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

last one for the day!

https://i.imgur.com/r0QPNUU.jpg
101. Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31)
0.3318 points
5 votes

the rollout so far:

120 Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Love For Tender (1:58) 1000 0.3 3
119 Sleater-Kinney - Little Mouth (1:45) 1012 0.3036 5
118 Randy Newman - Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (1:53) 1014 0.3042 5
117 James Brown - Think (from 'Live at the Apollo') (1:58) 1026 0.3078 5
116 Beastie Boys - Flute Loop (1:55) 1042 0.3126 7
115 Arthur Russell - Eli (1:56) 1047 0.3141 4
114 Beck - Hollow Log (1:54) 1048 0.3144 4
113 The Clash - Koka Kola (1:48) 1059 0.3177 5
111 The Sea Nymphs - On the Dry Land (1:46) 1065 0.3195 3
111 Minor Threat - Straight Edge (0:46) 1065 0.3195 5
110 The Beach Boys - Caroline, No (a cappella, Pet Sounds, Disc 3) (1:54) 1079 0.3237 5
109 The dB's - Big Brown Eyes (1:59) 1081 0.3243 6
108 Boards of Canada - Olson (1:32) 1082 0.3246 5
107 Liz Phair - Glory (1:30) 1086 0.3258 5
106 Prince - I Wonder U (1:40) 1087 0.3261 6
105 Elastica - Vaseline (1:20) 1095 0.3285 5
104 Maurice Williams - Stay (1:34) 1096 0.3288 4
103 Buddy Holly - Words of Love (1:56) 1099 0.3297 6
102 Roxy Music - Tara (1:47) 1103 0.3309 5
101 Minutemen - Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing (1:31) 1106 0.3318 5

on sunday i'll do one of the side-polls, and then we'll resume the countdown on Monday with #100-81

xp that was on my shortlist but I cut it

"Eli" is kinda remarkable, I'm thinking.

Also: nice work, Karl Malone!

great results, very diverse, looking forward to the rest of this

it wasn't a difficult bar to clear, but based off of very limited internet searching i feel that this is already greatest ever list of songs under 2 minutes. but that's only because the few other lists i saw were terrible and written for content farms

koka kola is a good song, but bottom five on london calling.

possibly top five for "stacked Mick harmonies play a counterpoint melody to Joe's lead vocal line" though

huzzah, ZS! Feel free to throw a few up over the weekend if you feel like it imo, not like it'll take ppl long to catch up on Monday morning US time

Xp

Diverse in genres perhaps. The only thing hit out of left field for me The Sea Nymphs and Elastica. I hope there are more oddballs before we get to the standards.

i unexpectedly had some liz phair moments last night. felt very 90s

huzzah, ZS! Feel free to throw a few up over the weekend if you feel like it imo, not like it'll take ppl long to catch up on Monday morning US time

yeah, we'll see how it goes on sunday. i have to work a 14-hour day tomorrow (and drive 2 hours both ways) so I'm hoping to use sunday to work on the images for 100-80 so I can do that on Monday.

xp haven't been following this and not sure what the standards would be, it will be interesting to see

So far I'm mostly impressed by the photoshop skillz

i did vote in this but didn't really look at the nominations. i just wanted to vote for five songs but ended up voting for like 10 songs total. regretting not voting for Elastica. great job as always KM, you really put your heart into these polls and it shows and is appreciated.

i think i might have to do the Beck poll sooner rather than later. i'm seeing Beck this summer for the third time but mainly going for Spoon. i have seen Spoon three times, so this summer will be number four.

not sure why (and this is not the place for it), but Spoon's "Inside Out" has been going through my head for years

I love the Minor Threat, dB's, Boards of Canada, Liz Phair placements

on the whole, really like all of them

this is really great so far, thank you sir!

i am glad "tara" placed. it was in my top ten. the mystic atmosphere of avalon is captured perfectly by the romantic oboe line. somehow i find that the best short songs are instrumentals.

I couldn't find anything to put ahead of eli. still remember how deep it hit me, that feeling of my skin prickling, that instant overwhelming captivation the first time I heard him just singing that name with such rasping intensity over and over. the more I play it the more convinced I am of its perfection. it's so well balanced, with a raw innocent wildness pulling the song taut. this mixture of confusion and empathy and pain, feeling lost, with this restlessness, for now just circling, like he's picking at a wound, but with this emotional unease that exceeds his ability to process it however beautifully he tries, so there's this looming sense that he might fly off at any moment. even by his standards the phrasing is exquisite, the way it doesn't settle, just churns, so I'm left dumb and rapt, waiting for every interval, every harmony, every pause to hit. it's so gorgeously idiomatic, it made me fall in love w/ the cello more than any other piece. it hurts!

^^^this is the kind of write-up each song here deserves

Tara is gorgeous, one of those songs that changes a room when it comes on. But I could only vote for 50 tracks.

dang I forgot to vote for "Stay". you all would loooooove my falsetto on that one

Didn't recognise the name 'Eli' while going through the list, but I'm surprised it wasn't one of the ones I listened to before voting, as I love AR.

