ILM Ballot Polls for 2014 and beyond -- order, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

Outro With Bees by Neko Case is a perfect miniature.
Great Cop.

if anything i'd be in favor of going in the other direction: a 90 seconds poll would eliminate a lot of 1:59 stuff that i think is less interesting than the "miniatures". i don't want to poll a bunch of chuck berry and early rock N roll

i'm thinking stuff like "her majesty" or "naked, if i want to" or "field day for the sundays" or "till the morning comes"

in other words, two minutes is TOO LONG

tbh 2:00 is too long; 2:30 would be just 'vote for your favorite short-ish song'

1:45 seems like a decent compromise

the epics poll was 10 mins+, though, so the spiritual companion would mean a poll of songs 1 minute or less

100% down for 1 minute or less

Looking forward to arguments about the true lenght of Here She Comes Now.

Let's do it!!

bold move but i'm gonna call "pnoom" by can the winner

90 seconds with leniency of a few seconds seems acceptable to me. (Yes, I have a 1:33 candidate.)

I vote for the original 2:00. Historically, songs under 2:00 stood apart; if you were to comb old reviews, I'm positive that that would be the benchmark that warranted comment (e.g., the first Ramones album--six songs under 2:00). And if you dropped it to 1:30 or 1:00, you'd lose so many great songs. But if you raised it to 2:30, the field would be way too large, and there's nothing especially significant about a song that runs 2:25. I understand it's a completely arbitrary call, but 2:00 is a nice round number--like 10:00--that splits the difference well, I'd say.

I also suspect that dropping to 1:30 or 1:00 would lead to a disproportionate number of punk songs (which would certainly account for part of my own list, but there's a lot of great doo-wop, for instance, that falls in the 1:30-2:00 range--it'd be hard to find a great doo-wop song under 1:30).

agree

going through my itunes library and 2 minutes is way way too long. 90 seconds feels right

I'm down for this poll, however we decide on structuring it, though I vote for 2:00 as the cutoff. Whether an exactly two minute song counts is something we'll have to work out: all that it determines for me at this point is whether or not I get to include "Walking to New Orleans" by Fats Domino.

Idk, 2 minutes to me seems like a regular song length. There’s no novelty in it. Even shortening it down to 1:50 or 1:55 would make the results far more interesting imo

Should we just say anything < 2 mins?

two things, not sure if Leee is a regular poster any longer, unless he has changed his log in name? so someone else might have to take over that poll.

also, someone really needs to sign up and do Low now.

I expect little crossover between Low and the under-two-minutes poll.

let’s poll the options ?

1 min
1:30 m
2 m inclusive
2 m exclusive
2:30 m

I guess we know what #95 is going to be. Sounds like fun.

I vote 2 min inclusion

Likewise.

We also need to wait for the Metal poll to close as a courtesy.

2 minutes inclusive sounds good, although I'm wondering whether the technical cutoff should be something like 2:03, just to allow for silences and fadeouts in what are basically legitimate songs.

two things, not sure if Leee is a regular poster any longer, unless he has changed his log in name? so someone else might have to take over that poll.

leee's definitely still here! i see him a lot in the video game threads, among other places. he's probably just busy playing God of War right now ;)

one idea: just let leee decide the cut-off, since it was his idea! personally, i think 2:30 would be too long but i'd support anything 2 and under

two things, not sure if Leee is a regular poster any longer, unless he has changed his log in name? so someone else might have to take over that poll.

tbf, Leee hadn't posted for 70 minutes at the time Bee fretted

he's probably just busy playing God of War right now ;)

I won't have such aspersions cast about me!

I wasn't really planning on running any polls (though kind of musing about voting in a Cat Power one), but if the people want one, who am I to argue? I also don't want to lay sole claim to running a shorties poll, so if anyone has a burning desire, I'm happy to give them the responsibility. If not, I can still run it, though would welcome help with graphics.

Bumping for the US day crowd.

2 min and below sounds good to me.

Agree

1:59 and below

^^^

yes

fine by moi

I just want to be able to vote hard for "Over Fire Island".

A few good Young Marble Giants options too, hmmm

Hey leee, this is weird but I guess I have a burning desire to do it. I enjoy the process and I’ve never ran an entire one myself!

Hey leee, this is weird but I suppose I have a burning desire to do it. I enjoy the process and I’ve never ran an entire one myself!

Hey Leee! Whoops, lol

Notice I changed “guess” to “suppose”

It’s hard out here on ILX

Kool Karl! Giving you the krown. I'm not too picky about < 2:00 or <= 2:00.

Also, two computers ago I had a collating/point totaling script, I might try to rewrite it if you need it.

And let me know if you need help with anything else!

Will do, thanks!

To everyone else - I will set up a nominations thread this week, probably within the next couple days. Now that I have the ultimate power, I am going to use it to declare that the poll will be for songs that are less than two minutes long. 2:00 is unacceptable. 1:59.99999 is not only acceptable, it's recommended.

maybe run a side poll for songs that are exactly 2 minutes long, too. if anyone has any other ideas for fun side polls, lemme know and i'll include it in the authoritative OP for the nominations thread

great poll idea, i am looking forward to it! less than 120 seconds is perfect.

Finally, the Minutemen/Naked City/Conet Project ballot I've always wanted to cast.

I'm going to make it my mission to bombard Karl Malone with provocative questions that require difficult, potentially controversial decisions.

What is the final say on a song's length? Buddy Holly's "Looking for Someone to Love" is 1:56 on Wikipedia, 1:57/1:58/2:00 on Spotify (not sure if all three are the same version), 1:59 on two of my media players and 2:00 on the other (same file for all three). In or out?

i am tempted to resort to the answers provided by my manual of absolute power and corruption, vol 3, page 159, "Disputed Song Lengths", which reads:

"yea, if at least one authoritative source that is never wrong, such as wikipedia, lists the official time as less than 2:00, the song is deemed "pretty short, arguably" and is thus eligible for the poll. but in general, let it be known that it is not cool to "game the system" or "be a jerk about things" by pointing to some outlier bogus source just to get a song to qualify in an internet poll. please, please, don't do that."

however: 1) we should save this discussion for the nominations thread, where it's going to happen again no matter what happens here, and 2) if someone has a great idea for how to resolve this issue in the least complicated way, i'm all ears.

yay, on board with another Karl Malone poll. so looking forward to this.

and Hi, fellow SF Giants fan Leee. haven't seen you in the same thread that i seem to be posting on.

thanks bee! and yeah, it should be fun. i'll hold off on the nominations thread until this weekend so as to not interfere with the 2018 metal n' heavy rock voting deadline

hell yeah km this gonna be fun and edifying