Top 120 Songs Under 120 Seconds (ILM Poll #95)

65 ballots received
full list of nominations
link to spotify playlist with 1,627 of the 2,019 nominations
link to youtube playlist flopsy duck made for 389 nominated songs not on spotify

all songs up to but not including 2 minutes in length were eligible. since song lengths vary depending on the listening platform and the pollrunner was far too lazy to manually research the song lengths of over 2000 nominations, spotify was used as the judge of song lengths when eligibility came into question.

there were four ballot options, each allowing up to 50 tracks: ranked ballot, unranked ballot, mixed ballot (top 20 songs ranked, with three unranked tiers from 21-30, 31-40, and 41-50), and the Clemenza Ballot (three unranked tiers from 1-10, 11-25, and 26-50).

Rough schedule:
Today: #120-101
Monday: #100-81
Tuesday: #80-61
Wednesday: #60-41
Thursday: #40-21
Friday: #20-1

Peppered into the countdown will be the results of the three side-polls: Top 5 songs under 30 seconds, Top 5 songs not on the nominations list, and Favorite <2 Minutes Artist.

Here is a link to the Spotify playlist for the full 120 song rollout. I’ll update it as we proceed.

https://i.imgur.com/df2GK5h.jpg

No punning title--progress!

it was an executive decision, but not an easy one

Nooo we’re on a plane for the next three hours! Please imagine mine or imago’s cheers for anything with lots of hooks.

i'll be rolling songs out rather slowly - 20 songs today over the course of about...7 hours. of course, this will allow plenty of time for some of the greatest conversations about music of all time to take place

I'm on a train for the next three hours: this is ideal. ty in advance for this profoundly excellent endeavour

here we goooo

https://i.imgur.com/pKaGUwU.jpg
120. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Love for Tender (1:58)
0.3000 points
3 votes

Welcome back to ONE HUNDRED TWENTY MINUTES, I'm your host Dave Kendall, and in the next hour we'll have videos from Echo and the Bunnymen, the Sundays, and RUBY

i want you to know that at 2:30 am last night i was up looking through images of 120 minutes and trying to figure out if i wanted to stay up another 30 minutes to make some sort of 120 seconds parody image. alas, i went to bed

Not my EC vote, but it's good enough that I had to check my ballot to make sure.

Not a track I voted for, but a GOOD START.

tell me now, doo doo doo doo do

https://i.imgur.com/mkHkavv.jpg
119. Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45)
0.3036 points
5 votes

a blistering start to one of my favorite albums. i limited myself to one-song-per-artist, and it turns out there are at least 2 other EC songs on this list that are also blistering starts to one of my favorite albums. so i voted for a different one.

xp

DAMN YOU

Wow, almost one-third of a point!

even without the artificial points deflation, the points are prettttty tight for a lot of these results. that's why you gotta vote or die

I really meant to vote, but it was overwhelming and life got in the way.

I do agree with giving low points to short songs. Less song, less points, it's just math.

lmao the spotify playlist picture is perfect

also the images look awesome so far too!

gonna be following on my phone today we'll see how that works lol. promise to try to yell too low if any of mine appear :)

This poll made me realise just how brilliant Elvis Costello was at starting those early albums. Love For Tender, Welcome To The Working Week and No Action all ended up on my ballot.

https://i.imgur.com/wIBDTvw.jpg
118. Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53)
0.3042 points
5 votes

my spouse 4 life is from dayton and neither of us were previously familiar with this song, so it's been in heavy rotation this month

Think this was the last song I cut. Glad it made it. It’s a cuet song.

https://i.imgur.com/0SuVJBn.jpg
117. James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58)
0.3078 points
5 votes

nice

oops - i forgot to switch the color of the 117 in that image. james brown is staring in confusion at the barely legible floating number in the apollo curtains

Yes, it's finally here!

Little Mouth! It was in my top 10 but for some reason I didn’t think it would do particularly well. Which coming in 119h place maybe isn’t great, but 5 votes isn’t bad (and suggests that schismatic vote splitting isn’t much of an issue).

little mouth is one of my fav SK songs. i wish it were higher, but i also have no idea what to expect from the results. so instead of shouting "too low," i'll just be happy a song placed.

https://i.imgur.com/iNUremO.jpg
116. Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55)
0.3126 points
7 votes

love this one but did not vote for it

Agree that it's genuinely impossible to know what's going to break away from the pack at the top of the list here. I assume there'll be a lot of garage rock along the way tho.

hah, forgot about that Beasties track. excellent

https://i.imgur.com/qGgQndX.jpg
115. Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56)
0.3141 points
4 votes (1)

(the (1) by the vote total indicates the number of first place votes)

those first place votes are gonna go a long way in this poll

that's right, they're worth 0.1500 points!

Fifteen Per Cent for Nothing

https://i.imgur.com/LS1oEGl.jpg
114. Beck - Hollow Log (1:54)
0.3144 points
4 votes

i had completely forgotten about 'hollow log' - one of his very best

I voted for this, it is so goddamn good

omg these images haha

speaking of imago...

https://i.imgur.com/pFT3tcb.jpg
(tie) 112. The Sea Nymphs (1:46)
0.3195 points
3 votes

https://i.imgur.com/YvcYkPa.jpg
(tie) 112. Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46)
0.3195 points
5 votes

and speaking of images - it turns out there are exactly ZERO good photographs or videos of the sea nymphs. ever

Could not decide which Minor Threat song to vote for so I went for the first one I ever heard, "Filler."

Aaaaah our plane has landed JUST in time for my #2! Yay wow heavenly sound etc. It was also my #1 until a late change of heart so I'm glad to see it place!

*finishes orange juice* and as for the Sea Nymphs,

xp yeah me too, I expect that one to show later

this sea nymphs song is wild. it would be overwhelming if it were any longer than it is.

loving the images/cropping etc

it's still kinda overwhelming tbh

Wow, Sea Nymphs and SK on my ballot so far! The campaigning period also taught me that I probably like Elvis Costello way more than I ever expected.

https://i.imgur.com/w7HqnT3.jpg
110. The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella) (1:54)
0.3237 points
5 votes

the a capella version of Caroline, No is available on a Pet Sounds Box Set.

or on youtube

i only discarded "straight edge" at the last second from my ballot. i love the anger and power. great song.

"caroline, no" a cappella gives me even more the shivers than the normal version.

https://i.imgur.com/jDdIfit.jpg
109. The dB’s - Big Brown Eyes (1:59)
0.3243 points
6 votes

somehow i've never gotten around to giving the dB's a good listen, despite their label/scene proximity to r.e.m.
i made the mistake of listening to "neverland" first, which was so incredibly good that my first listen to "big brown eyes" was a bit of a disappointment in comparison. still, looking forward to giving them some more time!

xpost the dB's. Voted for Big Brown Eyes - fits perfectly the <2 min pop sound. If you like Neverland > Big Brown Eyes, then probably best to just check out their 2nd LP, Repercussion.

Will resume in about 45 minutes

"Straight Edge" is so great. The highest of the three Threat songs on my ballot!

karl, a small question. don't you like brandy numbers? where is no. 111?

Big Brown Eyes is definitely my favorite dB's song and I'm kicking myself for forgetting that it existed. i think it's listed as more than 2 mins on my iTunes, so i mentally discarded it before the nominations even ended.

'Eli' made my longlist and it's pretty memorable of a song

Listening again, that Arthur Russell song is excellent! It sounds like Jeff Mangum mixed with Charlie Looker.

rarely has an xpost been met with such an indignant irl response

https://i.imgur.com/1wio59k.jpg
108. Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32)
0.3246 points
5 votes

karl, a small question. don't you like brandy numbers? where is no. 111?

two-way tie for 112!

that was a two-way tie for 111 if we're being super-duper pedantic

very very nearly made 'olson' my BOC choice but in the end opted for not having a BOC choice sorry. it is excellent tho

oh wait no

111 is missing. idk

that was a two-way tie for 111 if we're being super-duper pedantic

i blame myself for trying to figure that out at an hour when crazy murders happen and ghosts appear

i did it like this:

110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54)
112 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46)
112 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46)
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48)
114 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54)
115 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56)

your heroic efforts to write the clash out of history have been recognised and you are in consideration for an imago award (an Imagar)

two-way tie for 112!

that is still a tie for 111 though lol. if it was the top two you wouldn't say a tie for second!

so where are the clash then?

er...here they are!

https://i.imgur.com/9IwTs3m.jpg
113. The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48)
0.3177 points
5 votes

Investigate 111

sorry everyone - this is actually a very busy day at work for me but i'm doing my best

just said "poor Karl Malone" to tt and she agreed so basically ur doing god's work and there is no pressure to get everything right

we'll still say though haha

poor karl malone, lol

mistakes were made, mistakes will continue to be made. but if we all lower our expectations enough, i think we'll make it. just barely

olson is a great, vague, dreamy tune, in the end i went for another boc track but i could as well have chosen olson.

KM thank you for your heroic work here!

koka kola is a good song, but bottom five on london calling. would've felt weird to vote for it in lieu of the other better clash songs on the noms list

ok, carrying on!

https://i.imgur.com/LHvNzTn.jpg
107. Liz Phair - Glory (1:30)
0.3258 points
5 votes

ahahahaha the 7 hiding behind the mike stand

thanks for doing this, karl. mistakes are human, they are fine.

karl malone's facility with image editing will become more and more apparent as we ascend the countdown i reckon

great, cool liz phair song there which did not make it on my list in the end.

"Koka Kola" and "Glory" are good and all but this feels like the right zone for them placement-wise

karl malone's facility with image editing will become more and more apparent as we ascend the countdown i reckon

it's tough to say. on one hand you have making a bunch of images and honing in on a certain style, efficiency through sheer repetition.

on the other, you have making images at the last minute for the 4th night in a row, drinking, and rushing. it's a wash!

