Do You Know How to POLLtz?: ILM Artist Poll #111 - Low

I've been a fan for about 20 years and have always considered them to be a very good band, but I didn't think of them as One of the Best Bands in the World until the opening moments of "Quorum".

I will most likely have a song from HEY WHAT in my top 2.

Quorum is great

Their discography is huge. I submitted my ballot without relistening, just going by the tracklists of each album and picking the songs I remember I liked the most but I’m sure I left some great ones out and I may have overrated a few of them.

yeah the murderer ep is pretty essential, the alternate early versions of "murderer" and "silver rider" are great and "from your place on sunset" is up with their best epics. interestingly it's the only time they worked as a duo prior to hey what, it was recorded during the period zak sally had left the band for a bit after the trust tour - he rejoined because they got a sudden offer to open for radiohead after supergrass pulled out.

― ufo, Tuesday, November 2, 2021 5:34 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I was at those Radiohead shows at MSG and that crowd was definitely not there for Low. Sparhawk played night 2 with a new guitar purchase courtesy of the gig windfall iirc.

Listened to Drums and Guns again. Reminded me that it has so many great tracks and serves as a good transition to the more recent work.
Ugh, it’s going to be hard to get the list down to 30 tracks.

Will you accept unranked ballots?

oh, it's 30 tracks? not 25? that makes my task a little easier, i'm down to 37

unranked ballots are fine, just specify that's what they are

I whizzed through Trust, Great Destroyer and Drums & Guns today and narrowed them down to about six songs total. Now I’m onto C’mon and, man, I just don’t get the folks who think this is lesser Low. This album is so gorgeous.

I think because I’m going through the whole discography in such quick succession this week, C’mon is really resonating with Things We Lost in the Fire. They feel like twins to me right now.

c'mon is very solid but not much on it is up with their very best, i don't think anything except "nothing but heart" will make its way onto my ballot. it's definitely a continuation of things we lost in the fire, going further in that direction. probably their most lush & accessible album.

the great destroyer is one that has really shot up in my estimations lately, it's a really remarkably strong rock album, every song is very very good. something "just stand back" is very uncharacteristic for them but it's so good at what it does.

Yeah, that’s the one, that caught my attention on relisten - I think the more abrasive sound now feels more in line when you compile their most recent 2 albums.

yeah i think alan's talked about it being them seeing how loud they could go at the time, but they've certainly surpassed that with hey what

i do wish the studio version of "pissing" went as far as they do when they play it live, it's fantastic.

great version at 34:30 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I45V99gx25Y

it sounds kinda Harvey Milk-lite, and I mean that as a compliment

I can see "California" and "Just Stand Back" disappointing fans who were accustomed to their earlier sound but I love both songs

The band's catalog is like cresting waves in the ocean. It's constantly moving and hypnotic, but some of it is taller and more impressive.

I bet Alan would surf if he didn't live in Minnesota. Though I guess you can surf Lake Superior!

https://www.minnesotamonthly.com/travel-recreation/recreation/why-winter-is-surfing-season-in-minnesota/

Over The Ocean?

I feel like the "heavy" aspects of the band are really present on earlier tracks like "Laugh" (off Curtain) and of course "The Lamb," among others on Trust.

It is perhaps the commercial accessibility of Cmon that I find so distasteful— it simply doesn't sound like the band I fell in love with, and none of the songs stand out to me at all.

I've been thinking about why the earlier stuff grabs me in ways that even the much more recent albums don't, and while I have some ideas, I'm still not totally sure they hold up.

Hmm I don't think of C'mon as commercially accessible any more than anything else they've done. It's not as dissonant or edgy as Trust or Drums & Guns, but the aesthetic of C'mon has always been a prominent part of their palette. You could make a whole album of "Low pop" in the vein of Try to Sleep (Venus, Starfire, Immune, Dinosaur Act, etc.)

Anyway, shrug. I think Nightingale, Done, You See Everything, and Especially Me are all really lovely songs, and Majesty/Magic is a great mini-epic whose main flaw is that it's shown up by the even more epic Nothing But Heart.

i guess that I've just often thought of those songs as the worst songs on their respective albums.

funnily enough, Cmon has fallen *below* The Invisible Way for me as a result of this poll

“Nightingale” is making my ballot - probably my fave from that album.

from the last graph of the Pfork review of the record:

As such, C'mon feels more like a collection drawn from throughout the last decade than a completely cohesive album. This could be viewed as the band sorting through the progress it's made in search of the next turn-- there are even a few songs that come close to revisiting the glacial sparseness of their earliest music. This is all to say that, if you already like Low, C'mon will not disappoint you, and though it's not their best album, it's a fairly accessible distillation of where they've been.

