ILM POLLS THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS ››› YOUR RESULTS THREAD ‹‹‹

whoa - is this the first track on the countdown to receive a 1st place vote?

Clair de Lune was.

xp Clair de Lune and Aguas de Marco also got 1st-place votes.

d'oh, didn't notice that.

My first time hearing that Wire song. Great!!

My Bloody Valentine has a neato cover of it on the WHORE compilation.

Great to see Geto Boys here, had hoped it would do well.

Voted for 'Hyperballad' but would possibly have gone for 'Joga' as well/instead had it been nominated.

also worth seeking out: the dykehouse cover of the mmv cover

xp

mbv

This next one is probably my favorite track to have placed in the top 125 (since my own #1 didn't)...

63. M|A|R|R|S "Pump Up the Volume" (1987) [1,402 points, 15 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9gOQgfPW4Y

pre-'50s?

xp

haha--no.

hell yes.

pre50s, post-50s, whatever...this song has ALWAYS EXISTED. We were just fortunate enough to have it captured on tape in 1987.

This is better than Born To Run, Pressure Drop or Heroin? Really?

clearly, every song ranked higher than another song on this list is objectively and intrinsically superior.

Was a teenager when this came out. I remember thinking at the time that it was extraordinary.Like music from another planet. I had no idea if similar stuff had come before which I'd not heard or whatever, but this seemed unlike anything else happening at the time to me.

Every now and again I'll hear one of the sources that song samples and I'll be like 'Ah... MARRS'. Love how that keeps on happening.

tbh I'm a bit surprised Heroin made it at all b/c I'd thought all of us cool kids would have given our 'noisy VU' vote to Sister Ray. I know I sure did, at least.

and it predates the widespread use of sampling technology, iirc.

xp

viceroy's theory upthread applied with me. I had quite a few pre-50s songs on my long list and ended up culling them in favour of ones I had more of a connection with. it would have been wrong for me to vote for the charles mingus nomination if i didn't really like the song, just so that mingus got my vote.

really hoping elvis, little richard, buddy holly, jerry lee lewis get a look-in.

^that is, all that shit you hear was cut and spliced directly onto the master tape.

xp

Hell yeah, "Pump Up the Volume"! Great tune! Though sadly it'll probably be the only house tune in the top 100... Kinda symptomatic in house and techno that European followers get more props than the American originators.

Actually, for me the best thing about the MARRS song is that it gave AR Kane lots of money to fuck about in the studio with.

Wish I'd voted for 'Pump Up the Volume' now.

62. CURTIS MAYFIELD "Move on Up" (1970) [1,407 points, 14 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JJlG6-AFAM

"Map Reference" and at least three or four other Wire songs are just incredible--don't have my own list here, and can't remember what they were nominated for, but I hope they show up once or twice more. (Sorry for barging in on Curtis.)

Excellent! I think I voted for this.

Aw man! So many great Curtis songs to choose, thoughtI might have wasted my vote going for the obvious big hit.

xp to Tuomas: what about "Your Love"?

Yay, this poll needs more soul and r&b.

Is this the biggest Curtis song? I voted for Don't Worry Hell Below, which will always be my favorite

I think I voted for Move On Up, hope I did. I definitely had another song of his quite high on my list.

Is this the biggest Curtis song?

It was his only top 40 hit in the UK at least (#12, 1971). Anyone know what his singles stats were like in the US? Wikipedia is being lame here.

I'm kind of ambivalent about 'Move on Up' - I'd usually say I don't like it at all, but every so often I hear it somewhere and it really fits. I did vote 'Hell Below', though, that track is awesome.

I voted for "Move on Up", though I gave "The Makings of You" more points (it was my #7) in the vain hope that it might make it to the top 100. To me, that song is the most beautiful slow jam ever made by anyone. But "Move on Up" is of course brilliant too, and I'm glad that we have at least one Curtis tune on the list.

I don't have charts in front of me, but my guess would be that "Superfly" is probably his most recognizable song to the average ear.

thanks to being played in movies during scenes where someone slowly gets out of a car looking more stylish than usual

Yeah, it's not like everyday music for me, but if heard at the right time, it really has the capacity to turn a dreary day into gold. (xp to emily)

xpost I think the Superfly Soundtrack was his commercial peak in the US. Freddie's Dead and the title track both went top ten, Freddie being the bigger hit. Move On Up and If There's a Hell Below were smaller hits both making the top thirty. It's shocking how unsuccessful he was here in the UK, shame on us.

61. GIL SCOTT-HERON "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1971) [1,412 points, 14 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw

This is another great one that I really wish I had voted for. Oh well, glad it made the list without my help.

imo it's a song that spends all its capital on your first listen, and then after that it seems kind of clunky and corny (like most beat poetry). Cool jam behind him, though.

Thanks Kitchen, I never knew that. xps

@JF - Not sure about that, just listened again there and it's still ace.

Map Reference is 978432950873 is the one song in which I think the covers totally trump the original... MBV's specifically, the meatball-effect really nails it.

meatball as in the type of pedal used to get that super-electric sound starting off the song

Another of mine. It's a brilliant track, and it does encapsulate something about the 20th century that I think needs to be represented here. Also, I like the flute :)

(And please kill me for using that emoticon.)

Yeahy for Elis Regina, Gil Scott Heron and Tom Tom Club. For a minute there I thought they wouldn't make it.

'Care of Cell 44' was the winner of both the Zombies singles poll and the Odessey and Oracle poll so it was a given. I didn't vote for it (went for 'time of the season' iirc) but seriously considered it given the fact it was the one that was bound to get the most votes.

Okay, you guys knew it had to happen...