Welcome to the final round of this yearly forum poll. After 10 months of lots and lots of lists, we have finally arrived at the grand finale. From every year the top 10 albums and songs have progresses to the final and we will now decide which album and song are the very best of the 1980s. The idea is to rank these songs and albums according to your preference. You can list any number of albums or songs, and comments are optional but of course very welcome.

There are 3 methods you can rank them, and I'll list these methods one by one, including some instructions.

Excel:
You can download the Excel file here, after which you can simply fill in your numbers in the "Your Ranking" column and possibly some comments in the "Comments" column. Please keep the ID and the titles as they are, it will make things a LOT easier for me.

Google Spreadsheet
For those of you who don't have Excel, you can find the Google spreadsheet here. You can download the list from there and send it to me in whatever format you want. Once again, please keep the IDs and the titles intact.

Notepad:
Finally, a Notepad version, to be found here is also an option. A little more complicated I suppose, but if you paste that into a text editor and press tab after the album or song title and add your ranking things will be fine. Press tab another time after that if you want to add a comment. Please keep the ID and titles intact. Note: I don't think this method is particularly handy, but for someone without Excel and a personal vendetta against Google it might be a solution.

The final step involved will be the same for all three methods, you'll have to mail the Excel file, text file, etcetera, to my email address: . Please do not post the lists on the forum. I will send everyone a confirmation once I receive the lists, so if you don't get that either contact me in this topic or send me another email.

--

The formula and method devised by Henrik has not changed, but I will quote his post a year back to remind everyone what it was:

"Score=100*(1+20)/(Position+20)
For someone listing all 100 albums or songs, this will give the scores
Place 1 100.00
Place 2 95.45
Place 3 91.30
Place 4 87.50
Place 5 84.00
Place 6 80.77
Place 7 77.78
Place 8 75.00
Place 9 72.41
Place 10 70.00
.
.
.
Place 91 18.92
Place 92 18.75
Place 93 18.58
Place 94 18.42
Place 95 18.26
Place 96 18.10
Place 97 17.95
Place 98 17.80
Place 99 17.65
Place 100 17.50

For lists not including all 100 albums (or songs), the albums that weren't listed will get the score for the average position in the list. For example, if someone includes 59 albums, the remaining 41 albums will get the same score as the album on the 30th place.

As you can see above, the score difference is much bigger between album 1 and album 2 than between albums further down the list. While your favorite album will get a big push, the order of the albums at the bottom of your list has less significant impact. Non-ranked albums will get a better score than the lowest ranked albums, but the score will be far away from the score for your favorite album. To me, this seems like a fair treatment to the somewhat lesser-known albums."

That's about it for the practicalities, have fun ranking. I do not have the time to post Songza links to all the songs on all the albums, but I will post them for the final 100 songs. They'll be up somewhere in the next few days.

Here's a list of all the 100 songs that made it through to the final that you can click to listen to the song on Songza.com. The first hit with the exact name is usually the correct one, but you might have to try a few to get to the right song. A few songs such as those by Prince are most likely not going to be available, but there's nothing I can do about that.
Note: You need the WHITE titles, the yellow ones are sponsored or something, and only last 30 seconds.

AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long
Anderson, Laurie - O Superman
Bowie, David - Ashes To Ashes
Bragg, Billy - A New England
Cave, Nick & The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat
Chapman, Tracy - Fast Car
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
Church, The - Under The Milky Way
Clash, The - Rock The Casbah
Costello, Elvis - I Want You
Cure, The - A Forest
Cure, The - Inbetween Days
Cure, The - Just Like Heaven
Cure, The - Lullaby
De La Soul - Me Myself And I
Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
Dylan, Bob - Blind Willie McTell
Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Gabriel, Peter - Sledgehammer
Gaye, Marvin - Sexual Healing
Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five - The Message
Guns 'N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Human League, The - Don't You Want Me
Jackson, Michael - Billie Jean
Jam, The - That's Entertainment
Jam, The - Going Underground
Jesus And Mary Chain, The - Just Like Honey
Jesus And Mary Chain, The - Some Candy Talking
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Joy Division - Atmosphere
Madonna - Into The Groove
Marley, Bob & The Wailers - Redemption Song
Metallica - Master Of Puppets
Metallica - One
Mission Of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver
New Order - Ceremony
New Order - Temptation
New Order - Blue Monday
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
Pixies - Gigantic
Pixies - Debaser
Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
Police, The - Every Breath You Take
Prince - 1999
Prince - Little Red Corvette
Prince - When Doves Cry
Prince - Purple Rain
Prince - Let's Go Crazy
Prince - Raspberry Beret
Prince - Kiss
Prince - Sign 'O' The Times
Public Enemy - Bring The Noise
Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype
Public Enemy - Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
Public Enemy - Fight The Power
Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe
R.E.M. - So. Central Rain
R.E.M. - Fall On Me
R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
R.E.M. - The One I Love
R.E.M. - World Leader Pretend
Replacements, The - Unsatisfied
Replacements, The - I Will Dare
Replacements, The - Alex Chilton
Rolling Stones, The - Start Me Up
Roxy Music - More Than This
Run-D.M.C. - Walk This Way
Smiths, The - This Charming Man
Smiths, The - How Soon Is Now?
Smiths, The - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Smiths, The - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Smiths, The - Bigmouth Strikes Again
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
Specials, The - Ghost Town
Springsteen, Bruce - The River
Springsteen, Bruce - Atlantic City
Springsteen, Bruce - Born In The U.S.A.
Squeeze - Tempted
Stone Roses, The - I Am The Resurrection
Stone Roses, The - Fools Gold
Sugarcubes - Birthday
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime
Talking Heads - Burning Down The House
Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World
This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren
U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)
U2 - With Or Without You
U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun
Waits, Tom - Downtown Train
Waits, Tom - Time
Wyatt, Robert - Shipbuilding
XTC - Dear God
Young, Neil - Rockin' In The Free World

Forgot to mention something quite important, the deadline for the lists is December 31st at midnight (your own timezone). The results will be posted a few days into January (if possible).

Stephan, thanks for all the infos and input material. Especially those songza links are quite helpful.

Question.

If I've never heard an album all the way through, but I've heard several of it's songs over and over again on the radio and MTV my entire life, can I vote for it?

There are so many albums on this list I've never heard in full and some I haven't heard at all. Hopefully, I can get to most of them.

Even though I tried a massive injection of 80s albums, I only managed to get to listen to 40 out of the 100 final list.

There's no way I can listen to 2 albums per day for the rest of the month, but I'll try as much as I can.

Now's the time to lobby for your favorites, because anything I listen to this month will go on my ranking (unless it is absolutely horrible).

And if Metallica doesn't want to offer their songs on Rhapsody or donate their CDs to our local library, they'll just have to pay the consequences.

BillAdama: You could try to find the other songs on Songza, but if you think you can form a decent opinion of an album from a few of its songs.. it's your decision.

I've heard 90 of the albums on that list.

The ones I haven't heard?

The Clash - Combat Rock
Kraftwerk - Computer Welt
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton
The Pogues - If I SHould Fall From Grace With God
The Police - Synchronicity
The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me
The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel Of Love
Talking Heads - Speaking In Tongues
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense

(I spent way too much money on music this year.)

Stephan: In this case, the album in question has a few megahits most of which make me wince when they come on the radio. I think I know enough about it to form an opinion.

Bump!

A question. When I rank the songs and albums in the Excel Spread Sheet I usually apply a score of 100 down to 1 according to how good I find a song or an album. Thus there is no 1-100 ranking on my part. BUT since the songs appear in order with the "best" songs or albums at the top this amkes for a 1-100 rank in the A column.

