♫ Best Songs Under 2 Minutes poll - VOTING and CAMPAIGNING (voting closes March 31st) ♫

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TL;DR
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Link to Submit Your Ballot
link to full list of nominations
spotify playlist of nominations
Deadline: March 31st, 2019, 11:59:59.999999 PM
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after collecting a handful of nominations, at long last, it’s time to vote!

the final list of nominees.

Each ballot can have up to 50 songs. The final rollout will include 119 songs, if all goes well. There are 4 ballot options (Ranked, Unranked, Mixed, and the Clemenza Option). There are also 3 sub-polls: Top 5 songs under 30 seconds, Favorite <2 minutes artist, and Top 5 songs that aren’t on the nominations list. More details below. Please use this thread to campaign for your faves, including the ones that aren’t on the massive spotify playlist for the nominations.

How to submit your ballot:

1) submit your ballot via this Google Form: https://goo.gl/forms/GaYQfyOscmQ0nPSB2

2) you’ll be asked to submit your ballot using one of four options: Ranked, Unranked, Mixed, and the Clemenza Option (details about these options below, and also on the Google form in Step 1 above)

3) **PLEASE** form your baby ballot by copying and pasting from this full list of nominations: https://pastebin.com/PuG4RdvE

do not type the rank/number for each song. just copy and paste the entire line for the song you want (including the length), like this:

Jimmy Toledo - Holy Smokes! (1:52)
Jenny Creekbed - Unholy Water (0:32)
Jerry Bassface and the Tenortones - Choogaloo River (1:32)

if you’re doing a ranked ballot, put your fave song on top, you’re least fave on the bottom.

If you don’t want to do 50 songs, that’s ok! just submit as many as you want to, up to a limit of 50.

4) there are also three optional sub-polls: Top 5 songs under 30 seconds, Favorite <2 minutes artist, and Top 5 songs that aren’t on the nominations list because of a technical formality or because i fucked up or because it wasn’t nominated because this world is going to HELL, etc

5) Do all this by midnight, March 31st!

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other things
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RANKED BALLOT: what it sounds like. your top 50, ranked from top to bottom. top song will get 500 points, bottom will get 83. All 50 will add up to 10,000 points. refer to this post for the points for each rank.

UNRANKED BALLOT. your fave 50 songs. each will get 200 points. if you submit fewer than 50 songs, they’ll still each get 200 points.

MIXED BALLOT: the top 20 songs will be ranked (500 points for the #1, scaling down to 197 points for #20). songs #21-30 will get 162 points each, #31-40 will get 129 points each, and #41-50 will get 98 points each.

THE CLEMENZA OPTION: songs #1-10 receive 300 points. #11-25: 217 points each. #26-49: 150 points each. #50: 145 points.

Each 50-song ballot will add up to 10,000 points. but when i do the final rollout (which should be 119 songs), i will apply a complex mathematical procedure known as “multiplying by a tiny number” that will create a pleasingly tiny number point totals.

the question of which songs are shorter than 2 minutes is a complicated one. depending on the format you listen to, or the online resource you trust (CD, LP, streaming, all music, discogs, etc), you can and will get very different answers to how long a particular song is. after a while, i just decided to go with spotify (US version) as the arbitrator of song lengths. i realize that this is a flawed system - many songs are just a bit over 2:00 on Spotify but if you listen, they actually fade out several seconds beforehand - but i did not want to do several dozen battles regarding song lengths for particular songs. for songs that weren’t on Spotify, Discogs was used as the secondary arbitrator. even then, there were weird issues, mistakes on my end, and i probably accidentally pissed off a bunch of people. if there is a sub-2 minute song that you adore and it’s not on the list, please vote for in the appropriate sub-poll. i am sorry. i really did my best. please try to have fun and not get overly concerned about an online poll.

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vote early, but don’t vote often! just once will do.

i think that’s it! if there are questions please let me know, but please note that it is now officially too late to change the nominations list. please use this thread to hype your faves.

Might want to rethink the thread title

i thought i had thought of everything

sad lol

I'll get it, hang on.

i meant march 31st

i'm absolutely SURE there won't be any other small mistakes like that! i'll ask a mod

mod of the year!

