Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen / Two Wheels Good poll

^^ otm

I feel like this is an album where just about every track will get a vote.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing

Even Horsin' Around?

So far, the tracks that jump out are "Horsin' Around" and "Faron"

― enochroot, Tuesday, 20 December 2016 15:40 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From Langley Park to Memphis doesn't get mentioned anytime there's Sprout-talk on here. It's a great album, not a bad track on it.

Truly. "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" gets the unresearched 'novelty song' tag, but "I Remember That", "Nancy (Let Your Hair Down For Me)", and The Venus of the Soup Kitchen" all equal the impact of "The Golden Calf" for me.

Andromeda Heights, "The End of the Affair" is a favorite PS b-side, and "Life's a Miracle" is a lovely song, uplifting without being saccharine.

Here, really hard choice, but "Appetite" and "Desire As" are the two that randomly pop in my head often, so choosing the former.

This is a weird band for me because when I discovered them I OD'd on them so hard, and now every few years I'll play these records and that sates me for several more years. In a way, my binge was such that these songs all--without exception--sound better in my brain and memory than they do when I play them. I can't think of too many other examples of this (possibly Odessey and Oracle)

I feel like this is an album where just about every track will get a vote.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing

Even Horsin' Around?
― Kitchen Person, Tuesday, December 20, 2016 2:51 PM (fifty minutes ago)

Guilty! I actually did vote for Horsin' Around

Iago, what are the good b-sides? I'll hit up sseek later

I love Horsin' Around and would have voted for it if Bonny wasn't the best song ever written.

I always found it just doesn't fit on the album very well. It would make a charming B-side but that's about it. I still love the album as every other song is a 10/10.

I did hedge a bit when I said "just about every track". ;-)

I think the best non album tracks are the pre-Swoon stuff and the stuff from the Andromeda Heights era.

At least in NYC you hardly ever see them anymore. Is there even Pluck U anymore? I sometimes have the Buffalo Boss wings at Fulton Mall. I always get them so hot I cry

Iago, what are the good b-sides? I'll hit up sseek later

Fuck! My wings post that never happened. Sorry calstars

Ok, calstars, I moved my whole PS collection onto sseek. My user name is sekaer. There's a folder called b-sides. Also don't miss the folder KCRW 1988--great in studio solo performance (including Wichita Lineman) and interview

thank you Iago!

I think the best non album tracks are the pre-Swoon stuff and the stuff from the Andromeda Heights era.

I sold "Andromeda Heights" but kept the singles.

Spoiler alert (for those who can't wait for the May 2018 results of this one):
Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good Poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh shit I missed the last poll. This is a REALLY hard one. Appetite or Desire As....

"Bonnie" in a heartbeat

― X-Prince Protégé (sonnyboy), Monday, December 19, 2016 3:29 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this poll is too cruel, but I ended up voting for "Goodbye Lucille #1/Johnny Johnny"

This poll closes in a year and a half

― Iago Galdston, Monday, December 19, 2016 4:33 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the right amount of time imo. picked goodbye lucille

this is soooooooooooooooo hard but i just decided not to think to hard and went with appetite.

Apparently I've already voted although I can't recall what my choice was. This year, it'd be "Moving The River".

yeah, appetite. could've been when love breaks down but been more obsessed with appetite lately

i swear i didn't try to create a mini-me or anything, but it does warm my heart when i hear this coming from my 15 year old kid's room. he was playing high land, hard rain in his room the other night.

i mean, i just play stuff. the rest is up to him.

