why don't you poll me I feel like flying to... the UNDERWORLD Poll Results thread -- produced by Smith & Hyde for ILM Artist Poll #102

tsk - audience video 2018

Forgot about that Ring Road/Minneapolis mash up, that's so good. is my mind playing tricks on me or did they do that during a radio broadcast once?

glad Phonestrap got a few votes, always been a fan of that one

It was bld's quoted reference to a broadcast version in the '00s that set me finding that 2017 one!

I can only assume that And I Will Kiss scored three votes because nearly everyone hadn't heard it, btw. Rick being hospitalised at the end of the ceremony was probably at least 50% just having written this, months earlier, catching up with him.

wow yeah I don't think I've heard this one

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u086a-617443.png

86= The First Note Is Silent
189 points, 3 votes
2011 12" by High Contrast featuring Tiësto & Underworld ‎

promo video (directed, shot and edited by High Contrast}
audience video (High Contrast dropping the acetate .wav a month before release)

Good to see Olympic music place. Loved the ceremony and played the soundtrack album a bunch at the time. But I findb the ceremony music hard to go back to now. It's some strange mental gymnastics trying to sort out where that belongs in relation to Dirty Epic... so I Did Not Finish.

First Note comments:

it's like a glimpse of a parallel universe where Underworld were a Chart EDM/D&B group of the early 2010s

Sure 90% will find it unbearably cheesy, but afraid I love it without reservations - the backwards string sample at 1:41 is the money shot here btw.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Sunday, May 10, 2020 7:02 AM

“The First Note is Silent” is by far my favorite of the banger collab era. At the time I could barely get through it because I feared it was a permanent shift towards straightforward lyrics + famous EDM co-producers - listening knowing that that’s not the case, it’s such a good track.

― cheek, Sunday, May 10, 2020 1:09 PM

https://i.imgur.com/v8l6bsL.jpg

This song is creating one of the best memories in my life, I was young, without responsibilities, on university and lived party life, thank you for that

- literally get a tingling sensation whenever I listen to this song. dunno if it was the chemical enjoyment of the first time I heard this song or what.

-- It will be exactly that reason of your first pill. I feel the same with 'two months off’ by underworld

My #5, too low!

One thing that mustn't be overlooked in 'And I Will Kiss' is the little nods to 'Rez' that waft in during the fourth minute.

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u086-337843.png

86= Skym 189 points, 4 votes
1999 album track Beaucoup Fish JBO1005431
VHS promo

Probably my favourite beatless thing by them (from not a big list I realise).

(oh my ballot suggests otherwise lol nm)

Is 'Skym' the "do you still feed the animals?" one? That song is absolute dogshit.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, July 6, 2011 11:45 PM

yeah, and Skym might also be Mark G's "slow ballady" one: beatless singing over contemplative piano chords, throbbing sci-fi engine room synths later, poor becoming moderate, Viking, Dogger

(Skym is definitely on my "non-amazing" list but I do like the synth sound. its presence after Winjer is probably why I thought I didn't like Winjer and was doubly surprised by Dan's post until I put it on and went "oh, yeah, this one is good actually")

― a passing spacecadet, Wednesday, July 6, 2011 11:48 PM

i (i...i...i...) like Skym

― blueski, Wednesday, July 13, 2011 10:19 AM

i too enjoy skym, and since i managed to not even vote in my own poll, maybe i should have gone with that

― BradNelson, Thursday, July 14, 2011 2:07 AM

My #5, too low!

― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

lol, this one almost cracked my top 10, we three voters did some heavy lifting on this one.

One person voted for Shudder, and a couple of people confirmed that they definitively intended votes for Shudder / King Of Snake to not be votes for King Of Snake per se. If those people had voted for both compositions with equal enthusiasm, then 192ish points would have seen it rank at 93 or so.

the underrated part of that album (besides "Winjer") is the ambient noodling of "Shudder" bursting into the intro to "King of Snake"; it's kind of cheap tension/release but it works SO WELL

― DJP, Saturday, February 19, 2011 2:59 AM

This 199 live audio link goes to Shudder; skip back to the start to catch Pens Git, Ramajama and Rowla beforehand.

*1999; cat bumped the laptop.

i thought i listened to pretty much everything but apparently i missed sooo muuuuch!!!

Yep. I really tried to listen to as much as I could in preparation of the poll and I've still only heard seven of the placing tracks so far!

I made a long list of albums + EP + custom playlists that totaled like 30 hours and even still I missed some stuff

new poll after this poll!

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u085-337843.png

85 Twenty Three Blue
193 points, 6 votes
2016 bonus track / 2018 7" b-side

audio

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u085-909369.png

I like Barbara except for the first two songs. Really love Twenty Three Blue, the Japanese bonus track:

― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:14 AM

yeah that really should have been on there, it's not like there wasn't room for it.

