Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels poll

In the midnight hour, she cried POLL, Poll, poll - Billy Idol - Rebel Yell poll
Oingo Boingo - Singles poll
Grace Jones - Nightclubbing poll

I'm ready for the move!

such a great album but for me "Tell.Me When My Light Turns Green" is a pretty easy pick

i’m not crazy about the band (don’t really rate geno and so sick of eileen) or album, but adore light turns green and i’m just looking. insane that light turns green wasn’t a single! one of the most stunning out there double tracked vocals, and the horn chart is up there with message to you rudie as best of its era. and the claustrophobic vibe of just looking, the vocal is so confident as it builds.

it’s an interesting postpunk pseudosubgenre: retro non rock genre plus punk attitude. specials, pogues, lounge lizards, violent femmes, knitters, etc.

it's "There There My Dear", but really it's the whole album

i refuse to contemplate a decontextualised Dexys tbh

Yes, this whole album is fantastic. Tempted to vote "I Couldn't Help If I Tried", love that track and its backstory.

I have a real soft spot for "Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire..."

yeah it's the whole album for me, idk what to go for, shocked they've never been polled before.

incredible album. been playing quite a lot of dexys recently. i mean, yes "There There My Dear" and "I Couldn't Help It If I Tried", of course. man, this is hard.

One of my favourite albums for the longest time. I don't listen to it so much now - don't always want to revisit furious confused younger me - but I still love every minute of it.

So, in the impossible camp, particularly because there's that sound, Rowland + horns going at you, right through the album - like there are great versions and revisions of so much of this (Dance Stance, Keep It part 2, Projected Passion Revue 'Light turns green', The Tube version of There There) but I put this on and inevitably go end to end.

All the same going with Tell Me When My Light Turns Green.

There There My Dear, such an adrenaline burst of a single, one of the first records to teach me that anger can be expressed without guitars.

good band imo

yeah, pretty good i'd say

I've listened to this album for the first time. Im blown away on how good it actually is. I always considered them the "Come On Eileen" band and never ventured further. I think that was a mistake.

Very much so!

Also a truly great LP cover.

I voted for the sprightly "Thankfully Not Living in Yorkshire" which has always reminded me of something you might hear on Sesame Street.

Just heard this for the second time. Is their other stuff this good? How have i not known about this?

The three original albums are all essential, but this is definitely the best.

Voted for Geno just ahead of There There My Dear. There was a time when this was my favourite album in the world. I bought it when I was 16 the same day I got Spirit Of Eden. Two total game changers. I think I must have driven my friends crazy with how much I played this album.

Yeah all three of their original run albums are excellent.

the first reunion album is also great.

Bee OK, definitely worth listening to Too-Rye-Aye. I reckon you'll love it

They are weirdly underrated. Likely because Eileen eclipses them in the general view

I think Rowland's decision to have them capering about in dungarees in that period didn't help.

Is KR's book worth reading?

Wait, Bee OK, did you create the poll and *then* became acquainted with a 2nd (3rd, 4th, 5th...) song by 'the "Come On Eileen" band'? Possibly even ~2 days later? (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Enthusiasm for DMR is surely a good thing under any circumstances. Just wondering whether I'm misinterpreting your posts. :) )

And: dog latin OTM about T-R-A. Tom D too lol.

^ becOme acquainted, obv.

The vast majority of these polls I know the album. But since I've been doing these block polls I do pick out albums I've never heard from time to time. I'm scouring the ilx database for unpolled albums or things undone. Trying to keep it fresh.

I should revisit this one. I've had TRA on vinyl for time, so I'm way more familiar with it. When I sang and played in my old new wave band KR was a big influence on my vocal style. I'm always impressed with singers who lean into their idiosyncrasies. And then I heard "Give Me Just A Little More Time" by Chairmen Of The Board and it all clicked into place

I feel like only maybe Soft Cell has been as regrettably saddled with the 'one hit wonder' tag in my part of the world. (Maybe similar in the USA?) Can only imagine that that seems kerrazy from a UK perspective. Pretty sure I've never once heard a second DMR or SC song broadcast (admittedly I was too young when each peaked) and they've definitely been framed in that somewhat unserious manner in music quizzes fairly regularly.

