Just a simple song but God I love it Embedded in me, so bittersweet I’m addicted, I’m a melancholic Sing it again, I’ll be your Poll forever: THE BOO RADLEYS - ILM artist poll #60 or new numbering #65

Happy ONE year anniversary poll! The poll i had the most fun running as this music is so, so good. To celebrate here is Finally the Spotify playlist:

ILM The Boo Radleys

i made a Spotify Top 50 list. the thing is not all songs are on Spotify, i think around seven were missing from the Top 40. the Spotify list is for the first 50 songs that are actually on Spotify.

i have a bunch of these playlist from ILM artist polls that is listen to but i really play this Boo Radleys playlist, by far, the most and it really isn't even close. it trips me out how good they are and how they don't even get close to the respect that they deserve.

https://open.spotify.com/user/beeok/playlist/51IuwMpvkvO5ih212anqCW

"Bills and heartburn, pills and soaps
And flicking through the books that you've read before
Tears come easy, words come hard
But there really isn't much to say no more"

Every once in a while, I avail myself of one of those deluxe sets.

I found 'C'mon kids' to be perfectly fine, even though I only played it twice back in the day and preferred the b-sides of the time.

Even 'Wake up' was like meeting an old friend I'd had too much of back then.

I might track down "Giant Steps" but I have too many already (the 2lp, the CD the Japanese one, the promo) but then again, hey.

Its just a shame the 'Kingsize' one was a bunt, and there isn't a 'Everything's alright forever' one, let alone a 'Ichabod' one.

'Learning to crawl' should be a three disc set plus additional peel sessions - You know it.

Oh, and I do have those 'Giant Steps' demos someplace, but they noisy!

We finally get a Spotify playlist after all this time? Sweet!

a Learning to Walk reissue would be a wonderful thing. I still consider it an album rather than a comp

Well, you're still wrong ;-)

Aye

if Learning to Walk was a proper album i would probably rank it third or fourth best. behind Kingsize, Giant Steps and probably C'Mon Kids.

This Spotify playlist is fucking amazing. Sad that the tracks from Learning To Walk are missing but it was expanded...

I listened to Wake Up the other day and was surprised to find that Martin Doom! It's 7 O'Clock was the standout this time round. It's a really great song, so I'm surprised it didn't feature in the poll at all. Did no one vote for it?

Spotify: ILM The Boo Radleys

since the band came up in the SFA thread today i decided to listen to the ILM playlist instead of an album. still so proud of this poll! this poll ended up getting 21 ballots which i didn't think would be possible really. on top of that, even though it is not my order, ILM did a fantastic job at picking songs. i put on this playlist on my way home from work today and say the Top 25 is top tier stuff, really impressed with this order. it really made me fall in love with this band all over again.

not to discount the rest of this playlist at all...

"Sad songs are easier to play, I'm afraid"

I have only voted in two of these artist polls that are done around here and this was one of them. It was fun reliving the 90s again and had a blast when this poll was live.

Thanks for reminding me of that Spotify!

I've been thinking about Kingsize really. Surprised by a lot of the results on this poll as it's missing a bunch of faves (Still sore about 'Blues For George Michael' not even placing). 'Lazarus' is a great song, but I wouldn't call the EPs essential.

And also Kingsize placing third in the albums above C'mon Kids and Wake Up! I'd almost forgotten this album existed. Its release was so muted and the single Free Huey was so horrid, it put a pall over it for a long time for me. Plus very few of the songs seem to have placed in the upper reaches of the tracks poll.

But I've been thinking about it again recently. Decided to dig it out. Like C'mon Kids, but unlike Wake Up!, it suffers from production that dates it considerably. That Aphex Twin snare rush on Blue Room In Archway is almost comedically 1998, and there are bits where you can tell they'd been told by someone to 'make it sound more like Be Here Now'.

It's also a little bit too long and out-stays its welcome by about two songs.

Still, production aside, it has some great tunes. I figured it would be fun to play around with the tracklisting and invoke God Mode on it. Shame ''Put Your Arms Around Me And Tell Me Everything's Okay' isn't on Spotify or I'd have found a way to include that:

1. Blue Room In Archway
2. The Old Newsstand At Hamilton Square
3. Kingsize
4. She Is Everywhere
5. High As Monkeys
6. Eurostar
7. Spanish Lizards
8. Adieu Clo Clo
9. Monuments For a Dead Century
10. Song From The Blueroom
11. In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5HEFXCBuXwxfSPTqrurLoD?si=uUzIEpSaRl2QZhc2WVAyoQ

And here's where you shout at me for taking off Heaven's At The Bottom Of This Glass and Future Is Now

"Put Your Arms Around Me and Tell Me Everything's Going To Be OK"

=

Bee OK (username) as i thought it was going to be the very last new song i would ever hear by them. turns out there were some "Kingsize" B-sides that were yet to come my way.

i'm going to have to pour me a glass of wine and listen to your tack listing. i could live without "The Future is Now" as that always sounded like a b-side to me and out of place on this album. i would have to add back "Jimmy Webb is God" as that is where i got the title for this thread. more to come...

xpost you could have ended up being "Superintendent "

Apparently Martin wanted 'The Future Is Now' as the first single (!?!) But Alan McGee said 'not on your nellie'

I'm starting to think I should have kept in 'Jimmy Webb'. Such a simple song, but God is it fawning, and the swirling orchestra at the end sounds quite a bit lower budget than what I imagine they had in mind.

