Super Furry Animals: Rings Around the World poll

3rd-best album of the DECADE! (possibly)

from Wiki:

Origins and recording

Singer Gruff Rhys has stated that the band aimed to make a "laid back and sort of wiped clean" record with Rings Around the World.[1] The album took a year to record.[2] Rhys has claimed that the record was originally going to be a "state of the planet concept album" before the band decided against it although he concedes that the record is still "about Earth, and the pollution of space: it's about debris".[3]

Musical style

In a 2008 interview with Uncut Gruff Rhys described the album as "a very ambitious project":

We were trying to make a blockbuster album that was going to be like The Eagles, but we left off the tracks that sounded like The Eagles. We had big debates about the line-up, but it ended up being a 50 minute album; it was going to be an hour-and-a-half. I was into the excess of it, that was the whole point. We had Chris Sheldon (sic) who makes a huge sound engineering the record. We were trying to make utopian pop music that had pretensions of being progressive and exciting.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney is credited as providing "celery and carrot" on "Receptacle for the Respectable". McCartney performed a similar role over thirty years earlier, chewing celery to form the percussion track of The Beach Boys song "Vegetables" from the album Smiley Smile.

Former Velvet Underground member John Cale also makes a cameo appearance on piano on the track "Presidential Suite", after he turned down the invitation to arrange strings on the album.

this album is an elemental moment in contemporary pop and is as much of a piece as it is a collection of sublime songs

it is also a desperately caring piece of music and I will love it for all my days

i liked this album so much when it came out and then i kinda never listened to it again. the vinyl copy i had was beautiful. i still have the dvd somewhere!

Seriously, Presidential Suite is the only moment this album dips below phenomenal. Will either vote for Vulcan St, quasi-titletrack, Shoot Doris Day or No Sympathy. Or Run! Christian, Run! Dammit...

And I've only seen about half the videos. One day I'll see the DVD and punch through the roof...

i wrote a rave review of it too. i stand by my review even though i no longer listen to the album.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-04-02/music/sophisticated-biscuit/1

omg I remember that review! <3<3<3

god it's turned awfully twee in here...

I'm voting "Run! Christian, Run!" Lovely song, and I've always been fascinated by the odd but convincing way that three-note synth riff fits against everything else.

Receptacle -- great, great pop song with death metal on the coda.

Went for Receptacle as well. Some fine songs but I wouldn't rank it as one of their best albums.

juxtapozed w/ you w/ it's not the end of the world as a close 2nd

What is the one with the phones?

The (Drawing) title-track. TBH my vote is edging that way too. As joyous as pop can be. One verse, one chorus, one killer outro as this instant of light, sound and wonder floats away back into space. Pretty neat treatise on the saturation of telecommunications to boot.

Ha I voted for that one so I'm glad it was the one I was thinking of.

The album art for this is far and away the best ever of the band's. Also the best album of theirs IMO but I am an American (is this significant?).

Tough choice between "Receptacle for the Respectable" and "No Sympathy", but I think "No Sympathy" gets the nod because I just love that wacky "electronica" ending, and the lyrics are great, too. "Sympathy, sympathy. You want some don't come to me. / Don't try me for sympathy. / I don't feel sorry for thee. / You deserve to die. / You deserve to die." More rock lyricists need to screw metaphors and just say how they feel.

This album is NOT perfect, though. I never was too keen on "Shoot Doris Day." And why oh why oh why didn't they ditch "Fragile Happiness" and end the album with "Run Christian Run"?

Still miles better than their new album, though. :(

thanks for posting your review Scott, love reading how people felt about albums when they were released.

this album STILL rules, will vote later after i hear it once or twice more...

I think this is my fave SFA album, and considering how much I love their output this must be one of my favorite albums of the decade, right? *thinks* Yep, it is.

Very hard to choose, but I think I will plump for Run Christian Run, a few years ago they played Somerset House and did their surround sound PA thing.

I wandered to the back of the courtyard near the rear left hand stack and was treated to the most beautiful, warm, dublike version of RCR, it was like bathing in sheer loveliness.

receptacle.

love this album so very much.

shoot doris day is great

not sure why my previous post got erased but 'no sympathy' wins my vote for hard-edged psychetechtronixxx

underrated this album at the time, better than just pretty good

so i finally got a chance to re-listen to this today. i had forgotten how many other things (noises and such) were going on with a bunch of these songs. really wish i caught this tour with the surround sound thing they had going on during this tour. i only saw them during the Guerrilla tour.

favorite line is "You got to tolerate, some of those people that you hate. i'm not in love with you, but I won't hold that against you."

voting for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUoc6Wv72cs

if i was welsh they would make me very proud to be welsh.
as it is i can just say 'the best british band of the last 15 years.' without much quibbling.

went for juxtapozed. amazing single. never been a huge fan of the title track on this record compared to most of the album tracks though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jw7u4f-Ujg

The title track has a place in my heart because the BBC wheeled it out at the start of the 2006 World Cup.

