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

I can only talk about "Here Comes The Summer" in terrible cliches like 'blast of pure joy' and 'sound of summer fun'. When Sharkey kicks it up a notch for the chorus after the solo... goosebumps.

Undertones was only the second of my votes to place, after Liz Phair. It'd be bizarre if, say, 30 of the other 48 would now miraculously form half the rest of the list. But conversely, it would be bizarre if these 30 *didn't* show up.

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

I was trying to be chill about this poll but the Zombies should have been #1, now I hate you all

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili), Tuesday, April 9, 2019 4:52 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. had no idea

I probably should have voted for Moondog.

Fun fact: "Simple Things" was not merely "just outside the top 60" in the B&S poll; turns out it was precisely #63 there as well. Exactly the same placement in polls 94 and 95. Spooky.

Aw yeah Moondog.

Moondog was a late cut! Weirdo jazzy thing IIRC.

Oh wow, I'm really surprised to see Kenickie make it. That was my number one. The first album has aged really well and that's the standout.

Voted for SFA, Solange and Daft Punk as well. Devo and Belle & Sebastian were two of the last cuts from my list.

I'm happy to see any songs from Donuts make the list. I couldn't separate the songs personally, but he definitely deserves to be here.

Loving the rollout so far. Probably the most unpredictable list we've had on here.

Super stoked at the halfway point. Louis harden the first ohmy play that again now thank you voters

Moondog is very photogenic

didn't nominate or vote so can't complain, but wish Avengers' "Teenage Rebel" was part of the poll

this seems like a monumental undertaking KM, thank you!

thanks for following along!

everyone is going to be pissed at me tomorrow. earlier tonight i realized that some songs were missing votes (some people manually entered in their tracks and little things like a hyphen (-) turning into an emdash (—) meant that their votes weren't collated together with everyone else's properly). on one hand, goddammit, that's why everyone was supposed to copy and paste from the list instead of typing it in, but on the other, of course it's completely my fault for not checking for that more thoroughly before i settled on the "final" list. so 99% my fault, and i'm sure someone will give me shit about it tomorrow. i'll give more details about 12 hours from now when more people are awake, but basically it resulted in:

- elvis costello's "love for tender" dropping off the list (from #120 to 121)
- a song previously out of the top 120 getting bumped up into the #114 spot
- neil young's 'cripple creek ferry' moving from #96 to #76
- belle & sebastian's 'simple things'

elvis u are still in my heart

gaaaaaaaaah, and now that posted before i finished. ugh. this is not my night.

...

- belle & sebastian's 'simple things' moving up from #63 to a higher position that hasn't been reached yet in the countdown
- some changes in the order for the songs #60-#1, but nothing anyone has seen yet, so phew on that

and now most of the images are slightly wrong (usually off by 1 position compared to the corrected list). but i'm not going to fix them or reupload them because holy shit, i've already spent a ton of time on them, and also it would massively confusing (even more so than it will already be). i feel like a disaster. sorry everyone.

doesn't seem like much of a problem to me really, it's a great thread

dont even sweat it just roll out what you have no need to go back in there and re-do a bunch of stuff youve already done... just throw the extra one in there as like 41.5 or something when you get to the one thats supposed to be in there.

Small potatoes. The order of #60-120 doesn’t matter so much as having placed.

Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done and pacing the roll-out quite nicely.

Just catching up on all this, great stuff all around. Btw the Knight Rider theme is by Stu Phillips, I guess the “V/A” comes from some compilation album.

You're doing well, KM! This must surely be the most humungous dataset for a non-EOY poll in years, after all!

yep, echoing that it's all good, KM. sorry that it creates extra work for you but I'm loving this poll either way

yeah don't fret about any tallying issues from the past, throw in any adjustments that fit, but just move on as we chant ZEDD ESS ZEDD ESS from the sidelines

so that song i've heard 1 trillion times is by Moondog

― to halve and half not (voodoo chili),

otm. had no idea

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie),

you might have heard Get A Move On by Mr Scruff 1 trillion times instead

Chaos is good, KM--I really loved this poll when BABIP crept into the conversation.

everyone is going to be pissed at me tomorrow. earlier tonight i realized that some songs were missing votes (some people manually entered in their tracks…)

It would have been funnier if you had pretended Elvis C was a fake out that nobody had noticed. Now that would have really pissed us off.

But yeah, small potatoes.

glad that everyone's cool with it! i was probably catastrophizing a bit last night. which is kind of in character, admittedly.

here is the rundown again, with changes highlighted. everything is pretty much in the same order, just off by a rank or two:

