Underwater Moonlight Poll

I'm sorta torn between Kingdom of Love and Tonight.

"Kingdom of Love," dudes.

It's the guitar riff, y'know.

Jeez this is almost a perfect album with "You'll Have To Go Sideways" the weakest track. I've loved "Insanely Jealous", "I Got The Hots For You" and "Tonight" but it's got to be the still-relevant anthem "I Wanna Destroy You".

"Insanely Jealous".

"Queen of Eyes" has that instant-classic folk-rock feel and "Kingdom of Love" is another strong contender but "Insanely Jealous" is the one that really resonates, so that one.

Those bonus tracks practically make a whole 'nother album, from which I'd choose "Only The Stones Remain"

I Wanna Destroy You

title song, then IWDYou

Tonight, but Kingdom Of Love is a close second.

"queen of eyes" by a hair over "kingdom of love"

i've never really listened to the reissue tracks though

"Queen of Eyes"

(Ditto on the reissue tracks.)

The first four reissue tracks and "There's Nobody Like You" are quality, others are not bad. I never bothered much with the second disc.

toniiiiiight

Going with the title track here.

Mmmyep me too.

I have a hard time separating this album into individual songs (they're all so damn good), but today I'll go with "Insanely Jealous."

I never bothered much with the second disc.

Me neither - I meant the 9 bonus tracks on the single-disc Ryko reissue.

Ignoring the integrity of the orig. tracklist and voting Only The Stones Remain.

If the live version of KoL from the Ryko 2CD anthology were on here, the one with the "Harold isn't here, he's in the kingdom of love" backing vocal, that'd run it damn close.

Also I will never ever concede than A Can Of Bees is inferior to UM.

voted for "Tonight" but could've voted for almost anything here, even the bonus tracks -- one of my favorite albums ever for sure. if you like it, you really should check out the bonus disc (with the Matador reissue). Lo-fi, sure, but some awesome songs and a nice snapshot of a band at the peak of its powers. Very nice Roxy Music cover as well ...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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Gosh this was a useful poll.

didn't vote but "Kingdom" all the way, the greatest "Long Cool Woman" rewrite ever. I like the title track and "Prawns" an awful lot too, need to go back to this one, haven't heard it in a while.

I thought 'Queen Of Eyes' would get a lot more votes.

i don't know whether i've mentioned this elsewhere, but: THE MATADOR REISSUE OF UNDERWATER MOONLIGHT ON CD SOUNDS LIKE UTTER AND COMPLETE SHIT. LIKE, REALLY BAD.

you know, just in case you were thinking of buying a used copy for a dollar.

I'm glad I never traded my old Ryko copy in then.

What do you mean, it sounds like shit? Can you give some examples or is it just a general crappiness?

examples? if you listen to the original vinyl it sounds really good. if you listen to the matador reissue it SOUNDS LIKE SHIT.

it's just muffled and echoey and sounds like a crap remastering job. or something. i have know idea what they did to the original tapes. go for vinyl if you can. although i guess ryko is generally okay with CDs. (unless you are talking big star.)

Anyone compared the latest reissue with the other releases? Restored sound quality?

haven't got the new reish -- i think if i did it'd be the fourth time i bought UM. funny that scott thought the matador version sounded so bad! sounded fine to me.

I think this is another example of why I'll never shell out the huge $$$$ for some super audiophile system, because I don't hear the shittiness of the Matador reissue at all. Of course, never heard the original vinyl.

oddly enough, i just saw this from the man himself:
Hello dear vinyl-hunters,

Many apologies for the delay in getting the latest A Can Of Bees and
Underwater Moonlight out to you. The LP test-pressings were sent over for
Morris Windsor to check (as he has both a record-deck and ears that work
well) and he felt that the cut was inferior to the originals (which he also
has). We had been mastering from the 1993 DAT tapes, as the best reference
source for these old recordings.

However, in the course of our conversations, Morris discovered an original
production master (copy of the original mixes) of UM deep in his attic. This
transpired to have the long-missing version of Old Pervert that graced the
1980 release of UM, amongst this uniquely surviving set of 1/4" mixes. This
was like finding an ashtray in a pub these days: enchanted and wicked. So
Morris FedExed (yes, it's a verb) the tape to the management office in LA
where Richard Bishop (who had released the original UM 30 years ago on
Armageddon Records) had the tapes baked. They go into a kind of pizza oven
to prevent the ferric oxide falling off like liquorice.

At this point we decided to re-cut A Can Of Bees from a pristine vinyl copy.
This was supplied by Geoffrey Weiss, a long-term music supporter in the
quagmire of showbusiness; Geoffrey also kindly supervised the cut, along
with Richard. The re-cuts were FedExed back to Morris who pronounced them
very good. Morris is not given to hyperbole, and I have always favoured his
judgement, when he gives it, over my own.

YepRoc have patiently waited for the improved LPs, and done their best to
reassure anxious purchasers of these items who paid for them a while back
and have seen nothing yet for their money. If you are amongst them, please
again accept my apologies on behalf of the former Soft Boys, and I hope that
the quality compensates in some way for the delay.

Best wishes from the old country,

Robyn Hitchcock

Funny, I only recently discovered the version of "Old Pervert" that I've known all these years was the "Disco mix" or whatever. I tracked down the original and it's a bit disappointing, kinda flat. No loss all these years.

ha, yeah i had the same experience.

i only recently discovered this wonderful album. 'i wanna destroy you' makes me smile every time i listen to it. it's a case of songwriting stripped down to its essentials, radiant in its simplicity. i might compare it to listening to a song from big star's radio city.