"That's the POLL of the law...." a poll of Painful by Yo La Tengo

Best album.

25 years old today, hasn't been polled, have at it ILM.

Nowhere Near or A Worrying Thing. Gonna go pretty and dreamy with this one. But if I was going loud I would probably go ... Sudden Organ.

Nowhere Near

"Nowhere Near" I believe*.... is Georgia's first complete writing credit.

*I don't know much... but I know I love you... But I may be wrong on this?

Prettiest album cover evah

voted "I Heard You Looking"

The most perfect of perfect albums.

Going to go loud: "Double Dare"

My CD copy is full of all sorts of sentimental swag. There's a promo set of "Painful!" bandaid stickers, and there's also a picture someone took of me and Ira after they played an acoustic set. He signed something else in the CD "tuo pord: egassem terces a."

Prettiest album cover evah

Georgia polaroid irrc

bass work on "sudden organ" is all-time.

Great album. "Sudden Organ" or "I Heard You Looking."

Purest ylt album. No filler. “I heard yo looking” no question.

extra painful is good

painful is not as good as the next two, too washed-out

"Oh, I drift off to sleep/While the snow falls on the screen"

wth 'From A Motel 6' gets me every time!

"From a Motel 6" is such a weird song, I've seen them play it live a dozen times and Ira only really plays one chord (with a hammer-on?) and James really drives the melody... but on the record the guitar seems like its doing a million things.

the years pass but the posters remain the same

TS: Yo La Tengo's "I Heard You Looking" vs Yo La Tengo's "Blue Line Swinger"

I once had a huge crush on someone whose top two Last.fm tracks of all time were 1. Whole Of The Law and 2. Constant Headache by Joyce Manor

definitely made an impact on me

Prettiest album cover evah
Georgia polaroid irrc

And the photo under the CD is a pile of Neil Young's leftover fries from when Ira was hired to interview him for Spin.

I had a “nothing turned itself” poster on my wall back in the day but I’ve always considered YLT as kind of junior varsity. -may I swing- is the one I go back to.

Voted first -big day- though, which is a great track to listen to while getting stoned in Central Park

From a Motel 6

🖼

_Prettiest album cover evah
Georgia polaroid irrc_


And the photo under the CD is a pile of Neil Young's leftover fries from when Ira was hired to interview him for Spin.

this record was definitely a game-changer for me! still love it ... not sure what i'd vote for, they're all so good.

if i weren't honor-bound to vote for 'i heard you looking' i'd pick 'nowhere near'

‘the whole of the law’ is gorgeous, especially georgia’s sighing harmony

it's what got me into the Only Ones and I became a huge fan

"Nowhere Near".

YLT 1993-2000 is my favorite YLT; often I think this is my favorite of their albums.

Voted for "Nowhere Near", if I was voting loud it would be "From a Motel 6" or the nu-S3 "I Was the Fool ..."

("Motel 6" is a closes= second from this LP.)

My three favorite YLT LPs: Painful, I Can Hear The Heart, and Love + Genius. Dark horse contender: Fuckbook.

you may need to clear your browsing history

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Went with "A Worrying Thing"... Fond memories of this album, I was in a real transitory period of my life, moved like 6x that year, had no idea what I wanted/was doing, etc. Figured it out soon after. This was in constant play during my daily commute for a very long time.

“Double Dare” suddenly popped up on my mix and damn if that’s making reconsider how I voted.

Nowehere Near.

This is pretty much a 4-way tie for me but I finally forced out a vote (for Motel 6).

Nowhere near.

About ten years ago, I went to one of their shows when they stopped by my hometown. At the end they did a few requests, and I cried out for Nowhere Near. Then they went on to actually play it (Ira was like, «yeah we can do that», but people had been calling out for all kinds of things, so I wasn’t sure what was coming). Upon hearing the organ drone in at the start and realising they were playing it, I let out this real wild, powerful roar, surposing even myself. The room fell completely silent, before everyone, band included, started laughing. They laughed for a little while, then they plater the song, and I was quite happy.

Surprising*, played*. Goddamnit.

lmao i love that story mule

It was a great show. Such a classic band.

"double dare" is maybe my favorite yo la tengo song after "the ballad of red buckets"

about ten years ago, for my birthday, my ex got us tickets to a very small room thing where they would play some tunes in between being interviewed by some dude from the new yorker. when they took questions from the crowd, my ex stood up and extremely embarrassingly noted that we were there for my birthday and requested that they either play 'happy birthday' or 'i heard you looking' for me. they chose the latter, thank god. it wasn't a full-on rager like some versions i've seen, but it was still great

Good work your ex! I heard you looking is a pretty great birthday song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Sudden Organ" was my #2, it does not belong at the end.

Inspired by the YLT lyrics thread, I looked up the lyrics to "Motel 6" where someone had posted the last 2 lines of this verse:

In the passing lane on 1 and 9
Stuck in sad, car stuck in drive
Oh well, your heart is broken
Well, you can have what's left of mine

I had never known (or heard correctly) the first line of this verse!

Just a theory but here goes:
Where Highway 1 (famously known as Pacific Coast Highway or PCH) & Highway 9 intersect in Santa Cruz, there is a tangled maze of exits/entrances and lanes (including a passing lane) and also, motels (there's not currently a Motel 6 there, but not to say there has never been one there as these properties tend to change hands often).

https://i.imgur.com/50VZcCt.png

One wrong move and you could be faced with getting on a mountainous highway with nary an exit for several miles so I can imagine this could be a source of stress for a touring band rolling through town, possibly looking for their accommodations very late at night after a gig in SF (90 minutes away).

Interesting to note: they opened a show in Santa Cruz with that very song in 2009:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/yo-la-tengo/2009/rio-theatre-santa-cruz-ca-73d7e605.html

I've cracked the code!

https://yolatengo.bandcamp.com/releases they quietly released a new album of drones over the course of this week

they should have kept it for themselves...