There we go.

First of all, thank you for this amazing effort so far KM!

Now let's hear it for our musical heroes. I'm especially keen to promote the interests of a couple of things not on Spotify...

The Sea Nymphs - On The Dry Land is just about the most beautiful little vignette I can think of, and neatly summarises the entire Cardiacs aesthetic in 1:46 of yearning paradise

Of course, you might also delight in some choice Dadaism courtesy of the good folks at Blanche Blanche Blanche

And if I must promote something a) on Spotify and b) not nominated by me, then truly it is amusing yet emotional if one imagines what ducks go through

Please consider voting for this pleasing song by Bobby Please and the Pleasers (despite its monstrous title, "The Monster").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNAO3ZAfHM

As this doesn’t appear to be on Spotify:

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

Above and beyond, KM.

Some lesser-known stuff that will be high on my ballot:

folk-hippie weirdness
sprightly sort-of punk
jangly mods
jangly brooklyn

Tried, without success, to get Odin's "Lost" and Chris Twinning's "Netherlands" uploaded onto YouTube. They will remain unheard.

not to be too parochial about this but it's usually the done thing on campaigning threads to put youtube links into url tags rather than just pasting them straight

second that "jangly mods" link by clemenza ("For Another Man" by the Motions). that was one of the early new-to-me finds of this process. it's basically a beatles help or rubber soul era song

clemenza's first link is unsurprisingly my favourite, also dig knight school

imago what year is the blanche blanche blanche song from? i guess modern because it's about TED talks but it's pleasingly hard to pin down, sonically

Aavikko, 'Rosinante'. My ideal of a perfect <2 minute instrumental. It's near the top of the noms list!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT4FkIMnG2I

2013, amazingly enough! xp

The video, not the music, for that Blanche Blanche Blanche song reminds me a bit of this classic Duvet Brothers scratch vid - also reminds me I forgot to nominate "Fuh Fuh" by Voice of Authority for the poll grrr

wow @ there being 2019 nominations

oh shit, that reminds me! i meant to total up the cumulative length of the nominations:

2019 nominations = 52 hours, 29 minutes
the spotify playlist covers 42 hours, 32 minutes of that

O_O

As they aren't on Spotify I'll have to campaign for The Yummy Fur, one of my 3 favourite bands of all time and for some reason their entire catalogue is currently unavailable to buy or stream, except on youtube.

Here is my first choice, a b-side from 96 called The Career Saver

https://youtu.be/tElQEnCefOo

I was going to list a few more, but they aren't even on youtube, so will upload tonight and make a playlist.

Three of my noms aren't on Spotify, so I figure I'll campaign for those here via YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYeDY6YkzIg

X, "Suck Suck" (1.55)

(note that this is the *other* late 70s punk band named X; this lot are from Australia)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ahdjCoL5Yw

Pulsars, "Owed to a Devil" (1.59)

(the YouTube version is 2:05; I'm going off what I have copied off of my CD copy, which I take to be the "official" time)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol86MTKGqUA

Kenickie, "Private Bukowski" (1.42)

This is about as primitive as it gets--I was able to upload two songs not anywhere else on the internet onto my Tripod homepage.

Lost (Odin, 1968)
Netherlands (Chris Twinning, 1990)

Odin is 1966, not '68.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkZy4yChJkU

not a lost favorite in need of campaigning, but this '81 Entry footage of the Replacements is so good and gives one nominated song (Customer) and one I wanted to nominate (Rattlesnake) in one go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9aQ9u8Zy2k

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-68QsYHauN1M/T-hrpmw2egI/AAAAAAAAAKo/IC-u41WbtG4/s1600/deliawithpen3.jpg

Delia's busy making her list. Vote early, vote ZIWZIH ZIWZIH OOH OOH OOH.

I have to campaign for Lizzy Mercier Descloux's inspired no wave turn as Rosa Yemen. The whole EP is the best 9-minute career imaginable.

