The King of Rock 'n' POLL, completely - PREFAB SPROUT - Artist Poll #100 - VOTING THREAD

https://images2.imgbox.com/de/a0/2RF8SMbW_o.jpg

By popular demand (well, 4 or 5 people in the poll coordination thread were keen anyway) it's time for the Prefab Sprout ballot poll!

You are invited to submit either or both of the following:

(1) YOUR FAVOURITE PfS TRACKS - up to 30, ranked or unranked.

(2) YOUR FAVOURITE PfS ALBUMS - up to 5.

(I Trawl the Megahertz has been issued as a PfS album now, so I trust you'll agree that there is even less reason to exclude it, if there ever even was one.)

Ballots to vaticanroulette AT gmail DOT com, with your username. A Sprout-related subject line would also be helpful.

DEADLINE: let's provisionally schedule the countdown for the Monday after Sunday, March 15th. So ballots in before it ceases to be Sunday in every last timezone, please.

ALSO

Here's a list of every Prefab Sprout track I'm aware of. Are there more?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IQJYQxN67EHqxvIM3t-nzpEeKS9Jhgn9EpZTdYoMUl4

Proposed scoring regime:

- Albums: 5,4,3,2,1.

- Tracks:
RANKED: 40,36,33,30,28,26,25,24,23,22,21,20,19,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2.
UNRANKED: 17 points for each item. (ie. a 30 track unranked ballot adds up to much the same number of total points as a ranked one.)

When this was mentioned over on the other thread I smugly thought to myself how easy it would be to put a list together. After looking at the track-listing for Jordan: The Comeback again, I'm already realising I'm screwed. Everything on there (apart from The Wedding March) could be on my list.

excited for this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FRQDOVSekE

i wanna strongly advocate for non-album single "if you don't love me", possibly their only foray into dance-pop. i know they have a lot of other non-album stuff that i haven't fully dug into before so i'm looking forward to going through all the b-sides etc.

I'll get in here early and remind everyone what an incredibly weird and addictive thing their first ever single was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9eSboYF00I

Would a friendly passing mod care to fix my mangled bbcode 'bold' tags at the end of the original post please?

Off to a great start there. :)

I don’t know any of the post-Jordan stuff, so everyone feel free to rep for your faves!

I Trawl the Megahertz is quite a departure from usual (being a mostly instrumental classical work) but it's certainly worth a listen, the 20-minute title track especially is great. Crimson/Red is generally fine and "The Best Jewel Thief in the World" is classic PS. it's been a while since i've listened to the other post-Jordan material though so i'm interested to see how much is worth while

I only recently decided that Let's Change the World With Music is pretty great. I originally struggled to see past the slightly clunky arrangements, especially amongst the first few tracks. But the songs now linger in my head for days. It was a similar pattern with Andromeda Heights for me, so I should've no doubt have known to devote some proper time to it much earlier on. The Gunman..., on the other hand, I still struggle with.

Stella mater...light is fading

I think Crimson/Red is easily the strongest of the post-Jordan Prefab Sprout records. Let's Change... is basically demos, but the songs are pretty good.

One of my favourite Prefab Sprout songs is this very sentimental b-side from the Andromeda Heights era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxyEc_1LgzA

. i know they have a lot of other non-album stuff that i haven't fully dug into before so i'm looking forward to going through all the b-sides etc.

found this a few months ago. hope it helps! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9eSboYF00I&list=PLclePdpPCqJfhQC1NlqEn0Hmv7zA4X8mi

blimey
https://youtu.be/g9eSboYF00I

ffs, disregard that for this. sorry

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLclePdpPCqJfhQC1NlqEn0Hmv7zA4X8mi

I don’t know any of the post-Jordan stuff, so everyone feel free to rep for your faves!

― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko)

I doubt my list will feature much from these years but I will try and find room for this gorgeous single from Crimson/Red

https://youtu.be/5WnATZLcXuA

Maybe Cornfield Ablaze from The Gunman & Other Stories too.

i POLLed the megahertz

glad the ballot is 30 songs long. i could've filled 20 with just songs from jordan and steve mcqueen.

The Sound of Crying ftw

Oh, this is going to be super tough. I expect I’ll be going to the wire before I’m satisfied with my ballot.

I’ll only say that ‘From Langley Park to Memphis’ is criminally overlooked falling between ‘Steve McQueen’ and ‘Jordan...’.

i think it's on the same level of steve mcqueen for me. the mcqueen highs are higher, but langley park has a higher baseline of quality.

side 2 of steve is a big drop-off imo, but it would be hard for any band to top or equal that incredible side one.

the acoustic versions of the Steve McQueen songs on the deluxe edition are even more top. Talk about swoon...

has the ache for infidelity ever sounded so beautiful?

acoustic versions on steve make me wish jordan got the same acoustic treatment. paddy was saying during a short interview on his instagram that he recorded the demos for 'one of the broken,' 'mercy,' and 'michael' back-to-back in one sitting.