Can I send in such a "ranking" ?

Sure, but I won't take your points into account, just the order you place the songs/albums in.

Of course! Thanks!

I've realized that while I like a lot of 80's music, I can't stand most of what the decades acclaimed music. This is going to be really tough for me because I'll be trying to rank 40-50 albums that I don't like. Is anybody else in that same boat and if so what is your plan? It's the same way with the songs, but at least it's easier to contrast and compare with a single song.

I saw this coming when year after year hardly anything from my list made the cut! Oh well.

"For lists not including all 100 albums (or songs), the albums that weren't listed will get the score for the average position in the list. For example, if someone includes 59 albums, the remaining 41 albums will get the same score as the album on the 30th place."

Wouldn't an average of the remaining 41 positions be the right way to do it? I doesn't seem right that albums that haven't been listened to get a higher ranking than almost 30 that have.

John, I came up with this scoring system last year for the '90s poll so I'll try to defend it too.

Hopefully we all have a good idea of what we like, so that the albums we have in our collections are generally better than the albums we haven't heard, but I wanted a scoring system that gave a little handicap to the lesser known albums. However, it's a skewed points scale, so getting the average position score isn't really helping a lot. Last year, Tool's "Aenima" was by far the least known album. It got a lot of average position scores and ended up at...99th place.

Moreover, you can sleep well John, as it doesn't matter so much how we order the albums we don't like with the skewed points scale.

Hopefully it works ok for the 80's as well since there are going to be a lot more albums that people haven't listened to.

Stephan, just send you the excel file with my ratings, so you could have time enough to compile it before the predictable barrage of lists coming by the end of the month. But I will send it again later adding some comments (not time enough yet) but, don’t worry, without changing any rating. I just can’t wait to see the results…

I agree with John. For example, in my case, The Number Of The Beast by Iron Maiden (a band that does not interest me, and for that reason I do not have his records, because I do not like them) get as many points as New York of Lou Reed, which I like a lot.

I understand the reasons for Henrik, but not just be a fair system. But we have to abide by the rules of the poll. So, 36 points from Otisredding to Iron Maiden

Well I was going to say the same, I don't want to give the Smiths albums I have not listened the same score as album of the middle of my ranking.
I mean, there is a reason why I have not listened to those albums, I just can not stand the singles of that band so why should I bother with the fillers (I guess I will be... at least spanked for saying this...)
At the same time I don't want to disadvantage albums that I won't have the time to listen but don't know much about.
So, might not be totally correct but I will rank albums I volontarily don't listen to between albums ranked that I like and those that I dislike, so they get less point than albums I don't know about... quite tricky

That's my plan as well Lonesome Panda.

Otis, Lonesome and John,

I have never said that you need to have heard an album from start to end to put it in your list. If you feel pretty sure that you don't like an album you have all the right to put it at the end.

I like the philosophy of AM. It is democratic and respects the libertate of AM'ers. Anyway, I will be respectful of Iron Maiden and, therefore, not assess his record, because I have not heard. For the next poll of 80, I proposed to listen carefully all the CDs of Iron Maiden.
I probably end up being its biggest fan, and even creating a Web site with discography, photos, videos and curiosities of the group.

A greeting.

I have already submitted my list. I would like to see Stephan confirmed that he had arrived.

Iron Maiden is not so terrible ! I love "Number Of The Beast" come on guys, it's almost classical music meeting teenage culture ! (it's number 7 on my list )
Please Honorio give it just a try (without looking at the pictures)

Now this is my advice : try to listen to as many records as possible. Try to evaluate the ones you don't have by listening to a few songs, and rate them.

That's what I do. There are still 13 albums I haven't listened to in full, but I have heard 3 songs of each and I'll rate them if I don't have the time to hear more of them.

