I just called to say I love TAMLA MOTOWN SINGLES POLL - VOTING ENDS 1st JULY 2013

Send your ballots to samuelpooley (at) gmail.com

I decided to do it a bit differently. #1 votes will receive 6 more points. Then vote for your top 25 (points system is #1 vote = 30, #2 = 25, #3 = 24 etc.). Your next 25 votes, #26-50 will all receive 1 point each. I figure I am covering a huge amount of ground in this poll, including splits over artists, decades and genre boundries, so having an amount you can just chuck in without the guilt of trying to figure out whether they deserve to come 32nd or 47th on yr list might make it less bothersome and get funner results.

So 50 votes. Please just email them as:

1. Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
2. The Supremes - Baby Love

etc. to make it easier, i'll sort out everything else.

Sub polls:

Favourite singles artist/band. 5 votes.
Favourite cover version. 5 votes.
Worst Motown single. 2 votes.

Poll ends 1st July 2013 at midnight GMT.

Enjoy.

---

http://www.seabear.se/Front.php
http://open.spotify.com/user/maglio/playlist/5Mc4qbY0ExrOwObV2HroTX
Motown Poll Discussion Thread

Maybe keep youtubes to the other thread?

Feel free to ask about other labels, re-releases, b-sides etc. but I'm gonna be p liberal as to what is included. For the countdown I think I'm gonna try and present it as A and B sides together if possible.

Favourite cover version. 5 votes.

Is this for Motown artists covering Motown/non-Motown tracks or non-Motown artists covering Motown tracks?

My guess is non-Motown covering Motown. We're okay to post non-embedded YouTubes, right? Forgot to recommend Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" on the other thread. He died a year or so ago.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwvpeYiQwss

Oh man, just took a first stab at putting a ballot together. The only other poll that could possibly approach this in terms of daunting impossibility would be a Duke Ellington poll.

Calling it now: You Sure Love to Ball is going to win this thing.

I was able to list 30 right away, then made a couple of substitutions. I'll probably leave it at that.

Lobbying for a couple of Who Motown covers:
http://youtu.be/6DfQ5N1TyTw
http://youtu.be/HYGYbFwmHzQ

the 26-50 being unranked thing is making this easier. I can think of 4 epochal Motown covers. the number 5 slot will go to a random Stones cover or the goddamn Afghan Whigs.

The Who cover I considered was Heat Wave

Yeah, I thought about that too, but it doesn't hold a candle to the others.

What about "Closely allied" labels?

"The Night" by Frankie Valli and the 4 seasons is one of my fav singles oat, it's on MoWest

I'm gonna do what I do for other polls, only more so: list the first thirty songs I can think of.

iirc sublabels are included: MoWest, VIP, Rare Earth etc.

Ra.

Ra? This stupid spelling corrector on the touchpad.. Then again, it fixes more of my typos than the other way around.

ta..

Mariah Carey's "I'll Be There," Bananarama's "He Was Really Saying Something," and the Beatles' "You've Really Got a Hold of Me" are the first covers that come to mind for me. I don't think there are many I like...Please don't hate me: Blood, Sweat & Tears' "You've Made Me So Very Happy" is one of them, even though Brenda Holloway's is better.

the epochal 4 I mentioned are Gaynor's "Never Can Say Goodbye", Aretha's "Until You Come Back To Me", The Beatles' "Money" (epochal to me and Greil Marcus at least) and Green's "I Can't Get Next To You".

"The Night" by Frankie Valli and the 4 seasons is one of my fav singles oat, it's on MoWest

― Mark G

The only thing I'm sure of when compiling my list is that The Night will be my number one. No idea how I will handle the rest of my list yet.

"Until You Come Back to Me" is an odd situation: it doesn't appear on a Stevie Wonder album (the Looking Back anthology) until three years after Aretha's version. The cover predates the original.

well Steve did record it in 1967 so I think it could be eligible. it's up to a hoy

I wasn't trying to raise a red flag, just pointing out the oddity--now that you've reminded me, I'll vote for it too.

but its not a single

No, as a cover--they don't have to be singles, do they?

the Aretha version is a single (a successful one at that) but it shouldn't really matter for covers, yeah

xp campaigning really works. the Motown discussion thread introduced me to both "The Night" and "Girl You Need A Change Of Mind". my ballot will be profoundly affected by these discoveries.

oic, read the sub-poll list , whoa-k..

i'll accept the aretha. its only a sub poll.

side labels are cool too.

very excited about this poll! btw we were discussing on Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls that since the Motown one will be going all month, it might be good to do a single artist poll in the meantime in June, and my Jay-Z poll is up next in the queue. so a hoy hoy, just wanted to get your blessing to run that over the next couple weeks if you don't feel it'd be stepping on your toes?

Is there a nominations list for this poll?

Everything under http://www.seabear.se/Detroit1.htm is eligible.

Actually scratch "everything", I don't think distribution-only labels are counted (a hoy hoy?).

they are.

basically im fine with this being a clusterfuck, pendants be damned.

Ah ok, "distribution-only" only covers about 10 singles anyway iirc.

Campaigning for Martha and the Vandellas' "I'm Ready for Love":

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2013/06/martha-reeves-and-vandellas-im-ready.html

That's my favourite Martha & The Vandellas single, it will be very high on my list.

Don't forget the Bruce Willis singles obv.

Curious what other Martha and the Vandellas songs people are voting for. I am thinking "Quicksand" and "Honey Chile." Not sure what else.

I will lol for eternity if Bruno makes it in. xp

I might vote for him to help that happen.

"Heat Wave" is undeniable imo.

