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

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u022-996643.png

22. 8 Ball
878 points, 16 votes
2000 track for "The Beach"

audio
KCRW session video 2016 (link at 26:40)
official live video of Karl with solo band 2013

too low!!! this was a lock for my no. 1 until i changed my mind at the last minute

I love 8 Ball. Really great song and strangely very epic as well. One of my favorite 'walking around the city' songs.

― brotherlovesdub, Saturday, February 16, 2013 5:00 AM

Granted, a lot of my love for 8 Ball comes from how I still perceive it as the last truly great Underworld track. They've released some decent material since, but nothing that compares to their '90s output.

If they'd ended their run with 8 Ball, I wouldn't have minded at all.

― Turkey, Friday, February 15, 2013 9:36 PM

https://i.imgur.com/XGePcWk.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

Voted for OG Born Slippy over Nuxx which I left out completely for nefarious tactical reasons (tho I could happily live without hearing it ever again)

I did include it, but OTM

The next two tracks are tied, and come with a couple of hours of supplemental viewing / listening.

sounds right

Voted for OG Born Slippy over Nuxx which I left out completely for nefarious tactical reasons (tho I could happily live without hearing it ever again)

― or something, Thursday, June 18, 2020 4:29 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i could prob go w/o hearing nuxx again but i still had to put respect on it by ranking it, i am guileless

"nuxx"'s live permutations are routinely the most thrilling moments in the underworld shows i've listened to

Why is NUXX considered a remix of “Born Slippy”? Do the two songs have anything at all in common?

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u020a-216692.png

20 = Always Loved A Film     
888 points, 17 votes
2010 single from Barking

official video by Graham Wood
one vote specified Extended Club Mix audio
alternate video by Graham Wood
a fanmade video that also rules really hard

I should dig up my radio rip of the original late 00s instrumental version of Always Loved A Film if it's not more conveniently available out there.

oh, it's convenient

Always Loved A Film (Silver Boots) - Live at Lemonworld is amazing. had it on repeat for 6hrs now. Still loving it.

― biz, Saturday, May 20, 2006 8:01 AM

Silver Boots 2006 Lemonworld audio

At this point, I may have played "Always Loved A Film" and "Bird 1" more than any other Underworld songs except maybe "Pearl's Girl", the original "Born Slippy", and "Dirty Epic"

― DJP, Saturday, May 9, 2020 3:59 AM

demo version 1 2008

His dances usually turn the sounds into something visual. This was not an exception. It might look odd at times, but it's just what the music made him feel.

KCRW session video 2011 (first six minutes of video)

I need to see them live before I die.

live video 2010

This is probably my favourite track on Barking, and that's saying something. I gotta say, every time I listen to a new Underworld album I think, 'That was disappointing.' Then I listen to it a few more times and I end up absolutely loving it. With Barking it seemed very ordinary at first, samey, but wow, now it's one of my favourite things ever. Also, this film clip is incredibly brilliant.

https://i.imgur.com/Fymj8lO.jpg

Live On Jimmy Fallon 2010, their American television debut (and, probably, finale)

i heard this song first when i was stoned off my face watching fashion tv ... good times

piano cover

lol king u dropped this \/\/

Love the performance of this on Jimmy Fallon, not least his little dance at the end.

actually neither of those first two links are like the one I had which was a faster version of the 2008 demo with more variation in the bassline per 2 beats towards the end iirc - but still

2 beats bars

hm! there's this one also, but it's closer to an instrumental of the final version - both those demos were downloads from their website at the time.

I love the Karl dance at the end of the Fallon clip too

The version I have/had is basically instrumental version of the 2006 lemonworld - just a demo sans vox for radio (might even have been R1 evening session)

Wow that's a fun clip of them on Fallon (lol Huey Lewis at the end). I'm not sure you can count their performances on UK TV on more than one hand (they did do 'Push Upstairs' on a rubbish short lived Sky show in '99 hosted by Chris Moyles iirc).

love it, but I miss the old bassline

Silver Boots is a hell of a jam too, wish they'd actually recorded it in studio. was kind of disappointed that the official Drift release of it was just the same lossy streamed audio

even the lyrics are pretty sweet..."Maggie is a doll and I'm a big sister, I'm a little girl and I'm a little princess"

come to think of it wasn't there a photoshoot a while ago of Karl in a wedding dress, Angst in My Pants style?

check the voting thread! :)

I'm not sure you can count their performances on UK TV on more than one hand

Even counting the not-in-studio TOTP video, iirc you'll come out of the end of the poll with a thumb free.

The Silver Boots / ALAF up there is probably from 2005, since it seems to be from this 18-minute rehearsal jam they posted during Drift (and included in the box set bonus tracks, so there's full-strength audio now frogster!).

So that's at least five years from first performances to released versions. Any advance on five?

yeah I have that - my box came with a download code which has all the extras in VBR MP3s...but this one doesn't sound notably different, I think it's just a transcode

ah

anyway

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u020-653158.png

20= Beautiful Burnout
888 points, 19 votes, 1 #1
2007 single from Oblivion With Bells


video by Dirk van Dooren
full-length Unfaded audio

Nice but mellow but nice sounds about right - "Beautiful Burnout" is sounding great. (n.b. I hate the culture of commenting on albums while listening to them for the 1st time, so I'll try to make that the last thing I say about this for a while!)

