1978 Pazz + Jop Album Poll

Elvis Costello + the Attractions : This Year's Girl

[Purchase]

The Village Voice's contemporaneous poll of American rock and jazz critics in 1978 is interesting mostly because we get to see what they missed. The Clash's 1977 debut album wouldn't be released in the US until mid-1979 so Americans were late to certain parties, even if they eventually discovered The Clash, Ian Dury, and Wire in '78. So what did Americans miss by late '78? The Buzzcocks, The Jam, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, Public Image, The Only Ones, Dire Straits and The Saints, to name a few. And as the years passed Kraftwerk's Man Machine, Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians , Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear, Big Star's Third would all be considered classics.

1. Elvis Costello: This Year's Model (Columbia) 783 (58)
2. The Rolling Stones: Some Girls (Rolling Stones) 616 (52)
3. Nick Lowe: Pure Pop for Power People (Columbia) 328 (32)
4. The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (Epic) 328 (28) 
5. Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food (Sire) 317 (28)

6. Bruce Springsteen: Darkness at the Edge of Town (Columbia) 284 (25)
7. Ramones: Road to Ruin (Sire) 262 (24)
8. Neil Young: Comes a Time (Reprise) 250 (25)
9. The Cars: The Cars (Elektra) 223 (24)
10. David Johansen: David Johansen (Blue Sky) 186 (17)
11. Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy (Asylum) 182 (16)

12. Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island) 171 (16)
13. Ian Dury: New Boots and Panties! (Stiff) 146 (15)
14. Patti Smith Group: Easter (Arista) 144 (18)
15. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (Warner Bros.) 137 (14)
16. Dave Edmunds: Tracks on Wax 4 (Swan Song) 111 (13)
17. The Who: Who Are You (MCA) 110 (8)
18. Television: Adventure (Elektra) 109 (13)
19. Willie Nelson: Stardust (Columbia) 108 (11)
20. Devo: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! (Warner Bros.) 107 (12)

21. Bob Dylan: Street Legal (Columbia) 101 (8)
22. Cheap Trick: Heaven Tonight (Epic) 92 (11)
23. Van Morrison: Wavelength (Warner Bros.) 90 (11)
24. Lou Reed: Street Hassle (Arista) 89 (10)
25. Blondie: Parallel Lines (Chrysalis) 88 (11)
26. Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Blank) 81 (10)

27. Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove (Warner Bros.) 73 (7)
28. Wire: Pink Flag (Harvest) 70 (6)
29. Generation X: Generation X (Chrysalis) 66 (7)
30. Al Green : Truth n Time (Hi) 65 (9)



From Robert Christgau:

 Elvis Costello's This Year's Model is the biggest winner in Pazz + Jop history. Except in 1974, when there were a mere 28 voters, only The Basement Tapes has ever made over half the ballots, and Costello's point spread--huge over the runner-up Stones and absolutely staggering over everyone else--is unprecedented and then some. But what's even more remarkable is the rest of the chart. Last year, eight of the 30 finishers were directly associated with new wave; this year--not counting Brian Eno, the Cars or Cheap Trick--the figure is 16. And now consider the non-new wavers in the top 20, where the poll is most reliable statistically. Eno produced No New York and Talking Heads and is referred to in a recent issue of Punk as "God"; the Cars may share a producer with Queen, but they share a&r, not to mention key musical ideas, with Television and the Dictators. Bruce Springsteen was a punk before there were punks--a "real" punk, as they say. Singer-songwriter Neil Young encored at the Garden with a reprise of his paean to Johnny Rotten, and singer-songwriter Warren Zevon is an excitable boy who has done Neil one better by encoring with "God Save the Queen." Hard rock perennials Stones and Who both responded more or less explicitly to the punk challenge with their toughest records in years. The best album since 1971 (if not 4004 B.C.) by the venerable rock vanguardist Captain Beefheart responds to nothing except the weather, but the Captain was his own kind of new waver before there was an ocean, or a flag. And finally there's Willie Nelson, the great exception, described by ace ballot annotator Tom Smucker as follows: "Nelson takes the crossover spirit of 1978 Country Music and crosses so far over with it he misses the mainstream entirely and ends up with an album that takes risks and gains integrity."