Also, I fear Rudimentary Peni will be left lurking in the shadows of all the other punk in this poll, but for anyone even remotely interested in scorching manic punk, I urge you to check out any of their three nominated songs.

Can't see Vashti Bunyan's Diamond Day on the pastebin list> It was nominated by Ogmor.

oof, i missed it. very sorry! it would be a very good contender for the "Top 5 songs that aren’t on the nominations list because of a technical formality or because i fucked up or because it wasn’t nominated because this world is going to HELL" sub-poll

Wait, no, that can't not count! It was nominated AND discussed on the thread!

I AM GOING TO GO TAKE A WALK

I just checked and it was nominated three separate times, possibly while cutting the duplicates you cut all of the noms, but that means there are at least four of us who were definitely gonna vote for it.

THEN FUCKING VOTE FOR IT

Cool, I will. Just making sure it wasn't thrown out on a technicality.

why i'm frustrated:

1) i have put in an enormous amount of my free time, in a very stressful time of my life (new job that fucking BLOWS), doing this. i know that others offered to help and that all of the responsibility for spending a bunch of time of it is on me.
2) i posted the nominations list several times in the old thread. other people helped me comb through it. i knew there would be omissions and mistakes anyway, and lord help me i knew there would be complaints. i thought that posting the nominations list ahead of time, several times, would help
3) i didn't want to change the nominations list / fix mistakes after starting this thread, because
3a) someone will then complain that they didn't know a song was added and it wasn't fair
3b) it will keep happening. 6 hours later, someone will realize that the greatest song of all time, which they clearly nominated, wasn't added. i will submit the pastebin file, then ask a mod to change all the references to the pastebin file in the opening post of this thread, then edit the google form to replace all the references to the pastebin file. then the next day someone will realize that another one of the greatest songs of all time that was clearly nominated isn't on there, and i will do it again. someone will offer to do it for me but i'd have to give them my google password, so nope.
3c) after doing all of that, someone will complain about some other shit
4) i pre-emptively apologized for all of this in my opening post and tried to come up with a backup plan to appease people: "there were weird issues, mistakes on my end, and i probably accidentally pissed off a bunch of people. if there is a sub-2 minute song that you adore and it’s not on the list, please vote for in the appropriate sub-poll. i am sorry. i really did my best. please try to have fun and not get overly concerned about an online poll."
5) i recognize the irony in me constantly asking everyone not to freak out about an online poll of short songs, while myself freaking out about an online poll of short songs. i am like the shaking with rage guy yelling "chill the fuck out!" at a room of frightened people. sorry

6) but if i DON'T add 'diamond day' to the official list of nominations, i can look forward to multiple people complaining about the low placement of the song in the results, because of course not everyone is going to wade through this thread and notice that it was added later. same goes for all of my other mistakes

conclusion: there a reason nobody likes to do this shit

sorry dan, sorry emil.y. you did nothing wrong, and if it wasn't you, it was inevitably going to be someone else catching a mistake. i hate my new job.

Hey Karl, don't beat yourself up about it. With 2000+ nominations it's inevitable that things will go awol in the copying and pasting. FWIW I think you're doing a great job and am really looking forward to the results in a few weeks time.

Yes, thank you Karl, great work and please don't sweating. Was just shoveling for the umpeenth time in the last month and this playlist makes great listening. Going to be very hard to narrow to 50 songs.

*sweat it

Karl, have you put in more hours than the length of the playlist? The QC process alone must have taken tons of time.

another minor quibble, but the steely dan song is called "Through With Buzz," not fuzz--not complaining karl, but posting a PSA for the CTRL+Fers who are looking to vote for the song.

From all accounts, Donald Fagen was--quick, someone point me to the "Jokes You Don't Want to Go Anywhere Near" thread.

this is such a cool poll, good work, Karl

Here's my campaign to avoid Naked City vote splitting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkrfVZGmLL8

What's the timezone for the deadline?

BTW the Little Richard song is the purest fire.

I'm still going through the Spotify playlist (in the closing stages) - apart from the wondrous Duck, which I'm sure you're all voting for, I've discovered some lovely things in Colonel Poo's punk-o-rama, notably this Oblivians song, my god!

