Best Song on "Loveless"

and i suspect that "soon" is gonna win this bitch by a substantial margin.

loomer has my vote

dammit i hate poll threads too, wtf am i doing

There are *songs* on this album? You mean it's not just one overwhelming wall of BLIIISSSSS...?

(What if my favourite song is the weird inbetween bit sounds?)

I mean, it's obvious that it's the giant juggernaut that is SOON (though I prefer the single mix) but I'll be contrary and go for Blown A Wish - the jangly C86 throwback on the album. No, no, wait, I mean I'll go for the weird warped sounds of To Here Knows When. No, no, wait, the sonic thrash of Only Shallow...

::explodes::

yeah, "only shallow" was real close to getting my vote -- one of the best opening songs on any record.

"To Here Knows When" gets my vote.

"Sometimes" is the def. worst.

"Sometimes" is not worst.

Then again I don't know what the worst is!

actually "Come In Alone" may be my least favorite, but I still love it

hard to pick a worst on a record that IMHO has no real stinkers on it at all. but i can understand "sometimes" being chosen as "worst" b/c it's not one of the most immediately grabbing songs on the record (though i like its slow, bolero-esque build-up).

'blown a wish' easily the most enjoyable outside the album context.

I really love When You Sleep.

'sometimes' for me.

side note: anyone know if they ever played that song live? i have 2 or 3 loveless era bootlegs and it's not on any of them. i'd love to hear a live version of it

i'd say that 'what you want' is the worst song (very marginally, and not counting 'touched' b/c of cop-out), but i know there are others who adore it.

to here knows when. easy

Gotta be "Only Shallow" - practically the only one in which I've ever been able to detect any sort of tune. (And yeah, I've listened to the whole thing and not just the first song.) I've owned it for years and wanted to love it and tried to like it but cannot. Sorry, Ned.

(I still swear by You Made Me Realize, tho. And about 2/3 of Isn't Anything as well. And continue fantasize about MBV covering The Bells' "Stay Awhile".)

A worst or second best song poll would work best here. I've always thought "Come In Alone" was the worst track off Loveless - rocks most conventionally, almost sounds like a Hendrix parody.

not counting 'touched' b/c of cop-out

I'm confused by this. Are you saying "Touched" is the actual worst song but it's so obvious that to deem it the worst would be pointless?

I hope not cuz, well, I guess "touched" would be too weak a word for it. "Enormously moved" maybe... I very much prefer it to "Come In Alone" and maybe several others.

Oooh...difficult. I'd say "Blown a Wish"

"What You Want" is great -- It's the most Isn't Anything-esque of all the tracks.

A worst or second best song poll would work best here.

i agree. i should've done that one instead, it would've been more interesting.

anyway, "i only said" would get my vote as "worst" only b/c it does go on a little bit longer than it should IMHO and that guitar-sound-thing can get slightly irritating. but that's nitpicking, and i still like "i only said" a lot.

if you use the search function, there are quite a few POO - Loveless best/worst threads. (but that was in ILX v.0.2 beta)

DOO: Loveless

To Here Knows When

when you sleep by far for me. to me it is the most shoegazery song of them all. what a mesmerizing heavenly tune. despite the softness of the melody it rocks hard. a perfect song to get up with. preferably with a sunrise. shining, shimmering gold transformed into sound. great vocals by kevin as well.

when you sleep by far for me. to me it is the most shoegazery song of them all. what a mesmerizing heavenly tune. despite the softness of the melody it rocks hard. a perfect song to get up with. preferably with a sunrise. shining, shimmering gold transformed into sound. great vocals by kevin as well.

-- alex in mainhattan, Thursday, 24 May 2007 19:54 (15 minutes ago)

otm!

"When You Sleep" is joyous. Also it scared the shit out of me when I first listened to Loveless because I was drifting off during the loop after "To Here Knows When."

It *has* to be 'Soon', followed by 'To Here Knows When'.

