¡Olé! It's the Matador Records Poll! Part Dos: 051-100

that was quick

I had it saved in a text file, and I happened to be online for a few minutes so I thought 'what the hell?' Now, to get back to watching Star Trek on Channel 4.

Weird that the poll is closing on Friday, though - I thought I'd set it for next Saturday. Oh well.

This is going to be the poll where everyone thinks "others will vote pavement" and they end up with about 5 votes innit?

Haha maybe! Also, isn't that Liz Phair record insanely popular, or did I just get hoodwinked by the hype?

By the way, if it's possible for mods to change poll dates, maybe it could be extended by a day? If not no worries, I'm sure it's not a big deal for anyone.

Some good stuff but still a pretty easy pick for me here. (Yo La Tengo's Painful)

Thinking Fellers vs Guyville for me, tough choice.

hype or no hype, if anything that Liz Phair record is underrated.

Wow, I know a lot of these. These are my early teenage years! It felt boring to vote for Crooked Rain but I did. Would have loved for Extra Width, Come, even Bettie Serveert haha

Amateur soundtrack lol! It had Jesus Lizard on it if I recall.

Middle Class Revolt. I saw that tour. Love that fucking album.

Vampire On Titus all the way.

Love Painful, but went with Made In USA.

B 1000

Lots of strong EPs on this list that I just can't bring myself to vote for cause they're too short. Admonishing The Bishop is great great great, but only four songs.

I have a lot of love for the Helium thing too, but probably have to go with B1000, though I pretty much wish that had been the last GbV album. Exile in Guyville sounds more and more annoying as time goes by, like a college girlfriend you'd really like to forget as you hit middle age. Dustdevils "Extant" is pretty good, but again too short, and the dance remixes were not the way for that band to go. Disliked Crooked Rain when it came out, and the years have done nothing to change that.

Theoretically I should like Circle X more, but have never been able to get into Celestial.

Crooked Rain over Bee Thousand over Painful over Guyville

Quite a few in this list that were favorites at the time. Bee Thousand and Extra Width were both real mind-blowers, as those were the CDs where I first heard GBV and the JSBX. If it was 93-94, I'd probably go with Bee Thousand, as I listened to that one over and over and over. I'm going with Extra Width, as that one has hung with me as I not long ago went back and really got into listening to all of those Jon Spencer records again. That stuff is really groovy. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is also excellent and might even be better than Slanted and Enchanted, but kind of like Guided by Voices or even say Sebedoh or Palace, I don't listen to them much even though I did a ton when they were new.

Crooked Rain
Bee Thousand
Extra Width
Middle Class Revolt
The Infotainment Scan

crooked rain is the best, but i kinda want to throw a vote at eva luna or painful

Some good stuff but still a pretty easy pick for me here. (Yo La Tengo's Painful)

Yes. One of my favorites albums ever.

Vampire on Titus and Bee Thousand I don't really think of as being Matador albums, both originally came out on Scat I think

bee thousand was the first to come out on matador iirc -- you can hear bob brag about it in the crying my knife away live recording (i think it's that one?)

But why are they the only two main GBV albums Matador won't reissue on vinyl?

Yeah, VoT was a reissue on Matador, B1000 was an original Matador release. Now, however, they both belong to Scat.

Oh right.

Scat did colored vinyl of Bee Thousand a couple years ago, I bought it to replace the CD I lost

personally of the opinion that YLT doesn't start running away with voted until electr-o-pura but ymmv

bee000 1st came out on scat - both lp & cd versions. matador licensed & reissued it before the year was out, though.

easily my favorite album on the list, but i voted for uzi's sleep asylum cuz it's great and needs a boost. especially love the opening and closing tracks: "criminal child" and "collection".

I like Helium

yeah that helium EP is really really great

There's a lot of great stuff here, but B1000 is on an altogether different plane.

OLE-100 Bunnybrains -- NMS Giveaway (PROMO)

i produced the a-side on this! but i'm voting for liz phair.

um, yeah, this poll has Exile from Guyville, Bee Thousand, Eva Luna, Painful, Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, Vortura, and two Fall albums...

i don't think I can vote...

This is so totally easy, considering Bee Thousand is one of my all-time favorite albums.

Voked for the Naked Pilseners single, I just love that song and the "Josephine" cover on the b-side. Almost voted for Eva Luna or Crooked Rain though.

This whole list is bringing me way back, man.

Top 10 album ever:

OLE-069 Yo La Tengo -- Painful

Also great (rounding out a top five here):

OLE-060 Yo La Tengo -- Shaker
OLE-079 Pavement -- Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
OLE-084 Guided By Voices -- Bee Thousand
OLE-097 Smog -- Julius Caesar

Enjoy to some degree:

OLE-055 The Fall -- Infotainment Scan
OLE-078 Helium -- Pirate Prude
OLE-083 Guided By Voices -- Vampire On Titus
OLE-094 The Fall -- 15 Ways

Way overrated:

OLE-051 Liz Phair -- Exile In Guyville

Can't remember these even though I probably own them (lol too many Fall albums):

OLE-053 The Fall -- Why Are People Grudgeful
OLE-095 The Fall -- Middle Class Revolt

I've heard the songs from the Pavement/YLT singles but didn't bother including those above.