Not sure I know enough stuff to vote, but Lions is an absolutely perfect pop single, and Cruel is a wonderful re-invention of swing era sophistication. After that, it's just all too soft focus for me.

the acoustic versions of the Steve McQueen songs on the deluxe edition are even more top. Talk about swoon

Right? I mean, usually these acoustic re-recordings are filler or unnecessary, but these take the great and make them greater! Very rare accomplishment.

XP: I didn't specify a minimum number of selections per ballot (maybe we should have minimum? 5? 10?) but one certainly doesn't need to fill it out to 30. Besides, the early (and late) eras could probably use all the support they can get. :)

should I bookmark this thread

I hope this thread has to come to triggercut's attention, seeing as I basically stole their poll suggestion!

oh shit my poll is here

Lemme rep for this b side

https://youtu.be/jlb4naMWnpU

^ Yes! Very likely on my ballot!

ohhh yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j4o-EyrmcU

the mourners all discuss
the POLL that caused a fuss

Very good btw

https://www.sodajerker.com/episode-53-paddy-mcaloon/

Paddy talks about the writing of songs like ‘The Best Jewel Thief in the World’, ‘Billy’, Devil Came A Calling’ and ‘The Songs of Danny Galway’ before moving on to classic Prefab Sprout songs like ‘Faron Young’, When Love Breaks Down’, The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll’, ‘Hey Manhattan’ and more.

he returned recently too, though i haven't listened yet: https://www.sodajerker.com/episode-135-paddy-mcaloon/

he discusses megahertz on this one.

Donna Summer is such a great song. I like the punk-ish version they did as a three-piece.

Paddy still writes protest songs (of the subtlest kind)

https://youtu.be/0jbdjD6a-xw

Listened to Crimson Red today for the first time in ages. 1st half is strong ("jewel thief" will definitely get a vote frome me) but starts to slack off in the second half

xxxp ah yes i'd forgotten that. it was great to see Megahertz getting some love recently.

i think it's on the same level of steve mcqueen for me. the mcqueen highs are higher, but langley park has a higher baseline of quality.

― ooga booga-ing for the bourgeoisie (voodoo chili)

I've always thought Langley Park has much more of a drop off than Steve McQueen. Those last four songs do nothing for me.

Aww “the golden calf” is one of my favorites of his

Same! And "Knock On Wood" is pleasantly kooky.

'Knock on Wood' is their most Scritti-esque production.

Excited!

Maybe Cornfield Ablaze from The Gunman & Other Stories too.

otm - most of the album passes me by but Cornfield Ablaze is incredible.

i do really wish i trawl the megahertz had more of paddy singing on it, the one track where he does is so wonderful. it's still great as it is and the title track will probably be in my top 10 but it just makes me think what could have been.

Only by an extreme act of will can I avoid becoming a character in a country song

xp

agreed, but the lack of his voice does make the moment when he comes in that much more special

What do we think of "Machine Gun Ibiza"?

He's a stone delta blues man.
He's a top rollmo' star

Love it. He/they must’ve too I guess , considering how early on it’s placed in the running.

I personally love how he keeps the “th” sound in Ibiza even when he’s trying to be suave

This short 1980 live set is interesting:

https://www.sproutology.co.uk/concerts/festival-season-part-1-domefest-june-29th-1980/

I may end up voting for "Tin Can Pot" which (in contrast with the early "Donna Summer" here) is largely interchangeable with the "KoRnR" b-side some 8 years later.

While some of the b-sides really are very silly indeed I do wish PM hadn't long ago ruled out a compilation. eg. I'm pretty sure I never heard the fast version of 'Diana' before this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey9-KHCiiOs

Fascinating to think which non-‘hits’ might be in the top 10.

i still don't get swoon at all, it's so dense compared to everything that came afterwards

Some interesting results in previous polls; Looking For Atlantis gets 0 in the old Jordan poll, while Technique came top in the Swoon one.

I've now submitted my ballot to myself (I fear I'll vote hopelessly strategically if I don't go early) and "Technique" is again doing quite well here... after one ballot!

Swoon is genius. Listen on shuffle on Spotify, the songs from Swoon sound amazing in contrast to the more unified nature of the rest of the discography (with the exception of Megahertz).

I think Horsin Around may be the litmus test as to whether Swoon will work for you or not.

I'll probably end up revisiting Swoon before I'm done making up my ballot, but it has never done anything for me either.

and little green isaac
you’re gonna walk backwards through the room

jeez i know it's already been said but: the first side of steve mcqueen

Can’t be said enough imo

It's probably the most perfect first side I know.

