TEARS IN THE TYPING POLL: ILM Artist Poll #114 - BROADCAST (Results Thread)

In my brain, the second half of "Look Outside" is grouped, perhaps somewhat improbably, with the second half of "Inside Out". In the "we're going to do something a bit different from here on" basket.

Aaaah I love "Goodbye Girls" so much. "Too low" of course, but I guess everything is at this point. I've always kind of paired it in my mind with "America's Boy"--they strike me as the two most overtly poppy songs on Tender Buttons. I prefer "Goodbye Girls" these days but they're both totally perfect.

Also kitchen person I strongly encourage you to take a personal day tomorrow (for any reason, but especially for this rollout). I would do it too if I hadn't already taken Tuesday off lol.

I saw a preview of the images CaAL was working on about a week ago. The "Lunch Hour Pops"/Red Balloon one might have been foremost in my mind when I responded with "OMG, they're friggin gorgeous" or something. :)

Good morning / afternoon / evening - here's how we stand so far

77. Locusts
76. Chord Simple
75. Microtronics 04
=73. Bit 35
=73. Dead The Long Year
=71. A Quiet Moment
=71. The Be Colony / Dashing Home / What On Earth Took You?
70. I'm Just A Person In This Roomy Verse
69. Let it Begin / Oh Joy
68. What I Saw
67. A Man For Atlantis
66. A Seancing Song
65. The Little Bell
64. Belly Dance
63. The Equestrian Vortex
62. Teresa, Lark of Ascension
61. The Aphid Sleeps
60. 'What You Want' aka 'Dulcimer Jam'
59. Elegant Elephant
58. Small Song IV
57. Mother’s Milk Means Music (At Home in the Universe)
56. O How I Miss You
55. Test Area
54. Distant Call
53. Make My Sleep His Song
52. Ritual / Looking In
51. Dave's Dream
50. You And Me In Time
49. In Here The World Begins
48. I See, So I See So
47. Inside Out
46. Hammer Without A Master
45. Phantom
44. Sixty Forty
43. Forget Every Time
42. Long Was The Year
41. Hawk
40. We've Got Time
39. Still Feels Like Tears
38. Tender Buttons
37. Arc Of A Journey
36. According To No Plan
35. Valerie
34. Minim
33. The World Backwards
32. Subject to the Ladder
31. You Can Fall
30. Living Room
29. Look Outside
28. Illumination
27. City In Progress
26. Poem Of Dead Song
25. Goodbye Girls
24. Winter Now
23. Lunch Hour Pops
22. Lights Out
21. Accidentals

The three-note fuzzy synth on Goodbye Girls is gloriously dumb / addictive, a repetitive melody all pixelized, I overlooked it sadly.

"Lights Out" is my discovery of the poll and my 4th. It has utterly captured me, being side-to-side depressed and sublime, a perfect spleen. The original and Maida Vale sessions are equally haunting.

Ok, early start today, so I don't have to do the mad rush tonight.

https://i.imgur.com/hoO8w4Q.jpg

20. America's Boy
From Tender Buttons, 2005
Fan-made video by Darryl D. on YouTube

328 Points, 14 Votes

Fitting entry into the best of the best

I also want to add a random general comment that I adore her English accent. I presume it is typical of Birmingham (I am now googling Brummie).

Ok it's definitely her pronunciation as well

Think Ozzy Osbourne for a more stereotypical Brummie accent, he would have been an odd fit for Broadcast.

I also want to add a random general comment that I adore her English accent. I presume it is typical of Birmingham (I am now googling Brummie).

Trish Keenan grew up on the Chelmsley Wood housing estate (which she namedrops in Michael A Grammar) in the north-east of Birmingham. It's just around the corner from where I grew up in Castle Bromwich and my nan lived on the same estate as her. Trish's Birmingham accent isn't noticeable when she sings, and it isn't that pronounced in interviews either. There are some tell-tale Brummie vowels in this interview - 'lighter' becomes 'loiter', for example - but (for me at least) she doesn't have that strong an accent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axnH1icd8F4

Just amazing that you posted that just as I was editing this.

https://i.imgur.com/tlIj3ds.jpg

19. Michael A Grammar
From Tender Buttons, 2005
Fan-made video by Wes Johansen on YouTube
343 Points, 16 Votes

Also that nothing I ever heard from them before ever really leapt out at me as worth the effort of investigating further one bit. But crikey, that "Michael A Grammar" song is a huge earworm! If the rest of the album is this good (and that sound doesn't get wearing over x number of tracks) I'll have to admit I've sorely overlooked them and I'm sorry. - login name (fandango), Dec 12, 2005

"Michael A Grammar" spooks me, because Trish calls out "Michael!" in exactly the same sing-song tone/interval that my mother used when I was little, calling me downstairs for my tea. - mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Nov 7, 2005

Too close to call, but I'll give Broadcast the nod - not least because they included Chelmsley Wood in a song ('Michael A. Grammar'), which is the estate in Birmingham where my nan lived, right next to where I grew up. Odd to find such a sense of place in a group that sounded nothing like other Birmingham bands. - Portsmouth Bubblejet, Jun 30, 2018

Haha. Funnily enough, I also had my local expat advisor of choice on all things English to comment on the extent of her (and Roj's) Brumminess in that Sean Hughes interview a few weeks ago, lol. Not hugely Brummie at all, she also concluded. :)

I also grew up in the West Midlands (mostly Worcester) and her voice just sounds basically normal to me.