That xpost there is one of my 3 favourite music videos ever. But I also voted for the title-track, not for that reason mind

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

no votes for sidewalk serfer girl? winner seems right though. they don't really make signature songs like that any longer. they used to release them every couple of weeks. smoking, piccolo snare, northern lights, play it cool, etc...now it is all mediocrity all the time.

rong

'helium hearts' is better than all those songs, for example

As much as Run Christian Run is perfect, I'm always kind of stunned that it stops when it does. I want there to be a longer version where the end builds and builds into some filthy psychedelic stew.

I still can’t believe this band never made it big.

As much as Run Christian Run is perfect, I'm always kind of stunned that it stops when it does. I want there to be a longer version where the end builds and builds into some filthy psychedelic stew.

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, 27 January 2023 22:37 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

idk, would probably diminish No Sympathy if it tried a similar trick. i mean i wouldn't say no lol

xp one of those if "song x" became more popular a different discussion would've been had. they're anti-blur i guess.

if they'd made ice hockey hair the lead single off an album maybe?

Yeah honestly Run Christian Run could still go on for another seven minutes and I wouldn't mind.

"Run, Christian! Run!" is one of their live highlights. Gives me goosebumps, that backing loop once it starts going on and on. Gruff's falsetto. One of their best ever songs, definitely.

My beard and hair are going gray waiting for Das Koolies. I guess that fizzled out into the air. Not interested in Gruff's solo work lately, unfortunately, but that Dolphins song wasn't bad at all.

They had the chops to pull off great bonkers rock songs and ballads, but got tarred as being jacks of all trades. I think they proved mastery of both many times over, but never quite hit the perfect LP.

Idk, I think they hit the perfect LP at least once (RATW the most obvious), their problem was they couldn't write a single that wasn't in some way slightly too clever for most people

And that isn't a dig at the Blurs and whatnots who could

Like, I mention Ice Hockey Hair there and yeah, one of the best songs of the 90s obviously, but it's also a progged-out joyride through about 4 different musical styles. And this is the band you back for mass appeal? Haha

They made the perfect LP at least twice and the near-perfect LP many times more, imo

And I do think they could have had a few genuine crossover hits tbf. I know some may have taken Northern Lites as a novelty but it screams top 10 to me, especially in the friendly atmosphere of the '99 UK charts. That could have been their moment to set themselves up for a very public post-Britpop career.

Radiator would be perfect, were it not for that godawful mix. It hurts my ears. A lot of pain to enjoy some brilliant songs. Clang, clang, clang.

I think their name worked against them, too. How many people are gonna take a band called SUPER FURRY ANIMALS seriously?

If SFA had played the formatting game, they easily would have had an incredible run of top UK 10 singles. It's interesting to imagine what that would have done for their status

Yeah that's a very good point.

Gruff is hysterical and engaging live, especially on his own, but never acted like much of a front man or very engaging while SFA were around. Did they need that extra bit of personality?

The rest of the band literally stood still, Cian hidden in the shadows, for most of their career. Bit of an odd band the more you think about them.

When Gruff would perform "Night Vision," one of their hardest rocking songs, he'd just sit on stage, looking bored out of his skull.

I don't know, I saw SFA around 1999 at the Bottom of the Hill while living in San Francisco and I had such a blast. It probably had to do with my blind loyalty as they were my favorite band on earth around this time.

I will run the SFA poll in 2023, It will happen this year!

The promo train for Show Your Hand was really something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB_xSQI-gTI

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

They were excellent during many live performances, but once they started performing songs with complex string arrangements, etc. the lack of budget for the visual road show and the over-reliance on backing tracks did generally affect my enjoyment of their shows. Those performances above are a bit of a joke, but that’s generally how they appeared even while on stage so it all kind of worked against them in the end.

Seemed Dark Days was an effort to move away from that and I loved it.

Still the only act to reach the UK top 40 with a fully Welsh-language album.
I would love them for that alone but they are phenomenal.

Looks like das koolies are dropping something soon based on social media activity