Haven't listened through the list yet, I think there's maybe one or two tracks that were on my first pass longlist but nothing I voted for. Makes me pretty worried for some of my personal favourites, as I was expecting a couple to show up at the lower end of the list.

Stay and Words Of Love are criminally low.

hoping Think It Over places

i must say that i really enjoy the countdown so far. three of my choices placed already and most of the other songs are quite good or even excellent.

that oboe on tara really cuts very deep into my heart from the first second on it is intonated. it immediately makes me feel completely lonely and lost in the universe. it totally drives me in and subtracts my attention from everything else which might be around. and there is a calmness and a feeling of relaxation about it as after a big physical effort. or maybe it is the sound of the sun going up in a pale blue sky above a frozen mountain lake in winter.

it definitely changes a room: well put, euler. but only if people hear it. if it came up at a party and i was in a conversation i'd immediately abandon the talk and listen, i'd give up the social for the art. not very polite, i know.

That’s mackay soloing on Tara, right?

i guess so.

Here's an interesting prediction game - which artists do we think will have multiple entries? Obviously a maximum of 16 given the 104 different artists but probably closer to 10/12 given that a few may have 3 or even 4.

A few to begin with:

Elvis
Elvis
Elves (kickers thereof)
Minutefits
Dilla

Oh and The Clash obv

Ramones and Guided by Voices are the two most obvious, I'd say. I wish the Angry Samoans were obvious, but no. Minor Threat, maybe.

i'm still working on the youtube playlist that went up, i'm more than halfway in and putting off all other new listening until i finish it, i wouldn't have imagined listening to 400 measly songs would be such a challenge for me! anyway when that's done i'm looking forward to cherry-picking the poll results :)

Only voted for one track per artist. Of those who had multiple entries on my long list I'd guess Elvis P, Pixies, Beatles, Ramones, Eddie Cochran, Wire and Buddy Holly will figure.

minor threat will get another song for sure, i'd bet the misfits get a couple too, unless they were vote-split to death

I think the Minutemen will get one or two more.

I think this will be my favorite poll ever because of how few of these I knew beforehand. so many great finds thus far (Elvis Costello, dBs, Arthur Russell). hope this just keeps getting better

I'd add the Byrds to the list of potentials for multiple winners. There were only 3 nominations so reduced risk of vote splitting. Time Between is very likely to be a winner - maybe even pretty high up the list. Wouldn't be surprised to see either of the other nominations make it. Both are worthy.

Makes me pretty worried for some of my personal favourites, as I was expecting a couple to show up at the lower end of the list.

like emil.y, i am concerned the frogs may not place.

anyone up for a sub-poll countdown? text only, as i'm working on the images for the regular roll-out

yeah!

Definitely!

i'm sorry - the results for the "songs that weren't on the nomination list" sub-poll are so ridiculous that i'm having trouble describing them. one moment.

there wasn't much consensus on the best songs that weren't on the nominations list. the self-confident path would be to claim this as proof that the nominations list was so rock solid that there was no clear non-nominated (a 'non-nom' in the biz) song that wasn't on there. others would note that the people who voted in the "best song not nominated" poll were also the same people who contributed all the nominations to the list, so it's a bit like asking someone to come up with a list of the top fifty fruits and then immediately asking them "what was a fruit that you chose not to put in your list of top fifty?" and then expecting there to be consensus.

each of these tracks received 1 vote.