XP: I know I've untaken email-your-ballots type polls partly in order to absorb neglected areas of discographies, so I can dig it, Bee OK!

i might vote for Burn It Down. I love "There, There My Dear", and the way it kicks off after "Love Part One" is just a get-up-out-of-your-seat delight. but the slow version woof referred to upthread is one of my all time favourite songs - like top three - and that confuses the pitch for me enough to want to look elsewhere. That sort of should mean "I Couldn't Help It If I Tried", god yes - there have been times when extreme emotion has happened to this song. but i wanted a bit more KR in his *mode* - I actually thought Keep It tbh. I love his explanatory, accusatory, 'i'm going to strip everything down to the rationale of raw emotion and in this light *you are wrong and I am right* and yes quite frankly this *is* a matter of conscience' mode in the song. and that ascending pressure of horns relaxing into a sort of relaxed realisation of 'no you're not going to make it'. plus "keep it, keep it, keep it". v tempted. side 1 finishing with Geno and side 2 starting with Seven Days is a great move.

that leaves Tell Me When My Light Turns Green (an incredible lyric, even after Burn It Down this track really f'in *goes*) and I'm Just Looking, great brooding and those warning stabs of brass.

i'm comfortable with the idea I may be voting for Burn It Down because it's the start of such a great album.

anyway. i've listened to this twice today, along with other Dexys sundries and this poll doesn't have an answer is my main takeaway.

Did anyone get the free copy with the "Daily Mail"

Laugh? I even bought one...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

My favourite changes all the time, but for now I’m enjoying the manic speed of ‘tell me when my light turns Green’.

My favourite changes all the time, but for now I’m enjoying the manic speed of ‘tell me when my light turns Green’.

My favourite changes all the time, but for now I’m enjoying the manic speed of ‘tell me when my light turns Green’.

Written when Rowland was in The Killjoys.

... he was 23 in 1976!

Dexys Midnight Runners—Searching for the Young Soul Rebels poll (Ranking edition)

Five, so far, have submitted a ranked list.

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

Nice that everything except the spoken interlude got a vote. Interesting that "Yorkshire" proved similarly (un)popular as the former with the ranked ballot peeps.

Voted for "I'm Just Looking" which turned out to be its only vote.

Poll finished on 24th August 2026

Rank Option
1st 11. “There, There, My Dear”
2nd 1. “Burn It Down”
3rd 9. “Keep It”
4th 5. “Geno”
5th 2. “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”
6th 4. “I’m Just Looking”
7th 6. “Seven Days Too Long”
8th 3. “The Teams That Meet in Caffs”
9th 7. “I Couldn’t Help If I Tried”
10th 10. “Love Part One”
11th 8. “Thankfully Not Living in Yorkshire It Doesn’t Apply”

in i think 2008 i was catsitting for a friend and the cat was always strolling around the place, so i made a video of his strolls set to "Geno," still can't hear it without thinking of that. (later on i lived with that cat, Dex forever.)

post Dex or stfu

need

I did ‘thankfully not living’ a lot, sad to see it so low. But it’s all great tracks.

didn't see this but I would've voted for the winner anyway

Haven't heard this album yet but I saw that J.D. Consodine gave this album one star in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide and joked about the album title: "Well, you won't find 'em listening to this tripe. These snotty young Brits perform like knowing the licks is the same thing as having soul, and as if a chip on your shoulder will pass for artistic vision." Ha!

post Dex

otm

Already a bit in love with Dex, especially the bit where he ignores the toy thrown for him and just strolls up to look straight into the camera instead.

Thread delivers

It was the wink, early on, that did it!