POLLercoaster Ride - ILM Artist Poll #94 - Belle and Sebastian - Discussion/Campaigning Thread

I think the problem with Stevie is that he fancies himself a folky 70s singer-songwriter guy, which I'll have none of. But when he's there as a counterpoint to Stuart, he's completely on it and I can't love it enough.

'to be myself completely' is peak stevie imo

Could we please be objective cause the other POLLS are queuing up behind us.

― Alba, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:39 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a thousand times this

I did not like "Jonathan David" until around the 37th listen. I was DJ'ing when it came out, and upon playing it without previewing, my first reaction of "what is this mess?" The logic of its 37 sections makes perfect sense now. At first it felt like a trailer for Forever Changes.

"Jonathan David" in the top 10 for me

'to be myself completely' is peak stevie imo

yup, the only stevie track that made my ballot

I just sent a revised ballot if you dinnae plug in my first ballot from 2.5 hours earlier

In 2001/2002 I found a bunch of rare B&S (or pre-B&S) on audiogalaxy. I remember a cool cover of a Spanish song with a title something like mina ména (obviously way off). I also remember a cool 6-7 minute instrumental number.

one night extension here as well, just got in from work travel.

Are you sure it was them? I seem to remember there was a lot of mislabeled stuff on Audiogalaxy.

xpost

mina ména (obviously way of

Was it this Os Mutantes cover?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGfT3qg6p_Y

yes

Looks like a consensus is emerging re thread title. Nice!

FlopsyDuck: I was asleep when your emails arrived, but revisions are easy either way. Actually, I'm still happy to adjust week-old ballots if others want it.

campreverb: rightio!

Amusing that I initially said that "I thought there was mainly antipathy [to B&S] on ILX, but it seems that's not necessarily the case." With a few ballots still promised we might even approach...50.

Way before my time on ILX but I understand that there were a sizeable group of ex-Sinister people on here, enthusiasm on one side led to a backlash from others, an unspoken truce was declared where nobody talked much about b+s because it was still contentious and anyway people had moved on, and then after another decade and a half here we are

This is... much harder than initially thought. About 80% done, already pushing 40 tracks.

Ok, nearly done but almost forgot that I know one of the people in their songs (friend of SM's wife). Here he is dragging her out to dance on her eponymous song around 3:20:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XIWLMgXJBY

Better angle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vazADLsUSiQ

mad how much i love that song but still couldn't fit into a top thirty, what a catalogue!

Ballot submitted!!! I didn’t think I had it in me.

Awesome! But was that emailed? I don't seem to have received anything half an hour later...

got it...just need to clean up for the poll runner.
cutting to 30 was brutal. surprisingly found I like the weird stuff like a century of elvis/beyond the sunrise.

i like beyond the sunrise too (although it should have been placed on an ep, i think, because it doesn't really fit in with anything else)

i'm going to finish up my ballot tonight. i'll probably be one of those lame ones that stick mainly to the earlier material, but i did discover/rediscover several newer songs through this poll that will make it as well!

Fun fact: The love has been fairly well distributed in ballots. If you leave aside some of the film score snippets and the demo-only stuff, the pre-hiatus material that HASN'T yet received any votes seems to amount to one (!) album track and a few mid-00's b-sides. And the coverage is only slightly patchier post-2010.

speaks to the amazing depth of their discography

voted! (hopefully)
"The Rollercoaster Ride" moved up my rankings every time I looked at it, eventually landing in the top 5.

I also voted! My ballot mostly is mostly filled with earlier stuff, but I did include some tracks from the past few albums. I never really made it through Human Problems though.

i still haven't voted, i still am very sorry, and i still promise to get my ballot in today

Okay, I think we're just waiting for Karl Malone and Van Horn Street now. :)

I need to go out for perhaps six hours and then I've have a look at how things are going. Any other ballots that might arrive in that period will be happily tabulated too, of course.

Incidentally, if anyone sent one at any stage and didn't get a reply, then something has gone awry!

sent!

i kept dropping "dylan in the movies" down a bit during the long piano solo in the middle of the song, but then bumping it back during the "If we all went back to another time / I will love you over" section

so uh, does anyone know a band that has instrumental twee that sounds like belle and sebastian? or even a soft voice on top of chamber music that sounds like stuff belle and sebastian could of made?

Nick Drake?

Camera Obscura?

Damien Jurado?

commercials for health insurance for dogs?

SM literally produced Camera Obscura, so

The Left Banke.

about to send!

^ Which makes it...50 ballots!

that's so great! I haven't participated in a lot of these polls, but that seem like a lot

So psyched for this

Voted!

Room for one more?

Yep!

Also: did Van Horn Street survive his/her exam?

So excited to see the results of this. I voted early, without listening back to any of their music. Ever since I've been on a nonstop B&S listening kick, listened back through all of it. There's definitely some songs I should have voted for, but no looking back.

^ Similar here. I was just thinking before that my most persistent earworms this week were things like "Poor Boy", "Come On Sister", "Didn't See It Coming" and "Power of Three", none of which were even close to being on my list. They could probably sustain a career on their second and third tier songs alone.

Okay, I'll start closing this now.

I'll take what I have to be the final numbers for the albums and EPs (the order, at least, looks to be quite stable now anyway) and get that ready for the countdown thread. I might be able to start that as early as late evening, my time. (Perhaps midday GMT)

If Van Horn Street still has a tracks ballot to submit, hopefully I'll see that in the next few hours.

Results thread:

Could we please be objective cause the other POLLS are queuing up behind us - Artist Poll #94 - Belle & Sebastian - RESULTS