RIDE - GOING BLANK AGAIN POLL

There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, the best single they ever released, the best song they ever did. Leave Them All Behind.

0x4 is pretty sick

and I like Time Of Her Time

mouthy otfm

The rest of this album is ok, and Nowhere is pretty good, and the early EPs are good, but LTAB does everything all at once for eight minutes and rules.

I love the consistent breeziness of this album, though. A great one for car trips.

I am driving down to Laguna today and am going to play this all the way down the 5. I may as well be Ned Raggett!!!!

the best single they ever released

was LTAB technically a single or an EP? If the latter, and b-sides are to be accounted for, I might have to give a slight edge to the Today Forever EP - tho LTAB would be a close second, even if only for Grasshopper.

I recall the video was good?

haha check this out

http://vimeo.com/27182654

Revisited this recently and it's a much better album than I remembered. There's a mood here between the noise, the proto-electronica and the coolness in the words and vocals, that is not like any other album I've heard.

Time Of Her Time is what I'm voting for. I'd go for Grasshopper if it was an option, naturally.

No this is actually a really good album. I think the cover is really cool, too.

Anyone know any more than this?
http://www.rideox4.net/qaa/qaa58.html

lol

http://ia600801.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/12/items/olcovers36/olcovers36-L.zip&file=366986-L.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/612NZpaHypL._SL500_AA300_.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ofiWcAn8U6o/TfVuVHM5EDI/AAAAAAAACX0/nuTToEO7mo4/s1600/DSCF0895.jpg http://cdn.priceprobe.net/i/5990970.73834dd0392263e0b9.61474800

I like Twisterella

always thought the art looked a bit Eric Carle

Curses, I should've voted for Time Machine - why have two 'time' titles side-by-side, damn it?!

Twisterella for being so damn buttoned up and pretty.

But I still think the B-sides from this era KILL the album tracks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka99Ga7o6ho

Oh man I forgot about that image.

Something about all of Ride's images used to really bother me at the time and now I think it all looks pretty smart, if a bit random

Haha wow at that ride/kubrick nexus. It could've used some Eyes Wide Shut but otherwise A+

Actual lol when the marines start chanting on 'Just to see...' too, and then there's a WWI drum fill

There wasn't a third single from this, was there? I wonder why not, 'Mouse Trap' or 'Ox4' would've done the job.

I flip back and forth between loving the long dronerock epics on this album, and the short, sharp pop songs. (That said, I don't really care for Leave Them All Behind, I'm far more about Cool Your Boots and OX4.) Twisterella is so great, though. Argh.

I love the rhythmic interplay at the end of Cool Your Boots, and obviously the samples are great. But I think I might have to go for OX4 because of the combination of 1) postcodes as titles = a good look and 2) I'm a sucker for a love song to a bar.

Lou1s will be killing himself for having already posted this week.

(Aw, man, Grasshopper, why wasn't Grasshopper on the album?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4mBQrgkJPY

haha this is actually pretty great. If you want to know what 1991 looked like, check out a couple of the guys dancing down the front here

and I thought of a possible oblique descendant of this album - Air's Moon Safari

I've always loved OX4, and I like 'Not Fazed' just fine but it's 'LTAB'. Astounding track. Was always more of a 'Nowhere' fan tho.

I said it on the other thread, I'll say it here. Today Forever was their absolute best.

I have visited Sennen (with another ILX0r, no less!) on account of the Today Forever EP!

OTM 'Sennen' is such an amazing track. Is 'Today Forever' the EP that had a shark on the front cover?

YES! It is amazingness.

(Is the sound really out of synch on the LTAB video or is Mark Gardener really dancing that jerkily and out of time?)

Yes. Unfamiliar blew me away so hard I could never hear the other three tracks.

Heh, just dug it out to have a look at it. I don't have a record player anymore so that's all I can do with it atm :(

OMG, but that EP just builds and builds so that by the time I get to Today I'm just a gibbering wreck on the floor. "Wake up to the sun, what's done is done."

I don't even know how many million times I watched the video EP that went with the songs.

Mmmm, floppy Oxford art school boys rolling around in the sand. Do we not like that?

I had the cassingle. iirc it was the fruits of my first time in London.

Very un-rock n roll but I always found it quite sweet that every gig of theirs I went to ended with Mark saying "thanks for coming and have a safe journey home" before playing the last song.

I think I will ultimately have to go for 'Leave Them All Behind' on this one, but agree that Today Forever EP is the best.