Yeah Heat Wave is all time. I'd like to make room for In My Lonely Room too.

trying to think about this makes my brain hurt. where to start??

Curious what other Martha and the Vandellas songs people are voting for. I am thinking "Quicksand" and "Honey Chile." Not sure what else.

'Come and Get These Memories' is a favourite of mine, hoping to be able to give some points to 'Jimmy Mack' and 'Nowhere to Run' as well.

Heat Wave might be my No. 1

Jimmy Mack!

"Nowhere To Run" will probably be in my top 10. Snow chains as percussion!

What? Is that what that is? Oh wow, that makes the song even better for me.

anyone else voting for The Isley's "My Love is Your Love (Forever)"?
http://youtu.be/CrGT15ernWA
Discovered it on St. Etienne's The Trip, which also has The Supremes "It's Time to Break Down"
http://youtu.be/SmEHxCDPS10

first vote has come in :)

I voted (hopefully?). I already have regrets. But, wow, looking at that list...Holland/Dozier/Holland.
what a catalog.

Oh no...just saw that the complete Motown singles 12A (first half of 1972) is now on UK Spotify...I thought I'd heard everything, then POW.

the moment when I realized I forgot to vote for Marvin & Tammi's 'Precious Love'
D:
D:

I covered it. No worries.

:D

I figured ILX would pull through for me

Voted

I Sent In My Top Fifty (Eight of the Songs Had Parenthetical Titles)

*handclaps* *handclaps* ((((strings))))

I got a bunch of ballots. Cheers everyone. Monday-Wednesday is essentially when I have to save my job (I have a new manager starting) so I think after that is when the roll-out will start.

hope everything works out fine. hang in there!

D'oh! What are the odds I can slip my ballot in after the buzzer? I crashed last night before doing this!

go for it.

I can too?!

sure. like i said, next thursday is the (unlikely) first date the actual poll could happen

Yeah you should just take your time and not sweat it, Clash results will prob rollout first anyway.

I've sent you a runt half-ballot too

To add to my job worries our landlord has found a buyer for the place we rent, we are to be given notice soon and will have 2 months to find a new home. I just don't have time to do this poll right now guys, sorry. If anyone would like to take over i'll happily pass on ballots. Lyfe sucks sometimes.

I'm working away at something else right now, so a little reluctant, but I'll volunteer for one part: I'm pretty fast with a spreadsheet, so I'd be okay with totaling up the ballots and passing the ranked results onto someone else for artwork and posting.

Just now saw ahh's update. I might be able to roll this out with clemenza's help on the tabulation end.

Great. E-mail me the ballots, hoy hoy--my address is near the top of my homepage, which you can get to by clicking on my display name. I'll quickly tabulate votes, pass the results on to JF, and he can take it from there.

clem/jf wanna webmail me there email address? i presume everyone who voted is cool with me passing this on? sorry about all of this.

lol ok. will send them in a bit.

Separate e-mails for each ballot are fine; if you can cut-and-paste all ballots onto an attached Word document (with voters' names, in case I have to clarify something), that would be even better.

clemenza/a hoy hoy, my email for ilx stuff is johnnyilxfever at gmail dot com.

Thanks for stepping up, you guys! Looking forward to this.

Sure, this will be fun. My only regret is that a hoy hoy has to turn over his baby to other people. :(

lol, reminds me of those "work from home" radio ads. "Are you sick of other people RAISING YOUR CHILDREN!?!"

ilx to the rescue - HITSVILLE HAS BEEN SAVED

Still waiting for hoy hoy--hint, hint--but if anyone who didn't vote wants to send me a ballot before Monday (follow my display name), please do. You'll never absorb the full catalogue--don't even try. Just write down 5 or 10 or however many songs you already know and love.

Yeah, would've been great to get the poll stuff before the weekend so I could be making images right now, but I dunno what's up. a hoy hoy, are you out there?

I've got the ballots (thanks, HH) and there are 22. I'm not tabulating results until tomorrow morning, so anyone who wants to send a list before then, please do.

Looks like we'll be able to start this rollout later in the week. Get ready, cos here it comes!

wooooooooooo

we end up doing a lot of these kinds of polls after the artist passes away, but i never thought we'd be doing the Motown poll after Detroit died

wish I had button here to like last comment

Is 22 a low number of ballots, generally?

Definitely on the low side, but it's such an intimidating poll.

yeah i think there's kind of a law of inverse proportions with these things... the bigger the pool of possible music to vote for, the more intimidated people get by the prospect of voting. when it's some band with less 5 or 6 albums that every fan knows by heart, throwing together a ballot in an hour is nothing.

Just sent a top 25 to clemenza's webmail. Hopefully that'll work

In the circumstances, you might wanna post a roll call (by usual display name) of whose ballots you have, just in case any fell off the back of the e-lorry in transit. Might save on wailing and gnashing of teeth after the rollout.

just realised i drunkenly mailed ahoyhoy my ballot with no display name attached. should i resend it to clemenza?

No need to, as long as I have the list. Just e-mailed the results to JF (after the usual glitch of messing up one ballot and having to retabulate).

Got 'em. Just took a look, and I think this is gonna be a fun rollout.

I'll probably do 60-41 tomorrow, and then 40-21 on Thursday, and finish with 20-1 on Friday. Cool with everybody?

more than cool

can i get the list clem? :D ty forever guys for this.

my flatmates are at a viewing they like so much they are putting down a holding fee for us right now btw, with a viewing arranged for me on thursday. life could turn out alright in the end :D

Chess poll for you next week then

ha. i still need to get a new job contract by the 1st august so mebbe not.

yay I'm so excited