I find hearing about Karl's process of making the poll almost as enjoyable as the poll itself

lol, from a pessimistic point of view that makes a lot of sense!

i'm gonna move slightly faster now in an attempt to get to #101 before i leave work

https://i.imgur.com/k2zi3cu.jpg
106. Prince - I Wonder U (1:40)
0.3261 points
6 votes

ooh, my first vote to place

I ended up not giving any artist more than one slot except for, I believe, Erykah Badu. That song was one of my toughest exclusions.

https://i.imgur.com/5w8LihC.jpg
105. Elastica - Vaseline (1:20)
0.3285 points
5 votes

i don't understand the appeal of i wonder u. prince does not even sing on it.

https://i.imgur.com/C4HIkbs.jpg
104. Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34)
0.3288 points
4 votes

oh no!

that song by the sea nymphs from the beginning is quite amazing. it is like a small opera in 106 seconds. a nice discovery.

https://i.imgur.com/iY0sdhX.jpg
103. Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56)
0.3297 points
6 votes

Yay Elastica! I long-listed "Vaseline" but cut it in favor of the other one which I hope shows up (though the low number of repeat artists makes the prospect somewhat remote).

my favourite sub 2 minute Elastica song is All-Nighter which wasn't nominated (not even by me) unfortunately

https://i.imgur.com/ThDhV3D.jpg
102. Roxy Music - Tara (1:47)
0.3309 points
5 votes

Omg I was all like ill post from my phone! I'll check in! Then I didn't and several of my votes/almost votes (can't current remember what I 51'd) place! Glory, Olson made it, straight edge either placed 50 or just got 51d in the end on my ballot. Flute loop made my top 100 IIRC. This a fun rollout!! Oh yeah "too low" or something. God posting on ilx on a phone feels weird

I maybe should have voted for "Stay"...almost my whole ballot was drawn from my own nominations; I must have have missed that on the big list. Not sure if I would have voted for it, but glad it placed. Nice images!

w00t, it's happening!

A quick skim-through suggests I voted for just Randy Newman from this lot. Glad he scraped in, as a serial offender, concision-wise.

Several of these of tracks are not familiar by title. *commences remedial study*

last one for the day!

https://i.imgur.com/r0QPNUU.jpg
101. Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31)
0.3318 points
5 votes

the rollout so far:

120 Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Love For Tender (1:58) 1000 0.3 3
119 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 1012 0.3036 5
118 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 1014 0.3042 5
117 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 1026 0.3078 5
116 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 1042 0.3126 7
115 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 1047 0.3141 4
114 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 1048 0.3144 4
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 1059 0.3177 5
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 1065 0.3195 3
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 1065 0.3195 5
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 1079 0.3237 5
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 1081 0.3243 6
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 1082 0.3246 5
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 1086 0.3258 5
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 1087 0.3261 6
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 1095 0.3285 5
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 1096 0.3288 4
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 1099 0.3297 6
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 1103 0.3309 5
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 1106 0.3318 5

on sunday i'll do one of the side-polls, and then we'll resume the countdown on Monday with #100-81

xp that was on my shortlist but I cut it

"Eli" is kinda remarkable, I'm thinking.

Also: nice work, Karl Malone!

great results, very diverse, looking forward to the rest of this

it wasn't a difficult bar to clear, but based off of very limited internet searching i feel that this is already greatest ever list of songs under 2 minutes. but that's only because the few other lists i saw were terrible and written for content farms

koka kola is a good song, but bottom five on london calling.

possibly top five for "stacked Mick harmonies play a counterpoint melody to Joe's lead vocal line" though

huzzah, ZS! Feel free to throw a few up over the weekend if you feel like it imo, not like it'll take ppl long to catch up on Monday morning US time

Xp

Diverse in genres perhaps. The only thing hit out of left field for me The Sea Nymphs and Elastica. I hope there are more oddballs before we get to the standards.

i unexpectedly had some liz phair moments last night. felt very 90s

huzzah, ZS! Feel free to throw a few up over the weekend if you feel like it imo, not like it'll take ppl long to catch up on Monday morning US time

yeah, we'll see how it goes on sunday. i have to work a 14-hour day tomorrow (and drive 2 hours both ways) so I'm hoping to use sunday to work on the images for 100-80 so I can do that on Monday.

xp haven't been following this and not sure what the standards would be, it will be interesting to see

So far I'm mostly impressed by the photoshop skillz

i did vote in this but didn't really look at the nominations. i just wanted to vote for five songs but ended up voting for like 10 songs total. regretting not voting for Elastica. great job as always KM, you really put your heart into these polls and it shows and is appreciated.

i think i might have to do the Beck poll sooner rather than later. i'm seeing Beck this summer for the third time but mainly going for Spoon. i have seen Spoon three times, so this summer will be number four.

not sure why (and this is not the place for it), but Spoon's "Inside Out" has been going through my head for years

I love the Minor Threat, dB's, Boards of Canada, Liz Phair placements

on the whole, really like all of them

this is really great so far, thank you sir!

i am glad "tara" placed. it was in my top ten. the mystic atmosphere of avalon is captured perfectly by the romantic oboe line. somehow i find that the best short songs are instrumentals.

I couldn't find anything to put ahead of eli. still remember how deep it hit me, that feeling of my skin prickling, that instant overwhelming captivation the first time I heard him just singing that name with such rasping intensity over and over. the more I play it the more convinced I am of its perfection. it's so well balanced, with a raw innocent wildness pulling the song taut. this mixture of confusion and empathy and pain, feeling lost, with this restlessness, for now just circling, like he's picking at a wound, but with this emotional unease that exceeds his ability to process it however beautifully he tries, so there's this looming sense that he might fly off at any moment. even by his standards the phrasing is exquisite, the way it doesn't settle, just churns, so I'm left dumb and rapt, waiting for every interval, every harmony, every pause to hit. it's so gorgeously idiomatic, it made me fall in love w/ the cello more than any other piece. it hurts!

^^^this is the kind of write-up each song here deserves

Tara is gorgeous, one of those songs that changes a room when it comes on. But I could only vote for 50 tracks.

dang I forgot to vote for "Stay". you all would loooooove my falsetto on that one

Didn't recognise the name 'Eli' while going through the list, but I'm surprised it wasn't one of the ones I listened to before voting, as I love AR.

Haven't listened through the list yet, I think there's maybe one or two tracks that were on my first pass longlist but nothing I voted for. Makes me pretty worried for some of my personal favourites, as I was expecting a couple to show up at the lower end of the list.

Stay and Words Of Love are criminally low.

hoping Think It Over places

i must say that i really enjoy the countdown so far. three of my choices placed already and most of the other songs are quite good or even excellent.

that oboe on tara really cuts very deep into my heart from the first second on it is intonated. it immediately makes me feel completely lonely and lost in the universe. it totally drives me in and subtracts my attention from everything else which might be around. and there is a calmness and a feeling of relaxation about it as after a big physical effort. or maybe it is the sound of the sun going up in a pale blue sky above a frozen mountain lake in winter.

it definitely changes a room: well put, euler. but only if people hear it. if it came up at a party and i was in a conversation i'd immediately abandon the talk and listen, i'd give up the social for the art. not very polite, i know.

That’s mackay soloing on Tara, right?

i guess so.

Here's an interesting prediction game - which artists do we think will have multiple entries? Obviously a maximum of 16 given the 104 different artists but probably closer to 10/12 given that a few may have 3 or even 4.

A few to begin with:

Elvis
Elvis
Elves (kickers thereof)
Minutefits
Dilla

Oh and The Clash obv

Ramones and Guided by Voices are the two most obvious, I'd say. I wish the Angry Samoans were obvious, but no. Minor Threat, maybe.

i'm still working on the youtube playlist that went up, i'm more than halfway in and putting off all other new listening until i finish it, i wouldn't have imagined listening to 400 measly songs would be such a challenge for me! anyway when that's done i'm looking forward to cherry-picking the poll results :)

Only voted for one track per artist. Of those who had multiple entries on my long list I'd guess Elvis P, Pixies, Beatles, Ramones, Eddie Cochran, Wire and Buddy Holly will figure.

minor threat will get another song for sure, i'd bet the misfits get a couple too, unless they were vote-split to death

I think the Minutemen will get one or two more.

I think this will be my favorite poll ever because of how few of these I knew beforehand. so many great finds thus far (Elvis Costello, dBs, Arthur Russell). hope this just keeps getting better

I'd add the Byrds to the list of potentials for multiple winners. There were only 3 nominations so reduced risk of vote splitting. Time Between is very likely to be a winner - maybe even pretty high up the list. Wouldn't be surprised to see either of the other nominations make it. Both are worthy.

Makes me pretty worried for some of my personal favourites, as I was expecting a couple to show up at the lower end of the list.

like emil.y, i am concerned the frogs may not place.

anyone up for a sub-poll countdown? text only, as i'm working on the images for the regular roll-out

yeah!

Definitely!

i'm sorry - the results for the "songs that weren't on the nomination list" sub-poll are so ridiculous that i'm having trouble describing them. one moment.

there wasn't much consensus on the best songs that weren't on the nominations list. the self-confident path would be to claim this as proof that the nominations list was so rock solid that there was no clear non-nominated (a 'non-nom' in the biz) song that wasn't on there. others would note that the people who voted in the "best song not nominated" poll were also the same people who contributed all the nominations to the list, so it's a bit like asking someone to come up with a list of the top fifty fruits and then immediately asking them "what was a fruit that you chose not to put in your list of top fifty?" and then expecting there to be consensus.

each of these tracks received 1 vote.