Mark is like the nicest and sweetest human being who has ever lived, so it's just so in character with his soft loveable cuddly personality that it doesn't matter if it's rock'n'roll or not.

Sorry, I'm going to turn into a gushing fangirl for a minute, but he's one of those people that you would just expect, with everything he's done, and how good looking he is, that he would be kinda arrogant. But he is just one of the actual most sweetest and loveliest and most humble and genuine human beings I've ever met, fullstop. Which is actually far better thing to be than rock'n'roll, I think.

But anyway.

G_d watching some of these videos is bringing back memories of wishing I could trade my afro in for floppy hair like Mark G. and Bobby Briggs from Twin Peaks.

Oh god, this video is just so perfectly "Sennen in the wintertime" argh OMG no wonder I love the place so much, I was preprogrammed to by this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iec4JsG82yo

I had hair so floppy I couldn't do anything with it. It wasn't a good look. Nbs had the full Mark Gardener iirc, conspicuously absent in recent wdylls.

(Actually, watching it again, I don't think the video is actually filmed in Sennen. But it is on a wintry beach.)

Mark Gardener doesn't even have Mark Gardener hair any more so it's OK.

Actually the last time I saw him, he was sitting next to Ed O'Brien and he and Mark Gardener had switched haircuts and it was v v odd.

Twisterella hands down

There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, the best single they ever released, the best song they ever did. Leave Them All Behind.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy)

^^

Mark Gardener doesn't even have Mark Gardener hair any more so it's OK.

Probably go for Leave The Mall Behind just ahead of Twisterella. This album was a big pile of disappointment for me when I eventually heard it though, it's not a patch on what came before it.

What about what came AFTER it?

"There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, the best single they ever released, the best song they ever did. Leave Them All Behind."

half otm. it's the best on this otehrwise mediocre album, but they released better singles overall

What about what came AFTER it?

Ha. About half of what came after stands up I reckon. I like a lot of Carnival of Light, and there's a couple of things around Tarantula are as good as anything they did imo (i.e. Slave and Black Nite Crash).

Nbs had the full Mark Gardener iirc, conspicuously absent in recent wdylls.
Yeah, I got the full on Mark Gardener thing chopped off on the day of the general election in 1992 (I remember seeing The Sun's Kinnock lightbulb thing while waiting in the barber's) as a response to being at the Brixton gig a week or so earlier and feeling like I was a clone of everyone else there.

There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, the best single they ever released, the best song they ever did. Leave Them All Behind.

This + a waveform of LTAB should be etched into the same material the 2001 Monolith is made out of and sent off on an escape trajectory out of the solar system. "Here is shoegaze's greatest moment"

such a great little pop song, voting for "Twisterella."

leave them all behind, so overrated. 'cool your boots' is always my favorite moment from this record. but yeah if they took off 'not fazed' and 'mouse trap' and put on 'stampede and howard hughes' this would have been amazing.

Probably go for Leave The Mall Behind just ahead of Twisterella. This album was a big pile of disappointment for me when I eventually heard it though, it's not a patch on what came before it.

― Goodbye 20th Centipede (NickB), Saturday, May 19, 2012 12:13 AM

Awesome typo, an even better title.

Great album, "Leave Them All Behind" is my pick, although "Cool Your Boots" comes close.

leave them all behind, so overrated.

THANK YOU!

Listening to it again, I'm kind of mystified by people's devotion to it. Especially people who should know better. It's clearly going to walk this poll (maybe people just like the first song on an album) but it's not even the best song on this album, let alone of Ride's career. And to call it *the* defining moment of shoegaze?

That turgid, overlong, claggy thing? I don't get it. Ride, at their best, managed to make this enourmous, wide, ~heavy~ sound that still managed to somehow take off and soar up into the sky. LTAB just somehow completely failed to even take off, let alone accomplish its title. I mean, a song like OX4 does do that exact trick, that after that long classic rock organ solo and a bit of riffing and chugging along, at about 2:05, the bass kicks in, the phasers drift off, then when the guitar riff comes in at 2:15, the whole song up another gear, and at that point, you feel the liftoff like the cabin starts to slant and the ground out the window goes diagonal and you realise you're airbourne. It never happens for me in LTAB, it's like watching an overloaded airplane, it struggles to get off the ground, but never does.

I mean, you want defining moments of "shoegaze's greatest moment"?

I'd say things like, the moment in Sweetness and Light when after that long intro frothy ethereal confection of guitars and vocal harmonies, the chugging drums and bass finally kick in.

Or the last verse of Chapterhouse's Pearl where Rachel Slowdive's backing vocals come in, a final layer of icing over the kaleidoscopic swirl.

