POLLography: The Cure poll results, ILM artist poll #23

i'm home from work:

15 A Man Inside My Mouth
12 Open
6 Three Imaginary Boys
34 The Walk
20 The Figurehead
37 Shake Dog Shake
10 The Upstairs Room
2 Siamese Twins
26 A Strange Day
23 The Lovecats
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15 A Man Inside My Mouth
12 Open
6 Three Imaginary Boys
34 The Walk
20 The Figurehead
37 Shake Dog Shake
10 The Upstairs Room
2 Siamese Twins
26 A Strange Day
23 The Lovecats
---------
15 A Man Inside My Mouth
12 Open
6 Three Imaginary Boys
34 The Walk
20 The Figurehead
37 Shake Dog Shake
10 The Upstairs Room
2 Siamese Twins
26 A Strange Day
23 The Lovecats
--------
9 Faith
16 Fire in Cairo
3 Lullaby
8 Lovesong
14 Let's Go to Bed
25 Fascination Street
28 Play for Today
18 Disintegration
17 A Night Like This
29 Jumping Someone Else's Train

sorry for the double there

i have 20 out of 40 so far...unbelievable.

so that means i placed 10 out of 15 songs for today. i wonder if i will do even better for the Top 10.

kind of sorry that transcendent stuff like "the drowning man", "faith" and "disintegration" didn't crack the top 10, but very happy with how the list is unfolding otherwise.

i'm listening through the Disintegration album right now. certain parts of this still really get under my skin. there's the unyielding romance of "the same deep water as you", the dream fragment ghost assembly of "last dance" and the unstoppable title track, which is just anthem-like in its hysteria.

The only b-side I see placing now is "10:15 Saturday Night". It's also better known because it's on Three Imaginary Boys, Boys Don't Cry, Staring At The Sea, and Join The Dots! So really, it's like a b-side/album cut/single. (x-post)

My pics that placed today:

10) Push
31) Faith
30) Killing An Arab
38) Fascination Street
39) One Hundred Years
5) A Night Like This
35) Jumping Someone Else's Train

So only 7 out of 15 and mostly in my 30-40 spots. I might turn out to be Mr Non-Concensus!

"A Night Like This" = my #1

There's eleven songs left that I can't see not making the poll. Dying to find out which one will be left out!

Really hoping Friday I'm in Love gets the boot.

That would also be my choice out of the 11, but I really doubt it. Wouldn't it be great to see "Doing The Unstuck" or "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea" instead? (I know, keep dreaming...)

see guys? Wish is good.

End and Apart are the only Wish tracks I voted for. (End is so much better than Open, which has already made the poll.)

i dunno man, while it's easy to compare "open" and "end", because they're kind of like flipside responses to the same situation, i find it hard to say that one is better than the other.

i think Wish will be subject to revisionism some time soon. i mean, i'm looking at the tracklist and there are honest to god six or seven stone cold classics on there.

xp I did not mean to imply that Open is garbage. It's not at all. I just love End a whole whole lot.

that's fair enough. in fairness, it seems that i put "end" slightly higher on my ballot.

I prefer "End" too, though I didn't vote for it.

I voted for both

don't expect Friday I'm In Love to make the poll

I mean, I like it, it's no Mint Car, but one of their 40 best? nah

Wish is great. I just think there's something about the production that makes them sound more like a normal band. Less reverb or echo or something. Less keyboards, more accoustic sounding.
But it's full of great songs. "To Wish Impossible Things" is often overlooked, and any band would kill to have recorded "Trust".

It is excellent. At first glance it looks like a New Jersey but that's really unfair. It's more that fashions changed under them than because of any drop in quality.

I never liked "Lovesong" all that much. It's sweet and simple, and "Disintegration" (the album) needed a break from all the heaviness in the middle, but it's not that great a song, and they wrote *much* better love songs elsewhere (no pun intended).

"Fascination Street" was my #3. It came out just as I was getting into the Cure, and so for the longest time, that song *was* the Cure for me (I wasn't a big fan right away and didn't start listening to their entire albums until months later). Cheers for the "Trilogy" version too, that's probably my favourite live recording of it.

I don't have my ballot in front of me, but I voted for "Push", "Faith", "Pictures of You", "Fascination Street", "One Hundred Years", "Disintegration", "Jumping". I knew my songs would start showing up eventually ...

Is anyone else a bit surprised that nothing post-1992 will make the poll? I figured a track or two from "The Cure" or "Bloodflowers" would sneak in around #30. At least that's what I thought before I saw the results of the albums poll.

