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

Every song: “What song is this?”
“Guided by Voices again”
“Put it on the list”.

I guess I didn’t realise they were actually quite good.

From my noms I obviously want to campaign for all of them but I’ll settle for 3 that I’d specially recommend:

Tenorio Jr - Nebulosa

This is from the early 60’s but actually sounds like it is some instrumental hip hop song by nujabes or someone of that ilk. Which is to say it sounds decades ahead of its time. Short piece but every musician in it is so good and the song has such an energetic pace it feels like it’s much longer.

Buddy Holly - Slippin n Slidin (fast version)

This stripped down version is not only my favorite version of the song, it might be my favorite Buddy Holly song. I love his voice in this unadorned state. The whole apartment tapes are really good and better than the overdubs they made with them imho.

Storey Sisters - Bad Motorcycle

Because it’s awesome and deserves a top 20 spot in this poll.

Don't know if I'll be able to submit a ballot, but wanted to drop in to say that this playlist is the best thing ever

I don't know who nommed Primal Scream - Velocity Girl, but to me, this song really sets a template here:
Beautiful pop song starts off with a perfect verse and a perfect chorus, and just as you're settling in to hear them repeated 2 or 3 more times and really luxuriate in the ascending melody and the chiming guitar, the song just ends.
It has a more palpable sense of leaving me wanting more than any other song I can think of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8KynrRA1u8

Disregarding the artists that are split between _x_ and _the_x_, it is still pretty strange that Karl didn't update the two bands named incorrectly or remove the last duplicate song, imo.

Some people move fast. They get things done. Some people move slow (e.g. patience makes perfection or a compulsive perfectionist). They don't always get things done but are great at obliterating tiny annoyances.

Also some people vote fast

I think you should cut Karl a bit of slack there, there's a lot of nominations (and I am somewhat to blame for that!) and running a poll this size is a lot of work as it is

yes

Good morning!

Oh wait

lol

Rare footage of Flopsy Duck and Karl Malone in a parking lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzX7BNJYSQ

lol

Anyone up for a nominations listening session on plug.dj/ILXORS?

If you like winsome, I have some winsome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6HF8N8_s4w

If you like your beautiful 60s tunes filtered from the vantage point of the 2000s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POK6yyHNIpU

If you like your Neil Young with winsome female vocals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vls0xGjorbQ

If you like your 60s straight up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRrys5XlRp0

I nominated this full band version of "Birds" from Neil Young's Archives box but it's not on the list. Maybe it got confused with the longer version from After the Gold Rush?
Neil Young - Birds (45 RPM Single) (1:38)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKN7JxBvuLM

'Time Between' is definitely going to be high up on my ballot (xpost).

May I recommend to all potential Aphex and Boards of Canada voters this piece of austere beauty from Autechre:

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

Tenorio Jr - Nebulosa

This is from the early 60’s but actually sounds like it is some instrumental hip hop song by nujabes or someone of that ilk. Which is to say it sounds decades ahead of its time. Short piece but every musician in it is so good and the song has such an energetic pace it feels like it’s much longer.

Second this one. It's short but amazingly feels fully fleshed out with distinct sections.

The Pastels, Tenniscoats - Yomigaeru

I'm sure that most people have listened to this since it's near the beginning of the playlist, but it is so insanely charming.

file me under 'lots of points for Time Between' as well

Also, I bring you your near-daily reminder to vote for Duck

blasting this on repeat in the shower until pruney

xp i listened to that whole album based on the chatter about it. was not expecting a band sounding like an unpolished junior high school ensemble to hit me the way it did.

Glad that Maher Shalal Hash Baz are getting a lot of love here, will definitely be voting for 'Duck'.

I nominated a couple of Jun Togawa related things I'd like to rep for.

Jun Togawa - ある晴れた日: just over 30 seconds, a beautiful Japanese folk song.
Guernica - Bremen: avant-garde take on Brecht/Weill.