Swoon is incredible and was the album that made me get obsessed with them after being a casual fan for years. It was Gary Mulholland's writing about the album in his excellent Fear Of Music book that led me to check it out. It's one of those albums that sounds like nothing else and even though the song structures are quite odd, it's super catchy. I had those songs stuck in my head instantly and still do now and again. It's still so weird to me that they put out such a different and more polished record just over a year later.

tbh i like the first side of swoon just about as much as the first side of steve mcqueen

"don't sing" alone, what a cool song

Xp those Mulholland books don’t get enough love do they?

It's still so weird to me that they put out such a different and more polished record just over a year later.

― kitchen person, Saturday, February 29, 2020 11:08 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

what's even weirder: according to paddy in that sodajerker podcast, most of the songs from steve were written when he was a teenager. the stuff on swoon was newer!

this interview also suggests that thomas dolby played a big role on shaping the steve songs into more traditional structures: https://web.archive.org/web/20150924024813/http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2011-11/14/gq-music-thomas-dolby-map-of-the-floating-city-interview

Definitely yeah he’s done a couple of decent podcasts where he talks about making things simpler, more traditional or whatever. Crazy career Dolby’s had; Bowie’s synth player at Live Aid, supporting Depeche at their ‘101’ show, getting rich making apps for phones, almost-producing Thriller, it’s nuts!

wow the remaster of jordan that came out last year sounds fantastic

Xp those Mulholland books don’t get enough love do they?

― piscesx

Oh definitely! They influenced my tastes so much in the mid 2000s. Made me check out singles and albums by artists I would have never previously considered.

wow the remaster of jordan that came out last year sounds fantastic

― american bradass (BradNelson)

It was nice to pick up the vinyl reissue and finally get a perfect sounding copy. I went through a number of original copies that all sounded terrible because they'd crammed way too much music on to one record.

jordan the very rare instance where a band's longest record is their most consistent. also greatest album of all time etc.

any music worth its salt is good for dancing

happy to say that the remastered version of jordan on streaming services restores the seamless transitions

spoiler for my ballot but i will really be pulling for "the sound of crying" in this thing

i can't think of a better set of new songs for a greatest hits collection than "sound of crying" and "if you don't love me"

or "Knock on Wood"

or "Nightingales"

"If You Don't Love Me" reminds me of S-A-W-era Donna Summer.

I like how Kylie Minogue saw fit to cover "possibly their only foray into dance-pop", as ufo put it, and... thoroughly DE-dance-pop-ified it!

Is there any love for Protest Songs? I voted for several tracks but I fear the whole album remains curiously under-heard. To an impressive degree. I mean, old press clippings and live excerpts on Sproutology suggest it generated more chatter around the time it WASN'T released ("a song from our third album, out in December", etc, in 1985) than when it actually appeared. Pretty sure I'd never even heard of it before I found myself blindly buying a ~$2 used copy around the turn of the century!

It'll likely be represented on my ballot in the form of "Wicked Things," but it's another one that I gotta revisit for this poll.

There will be at least a couple of songs from that album on my ballot. It is an underrated album. Horsechimes and Talking Scarlet are standouts for me.

Tiffanys is my favourite on Protest Songs. The World Awake and Life Of Surprises will also probably make my list. It's a really solid album.

Re: PS - Life of Surprises is up pretty high for me. Til the Cows Come Home surprised me as well listening recently.

"life of surprises" is sometimes my favorite prefab song. protest songs is very good but is my least fav of the initial run, think they were right to shelve it but glad we have it anyway

i prefer protest songs to swoon but i'd rank crimson/red above both

listened to andromeda heights for the first time in years and it's pretty bland for the most part. i like "steal your thunder" but that's about it

I hope this thread has to come to triggercut's attention, seeing as I basically stole their poll suggestion!

Thanks Nag!

Was so happy upon opening up ILX and seeing this today.

Phew! :)

I was just reminding myself of how ridiculous their chart positions were. Apart from The King Of Rock 'N' Roll making the top 10, so many incredible singles barely did anything (Johnny Johnny 64, Appetite 92, Cars & Girls 44, Looking For Atlantas 51, Nightingales 78, Faron Young 74). It even took three attempts to get When Love Breaks Down to number 25 (originally hitting the dizzy heights of 89 and then 88 on the second attempt). It really makes no sense to me that these wonderful and very radio friendly songs weren't all huge singles.

Yeah that's especially true considering they did have *some* chart hits, and they were all over the radio and tv and press.

