Draining the POLL for you - ILM artist poll #98 - The Go-Betweens

totally baffled about the outcome. i would have bet a lot on 16LL as a winner. just relistening to LBATBD and it definitely has its moments - like "twin layers of lightning" - but i don't feel it like 16LL which gives me a kick from the beginning on. it does what i love about pop music, it marries melancholy with melody. LBATBD on the other hand drags along in places. especially the succession of "head full of steam", "bow down" and "palm sunday" totally passes me by. my life is too short to listen to them again.

I don't like the production on Send Me A Lullaby much, but 'dated' isn't a word that comes to mind when thinking about it in the way it does with Tallulah. Something must account for that difference.

xpost

Liberty Belle is rarely the first album of theirs I pull off the shelf, but I'm never not satiated by it.

Yeah, you're right, Alfred. I've had similar thoughts about "dated" myself. When I used it before, in my head it would have been shorthand for "marked by certain quite specific trends in music production associated, in my mind at least, with 1987, like thin metronomic rhythm tracks, mainly where Craig Leon was involved."

I can't imagine being a fan but not wanting to hear Bow Down or Head Full of Steam again. They are totally swoonsome, totally marrying melancholy with melody, and top 10 tracks for me. It's a strange world, Sandy.

but nobody uses "dated" about Rickenbackers recorded in 1966 -- it's always synths and gated drums

I'll bet you they did the 70s.

Sure, but I guess the sound of Rickenbackers recorded in 1966 has passed into what's widely classed as agreeable and classic (though I bet if you asked younger people not into the rock canon they might well use the word or just say it sounds 'old'). People do talk about dated lyrics from that era though.

xpost - ha, yes

I remember writing a review along these lines on rateyourmusic in response to the countless existing reviews of Steve McQueen containing "dated". I've become everything I used to hate! :)

Full results, for stats fans, before I move on and forget...

                                                            Pts  Votes    #1s
 1  Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express               202     24     10
 2  Before Hollywood                                        161     20      5
 3  16 Lovers Lane                                          157     20      4
 4  Tallulah                                                148     22      2
 5  Spring Hill Fair                                        146     23      0
 6  Oceans Apart                                            103     18      2
 7  The Friends of Rachel Worth                              90     16      0
 8  The Evangelist                                           68     14      0
 9  Danger In the Past                                       34      9      0
10  Send Me a Lullaby                                        24      6      0
11  Horsebreaker Star                                        22      7      0
12  78 'TIl 79: The Lost Album                               12      4      0
13  Metal and Shells                                         10      1      1
14  Bright Yellow Bright Orange                               7      3      0
15  Songs To Play                                             6      3      0
16  In Your Bright Ray                                        6      2      0
17  Watershed                                                 5      2      0
18  Calling From a Country Phone                              4      1      0
19  I Had a New York Girlfriend                               3      2      0
20  Inferno                                                   2      2      0
21  Fireboy                                                   1      1      0

Warm Nights = nul points!

And I was all alone with ...Country Phone. *weeps*

Big shout out to the other person who voted for I Had A New York Girlfriend. Forster described the collection of cover versions as "the one mistake of my recording career", but it's a great album to relax to with a glass of wine in your hand. He interprets other people's songs with the same degree of empathy with which he writes about them as a journalist, and the band (including Mick Harvey, Warren Ellis, Clare Moore, Conway Savage & 'Evil' Graham Lee) are strong too.

Quite happy with the results of the album poll - thought 16LL would walk it.

My favourite is Before Hollywood, but Liberty Belle sounds to me a bit like BH recorded on a rainy day. It's the best balance between the classic era's idiosyncratic and pop halves, so it makes sense as a winner.

Based on the trend of earlier posted opinions, I expected Before Hollywood to win over 16LL. I'm surprised that Liberty Belle took it, although it got my #1 spot. It was the first GB album I ever heard, and it instantly made me a fan of the band. If I had heard BH first, it might have become my all-time fave, but it took me another 10 years to get to it. I love how BH combines their idiosyncratic group personality with post-punk nervouosness and intensity. And the flow of BH's sequencing is just breathtaking.

Iirc those beggars reissues sleaves could be turned inside out to display the proper album cover.

I voted Before Hollywood high as an album but I picked relatively few songs from it (well, my #1). It flows marvelously.

All this Before HoIlywood talk is making me feel like a Go-Betweens tourist. I got started with the 78-90 comp, filled in 16LL, Liberty Belle and Tallulah but never went back to BH. So, hand up, I’m one of the 4 voters who didn’t rank BH.

Speaking of bad album cover art, that 78-90 comp really takes the cake. Every time I pull that one off the shelf, I wonder how they could have collectively decided: "Yep, that image is perfect for our career retrospective".

Also, looks like I was the only "Metal & Shell" voter, which is fair enough, since it's both US-only and a compilation album.
But, it was my first exposure to the band, and I like better than either of the albums it combines (BH and SHF), so I couldn't resist.

