The Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock Individual Songs Poll

And personally, I have no idea which to choose. I'm gonna relisten to both albums this weekend and see what stands above the rest.

argh no why

on my itunes collection, all but two of these songs have five stars (those two are myrrhman and inheritance, so shoot me). picking one will be practically impossible. i want to pick the first three tracks of SoE as one 21-minute suite, but that's impossible. i want to pick 'wealth' because it is jawdropping. i want to pick 'after the flood' because it is so kickass.

actually, i'm going to pick 'runeii'. because no other band could hope to finish off their career so perfectly, so finally, and with such devastating closure.

"New Grass" just tops "I Believe in You"

It's the poll that had to be made.

no.

OTM

I have a hard time separating individual songs from their respective wholes. But I'll go with "Desire".

whatever, I'm willing to bet both of you voted regardless.

xpost

You lose

twice

Liars

I can't separate an individual song from either album, except possibly "I Believe In You", because each one needs the context and relief of its location; the start of "New Grass" is probably my favourite moment across the whole of both albums, but only because of the tension that preceedes it. Listened to alone, without the lead-in, it loses some of its... balming qualities.

Argh, gotta go install a fridge-freezer.

Hm, I cast my vote for the same track as Missta Alex of NYC. Hm. Mussta be teh weather.

I didn't vote for anything here either.

"Ascension Day", divine madness

It has to be New Grass. Here is what I wrote about in my blog a while ago:

This is the song I'd play to someone just about to kill himself. No. Maybe that should say that's the song I would play to myself if I was about to leave this world on my own. The beauty of this song transcends the appeal death could have for someone who has lost all hope. It is the warmest, most caressing, most soothing song on Laughing Stock. It's a holy song, the lyrics use Christian terminology: sacrament, Christ, heaven, vow. Mark Hollis is English, if he had been from India he would sing about Vishnu or Krishna, the words and names don't matter. It's all about the music. What reaches our brain via the ears directly without the interference of the ratio. Call it truth, love or anything. I think I would call it trust.

I can't vote, it's been years since I heard them. I think I prefer the one with the tree on the cover, but that's all I remember.

but they have both trees on the cover ;-)

the second has also the world on it, i'd go for that though it is definitely one of the hardest choices in music.

I knowz :-)

This one was easy: "New Grass."

i think you guys are overrating "New Grass" - i mean, yeah, it's definitely as good as you're all saying, but the rest of Laughing Stock is no slouch!

so then, you're underrating the rest of the album. bah.

I'm not underrating the rest of the album. I think the whole thing is great, but "New Grass" was the first thing I heard by them, it absolutely entranced me, and it's still the only track from these two albums that I'll play by itself rather than in sequence.

fair enuff

After the Flood. The famous one note guitar freak out is the definition of sublime.

My Moment in Love with "New Grass" is that guitar blear in the left channel, the bend at the start of the second phrase, when it swarms the whole mix.

everything said about "New Grass" in this thread except "i think you guys are overrating 'New Grass'"= 10000% OTM

still haven't decided on my vote :/

Ascension Day for me

"Taphead" --- beautifully tense.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I Believe In You, as explained above because it's the only one I can separate.

Actually normally if I'm wanting to put a late-era TT track on a CD for someone I'll generally pick John Cope, the errant b-side.

"after the flood" just over "i believe in you"
haven't listened to this in a long time

"Taphead" because it was the first I heard from either album (on the radio no less, in the wee hours) and thus the WTFWTFWTF epiphany.

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

wtf@wealth and eden 0

The Rainbow 1
Eden 0
Desire 2
Inheritance 1
I Believe in You 7
Wealth 0
------
TOTAL 11

Myrrhman 1
Ascension Day 7
After the Flood 4
Taphead 2
New Grass 6
Runeii 1
------
TOTAL 21

so this poll skews 21-11 in favor of Laughing Stock, yet Spirit of Eden wins the albums poll (on the other poll that just finished up) by a score of 21-17. interesting. so SoE is basically a better album as a whole, though LS has better individual songs? does SoE cohere better than LS? and i mean, 3 of the top 4 songs here are LS songs. that's pretty monumental. i think you guys are confused about which album is truly better (answer: LS).

I totally would have voted for "The Rainbow"

Lifted up
Reflected in returning love you sing
Heaven waits, Heaven waits
Someday Christendom may come
Westward
Evening sun recedent
Set my resting vow
Hold in open heart
Open heart

26 ghosts of ilx past are so clearly in the wrong here, it's criminal. The answer simply is 'New Grass'.

agreed

These days I would rate "I Believe in You" higher than "New Grass", I think. One of its features is that it is indestructable. I have listened to it dozens of times in the past months and it hasn't lost any of its appeal. With "New Grass" every time I listen to it I am afraid I kill it which fortunately hasn't happened yet.

Ascension Day for what I think of as the "windmill power chords" part.