Always loved this story

“And in the space of one short, magical summer, Prefab Sprout appeared on “The National Lottery Show”, presented by Bob Monkhouse (a major fan of the Sprouts, apparently “Protest Songs” is never off his car hi fi) and, still more fantastically, on “Breakfast Time. They played “Electric Guitars”. Afterwards. the presenter looked across at the band from her sofa and, with the gift for lateral thinking for which breakfast TV presenters are cherished, wondered if they knew why people notch those crosses into the bottoms of sprouts. The split second which followed was, potentially, a pivotal moment in the life of Prefab Sprout. An open microphone; a national audience running to millions; and, in the air, the topic of crosses and vegetables. Never in the history of live television has anyone been served such a golden opportunity for a career-changing blasphemy. Here lay what historians of The Beatles will recognise as a possibly gigantic “Bigger than Jesus” moment. With one incautiously-weighed remark of shire-scalding, vicar-sickening, switchboard jamming tastelessness, either one of the McAloon brothers could have ignited a gunpowder trail of notoriety which would have fizzed around the world in minutes. In the public squares of Moosejaw, Ohio, bonfires formed exclusively from Prefab Sprout albums would be smouldering blackly even now.“There was a silence in which Paddy McAloon seemed to gather his breath as if to speak – global notoriety spread out and shimmering before him – and then to think better of it. The programme moved on, Prefab Sprout left for the airport and flew back up north.”

Giles Smith, Sleeve Notes for “38 Carat Collection”, August 1999

increasingly convinced that there is no lyricist on earth better than paddy mcaloon

it's amazing that he wrote the Steve McQueen songs as a teen because it's only as a 40 something that I've been able to understand their depths.

"the world awake" contains all the emotional depth of a short story in just the first two lines of its chorus: "now everybody wears the look of the child who wished to marry you / who, knocking proudly on your door, was greeted by your pretty wife"

yes!

"Appetite" could be a Sophocles story

like "of all that is strange on the earth, none is stranger than man", is that from a song on side 1 of Steve McQueen?

wishing she could call him heartache
but it's not a boy's name

yes! that is a lyric of an adult, I couldn't have understood it until the last few years, but somehow Paddy McAloon saw into the future. he's as much a miner as a songwriter.

paddy's lyrics are indeed fantastic. i respect how he wears his heart on his sleeves one-hundred percent of the time.

triple nag, we should have a favorite lyric side poll, like we did for the steely dan poll.

"You surely are, a truly gifted kid
But you're only as good as, the last great thing you did
And where've you been since then? Did the schedule get you down?
I hear you got a new girlfriend, how's the wife taking it?"

I almost forgot about this; from back in the early 00s when bands/artists where asked to pick a lyric that inspired them for a HMV campaign

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBH7Ii_UkAA_Oac.jpg

NO YOU WON’T!

playing for blood

we should have a favorite lyric side poll, like we did for the steely dan poll.

I'm happy to add this. I just looked it how it worked for Steely Dan. Folks selected three each. Can't help noticing that the results distribution was kinda flat with little overlap between ballots. Any suggestions as to how to overcome that? Maybe grouping by song at rollout time would work? (Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard and flat distributions are not actually a problem. LOL.) I certainly like the idea in principle!

This, at worst, should be an amusing experiment, so I will indeed add an optional sub-poll:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(3) FAVOURITE LYRIC - Up to 5

Ranked or unranked.

(5-4-3-2-1 points or 3 points each, respectively

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Please note the title of the source song against each selection so I don't have to think too hard!

I'll figure out how to roll it out once I see the state of the final numbers.

I haven't figured out what makes "The Golden Calf" such a bizarre rocker/raver.

Voted. My CD copy of Jordan: The Comeback came in a cheap five pack with other 1980s/1990s Prefab records. It was out of order and missing the last four tracks.

Good Lord! No "Scarlet Nights" then. Noooooo.

I was wondering what was happening with Femmes Mythologiques, which was meant to be out last September, and then read this:

on the subject of the album, this year there have been dark rumours of catastrophic hard disk crashes and lost vocal recordings and I’d say it’s 25/75 at best we’ll see “Femmes Mythologiques” at all given the time that’s passed.

fuck

listened to andromeda heights for the first time in years and it's pretty bland for the most part. i like "steal your thunder" but that's about it

Even A Prisoner of the Past?? That’s his best stab at baroque pop imo

Re: AH, some moods, "Life's a Miracle" is exactly what I needed to hear.

'hallelujah' is basically a proto-pulp song, isn't it? sophisti-pulp.

I reckon Mark Eitzel was listening to a lot of Prefab Sprout when he wrote the songs on San Francisco. I know it's unfashionable to say so but I really like San Francisco and find the parallels with Prefab Spout's late 80s output help me appreciate it even more.

Paddy's take on romance was/is a lot more sour than his sparkling sings let on ("I've got six things on my mind, you're no longer one of them", "you and I won't make mistakes, the way young lovers do, saying this will last a lifetime, when it's just a year or two", etc.) Definitely a lot of overlap w/ Eitzel on that front.