Stiff Little Fingers - Here We Are Nowhere	
The Butterflies of Love - Leaving When I'm Done Drinking (1:54)	
Some AI at the University of Toronto - The AI Christmas Carol (0:57)	
University of Toronto - The AI Christmas Carol (0:57)	
Nirvana - Very Ape (1:55)	
Kleenex/Liliput - Split (2:01)	
Modern Baseball - Mass (1:45)	
Course of Action - You Smoke You Choke (???)	
Black Flag – Wasted (0:51)	
Richard Skelton - Scar Tissue (1:56)	
Randy Newman - Underneath The Harlem Moon (1:54)	
Nick Drake - Road (2:00)	
The National - Fashion Coat (2:01)	
Calexico – Train of Thought (0:30)	
Teenage Fanclub - What You Do to Me (1:59)	
Nirvana - Very Ape (1:56)	
Jorge Ben Joe - Fia Maravilha (1:59)	
Beach Boys - "Ding Dang" (:59) 	
Minutemen - My Heart and the Real World	
Perfume Genius - Hood (2:00)	
Quasi - The Happy Prole (1:42)	
Jay Livingston & Ray Evans - Mr. Ed (0:52)	
LiLiPUT – Split (1:59)	
Keith Mansfield - Grandstand (1:13)	
The Beatles - There's a Place (1:50)	
The Middle Class – Out of Vogue (1:00)	
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (1:03)	
Gustavo Santaollala - All Gone (1:13)	
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - We Have Mice (1:57)	
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - The Invitation	
The Wrens - The House That Guilt Built (1:22)	
Hüsker Dü – Big Sky, 9/5/81 live (0:55)	
Dana Westover - Beginning (1:17)	
Lee Hazlewood - I'm Glad I Never (1:05)	
Huggy Bear - Sizzlemeet (1:26)	
Benjamin Britten - Cuckoo! (1:50)	
Floor - Sneech (1:02)	
Beastie Boys - A Year And A Day (1:59)	
Elvis Costello, "Hoover Factory" (1:44)  	
Frankie Cosmos - Fool (2:04)	
Archer Prewitt - Two Can Play (1:52)	
I Hate Sex - I Fucking Hate Sports (1:53)	
Trashcan Sinatras - The Perfect Reminder (1:04)	
The Books - Venice (1:44)	
The Olivia Tremor Control - Black Foliage (Animation 2) (1:23)	
Vashti Bunyan - Window Over the Bay (1:47)	
Sean Price - One (1:52)	
Circle Jerks – World Up My Ass (1:17)	
Liz Phair - Alice Springs	
Bruce Springsteen - My Best Was Never Good Enough (1:59)	
Hank Williams - Alone and Forsaken (1:59)	
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Jingle "Y.M.O." (0:21)	
King Creosote - And I Mean 'S' (1:44)	
Floor - Assassin (1:52)	
Voice Of Authority - Fuh Fuh (0:46)	
Sleater Kinney - Slow Song (1:58)	
Phish - Quadrophonic Toppling (1:59)	
The Residents - When We Were Young	
American Nightmare - Hearts (1:04)	
J Dilla - 10,000 Watts (1:42)	
Neil Young - Birds (45 RPM Single) (1:38)	
Idlewild - Self Healer (1:59)	
Grouper - Holifernes (1:33)	
The Beatles - For No One (1:59)	
Kyuss - Caterpillar March (1:56)	
Rush - Didacts & Narpets (1:00)	
Jim Guthrie - Thousand Songs (2:00)	
The Books - PS (0:56)	
Nodzzz - Is She There (1:42)	
Nurse With Wound - This Piano Can't Think	
James Murphy - Photographs - Piano (1:55)	
Acid House Kings - This Love Is All We Need (1:52)	
Tiger Trap - Tore a Hole (1:58)	
De La Soul - Kicked Out The House (1:56)	
Black Sabbath - Don't Start (Too Late) (0:49)	
Led Zeppelin - Bron-Yr-Aur (1:59)	

and yet, one song towered above them all, with two votes. your first place winner by TKO, your latest role model

Teenage Fanclub - What You Do To Me (2:00)

Recheck that “Very Ape,” bruh

The Middle Class – Out of Vogue (1:00)

this was nominated by Sleeve, but seems to have got missed off, alas

this is basically like the side-poll where i'm like "shit in my mouth, aw jeez"

no mouth shitting intended!

lol, none taken! i'm saying i invited it through my fucked up administration of all this

i will note, though, that the official full title of that sub-poll was "Top 5 songs that aren’t on the nominations list because of a technical formality or because i fucked up or because it wasn’t nominated because this world is going to HELL, etc" and the instructions were "These could be songs that were deemed ineligible because Spotify has them for 2+ minutes even though they really aren't, or we just forgot to nominate them, or I messed something up, or whatever other reason."

so a song on the non-noms list like Beatles - For None One (1:59), which i would guess would have received many votes if eligible, was deemed ineligible because on Spotify it's 2:00. i know that may sound ridiculous and dumb, but the thing is, there were lots of songs right on the edge of 2 minutes, many of which had seconds of padding at the end after the fade-out, which means there are also many songs that are listed as 2:07 on one listening platform or device or another. as much fun as the nominations thread was - and wow, i wish i could go back and do that again and again! - i did not want to dedicate investigative and very subjective detective work to dozens of songs with ambiguous lengths. and so i supplicated to lord Spotify and used it as my reference. not everyone was pleased with the results, i know. but it made me only 42% less happy instead of 49%, and that's why i did it. sorry.

of course, there are probably lots of others that people actually nominated and i just missed. i can't expect everyone to check the threads and double-check my nominations work, so i must have missed a handful out of 2100+ nominations that made the cut from the larger pool of submitted nominations

which means there are also many songs that are listed as 2:07 on one listening platform or device or another.

er, 420 sorry. what i was trying to say was that there are songs that are 2:07 (or whatever) on spotify (or whatever) that you could argue are less than two minutes long, because the last bit of the song fades out before 2:00 and then there's just weird unnecessary silence padding the track. or maybe there's a 7" where the song length is correctly listed as 1:59, even though evil master spotify shows it as 2:07

BUT, sub-poll #2 (best tracks <30 seconds) is better!. just to be clear, it was fine to vote for the same song in both the <30 seconds and <120 seconds poll. the <30 seconds sub-poll was mainly intended to highlight the best especially shorter tracks, because naturally they get buried next to the much larger pool of tracks closer to 2 minutes.

let me get those results ready

Teenage Fanclub - What You Do to Me (1:59) 1 vote

Teenage Fanclub - What You Do To Me (2:00) 2 votes

Yes! More excited about this than the main poll tbh

xp!

the TKO has been upgraded to KO

lol, sorry, before we move on, i forgot that the other night i made this really bad halfass attempt at making a word cloud for the non-noms

https://i.imgur.com/v1vSGMv.gif

That word cloud is a work of art.

I believe a certain charming carol is also up there with TFC at the number one spot.

Yes. Both votes may have come from the same house but I don't see any of you lot doubling up when you all have the right to. FILLED WITH FLOWERS

SIDE POLL #2: <30 SECONDS

https://i.imgur.com/ZdCVeDS.jpg

#10 (tie) This Mortal Coil - Tears (0:22)
0.1200 points
three votes

#10 (tie) Naked City - Speedfreaks (0:29)
0.1200 points
two votes

#9: Dead Kennedys - Short Songs (0:28)
0.1230 points
four votes

btw, i realize that assigning points to these votes (there were up to 5 allowed in the ballot, with 20, 16, 12, 8, and 5 points awarded to them in descending order) is only one way of arranging expressions of enthusiasm. another way is just the # of votes for each of these tracks. after this rollout i'll also do a bizarro world version 2 of it, sorted by #votes rather than my stupid points scheme

Jorge Ben Joe - Fia Maravilha (1:59)

poor guy can't win for losing, he changes his name because his royalty checks keep going to george benson and then this happens :(

#8: Circle Jerks - Deny Everything (0:23)
0.1320 points
three votes

(there were up to 5 allowed in the ballot, with 20, 16, 12, 8, and 5 points awarded to them in descending order)
(...which were then multiplied by 0.003, in order to create the final tiny point total. this is all so ridiculous)

#7: Brian Eno - The Microsoft Sound (0:06)
0.1440 points
four votes

classic imo

"Split" appears twice amongst the Not Nominated votes. (Credited to both Kleenex/Liliput and Liliput, for extra difficulty.)

A tie for #1, perhaps? :)

more an XP startup sound guy myself

whatever startup noise you heard when you got your first computer is your favorite startup noise for life

#6: Limmy - Wrong Way Down A One Way Street (0:04)
0.1620 points
five votes

you might be asking, why 4 decimal places? why not just three?

you rush to judgment; you don't know what's going to happen in that 4th spot. it's been zero up until now, but it might not always be. it's a product of the binary world, maaan

Aw yeah, go Microsoft Sound!

STAR

Your father would be proud

#5: Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28)
0.2040 points
four votes

best song not included poll was a bit patronizing to say the least and doomed from the onset

flopsy as usual, thank you 80% for everything and chill the fuck out with the other 20%

How was it patronising and doomed? I prefer it when noms are guideline lists and you can have write-ins, but that makes it a lot harder for the poll-runner, so this way write-ins get their own moment in the spotlight.

#4: Can - Pnoom (0:26)
0.2070 points
six votes

Patronizing because it was put in just to appease people with 2:00 long nominations... the results were going to be predictably not appeasing but it happened anyways. Sorry if that seems offensive

I do appreciate the list of songs here - just not as part of a side poll

not offensive, just wrong and weirdly hypercritical, again. i explained why i threw in that sub-poll above - there's a bunch of ambiguous space around the 2 minute mark, and i thought that if there was a 2:000001 version of "tomorrow never knows" or whatever that would controversially miss the cut, it would reveal itself in that sub-poll. instead, it got weird results. so i thought i'd rush past the results to get to a more interesting side-poll, but you have always have to deal with the people booing on the side as you go

#3: Wire - Field Day for the Sundays (0:28)
0.2550 points
seven votes

#2: Johnny Hawksworth - Thames Television ident theme, c.1968-90 (0:07)
0.2910 points
six votes

#1: Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02)
0.3750 points
nine votes

be back tomorrow for more flawless countdown, #100-#81

Thames TV ident theme did...quite well out of our house

tbf so did You Suffer

nil flopsy carborundum, KM! you're doing a great job

I've been working on a playlist for something I've got coming up--my third playlist ever, I think--and I realize I goofed on Lesley Gore's "Look of Love." One Spotify track has it at 2:00, but two or three others have 1:59. It's 2:00 on my media player. My own fault for not checking. I should have gone to the mat for that one--if you're not going to do so for Lesley Gore, who then?

Wow, couldn’t have asked for a better 1 and 2 in this side-poll! The Thames ident makes me cry.

I actually feared I might be the sole vote for the Thames thingy as I don't recall it inspiring any discussion. You're alright, ILX!

And thanks again, KM!

KM can you add the under 30s and 1 vote tracks to the playlist plz?

I was unsure about that...I’d rather not interrupt the flow of the overall results list. Would it be weird to make it a separate Spotify list? I could put them at the top of the list, but it wouldn’t be an ideal way to kickoff a playlist. And they could go the end, but then it’ll gradually build up to these iconic songs and then switch to a brief weird coda

I think a separate playlist for the side polls makes more sense.

Yay for 'You Suffer'! I figured it would probably win the under 30s round but you never know with these things.

you might be asking, why 4 decimal places? why not just three?

you rush to judgment; you don't know what's going to happen in that 4th spot. it's been zero up until now, but it might not always be. it's a product of the binary world, maaan

― these are not all of the possible side effects (Karl Malone)

i know we seem hypercritical but i do think you're welcome to choose your own degree of precision for the results

just don't start p-hacking on us

3 of the under :30 results are not on Spotify

I would like to volunteer to make a playlist for the under :30 results and non-nominated songs

Aww so nice to see Jim Guthrie “A Thousand Songs” get a vote up there

That album begins excellently with a 0:07 long introduction:

https://jimguthrie.bandcamp.com/track/intro

Rush I can make no promises I’m refraining from p-hacking

I'll be honest that two/three of the tracks I voted for in < 30 I didn't even take the time to listen to (lord knows why), I voted for them because "Hey, I know who Can/Bikini Kill are!" kind of reasons.

