Greatest Album of 1979 - Elimination Round 6

[Marky Dread]

The last four is shaping up to be exactly as I predicted five rounds ago. Now the hard bit starts.

Interesting that the Specials have only received 1 elimination vote so far. Maybe its a Specials board after all.

It's just a great album. Maybe a few covers as Marky says but they put their own stamp on them and introduced ska music to a new generation. Great drinking music too.

Yeah I'm not knocking it. I bought it the day it came out and love it. My point is here we are celebrating 1979 and the music that's winning is from 1967.

It doesn't sound like nostalgia or retro at all: it's totally up to date for '79.

It's brilliant mate but everything about it is retro. That's why it sounded authentic.

[Silent Majority]

Interesting that the Specials have only received 1 elimination vote so far. Maybe its a Specials board after all.

It's just a great album. Maybe a few covers as Marky says but they put their own stamp on them and introduced ska music to a new generation. Great drinking music too.

Yeah I'm not knocking it. I bought it the day it came out and love it. My point is here we are celebrating 1979 and the music that's winning is from 1967.

It doesn't sound like nostalgia or retro at all: it's totally up to date for '79.

It's brilliant mate but everything about it is retro. That's why it sounded authentic.

I disagree, mate. Played side by side with Desmond Dekker, the Upsetters and Prince Buster, you can totally see the way the difference mixing first wave ska with late seventies beat music made. I think it's got as much in common with the past as SLF does with the first Sun recordings. I feel the melding of the two distinct styles made something new under the sun, and something perfectly suited for its time.

[Marky Dread]

It's just a great album. Maybe a few covers as Marky says but they put their own stamp on them and introduced ska music to a new generation. Great drinking music too.

Yeah I'm not knocking it. I bought it the day it came out and love it. My point is here we are celebrating 1979 and the music that's winning is from 1967.

It doesn't sound like nostalgia or retro at all: it's totally up to date for '79.

It's brilliant mate but everything about it is retro. That's why it sounded authentic.

I disagree, mate. Played side by side with Desmond Dekker, the Upsetters and Prince Buster, you can totally see the way the difference mixing first wave ska with late seventies beat music made. I think it's got as much in common with the past as SLF does with the first Sun recordings.

I had the Dandy Livingstone single in 1973 so grew up with a lot of those Blue Beat and Ska singles. So I knew half of that album before I heard it. All The Specials did was to infuse those old records with punk energy. I think it has everything to do with the past.

A Message to You, Rudy - Dandy Livingstone
Do the Dog - Rufus Thomas
Too Hot - Prince Buster
Monkey Man - Toots & The Maytals
Stupid Marriage - Prince Buster
Too Much Too Young - owes a huge debt to Lloyd Charmers
You're Wondering Now - Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd

7 from 14 tracks that owe a previous generation a huge debt. With some of those just straight covers with added punk energy.

To say it has nothing in common with those artist that they took so much inspiration from doesn't sit right with me.

[Heston]

I think the Specials brought a LOT to the party..I'm somewhere in the middle here, but compare Monkey Man Man to the original and the cover and it's ramped things right up. A perfect fusion. And their original songs were great as well.

[Marky Dread]

I think the Specials brought a LOT to the party..I'm somewhere in the middle here, but compare Monkey Man Man to the original and the cover and it's ramped things right up. A perfect fusion. And their original songs were great as well.

Like I said previously I think it's a great album. Of course those songs are ramped up for the era. But you simply can't deny 50% of the work was already done for them.

My point here isn't that the cover versions detract from it being great in any way but that this is all about 1979 and the albums that will most likely be 1-2-3 The Clash/The Specials/The Jam all rely heavily on the past.

When 1979 was really the year of post punk and moving things forward. Only the song "London Calling" alludes to this with it's apocalyptic vision but then even that steals it's structure from a 60s song.