Opinions on things upthread -

Always disliked Machine Gun Ibiza. Pointless, and much too near the front of Jordan.

Protest Songs: Life of Surprises and The World Awake (yes that 'Everybody wears the look' line is incredible bcz it is completely accurate about how a lot of people look dragging themselves around a city in the morning) definitely on my ballot, but not much else. The songs are good-to-great, but it's never sounded that interesting to me - a bit thin compared to the others from the early run.

Swoon took me the longest to get into but I was absolutely fixated for a couple of years. Might be my #1 album. All those startling knotty lyrics (still there in Steve McQueen), odd tunes and structures… each song arrived slowly to me and stayed.

McAloon tends to direct his ire outwardly whereas Eitzel usually turns it on himself - Apology for an Accident (for example):

"Well I'm an expert in all things that nature abhors
Your look of disgust when I touched your skin
And I try to figure what the world needs me for
So I replay the scene again and again"

I'm a big fan of "Dublin"

"you and I won't make mistakes, the way young lovers do, saying this will last a lifetime, when it's just a year or two"

i don't think this is sour just charmingly extremely self-conscious in the spirit of the rest of the song

Thinking every silver bottle top potentially a star

god i trawl the megahertz is such an achievement

wild that i can now listen to it on streaming, it was absolutely impossible to find on the internet three years ago

lol, can "Jesse James Symphony/Jesse James Bolero" count as a single track?

In the morning, I go walking
it helps the hurting soften
I've seen a lot of places
because I miss her very often

Even A Prisoner of the Past?? That’s his best stab at baroque pop imo

― J. Sam, Monday, March 2, 2020 6:48 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Re: AH, some moods, "Life's a Miracle" is exactly what I needed to hear.

― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Monday, March 2, 2020 8:30 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

"electric guitars" also fuckin rules

"We were quoted out of context - it was great" is pretty, um, great.

I'm turkey hungry, I'm chicken free. Movin' the river. And I can't breakdance on your knee.

2 singles from Andromeda Heights are wonderful. I find the rest of the album unbearably schmaltzy though

astonished that andromeda heights is only 47 minutes long. the drowsy tempos make it feel like hours pass. most of the songs are still really cool in isolation though

love is the fifth horseman
of the apocalypse!!!!

Prefab Sprout's ambivalent take on romance and romanticism reminds me of Scritti Politti - I remember Simon Reynolds writing something about The Word Girl being simultaneously a critique of and hymn to the idealization of a woman into a love object, "how your flash and blood became the word!" as both an exposition and sigh of wonder - there's this constant thing in PS songs about recognizing that it's phantasmagorical but being moved and possessed by it anyway

it feels related to the way Scritti and Prefab Sprout both have the same self-consciousness about 'authenticity' and being British people making American music and using these Americana signifiers, like Cars And Girls being about how all this Bruce Springsteen stuff is phony but still powerful and intoxicating

(reminds me about how Raintown by Deacon Blue was explicitly an attempt to do Bruce Springsteen but with Glasgow replacing the Springsteen American landscapes- PS more ambiguous and ambivalent than Deacon Blue though, but a similar impulse, From Langley Park to Memphis etc)

I think I remember another Simon Reynolds (or maybe K Punk?) thing about Scritti, about how their songs fold back in on themselves in this endless circular chase for something that can never be caught, is never graspable which reminds me of Prefab Sprout as well - "he admits all he's chasing is the chase", this solipsistic thing

i had never heard the gunman and i was about to turn into a gunman truther after the first four tracks, like "this album is good! come on!!!!" but then "love will find someone for you" didn't really work at all. still, having a great time. "wild card in the pack," "cornfield ablaze"... amazing songs

Will any non-singles from Gunman and Andromeda make the cut? I can barely recall what's on 'em. Seem to recall Swans was a fave in the papers.

i can tell you right now that “farmyard cat” is gonna place

at no. 1

I haven't fully embraced PS because I hear Green Gartside behind the Fairlight stabs. Two different takes on love and LOVE, mind, and McAloon was more of a sap, or at least not minding I called him a sap. I realize I may value Green Gartside because he recorded fewer albums.

those are great posts soref. i get making the “word girl” connection but generally i think green and paddy are in two different worlds lyrically. green’s songs are pamphlets on theory in the shape of pop songs, paddy’s are... very earnest literary investigations of love and god, he’s not flexing his self-awareness on the hardcore level green is, and when paddy betrays a self-awareness it feels true to the text, like it’s something the people in his songs would think and care about and say, it’s not like it’s commenting on the text commenting on the text (and so on). maybe i disagree with simon reynolds on scritti, i’ve never actually read him on them

lmao the intro rap on "let there be music"

let's change the world with music actually really rules, despite being kinda lyrically blah with far too many "i love music!" and "god!" lyrics.

i love it musically though, the piano-driven sound with upbeat drum loops is great.

