although "Wonderful, Frightening..." and "This Nations Saving Grace" are great in and of themselves.

For early The Fall (dangerous internet territory in which to opine),
Need:
The first single Bingo Master's Breakout
Live at the Witch Trials (in examining post-punk Brittania, seminal)
Slates (a beautiful mess and just the right length);
Perverted by Language (the first great LP, very listenable today)
The Wonderful and Frightening World of… (one of their best 3 LPS period)
Hip Priest and Kamerads (the best summation of the early 80s LPs)

I'm thinking Bend Sinister/Doomsday Pay-Off and This Nation's Saving Grace are more 'post-new wave' than part of the post-punk movement.

Want to define post-punk? Shoot Never Mind the Bollocks and chase it with First Issue.



Post Edited (01-20-06 15:40)

I always delineate the difference between post-punk and new wave in terms of abrasion and attitude, not necessarily dates. So I can understand why Get Happy! wouldn't be on there. I'd put This Years Model on, though.

sez blasmo


well, maybe that's a start, but then how cum discipline, bill nelson, vapors, joe jackson, gabriel, and numan???


i took the list as celebration of what sounded diff from let's say 75ish and what was good

hence get happy, a truly great record, mmmm..., cd

NP
George Brigman
jungle rot re mastered
now THIS is abrasive!

>
> Hom Mention to the great aussie music of that time


most of that stuff wasn't british. hehe

and that's the only reason i'm not gonna try to squeeze certain general onto the list...


underlings - fatal purpose

great post punk from the bradster

Big country, tv21-the skids and fingerprintz represented Scotland well.

I'll cut it short by saying that Magazine was aformiddable opponet, however, P.I.L. takes the plate.

THE GREATEST POST PUNK BAND EVER

WAS P.I.L.


every homosapien knows this.

It's easier for me to know that YOU'RE homosapien too.

PIL had one great single (Public Image) and one great album (Metal Box). I could be persuaded that the latter represents the finest moment in postpunk (whatever that is). However, explain to me how anything else they did is worth merit? Listen to Live in Toyko lately (faceless disco backing)? Flowers of Romance (fake art rock)? Anything beyond 1985 (see thread about selling out)?

Quote

PIL had one great single and one great album. I could be persuaded that the latter represents the finest moment in postpunk. However, explain to me how anything else they did is worth merit?

Second Edition may have defined postpunk but First Issue presented it and is still required listening in the pantheon.

Why is The Flowers of Romance important? Second Edition was a bass LP. Flowers was a Drum LP. In totality, Drum and Bass. In 1981. And it featured lyrical content that was dark and angry for Rotten.

Live in Tokyo and Paris au Printemps tend towards shite-ness. They're for fans and collectors. Paris is the better of the two. Seems like Tokyo wasn't released with Lydon approval but it's been awhile since I read that book.

Lydon and Levene fought and Levene left during the recording of This Is What You Want ... This Is What You Get and Lydon mixed down without the guitar track, leaving shite, as well as dropping the Levene penned tracks and replacing them. Levene, however, took the original mix and self-released it as Commercial Zone and it's not only light-years better but one of the best releases under the moniker.

Album was one of the best college rock releases of 1986. It was new ground for Lydon and he sussed it with perfect results. It's the LP I'm reviewing as I type. It goes there, and it suceeds. It can be argued that he took it too far after this point but the concerts between 87-92 were fun. Don't overlook the fact that, from the beginning, Lydon mixed dance 12"ers for LP tracks.



Post Edited (01-21-06 18:06)

I've actually just been informed that Deerhoof are playing here in Sydney in a number of weeks. Would anyone recommend despite not getting them?

truly, madly, deeply


been listening all day to them

Indeed, and the live show is great too.

goin to see them at the Black Cat Sat night
hope the milk man comes out to dance like last time i saw them