(idm) Future Music Electronic Top 10 Reader's Poll

From Greg Earle
Sent Fri, Jun 26th 1998, 23:34

The June 1998 "Future Music" has a poll form to vote for your Top 10
Electronic records (I guess that means "albums and singles and EPs").

Normally I'm loathe to discuss Top 10's because the concept is rubbish -
everyone's tastes differ, "opinions are like assholes", etc. - but I thought
I'd mention it in this case because it also includes a list of Carl Craig's
and former "Future Music" editor Andy Jones' Top Tens, which show very
different tastes/vantage points (Jones' is squarely influenced by early 80's
electronic stuff) yet both contain many classics well worth hunting down if
you've the spare dosh:

Carl Craig's All-Time Top Ten                Andy Jones' All-Time Top Ten
-----------------------------                ----------------------------
 1. Some Deaths Take Forever                 1. Metamatic
    Bernard Szajner                            John Foxx

 2. Home Computer                         2. Travelogue
    Kraftwerk                                    The Human League

 3. Firecracker                                 3. Sinking
    Yellow Magic Orchestra                    The Aloof

 4. Can You Feel It?                         4. Black Celebration
    Mr. Fingers                                    Depeche Mode

 5. Chari Vari                                 5. Architecture & Morality
    A Number of Names                            Orchestral Manoevers In The Dark

 6. Fear Of A Black Planet                 6. Leftism
    Public Enemy                            Leftfield

 7. Night Drive                                 7. Cars
    Model 500                                    Gary Numan

 8. Liasons Dangereuses                         8. The Pearl
    Liasons Dangereuses                            Harold Budd

 9. E2-E4                                 9. Selected Ambient Works 85-92
    Manuel Gottsching [sic]                    The Aphex Twin

10. Too High                                10. Oxygene
    Stevie Wonder                            Jean Michel Jarre

[All spelling errors Future Music's  (-: ]

On the poll page, the backdrop is a collage of the covers of 53 albums (and
a token photograph of Robert Moog - or is that an album cover?!?).  A couple
of them I didn't recognize (most odd, since I own about 35 of the 53!).
Feeling inadequate, I turn to the lists:

(1) Cover is mostly black with a purplish Kirlian photograph of a leaf on it
    (between the William Orbit and St. Germain)

(2) "Our Love Has Just Begun" by ... "Oropa Lula" (?!?!? WTF) - the cover has
    what looks like a black gloved hand in front of a tassled lampshade?
    (between Heaven 17's "Penthouse and Pavement" & Carl Craig's "More Songs")

(3) All all-red cover with letters at the top that start "L A R ..." and the
    word "Alien" in yellow down below (covered up in the photo)
    (between the St. Germain and "Music Of My Mind")

Anyway, send in your own, poll closes July 31st.

        - Greg