Reynolds gets Scritti Politti quite wrong; he mourns what they became.

he never seems sour to me, exactly. Too much generosity and compassion even in the sadness and the anger. Clear-eyed, but uncynical. The earlier songs are extremely cerebral-literary - a gifted poet(*) picking at the ambivalence and ambiguities of feeling and fitting them into sometimes awkward, sometimes gorgeous songs - but Jordan onwards he's pushing towards something simpler or pure. Like he says, no longer wants to be the 'Fred Astaire of words'.

tbh it's the earlier style I love, and I'm basically thrilled by those moments when he gets the verbal dancing shoes out and just spins through something like 'Best Jewel Thief in the World' - tight funny little internal rhymes, snappy syntactic turns and then the whole thing feeling like a melancholy and exhilarating figure for his songwriting.

(*) It feels a bit silly calling songwriters poets because it can either seem like a dumb attempt at aggrandisement ('He's not a songwriter - he's a _poet_), or a kind of slam ('I'll admit he's a good poet - but is he really a good _songwriter_?). I don't really want either of those things here - PM just always strikes me as being overloaded with the particular language/image skills of a poet.

xp All The Critics Love U In New York (when you quote Derrida and pepper your album art with post-structural allusions)

when you actually go for it (i.e. fully embrace the mainstream pop that separated you from the indie chaff, aka "entryism"), not so much

ufo very OTM re LCTWWM! :)

let's change the world with music actually really rules, despite being kinda lyrically blah with far too many "i love music!" and "god!" lyrics.

I found the lyrics off-putting at first, but their humanistic sincerity really grew on me. Like the way "Ride" regards believers and non-believers with equal compassion, plus the beat slaps real hard.

"People hear me, who can know
If our time on Earth's the soundcheck or the show?"

lol at the solitary comment on youtube for "farmyard cat":

what is happening how is this album closer I didn't even know this album existed til 2 days ago this guy wrote "Appetite"

i love the dense early lyrics too but think paddy achieves something remarkable when things straighten out circa protest songs/from langley park to memphis. the couplets get so crisp and the rhymes are like lightning bolts of ideas

never let your conscience be harmful to your health
let no neurotic impulse turn inward on itself

this approach peaks at "the sound of crying" for me, which is such a smart lyric, especially the "we're only men and women doing what we can" verse. i love the way that some of his lyrics set up a motif and then turn it around so you can see it from every angle, from earnest to ridiculous cf. "the vision i have had is sweeping" in "king of rock n roll" turning into "new broom, this room, sweep it clean," the employment of musical terminology in "sound of crying" ("sometimes i think that god is working to a plan / then other times i swear that he is improvising / discordant and remote")

in fact people and concepts being capable of the sublime and the ridiculous, if not sublime = ridiculous, seems to be a large part of paddy’s whole thing

and there's nothing pathetic listing clothes she'd wear
if it proves that i had you, if it proves i was there

first pass-through of the discography leaves me with 50 songs lol

and there's nothing pathetic listing clothes she'd wear
if it proves that i had you, if it proves i was there

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 3, 2020 2:43 PM

One of my five lyric choices.

say i remember that!

It's odd that I had never heard Andromeda Heights until today, as its 1997 release coincided with my discovery of Prefab Sprout--although I cannot recall whether it was discussion around the new album that motivated me to check out Steve McQueen or if I just happened to be hearing about and becoming curious about them as they were releasing a new record. Either way, it is undoubtedly for the best that Andromeda Heights wasn't my intro to the band, as I'm finding it to be kind of a snooze. "A Prisoner of the Past" might be the only thing I end up taking away from the record, and even then I might like "The End of the Affair," that AH-era b-side that aphoristical posted upthread, even better than that.

"the end of the affair" is excellent

"Weightless" is my favorite song from that album, could have easily fit on the Jordan album, sonically elegant and of course those coo-ing Wendy Smith vox...

Also reminds me of "Enchanted", my fave track from Langley Park.

I'm surprised to find that I may be more strongly pro-AH than most, seeing as my juvenile ears perceived even Jordan to be too schmaltzy for quite a while! "Weightless" is indeed great. The tracks where they come closest to dispensing with rock instrumentation altogether (eg. much of side two) might be the most attractive, musically. The arrangements are frequently great. Maybe it's best to approach it like a Burt Bacharach project or something.

I'll mention the very optional side-poll again, seeing it's not at the top of the thread!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(3) FAVOURITE LYRIC - Up to 5

Ranked or unranked.