Xp Flamboyant Goon

There are some great tracks on that album. One time I e-mailed Jim’s website asking if he had lyrics for the garbled “A Thousand Songs” (2:00) and Jim personally replied with the lyrics.

if it makes you feel better leee "pnoom" is a fine song

re: not listening - i heard last week there was some study and they found people's stress increased when the number of debts they had increased, even if the overall amount didn't. i think that's maybe similar to why listening to all those short songs was tougher than i thought it would be!

you suffer is a deserving under 30 winner, hopefully it does well in the main poll too

seems like you suffer is the only song ive ever seen pop up multiple times over the years when the topic of "really good really short songs" comes up. i could see it winning the whole thing which would be fun.

You're all in on some joke that goes right over my head.

when it sounded like we might crowdsource art itt, lxy drew her nominees. here are some of them. rad imo:
http://i64.tinypic.com/332m6ph.jpg

those were made in 2 minutes each?! that's crazy, they're so wonderful (regardless of how long they took to make obv)

sweet

Wow, couldn’t have asked for a better 1 and 2 in this side-poll! The Thames ident makes me cry.

Karl, are we getting full breakdown for the sub-30-seconds side poll? I want to make a list of most popular by length.

Really enjoying the rollout so far and great results in the <30sec side poll. 'You Suffer' a worthy winner but very glad to see 'Wrong Way Down a One Way Street' place. Can't decide whether I prefer the version with guitar or the original acapella.

I nommed Wrong Way Down A One Way Street but obv didn't get around to voting lol. Good to see it place, great work as ever KM.

it's impossible to not play "you suffer" at least 10 times in a row

but, uh, maybe it's best not to listen for 10 hours in a row

OK, it's Monday morning! fuck!

and that means, it's time to resume the countdown. and THAT means it's time to bust out the official countdown graphic

https://i.imgur.com/df2GK5h.jpg

just to hype up the following 20 songs for no particular reason, i want to throw out this preview:

there are a couple "gems" in this batch

TOO LOW ;)

https://www.oldesweetshop.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1800x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/C/a/CandyBox-MidgetGems.jpg

(a tribute to our midget gems, and possibly... a prediction?)

just as a reminder, here is a link to the Spotify playlist for this countdown

flopsy if you have a link to the playlist for the side-polls, feel free to share them whenever

https://i.imgur.com/Cps4cIr.jpg
100. Fats Domino - Walking to New Orleans (1:58)
0.3342 points
4 votes

^^ this song is a gem (that's all i meant by 'gem', no hidden meaning!) and i didn't know it before!

Karl, are we getting full breakdown for the sub-30-seconds side poll? I want to make a list of most popular by length.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

i will do this after the full roll-out is over. it probably doesn't matter, but i don't want to reveal the full results for the side-polls because it might ruin the anticipation for some people if they think one of their fave <30s songs is going to rank highly on the full list, and then it turns out they're the only one who voted for it. i want to prolong their anticipation, delay and maximize the disappointing realization

that's what ilm is all about

well, i thought it was good! moving on

https://i.imgur.com/kVFEVcV.jpg
99. Noname - Self (1:35)
0.3384 points
4 votes

I should have voted for Fats Domino. I know Bobby Charles' version better, one of those cases where someone writes a song for a more famous performer, and it's a hit, and then the writer records the song long after the famous version was pop, and then you get a collection of the writer's performances of their own songs, like with Carole King etc.

i love fats, but i don't think i'd ever heard his walking to new orleans, somehow. most of my fats favorites are between 2 and 3 minutes.

i'm at work and have intermittent meetings today, so i'll be posting in weird sporadic bursts. plan to get to #81 by 5 pm (central) though

https://i.imgur.com/aDqgzDh.jpg
98. Cardiacs - Horsehead (1:21)
0.3411 points
4 votes

This is basically another Sea Nymphs entry, if you liked the last one - so I basically bent my one-track-per-artist rule to vote for it. Fuck it though. My #6.

Argh Fats! Another stone cold oldie classic placing way too low.

Horsehead is a sweet little march with all the enchanting chord sequences characteristic of Cardiacs (especially in this, their most nautical era). They always manage to hit on some kind of ethereal childhood magic, which is then made deeply uncanny by dark little organ/synth/oboe twists and the abstract poetry of Tim Smith's lyrics.

William D Drake handing over vocals to Tim Smith is some 2001 A Space Odyssey shit

I once played this for a friend and he said "this is like the soundtrack to taking a shit" and its never been the same to me

really great track though

lol

these results are fucking awesome so far

Sorry Flopsy, OCD got the better of me:

The Other Best Songs Under 120 Seconds (ILM Poll #95, Supplemental):
https://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/1samwlpiURoEH79UlJXzo0

basically loving every one of these btw

I just didn't want there to be missing songs

let me know if you see anything missing and i can add.

https://i.imgur.com/u1uBYQA.jpg
97. The Beach Boys - Our Prayer (1:10)
0.3432 points
5 votes

https://i.imgur.com/z0YM4lc.jpg
96. Neil Young - Cripple Creek Ferry (1:33)
0.3435 points
6 votes

I went with a different Neil Young track, alas.

same. i stuck to the one song per artist rule as well. love this song tho and happy it made it. pretty effortless track

xp
me too bit but i am happy ccf placed. a very nice song wich fits in perfectly into the under 2 min format. there cannot be too many neil young songs in the roll-out.

i voted for cripple creek ferry, a quaint and beautiful ending to a perfect album.

Can't remember if I stuck to the one-song-per rule or not...If I did, "Cripple Creek Ferry" missed; if I didn't, it's Top 10 for me.

these results are going to be wild, I thought that had a good shot at top 10

same ha

the water's going down, it's a mighty tight squeeeeeze

I woke up from a dream a few months ago where I thought I'd somehow written a great song in my sleep and then a few minutes later realized it was the tune of "Cripple Creek Ferry."

https://i.imgur.com/4OutGn6.jpg
95.Wilson & Larson - Knight Rider Theme (1:17)
0.3495 points
5 votes

btw, i totally made up "Phillips & Larson" as the artist, based off of the credits for the theme on wikipedia

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about my #2 and #3 votes ("Walking To New Orleans" and "Koka Kola") receiving more points/votes than the Knight Rider theme, but okay.

Enjoying the rollout so far, btw.

William D Drake handing over vocals to Tim Smith is some 2001 A Space Odyssey shit

damn, HAL 9000's Daisy Bell would've been a good nomination for the poll

xp

("more" = "less")

the knight rider theme is all time, should have been higher imo

it is completely of its time and somehow also forwardthinking

basically it encompasses all of time and space

i didn't vote for it btw

lol Karl. It is a great tune, though.

https://i.imgur.com/8DaNtrS.jpg
94. DEVO - Too Much Paranoias (1:57)
0.3549 points
5 votes

lol at the number placement on knight rider, great images karl

this has got to have the ugliest riff I can think of

https://i.imgur.com/DSDwQBR.jpg
93. Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter (1:57)
0.3573 points
5 votes

I totally can't bookmark this thread. I've logged out and all sorts. Ah well. Great results so far.

This isn’t one of the best songs on the album, but even so I couldn’t help voting for it quite high on my ballot. It is a wonderful dirge and a delight to play.

I kind of thought NMH would end up higher, since it's basically indie canon (though it only got onto my radar because of this poll).

Wilson & Larson must've come from thinking about Phillips the wrong way. A freudian flight into the dangerous world of a songwriting team who does not exist.

i just posted the last two results over on the mike trout thread. whoops! here we go:

https://i.imgur.com/sA61B56.jpg
(tie) 91. Captain Beefheart - Frownland (1:39)
0.3672 points
5 votes

https://i.imgur.com/YqsqlKS.jpg
(tie) 91. Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02)
0.3672 points
8 votes

Too...short!

Didn't vote for either of these but could have

i posted some really, really great comments on the beefheart song, over on the wrong thread. so good that i'm not going to repeat them here

same!!

too low, but why

i know i know i didn't vote but the shaggs better place somewhere on here

what are the lyrics of "you suffer"?

btw the beefheart is fine not the one i voted for which is less ramble shamble.

10-minute explainer about Frownland

https://youtu.be/58nPEe-TU-w

that .286 BABIP actually suggests he's getting unlucky this year

It's kind of weird how "You Suffer" is actually a good song. Not just a joke.

what are the lyrics of "you suffer"?

apparently they are "you suffer but why?"

however, i have slowed down the recording to 0.25x speed and listened repeatedly, and i have no idea how anyone could hear that

another tie! this time for #89. i think this is the last tie.

https://i.imgur.com/7mGndl0.jpg
(tie) 89. Lizzy Mercier Descloux/Rosa Yemen - Rosa Vertov (1:48)
0.3675 points
5 votes

https://i.imgur.com/Lb3jUQP.jpg
(tie) 89. Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41)
0.3675 points
7 votes

I think my college funk-metal band maybe used to cover Knight Rider?

attn: Knight Rider fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT13EP8cOos

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xzMBFX_ZRg

and the fatal farm night rider theme that NBC Universal blocked from youtube because they hate fun

what are the lyrics of "you suffer"?

apparently they are "you suffer but why?"

thanks. now i can hear "you why", the singer swallows the two words in between.

it's still on dailymotion though

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3qu30

still incredibly funny/baffling

if he just could have gotten the 's' sound in there he could have done 'you-sigh' and formed the template for all of sigur ros' lyrical output as well as the hopelandic language

lizzy mercier descloux is one of the great discoveries of this poll for me. a breathtaking vocal performance, post-punk at the top of its game.

oh hi dere I voted for the Husker Du, nice

https://i.imgur.com/jypPiKd.jpg
88. Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28)
0.3681 points
5 votes

love 30 century man, down to the idiosyncratic title.

for some reason, since his death, i've been waking up nearly every morning with "See the dwarves and see the giants/ Which one would you choose to be?" going in my head, like it's already been playing in my sleep

Bob Mould played "Never Talking to You Again" in DC last month.

i thought the jay-z version of beware of the boys (mundian to bach ke) sampled the bassline from the knight rider theme too, but nothing listed for it on whosampled

Yay! I’d resigned myself to Rosa Yemen not appearing. This was #2 or #3 for me I think? It is just the very coolest music. The ‘whole’ album/EP is very worth ten minutes of your life.

Expected that to be much higher, such a perfect song.

