Slowdive - Souvlaki POLL

when the sun hits

opening of that gives me chills every time

Probably Souvlaki Space Station for me. It sounds gigantic on a good pair of headphones.

tough one, i'll have to say alison just for the second verse which gets me every time, close second to machine gun though. honourable mention to 40 days.

souvlaki space station --> when the sun hits

but if i had to break them up i'd choose when the sun hits

opening of that gives me chills every time

― 囧 (dyao), Thursday, December 10, 2009 3:09 AM

QFT

not heard this album in years. but in retrospect i would really quite like to erase its "influence" from the entire musical world

i never understood the appeal of this band's music. it's all so samey and boring. good to fall asleep to. mbv and ride at least had the tunes, spacemen 3 had the drones but slowdive had just a nice female voice.

it's pretty, but that's about it

there was a lot of promise in the early E.P.s that there might be more to them, but there really wasn't

what fucks me off most about them is that they - of all the shoegaze era bands - are the ones that get namechecked by the ambient/minimal crew when they were quite frankly the least sonically interesting

when the sun hits

I kinda think "So Tired" off the single is better than all of this. But I went with "Alison" because that's the first Slowdive song to hook me. Wonderful album, the pinnacle of shoegaze.

You people are trippin'. Least sonically interesting? Have you even heard Pygmalion?

I like the US version with the bonus tracks: their cover of "Some Velvet Morning" and "Country Rain" and some a few others. I like their two techno-ish songs, can't remember their names, it's their Seefeel moment.

Yeah, "In Mind" is great. If they had kept in that direction and ended up sounding like Seefeel/Scala instead of Pygmalion they'd still be one of my favorite bands.

Who cares if they're not as socially interesting as others, they're still way more affective.

"When the Sun Hits," easily. This whole album is fantastic but that one just stands way out, one of the best songs ever.

http://www.jamiegaines.com/stuff/squirrel_with_machine_gun.jpg

i'm probably gonna think of that every time i hear the song now

I definitely prefer the EP tracks from earlier (Slowdive, Morningrise, Catch the Breeze), but this album's nice enough. Until this poll I probably hadn't listened to anything off it for years and years. At the time Souvlaki Space Station was my favourite, but listening to it today I've got to go with When The Sun Hits.

tempted to vote for Sing.

Sing is probably the most interesting, sonically original thing here, but like most of ILX I can't really see beyond the SSS-WTSH axis. Are the last three tracks going to get any love, btw? They're great! Less great, but great. Ish.

I took me a while, but Melon Yellow is now one of my favorites off the album.

"it took me", even

That's probably the most 'sonic cathedral'-y song ever written, haha!

BEHOLD OUR DREAMY SPIRES

they're not as socially interesting as others

SONICALLY interesting

i don't care if they were or weren't down syndrome every thursday night

i care that their textures do not satisfy the NEED MORE GOOEY TEXTURES NOW portion of my brain

they only ever really did one thing with their fx pedals and their tunes were just not interesting enough to keep my attention

i care that their textures do not satisfy the NEED MORE GOOEY TEXTURES NOW portion of my brain

...and which shoegaze band does this better other than MBV?

(slowdive) only ever really did one thing with their fx pedals and their tunes were just not interesting enough to keep my attention

Oh, okay.

The Catch the Breeze compilation is all you'll ever need from this band. I don't think there's a single good song left out.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i guess i'll go for mellow yellow. what a sound.

fuck me, MELON yellow

...quite rightly.

i LOVE this album to death, one of my all time favorites. i wanted to play again before voting but that won't happen. going to vote for "Machine Gun."

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

i thought i'd voted for melon yellow but clearly i didn't

voted for 'souvlaki space station'. was very torn, but glad i did because i don't rate 'alison' all that highly compared to the axis of sonic awesomeness that is the second half (well, except 'dagger')

poor "here she comes"... that's prob my 2nd or 3rd favorite

oh hell that's not true.. lovely lovely song though.

Not nearly enough love for the "lesser" tracks on here. I guess the strong ones really stand out...

I played this the other day and thought I had gone through half the album when I realized I had one track repeat on and hadn't made it past 'alison' ;|

Twenty years old today.

Iniial copies of this came with the "Blue Day" EP as a bonus, and I was a sucker for stuff like that. It made me pull the trigger on this stellar album and the EP was great in it's own right. Time to queue it up!

the best shoegaze album ever. i remember once being in rural oregon, under a black night sky with no light pollution, and I could see the entire cosmos like I had never seen it before. I put souvlaki on my car stereo and it was perfect.

I like this album too, but I came to it after Loveless and I don't think it's as powerful or distinctive as that album

the best shoegaze album ever

seriously no need to bring loveless into this, doesn't compare

i have the final slowdive album thats more ambient than shoegaze ..

subsequently i have never ventured deeper into their archive as i never really connected with pygmalion as it was just too lightweight ...

guess i need to address this shortfall ...

pygmalion's their best, but this one has some stellar moments. listened to this again the other day and found myself gravitating towards the weird off-kilter ambient one in the middle

namely 'sing'

altho nobody's fucking with the space station

Alison is on the comp my kids listen to while falling asleep. I've heard it a zillion times, still love it.

I agree Pygmalion is too lightweight. This is their best album. Saw them play it at the New Cross Venue back in the day and it was one of the best gigs I ever saw.

Oh I made this poll? Cant even remember what I voted for in the end. I might have been that lonely vote for dagger.

was very unimpressed by this band for longest time, i think i was frustrated by their lack of oomph compared to a lot of the bands that were around at the same time, everything about them felt so wishy-washy and weak. anyhow my standards must have slipped dramatically or something cos this is record is probably top 3 in my most played albums in the last couple of years. there's something about its sheer lack of energy and anything resembling zest that i find really comforting now, maybe i'm like an elephant finding solace in nuzzling up to the lifeless corpse of his partner. that said, would still probably vote for that one song that "rocks" the hardest

They were always huge sounding live, which I found intriguing -- you can audibly hear the difference between their albums and those of later bands (especially the metal ones) who were all "If only they were LOUDER" that might never have caught them live.

This is great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjr6esFXJl4

Just came to post that myself - it is really good.

The guys agreeing with the man on the radio was funny.

the Pitchfork poll has me re-listening to a bunch of stuff and coming across this Pitchfork film; i wish they'd do more of these they're fantastic!

Started listening to the album and it hits so hard since the very start. I think Alison would be my pick nowadays.