One more thing about "Fascination Street" ... DJP wrote on the polling thread that people would like more of their post-'92 songs if Boris Williams had drummed on them, which was very OTM. I don't think there's another Cure song that relies on the interplay between bass and drums more than "Fascination Street". It could have been a very ordinary song without an extraordinary drummer playing on it.

Eighteen individual #1 votes have placed so far, that's about half the participants? So that leaves about an equal number of #1 votes to be spread among the top ten songs. That's some interesting non-consensus, which probably means the points in the top ten will be really close?

I don't think it's giving too much away this late in the game if I tell you that the highest placed song from The Cure was (I Don't Know What's Going) On at #110 and the highest Bloodflowers song was Watching Me Fall at #109 (the highest 4:13 Dream song was Underneath The Stars at #127 and the highest Wild Mood Swings song was The 13th at #91).

C'mon "Burn", you can make the top 10!

j/k (through the tears)

Burn was #82.

I thought "Want" had an outside chance of making it from WMS. Not surprised that "Underneath the Stars" and "Watching Me Fall" were the favourites from those albums (although it's hard to judge "favourites" when probably three people voted for them).

"(I Don't Know What's Going) On" was my #19 or #20. I knew it had no chance of making the top 50, but thought that "End of the World" or "Lost" had an outside shot.

Getting my list up to date:
3) Faith
14) Fire In Cairo
8) The Funeral Party
39) Let’s Go To Bed
7) Pictures Of You
5) Play For Today
23)One Hundred Years
34) A Night Like This, 564 points
35) Jumping Someone Else's Train

That's my top 8 all placed now, and I can't see my #9 making it.

Wow, the 20-11 run (apart from 'Let's Go to Bed' which I've never loved) is excellent. 'Jumping...' was my #2 but it was close - doubt my #1 is going to place.

Also I'd never heard Wish in full before polling started - a lot of it sounded kind of Cure-by-numbers on first listen but I really do need to buy 'Open' and 'High' from iTunes, those are such great songs.

"(I Don't Know What's Going) On" was my #19 or #20. I knew it had no chance of making the top 50, but thought that "End of the World" or "Lost" had an outside shot.

― NoTimeBeforeTime

Love End of the World, had it in my top twenty. Also voted for The Last Day of Summer and Before 3. The Only One and Out of This World were two of the last songs I cut from my ballot.

Wish has become one of my favourite Cure albums. Wendy Time is the only song I skip these days, replace that with This Twilight Garden and it would be even better.

I'm going to start the top 10 in about 15 minutes and roll it out slowly throughout the day. I get the feeling that doing it in the evenings doesn't get the best audience.

#10 - Charlotte Sometimes, 591 points, 23 votes

Charlotte Sometimes (single), 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUGw76jByQI

Good start. It looks like every song from Standing On a Beach will place.

My favorite when I was a teen. It was my #4 now.

Is anyone else a bit surprised that nothing post-1992 will make the poll?

I'm not really, when I see all the great pre-WMS songs that aren't gonna make it like, "Just One Kiss", "How Beautiful You Are", "2 Late", "Sinking", "A Few Hours After This", etc...

There's just so many brilliant songs. If I did a top 150 people would still talk about what fantastic songs didn't make it.

xpost I was hoping How Beautiful You Are might still make it.

The only post-Wish song that almost made my ballot was "The Last Day Of Summer".

xpost I can't really disagree ... if we had 80-song ballots and a top 100 then it's more likely someone would throw a bone at something from WMS, but not with only 40 picks and too many good 80's songs to choose from.

I picked a few post-"Wish" songs, partly out of a notion that I wanted to be "fair" toward their later career (whatever that means exactly) because I do think they've done some excellent stuff in the past fifteen or so years. But I'm far from certain that those songs are really better than the more than half the songs on the poll that I love and didn't vote for.

#9 - Boys Don't Cry, 593 points, 24 votes

Boys Don't Cry (single), 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a90_d_tPhBs

I absolutely believe in everything on my ballot but, aside from the top 5, I could do it over and pick completely different songs.

I'm sad at the blanking of b-sides and The Glove

Although it was strangely never a hit, it doesn't get more classic than "Boys Don't Cry".

Cool, Charlotte Sometimes made top ten! It earned my strongest reappraisal, as it was my least favorite on Standing when I was a teen. I used to find it so lethargic sounding but now I adore its smeared gothic texture.

#8 - Primary, 600 points, 24 votes, 1 #1 vote

Faith (& single), 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmWVzhOey6k

Nooooooooooo!!!! This means my #1 really has no shot of showing up on the poll.

Charlotte Sometimes so strongly evokes being 15, gazing out of the living room window, dreaming. Such a beautiful song

Love Charlotte, never cared much for Primary.