Damn I want to vote only one song per artist but Elvis towers above everything else so hard I can't choose only one for him.

every once in a while i'll hear a song on this list, wonder "hey is this (insert band here)", look and it isn't, and get mad at myself for not nominating (insert band here)

most recent one was hearing terror and getting mad i didn't nom american nightmare

feel like hip-hop's gonna need some help placing, so here are a few tracks that i'm strongly considering voting for

ghostface killah - beauty jackson - succinct and detailed ghostface story, and who else could've made any sense out of this beat? voting for this would let you to check the j dilla box too.
j dilla - one for ghost - speaking of whom. i think i've decided this is my favorite of the dilla traxx that we nominated, but i could be convinced if there's another one that people are rallying around.
danny brown - xxx - "Dark nights tryna sleep stomach on fire/Delusional from hunger so I couldn't get tired"; one of the bleakest songs ever put to tape
raekwon - pyrex vision - the chef x marley marl--the first five seasons of breaking bad or the first two hours of goodfellas packed into 55 seconds
digable planets - highing fly - single-handedly justifies the existence of the steve miller band
ultramagnetic mcs - traveling at the speed of thought (remix) - kool keith and ced-gee spin some body horror atop louie louie's riff and honky tonk women's drums.

the killer mike track nominated for this slays

after much j dilla track-pick hemming and hawing i went with waves personally

I have to put in a word for this melancholic accordion instrumental by Les Négresses Vertes. Whenever it is finished I have to relisten to it. I never get tired of it. Probably my number one.

xps to voodoo

'one for ghost' or 'time' for me re dilla. im def voting for that ultramagnetic track i think its my fav rap pick in the list. xxx too.

i nominated some rap but i dont have hope for any of it :( i'll try anyway!

we deserve at least one trunk rattler in the countdown and north memphis does that.

bankroll fresh 'live yo life' is hella inspirational. RIP

prince paul is a mad man with that 2 cups of blood beat

throw on comptons most wanted - hit the floor or ice cube - what they hittin foe if you want to get your blood cooking before you confront your annoying co-worker or whatever

tree beats should always be celebrated tree - 50s

oh yeah 2 cups of blood is so good

“Travelling at the Speed of Thought” is my discovery of the poll (so far). I’m excited to spend more time with the rest of the album when I’m not listening to epic playlists of sub-two minute songs.

Listening all day to this playlist I’ve come to these empirical and hasty conclusions;

- the best “songs” or at least most of the popular songs in here are usually r&b and rock n roll singles from the 50’s and early 60’s. I assume it’s fueled by time constraints on the recording process.

- If segmented into countries, Brazillians and Japanese are often really good at condensing meaningful music into less than two minutes.

- Every punk song that takes longer than 2 minutes to say a message is doing it wrong.

- some of the noms are just forgettable interludes inside good albums.

^yes, there's a fair bit of "we nominated this short track by [well known act] because we could rather than because we should"

OTOH there are plenty of Bands You've Forgotten Existed that I'm enjoying rediscovering.

btw I have 15,531 songs under 2 minutes in my mp3 folders, of which I have rated 1,614 as good, so limiting my nominations to 100 was no mean feat

I missed the nominating, but for potential interest, I just generated a playlist of the most popular 1:00-1:59 songs on Spotify at the moment, filtered to one per artist:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/4OVcZjfY22BezeO2FyK9mK

Small funny postscript on that. When you make a Spotify playlist, Spotify suggests potentially similar songs in case that helps you add stuff. In the case of this playlist, 9 of the 10 suggestions are <1:00 tracks. The one and only longer song is: "Short and Funky" by Too $hort.

hahaha thats amazing

conversely, my spotify shortlist's recommendations start with an 18-minute song by a band who doesn't appear on my shortlist (but does appear on the longlist, hmmmm)

Another instrumental. The whole cosmos in less than 60 seconds. A miraculous melody full of yearning and positive vibrations. Slightly macabre but if I had one minute to live and could choose the soundtrack, it would be The High Llamas - Cuckoo Casino

Does anyone know what this is?

Stereolab - The Eclipse (0:59)

Still can't quite over 'Ready Or Not Here I Come' being this short.

please consider voting for these amazing tracks:

Young Marble Giants - Final Day - perfection

Sun City Girls - Cooking With Satan - just listen to this thing

Bikini Kill - New Radio - fury personified

Swell Maps - Read About Seymour - post punk falling down the stairs

The last person I'd ever deign to correct, but "Read About Seymour" is 1977--that's a bit early for post-punk.

XP: This is the Stereolab track, from a 1995 split single.

wow just when I think I've heard every stray 'Lab track from their 90's output something like that turns up, I actually tried to look it up on Discogs earlier and failed.

fwiw I don't think the version of Frownland by Captain Beefheart on the Spotify playlist is the version intended (it's an instrumental from a bootleg, kinda surprised Spotify allows bootlegs tbh) - in the event that anyone listening to it might like it but doesn't know it already - the proper version isn't on Spotify but is on youtube: https://youtu.be/r9lpLm7jwQY

damn, who nominated tanzmusik, this song is sick