The bit in My Bloody Valentine's Soon where they set up this loop of a perfect pop song, then the big guitars on the verse suddenly come in and rush all over everything like a car skidding off the road.

The guitar drop on Swervedriver's Rave Down. The froth of electronics and driving bass as Toni Halliday sings "why do you grow inside me?" The hypnotic psychedelic throb and sheets of shimmering plate glass guitar of Pale Saints' Deeper Sleep For Steven. Even the moment where the drums kick in, at the beginning of Vapour Trail

^^^^Like, all of these things. These are shoegaze's greatest moments. And Ride think that they're going to "leave them all behind" with that turgid slab of classic rock? They were pointing the way to the future alright, but to a future of Oasis and Stereophonics and just... no. I've come to actually hate that song.

"Leave the mall behind" however, is awes.

'Leave Them All Behind', easily. I've always felt that this particular album starts off ludicrously strong, and then merely ends up being just okay.

But man, ILX and it's weird coincidences... first the 'C'mown Kids' poll crops up after I listen to it, and then this poll crops up after I listened to Ride's Live At Reading Festival 1992 set last night.

all chrome waves, all the time

I always forget about Chrome Waves, the intro is one of my favourite things, but then the song shoots off in a different direction.

"can't stay/unbearable to go/we've all moved on from here" really got me in high school. think the version from LTAB EP is better though?

Chrome Waves is good, yeah. I was really disappointed by it at the time.

I was reading that this album finally went gold in 2009. I guess that isn't indicative of it being a huge sleeper hit, considering it averages out as under 6,000 sales a year, even discounting that the huge majority were probably in the month after release - but tbh I'm a bit surprised at it still recording any sales, 17 years later.

cassettes wear out

"can't stay/unbearable to go/we've all moved on from here" really sums up the whole dilemma of this album, and Ride's career at this point.

Was listening to Swervedriver again this morning, and it just reinforced the differences between the Oxford shoegaze bands and the London shoegaze bands.

Like, all shoegaze is essentially about escape. But for the Oxford bands, it was very much about physical escape, songs about driving, songs about road trips, songs about physically leaving. So much of Ride's early output was great because it was all about getting the fuck out.

(London bands, on the other hand, their dreams of escape tended more towards the drugs, sex, dancing escape routes. Either because they'd already moved to London, so they'd had their physical escape, or because, being native Londoners, car culture just wasn't part of their lives? Dunno.)

Going Blank Again seems to be like the pivotal record for Ride, where they'd made their escape, they'd been round the world, gone off to the States and Japan - and half of it is "OMG, shiny newness, isn't this great?!?!" and the other half is hinting towards this yearning nostalgia and wanting the comforts of everything back home. And sure, this happens to every touring rock band, how they cope with the fact that everything that made them has now disappeared and been replaced with a hundred identical hotel rooms and tour busses. But Ride just disappeared into that cosy nostalgia - not helped by the atmosphere of Britpop really encouraging the worship of the past. And in the process destroyed what was great about them - the whole yearning-to-escape desire for something else, desire for something beyond.

perhaps that explains why i always thought their presence at a club in houston in 1991 was odd, while lush somehow made sense.

Syndrome vs the Jericho Tavern, I mean, that's the answer there.

Britpop ruined everything. Britpop and Nirvana.

If only Britpop had stayed St Etienne and the Auteurs, it would have been alright.

fighting the musicality but not denying the musicality

christ how good was Loz man. easily the best drummer of his generation.

Twisterella.

it's been remastered dontcha know
http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2012/04/20/ride-going-blank-again-reissue/

"GBÄ" has a special place in my heart and life.I had been unemployed for most of late 91 and early 92 so had hardly any money for records, so when I got a job my Dad gave me £50 and told me to treat myself to some new music, and "GBA" was one of my purchases (others included "In ribbons", "Secondhand clothes" and some Sarah Records). "GBA" had lot to live up to, I'd followed Ride since the start, saw them live with Slowdive supporting, loved the two EPs from the album... But was disappointed by the album itself. It seemed ordinary. I wanted it to fly, wanted it to explode in my face like "Dreams burn down" and "Vapour trail" had. But no, if was just riffing and singing. All the signs of their turgid future were there. "Time of her time" was my initial favourite but over the years "Cool your boots" is now my choice. It does go somewhere, the rhythmic interplay towards the end always makes me smile. Losing a few songs and adding some songs from the "Twisterella" EP, as someone else has said, would make a better album. And "Leave them all behind" strives to be anthemic but doesn't come close. It goes and carries on and makes no progress towards where it aims for,

Liam Gallagher had "OX4" as his answerphone message music, I read once.

when this is done, a poll RIDE - GOING BLANK AGAIN GIVEN THAT LEAVE THEM ALL BEHIND IS ACTUALLY AMAZING SO WE'RE LEAVING THAT OUT

to find 2nd place ect might be fun. Does ILM do 'pick N' polls?

in which case, EVEN A STOPPED CLOCK TELLS THE RIGHT TIME TWICE A DAY DAAAANAAAANNAAANANANA…

The b-side version of "Chrome waves" is far better than the album version IMO.