Nonetheless, Scott, well done.

the core, the heart music... prefab sprout

save your speeches, flowers are for funerals

Appetite is such a good song. I love the lyrics. Great album though.

one of the greatest moments in music

I count the hours since you slipped away
I count the hours that I lie awake
I count the minutes and the seconds too
All I stole and I took from you

otm omar

not always a fan of bands going unplugged, but the acoustic versions of some of these songs are incredible things

Right? Oh my god, those acoustic versions will melt you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pmp1hr8UxY

this one is total goosebumps

otm omar

― i'm surprised to see your screwface at the door (NickB), Friday, May 11, 2018 12:18 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm omar

― i'm surprised to see your screwface at the door (NickB), Friday, May 11, 2018 12:18 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― brimstead, Friday, May 11, 2018 1:04 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"bonny" was the first prefab sprout song i heard

Very difficult. One of those impeccable albums. Where you cannot take away one song without interrupting the perfect flow. I think i'll go for Faron Young. There is a promise in that song that the album fulfills. The build-up never finishes.

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

interesting that Appetite won so easily. would probably still vote for it or Goodbye Lucille

Kind of wish I had gone with Desire As now. Can't argue too much with those results tho

Can't believe this actually finally finished, but glad I accidentally gave it a year-and-a-half runtime. Good turnout.

I thought I'd voted, but it let me vote again yesterday - Desire As.

Shame about Blueberry Pies, but it's lots of moments I like ('ask me what the time is… my eyes shift and slide', 'Hello stranger – the stranger I've become') that don't quite come together into a song I love.

Voted When Love Breaks Down. I had recently written a song with a similar title when that record came out, which obviously wiped the floor with my own efforts

I've only just discovered this album but oh my god where has Bonny been my whole life???

I've only just discovered this album but oh my god where has Bonny been my whole life???

Whoops how did that post twice

it's that good

Damn

It's a conspicuously front-loaded LP really. It's time I refreshed my memory of the second half/lower-ranked tracks...

In his memoir, Dolby remembers watching Queen’s 6.40PM performance from a descending helicopter, next to a chain-smoking Thin White Duke.

this would make a cool painting

> received an old steve mcqueen t shirt for my birthday recently

Great gift!

I fell hard for this album during some years when I wasn't look at ILX much, but if I'd seen this poll I'd have gone for "Goodbye Lucille." One of many things that amazes me about this record is that it's full unbelievably great lyrical lines that totally disappear into the meaning of the songs around them. Most songwriters, coming up with something as good as "save your speeches, flowers are for funerals," would set it like the stone on an engagement ring, making sure you took note of how well it works. By the time McAloon gets there it feels weighty and cold and inevitable; it hits you in the context of the song, not the context of the songwriter pulling off a good line. "Lucille" has so much of that — the "why don't you join the foreign legion / you're still in love with Haley Mills" bit feels like cutting dialogue, not cutting writing.

one of the things i like about "moving the river" is that it's like clearinghouse for those kinds of lines lol

re the article in the Quietus...

wendy___smith
Don’t usually put head above parapet but written this

I’ve always enjoyed being in a supporting role but I’m a bit fucked off with being minimised now - even though I often choose to minimise myself.
To be clear, what I’m saying here has nothing to do with the people I love in and around the band, it’s only about what is written, and the erasure of women’s creative contributions.

In this article celebrating the 40th anniversary of Steve McQueen, 15 men are referenced by name before I get a passing mention. Not as a co-creator, creative equal or artist but as breathy raw material manipulated by men and machines.
“Dolby samples and manipulates Wendy Smith’s breathy backing vocals… to produce a vocal effect…”
Did only men and technology shape the sound of Prefab Sprout?

The fact that I’ve showed up for work in the music industry every day for the last 46 years counts as nothing, is erased.

As Rebecca Lucy Taylor said in her acceptance speech for The Ivors 2025 Visionary Award, “people fucking hate women, they really do …remember to protect them”

I’m not visionary or a genius music creator, but I am livid about the erasure of women in music.

I love and respect The Quietus, but expect better. It’s 2025 not 1985.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKwaBkhIObX/

I had never heard this 1986 NPR clip the piece mentions, where Arthur Russell talks about Prefab Sprout for a second

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

sorry, 1988