It’s nearly Thanksgiving, which not only signals the opening of the Christmas holiday season, it means it’s also time to start making those musical lists and checking them twice. That’s right, it’s the second-annual Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll, which will crown the year’s best new and reissued music from ’80s college rock veterans.
So here’s the drill: Like last year, we’re limiting the poll to artists from the ’80s alternative era and their offshoots, given the narrowly defined niche of this site. That means that while there’s no stopping anyone from voting for The King of Limbs as album of the year — and as the 2010 voting proved, that will happen despite this disclaimer — it’s just not going to count.
We’ve doubled the poll from last year’s two categories to four:
1.) Best new album of the year
2.) Best single or track of the year
3.) Best reissue of the year
4.) Best compilation, box set or live album of the year
In the survey form below, you can vote for between one and five albums or singles in each of the four categories, and they are not ranked. Each vote will be weighted equally. To refresh your memory, we’ve included lists of qualifying albums and songs in each category that we’ve culled from the past year’s Record Rack posts. But it’s by no means comprehensive, and you’re welcome to vote for any titles you’d like in the “other” field of each category.
Finally, if you’d like to offer some remarks about your favorite releases of 2011, you may do so in the comments below; you don’t need to replicate your ballot, but if you’d like to explain what’s so great about your top picks, we may use some of those reader comments when posting the final results later in December. We’d certainly love to hear from you.
Voting will be open through 12 p.m. EST Wednesday, Dec. 14.
LAST YEAR’S RESULTS: Best albums of 2010, Best reissues of 2010
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
Peter Murphy’s “Ninth” was a return to form by a legend. It harkened back to his peaking days of Love Hysteria and Deep, sprinkled with some Cascade, yet expressed uniquely in it’s own right as a new and fresh album by an iconic artist. “The Prince and Old Lady Shade” stands up with his best songs ever.
The Flaming Lips’ “7 Skies H3” (the 24 hour song) absolutely deserves to win best song. It’s a pretty incredible achievement.
I love this blog, but I really don’t understand how Nirvana are considered an “80’s alternative band”, but the Flaming Lips are almost completely ignored, even though what they’re doing now is many times more interesting and exciting than whatever Morrissey or New Order are up to.
John Doe’s been on my turntable more than any of the others. Kate Bush 2nd.
The Flaming Lips, lovely as they are, will NEVER BE AS IMPORTANT AS MORRISSEY AND/OR NEW ORDER. The lips are not relevant to the evolution of alternative music like these acts are. GET OVER IT.
No Pet Shop Boys?