What, this version? Rougher and without the 80s Duran Duran drum noises and atmosphere. It's different but I think I prefer the album version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j44BCXnxMr0

Yeah, Alan, I think if my first choice is either OX4 or Twisterella, Cool Your Boots is my second favourite.

christ how good was Loz man. easily the best drummer of his generation

Haha, I was wondering how long the poll would run before devolving into this - fourteen-and-a-half hours, not bad. Otm though.

Controversial opinion..

LTAB a lot like Columbia/Oasis?

There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, the best single they ever released, the best song they ever did.

All four of them, without hesitation, name Dreams Burn Down as their best track. As fwiw did we when we polled shoegaze tracks a couple of years back (we also had Vapour Trail and Like A Daydream higher than LTAB).

I have very strong memories I walking across Northampton in the middle of the night, 1999, minidisc player, and just blasting my fucking brains out with LTAB. Nothing else on the album coul do ha for me, had the physicality of the churning last couple of minutes.

Would be interested to see if there's a correlation between ppl who rate LTAB and ppl who can stand early Oasis.

Poll?

* I love 'Leave Them All Behind' and I like early Oasis
* I love 'Leave Them All Behind and I don't like early Oasis
* I don't like 'Leave Them All Behind' and I like early Oasis
* I don't like 'Leave Them All Behind' and I don't like early Oasis

(I am option number 2)

I am driving down to Laguna today and am going to play this all the way down the 5. I may as well be Ned Raggett!!!!

A vision. Except for the actually driving the car part.

I don't mind early Oasis, particularly Columbia and Slide Away.

I get more of a Stone Roses vibe from LTAB than an Oasis one.

Twisterella

It's weird how Twisterella is so slick and Making Judy Smile so clunky. It may all be in the songwriter I suppose.

There is only one possibly winner of this. The best track on the album, Cool Your Boots.

Am listening to this while I paint window frames, could get on board with Cool Yr Boots actually. What is this track no. 8 bullshit?

* I love 'Leave Them All Behind' and I quite like Oasis 'Live Forever', and nothing else

leave them all behind seems like it should have been the middle section of a 20 minute epic, it never really leaves its middle level. maybe if they tacked on a 'feel so sad'-ish wistful beginning and a 'the sun, the sea' type blow out with skronky horns at the end. but then they didn't have a nick mccabe. nick mccabe and loz colbert would probably have been pretty great.

That'd probably be my fantasy shoegaze lineup, with the Verve's bassist too. I don't know who'd be on vocals, I suppose it doesn't much matter. Maybe Tina Turner.

If we're playing shoegaze fantasy league I'd like Ian Masters from Pale Saints and Bends era Thom Yorke harmonising in "who is further up the ethereal mountain with a megaphone" mode with Rachel Goswell doing the backing vocals from Pearl, please.

Hell, get Sice from Boo Radleys and make it 4-part Beach Boys harmonies.

OX4 does do that exact trick, that after that long classic rock organ solo and a bit of riffing and chugging along, at about 2:05, the bass kicks in, the phasers drift off, then when the guitar riff comes in at 2:15, the whole song up another gear, and at that point, you feel the liftoff like the cabin starts to slant and the ground out the window goes diagonal and you realise you're airbourne.

OTM and greatly put - OX4 just feels like air travel. I've always made a point of playing that song on the plane whenever I've moved places - it never fails to conjure new beginnings.

Would be interested to see if there's a correlation between ppl who rate LTAB and ppl who can stand early Oasis.

Love LTAB. Hate all eras of Oasis. (and to answer WCC above, I always considered MBV to be too much of an advanced art project to be reduced to mere shoegazing, and I love Lush but I wish they could have gotten their live sound down on record adequately. Lush played with Ride out here and Lush was the better band!)

A "when shoegazers stopped gazing" poll might be interesting because then we would all have to confront Carnival Of Light and Tarantula.