So sorry, Nicolas, but “The Number of the Beast” is already on my list but on… #98!! (and I told Stephan that I won’t change the ratings). Only BB and HD deserved a lower position. I enjoy some metal big names from the 70s (as, obviously, Led Zeppelin) but I’m afraid that I face a lot of prejudices when it comes to 80s heavy metal. Probably it’s a generational thing. I was 16 years old in 1982 and it was a question of choice between opposite sides. I was into synth-pop and goth-rock, I wore T-shirts of Japan, The Cure or Joy Division. When my friends and me crossed paths with someone with an Iron Maiden T-shirt we interchanged dagger looks at each other, as we were enemies and not music aficionados. Silly thing, isn’t it? Anyway any metal fan I’ve met since then has always confirmed that they are not real music fans. Some of them are real walking encyclopaedias, but they’re always intolerant and fundamentalist, any other music that can de filed under metal is considered crap, bland or sell-out. So I’m sorry but after seeing the “Classic Abums” TV series about “Number of the Beast” and after listening to it a couple of times it will stay at #98. But don’t worry, Nicolas, “Appetite for Destruction” and “Kill ‘Em All” are quite high on my list.

I understand that. In 1982, I was 12 and the Iron Maiden monster scared me !!
I guess that after that, I was on the "classic rock" side, so no prejudices.
I had prejudices towards '80s music but now they're gone (The Cure doesn't do too bad in my list), although I wouldn't spend my days listening to JD or New Order..

HD : Husker Du ?
BB : Beastie Boys ?

Exact, Nicolas. But I won't give any clues more...

I hope you're talking about Licensed to Ill, not Paul's Boutique !!! (I think both will end in my top 10 anyway)

Stephan, I just sent my lists. Thanks for taking charge of this.

About 1 week left folks.

Woo hoo!

Listened to all 100 songs, and I need to listen to 2 more albums to make it to 50 out of 100 eighties albums. One more 2008 album (which I already rented from the library) will give me the 10 records to be a full-fledged participant in Pazz & Jop.

I'm in the same situation of you, Jonah. For me there are missing only one Replacements and two Mettalica songs to listen, and yesterday I achieved the number of 60 albums! Now I don't know if I try to listen to some more albums or if I listen again to some I have heard only once in order to make a better judgement. You know, the first strategy would be bad for those kind of discs that need to grow on you...
Anyway I'm thinking of using the "nicolas method" in the next days, so I could make increase the distance between first and last albums, and, consequently, help my favorite ones!
Last year I made a similar thing with Tori Amos album, listening to 30 seconds samples of all the songs: it ended at one before the last position in my list...

Is it possible to rank an album at 100 if I haven't heard all of them? This may be a way to get around the issue. So, for example, if I've ranked say 60 albums that I like, can I put an album I know that I would hate even though I haven't heard it at 100, and let the remaining 39 albums be ranked according to the formula?

That might be a good idea, Moonbeam, if it's allowed.

I wasn't trying to think too much about it, but I am wondering if I would be doing more damage if I just ranked the 50 I heard.

My eighties listening was so deficient this year, that the albums I did choose to listen to completely deserve at least some credit, and shouldn't be penalized more than the albums I haven't listened to at all. I just listened to This Heat, for example, partly because of its reputation and praise by critics I respect. I've only listened to it once and haven't really learned to appreciate it, but I wouldn't have queued it up in Rhapsody if I didn't have an interest in hearing the artist.

If I'm not a huge fan of the Smiths, for example, maybe the dozens or so albums that made the 100 (a little exaggeration there) could be low on the final list if I haven't heard them.

I'm not sure about that one Moonbeam. It wouldn't seriously hurt the album in question I suppose, but how can you judge an album so negatively if you've never heard it?

What do you think Henrik?

Stephan, I think Moonbeam meant that he wanted to maximally spread the points for the albums/songs he has heard, instead of the somewhat shorter point scale (from best to worst) that is the case if you haven't heard all records. It's not a bad idea, but I still don't think I would have allowed it last year. Moreover, it seems a bit messy to introduce it at this stage. Sorry, M.