Rosa Vertov was my #7. It is, as they say, undeniable

Voted for different Devo and Scott tracks - I didn't keep to one song per artist entirely but tried to cut down where I could. Napalm Death had to get moved to feature only in my under 30s ballot, 'Frownland' was longlisted but cut, LM Descloux an incredibly painful cut right at the end. So basically, I'm very into most of this run.

posting one more, then another meeting, then the rest of 87-81!

https://i.imgur.com/6oTFxHb.jpg
87. Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40)
0.3690 points
5 votes

only two more versions of lightworks to go

This might be the first one I voted for? Very high on my ballot, so so good.

i thought the jay-z version of beware of the boys (mundian to bach ke) sampled the bassline from the knight rider theme too, but nothing listed for it on whosampled

good catch, i had tunnel vision for knight rider so i missed that

lightworks < vocal version for lightworks = dilla

i am not a big fan of scott walker but that song is really nice. i didn't know that he can actually sing like a normal human being without trying to be an opera singer.

the vocal track is isolated in the left track on 30 Century Man. take out one ear and appreciate it in all its glory.

xpost Never Talking To You Again - perfect at 1:41. Say what you're going to say, strum that acoustic guitar, and don't drag it out unnecessarily since you're not going to talk to them again anyway.

https://i.imgur.com/ExmER3D.jpg
86. Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28)
0.3720 points
4 votes (1)

a number 1 vote for this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye68IEJnI5w

This is the right one ^

why i like this poll: 'in accordance to natural law' is not as good an under 30 seconds song as 'you suffer', but it is a better under 2 minutes song than 'you suffer'

In the aftermath of the <30 seconds poll, I listened to "In Accordance..." again and it is awesome, could very well have earned a place on my main ballot.

self xp--i don't actually believe that, but i do think it's funny that's what the results bear out

yeah, a little odd, but there were only 20 ballots for the <30 seconds side-poll vs 66 for the full thing. also 8 votes for You Suffer v only 4 for "In accordance"!

oops - i didn't realize there was a vocal version of raymond scott's lightworks! (although once i heard it, i recognized it from songs that sampled it). should i assume that every one who voted for raymond scott was voting for the vocal version with dorothy collins?

weirdly i predicted that exact thing happening in my head (YS > Nattie Law in under 30 but not in main poll), and it did

i might be a poll whisperer

of course i kept this to myself so maybe i'm lying

you suffer is only so high on the <30 sec poll as it is so short. but you can't really call it a song.

foh

i believe u will m

https://i.imgur.com/a7UiNjW.jpg
85. John Barry Orchestra - James Bond Theme (1:50)
0.3729 points
8 votes

pretty unimpeachable

ty km

and yes v good song that just misdsed my ballot because i had too many beautiful babies

https://i.imgur.com/reoFG8v.jpg
84. Roger Miller - Dang Me (1:51)
0.3816 points
4 votes

this song is dang good, and new to me

8 votes for Bond theme!

the little unison vocal / guitar plucks at the end of each chorus are very proto-mccartney

james bond theme is totally iconic, had to vote for it

https://i.imgur.com/yqdeHvM.jpg
83. John Lennon - Hold On (1:52)
0.3819 points
6 votes

Every configuration of 'Lightworks' was on my shortlist but all were culled at the last second. I'll be emitting a 'yay!' with any appearances here, but it'll be tinged with guilt.

Holy shit if 30 Century Man cancels out Cowbells Shakin' I will be so pissed.

Also, I voted for that Noname song, that album is a classic.

Hold On is the first of my top ten to place.

COOOKIE

“Hold On” is one of my fave Lennon songs and I’m always surprised that it’s not mentioned more

https://i.imgur.com/pni0fR2.jpg
82. Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack (1:55)
0.3837 points
5 votes

sweet I voted for Dang Me, perfection

https://i.imgur.com/sbnFD5K.jpg
81. The Dicks - Dicks Hate the Police (1:58)
0.3855 points
4 votes

that's it for today! spotify list is here, and here's the countdown so far:

Rank - Artist - Track - Length - Points - Votes

120 Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Love For Tender (1:58) 0.3 3
119 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 0.3036 5
118 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 0.3042 5
117 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 0.3078 5
116 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 0.3126 7
115 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 0.3141 4 (1)
114 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 0.3144 4
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 0.3177 5
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 0.3195 3
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 0.3195 5
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 0.3237 5
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 0.3243 6
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 0.3246 5
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 0.3258 5
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 0.3261 6
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 0.3285 5
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 0.3288 4
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 0.3297 6
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 0.3309 5
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 0.3318 5
100 Fats Domino - Walking to New Orleans (1:58) 0.3342 4
99 Noname - Self (1:35) 0.3384 4
98 Cardiacs - Horsehead (1:21) 0.3411 4
97 The Beach Boys - Our Prayer (1:10) 0.3432 5
96 Neil Young - Cripple Creek Ferry (1:33) 0.3435 6
95 V/A - Knight Rider Theme (1:17) 0.3495 5
94 DEVO - Too Much Paranoias (1:57) 0.3549 5
93 Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter (1:57) 0.3573 5
91 Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02) 0.3672 8
91 Captain Beefheart - Frownland (1:39) 0.3672 5
89 Lizzy Mercier Descloux/Rosa Yemen - Rosa Vertov (1:48) 0.3675 5
89 Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41) 0.3675 7
88 Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28) 0.3681 5
87 Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40) 0.369 5
86 Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28) 0.372 4 (1)
85 John Barry Orchestra - James Bond Theme (1:50) 0.3729 8
84 Roger Miller - Dang Me (1:51) 0.3816 4
83 John Lennon - Hold On (1:52) 0.3819 6
82 Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack (1:55) 0.3837 5
81 The Dicks - Dicks Hate the Police (1:58) 0.3855 4

i was the number 1 'in accordance..' voter, very little goes harder

pretty cool when that dicks track kind of kicks back in near the end

Confession: I don't recall hearing the Dicks before. This was a Mudhoney thing to me before this moment. *face goes red*

Other track that feels new and intriguing, despite listening to the playlist plenty: Rosa Yemen
Track I somehow didn't consider, but should have: Noname
Tracks I actually voted for: Devo, Cptn Beefheart, Scott Walker

This is all making for a sweet playlist. Thanks once more, KM!

Dicks was my No. 4.

Very weak showing for such a classic!

I got nothin' so far. I probably should have voted for "Walking to New Orleans," another one I missed on the big list. I still need someone to explain the appeal of "You Suffer." It's not...it's not really...there's no song.

never heard of the dicks b4 I'm sorry whiney. cool song tho ive been missing out

That Britten "Cuckoo" song from the Non-Noms is cool. Thumbs up to whoever was responsible.

I'm with clem on "You Suffer." Are you all listening to the 200% slower version? (Which would clock in at 3 seconds, I guess.)

So of the first 40 entries, I've had two place and another three that made my longlist.

i voted for the idea of You Suffer

five of mine placed, noname the highest so far (my #5)

you can hear all the lyrics in this live version of You Suffer - I think they're stacked in the studio recording?

I voted for that Dicks track but I like "Fake Bands" even more, they have a bunch of other killer tracks

The Dicks is the first of mine to place (I voted for You Suffer in the 30 second poll, but wish I'd kept it in the main one now given the whining over it)

Glad I didn't vote, I would have tried to find out a way to submit all the tracks from Whack World

‘Our Prayer’ @ 97 feels very wrong to me, although oddly I think it would have been a fitting #100.

Is there a Spotty link for the sub-30 seconds top ten?

I so want to hear the Thames ident followed by "You Suffer"

MG

is it a coincidence that the number one song on the Hot 100 this week is 112 seconds long?

113 seconds, even

89 Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41) 0.3675 7
88 Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28) 0.3681 5
87 Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40) 0.369 5
86 Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28) 0.372 4 (1)

fuck yeah @ this stretch

who among you is ready

Is there a Spotty link for the sub-30 seconds top ten?

There's this, but it doesn't seem to have 'You Suffer' on it?

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1samwlpiURoEH79UlJXzo0

the concept of this poll sounded boring to me, another exercise in listmaking according to arbitrary parameters, but arbitrary parameters are key to so much that is good in life and this list is awesome and i love it so thanks KM

https://i.imgur.com/X1uB6G9.jpg
80. Eddie Cochran - C'Mon Everybody (1:58)
0.3894 points
6 votes

Going back to the Raymond Scott discussion, I was voting for the vocal version from Manhattan Research, Inc, yes.

https://i.imgur.com/u6Cyfb4.jpg
79. J Dilla - Stop (1:39)
0.3912 points
4 votes

really kicking myself for not voting in this one, it sounded like it'd be too esoteric and strange for me to form a ballot, but the results are full of killer classics i love. and karl, you're doing an amazing job as usual.

i can't believe you don't know "dang me!" go check out a roger miller comp stat - his first string of Smash LPs are all from the same sessions and they're bustling with great songs like this.

"stay" is criminally low. i def should have voted, sigh.

https://i.imgur.com/wwhulQQ.jpg
78. The Byrds - Time Between (1:54)
0.3939 points
6 votes

voted for a different Donuts track, but Stop is a deserving placement for sure. still makes me emotional after all these years

thanks for the enthusiasm and encouraging words, everyone! i still have another 60 images to prepare for the rest of the week (20 per night), so that definitely helps. :)

i can't believe you don't know "dang me!" go check out a roger miller comp stat - his first string of Smash LPs are all from the same sessions and they're bustling with great songs like this.

i can! the nice thing about not listening to music at all in your youth is that there are all these broad swaths of music history that are ripe for exploration (for me, at least)

Stop is a beautiful track

every Hillman track on Younger Than Yesterday is soooo good, another one that i'm kinda pissed i didn't vote for.

Time Between was in the upper half of my ballot and this does feel oddly low for it

i didn't get to know roger miller until the middle to late part of my protracted youth, probably age 20 or 21 when i picked up "my uncle used to love me but she died" as a yard-sale 7". my mom glanced at it and said "oh, you'll like that one." she was right.

I'm going to actually listen to the results later tonight while doing some work, so might have a bit more to contribute about songs I didn't previously know. I know they're all super-short but I've just not got round to following along properly so far.

never listened to the byrds really. kinda lumped them in w the beatles who i never really got into. this is a little more country, i like it and am wanting to hear the whole album now. is that their thing, the more country beatles?

https://i.imgur.com/WnPdKay.jpg
77. Solange - Rise (1:42)
0.3999 points
8 votes

is that their thing, the more country beatles?