― ufo, Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:20 AM

https://i.imgur.com/IhU3QrG.jpg

i kinda get why it wasn't on Barbara Barbara now, it doesn't really fit with the vibe of the rest of it that well.

As with Please Help Me, the only clear B-side from the album being great makes people say "it should have been on the album!"

but they sit better in a playlist of noodly / ambienty Underworld tracks than they do closing the sequence of tracks on the ablum

I like Barbara except for the first two songs.

Fighting talk

I had Skym pretty high in my ballot, I've always found it really affecting as it comes across like a break up song. Hits me in the same place as early Red House Painters, as weird as that sounds!

https://i.ibb.co/4Jxw7yx/gg-rickhand.gif

also confirm or deny that they exported the piano from this track onto "best mamgu ever"

The way they'll rework and rearrange things over and over while developing them, or go back to elements of tracks and lift them to turn into new songs years later, and from how much he's able to do just playing their music onstage, let alone rearranging it on the fly, you imagine Rick has some kind of bonkers supercomputer brain - the amount he writes, too! - but he'll talk about how if he's not recording at the time it comes out, then it's usually gone forever.

The supercomputer just works to generate his demo-cataloguing filenames, I guess.

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u084-452434.png

84. Pinetum
197 points, 4 votes
2019 free-to-mailing-list mp3 as part of Drift

video by Simon Taylor extended album version audio

oh damn crank it up this piece is killer

― frogbs, Friday, April 19, 2019 6:58 AM

always taken aback by the sound design of Underworld's drums, it's just constantly mesmerising. Album to album, project to project, it's just so captivating.

Drums by Otis Jordan.

zoned out while listening to this and thought I had discovered some excellent long lost dubnobass B-side

remembering the days when you could busk down in the underground stations... i miss those days.. thanks otis was fun to watch you..

today it's pretty much been "Pinetum" over and over

― frogbs, Saturday, June 15, 2019 1:16 PM

yep gonna be today too lol

Hypnotic. Love it. A Drift highlight.

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u083-646290.png

83. Parc
198 points, 5 votes
2005 live track Darc, remixed for 2008 Japanese broadcast

audio
original live audio 2005

The real crime is that "Parc" wasn't included - that's probably one of their very best, so strange to see it essentially left unfinished and placed on a Japan-only remix compilation

― frogbs, Wednesday, November 11, 2015 6:51 AM

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

audience video 2009 (approx 70% Les Paul solo)

oh man way too low

PENSIONERS TRAPPED IN THEIR HOUSES

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u082-514221.png

81= Soniamode (Aditya Game Version)
204 points, 5 votes inc one for OG
2019 free-to-mailing-list mp3 as part of Drift, rewritten for 2019 digital single

original video by Simon Taylor & Ibrahim Muasher for Tomato
Aditya Game video by Simon Taylor & Ibrahim Muasher for Tomato

THE SHADOW OF LEHMANN

CORPORATE WELFARE QUEENS

audience video 2019

ZOMBIE GOVERNMENT

ZOMBIE ECONOMICS

https://i.imgur.com/azvf0VZ.gif

THE BROKEN PROMISES OF AN ENTIRE POLITICAL CLASS

CAPITALISM'S DEFAULT SETTINGS

love the Soniamode story.

All credit to Ned T Rifle.

Born lippy: how I helped Underworld write a socialist banger

― Ned Trifle X, Tuesday, May 21, 2019 9:17 PM

Obviously not about me, I didn't help them.

― Ned Trifle X, Tuesday, May 21, 2019 9:18 PM

oh wait

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u081-625675.png

81= Threat Of Rain 
204 points, 7 votes
2019 free-to-mailing-list mp3 as part of Drift

video by Simon Taylor and Rick Smith for Tomato

others: i've gotta new boyfriend.. me: i've discovered new music

Holy shitballs, what an EPIC train ride through mental sound city. All aboard!!!

My interpretation of this track, for what its worth: A person trying to convince themselves they are ok (I'm good, I'm alright), but something dark is brewing deep within and gathers momentum until it literally erupts and takes over. When it finally subsides they are left with the aftermath. The threat of rain was actualised and boy did it pour and now everything is drenched.

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

- this is their longest track in a very long time isn't it?
-- If you don't count And I Will Kiss, then this is the longest since Ancient Phat Farm Coat.

epic... dark... brewing... drenched. Yes!

Parc is another one I spaced on til this poll. What a groove. Would've been higher if it was on an album for sure.

one thing about Parc...it feels like it should be longer. it fades out just as things are really starting to get good.

If you don't count And I Will Kiss, then this is the longest since Ancient Phat Farm Coat.

Two weeks later, the 47-minute Appleshine Continuum was accidentally uploaded early to youtube...