(would vote for Pygmalion and the Global Communication remix of Blood Music)

Also, everyone is aware of the Going Blank Again 20th anniversary release with the DVD?

Ooh Lovelife or Pentamerous Metamorphis. Could not decide

Mark's songs on Carnival of Light are superb; I have no idea how anyone can hate them.

A "when shoegazers stopped gazing" poll might be interesting

totally seconding this!

Might work better as a S/D rather than a poll. Have to think about this one...

'Song For The Lovers' ftw

You sick fuck

But that's if you want to label Verve as a shoegaze band and they were so much better than that back then.

Yeah, always more a flag of convenience at best.

I have no problem at all with Mark's or Loz's songs on Carnival of Wife.

I don't suppose anyone's got a rip of 'Rolling Thunder #2', which is a pretty solo guitar version that was on the b-side of Birdman? I'd like to hear it again, but it's ungooglable (a massive drawback of one-word bands btw, lord alone knows how anybody goes about finding stuff by Can)

try this

http://www.sendspace.com/file/giq0n4

Fabulous! I never expected to hear that again.

(it kind of makes me want to run an iPhoto slideshow now)

moose would win the after gazing poll no? surely they are the only ones that became better after they stopped gazing. well i suppose you could say that the boo radleys stopped gazing after 'everything's alright' and they released their best records after that. maybe between those two which makes sense since they recorded their best records across the hall from each other.

i would say mojave 3 if they count. i would take their debut over any boo radleys or moose (or ride, or probably valentines frankly)

(don't mention The Valentines)

There was a very swift decline with Mojave 3. The first album was so great and the second so dull that I got off the bus immediately. Did I miss anything?

Glad someone mentioned Moose, as they were the band the term "shoegazing" was coined for, and made lovely records right up to their demise. Saw them live (with Submarine supporting, did they count?) and though it was a short set (B songs) they were marvellous, conjuring up all the magic and swirl of their records.

There was a very swift decline with Mojave 3. The first album was so great and the second so dull that I got off the bus immediately. Did I miss anything?

not really. i like a lot of the 2nd album but the first is all-time for me.

I bought "Ask me tomorrow" at the same time as "Pygmalion" and couldn't believe the difference between them, but with the same spooked atmosphere on both. "Love songs on the radio" ended up opening my first lithotripsy cd (theres a thread about it on here from 2003) and hey I've got more litho next week.... And this time I've got The Telescopes' "Flying" leading the way (well I will be pumped full of morphine and flying myself).

Nobody's mentioned the Telescopes have they? Shame.

I tend to think of the Telescopes as being to weird and arty (not to mention early) to get lumped in w shoegaze. I tend to file them next to Loop & Spacemen 3 in the "not really gaze" category.)

The media seemed to take against the Telescopes from the start, claiming they were bandwagon jumping on the MBV / Loop style, then signing to Creation and going baggy didn't help. There was progression in their singles but they were too early or too late and fell between too many stools.

Oh I like them, I just don't think they're shoegaze.

They fall through too many cracks. ;_;

A true shoegazer can always avoid the cracks.

LTAB isn't a great (or even a good) song in terms of songwriting in a "great even when you play it with an acoustic guitar" way.
there's not much happening melodically and it's pretty repetitive.
but the arrangements, dynamics and production are fantastic.
the intro is one of the most exciting thing ever !

Yeah I love the intro-intro (who keybds) and the second intro (guitars kicking in) but then it just loses the momentum I find

Really enjoyed listening to this again today as the sun returned. Twisterella, Mouse Trap, Cool Your Boots all sounding great but its all about OX4 really. Beautiful.

I've always loved it, but I feel like it's only really now I'm listening to it on headphones that it's really kicking in for me - the last couple of minutes are extraordinary.

I'm talking about Leave Them All Behind there.

Alan Moulder did a good job, it would've been easy for that to just sound like loud static. I didn't know he was married to Toni Halliday!

Making Judy Smile is the only real clunker

I wasn't too impressed with Not Fazed tonight after hearing it again for the first time in a few years.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

sad no one voted for Not Fazed - my #2 pick and an underrated track, from the looks of things

Happy birthday admrl!

Happy birthday admrl but I'm still disappointed in these results TBH.

making judy smile is a great pop song, don't understand the dislike as much as i don't understand the love for ltab.

Zeroes seldomly signify dislike. It's usually "perpetual third favourite".

Come on, it's terrible!

^ otm

Still hoping that one day we get a proper ranking poll system as opposed to a pass/fail one.

Just played Twisterella five times in a row. Addictive like salted caramel