Heh! Just to add that Chelmsley Wood may sound like a mythical enchanted forest, but in reality it's part of a cynical north-east Birmingham tradition of giving new housing estates deceptively pastoral names. (See also 'Falcon Lodge', which doesn't have any falcons or lodges.) As the lyrics to 'Michael A Grammar' suggest, Chelmsley Wood instead has loads of high rise blocks of flats. Growing up, I also recall many kids' fathers looking like teddy boys, or at least having Lonnie Donegan and Bill Haley records, so this song sounds quite weirdly locally specific to me.

Just north of Chelmsley Wood is Water Orton, where Lawrence and Maurice Deebank grew up and formed Felt. For different reasons, neither Felt nor Broadcast sound anything like the surroundings from which they emerged.

Top 20 gonna be nothing but straight up classics

Tears in the Typing Pool top 3 let’s gooooo

This stuff is legit fascinating. :)

I suggested on a thread here not too long ago that I'd be interested in a music-themed bus tour of greater Birmingham. With firm expectations of Felt content too kthx.

“goodbye girls” was in my top five, such a joyful collection of sounds

also voted for michael, certainly one of the catchiest and most propulsive songs in their catalog

time for something a bit more spooky

https://i.imgur.com/ZGtJIbh.jpg

18. Until Then
From The Noise Made By People, 2000
Fan-made video by David Dean Burkkhart on YouTube
357 Points, 15 Votes, 1 First Place Vote

Apparently, amongst people giving this points, I gave the least. Another 'no-brainer' that I may not even have revisited until right now. It's sounding great though, so I may have boosted it a little more had I spent quality time with it recently. Respeck to the 1st-place voter!

Also, are these lyrics possibly drawing from some very specific and identifiable eastern school of thought or something?

https://i.imgur.com/jtNFjbI.jpg

17. Colour Me In
From Haha Sound, 2003
Fan-made video by Wonder Muddle on YouTube
360 Points, 16 Votes

One voter mentioned that their vote was for the Maida Vale version specifically. I shall refresh my memory...

Also, are these lyrics possibly drawing from some very specific and identifiable eastern school of thought or something?

No idea about this, things often turn out to be a reference to a film or a painting though.

https://i.imgur.com/A6BJmIU.jpg

16. The Be Colony
From Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, 2009
Fan-made video by Wonder Muddle on YouTube
Bonus beat: Performed by Princes Hill Secondary College Vocal Group, arranged by Maille Halloran
362 Points, 18 Votes

That BBC version of "Colour Me In" is rather frisky, isn't it. I seem to have listened to that less thoroughly than many, so this is probably no revelation at all to y'all. :)

Also, yayay for something more from their best long-playing release lol.

Absolutely adore Colour me in, never fails to give me goosebumps and make my insides dance. This and Pendulum are such perfect complimentary pair. People often describe Trish's voice as "sweet" which i think is wildly off, but here she is pure nectar. Loved the added static roughage on the maida vale version too.

'The Be Colony' works so well in DJ Food's 'O is for Orange' mix

https://vimeo.com/69721622

One of best parts of this (brilliant) exercise has been inadvertently listening to their penultimate oz show (Hifi?) and realising how great ( and relatively conventional old Broadcast) the Be colony and other Witch cults/ mother songs sound in their final incarnation. I need to track down a good version of one of these shows.

To add a bit of controversy in the sea of love, I didn't vote for the last two. Her voice on Colour Me In is indeed too mawkish, the song too much like an introduction. The Be Colony is fine but the music lacks either some energy and drive or some innovation.

Also it's now the top 15 and we still have 20 first-place votes !

XP: The setlist was seemingly relatively static all that year, so you'd *hope* there'd be a few decent recordings out there. Not least for the epics with no studio equivalents that tended to bookend the sets. (And yeah, "Hi Fi Bar" in central Melb. Though I think the name was short-lived, come to the think of it.)

To me, at least, the mix on 'The Be Colony' seems to mimic the unbalances that are occasionally baked into certain stereo 60s recordings, when careful forward-planning of overdubs was necessary.

This is why you'll hear some Kinks tune for example, where the tambourine or some other element will be unusually prominent compared to the rest of the music.

In The Be Colony, some elements are oddly recessive, Trish is way in front with the guitar/organ while the things that should give the song its forward movement, like drums/percussion are cloaked and in the distance.

After seeing the fan video for Until Then, I wondered if it could have been set to the last scene of Stalker
I tried and it worked well enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNiVFCWMrqI. The glass almost starts moving with the buzzing metallic guitar.

I mean, it IS an introduction, almost like an invitation, and it certainly has a naive quality, but it sounds incredibly vibrant and evocative to me in a manner that mawkish doesn't quite cover.

Shit, didn't mean to post that sorry, didn't know I need to give it a title

Time for a hit

https://i.imgur.com/jgY7Pzz.jpg

15. Papercuts
From Extended Play, 2000. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Official music video on YouTube
367 Points, 16 Votes

I wouldn't say this is too low, exactly, #15 seems about right, but I had expected it to place higher.

Some of "The Be Colony" is sampled too. That repeating bassy clunk is roughly hewn from a Piero Umiliani soundtrack, from memory.

I like "Papercuts". But didn't assist it. Maybe I had some strategic omission thing going on!

"papercuts" is the best, sweet and sinister

my #10 or thereabouts

I added all the rest of my Broadcast live stuff to the Dropbox folder, there are a couple of really nice radio recordings in there (Amsterdam in particular) and one very listenable audience recording from the 2009 tour (Montreal)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uwgy0ssya4gizht/AADAnEVGnNxjONweJc1Eukv3a?dl=0