why don't you poll me I feel like flying to... the UNDERWORLD Poll Results thread -- produced by Smith & Hyde for ILM Artist Poll #102

yeah! great.

hell yeah my #3

i wrote in my spreadsheet -- "Didn't listen to BBWFASF until this poll, and I ended up coming back to this song over and over and over for the whole however many weeks this was."

team openers

re-listening to If Rah on good headphones and noticed this synth that starts in the left channel and sounds like it's going to just burst at the seams the whole time

also noticing the maybe-actual-animal howling at around 6 min

this song rules

quite a pair

side-note, mo aner > mo move > mo ther earth > mo on on water

lol I would put that precisely backwards. but they're all lovely.

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u028-494015.png

28. Best Mamgu Ever 
808 points, 15 votes
2007 album track from Oblivion With Bells

audio
2019 Wales In Japan version

lol I would put that precisely backwards. but they're all lovely.

tbh Juanita:Kiteless:To Drea mo f Love trumps them all

It really is, and I've heard a lot of mamgus in my time

balearic underworld might be my low key favourite underworld

Best Mamgu Ever is one of Rick Smiths finest 'Reich-ian' repetitive piano pieces and a track I can listen to over and over again.

― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 1:54 AM

"Best Mamgu Ever" is the one track that's been hitting me very hard lately and honestly I think it's one of their ten best. I'm a huge fan of the "Big Sister" EP they did and this is really just an extension of that. The way the vocals are mixed in is really astounding, but like all great UW tracks it just builds up under your nose, before you know it there's a long guitar solo and like three vocal parts. Those three final tracks on OWB are all fantastic ("Good Morning Cockerel" is really a beautiful thing. No way do Orbital or the Chems or Fluke do something like this).

― frogbs, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 2:24 AM

"best mamgu ever" should have produced its own subgenre of dance music

― BradNelson, Saturday, January 26, 2019 7:13 AM

https://i.imgur.com/ahCcg6I.jpg

A life without Faxed Invitation, Peach Tree, Trim, Best Mamgu Ever, Oich Oich, 8 Ball, Thing In A Book, and River of Bass is a life not worth living.

― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, May 31, 2018 2:19 AM

tbh Juanita:Kiteless:To Drea mo f Love trumps them all

laughed way harder than I expected to at this

forgot about mo lehill and mo th at the Door, the latter of which I'm gonna say is relevant to the Openers v Closers conversation since it could be considered the Drift closer.

listening to that and Best Mamgu Ever, I'm currently sitting on Team Closers

mo saic tho

Molehill and Moth at the Door must be their most uncharacteristic songs.

Team opener though. Juanita trumps.... everything ever??

yeah I have a feeling I'm gonna have to flip flop on that opinion when actually looking at the absurd all-star list of openers lol

But... hear me out here... Drift's actual last song is Appleshine Continuum

Yes but M.E, Stagger, Moaner, Luetin, Best Mamgu Ever, Louisiana, Nylon Strung, Appleshine Continuum etc

yes but dark & long, juanita, bird 1, i exhale, cups (ok maybe not cups over moaner but),,,,

sorry for being unclear, I was arguing against myself.

Cups definitely yet to come in the rollout!

RARRRRRRRR IM ARUGING TOO

Think we can all agree: Great openers, great closers and most of the tracks inbetween are pretty great too

xp Tin There is also an opener. You been pureed, guv

let's warm up Will

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u027-995868.png

27. Push Upstairs
825 combined points 18 votes (inc a repeat vote for Downstairs, and one vote specifying The Full Length Of It)
1999 single from Beaucoup Fish

official video
Tomato VHS promo

hearing "Push Upstairs" and "Jumbo" put me off of getting _Beaucoup Fish_, which I'll admit might have been a mistake because "King Of Snake" and "Cups" both rank up there among the best songs they've ever done. (But is it another case where the single is stormin' and the album is limpid? I don't know.)

― DJP, Tuesday, October 17, 2000 11:00 AM

Both "Push Upstairs" improve the more familiar you are with them - both seem insanely repetitive to begin with, but I found both grew on me enormously once I went walking around the city with them on my headphones. Plus, you're missing out on "Cups" (deep house par excellence), "Bruce Lee" (hip hop meets Detroit techno), "Kittens" (a storming epic), "Something Like A Mama" (jungle-inflected track like "Pearl's Girl" with its tongue in its cheek) and of course "King Of Snake". It's a strong album.

― Tim, Tuesday, October 17, 2000 11:00 AM

Push Downstairs VHS promo

I was all set to run to the store to buy the album when I heard "Push Upstairs"... ew. (I've since grown used to that song, but I don't see anything overly special about it.)

― DJP, Thursday, January 18, 2001 12:00 PM

this is opposed to the danceability of, say, "push upstairs," which just starts bashing down the door and forcing you to dance with the detroit-ness of it all and builds even more on that.

