Everything Is POLLable - Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) poll

Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses poll
Never Let Me POLL Again - Second best song on Depeche Mode's Music For The Masses (that ISN'T Never Let Me Down Again)
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Organisation poll
You can put your lipstick all over my designer POLL - Talking Heads - True Stories poll

alive and kicking

...oooh this one is hard. (It doesn't help that much like Music for the Masses, boy does that album start off big.)

KROQ top 50 1982:
39. Promised You a Miracle

DNP in ILM's Songs or Albums 80s polls.

Acclaimed Music:
16. Album

77. Promised You a Miracle
120. Someone Somewhere in Summertime

so do we choose on the strength of the song or Derek Forbes' bass line?

Derek Forbes of course.

everything is possible

This one was originally in the pole position but then I found out that Depeche album was not done and quickly changed the tune.

Voting the title track. I've never fully come around to this album despite some great highs -- I lose interest at "Glittering Prize" and the remaining tracks don't do enough to pull me back.

The instrumental here is better than "Theme for Great Cities".

I don't know about that, but I do love it and voted for it.

Yes, it's the title track. "Glittering Prize" has the best bassline though.

Very much impossible to dissect - one of those albums where the sum is greater than its parts.
My default answer is probably Hunter and the Hunted - as deep in the dream as it gets, and the solo is otherwordly. Otherwise the opener or title track.

Somebody Up There Likes You

wow the last two tracks are stunning imo, def not a trail off imo

A third of this album consists of overtones --- but what overtones. I've said for years that the title track is New Pop's most beautiful, triumphant moment: it sounds like the sun coming up on a beautiful mild day.

Title track all the way

Title track all the way

Title track all the way

yes title track,
love the utah saints and u.s.u.r.a. versions too

Utah Saints my intro.

really good album. definitive new wave imo; if you like that scene or this band, you'll like this one! having a hard time picking a favorite. will need to revisit before committing, but on account of being made of cheese myself, i'm thinking either "promised you a miracle" or "someone somewhere in summertime."

(+the 12"/extended/showcase mix of that one is something every fan of this record needs to hear. we like that buildup a lot hbu?)

oh... my goodness! have just learned of the gargantuan super deluxe box set of the album. the alternate mixes are all there, but so are the radio sessions from the time. also there's a second take of herbie hancock's solo. neat!

how have I been listening to this album for 20 years without realizing Herbie Hancock has a solo on it?

haha same

lol herbie hancock doesn't know he has a solo on it.

(iirc the guy who wrote a book on SM took a copy of NGD to a Hancock signing and he didn't know what it was.)

well i mean, it is kind of a lore thing. i don't actually believe the solo exists myself, despite having the aural evidence.

Can't not vote for '...Miracle'

Yeah. I love this album and all its singles, but "Miracle" is the one that most often pops unbidden into my head.

I bought this early in my record-buying days and was amazed when I got home to find it had gold vinyl with purple accents. I'd never seen anything like it. (I do not still have that copy, sadly.)

Promised You A Miracle feels like it's cut from the same cloth as the Associates 'Party Fears Two' which came out just two months before it

Totally. Or something by ABC.

I’m gonna contrastan for “King is White and in the Crowd”

hmm, one of the best albums ever. those long notes in "Big Sleep" going off in my head right now, so that.

This album is phenomenal, but the 12"s* of my two favourite songs - Someone Somewhere and New Gold Dream - clearly top the album versions imo. a la The Perfect Kiss and Elegia.

*the German 12" in the case of NGD, opening right away with Forbes/fanfare

The extended German version of the title track is an epic.

Perfect album. That German 12" of NGD could last for hours and I wouldn't notice.

Simple Minds played here in Los Angeles last night and I had no idea. Devine intervention with the timing of this poll I say.

I don’t think I really appreciated them back in the day but did see them live around 1990 or so. They played at Universal Studios Hollywood at a place that was up a hill. I remember it rained that night and so when they played "come in come out of the rain" it was perfect and lit the place up. That Amphitheater is no longer there. KROQ used to host acoustic Christmas there all the time.

Material Issue opened up that show IIRC.

That is correct, as I looked it up. Don't know the band, are they worth seeking out? Not sure we made it in time to see the opener.

Always thought that hill at Universal was ridiculous, where I'm remembering it now. Only saw a handful of shows there.

The title track is incredible, but "Big Sleep" reaches transcendence just by force of will, like Jim Kerr hypnotizing himself into a higher state of awareness out of nothing.

A review I read ages ago suggested that this is the record that the fans of the early era and the later era can both agree on.

The instrumental here is better than "Theme for Great Cities".

Wouldn't go that far, but it's startling how much it achieves despite being basically static.

I thought more about how "Big Sleep" works. The refrain is a six-bar pattern of IV - iii - V chords, which keeps the music from ever settling either harmonically or rhythmically - in the coda, it never resolves to the tonic major or relative minor, and you expect a four or eight-bar pattern instead of an asymmetrical six. So like the lyrics, it keeps spinning round "forevermore".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Derek Forbes slap bass on 'Colours Fly and Catherine Wheel" and "Somebody Up There Likes You" is outerworldly. Voting "Someone Somewhere in Summertime" again because of that bass.

S S S !!

For what it's worth, and you could make a strong case for any of these tracks, I went for Hunter and the Hunted, which seemed to encapsulate what I loved about them at the time - the mystery, the weirdness in a pop music setting.

I love how the busy guitar figure in the verses is sort of buried in the mix, side effect of cruising at the speed of light

that, plus living in temptation. Heady times for guitar figures

Hard not to vote for either "Someone Somewhere in Summertime" or "Promised You a Miracle." The "Big Sleep" in the end got my vote. Loved spending time with this album and have new found respect for the bassist.

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

And the beat goes CRASHING

Always a key indicator of greatness when every song on an album gets a vote!

Love to see the title track take it, it's such a magnificent song. Thought one of the singles would win (though I see "New Gold Dream" was a single in Italy)

My assumption as a very very casual fan was that NGD was the big single from this, since it’s such a clear standout.

Can't hear what others hear in NGD.
But I would gladly do a Street Fighting Years poll.

Do it! Would love to keep listening to them.