Oh shit, Oh wait I forgot about the Kingsize B-Sides. Some of those are fantastic. Sadly they're not on Spotify so I can't include them :-( I'd definitely include their version of Tomorrow.

Anyone know if the 'Find A Way Out' compilation ever got released on vinyl?

i bought the CD version of Find the Way Out because i wanted a copy of "Tomorrow" and some of those early songs that were never on CD. i also love those Kingsize B-sides and still don't own it. i have been looking for years for it but have never been able to score a copy of that single.

i listened to your version of this and overall it's a better album but have an issue with a few things. because "Kingsize" is the pinnacle song on the album, i think it being third is just too soon. they have it sixth track on the original listing and to me that makes the most sense. i already talked about how i would have to include "Jimmy Web is God" but i also feel "Comb Your Hair" is such a good song that it should have been a single. to be clear, i actually really like "The Future is Now" it just sounds sort of out of place on this album and is not a great closer. i do love that you end with "Song from the Blueroom," that makes so much sense to me.

check that, you actually end with " In a Galaxy Far, Far Away." i'm in America and that song is grayed out and didn't play. i can't remember the song off the top of my head, will have to dig out my CD single and see it that make sense as an ending to me.

fun exercise Dog Latin, i might have to do something like this on the 25th anniversary or something...

hey Bee OK. okay, I'll concede you Jimmy Webb. Never enjoyed Comb Your Hair. Sice sounds like he's straining and a bit bored at the same time, and I remember thinking it reminded me too much of 'Something Changed' by Pulp, although listening back they don't really.

In A Galaxy Far Far Away does the same job as Future Is Now, but is about 2 or 3 minutes shorter.

I'll put Jimmy Webb at track 3. I also have Spanish Lizards in there, which you might not be able to hear for the same reason as IAGFFA

I feel like this album has a lot of songs that are structurally and musically quite similar. 'Adieu Clo Clo', 'Eurostar', 'Comb Your Hair' and possibly a few others are earnest mid-tempo ballads about longing and yearning, with Sice doing this anthemic falling cadence that should be very beautiful but is hampered slightly by the production of the time'.

I believe "Jimmy Webb" was Martin Carr's favourite, and also "Comb your hair" Was why he split the band, the inevitability of going out and promoting it as "the third single"..

did he not like the song, or was it something otherwise?

I get the remarks about some tracks being a little similar tempo-wise in the second half, but I'd leave the tracklisting as is. Free Huey b-sides brilliant too, but not sure they fit

Xpost I believe he didn't like it much.

I could guess why, but I'd be guessing.

"Comb Your Hair" is what broke up the Boo Radleys? what a strange concept. i actually love the song to death. it felt like a single, so hearing it would have been the third seems to make so much sense to me. it's all about being at the place where you start to figure thing out, song is very catchy. "Comb Your Hair">>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>"Free Huey," the only song i actually dislike. i would have been ok as an off album single but sort of ruined the album.

"remember how i used to be, my energy"

a lot of nostalgia on this album. remembering those good times in life, especially with the lads.

I don't think it broke them up, just lead to Martin doing it then, rather than after.

In the highly unlikely event one of the four or five people who write on this thread is on ILX right now and reading this, please answer this question (if you can):
In 'Naomi' (off the Every Heaven EP from 91) is the repeated lyric in the blizzard of noise towards the end "Am I still dreaming again?" or "I must be dreaming again"?

i just dung out the EP and played it on my old stereo system, sounded so nice. i believe Sice is singing "I Must Be Dreaming" with dreaming being stretched out. will see what other's think he is saying.

*dug, one day i will actually read my post before posting.

Cheers

why has this thread been https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/Pages/most-read-threads.jsp">viewed over 600 times in the last 24 hours?

#TimsTwitterListeningParty prob

https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_183.html

Currently the little clarinet solo in "Best Lose The Fear" is my favourite few seconds of music

I've been thinking to myself that I'd like to get some of my favourite Boo Sides cut to a one-off vinyl. But which ones, and in which order?

Started making a longlist and given the quality of their non-album work, it's hard to pare down to just two sides.

I've decided to forego most of the early shoegaze era, not because I don't like it (I do very much), but because I have most of the early EPs and a lot of that material appeared on Learning To Walk (pleeeease someone re-release this!)

Ideally, I'd do some nice editing so the tracks kind of flow together nicely as a suite, a bit like on Giant Steps.

This is what I have so far. Not sure which of these darlings I'd kill

...And Tomorrow The World
Blues For George Michael
Friendship Song
Sunfly II: Walking With The Kings
I Will Always Ask You Where You've Been Even Though I Know The Answer
Let Me Be Your Faith
From The Bench At Belvedere
Annie & Marnie
Nothing To Do But Scare Myself
Spanish Lizards
Wallpaper
Superintendent
Tomorrow
Put Your Arms Around Me And Tell Me Everything's Going To Be Okay
Almost Nearly There
In A Galaxy Far Far Away

Might have to drop either "I Will Always Ask You" or "Nothing To Do But Scare Myself" as they pull similar tricks.

"In A Galaxy" is a nice final track and I would have preferred it as a closer to Kingsize. But maybe there are too many "final-sounding" tracks here. Is "Put Your Arms" too similar to "Almost Nearly There"? But which is best?; they're both great!