Another good year, though with a bit of a cheat - The Clash’s first album makes the list for this year instead of '77 because it wasn’t released in the U.S. until then (and with an altered tracklist), while London Calling, which was released in '79, gets counted as a 1980 album (as does my actual favorite album of 1979, which I’ll vote for in the 1980 poll). Still, despite stiff competition, the first Clash album (in either incarnation) is one of my all-time favorites, so I know how I’m voting.
“Rust Never Sleeps” for its historical influence if nothing else - this album is for all intents and purposes the birth of grunge.
B-52’s.
Torn between Elvis Costello, Neil Young, the Clash, and the B-52s. I’ll hold off voting while I think about it some more.
I could have voted for a lot of them, but I’m voting for Pere Ubu, just 'cause I don’t think a lot of people will and they deserve some love. Great fucking band.
So many great releases, but Fear of Music is my fave TH album, and that’s saying a lot.
I’d have voted for Modern Dance ( maybe even number for #1 on the last list ), but though Dub Housing is a good album which I still listen to, it’s jussst starting to edge into their seriously squirrely avant-garde stage. Provincial that I am I’ll admit that I’m not crazy about their early 80’s output ( but I do like the new band starting in the late '80’s with The Tenement Years ).
I’m voting for Costello for the second time in a row. Another nearly flawless album. If not that it would be The Clash or The B-52’s. The latter two are great and if London Calling was on this list it would crush the opposition. But on balance Elvis ekes it out.
Quite a good year for albums. I liked Bowie’s *Lodger *as well, but it didn’t make the list. I wish I could vote for Talking Heads’ Fear of Music (godDAMN what an album!!!) and Pere Ubu’s Dub Housing at the same time, but since I had to pick one, I picked Ubu. They pushed the boundaries of the possible and the imaginable like few others, while feeling free and happy with it too.
I went to see both bands when they were touring these 2 releases, and Talking Heads’ stage 1979 presence was uptight and uncomfortable, completely the opposite of their glorious excellence heard a few years later in Stop Making Sense, the best rock tour in history. On the other hand, Pere Ubu’s show in a small clublike venue (the Cleveland Agora) was one of the most fun and memorable events I’ve ever been to.
Elvis for the third year in a row. (I’ll probably stop next year. 
)
I’m gonna go with The Clash for two years in a row. Pere Ubu is my second choice.
For me, it came down to Squeezing Out Sparks, Fear of Music, Damn the Torpedoes, Labour of Lust, Armed Forces, and The B-52’s.
Ultimately I went with the most fun album on this list (with apologies to the author of the great EP, Bowi), the debut LP by Athens’s own B-52’s.
I agree with all this, and voted for the Clash despite stiff competition. By the way, the UK release of this album, complete with lyric sheet, is one of the few bits of vinyl I kept.
Any reason why Dub Housing is 1979? That was released in November 1978 from all the sources I can find.
Thank you. 
I remember. I grabbed it up in '78 as soon as it hit the stands.
Probably for the same reason London Calling made the 1980 list - released too late in the year (after the polls had already been sent/filled out, I’m assuming).
Tom Petty for me. I’ve been a fan since day one.
Well, London Calling was released in Jan 1980 in the US, so I assumed that was the reason for that one.
You must be right. It looks like Nov 10 must have been the cutoff for 1978. Weird to have a year-end poll end that early, IMHO, but that’s their poll, their rules.
And *Dub Housing *was also initially released as an import only–that’s the version I had. Was there a US release in 1979?