― .rob, Tuesday, June 29, 2004 3:30 PM

https://i.imgur.com/OLdp0ZO.jpg

8 years after the fact "Push Upstairs" is suddenly one of my favorite songs. WTF?

― DJP, Friday, January 28, 2005 4:48 AM

TV BTS video

The moment that "Push Upstairs" began to work for me was when I focused on two key moments in it:

1) The introduction of that madhouse siren synth during the second iteration of the chorus.

2) "THESE ARE MY INTENTIONS."

The song builds directly into both of those moments and can't come off without them.

― DJP, Sunday, November 14, 2004 6:38 AM

piano cover

THESE ARE MY INTENTIONS and after thaaaaaaaaat I know nothing at all

― DJP, Tuesday, February 8, 2005 2:38 AM

dying to get updated take on Jumbo. No spoilers!

Of all the songs on BF, "Push Upstairs" is the one whose estimation has risen the most since '99. (The rest have basically held steady. This is the one I underrated.)

MY NUMBAH 2

Very nearly my #1, and my introduction to Underworld? I thought I found it on a movie soundtrack as a youth or something but... it doesn't appear to be on any movie soundtracks as far as I can find?

I can only imagine this means that I stumbled across Underworld accidentally, on some kinda audiogalaxy type thing, because I didn't have a friend introduce me. i remember having it burned on a cd that i paid a kid named kyle $5 to make for me lol

Love the sinister-sounding synth at the end. Increasingly agitated sounding Karl is my favourite Karl lol

THESE ARE MY INTENTIONS

glad to see Mamgu so high. I think it's one of the best sounding tracks they ever did. crank it up and drown in an ocean of sound

as for Push Upstairs...well I love the accent Karl adopts for this one, kinda funny that he basically never used it again. that "wuhhh" sound always makes me laugh

a while ago my roommate and I had a playlist of songs for when we played online poker and this was one of them. "Push, push in..."

another song on there was YMO's "Cue" since the line "give me a cue" sounds like you're asking for a Queen

Push Downstairs holds a special place for me because, though there is a vast sea of places Underworld mention that I've never been to (found out from this thread that Barking is a location), they explicitly say my home state twice. "Maryland? yeah"

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u026-857012.png

26 Crocodile 
835 points, 18 votes
2007 single from Oblivion With Bells

official video for TV by Simon Taylor
official video for mobile (Alligator) by Simon Taylor

still like "Crocodile" more than anything else off that album (MAYBE "Beautiful Burnout")

― DJP, Thursday, October 14, 2010 5:06 AM

audience audio 2008

I love this track and feel bad for an amount of viewers, this world should really end I think, so unfair

lemonworld or paisley park or a bit of both??..very nice indeedy

Bum, ba da da dum...bum, ba da da dum...bum, ba da da dum...bum, ba da da dum...

The synths that come in at 3:52 remind me of Zelda

A cold day, gray sky & Xanax and opiate pills. Beautiful álbum.

Who listening it in 2019.

piano cover

https://i.imgur.com/M3B6O22.jpg

official video for TV by Simon Taylor

woah this is a great video

what I love about Crocodile is that you can imagine the mk1 band doing it

The real secret to learning to love “Push Upstairs” is realising it is a love song to Pusheen.

The secret to loving Push Upstairs for me was seeing it live with the green laser. There's a stuttering / skidding type sound that has rapid short stutters then finishes on a long note that just kills me live with that laser going overhead. Don't think i've ever put it on at home, but it's so fun live.

xp lol! Well that's that for the rest of my life

https://media.giphy.com/media/4PUkqN8QQsaFIkqi8a/giphy.gif

pusheen. push een.

"nylon strung" and "low burn" still to come too

http://ghostable.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u025-596802.png

25 Nylon Strung
838 points, 19 votes
2016 single from Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future

video
live video 2016 (link at 56:50)

here's the full, 6 minute making of Push Upstairs video video in absolutely brutal video quality. Wondering where I even would've seen this back then... on a CD single? Anyway it's got cute interview bits.

i didn't realize Nylong Strung was a single. Nice video! They've got a daughter each on the track and video, is it?

(xp @ nylon strung) i think i put this at 40 and i already regret it, what an excellent song. i should make this my alarm clock because this is the kinda shit that makes you wanna be awake

"nylon strung" is the most beautiful song

― BradNelson, Thursday, March 17, 2016 5:39 AM

kinda feel like "open me up/i want to hold you laughing" is kind of an all time hyde lyric too, his best stuff has always seemed to use odd juxtaposition to communicate something emotionally direct

― BradNelson, Thursday, March 17, 2016 5:52 AM

piano cover

Nylon Strung is the best track in that I would play it on a loop for a day and thoroughly enjoy it every time. Overall nice album. Would I buy a physical copy, yes.

lol i forgot i wrote that about nylon strung. me otm

brad very otm

the "wales in japan" version of "best mamgu ever" is very cool

I put "Nylon Strung" second, was almost feeling bold enough to put it first

https://media.giphy.com/media/gH8nnX4sye463xRwGJ/giphy.gif