This Is the End of the Stupid Song: The Under-2:00 Results Thread

Top ≤119

Brevity is... wit

people = shit
brevity = wit

Keep it short & sweet: The best 119 songs under 2 minutes

Or better: Poll it short & sweet

"It Won't Be Long," to paraphrase one of the nominated Byrds songs.

ILX Jams Econo: best 119 etc etc

"30 Minutes or Less or This Poll Is Free"

There's no time to explain:

You people are iconoclasts, mockers of institutions. Poll thread titles need to play off the word poll. Submitted for your approval: POLL Art Threat

(from Prole Art Threat by the Fall, a nominee)

Briefly:

YOU POLL BUT WHY

^

^^

Poll thread titles need to play off the word poll

I know I'm going to lose this one, but please, please, no.

YOU POLL BUT WHY

Yes!

Someone explain to this dummy?

idgi either

reference to "You Suffer" iirc

yes indeed

sorry to insist but where is the relation to the shortness of the songs?

that part usually comes after the pun

Hey everyone, here’s my rough plan:

Rollout on Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, about 20-30 per day. Mostly during daytime/working hours (USA) but maybe a few in the early evening as well.

I wanted to start today but I didn’t have time to finish up the first batch of images before heading in to work.

You'll probably have a slower start in terms of responses as people will be out for the weekend, but I like the sound of a Wednesday climax (ahem).

Yeah, there’s also the option of starting on Monday and finishing on Friday? That would give me time to get more of a head start on the images for the rollout, too. I just didn’t want people to be pissed that it was taking forever to get to the results.

End of year polls tend to be Monday to Friday and that seems to work for good engagement/excitement, and it's not been all that long yet! I'd probably vote for Mon-Fri but don't have a massively strong preference.

if you do start tomorrow then i would skip sat-sun and start up again monday. you could start tomorrow and do the first 19 then you have 20 per day next mon-fri. do what you want with the time you have.

agreed with spottie

Side polls and a handful of results Friday, main deal starting Monday?

Sounds like a plan. Taster on Friday before the main course next week.

cosign last 2 posts

Sounds good! I should be able to do 20 tomorrow. And also 2 of the side polls.

did anyone vote for Morpha Too, because it is, no kidding my favorite Big Star song and among my all time favorite songs

This POLLS up to 11(9 seconds)

i am way too excited for this poll

Really looking forward to this. Most polls I have a pretty good idea what will win, but here I haven’t a clue. Could be a rock ‘n’ roll classic, amphetamine punk or one of a million GBV tracks. Whatever, sure it’ll be super entertaining.

I'm going to be super ill if neither of my top 2 make at least top 3.

Haven't a clue either. With the long songs, there is sort of a loose canon: "Marquee Moon," "Dark Star," Neil's long ones, Dylan's long ones, etc. I don't know if there's really a famous short song outside of "Her Majesty," and no way that'll win.

Well, I guess there are a handful: "Blitzkrieg Bop," too.

lol what was the Ramones average song length on their first couple of albums?

There are 15 songs on the first three albums under 2:00--"famous" is a relative term, but outside of Ramones fans (in which case they're all famous), I don't know if I'd count any of them as famous. The two songs from those first three albums I would classify as such, "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Sheena Is Punk Rocker," both are over 2:00 ("Sheena" almost runs 3:00).

To answer your question: about two minutes?

Yah not many canon short songs under 2 mins which will make this rollout all the more weird and good. Hope it’s not just a ton of repeat artists tho.

not a ton, but there are some repeats - i believe the top 120 is made up of 104 different artists

Sweet!

gonna be a lotta votesplitting with some of these more-frequently-nominated artists I think, for better or worse

alright, please move your butts over here

Top 120 Songs Under 120 Seconds (ILM Poll #95)

woop woop

Thanks Karl, great work.

Also: I'm going to whine on here that none of the songs I like is going to make it, then I don't need to make a stink about it on the main thread. /ok, whine over

Yes it's started! My top songs were very idiosyncratic and probably don't have a hope in hell. I was good and limited myself to 3 GBV songs so I can only have limited blame if we get flooded with them