(5-4-3-2-1 points or 3 points each, respectively)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

crimson/red: what a return to form, i am probably voting for “jewel thief” and “adolescence” but it’s just a ridiculously good record throughout

also wanted to say that “the dreamer,” down to the lyric, is basically a late leonard cohen song

jordan is certainly schmaltzy, but it's unapologetically, transcendently schmaltzy.

Turned in my ballot, and have had the non-included "Weightless" chorus stuck in my head for the last two days. "Weightless. I feel like Yuri … Gagarin. Gagarin."

i love the really funky synth figure that opens "ride." prob my only vote from let's change the world with music, which is very good and would've prob been a great follow-up to jordan but is a little flattened by its demo-ness

pretty cool that one of the songs on it is named after this board though

he hears romantic music in
unanswered phones,
in the angry slamming of a door

i actually really love every song on let's change the world with music and i can't even really account for why almost none of them will be on my ballot. they're so wonderful

too many good prefab songs

i'm keeping my ballot short, since i can't even

easier to rank the albums for me, and the top five songs (which are basic), while the rest blend together in a way that's more like...i don't know, i'd be trying to snatch passages from a novel here.

was not expecting ‘moving the river’ to be the song stuck on my head during this exercise

i had the same experience with "hallelujah" AND "moving the river"

yeah, two excellent songs i thought i'd be safe leaving off my ballot, but nooooo.

impossible poll.

"Carrying a bag – bag marked swag"

i also fell really hard for "horsechimes" all of a sudden

might take the omar little approach and only vote for my top 15 or thereabouts so i don't drive myself insane

Upon reacquainting myself with post-Jordan material about a month ago (and finding more ballot contenders than expected) I toyed with the idea of an expanded ballot for this one. But then I remembered that the 30 slots I'm in the habit of offering is already above average for ILM artist polls! LOL. And 30 amounts to a full 1/5 of their output, including every last leaked demo and radio session track.

What I didn't consider is FEWER slots. It's brilliant!

i might have a perfect 30 song ballot, albeit this is without having revisited the b-sides/outtakes beyond “donna summer” and “nero the zero,” both of which are on there

actually nm i am now realizing i have to fit “enchanted” in there somewhere

thanks to this poll i’ve finally fallen in love with protest songs and fell significantly more in love with from langley park to memphis

oh but: i remembered! my favorite b-side is "real life (is just around the corner)," particularly the five minute version i can't find on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaEbYlN8uI

not that the other versions are bad i just don't understand the point of the intro

voted btw

Any love for this b-side...it’s gonna be on my list...

https://youtu.be/TthRZh97jqI

"the yearning loins" is one of the best ones!

I think I can cut to 30, but it might have to be unranked.

The lyrics though, I can't do that. Too hard. There's all the great lines of advice and the thoughts that wind their way through a few lines ('…we're probably nightingales), but then I just come back to those lines that don't do much in that way, but just knock me out - 'Isaac's a soft name, it sounds like a pocket full of rain". Can't choose, won't choose.

Fun fact: in early voting (just a handful of ballots) 70 distinct tracks have appeared, with '80s, '90s, '00s and '10s all represented.

Not sure I'm going to have any room for B-sides on my list. If I did, I'd probably go for Silhouettes and Spinning Belinda.

I was just listening to their second single The Devil Has All The Best Tunes. A single which seems to have been written out of history.

https://youtu.be/sjl0mhMB814

^ I heart it. Frankly, it was painful to exclude any of the four tracks from the first two singles. I was only a fairly casual PS listener before I went back and started from the beginning!

sunset makes a fence out of the forest

On an old PfS thread I recall remarking that I hadn't heard Steve McQueen for a while and that the second side was a bit of a blur in my memory. Some wise person said "'Desire As' FFS!" or similar, so seeing as it doesn't appear to have been mentioned here yet it's surely my duty to pass on the message. 'Desire As' FFS!

https://youtu.be/SD998mqQXvo

Ha, that's my #1

ballot sent, btw

It's been a joy digging a bit - never listened to the radio sessions before -
https://www.sproutology.co.uk/concerts/the-complete-radio-sessions/#

Love how both the March 1984 one and the Peel session include zilch from the albums they'd just released. eg. an ancient single, a song they would never revisit and a single from 3 years into the future. Bless. :)

Under a week to go now, hopefully. Here's a BUMP and another remainder of the sub-poll:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(3) FAVOURITE LYRIC - Up to 5

Ranked or unranked.

(5-4-3-2-1 points or 3 points each, respectively)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

going through the b-sides today and while some are kinda interesting they all feel like b-sides for a reason so far

ok as soon as i said that i got to the FLPTM b-sides and "Real Life (Just Around The Corner)" is quite nice

still does seem like a b-side for a reason though

My ballot's tragic flaw is I started to feel I was just listing every track on SM/TWG, got SQUIRREL!ed by "Goodbye Lucille #1 (Johnny Johnny)", and left off "Desire As". Did include its obvious lyrical choice, though.

