Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls

If I'd

I'd say anything after 1973 is probably technically eligible, even if very few songs after about 1983 probably have a shot.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards this option, I just have to make it clear that genres that were influenced by disco, like house/synth pop/old school rap/new wave, are ineligible. Basically, I think the only disco offshoots that should be eligible are Italo, boogie, and hi-NRG, because they're often indistinguishable from proper disco. How does this sound?

Dance music 1973-83 makes sense to me, though "Soul Makossa" and "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" were released in 1972.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6175/6157907671_6d5ec98fe1_z.jpg

Basically, I think the only disco offshoots that should be eligible are Italo, boogie, and hi-NRG, because they're often indistinguishable from proper disco. How does this sound?

That works for me, there is a separate Italo poll scheduled though. I'll probably vote for a lot of Italo in this one but wouldn't mind leaving it out if we're going to get to it later.

I know there's an Italo poll coming, but it was suggested after this one, and I don't think it'd make much sense to have a general disco poll where Italo is disqualified. I mean, you could argue that "I Feel Love" is Italo too! But I think/hope the Italo poll results will highlight more obscure tunes, and there won't be too much overlap with this poll.

Dance music 1973-83 makes sense to me, though "Soul Makossa" and "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" were released in 1972.

Just making it "dance music 1973-83" would mean stuff like electro, synth pop, and funk is in too, and that shouldn't be the case.

I love "Soul Makossa", but I've never understood why it's considered an early disco tune... What common qualities it has with proper disco?

As for the other tunes suggested, yeah, sure you can find proto-disco tunes from before 1973, even from the 1960s, but I think the line should be drawn somewhere, because otherwise you could argue any danceable soul tune with strings is eligible, and I don't want the poll to be dominated by soul.

I don't want the poll to be dominated by soul

Soulful disco is the best, but am hoping this poll highlights the stunning diversity within disco.

Just leave it as 'disco' imo, then let the results be whatever people vote for.

I guess I didn't really mean all dance music, more that between 73 and 83 it might make life easier not having to distinguish between "disco music" and "music played in discos". Drawing a clear line between funk and disco seems difficult though; what about e.g. "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)"?

Agree that "Soul Makossa" is not obviously in a disco style (though it probably was influential on the style) and I wouldn't vote for it anyway, but it is important in disco history so I thought I'd mention it. "Girl You Need..." might have been my #1 if it counted (though I'm not mad on the lyrics) but it's Tuomas' poll.

What post-83 tracks make the case for inclusion?

On a film forum I sometimes visit they have the rule 'if you vote for it, it's [insert genre]'. The most popular votes will rise to the top anyway, and a lot of the fun is in looking through everyone's ballots afterwards.

For the record, odds are that my ballot will have no more than 1 or 2 Hi-NRG tracks, and only a few more Italo, but very likely about a dozen Patrick Adams joints.

What post-83 tracks make the case for inclusion?

Many, I think, but this is the first to come to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdC2jPPxAwk

someone's gonna vote for half the Daft Punk catalog if you make it post-83

I remember Rhino's The Disco Years comps stretching to include "Don Quichotte" and thinking that was def a step too far.

Actually a dozen steps too far.

I'm only barely just now getting into disco, v excited for the poll -- i like Tuomas's original idea of 83 cutoff and anything after that is remixes only.

I think if you leave the door open then you spend half the nominations wading through a bunch of stuff that doesn't count, whereas if you lock in some parameters everyone does the work beforehand and comes with a more useful list of songs

imo

also can I just
http://24.media.tumblr.com/653781c4d29802f9b12b5d2b548a5802/tumblr_mkpka2hawm1qedb29o1_500.gif

lol!

Someone should do a Modern Country poll. Not sure how many voters it would get but it'd be interesting.

wmc can you pm me the earliest i can open the motown poll without treading on other polls? motown baby!

Motown poll should have an at least slightly longer than usual nomination period, imho. There's A LOT of material.

imo all three of those polls (and future ones of their ilk) should probably follow their own set of rules. I appreciate that they were lodged into the list of artist ballot polls, which reminds people they're coming up and ensures other polls aren't getting in their way, but I think I might actually warrant "campaigning/nominating" threads instead of our typical voting threads. Motown could go ahead and get started now, because there's so much eligible material to cut down for a ballot.

think I they might

My opinion is that Motown wouldn't need a nominations process as much as it would just need a comprehensive list of eligible songs, right? I know it probably runs into four figures, but surely other people have already done all the keyboarding, as it were, in just compiling a big ass list of songs. The campaigning part of the voting thread can sort of serve as a sub-nominating process -- "I nominate such and such as something that you REALLY need to vote for."

