The 70s vote ended in a draw—now it's sudden death
Punk evolution vs. post-punk revolution. Same year, same vote count, totally different records. Your vote breaks the tie.
We’ve got a problem.
The 70s poll closed with The Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette* and Gang of Four’s Entertainment!* locked at 7 votes each . Both from 1979. Both undeniable. Both sitting there, waiting for one of you to break the tie.
So here’s what happens next: runoff poll, paid members only, winner gets the full Dig Me Out treatment.
What’s at stake
One of these albums becomes the next episode. The other one goes back on the shelf—maybe forever, maybe until someone nominates it again in a future round. This is the vote that decides which record gets:
Full band history and album context
Track-by-track breakdown
Host ratings and hot takes
Community ratings read on air
A permanent spot in the Dig Me Out catalog
The Damned gave us the first UK punk single, the first UK punk album, then broke up, reformed, and delivered Machine Gun Etiquette—their third record and the one that proved they could evolve without losing the plot. “Love Song” became a crossover hit, but the whole album moves between gothic atmosphere and buzzsaw punk without flinching.
Gang of Four arrived with Entertainment! as a debut that didn’t sound like anything else in 1979. Funk bass lines, wire-tight guitar, lyrics that dissected capitalism and consumer culture like a political science seminar set to a disco beat gone wrong. Rolling Stone ranked it #273 on their 500 greatest albums list; musicians have been stealing from it ever since.
This is two versions of what happened when the first wave of punk burned out and the next wave figured out what to do with the ashes.
Drop a comment and tell us why your pick deserves the win. Best arguments get read on the episode.