― toby, Saturday, September 29, 2007 3:33 AM

For me - the BEST track of yours! I know Born Slippy is most popular and most recognisible but this one has something that BS simply has not. I just love the dark magic electro climax. If You could just bring this kind of mood to your next LP... ohh!

I get chills and tingles EVERY time I listen to this song, from the first time to the hundredth.

demo audio as Biro The Leggy c.2002 (great fan-made video though)
live guitar-based Biro The Leggy audio 2000

So much Underworld,so little time .........

Best music for the last 4.5 billion years

https://i.imgur.com/lIl1ToI.jpg

official live video Oblivion Ball 2007 (lo-res rip)
piano cover

my no. 1

blood on a tissue on the floor of a train

sun goes down
temperature drops

beautiful burnout
beautiful burnout

brad
chrome

I know this can be said about more than half the UW catalog, but I find "Beautiful Burnout" hypnotic

this song is like watching a sunset drain through the slats in your window

or having a nosebleed on the train

*blade runner synth*

don't have anything to add, but I love reading this thread and listening to the tracks

http://ghostfood.uk/public/ilx/underworld/u019-305301.png

19. Scribble
924 combined points, 18 total votes
2010 single from Barking

offical video by Toby Vogel
radio edit video

The High Contrast-collabo version would have placed at 33 on solo votes.

i voted for "you do scribble" which is just whoaaaaoaaoaaoaa spiraling through helixes of light

the high contrast version is lovely too

Wow, this is the best Underworld track I've heard in 16 years! As always with Underworld, the vocals are totally useless though. They should've just dropped the singing altogether when they went techno. Thankfully, there's not much vocals on "Scribble", and they're buried deep into the mix, so they don't distract from what's awesome about the tune.

― Tuomas, Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:34 AM

Alright, I've come around to the vocals on "Scribble" -- it's fantastic through and through. Still prefer not to see Hyde's fish-eye lense'd mug while he's driving around and mouthing the worlds.

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Friday, May 28, 2010 6:24 AM

this just made me feel so good. haven't felt this way from a new song coming out in a long time. i don't mean that in a jaded way, just that this is just way above the rest. hello summer

― roxymuzak, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:32 PM

jeez scribble is just a classic already imo

― omar little, Friday, August 6, 2010 5:53 AM

i agree sir

― cutty, Friday, August 6, 2010 5:58 AM

They're finally playing DC for the first time... ever? Got my ticket, hoping this album lives up to "Scribble". From what you all are saying, it sounds like it does.

― Vinnie, Friday, September 10, 2010 12:13 AM

KCRW session video 2011 (link to 06:45)
fan cover
live video 2010

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

I love the ecstatic late Underworld tracks, didn't think this was quite as great as Two Months Off but was a nice echo

I like this simplest of fan "mashups", blending "Small Conker and a Twix" into "You Do Scribble", as they often did live... https://youtu.be/xLv8i6WVCyo

"spikee" is immense, i love the slide guitar so much
"born slippy" rules but the live versions are even better: this is my favourite i've heard
"8 ball" is one of their most beautiful moments
"always loved a film" is shockingly high, it's never done much for me in either the album version or the early version. the album version doesn't even work very well as the straight-forward banger it is idk
"beautiful burnout" is kinda hard to separate from "crocodile" in my mind but what a perfect epic they make combined
"scribble" is also higher than i expected but it's the best track off barking and "you do scribble" does really rule, especially the live in tokyo version

Why is NUXX considered a remix of “Born Slippy”? Do the two songs have anything at all in common?

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 19 June 2020 7:12 AM (four hours ago)

it's just underworld love their confusing naming conventions. there's plenty of "remixes" that were only labelled as that to get around cd single rules for the charts (most of the "dark & long"s etc. among others) but i'm not sure if that's why .nuxx and telematic were labelled like that

Always Loved a Film...

official video by Graham Wood
...
alternate video by Graham Wood
a fanmade video that also rules really hard

lol that "fanmade" one is the best! It says "Official DVD"... From looking at the uploader's videos, if he's playing with that for views, it's the only time he did. I don't see the kid in any other thumbnails either. And his next upload was the "Official DVD" video for "Diamond Jigsaw", and that's actually what it is. Weird! Is his ALAF upload on the DVD released somewhere? My DVD has the "alternate" one. The old people (official official) one is new on me, too, cute.

xp The Wikipedia for .NUXX, with no source (anything else I turned up just seemed to be copying this): "Underworld have claimed that the ".NUXX" name was inspired by a computer fault that added that filename extension to the name of their working files." I like it.

I'm curious why it wasn't the A-side to begin with if they were woodshedding it so long (see that full disc on the box set).

lol yeah it was crazy to hear 71 minutes of "the evolution of Born Slippy" and still have no idea how the original turned into NUXX

Hey, sic dredged up one of my old posts. To update:

Barking: good, if not quite at the level of "Scribble"
Barking tour: one of the most fun shows I've been to

I'm curious why it wasn't the A-side to begin with if they were woodshedding it so long (see that full disc on the box set).

I first heard it on the Live at Sound City broadcast around April 1994. Remember it well as it was the day the news of Kurt Cobain's death broke and we were supposed to go clubbing that night but my mate's car broke down so a load of us went round another mate's (whose parents were away), necked our pills and listened to Underworld instead.

Great night and the new Mega Mega White Thing track became our anthem for a while. There was also a OMFG moment when we discovered the second track on their new single a year later was the Mega Mega one.