At the start they're more like the "more folk" beatles, but that quickly becomes a very reductive description, and they get both way more psych than the beatles and more country after that.

tbc, the Byrds are american. They were the last of the classic '60s groups I got into and now they're more or less my favorite. Listen to the next track on YTY

birds were never partic beatlesy? they were their own thing. west coast jangly guitars and harmonies. folky. lots of bob dylan covers.

their album with gram parsons "sweetheart of the rodeo" is their country album, it's my fave.

sorry for the very elementary explanation of the byrds

no its cool just not an area of music i visited much so i need it. everybody's been burned is great. ill check out sweetheart of the rodeo as well.

my fave Byrds are the early Gene Clark tunes

https://i.imgur.com/OHdYOuY.jpg
76. Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57)
0.4002 points
7 votes

nice, didn't vote for it but a classic for sure

solange rise is so pretty. great album opener and one of the best songs on either of her two new albums.

Tambourine Man/TTT have definite beatles influences imo, but it's certainly not a reason to avoid them (if you hate Dylan otoh...)

Sweetheart is awesome and, if the country aspects are most appealing, maybe that is the best place to start, but I prefer the mix of sounds on 5D/Younger/Notorious personally. You could do worse than listening to all of YTY. I'm a bad fan who can't remember who writes what, but I do like Gene Clark's solo albums a lot.

I feel like there's a fun, pretty recent thread where imago gets really into them?

ILMers getting exposure through this poll to the Byrds, Roger Miller, Fats Domino, and other blind/dim spots is a beautiful thing

foolishly I didn't vote but I am loving this rollout, ty KM

the byrds are imo so much better than the beatles, even though they were obviously in their thrall

this poll is great. so much i havent heard that i should've heard long ago. add meat puppets to the list, who i really should know since ive lived in arizona for the last 13 years...

loving how much he is forcing his horrible voice in the chorus.

for the record, i dont hate the beatles, just had an aversion to that sound (and the idea of being forced to respect ~the beatles~) until i hit my 30s. ive gone back and listened to it all and its good, just not the thing im gonna reach for very often at this point in my life. but ill def be diving into more byrds.

lake of fire is so good lol, i almost forgot to vote for it but snuck it in at the last second. i love how gloriously melodramatic and over-the-top it is--to me it does a good job of emulating the feeling of watching a crazy fire-and-brimstone preacher as a non-believer.

to be fair, spottie, though the byrds definitely have their own lane and don't always sound like the beatles, 'time between' definitely sounds like the beatles

yeah all the byrds songs i know (the popular ones) are pretty beatles-esque but i can hear that there is something different in there

important to note that the beatles were in turn influenced by the byrds

damn, I forgot how brilliant the Knight Rider theme is

https://i.imgur.com/wGN96UC.jpg
75. Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30)
0.4107 points
5 votes

let's say I got a number
that number's 50,000
that's ten percent
of 500,000

NOT ONE DOMINO SHALL FALL

forgot to mention, for those of you joining us late, here's a spotify playlist of the countdown: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7zPjo63k4leeZ5yt0IptEq

re: Byrds discussion, they've been one of my fun musical listening projects over the last few years, just taking my time with their run of albums up through Sweetheart. their music tends to take a bit longer to sink in for me, but upon repeated listening they've become indispensable, a perpetual go-to for all sorts of listening situations (quiet morning, rowdy evening, car rides, etc)

although it may seem redundant, the Sundazed 2LP with all the mono mixes of their 1965-67 singles is flat out incredible:

https://www.discogs.com/The-Byrds-The-Columbia-Singles-65-67/release/2725042

https://i.imgur.com/f7njN7d.jpg
74. Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58)
0.4155 points
7 votes

is the little intro "overproduced by martin hannett" an homage to hannett/joy division or a diss?

minutemen benefitting from obvious favouritism thanks to their name

always took the hannett thing as a jokey homage

xxp hah I forgot about think, I assume it's a diss

you still think swastikas look cool
the real nazis run your schools
they're coaches, businessmen and cops
in the real fourth reich you'll be the first to go

think that

were joy division / UK post-punks at the time associated with nazism, or at least being nazi-curious? weren't many in the UK scene flirting with weird nazi stuff at the time (on aesthetic grounds, apparently. uh)?

i could be mixing up several different music history anecdotes/rumors all at once here, so forgive me if this is a ridiculous line of questioning. but when i hear the martin hannett shoutout/diss, in the context of the song that follows, it makes me wonder if they're connected

i was more surprised by political song's placement than by 'viet nam,' which is a clear highlight on double nickels. i voted for a different double nickels track in my top 5 tho, so perhaps there's even more minutemen to come

'nazi punks fuck off' got my vote, for its heartwarming and universal message.

I think (Warsaw/)Joy Division were interested in exploring Nazi symbology in their songs, but they always disavowed any real connection. Wouldn't surprise me if it was a bit of a thing in that scene though...

Anyway, this is an amazing song and I have no idea why I didn't vote for it.

Though admittedly I only first heard it a couple of years ago through the film Green Room (in which it is employed to excellent effect)

Karl I believe there was an extensive discussion on a Joy Division thread recently about that very issue

It’s just kind of weird to specifically mention a person who is very prominent in their contemporary punk scene, just before launching into a song explicitly about nazi punks

xp thanks sleeve I’ll try to track it down later!

i always thought the martin hannett reference was a non-sequitur

It probably is! But it’s kinda like inserting the line “This is dedicated to Shaq” just before launching into “tall basketball players fuck off”

yeah i get that *removes opening lyric from my song about tall basketball players*

Bonus Napalm Death cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzoebhQ7hjQ

https://i.imgur.com/8K2kS9o.jpg
73. Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50)
0.4173 points
6 votes

hell yeah

while working on this poll i have come to the conclusion that the mid to late 90s was a very, VERY bad time for publicity/PR photos for bands. especially in the UK. holy shit, there are a lot of really bad photos of 4 dudes standing around with their arms crossed while the lead man looks straight at the camera (or vice versa)

hahaha

it's gonna be fun to blow through the Spotify list later, thanks for the link

https://i.imgur.com/L5UpKAo.jpg
72. De La Soul - Transmitting Live from Mars (1:12)
0.4188 points
7 votes

that SFA press photo could be very easily improved by photoshopping richard d. james' head over each of the bandmembers'

the SFA photo above is literally be most flattering picture of them i could find on the internet - their PR photos are insanely bad, every single one of them

same with cardiacs and other acts that will feature later in this poll.

afaict in the mid-90s the whole slacker ethos expanded beyond the music and started to infect the entire industry. everyone was just like "guess we gotta do this dumb photo", even the photographer. "wanna just stand there and talk for a minute? it'll only take like 15 seconds....ook...now, whoever sings, just look at me like a weirdo - thanks, perfect. that one's out of focus...and none of you are wearing loud plastic adidas pants that make swishswish noises when you walk eh, fuck it. thanks guys, we're done."

what i really like about this poll that it encompasses so many different styles and times. it is like a tour de force around the world of pop in a couple of hours if you take the top 120. another band i didn't really care about a lot before has been discusssed already, the byrds. i voted for another song which totally knocked me out. that full jangly rickenbacker sound is so phantastic and must have influenced most guitar bands from later on which i love. like the feelies, the smiths, the house of love, green on red etc. i hope the other song still places, it is a golden guitar tune.

idk if i'd ever heard that SFA song before, but i'm pretty sure it's the catchiest song i've ever heard in my life

This poll is awesome. I want a downloadable playlist of the final results (I wonder what will the total runtime be?).

My SFA vote was Drygioni

https://i.imgur.com/SoR89JL.jpg
71. Sebadoh - License to Confuse (1:46)
0.4263 points
7 votes

great one

really a standout track on Bakesale and a great opening track as well

idk if i'd ever heard that SFA song before, but i'm pretty sure it's the catchiest song i've ever heard in my life

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 9 April 2019 20:23 (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://i.imgur.com/mJ0iWaV.jpg
70. Daft Punk - Nightvision (1:44)
0.4281 points
7 votes

That is a purty image.

since the de la track isnt on spotify, here is the youtube https://youtu.be/U5TDufRDGDU
kind of a random song to place tbh.

always happy to see SFA win new converts

I know SFA mostly through their Songbook Vol 1, which means either I’ve definitely heard GSMM before and wrote it off for some reason, or I accidentally downloaded a copy without that song

https://i.imgur.com/2r9Mhpt.jpg
69. The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:49)
0.4419 points
6 votes (1)

Either way, glad I know it and like it now

that daft punk song is pretty nondescript huh. its a nice wash of sounds but idk.

yeah, to me it feels like the obligatory inclusion of the short track from a classic album

Damn, wish I'd remembered this Zombies song.

yeah, to me it feels like the obligatory inclusion of the short track from a classic album

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili), Tuesday, April 9, 2019 1:28 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same w de la track

zombies song is gorgeous

there's a youtube version of nightvision that repeats it for 10 hours, designed for falling asleep. pretty nice and basic remix imo

same w de la track

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie), Tuesday, April 9, 2019 3:31 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a few 3 feet high shorties that would've made a lot more sense imo.

i can't believe you don't know "dang me!"

yesterday I got, for the first time, a joke from Good Morning Vietnam, a film I saw 32 years ago

https://i.imgur.com/lyumT4V.jpg
68. Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40)
0.4449 points
8 votes

i am entering commute hell, will resume the rest of the countdown to #61 when i get back

The Way I Feel Inside is heavenly. Gave it a bag of points

Transmitting Live From Mars is one of my favorite tracks on that first De La Soul album, possibly my favorite.

I hadn't really considered this YLT song but the instrumental disc of Genius+Love might be my favorite "album" of theirs.

while working on this poll i have come to the conclusion that the mid to late 90s was a very, VERY bad time for publicity/PR photos for bands. especially in the UK. holy shit, there are a lot of really bad photos of 4 dudes standing around with their arms crossed while the lead man looks straight at the camera (or vice versa)

enjoying Karl's conclusion that Cian was the lead man in SFA

also you don't need good posing skills when you're sitting on a whole fucking tank that you've painted blue and driven to the gig to blast techno out of have Pete Fowler

Omg Zombies TOO LOW

i can hear the heart beating as one is such a sprawling and epic album that it can be easy to ignore 'return to hot chicken,' but it really does set a mood and it's very pretty in its own right.

"The Way I Feel Inside" was one of my best discoveries from the nominees playlist, and it fell - ooh, let's see - nine places short of my final fifty. Ditto Solange's "Rise", which was three places below that.

that daft punk track is about the most silent and atmospheric i have ever heard by them. somehow i expect at every second that this turns into a song by chicago. quite nice stuff, could listen to it for a whole night long.

The Way I Feel Inside was my number 1 without a second hesitation. I heard it first when I was 16 (through Von Trier and Vinterberg's 'Dear Wendy' of all things...) and never didn't listen to The Zombies after that. It is such an easy and devastating little song. Blunstone's voice is so haunting, and the little introduction of the organ comes so late and the sparseness is so beautiful. So, wow.