I mean, it's obvious that it's the giant juggernaut that is SOON (though I prefer the single mix)

What? Is there any difference between them? I bought Glider EP and Loveless on the days they came out and must have listened to them quite literally SEVERAL times and I've never noticed a difference.

I voted "What You Want" because of the flutes and the delays at the end with the talking people sounding like they're underground and underwater. This was a hard one to choose though.

xpost, only difference is that it starts without any blend in from the interstitial. Other than those couple seconds, they're identical.

i am listening to the mp3 (too lazy to check the cd) of when you sleep. at 0:42 just after he sings "once in a while" (i think he says "then" at that exact point) there is a fault on it. it sounds like the noise of a crinkled tape. is it my mp3 or is it a flaw in the production?

xpost: that's what I thought! (I thought I posted this five minutes ago, but it seems to have vanished into the void, unless I posted it in some other random thread)

"when you sleep" pwns handily

to here knows when and come in alone have always been my least favourite songs on loveless. it's not only that the former sounds totally muddy. i don't like the melody at all. too one-dimensional or something. it doesn't help that the song is extremely repetitive. the calm drone of the last thirty seconds though is bliss. especially when they fade into when you sleep. after all that fog, the sun is piercing through the clouds finally!

I know plenty of huge MBV fans love "Soon", but I can't help but think of it as the song for people that don't actually like MBV that much. Personally, I think it's one of the weakest songs on the album.

Haha, tell it to Ned.

and me for that matter.

Greatest song and greatest band ever for me.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

It's just that "Soon" is one of the few songs on Loveless that isn't timeless. You could play it for someone who had never heard MBV, ask them to guess the release date, and I'm sure most people would get pretty close. It screams out 1991. Whereas, a song like "To Here Knows When"...that will always sound contemporary, I think.

Someone interrupt me with a massive fart noise, please.

the song for people that don't actually like MBV that much.

well isn't Loveless essentially the album analogue to this?

I dont know if I can vote in this poll. "When You Sleep" might get my vote but it'd be like favouring a child. I dont think I can do it.

And yes, I realize that if you play "She Loves You" for someone who had never heard it, they could probably guess within a few years the release date of that well, and it doesn't detract from the song at all. But the difference with that, maybe, is that the rest of The Beatles Second Album and it fits in aesthetically, while the majority of Loveless sounds otherworldly and "Soon" sort of sticks out like a sore thumb (to me, at least).

I'm going to blame the gaps in that last post on my broken keyboard, and suggest that it reads better if you get hit in the head by a basketball in the middle of the second sentence.

Soon does sound tacked on. I mean I love the song, it is sexy to dance to, but it wasnt part of the album conceptually was it?

"When You Sleep" is definitely the one that sucked me in. So that one.

I think the album could stand just fine if it were just 8 minutes of the end of "What You Want" instead of "Soon." But then "I Only Said" wouldn't have an analogous track on the B-side!!

"Soon" revisionism!

I still like "Soon"!

Only Shallow is my pick.

Ooooh, yeah, 8 additional minutes of "What you Want", which was my choice for this poll, incidentally, would be heavenly, especially as a closer! Not even 8 additional verse-bridge-chorus minutes, just 8 minutes of instrumental chorus...

http://www.johnsadowski.com/uploaded_images/doggie_heaven-767087.jpg

it sounds pretty though

bump: results 'soon'

I like Sometimes a lot.

here 'tis, y'all.

see, touched IS the worst song, disappointing result for loomer tho ;_;

Interesting.

I know you'd rate 'Soon' tops, Ned, but where would 'Loomer' be? And where would 'I Only Said' be?

(both are far too low here IMHO)

I know you'd rate 'Soon' tops, Ned

I didn't vote and I am not making a choice.

I'm glad "When You Sleep" came second :)

tied for first, you mean!

nothing will

tied for first, you mean!

God dammit I need new glasses.

Why doesn't ned vote?

I'm not interested in poll structures as such -- the most I think about things like this and/or ranking in general is a year-end thing like Jackin' Pop, and even that's hard for me to draw up to my satisfaction. Discussion is something else.

woss rong wid Touched then?