Stiff Little Fingers - Here We Are Nowhere	
The Butterflies of Love - Leaving When I'm Done Drinking (1:54)	
Some AI at the University of Toronto - The AI Christmas Carol (0:57)	
University of Toronto - The AI Christmas Carol (0:57)	
Nirvana - Very Ape (1:55)	
Kleenex/Liliput - Split (2:01)	
Modern Baseball - Mass (1:45)	
Course of Action - You Smoke You Choke (???)	
Black Flag – Wasted (0:51)	
Richard Skelton - Scar Tissue (1:56)	
Randy Newman - Underneath The Harlem Moon (1:54)	
Nick Drake - Road (2:00)	
The National - Fashion Coat (2:01)	
Calexico – Train of Thought (0:30)	
Teenage Fanclub - What You Do to Me (1:59)	
Nirvana - Very Ape (1:56)	
Jorge Ben Joe - Fia Maravilha (1:59)	
Beach Boys - "Ding Dang" (:59) 	
Minutemen - My Heart and the Real World	
Perfume Genius - Hood (2:00)	
Quasi - The Happy Prole (1:42)	
Jay Livingston & Ray Evans - Mr. Ed (0:52)	
LiLiPUT – Split (1:59)	
Keith Mansfield - Grandstand (1:13)	
The Beatles - There's a Place (1:50)	
The Middle Class – Out of Vogue (1:00)	
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (1:03)	
Gustavo Santaollala - All Gone (1:13)	
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - We Have Mice (1:57)	
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - The Invitation	
The Wrens - The House That Guilt Built (1:22)	
Hüsker Dü – Big Sky, 9/5/81 live (0:55)	
Dana Westover - Beginning (1:17)	
Lee Hazlewood - I'm Glad I Never (1:05)	
Huggy Bear - Sizzlemeet (1:26)	
Benjamin Britten - Cuckoo! (1:50)	
Floor - Sneech (1:02)	
Beastie Boys - A Year And A Day (1:59)	
Elvis Costello, "Hoover Factory" (1:44)  	
Frankie Cosmos - Fool (2:04)	
Archer Prewitt - Two Can Play (1:52)	
I Hate Sex - I Fucking Hate Sports (1:53)	
Trashcan Sinatras - The Perfect Reminder (1:04)	
The Books - Venice (1:44)	
The Olivia Tremor Control - Black Foliage (Animation 2) (1:23)	
Vashti Bunyan - Window Over the Bay (1:47)	
Sean Price - One (1:52)	
Circle Jerks – World Up My Ass (1:17)	
Liz Phair - Alice Springs	
Bruce Springsteen - My Best Was Never Good Enough (1:59)	
Hank Williams - Alone and Forsaken (1:59)	
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Jingle "Y.M.O." (0:21)	
King Creosote - And I Mean 'S' (1:44)	
Floor - Assassin (1:52)	
Voice Of Authority - Fuh Fuh (0:46)	
Sleater Kinney - Slow Song (1:58)	
Phish - Quadrophonic Toppling (1:59)	
The Residents - When We Were Young	
American Nightmare - Hearts (1:04)	
J Dilla - 10,000 Watts (1:42)	
Neil Young - Birds (45 RPM Single) (1:38)	
Idlewild - Self Healer (1:59)	
Grouper - Holifernes (1:33)	
The Beatles - For No One (1:59)	
Kyuss - Caterpillar March (1:56)	
Rush - Didacts & Narpets (1:00)	
Jim Guthrie - Thousand Songs (2:00)	
The Books - PS (0:56)	
Nodzzz - Is She There (1:42)	
Nurse With Wound - This Piano Can't Think	
James Murphy - Photographs - Piano (1:55)	
Acid House Kings - This Love Is All We Need (1:52)	
Tiger Trap - Tore a Hole (1:58)	
De La Soul - Kicked Out The House (1:56)	
Black Sabbath - Don't Start (Too Late) (0:49)	
Led Zeppelin - Bron-Yr-Aur (1:59)	

and yet, one song towered above them all, with two votes. your first place winner by TKO, your latest role model

Teenage Fanclub - What You Do To Me (2:00)

Recheck that “Very Ape,” bruh

The Middle Class – Out of Vogue (1:00)

this was nominated by Sleeve, but seems to have got missed off, alas

this is basically like the side-poll where i'm like "shit in my mouth, aw jeez"

no mouth shitting intended!

lol, none taken! i'm saying i invited it through my fucked up administration of all this

i will note, though, that the official full title of that sub-poll was "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" and the instructions were "These could be songs that were deemed ineligible because Spotify has them for 2+ minutes even though they really aren't, or we just forgot to nominate them, or I messed something up, or whatever other reason."

so a song on the non-noms list like Beatles - For None One (1:59), which i would guess would have received many votes if eligible, was deemed ineligible because on Spotify it's 2:00. i know that may sound ridiculous and dumb, but the thing is, there were lots of songs right on the edge of 2 minutes, many of which had seconds of padding at the end after the fade-out, which means there are also many songs that are listed as 2:07 on one listening platform or device or another. as much fun as the nominations thread was - and wow, i wish i could go back and do that again and again! - i did not want to dedicate investigative and very subjective detective work to dozens of songs with ambiguous lengths. and so i supplicated to lord Spotify and used it as my reference. not everyone was pleased with the results, i know. but it made me only 42% less happy instead of 49%, and that's why i did it. sorry.

of course, there are probably lots of others that people actually nominated and i just missed. i can't expect everyone to check the threads and double-check my nominations work, so i must have missed a handful out of 2100+ nominations that made the cut from the larger pool of submitted nominations

which means there are also many songs that are listed as 2:07 on one listening platform or device or another.

er, 420 sorry. what i was trying to say was that there are songs that are 2:07 (or whatever) on spotify (or whatever) that you could argue are less than two minutes long, because the last bit of the song fades out before 2:00 and then there's just weird unnecessary silence padding the track. or maybe there's a 7" where the song length is correctly listed as 1:59, even though evil master spotify shows it as 2:07

BUT, sub-poll #2 (best tracks <30 seconds) is better!. just to be clear, it was fine to vote for the same song in both the <30 seconds and <120 seconds poll. the <30 seconds sub-poll was mainly intended to highlight the best especially shorter tracks, because naturally they get buried next to the much larger pool of tracks closer to 2 minutes.

let me get those results ready