"return to hot chicken" somehow did not make my list. they used to be my fave band but i forgot to vote for them. i don't know why. glad they made it.

The De La track has big sentimental value personally - probably my first experience of being simultaneously annoyed and enchanted by a hip hop track (at least one with no rap). A great shortform intro to the surrealer side of the artform. Thanks to its inclusion in a piece on the group in a British documentary about dance music in the mid 90s, in my head it's since always been accompanied by grainy black and white footage of the trio walking around NY streets in super slow motion.

thats cool, dont think ive ever really given that track a 2nd thought.

https://i.imgur.com/03ng85l.jpg
67. Jorge Ben - Balança Pema (1:29)
0.4455 points
6 votes (1)

That was a very wholesome and lovely song

https://i.imgur.com/e6ygioe.jpg
66. Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living? (1:24)
0.4548 points
9 votes

^^very important to turn the volume up to 11 for this one^^

Thanks for the tip. Omg this is amazing

best band ever

take note imago

don't forget to chase it with the soft pink truth's version, which clocks in at an epic 4:44

see also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNRVl7LUuI0

https://i.imgur.com/VqV34F0.jpg
65. Kenickie - Come Out 2nite (1:58)
0.4572 points
6 votes (1)

lol now that's a contrast

'Do They Owe Us A Living?' surprisingly low imo. Now I think about it, I'm surprised 'Nazi Punks...' wasn't higher too.

This is also excellent! It sounds like a sped-up Throwing Muses

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have had a roommate with a Crass tattoo. Everyone's had one at one point in their lives. But has anyone else once had a roommate with a Crass tattoo AND a drinking problem AND untreated tooth decay that kept him up at night moaning in pain while drunk and blasting Crass? Could never get into Crass for that reason, but I appreciated the few moments I got to spend with the Richard Kern photo book, Phil Ochs biography, and back issues of Adbusters he kept in the bathroom.

https://i.imgur.com/NdK9nZy.jpg
64. Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy (Lost Cues, Vol. 2 version) (1:20)
0.4614 points
6 votes

impossible for me to objectively assess this song

The real version is longer than 2 mins, so I didn’t vote for it

yeah, same - i do like this version, but it's not the linus and lucy i hear in my head

Surprised to see Kenickie show up here! I voted for two of their songs (including this one) but I didn’t know how popular they were, then or now.

https://i.imgur.com/eKOUXt0.jpg
63. Belle & Sebastian - Simple Things (1:46)
0.4725 points
6 votes

Gee, a LOT of today's entries (Dilla, Byrds, Meat Puppets, DLS, Jorge Ben, Guaraldi) were things I eliminated while condensing ~75 into 50. So...yay! Glad they didn't particularly need my help.

Voted for Crass though. LOL. And B&S. (A track that was also just outside the top 60 in the B&S poll a few months ago.)

https://i.imgur.com/0EnI6hB.jpg
62. The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer (1:43)
0.4806 points
7 votes

https://i.imgur.com/FWarsag.jpg
61. Moondog - Lament 1 (1:45)
0.4809 points
7 votes

that's it for today! here are the songs of our lives, so far

Rank - Artist - Track - Length - Points - Votes

120 Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Love For Tender (1:58) 0.3 3
119 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 0.3036 5
118 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 0.3042 5
117 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 0.3078 5
116 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 0.3126 7
115 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 0.3141 4 (1)
114 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 0.3144 4
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 0.3177 5
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 0.3195 3
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 0.3195 5
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 0.3237 5
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 0.3243 6
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 0.3246 5
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 0.3258 5
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 0.3261 6
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 0.3285 5
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 0.3288 4
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 0.3297 6
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 0.3309 5
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 0.3318 5
100 Fats Domino - Walking to New Orleans (1:58) 0.3342 4
99 Noname - Self (1:35) 0.3384 4
98 Cardiacs - Horsehead (1:21) 0.3411 4
97 The Beach Boys - Our Prayer (1:10) 0.3432 5
96 Neil Young - Cripple Creek Ferry (1:33) 0.3435 6
95 V/A - Knight Rider Theme (1:17) 0.3495 5
94 DEVO - Too Much Paranoias (1:57) 0.3549 5
93 Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter (1:57) 0.3573 5
91 Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02) 0.3672 8
91 Captain Beefheart - Frownland (1:39) 0.3672 5
89 Lizzy Mercier Descloux/Rosa Yemen - Rosa Vertov (1:48) 0.3675 5
89 Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41) 0.3675 7
88 Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28) 0.3681 5
87 Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40) 0.369 5
86 Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28) 0.372 4 (1)
85 John Barry Orchestra - James Bond Theme (1:50) 0.3729 8
84 Roger Miller - Dang Me (1:51) 0.3816 4
83 John Lennon - Hold On (1:52) 0.3819 6
82 Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack (1:55) 0.3837 5
81 The Dicks - Dicks Hate the Police (1:58) 0.3855 4
80 Eddie Cochran - C'Mon Everybody (1:58) 1298 6
79 J Dilla - Stop (1:39) 1304 4
78 The Byrds - Time Between (1:54) 1313 6
77 Solange - Rise (1:42) 1333 8
76 Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57) 1334 7
75 Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30) 1369 5
74 Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58) 1385 7
73 Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50) 1391 6
72 De La Soul - Transmitting Live from Mars (1:12) 1396 7
71 Sebadoh - License to Confuse (1:46) 1421 7
70 Daft Punk - Nightvision (1:44) 1427 7
69 The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:49) 1473 6 1
68 Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40) 1483 8
67 Jorge Ben - Balanca Pema (1:29) 1485 6 1
66 Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living? (1:24) 1516 9
65 Kenickie - Come Out 2nite (1:58) 1524 6 1
64 Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy (Lost Cues, Vol. 2 version) (1:20) 1538 6
63 Belle & Sebastian - Simple Things (1:46) 1575 6
62 The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer (1:43) 1602 7
61 Moondog - Lament 1 (1:45) 1603 7

Good to see the Undertones this high.

Revealing the real points tally there, KM?

whoops! yeah, i didn't mean to do that! i hid the wrong column. the secret sauce for the low points is just the real points x .0003

corrected:

80 Eddie Cochran - C'Mon Everybody (1:58) 0.3894 6
79 J Dilla - Stop (1:39) 0.3912 4
78 The Byrds - Time Between (1:54) 0.3939 6
77 Solange - Rise (1:42) 0.3999 8
76 Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57) 0.4002 7
75 Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30) 0.4107 5
74 Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58) 0.4155 7
73 Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50) 0.4173 6
72 De La Soul - Transmitting Live from Mars (1:12) 0.4188 7
71 Sebadoh - License to Confuse (1:46) 0.4263 7
70 Daft Punk - Nightvision (1:44) 0.4281 7
69 The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:49) 0.4419 6 1
68 Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40) 0.4449 8
67 Jorge Ben - Balanca Pema (1:29) 0.4455 6 1
66 Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living? (1:24) 0.4548 9
65 Kenickie - Come Out 2nite (1:58) 0.4572 6 1
64 Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy (Lost Cues, Vol. 2 version) (1:20) 0.4614 6
63 Belle & Sebastian - Simple Things (1:46) 0.4725 6
62 The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer (1:43) 0.4806 7
61 Moondog - Lament 1 (1:45) 0.4809 7

I can only talk about "Here Comes The Summer" in terrible cliches like 'blast of pure joy' and 'sound of summer fun'. When Sharkey kicks it up a notch for the chorus after the solo... goosebumps.

Undertones was only the second of my votes to place, after Liz Phair. It'd be bizarre if, say, 30 of the other 48 would now miraculously form half the rest of the list. But conversely, it would be bizarre if these 30 *didn't* show up.

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

I was trying to be chill about this poll but the Zombies should have been #1, now I hate you all

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili), Tuesday, April 9, 2019 4:52 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. had no idea

I probably should have voted for Moondog.

Fun fact: "Simple Things" was not merely "just outside the top 60" in the B&S poll; turns out it was precisely #63 there as well. Exactly the same placement in polls 94 and 95. Spooky.

Aw yeah Moondog.

Moondog was a late cut! Weirdo jazzy thing IIRC.

Oh wow, I'm really surprised to see Kenickie make it. That was my number one. The first album has aged really well and that's the standout.

Voted for SFA, Solange and Daft Punk as well. Devo and Belle & Sebastian were two of the last cuts from my list.

I'm happy to see any songs from Donuts make the list. I couldn't separate the songs personally, but he definitely deserves to be here.

Loving the rollout so far. Probably the most unpredictable list we've had on here.

Super stoked at the halfway point. Louis harden the first ohmy play that again now thank you voters

Moondog is very photogenic

didn't nominate or vote so can't complain, but wish Avengers' "Teenage Rebel" was part of the poll

this seems like a monumental undertaking KM, thank you!

thanks for following along!

everyone is going to be pissed at me tomorrow. earlier tonight i realized that some songs were missing votes (some people manually entered in their tracks and little things like a hyphen (-) turning into an emdash (—) meant that their votes weren't collated together with everyone else's properly). on one hand, goddammit, that's why everyone was supposed to copy and paste from the list instead of typing it in, but on the other, of course it's completely my fault for not checking for that more thoroughly before i settled on the "final" list. so 99% my fault, and i'm sure someone will give me shit about it tomorrow. i'll give more details about 12 hours from now when more people are awake, but basically it resulted in:

- elvis costello's "love for tender" dropping off the list (from #120 to 121)
- a song previously out of the top 120 getting bumped up into the #114 spot
- neil young's 'cripple creek ferry' moving from #96 to #76
- belle & sebastian's 'simple things'

elvis u are still in my heart

gaaaaaaaaah, and now that posted before i finished. ugh. this is not my night.

...

- belle & sebastian's 'simple things' moving up from #63 to a higher position that hasn't been reached yet in the countdown
- some changes in the order for the songs #60-#1, but nothing anyone has seen yet, so phew on that

and now most of the images are slightly wrong (usually off by 1 position compared to the corrected list). but i'm not going to fix them or reupload them because holy shit, i've already spent a ton of time on them, and also it would massively confusing (even more so than it will already be). i feel like a disaster. sorry everyone.

doesn't seem like much of a problem to me really, it's a great thread

dont even sweat it just roll out what you have no need to go back in there and re-do a bunch of stuff youve already done... just throw the extra one in there as like 41.5 or something when you get to the one thats supposed to be in there.

Small potatoes. The order of #60-120 doesn’t matter so much as having placed.

Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done and pacing the roll-out quite nicely.

Just catching up on all this, great stuff all around. Btw the Knight Rider theme is by Stu Phillips, I guess the “V/A” comes from some compilation album.

You're doing well, KM! This must surely be the most humungous dataset for a non-EOY poll in years, after all!

yep, echoing that it's all good, KM. sorry that it creates extra work for you but I'm loving this poll either way

yeah don't fret about any tallying issues from the past, throw in any adjustments that fit, but just move on as we chant ZEDD ESS ZEDD ESS from the sidelines

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili),

otm. had no idea

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie),

you might have heard Get A Move On by Mr Scruff 1 trillion times instead

Chaos is good, KM--I really loved this poll when BABIP crept into the conversation.

everyone is going to be pissed at me tomorrow. earlier tonight i realized that some songs were missing votes (some people manually entered in their tracks…)

It would have been funnier if you had pretended Elvis C was a fake out that nobody had noticed. Now that would have really pissed us off.

But yeah, small potatoes.

glad that everyone's cool with it! i was probably catastrophizing a bit last night. which is kind of in character, admittedly.

here is the rundown again, with changes highlighted. everything is pretty much in the same order, just off by a rank or two:

120 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 5 0.3036
119 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 5 0.3042
118 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 5 0.3078
117 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 7 0.3126
116 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 4 0.3141 1
115 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 4 0.3144
114 Neil Young - Till the Morning Comes (1:21) 6 0.3147 - (NEW! was previously outside the top 120)
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 5 0.3177
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 5 0.3195
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 3 0.3195
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 5 0.3237
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 6 0.3243
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 5 0.3246
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 5 0.3258
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 6 0.3261
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 5 0.3285
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 4 0.3288
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 6 0.3297
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 5 0.3309
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 5 0.3318
100 Fats Domino - Walking to New Orleans (1:58) 4 0.3342
99 Noname - Self (1:35) 4 0.3384
98 Cardiacs - Horsehead (1:21) 4 0.3411
97 The Beach Boys - Our Prayer (1:10) 5 0.3432
96 V/A - Knight Rider Theme (1:17) 5 0.3495
95 DEVO - Too Much Paranoias (1:57) 5 0.3549
94 Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter (1:57) 5 0.3573
92 Captain Beefheart - Frownland (1:39) 5 0.3672
92 Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02) 8 0.3672
90 Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41) 7 0.3675
90 Lizzy Mercier Descloux/Rosa Yemen - Rosa Vertov (1:48) 5 0.3675
89 Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28) 5 0.3681
88 Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40) 5 0.369
87 Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28) 4 0.372 1
86 John Barry Orchestra - James Bond Theme (1:50) 8 0.3729
85 Roger Miller - Dang Me (1:51) 4 0.3816
84 John Lennon - Hold On (1:52) 6 0.3819
83 Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack (1:55) 5 0.3837
82 The Dicks - Dicks Hate the Police (1:58) 4 0.3855
81 Eddie Cochran - C'Mon Everybody (1:58) 6 0.3894
80 J Dilla - Stop (1:39) 4 0.3912
79 The Byrds - Time Between (1:54) 6 0.3939
78 Solange - Rise (1:42) 8 0.3999
77 Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57) 7 0.4002
76 Neil Young - Cripple Creek Ferry (1:33) 7 0.4086 (was previously #96)
75 Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30) 5 0.4107
74 Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58) 7 0.4155
73 Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50) 6 0.4173
72 De La Soul - Transmitting Live from Mars (1:12) 7 0.4188
71 Sebadoh - License to Confuse (1:46) 7 0.4263
70 Daft Punk - Nightvision (1:44) 7 0.4281
69 The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:49) 6 0.4419 1
68 Jorge Ben - Balanca Pema (1:29) 6 0.4455 1
67 Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living? (1:24) 9 0.4548
66 Kenickie - Come Out 2nite (1:58) 6 0.4572 1
65 Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy (Lost Cues, Vol. 2 version) (1:20) 6 0.4614
64 The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer (1:43) 7 0.4806
63 Moondog - Lament 1 (1:45) 7 0.4809

these two songs are now slightly higher up in the list, so we'll be re-revealing them as the rollout continues:
Belle & Sebastian - Simple Things (1:46)(previously #63)
Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40)(previously #68)

will be back soon with the new #62 and #61, along with #60-41

oh yeah, and the spotify playlist is updated as well. i left elvis c on there. never forget

man this playlist is great. in a half hour of listening i've checked off like four artists i've known the name of since forever, but never really listened to. and i'm always game for the next track cause, heck, it'll be two minutes, max.

great song i wish i'd remembered during noms: no ditching - dickhead

Doc Casino otm

"till the morning comes" definitely deserves to be in the top 120! my neil young pick.

I'm kind of shocked that They Might be Giants haven't made an appearance, kinda figured they'd place a bunch in the 120-90 region

ok! your new #62!

https://i.imgur.com/IZskS1g.jpg
62. Delia Derbyshire - Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO (1:44)
0.4827 points
6 votes (1)

Yes!

Oh wow! It made it! Thank you five other people, I really thought this would be pushed out.

great song i wish i'd remembered during noms: no ditching - dickhead

― devvvine, Wednesday, April 10, 2019 2:57 PM (one hour ago)

But damn, I almost certainly would've voted for this if you'd nommed it.

https://i.imgur.com/JAtktIw.jpg
61. Bill Wells & Maher Shalal Baz - Duck (1:05)
0.4836 points
7 votes (1)

Hehe, I knew this one would place with all the talk about it in the other threads.

TOO LOW

does the (1) refer to a first place vote?

I can’t believe that someone made this and I’m very glad that they did. It is the pinnacle of songs being slightly off-sounding.

So yeah, this was my #1. It felt like a new musical language when I first heard it - a quivering, diaphanous, impossibly yearning creation hewn from mistake after bum note after folly - but the first run-through of the melody made me stop dead, and the second, more polyphonal run-through made me cry buckets. Somehow all of life is in this song

does the (1) refer to a first place vote?

― Emperor Tonetta Ketchup (sleeve)

yep!

All the while there's this cosy, nostalgic, perfect piano humming away even as the horns embody the fragility of the human - uh, I mean anatid condition; it's just the loveliest thing

lovely song, i really hope something by the penguin cafe orchestra also places!

I'm really happy for those of you who, in discovering this, discovered life.

duck was a fun discovery from the voting thread, definitely the best thing that any combinations of the words "bill" and "maher" have ever done

Haven't heard 'Duck' before, but it sounds like a more discordant version of an instrumental Belle & Sebastian track, which is good? yes.

Imago, have you listened to Maher Shalal Hash Baz's From A Summer To Another Summer yet? 'Duck' was getting all the discussion from the nominated short songs by MSHB but there are other (longer) songs by them that I love more.

https://i.imgur.com/4RJE9W2.jpg
60. Bjork - Frosti (1:41)
0.4878 points
9 votes

fell in love Frosti again after a bjork binge for the recent ilm poll

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili),

otm. had no idea

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie),

you might have heard Get A Move On by Mr Scruff 1 trillion times instead

― blokes you can't rust (sic), Wednesday, April 10, 2019 12:38 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep

That Derbyshire track is so good.

ziwzih should be higher

Duck was a nice discovery from the noms for sure. its hard to keep my mind from wandering off into good memories when listening to it.

after adding in a vote that I had failed to incorporate earlier, hot chicken makes its reappearance here:

https://i.imgur.com/AkC4hgg.jpg
59. Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40)
0.4899 points
9 votes

the return to the return to hot chicken

Imago, have you listened to Maher Shalal Hash Baz's From A Summer To Another Summer yet? 'Duck' was getting all the discussion from the nominated short songs by MSHB but there are other (longer) songs by them that I love more.

― emil.y, Wednesday, 10 April 2019 15:54 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I listened to Osaka Bridge and found myself loving the shorter tracks most! But I'll certainly check this out, thanks. They strike me as a group that relies on alchemy for their best work, meaning that they possess the ability to come out of nowhere with something ineffably perfect

https://i.imgur.com/R4qlyMr.jpg
58. Neil Young - Love in Mind (1:56)
0.4917 points
7 votes

yes!

i'm a little bummed out by the inclusion of the inferior fusion version of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" on the playlist; I assume it's a time issue?

yup

same

https://i.imgur.com/kwrN57n.jpg
57. Guided by Voices - As We Go Up, We Go Down (1:37)
0.4983 points
8 votes

yay, I think I voted for this one, great tune

I speak in monotone
leave my fucking life alone

Ah, THERE's my Neil track.

they're gonna have at least 3 placements I'm guessing (not complaining)

love in mind got a top 5 vote from me.

62. Delia Derbyshire - Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO (1:44)
0.4827 points
6 votes (1)

― these are not all of the possible side effects (Karl Malone), Wednesday, April 10, 2019 8:20 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw wtf is this?

Duck and Ziwzih are both great finds; thanks!

xp I daresay she'll be back, in her guise of time travel thread patron

https://i.imgur.com/Egs9mz2.jpg
56. Delfonics - Ready or Not Here I Come (1:59)
0.4995 points
8 votes

niiiiiice

i didn't vote but am following along -- this thread is a short little bright spot in the hellscape :)
you are doing a great job KM

also that is my favorite line from "as we go up" which is not my fave short gbv song but i figure there will be more

btw wtf is this?

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie)

Are you asking who Delia Derbyshire is or what this specific track is about, or both?

http://delia-derbyshire.org/index.php

And my favorite line as well, it is killer

And thanks LL!

And also flopson from last night, and others - very appreciated, very glad people are enjoying it!

this thread is a short little bright spot in the hellscape :)

la lechera OTMFM

man ready or not is just perfect, been sampled to death but those horns are eternal

WHO RUN IT

and also Missy

https://i.imgur.com/95dtQJA.jpg
55. Public Enemy - Show 'Em Whatcha Got (1:56)
0.5031 points
7 votes (1)

btw wtf is this?

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie)

Are you asking who Delia Derbyshire is or what this specific track is about, or both?

http://delia-derbyshire.org/index.php

― emil.y, Wednesday, April 10, 2019 9:59 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah both, thanks for the link!

ready or not should've been top ten we have failed

PE track another example of "mid-tier song on classic album that happens to be under two minutes" imo

yeah

xps Man I thought that was just the Doctor Who theme and Karl was just making TARDIS noises or something. But that is weird and awesome!

so this is what the dB's and Elastica sound like. cool!

A #1 vote for "Show 'Em Whatcha Got?"

I nominated "Ready or Not" but foolishly ended up cutting it from my ballot.