I'm inclined to agree with you Henrik.

"So, for example, if I've ranked say 60 albums that I like, can I put an album I know that I would hate even though I haven't heard it at 100, and let the remaining 39 albums be ranked according to the formula?"

I think he does mean an album he hasn't heard. AC/DC? The Police?

Stephan, you're right.

Then, Moonbeam, my advice is to listen to the songs from the album through the internet (songza or whatever). If the album really is as bad as you thought, put it at #61.

Self-inflicted torture to come at the hands of AC/DC!

On the other hand, I think eighties music junkies that have managed to listen to all 100 albums have a good case for their points to count more.

Sorry to ask about the formula, but if I submit a list of 50 albums, which the 50 I have NOT listened to receive MORE points than some of the albums I did rank?

I think an interesting statistic when this is all wrapped up would be a list of the most unranked albums to see which records are not in AMers radar.

So far I've heard 90 albums out of 100
But I don't think I'll listen to everything
I need a sort of medal cause I've been through the 23 songs of "Zen Arcade" (and the 43 songs of "Double nickels", although that one was much better)

, I remember I couldn't believe while noticing I would have to listen to that 43-song-album. Thankgod the tracks were short and nice!
But I confess, I didn't have enough patience to go until the end of Swordfishtrombones, what sent the album directly to the bottom of my list!

Toni, not going until the end of SWordfishtrombone was a mistake !
The second half of the album is the best.

Stephan:

I'm having trouble getting an e-mail to you. Are there any problems or is your address incorrect?

Stephan - sorry about the dreadful spelling mistake on the e-mail - a disgrace for someone with English as a first language...

Jonah: The email is correct, but if you want you can send it to neoptolemos.com@gmail.com if that does work for you.

Midaso: No worries.

Humm, so someday I try it again, nicolas! But not before this poll is over, still too much work to be done (and that means it will remain my last position, hehe).

ok, as long as you don't give Rain Dogs the same treatment (it will probably be my number 2)

I love Rain Dogs too... won't be #2 by far but a good surprise however.
I have almost listened to all the songs twice... but it is quite hard to rank them since many of them just seem average... so how to rank them, which one is more average than the other, of which I do not care more than the other... There are 40 songs I like, 10 I honestly can not stand at all... quite hard to figure what to do with the 50 others.

Won't have enough time to rank more than 50 albums, I don't know yet if I will send my album list... I will see !

Listing songs is a real problem
Her's what I've done : I gave them points, from 1 to 10. So there'll be a lot of ties, but I think it is an acceptable way of doing things for me.
I just ranked the first 20.

Stephan

did you get my list that I sent to your other e-mail address?

Oh, yes, forgot to reply.

Did my e-mail make it to you Stephan?

and mine ?
I think you should make a list of the received lists !

My deadline is tomorrow at 3 pm
You'll get my lists around that time

I did not receive a list from either of you Superfurry and Lonesomepanda. I'm not sure what could be going wrong, but perhaps try to send it to my gmail account: neoptolemos.com@gmail.com

So far I have received lists from:

Adrian (Not sure who this is on the forums)
Netjade
Fred
Honorio
otisredding
Harold Wexler
BillAdama
Snusmumrik
Sonofsamiam
Midaso
Jonah
Henrik
Michel

Stephan, I just sent my lists to both of your e-mail addresses. Looking forward to seeing the results!

To all: Have a great start of 2009!

Ok i've sent my list to the other address. Hopefully it gets through.

That's not a lot of replies.... I hope there's as many participants as last time. On the other hand, my votes will make a bigger difference.

Happy new year to everyone!

How many votes were there for the 90's poll?

