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

'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

ok i voted! last 50 or so cuts were brutal.

also in the "un nominated top 5" i included 4 songs i was too stupid to nominate, and one i didn't nominate because i cannot find proof of its existence on the internet anymore, but i KNOW IT EXISTED. and i know it was under two minutes. so the track length is listed as (???). don't worry, nobody else will nominate it unless there's some early 2000's ottawa punx on here. (sund4r?)

8 ballots in so far! which is pretty good, i think, given the amount of time it takes to put one together for this poll. 2 weeks left!

I voted btw

don't forget to consider the sub-polls (best ever <2 minutes artist, top 5 songs not on the noms list, and top 5 songs under 30 seconds)

i saw it, thanks!

also, i will note that someone besides clemenza used the Clemenza Ballot option :)

which makes it one of the fastest growing ballot options on ilx

As of this morning's listening, I currently have a 40-track ballot with 40 distinct artists.* I still have about 1/4 of the Spotify playlist to (hopefully) get through, but I find it encouraging that I won't have much room to repeat artists. There are about 5 artists where making calls on one or even two songs is gonna be a challenge, though.

Speaking of clemenza, btw, I recommend checking out that Odin track he linked (here it is again, to save you some scrolling). Hearing it amidst a bunch of GbV tracks was kinda surreal: it really does sound like something that coulda come off of Alien Lanes some 20 years later.

*Technically, anyway. John Darnielle and Scott Miller appear twice under different band monikers.

Sent in my vote. Looking through the nominees, I was disappointed that there were only a few Young Marble Giants songs nominated. But it was quickly explained when I looked at the album - a ton of their songs barely miss the cutoff!

one potentially poll-winning song just missed the cutoff as well (neil young's Needle and the Damage Done - 2:03)

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Clemenza Option is adopted by a few states in the 2020 election.

Since she had success in the year poll, please note this intense short song
Rosalía - Que se muere que se muere

When starting the nominations, I thought this was a favorite to top the vote. Turned out I had to nominate it myself.
Jay Dee - Stop

You might now know this haunting ominous French song (if you like Christine Ribeiro for example). She talks of a kid asking difficult family questions which she shrugs off.
Colette Magny - Melocoton

If you like short melancholic folk that is more recent than dear Vashti, check Diane Cluck
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgPCskFWCkw]Diane Cluck - Diamonds]

Ok, so that's why there was an error. Apologies, I proceed.

No comment needed for this Brazilian lament.
Maria Bethania - Sol Negro[/url

One of my favorites (traditional, south african revolutionary hymn)
Safa Saphel Isizwe

If you don't know this explosive riot grrl song, well you might vote for it, it's a proper album closer
Team Dresch - Screwing yet courage

Two more
Unknown twee song I like
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXIJ6kxUYV8]Spiritual vocal jazz I like

I clearly don't know how to paste those links

dang, i love that team dresch tune. saw 'em once @ Gilman but all i really remember from that night is sleater-kinney headlining and blowing my **cking mind

just voted and already have so many regrets

VOTING and CAMPAIGNING and REGRETS thread

i regret that i have but two minutes to give for my poll

Voted! Did the side-polls as well but could only think of three songs for the non-nomination bit (how did we forget Very Ape by Nirvana?). Really looking forward to the rollout!