I think you could start it right after Bee OK starts the New Order poll, and set its closing date a certain amount of time after his closing date -- 10-14 days, whatever you had in mind.

Some kind soul linked me a 932-track Complete Motown spotify playlist, but it doesn't have Heatwave on it so idk how comprehensive a guide that can possibly be.

Was thinking the same thing this morning--just a list of Motown records (or a link to one) seems enough. Unlink a genre poll, there's not really a grey area: either a song was on Motown (or a subsidiary) or it wasn't.

Yeah, I linked that Spotify playlist a while back, but didn't make any claims to exhaustiveness. But if it's the same one I just called back up (created by Modernista Redaktionen), it does have it -- it's under the full title of "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave". Sort by artist, it's the 2nd song by M. and the V.'s.

Redeemed!

Going by my experience of preparing for the Stax poll, it's hard to find a comprehensive list of all releases on the label - it will probably involve merging a bunch of things on the Internet and then taking nominations for stuff that's missing but someone wants to vote for.

I just spent the last half hour hunting for a comprehensive database and saw some of the ugliest damn websites this side of 1997. I thought I'd hit paydirt but it only went up through 1965.

But while we're on the subject of Motown, I was radio surfing on the road today and suddenly came across Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" -- I hadn't heard that one in forever, and I was butt-dancing for the next five miles.

online motown lists seem to get fuzzy after they moved to la, and then after the 70s end it gets even worse.

The problem with accepting all Motown singles is that the label existed until the 00s. One of my favourite rap albums of all time, AZ's Aziatic, was on Motown, but I'm not sure whether I'd feel right voting for the singles from it, even though they are good. So you'd have to decide whether the poll is "classic Motown soul", or "anything Motown ever released". I'm fine with either.

anything..

The classics will out, and if you get the occasional "Boys2Men" vote, well hey.

Anyway, I definitely wouldn't use the move to LA as the cutoff point, like someone suggested because then you'd have to exclude classic tunes like aforementioned "Let's Get It On", all the singles from Innervisions, "Machine Gun", etc. And in the late 70s and 80s they still released great stuff like Diana Ross's disco tunes, "Sexual Healing", Rick James, DeBarge, etc.

So, I guess my opinion is that all Motown singles should be eligible.

(x-post)

This site seems very complete. The Motown list (menu: 'THE MOTOWN FAMILY OF LABELS' > 'Motown') goes all the way up to 1988. There's also a listing of sub-labels.

Ah, and I think this might be what I need for Stax.

Motown would need long ballots - 20 isn't going to cut it.

Yeah, Seabear was one of the incredibly ugly sites I found. If only he had all that info as a copy/pasteable .xls or a straight text list of songs.

Anyway, did we reach any consensus on whether the genre and label polls could/should have a different schedule from the artist polls?

I think it would kinda make sense to do them, with a longer schedule, concurrently with whatever artist polls are happening at the time. One at a time, of course -- Motown while New Order and Jay-Z were running wouldn't be the worst mix of polls at once.

Speaking of New Order, please fire when ready, BeeOK.

Kinda like the idea of having just one poll rolling out at once.

Though I do think an extended nomination/discussion period would be good for disco, maybe for the labels too.

So, that's decided then?

I...guess?

BTW, I didn't mean that New Order, Jay-Z and Motown should all three run at once.

since we're sounding off, this focus group of one is cool with having genre polls run on a parallel track. They take longer and run differently and don't take away from the excitement of the artist polls imo.

Ditto.

Thirded.

New Order is open for business:

Oh, you've got green eyes Oh, you've got blue eyes Oh, you've got Poll eyes: New Order Artist poll #37 (voting ends May 26 Midnight Pacific)

just an FYI: when the Jay-Z poll comes up in a few weeks, I'm going to attempt to run a reboot of the Neptunes poll in parallel with it -- just seems to make sense, since a lot of the same people will vote in both, and I can piggyback the drive to get people to re-send their Neptunes ballots (if they already sent them to the original poll runner) to me while they're doing their Jay ballots, and have one voting period for both (obviously there'll be two separate results threads, but i'll try not to keep it moving in a timely fashion).