You can't expect more votes for the '80s than for the '90s
It requires more knowledge of lesser-known music
But the list is not ridiculous

Greg, I need yout ballot in time

I've sent the list twice with two different accounts. The first time it bounced back, but not the second. Did you not get it? I'll try again with the new e-mail you gave.

I've sent it twice too !

Rocky: I did get your second email, but it had no rankings. I did reply to your email with that..

Damn, I don't know what's wrong with my regular email, but too many emails don't seem to be arriving. If I have not sent you a confirmation email, please send the lists to neoptolemos.com@gmail.com, and if you haven't sent in your lists yet please send them to that gmail address as well.

Just sent mine.

How many votes were there for the 90's poll?

I just checked the Excel file:
39 participants for the 100 albums of the 90's
34 participants for the 100 songs of the 90's

We'll have at least 20 for both. Probably not gonna get 39, but 20 isn't bad either.

Just sent my list

Stephan I sent my list before Christmas and you replied to me. However I don't see my name in the list of people who have sent their lists (and I'm not the Adrian).

Just emailed mine in.

Sent again, to both of your e-mail accounts. I also sent CC to myself and was able to open document with all the rankings intact.

Sent!

List sent!

And happy new year to all AMers!

Just sent mine as well.

I'll send mine within the next 12 hours! Hope I'm not too late.

I'll be watching the results with great interest, but after a few attempts at trying to come up with a ranking, I decided I'd just be a spectator. I mean, apart from being pretty sure I'd put Imperial Bedroom at number 1, I wasn't sure where to go next--Let it Be? Pretenders? Murmur? It Take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back? Graceland? Joshua Tree?

Anyway, happy New Year to you all.

pop elton: My mistake, I only copied the list of people on my albums list. Your votes were counted!

For everyone else: I've been quite busy lately, and I will be even more busy in the next week(s), so it'll probably take a few days to get all the rankings in order and get a format for the posting. I will start posting as soon as possible though.

Happy new year!

The final list of submittees (if you're not on here but did send me a list, please let me know as soon as possible):

Adrian
Netjade
Fred
Honorio
otisredding
Harold Wexler
pop elton
BillAdama
Snusmumrik
Sonofsamiam
Midaso
Jonah
Henrik
Michel
Andre
SuperFurry
LonesomePanda
Mitchell Stirling
Nicolas
tremolo
Rocky Raccoon
Greg Rumpff
Greg
Toni
John
Moonbeam
Stephan

27 ! not bad at all

Yes, that's representative enough. And the list is mainly filled with the usual AM forum suspects among us.

Well, I agree, 27 is not bad and is quite representative, but I was hoping for more participation. And not only in this poll, maybe during the last months the activity on the forum is slightly slowing down, games so fantastic as HOA or Beatles Survivor got less participants than previous games. And AYCOADB abruptly ended after my participation on 2000, nobody followed.
So I’ve counted the monthly participants on the 80s poll only to find that my previous theory is only partially right (or basically wrong if you want it). These were the results:
1980: 35 participants in the albums poll and 31 in the songs poll.
1981: 34 albums and 31 songs
1982: 35 albums and 30 songs
1983: 32 albums and 27 songs
1984: 31 albums and 27 songs
1985: 32 albums and 29 songs
1986: 33 albums and 27 songs
1987: 30 albums and 28 songs
1988: 31 albums and 27 songs
1989: 33 albums and 28 songs
So, as you can see, only two participants less in 1989 than in 1980. Anyway it would have been nice reaching to the mean of voters (by the way 32.6 in the albums poll) or even surpass it. We need that some of the young people that it’s coming to see the end of year lists and introducing themselves at the demographics thread takes a step further and begins to participate in our polls and games.
One surprising thing for me is that there were 4 participants less in the songs polls (the mean was 28.5). Having today tools as Youtube or Songza it’s quite easier to listen to songs rather than albums. Anyway, it’s been a wonderful poll again and I’m sure the results will reach the usual quality levels of any other of our polls. So happy new year for every AMer!!