Before POLLywood - The Go-Betweens - Artist Poll #98 - VOTING THREAD

Er, Lindy's drumming?

It's a fascinating disaster.

Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who likes Send Me A Lullaby. I'm biased; it's an album that changed my life in lots of little ways. I wrote an article about it at 16 for a site with loose connections to this one, and that led to a few fun years writing about music. Years later, I named my dating profile after a track off the album thinking no one would recognise it. I met one guy who did and we ended up living together. I associate the album with romantic folly and sadness; it's a really teenage record, all fumbles and mistakes.

To me it sounds wonderful and trembly and vulnerable, if a little overlong. Grant's songs are gorgeous and sad, and Eight Pictures is one of Robert's best lyrics. It's just post-punk weirdly worn by traditional songwriters who didn't suit it - a necessary growth spasm to get to Before Hollywood. I still like it better than great swathes of 16 Lovers Lane.

I quite like it. Though a couple of tracks are downright ugly and it may have been better as an eight-track mini album like the original Aus issue. (A slightly different selection of eight tracks. eg. 'Eight Pictures' wasn't on that, insanely.)

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if they'd gone to John Brand an album earlier and captured some prettier vocal takes.

Agree with that - though I find it hard to forgive them for that one track with the worst sax playing I've ever heard in my life.

You could argue that The Wave Pictures based their entire career on Eight Pictures

yes! their cover of it is so good.

The weird thing about that saxophone is that it was played by this bloke, who was, unsurprisingly, rarely (ever?) credited as a saxophonist anywhere else. There's at least one interview where the GBs giggled about having a proper pop star guesting on their record.

Ride is my main keeper on Send Me A Lullaby. I've always found it so odd that it's such a weak and confused sounding record as they'd already put out some great singles before it (Hammer The Hammer, Karen, I need Two Heads). It's not like they hadn't learnt to write good songs by then, it's just they didn't pick their best material.
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BUMP! Just over a week until the arbitrary and not particularly rigid end-of-the-month voting deadline.

So I downloaded what purports to be the "Worlds Apart" EP and "Ashes On The Lawn" sounds just like "The Locust Girls".

Also discovered some other heretofor unknown Go-B's b-sides:
https://www.discogs.com/The-Go-Betweens-Here-Comes-A-City/release/11021483

1 Here Comes A City 3:22
2 Erotic Sunshine 3:11
3 Stone 4:23

Anyone heard the latter two?

Just going through some of their solo works. I honestly could vote for every song on The Evangelist. It's such a special album.

And it's getting a vinyl reissue in a couple of weeks. Will definitely be picking that up.

I have to think some more about solo stuff. Just got around to entering my (GB) tracks. Every album but one is represented. And I just realised I included 5 consecutive tracks from one of them!

Have received just a handful of others so far, so any given ballot may well have the power to seriously skew the distribution!

Ballot sent! 9 albums represented, really surprised myself there

Even found room for non-album singles (Hammer the Hammer/Rock and Roll Friend) and STILL feel like I barely scratched the surface. So so many great songs

My focus is pretty narrow, but there's still too many good songs to choose only 30. I've only got two RF solo albums so I'm not going anywhere near that poll.

It's not that I think the solo work is better but I've found the process of whittling down to 30 harder. Nearly there.

Before Hollywood is tricky though. I like it almost as much as Liberty Belle but when it comes to picking individual tracks it's harder to pick standouts.

That Way, or nothing at all

another song with a killer McLennan opening line

Yes, I think there are standouts on that album!

Think it's harder to pick from the Forster songs on that one. What are the favourites? I think Ask and By Chance for me.

MAKE MEEEE LAH-SSST

The caretakers kept, he's to be fired soon...

Yes, On My Block is the one that's made a late entry for me.

Lot of great endings to songs on Before Hollywood. That Way, On My Block, the title track... all just kind of circling away around a repeated lyric. I love it.

"Before Hollywood" itself is particularly good for that IMHO. It's almost like three distinct songs go by before they lock into the final "they'll do they can to hold you doooown" chant. It nevertheless feels like it's all building up to that.

Er, "do WHAT they can".

Is it a breach of etiquette to open polls to people who are not yet ILXors? I kinda feel like mentioning it on the long-standing GB forum.

Go for it, I say: the solo tracks poll in particular could do with a good number of people across all the albums.

Opening ILX to people who are not ilxors seems like a good idea in general to me

Haha! I posted to said forum. Or it entered moderator queue, at least.

Still plenty of time, but mine is presently the only data in my little solo work spreadsheet. Save ILM from a countdown of my own oddball selections!

Anyone who wants to make a list should be able to make a list.

I suspect a moderator squashed my forum post. Anyway...

Does anyone actually like "Cut It Out"? I can't quite bring myself to listen to it, even for this exercise.

I really love the harmonies/backing vocals leading into the chorus, but then the chorus itself ruins the momentum and falls flat. I definitely don't agree with Robert that it's the worst song they ever did though. Not when River Of Money exists.

Ha! I don't mind "River".

I think I said elsewhere that I'm not even that fond of "Right Here". It too sounds a little like it's waiting for the chorus to be fleshed out IMHO. But it's not hard to imagine a slightly different Tallulah (without Craig Leon tinkering, for starters) which is the best thing ever. Today side 2 sounded like possibly their best half-album as it is!

In other news this process has clarified for me that Forster's Calling From a Country Phone still stands up rather well. It's officially on my LPs ballot now.

Ah, my forum post was published. Greetings to any go-betweens.org.uk messageboard folk who may have followed the link! :)

(xp) I bought it at the time and didn't think much of it but it's pretty good.

Forster's album of cover versions, I Had A New York Girlfriend, will be on my LPs ballot. He seems much more comfortable collaborating with other people - and in this case with other people's tunes - than as a solo artist.

I'm tempted to think that Forster needed McLennan more than McLennan needed Forster: McLennan seemed comfortable in carving out a post-split solo career (plus work with Jack Frost + The Far Out Corporation), whereas Forster's best work after 16 Lovers Lane definitely came in the re-formed Go-Betweens albums. I was surprised that I've got more McLennan tracks than Forster tracks in the solo poll so far, although McLennan was obliviously much more prolific (sometimes at the expense of quality control).

Strongly disagree with that conclusion, for Danger in the Past and The Evangelist serve as refutations.

I've never gotten into any solo Robert. Maybe I'll give him another listen this week.

A good moment to say how much I enjoy Songs To Play, which I've only listened to since this poll started. Lighter than The Evangelist but Let Me Imagine You and I Love Myself (And I Always Have) are pure Robert.

I had gone into this assuming I was mainly a fan of the Forster songs, but the more I dig in, I'm realizing that I might actually be Team McLennan.
(also, full disclosure: before typing the above sentence, I always thought his name was McLellan. so what do i know.)

You don't have to choose!

that's good because i have trouble telling them apart

Oh man, Tallulah is WAY better than I remembered

I hadn't listened to any of the solo albums before this poll. They're all kinda whizzing by, without catching much of my attention. "Demon Days" is a great song, that one's stuck. I'll skip that part of the poll & try to work my way in off the results, I guess.

XP, so does christgau:

McLennan's workaday singer-songwriter chops and Forster's low-pitched demo-style near-recitative were so short on recognition factors that even fans had to concentrate to figure out who was at the mike.