120 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 5 0.3036
119 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 5 0.3042
118 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 5 0.3078
117 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 7 0.3126
116 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 4 0.3141 1
115 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 4 0.3144
114 Neil Young - Till the Morning Comes (1:21) 6 0.3147 - (NEW! was previously outside the top 120)
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 5 0.3177
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 5 0.3195
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 3 0.3195
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 5 0.3237
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 6 0.3243
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 5 0.3246
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 5 0.3258
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 6 0.3261
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 5 0.3285
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 4 0.3288
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 6 0.3297
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 5 0.3309
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 5 0.3318
100 Fats Domino - Walking to New Orleans (1:58) 4 0.3342
99 Noname - Self (1:35) 4 0.3384
98 Cardiacs - Horsehead (1:21) 4 0.3411
97 The Beach Boys - Our Prayer (1:10) 5 0.3432
96 V/A - Knight Rider Theme (1:17) 5 0.3495
95 DEVO - Too Much Paranoias (1:57) 5 0.3549
94 Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter (1:57) 5 0.3573
92 Captain Beefheart - Frownland (1:39) 5 0.3672
92 Napalm Death - You Suffer (0:02) 8 0.3672
90 Hüsker Dü - Never Talking To You Again (1:41) 7 0.3675
90 Lizzy Mercier Descloux/Rosa Yemen - Rosa Vertov (1:48) 5 0.3675
89 Scott Walker - 30 Century Man (1:28) 5 0.3681
88 Raymond Scott - Lightworks (1:40) 5 0.369
87 Bikini Kill - In Accordance to Natural Law (0:28) 4 0.372 1
86 John Barry Orchestra - James Bond Theme (1:50) 8 0.3729
85 Roger Miller - Dang Me (1:51) 4 0.3816
84 John Lennon - Hold On (1:52) 6 0.3819
83 Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack (1:55) 5 0.3837
82 The Dicks - Dicks Hate the Police (1:58) 4 0.3855
81 Eddie Cochran - C'Mon Everybody (1:58) 6 0.3894
80 J Dilla - Stop (1:39) 4 0.3912
79 The Byrds - Time Between (1:54) 6 0.3939
78 Solange - Rise (1:42) 8 0.3999
77 Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (1:57) 7 0.4002
76 Neil Young - Cripple Creek Ferry (1:33) 7 0.4086 (was previously #96)
75 Minutemen - Viet Nam (1:30) 5 0.4107
74 Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (0:58) 7 0.4155
73 Super Furry Animals - God! Show Me Magic (1:50) 6 0.4173
72 De La Soul - Transmitting Live from Mars (1:12) 7 0.4188
71 Sebadoh - License to Confuse (1:46) 7 0.4263
70 Daft Punk - Nightvision (1:44) 7 0.4281
69 The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside (1:49) 6 0.4419 1
68 Jorge Ben - Balanca Pema (1:29) 6 0.4455 1
67 Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living? (1:24) 9 0.4548
66 Kenickie - Come Out 2nite (1:58) 6 0.4572 1
65 Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy (Lost Cues, Vol. 2 version) (1:20) 6 0.4614
64 The Undertones - Here Comes the Summer (1:43) 7 0.4806
63 Moondog - Lament 1 (1:45) 7 0.4809

these two songs are now slightly higher up in the list, so we'll be re-revealing them as the rollout continues:
Belle & Sebastian - Simple Things (1:46)(previously #63)
Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken (1:40)(previously #68)

will be back soon with the new #62 and #61, along with #60-41

oh yeah, and the spotify playlist is updated as well. i left elvis c on there. never forget

man this playlist is great. in a half hour of listening i've checked off like four artists i've known the name of since forever, but never really listened to. and i'm always game for the next track cause, heck, it'll be two minutes, max.

great song i wish i'd remembered during noms: no ditching - dickhead

Doc Casino otm

"till the morning comes" definitely deserves to be in the top 120! my neil young pick.

I'm kind of shocked that They Might be Giants haven't made an appearance, kinda figured they'd place a bunch in the 120-90 region

ok! your new #62!

https://i.imgur.com/IZskS1g.jpg
62. Delia Derbyshire - Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO (1:44)
0.4827 points
6 votes (1)

Yes!

Oh wow! It made it! Thank you five other people, I really thought this would be pushed out.

great song i wish i'd remembered during noms: no ditching - dickhead

― devvvine, Wednesday, April 10, 2019 2:57 PM (one hour ago)

But damn, I almost certainly would've voted for this if you'd nommed it.

https://i.imgur.com/JAtktIw.jpg
61. Bill Wells & Maher Shalal Baz - Duck (1:05)
0.4836 points
7 votes (1)

Hehe, I knew this one would place with all the talk about it in the other threads.

TOO LOW

does the (1) refer to a first place vote?

I can’t believe that someone made this and I’m very glad that they did. It is the pinnacle of songs being slightly off-sounding.

So yeah, this was my #1. It felt like a new musical language when I first heard it - a quivering, diaphanous, impossibly yearning creation hewn from mistake after bum note after folly - but the first run-through of the melody made me stop dead, and the second, more polyphonal run-through made me cry buckets. Somehow all of life is in this song

does the (1) refer to a first place vote?

― Emperor Tonetta Ketchup (sleeve)

yep!

All the while there's this cosy, nostalgic, perfect piano humming away even as the horns embody the fragility of the human - uh, I mean anatid condition; it's just the loveliest thing

lovely song, i really hope something by the penguin cafe orchestra also places!

I'm really happy for those of you who, in discovering this, discovered life.

duck was a fun discovery from the voting thread, definitely the best thing that any combinations of the words "bill" and "maher" have ever done

Haven't heard 'Duck' before, but it sounds like a more discordant version of an instrumental Belle & Sebastian track, which is good? yes.

Imago, have you listened to Maher Shalal Hash Baz's From A Summer To Another Summer yet? 'Duck' was getting all the discussion from the nominated short songs by MSHB but there are other (longer) songs by them that I love more.