Top 120 Songs Under 120 Seconds (ILM Poll #95)

i didn't get to know roger miller until the middle to late part of my protracted youth, probably age 20 or 21 when i picked up "my uncle used to love me but she died" as a yard-sale 7". my mom glanced at it and said "oh, you'll like that one." she was right.

I'm going to actually listen to the results later tonight while doing some work, so might have a bit more to contribute about songs I didn't previously know. I know they're all super-short but I've just not got round to following along properly so far.

never listened to the byrds really. kinda lumped them in w the beatles who i never really got into. this is a little more country, i like it and am wanting to hear the whole album now. is that their thing, the more country beatles?

https://i.imgur.com/WnPdKay.jpg
77. Solange - Rise (1:42)
0.3999 points
8 votes

is that their thing, the more country beatles?

At the start they're more like the "more folk" beatles, but that quickly becomes a very reductive description, and they get both way more psych than the beatles and more country after that.

tbc, the Byrds are american. They were the last of the classic '60s groups I got into and now they're more or less my favorite. Listen to the next track on YTY

birds were never partic beatlesy? they were their own thing. west coast jangly guitars and harmonies. folky. lots of bob dylan covers.

their album with gram parsons "sweetheart of the rodeo" is their country album, it's my fave.

sorry for the very elementary explanation of the byrds

no its cool just not an area of music i visited much so i need it. everybody's been burned is great. ill check out sweetheart of the rodeo as well.

my fave Byrds are the early Gene Clark tunes

https://i.imgur.com/OHdYOuY.jpg
76. Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57)
0.4002 points
7 votes

nice, didn't vote for it but a classic for sure

solange rise is so pretty. great album opener and one of the best songs on either of her two new albums.

Tambourine Man/TTT have definite beatles influences imo, but it's certainly not a reason to avoid them (if you hate Dylan otoh...)

Sweetheart is awesome and, if the country aspects are most appealing, maybe that is the best place to start, but I prefer the mix of sounds on 5D/Younger/Notorious personally. You could do worse than listening to all of YTY. I'm a bad fan who can't remember who writes what, but I do like Gene Clark's solo albums a lot.

I feel like there's a fun, pretty recent thread where imago gets really into them?

ILMers getting exposure through this poll to the Byrds, Roger Miller, Fats Domino, and other blind/dim spots is a beautiful thing

foolishly I didn't vote but I am loving this rollout, ty KM

the byrds are imo so much better than the beatles, even though they were obviously in their thrall

this poll is great. so much i havent heard that i should've heard long ago. add meat puppets to the list, who i really should know since ive lived in arizona for the last 13 years...

loving how much he is forcing his horrible voice in the chorus.

for the record, i dont hate the beatles, just had an aversion to that sound (and the idea of being forced to respect ~the beatles~) until i hit my 30s. ive gone back and listened to it all and its good, just not the thing im gonna reach for very often at this point in my life. but ill def be diving into more byrds.

lake of fire is so good lol, i almost forgot to vote for it but snuck it in at the last second. i love how gloriously melodramatic and over-the-top it is--to me it does a good job of emulating the feeling of watching a crazy fire-and-brimstone preacher as a non-believer.

to be fair, spottie, though the byrds definitely have their own lane and don't always sound like the beatles, 'time between' definitely sounds like the beatles

yeah all the byrds songs i know (the popular ones) are pretty beatles-esque but i can hear that there is something different in there

important to note that the beatles were in turn influenced by the byrds

damn, I forgot how brilliant the Knight Rider theme is

https://i.imgur.com/wGN96UC.jpg
75. Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30)
0.4107 points
5 votes

let's say I got a number
that number's 50,000
that's ten percent
of 500,000

NOT ONE DOMINO SHALL FALL

forgot to mention, for those of you joining us late, here's a spotify playlist of the countdown: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7zPjo63k4leeZ5yt0IptEq

re: Byrds discussion, they've been one of my fun musical listening projects over the last few years, just taking my time with their run of albums up through Sweetheart. their music tends to take a bit longer to sink in for me, but upon repeated listening they've become indispensable, a perpetual go-to for all sorts of listening situations (quiet morning, rowdy evening, car rides, etc)

although it may seem redundant, the Sundazed 2LP with all the mono mixes of their 1965-67 singles is flat out incredible:

https://www.discogs.com/The-Byrds-The-Columbia-Singles-65-67/release/2725042

https://i.imgur.com/f7njN7d.jpg
74. Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58)
0.4155 points
7 votes

is the little intro "overproduced by martin hannett" an homage to hannett/joy division or a diss?

minutemen benefitting from obvious favouritism thanks to their name

always took the hannett thing as a jokey homage

xxp hah I forgot about think, I assume it's a diss

you still think swastikas look cool
the real nazis run your schools
they're coaches, businessmen and cops
in the real fourth reich you'll be the first to go

think that

were joy division / UK post-punks at the time associated with nazism, or at least being nazi-curious? weren't many in the UK scene flirting with weird nazi stuff at the time (on aesthetic grounds, apparently. uh)?

i could be mixing up several different music history anecdotes/rumors all at once here, so forgive me if this is a ridiculous line of questioning. but when i hear the martin hannett shoutout/diss, in the context of the song that follows, it makes me wonder if they're connected

i was more surprised by political song's placement than by 'viet nam,' which is a clear highlight on double nickels. i voted for a different double nickels track in my top 5 tho, so perhaps there's even more minutemen to come

'nazi punks fuck off' got my vote, for its heartwarming and universal message.

I think (Warsaw/)Joy Division were interested in exploring Nazi symbology in their songs, but they always disavowed any real connection. Wouldn't surprise me if it was a bit of a thing in that scene though...

Anyway, this is an amazing song and I have no idea why I didn't vote for it.

Though admittedly I only first heard it a couple of years ago through the film Green Room (in which it is employed to excellent effect)

Karl I believe there was an extensive discussion on a Joy Division thread recently about that very issue

It’s just kind of weird to specifically mention a person who is very prominent in their contemporary punk scene, just before launching into a song explicitly about nazi punks

xp thanks sleeve I’ll try to track it down later!

i always thought the martin hannett reference was a non-sequitur

It probably is! But it’s kinda like inserting the line “This is dedicated to Shaq” just before launching into “tall basketball players fuck off”

yeah i get that *removes opening lyric from my song about tall basketball players*

Bonus Napalm Death cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzoebhQ7hjQ

https://i.imgur.com/8K2kS9o.jpg
73. Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50)
0.4173 points
6 votes

hell yeah

while working on this poll i have come to the conclusion that the mid to late 90s was a very, VERY bad time for publicity/PR photos for bands. especially in the UK. holy shit, there are a lot of really bad photos of 4 dudes standing around with their arms crossed while the lead man looks straight at the camera (or vice versa)

hahaha