[Sparky]

Not looking good for Elvis, so I'm pretty bummed out. I had really hoped he'd make it to the semi final round. Again, if the Specials make it, he produced it, so there's that.

[Flex]

When 1979 was really the year of post punk and moving things forward. Only the song "London Calling" alludes to this with it's apocalyptic vision but then even that steals it's structure from a 60s song.

I mostly agree with this - one of the interesting results here is that we've very quickly discarded most of the music that makes 1979 so special which is how it looked forward to new sounds and new musical movements.

However, I think the Specials at least falls in this bucket - and it's certainly now my favored album to end up in the final round with LC. It synthesized the past to lay out beautifully the blueprint for a new wave of ska, one that was both sonically and socio-politically distinct from the previous generation of music and musicians. Yeah, it owes to the past, but it points forward in a way that I think is still unique and worthy of the year of this exercise. It's not the exercise in musical conservatism that some of these other albums were.

[Marky Dread]

Not looking good for Elvis, so I'm pretty bummed out. I had really hoped he'd make it to the semi final round. Again, if the Specials make it, he produced it, so there's that.

If it's any consolation for me it's a better album than Inflammable Material. Which in itself is great but has a couple of average tracks on it.

[Sparky]

Not looking good for Elvis, so I'm pretty bummed out. I had really hoped he'd make it to the semi final round. Again, if the Specials make it, he produced it, so there's that.

If it's any consolation for me it's a better album than Inflammable Material. Which in itself is great but has a couple of average tracks on it.

Thanks Marky, it helps, I absolutely love Inflammable Material.
But it does help me feel better that he made it a couple of rounds past KISS.

[FarawayTowns]

[/quote]

My point here isn't that the cover versions detract from it being great in any way but that this is all about 1979 and the albums that will most likely be 1-2-3 The Clash/The Specials/The Jam all rely heavily on the past.

[/quote]

These are 3 of my favourite albums. I was listening to them upon release in 79 and wasn't aware that they would be considered anyway retro sounding.
At the time I didn't realise that a lot of the 2 Tone tracks were covers or based on other songs. I wasn't even aware of Ska prior to 2 Tone. It was all very educational for me and left a life long impression.

[Heston]

I don't think Inflammable Material has any average songs, it just sounds so rough. I find it hard to listen to These days with ears that are spoiled by top end production.

[Marky Dread]

My point here isn't that the cover versions detract from it being great in any way but that this is all about 1979 and the albums that will most likely be 1-2-3 The Clash/The Specials/The Jam all rely heavily on the past.

[/quote]

These are 3 of my favourite albums. I was listening to them upon release in 79 and wasn't aware that they would be considered anyway retro sounding.
At the time I didn't realise that a lot of the 2 Tone tracks were covers or based on other songs. I wasn't even aware of Ska prior to 2 Tone. It was all very educational for me and left a life long impression.
[/quote]

As many others I dare say. But just because you hadn't realised that all three albums contain cover version(s) it doesn't mean the originals never existed.

My point being that punk was about forming new music and ideas and post punk expanding on those ideas and stretching things even further musically speaking. But the best albums from that year at least in this poll are the ones that take from the most from the past.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing they are indeed 3 great albums. But not so forward thinking.

[Marky Dread]

I don't think Inflammable Material has any average songs, it just sounds so rough. I find it hard to listen to These days with ears that are spoiled by top end production.

White Noise is shit. Much maligned and misunderstood but none the less crap.

[revbob]

I don't think Inflammable Material has any average songs, it just sounds so rough. I find it hard to listen to These days with ears that are spoiled by top end production.

Closed Groove is probably the only song I would skip.

[Silent Majority]

I'm not downplaying the artistry of the first wave of ska music: as much as I adore the genre as a whole, I think each successive decade has been worse for it since the stuff came out of Jamaica. I just think that, cover versions and all, the Specials' first titled created a cutting edge sound which resounded way beyond novelty and nostalgia.