Julius Caesar came out on Matador? That seems strange.

Voted for OLE-056 Moonshake -- Eva Luna

Matador 051-100 POV:

Moonshake - City Poison
Uzi - Gabrielle
Come - Loin of the Surf
Bailterspace - X
Helium - Love $$$

Tar Baby is so much better than City Poison, but at least your vote's in the right place...

I've heard some Bailterspace here and there, how are the albums beyond the first 2 albums that came out on Flying Nun?

"Way overrated:"

no way! but then i can barely listen to yo la tengo, so we will agree to disagree.

my Eva Luna POV:

Tar Baby
Secondhand Clothes (bonus track on a re-issue, but AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME!)
Beautiful Pigeon
Sweetheart
Mugshot Heroine

just one more:

Spaceship Earth

I'm actually having a really hard time picking only fivesix songs...I just pulled this out for the first time in like five years, and it's very very good...I'm a gigantic asshole for not voting for this in LJ's alt-90s poll...

Julius Caesar came out on Matador? That seems strange.

The Matador website says it was Europe-only - must have been before it was released (reissued?) on Domino.

By the way, there will be a number of Matador Europe releases in coming polls; the labels were separate for a long time but they both fed into the same catalogue (until Matador Europe as a separate entity was abandoned about a decade ago). So there'll be a few things coming up that were released in the US on the likes of K Records, Kill Rock Stars, etc. As far as I'm concerned, anything with an OLE number counts, so that's that.

Just checked my vinyl and yeah, my Julius Caesar is on Matador.

As a longtime Callahan stan, I'm definitely more into his stuff on the Moonshake records, but Eva Luna is solid all the way through.

listening to SF Seal's "Dock Ellis" right now and it's sounding pretty good. Haven't listened to the seals since 98 probably.

the guy from smog was in moonshake! i didn't know that. you learn something new every day.

Aren't we talking about two different Callahans?

Haha! Yeah, I was talking about Dave Callahan, formerly of the Wolfhounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eC2qR6jBgE

Exile In Guyville is better than I thought it was when it used to win critics' polls. And I'm pretty sure one of the Bunnybrains records I own and like is on Matador, but I'm pretty sure it also wasn't an NMS freebie. Still think I have that Moonshake CD in a storage box in the closet. But I am voting for the Uzi EP, since it is definitely the record here that I have played the most over the years (and also the only one I've ever named on my own critics' poll ballot.)

they gave that cmj nms single away at the door of the matador showcase at cbgb that year. that was a fun show. barbara manning, pizzicato five, bunnybrains, and, um, some other people. i threw stuff at the hepcats in the audience from the stage. good times. the only bad part was having to sit thru a four hour barbara manning set before bunnybrains could go on at, like, seven in the morning. okay, it wasn't that late.

haha^^

Admonishing the Bishops is arguably TFUL282's finest moment... that may sway me here.

hey ilxor...the only Bailter Space I've ever heard was Vortura...I like it a lot, very space/shoegaze, a lot like Snapper but with noisy guitars instead of organs...

Voting for Moonshake's Big Good Angel b/c it is brilliant & underrated & it seems like Painful will do just fine in this poll w/o my vote.

they gave that cmj nms single away at the door of the matador showcase at cbgb that year. that was a fun show. barbara manning, pizzicato five, bunnybrains, and, um, some other people. i threw stuff at the hepcats in the audience from the stage. good times. the only bad part was having to sit thru a four hour barbara manning set before bunnybrains could go on at, like, seven in the morning. okay, it wasn't that late.

― scott seward, Monday, June 21, 2010 8:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

4hr is too much but i <3<3<3 barbara m. voted bee thou, close over crooked rain and admonishing the bishops. special thx to steve shasta for my copy of the last.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxXq9eDXus

Uzi need more love people

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

There's a bunch of other stuff I like on here but I cannot vote for anything except Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

...though I do kind of remember that Kustomized as an underappreciated good album, but since I can't remember any actual songs off it, nope, still CRCR

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

Nice surprise with YLT beating Pavement/GBV!!

wow

Thank you, ILX, for redefining the Matador canon as it should properly be.

I should go back and listen to that one; I was crazy into YLT a decade ago but never got around to hearing much of the stuff before the mid '90s.

it's my favorite Yo La Tengo record but I definitely don't put it above Crooked Rain, Bee Thousand, or Exile in Guyville ...

Moonshake vote-splitting = the ILX Story

missed this poll...another vote for Uzi

next poll...

Thinking Fellers Union's Strangers from the Universe.

^^yep

I remember people dismissing it as a lesser effort, but it's remained my favorite album of theirs. Maybe other releases have better songs here and there, but this is them at their most consistently best. Maybe it also has the least amount of live-recorded tape looped experimental filler in it's favor as well.

Part Tres is now up. Lot of the same names repeating, the vote may be similarly split...

OLE-093 Bailter Space -- Vortura 0

; ;

;_;

i woulda but b1000

w/ all the hullaballoo around surrounding Gold Soundz, can I just say out of the six albums I've heard on here, CRCR is easily the least interesting...