Following on from Hot Press' extensive polling of musicians around Ireland, we herewith present The 100 Greatest Irish Albums Of All Time as voted by You, the population of hotpress.com
"Astral Weeks came out of this desire to break out of this rigidity, you know, to extend the lines, and chop it up and move beyond this 1,2,3,4, beats to the bar. "
Recorded in Slane Castle in Co. Meath, this was the first U2 album on which the quartet used the studio as brush rather than canvas, with results that were often dense and impressionistic: the majestic title track, the fractious punk-funk of ‘Wire’, the slow motion fireworks of ‘MLK’ and ‘Bad’.
Rum saw the first flowering of Shane MacGowan as a unique and brilliant song-poet, unafraid to speak the unspeakable but also capable of magnificent vocal interpretations of songs like Ewan McColl’s ‘Dirty Old Town’.
For the most important album of their post-Joshua Tree career, U2 loaded up on Nine Inch Nails, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth records, whilst also taking account of rhythmic developments in Manchester and Detroit. The result was an intoxicating brew of hard-edged industrial klang (‘Zoo Station, ‘The Fly’) and funky, danceable grooves (‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’, ‘Mysterious Ways’).
Dismissed in some misguided quarters as “merely” a bunch of singles with some other stuff to help make up the numbers, The Undertones debut album now sounds as it did back then, like a unique collection of rampant and furious stabs of instant, sunny, funny, glorious pop.
Although its release in 1991 barely caused a ripple, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless has since become regarded as the great lost Irish treasure, a sort of shadowy twin sister to Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Released in May 1987, The Joshua Tree propelled the band out of arenas and into the stadia, topping the Billboard chart and spawning a triptych of monster singles, beginning with the bittersweet slow burner ‘With Or Without You’.
Released in the summer of 1978 when they were at the peak of their powers, Live And Dangerous remains the most compelling argument for Thin Lizzy’s greatness.
Like its weirder twin, the Velvet Underground’s debut, Astral Weeks was a seminal album dealing with adult themes of darkness, mortality and deviance. And like the Velvets, its influence vastly overshadowed its meagre sales.
Even if the lyrics were penned by journalist-turned-managerial Svengali Gordon Ogilvie, you have to admire the balls of four Belfast teenagers who circa 1979 were prepared to go on stage and tell the paramilitaries where to “stuff their fucking armies”.
She’d been a shadow player around the Dublin and London scenes, collaborating with In Tua Nua and World Party, but few could have expected young Ensign signing Sinéad O’Connor to produce such a turbulent, mercurial debut album.
"Sinéad was pretty relaxed. She didn’t tap into the ‘making a record for the label’ thing. She made music for her own reasons, which were deeper than that. That’s why the songs ring so true..."
"As an album, it’s one that I’m happy with at times. I think though there’s a little bit too much high-mid if I’m totally honest! But you know it’s a good record..."
How Rollerskate Skinny faded into obscurity while lesser contemporaries like Lush and Love & Rockets sold truck-loads of records is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most perverse mysteries.
Featuring contributions from Sinéad O’Connor and Brian Eno, Seize The Day entered the Irish charts at number 5 and has gone on to achieve platinum status.
1977 went straight to No. 1 in the UK and spawned four hit singles. By the time the group came to record the follow-up, Nu-clear Sounds, they were still only 20.
After a period of restless inactivity, The Pogues went into Rak Studio with U2 knob-twiddler Steve Lillywhite. The result is arguably The Pogues’ most eclectic work.
Released in March 1970 and produced and arranged entirely by Morrison, Moondance was much closer to Stax soul and hippy folk than the jazz and orchestral leanings of its predecessor.
O`Riada Sa Gaiety was a live recording of one of the most celebrated gigs ever in Ireland; playing to a packed and expectant house, O’Riada’s trademark harpsichord brings a prophetic European flavour to Ceoltoiri Cualann’s zestful playing, as they take us on a journey through the rich depth of Ireland’s musical heritage.
As if to prove that the first official Planxty album was no fluke, the same firm of Moore, Lunny, Irvine and O’Flynn returned a year later with another superb collection in The Well Below The Valley.
Viva Dead Ponies was angry, bitter and impeccably tuneful; It was as if, dissonant and ruthless as the songs got, Cathal Coughlan’s resonant, rich voice and gift for melody stopped the beauty being squeezed from ‘Chemical Cosh’, ‘Pack of Lies’, ‘You’re A Rose’; even ‘Viva Dead Ponies’ itself.
For many the greatest Irish band never to have made an international breakthrough, A House boasted an ace card in the quirky, uncompromising songwriting brilliance of Dave Couse.
The most unlikely record to get into the UK top 5 since Motörhead’s No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith, Troublegum turned Therapy? into pop stars for one gloriously rambunctious summer.
The third and final album recorded by the original Thin Lizzy line-up of Philip Lynott, Eric Bell and Brian Downey, Vagabonds Of The Western World was the first to feature sleeve design by Dublin artist Jim Fitzpatrick.
Formed in Cork in 1980, Microdisney brought the wildly different talents of two of the city by the Lee’s most legendary musical sons, Cathal Coughlan and Sean O’Hagan, together in the one band.
Moving Hearts, one of the most imporant Irish groups, went through several singers including Mick Hanly and Flo McSweeney before settling on an all-instrumental approach for their third and final studio album, The Storm.
Released on Mundy's own label in 2002, this collection of 12 songs dealing with, in his own words, “love, life, addiction and travel”, had an instant impact and proved that he was no one-hit-wonder.
Emerging almost from nowhere— no disrespect intended to their previous incarnation, The Coletranes— Revelino gave, on their 1994 debut, a masterclass in assimilating influences and stamping your personality on them.
Recorded in LA with acclaimed producer Ed Stasium (Ramones, Talking Heads etc), Stuck Together… had everything – stellar playing (especially on the part of guitarist Ray Harman), and a great vocal performance from Tom Dunne.
Infantile, sneering and utterly, utterly wonderful, the magnificently titled Casual Sex In The Cinexplex proved the begrudgers wrong when it sailed effortlessly into the UK top 30.
There was a point at the turn of the ‘90s when — much like Something Happens! a year or so before — it seemed to be the law to like The Stunning, and in the summer of 1990 the question was not whether you had the album, but what was your favourite song on the all-conquering Paradise In The Picturehouse: that is, there was Stunning snobbery.
From the lupine howls of ‘Lace Virginia’ to the hummably malevolent ‘Celebrate’, An Emotional Fish was the sound of the band exorcising some very harrowing demons.
The Undertones were getting teenage kicks and SLF were snarling about suspect devices, but while U2’s sound was equally jagged and hormonal, their themes were already leaning toward metaphysical, if not existentialist.
If there was one album that convinced Bob Dylan to include Paul Brady in the club of “secret heroes” he listed in the liner notes of Biograph— and let’s not forget the only other members of this somewhat exclusive coterie were Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen— then it was 1981’s Hard Station.
The fans took For The Birds to their collective bosom, and it went multi-platinum, establishing Hansard and co as the pioneers of Ireland’s burgeoning independent scene.