One might almost use the d-word in relation to the 78-90 graphics. Feels distinctly turn-of-the-nineties.

I'll make a tiny start of the next section. Just a wee off-peak taster, to help ensure we get finished before Xmas...

http://i65.tinypic.com/315fln4.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/2h8a26d.jpg

#40
GRANT MCLENNAN - Put You Down
from Horsebreaker Star (1994)
Points: 47
Votes: 2 (0)

Youtube audio

http://i67.tinypic.com/vsiblk.jpg

#38
ROBERT FORSTER - Crazy Jane on the Day of Judgement
from Inferno (2019)

Points: 50
Votes: 3 (0)

Youtube audio

______

#39
ROBERT FORSTER - Life Has Turned a Page
from Inferno (2019)

Points: 49
Votes: 3 (0)

Youtube audio

#37
ROBERT FORSTER - Don't Touch Anything
from The Evangelist (2008)

Points: 51
Votes: 2 (0)

Youtube audio

http://i65.tinypic.com/24gisg3.jpg

#36
ROBERT FORSTER - 121
from Calling From a Country Phone (1993)

Points: 51
Votes: 3 (0)

Youtube audio

That's enough for now. :)

The parenthetical bit is the number of first-place votes from now on.

I've also used total votes, then total first-place votes, as tiebreakers.

Nice to see a couple of Inferno tracks make it. I voted for both of them.

I don't think I'll ever understand the enduring popularity of Christgau's reviews.

That review is concise, snappy and enjoyably pretentious. It gives a good impression of what the record might sound like, without any indication of the writer's taste, and has a letter grade that reassures you of its quality despite said taste. it does a lot of work in a handful of words.

...if you can make it past the first line, which is nonsensical and has no relation whatever to the band or their music.

I think the ranking of the two Inferno tracks is the wrong way around, unless the points totals are in error.

Life Has Turned a Page one of those great late Robert as narrator songs. I prefer it to Darlinghurst Nights.

Don't Touch Anything near the top of my ballot. A song of so much pent-up power.

XP: The numbers are correct, I just confused myself when inserting two consecutive entries into one post for the first time.

Oh yeah I see now!

This poll was probably always going to be unfair to Inferno. I for one take several thousand years to properly absorb twenty-first century Forster material.

The guitars on Put You Down sound very dated.

Take the sour
If you take me
I can scoff and lour
And scold for an hour

an honest self-description if there ever was one or is he flirting with the image he gives? probably both.

http://i67.tinypic.com/a8ryt.jpg

#35 JACK FROST - Thought That I Was Over You
from Jack Frost (1990)

Points: 52
Votes: 3 (0)

Original promo video

http://i64.tinypic.com/5fkqk3.jpg

#34
ROBERT FORSTER - No Fame
from Inferno (2019)

Points: 53
Votes: 3 (0)

Youtube audio

That's a great Forster image for No Fame.

I'm not sure if anymore Inferno tracks will make it. I'll Look After You was my other highlight that ended up doing well on my list last minute.

This will have to be last for (my) Sunday evening. I'll pick up the pace during the week.

#32 --TIE--

http://i67.tinypic.com/23t5csl.jpg

#32 (i)
GRANT MCLENNAN - Simone And Perry
from Horsebreaker Star (1994)

Points: 54
Votes: 4 (0)

Original promo video

#32 (ii)
GRANT MCLENNAN - One Plus One
from In Your Bright Ray (1997)

Points: 54
Votes: 4 (0)

Youtube audio

http://i65.tinypic.com/2h38orc.jpg

#31
ROBERT FORSTER - Falling Star
from Calling From a Country Phone (1993)

Points: 55
Votes: 3 (0)

Youtube audio, original version
Youtube audio, album version

"Simone and Perry," likable enough, gives an impression that Horsebreaker Star will be the glossy followup to Fireboy; it sounds like Party of Five bumper music.

I like 'Simone and Perry', but yes, it does sound like the contractually obliged single material on the album. Not many singles have titles that remind you of Israeli politician Shimon Peres, however.

lol

http://i63.tinypic.com/23t2ruf.jpg

#30
GRANT MCLENNAN - Lamp By Lamp
from In Your Bright Ray (1997)

Points: 58
4 (0)

Youtube audio

pretty

Lovely song. This and One Plus One were on my list. Going through the solo albums before voting made me really appreciate how solid In Your Bright Ray is.

#29
GW MCLENNAN - The Dark Side Of Town
from Fireboy (1993)

Points: 59
Votes: 4 (0)

Youtube audio (+ spooky fan video)

http://i65.tinypic.com/xlyqlc.jpg

#28
GW MCLENNAN - Fingers
from Fireboy (1993)

Points: 63
Votes: 3 (0)

Original promo video

ooh sexy

"now you know what it's like to be a man"

"Fingers" was possibly his only single that I was utterly oblivious to until very recently. Not sure how I managed this, but it is quite affecting despite being not at all what I think I want to hear at the outset.