Voted! My ballot is quite heavily weighted towards my two favourite albums but most of the records got at least one track in there.

left off "Desire As"

me too. not that it's not an amazing song but i feel really distant from the breakup it helped me through and so it doesn't have the same weight for me anymore

i would make and/or accept the argument that "goodbye lucille" is objectively the best prefab sprout song

i think it's likely to be my #1

Okay, the number of ballots is well into double digits now. Phew! (I *know* by now that most vote fairly late but a slow start still makes me faintly anxious!)

Also: any regrets are easily remedied, if you wish. It's a trivial effort to adjust points, etc.

you're still in love with hayley POLLs

I will be submitting my list today. Got it down to 32 songs which is a relief as I was flicking through Jordan last night and it really felt like every song deserved a place.

The lyrics poll is the hardest part. They have so many incredible ones, I wouldn't even know where to start.

sorely tempted to throw a vote for the wedding march

This is difficult! Compiled my ballot. Listening through to see if I need to move anything around.

My ballot would never have been fixed in stone, so happy with the exclusion, and enjoying reading the alternate tracks you others highly rate.

Just reading through some of their lyrics and my entire top five could come from the first half of Steve McQueen alone.

93 distinct tracks have received votes so far!

i trawl the megahertz is probably my 4th or 5th favorite prefab album. but it also might be the best album ever made.

Voted and already regretting omissions, but no changes, no revisions. Sorry, Sound of Crying.
Had to stop listening to Protest Songs in run up to voting. Terrible feeling I was about to become fixated on it, and that would further confuse a confused ballot.

Voted!

Done...

was about to vote, but then i got megahertzed

will submit in a few

This Xtian-themed LCTWWM track paired with with this stock footage is way more affecting than it has any right to be!

https://youtu.be/2gxHcNtzFrU

voted!

(re)discovering so much as a result of this poll. “Nightingales”, what a song. And just found the 12” mix omg

With two-and-half days to go I count 18 ballots so far. If any lurkers have opinions certainly don't be shy. Your vote can still influence the outcome pretty drastically!

98 distinct tracks have now received votes, with many of the albums 100% represented. However idiosyncratic your list of favourites that obscure deep cut you like is probably just waiting for it's 3rd or 4th vote to secure a place in the top 50. LOL. (A countdown from 50 seems most likely at this point.)

BTW, anyone who *has* mailed a ballot should have seen an acknowledgement of receipt!

^ Er, 2 and 1/2 days. And "its" rather than "it's", while I'm correcting myself. :(

voted! looking forward to the results

Looking forward to the roll out. I only know albums 2 and 3, pulled out and have been spinning Steve McQueen daily for the last two weeks. Found Langley Park on cd really cheap but the other albums are less easily found irl around these parts. Did score the "Faron Young" (Truckin' Mix) 12" today, b-side "Silhouettes" is lovely, too.

Is the lyrics poll favourite line/couplet or the entire song?

i voted for lines

Lyrics poll is lines/couplet, but where >1 section of a given song get points (this has already happened a couple of times) I'm considering grouping the lines/points by song for the rollout. I'll post all the raw data anyway!

21 ballots now and 101 distinct tracks.

Might have to make the rollout a top 60, if only because later voters are displacing some of my own selections! :)

Also, further awesome/appalling pun suggestions are invited for the rollout thread title!

sent! wow that was.. *hard*.

Might go with voodoo chili's "I POLLed the Megahertz". I like its almost-a-plausible-sentence-ness.

Voted!

Main takeaway so far from relistens; Protest Songs is really underrated.

^ OTM

Sunday 15th is here (or long since passed where I'm sitting) so if anyone is still grappling with a ballot, submitting in the next 12 hours or so would be great!

I've seen 24 ballots now and 105 different track selections.

Voted!

Album roll-out will be interesting. I think Jordan, Steve McQueen, and Megahertz will all do well, but I have no idea what the consensus is after those three.

I've just been glancing at such matters and only this instant realised (despite kitchen person touching on it upthread) that Jordan was seemingly *never* released as a double-LP anywhere before the recent reissue?!?! I assumed the four sections delineated on the CD sleeve corresponded to actual physical sides on vinyl in at least some territories!

There seem to have been some places where they did it; here’s a South African CBS one. Weird they never did it in Britain.
https://www.discogs.com/Prefab-Sprout-Jordan-The-Comeback/release/2852928

Aha! Thanks.

Okay, I'll close the voting now. Give me a few hours to fiddle with the final numbers, etc, and I'll start a rollout thread very soon...

Rollout:
I POLLED the Megahertz - ILM Artist Poll #100 - Prefab Sprout - RESULTS