My picks for the Slicing Up Eyeballs' Best of 86 Poll

Slicing Up Eyeballs has their Best "new wave/alternative" Albums of 1986 poll up. Some of my faves came out in 86, but there weren't as many albums I was passionate about compared to the previous polls. Looking through the ballot I realized that there were loads of half-great albums in 86 - records with a few all time favorite songs and then a bunch of filler or forgettable songs.

For the purpose of voting I stuck with what was on the ballot, so there aren't any write-ins (hence no Beasties, Run DMC, etc). Here are my picks in alph order:

• Crowded House - Crowded House
• The Godfathers - Hit By Hit
• Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - Element of Light
• Hüsker Dü - Candy Apple Grey
• Love and Rockets - Express
• The Mighty Lemon Drops - Happy Head
• R.E.M.. - Lifes Rich Pageant
• Stan Ridgway - The Big Heat
• They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
• XTC - Skylarking

Most of my picks are pretty standard college rock/CMJ staples. But I think this is about the point where I started listening to a lot more indie music and deliberately started shunning most of the 120 Minutes type artists. I'm really curious to see the 1987 ballot.