The drummer wrote it.

Surprised at the tie, btw.

"I've always thought "Come In Alone" was the worst track off Loveless - rocks most conventionally, almost sounds like a Hendrix parody."

wrong. great song.

I didn't know "Soon" came out a full 18 months before Loveless. Damn. Fans must've felt ripped off. They didn't even remix it or anything.

Its 4 seconds shorter

4 seconds away from perfection

think my ultimate sympathies may have drifted from 'loomer' to 'to here knows when', because the latter still sounds beamed in from beyond our reality and stands up as a genuinely astounding work of synaesthetic sound-art on an album full of brilliant art-pop songs (like loomer, which also hints beyond itself, but with more specificity and less mindbending divergence)

I don't even know the names of half of these songs. I like "To Here Knows When" the best, and then the 30-second one that sounds like a whale song, then "Soon," then the opener, then the one that goes "Mrrrmmmrrrr oooohhhhhhhhhhhh mmmmmrrrrrr oohhh ahhhhhhhhhhhh" with the crushing guitars in the background, then the one that goes "ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh, ah, ooooooooooooooooh, ah." The rest of the album I'm not too crazy about. I'd say the one that goes "And when I look at you" is my least favorite because it wakes you up from a dream from the previous song, and I like MBV the best as ambient noise.

come in alone was robbed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abXxTCxjPzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwuBgaHFtzw

come in alone was robbed!

Feel like "I Only Said" is the tune that actually gets underrated.

I Only Said sparked probably my first genuine, emotional reaction to music. I mean it's always been up-lifting, mellow-making, enthusiasm-pumping stuff but I've never gone so far as to experience an actual head rush. I Only Said, max volume, headphones, and right at about 1:45 made me lunge over in my desk chair, literally literally overwhelmed with blood and this sense of catharsis or release I didn't think a song would ever, ever procreate. I might as well have prefaced this whole comment with a "I'm 14 and" as it's very sentimental, YouTubey thing to say but I could never be swayed to think that is not one of the best songs in existence.

Soon is actually a different mix on the EP according to Shields, iirc.

Soon is the obvious choice, and THKW too, but I also adore Only Shallow - magnificent opener, one of the all-time greats.

despite, i always have this really corny image of a jeep trailblazing it's way through some african desert when this song plays. it's especially unfortunate b/c despite loveless being my favorite album, i associate no other images with any other songs. no help that matthew mcconnaughey is occasionally in the jeep.

You're an odd boy.

would've voted loomer i think, dunno why but that "pretty boys with their sunshine faces carrying their heads down" is the 'eye of the duck' moment of the album, for me

Eye of the duck?

'i only said' is my personal highlight whenever listening to loveless, i like the relentlessness of it

To Here Knows When, pretty easily. Soon is awful.

I don't mean to be rude, it's such a dull track

You're crazy.

And dull is a useless criticism unless quantified.

"Lynch claims that he tries to put in an “eye of the duck” scene in each of his movies. This is a scene that isn’t necessarily essential to the plot, but is absolutely essential to the artistic effect of the movie."

it's like looking into the eye of a duck and sucking all the fluid from its beak

I can get with the eye of the duck. We should have a thread about eye of the duck moments in culture.

I always thought "To Here Knows When" was the track that defines the album. Can't believe it's number 5...

I feel the same way about "I Only Said".

Would have voted for 'To Here Knows When' - beautiful, overwhelming noise.

come in alone was robbed!

+1

some of the gnarliest bass tone i've ever heard

No offense to Only Shallow/Loomer/Touched, but THKW is,basically when the album really hits its stride. Even though it does get a little samey, I still love the back half more than the front.

THK

er, THKW wouldve been my vote when this poll was active but now its all about What You Want

1. I Only Said
2. Only Shallow
3. Soon
4. Come in Alone
5. To Here Knows When
6. Blown a Wish
7. Loomer
8. Sometimes
9. What You Want
10. When You Sleep
11. Touch
TOUCH

"Soon" sounds to me like the lost cousin of "Once in a lifetime"