Sums it up for me— many of the tracks feel like they're treading old ground, sort of running through the motions. Nothing on it stands out. It also doesn't help that I am infinitely annoyed by the first track on the record, a place where LOW are usually exceptional.

re-listened to the great destroyer on my commute this morning, the point upthread about fridmann’s production choices being more tolerable after their recent run of albums has some truth in it. still think the middle third kinda drags. there’s still three or four songs on it that may make my ballot

I still have most of Curtain on my ballot. I think it's just going to have to be that way.

First cull for tracks: down to 72 (from 265 non-live tracks I have in my collection).

Stats on those 72 tracks:

• 8 albums get between 5 and 7 tracks
• 2 albums get only 1 track each ('C'mon' and 'Ones & Sixes,' though I'd rate the latter much higher than the former)
• 18 tracks are non-album, from singles, EPs, compilations.
• Only 4 tracks from the years 2008-2017--so they did have a fallow period before their renewed brilliance, IMO.

It's going through the older albums for me and deciding "well, which one of these could you not liver without"

lol... live without

c'mon/invisible way/ones and sixes is probably their weakest stretch yeah, only in that none of those albums is up with their very best but they're still pretty solid.

I finally listened to Invisible Way, the only album I hadn't heard yet. The blandest production of all their albums, I think. I'll listen a couple more times, but I'd be surprised if anything on it makes my ballot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_X9zXJdZqI

another live curiosity is how they play "clarence white", it would have fit on the great destroyer in this form

oh come on, ones and sixes is an amazing record

justice for ones and sixes, still the best of the last three low records

i like ones and sixes a lot but it's not top tier low & falls off in the middle - the first three & last three tracks are all pretty great but the rest isn't as strong. no way is it better than the two since.

could definitely make the case that ones and sixes/double negative/hey what is their best three-album run on the other hand

the adjustment in textural focuses between tracks is painstakingly tuned on o&s, and the songs feel like they're written to emphasize that? which helps make it feel bigger-than-the-sum, regardless of opinion about the individual songs

it doesn't quite have the same greater than the sum of its parts feeling as double negative and its individual parts aren't quite as strong either

still a lot to like about it just it's more of a transitional record than a real high point imo

for me its twin in the low catalog is trust, which a lot of ppl described similarly at the time

trust feels less of an indication of where they were going to go (there's "canada" and that's about it) and more of a refinement and expansion of the darker end of the two previous albums ("whitetail", "don't understand", etc.). there's more to it than that but it feels like the conclusion of that aspect of their sound more than anything else

but i do also think trust is strongest at its beginning and end

i'm pretty happy with the top 30 i made a month ago but i'm also like... am i? should i listen to everything again????

(there's "canada" and that's about it)

you know what reminds me of "canada"? "no end"

Ones and Sixes is pretty great. When I was relistening to it, I forgot how many great tracks it has. I do think of it as a transition album but only because what comes after is even better!

they might not occupy similar positions in the catalog but they just echo off of each other nicely xp

i'm planning on submitting a vote! will probably be near the deadline and a (typical for me) hasty, indefensible selection

could definitely make the case that ones and sixes/double negative/hey what is their best three-album run on the other hand

― ufo, Friday, November 5, 2021 5:39 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lunacy. need i remind you:

I Could Live in Hope – (Vernon Yard, 1994)
Long Division – (Vernon Yard, 1995)
The Curtain Hits the Cast – (Vernon Yard, 1996)
Secret Name – (Kranky, 1999)
Things We Lost in the Fire – (Kranky, 2001)
Trust – (Kranky, 2002)

any three of those beat the latest three out of the water imho.

you like their early stuff best you say

I know, I keep harping on it.

For me, this poll is hard enough given those six albums, is all, and it boggles my mind that anyone could think something from "Cmon" or "The Invisible Way" is better than a single track from any of these six.

I really like their latest records, too, fwiw.

"landslide" just ascended to the near-top of my list, next to a curtain track, it's really not unfathomable imo

"Nothing but Heart" is on C'mon, so believe it!

I might just not vote tbh.

too low!

either that, or Low with a bunch of drudge sirens on both sides

🚨🚨LOW🚨🚨POLL🚨🚨RESULTS🚨🚨

very catchy

whelp, after a week of immense jet lag, I ended up DJing a party yesterday, got very wasted and was exhausted and missed the deadline. Fail. Well, my top 10 would have been 80% from the last 2 albums, so probably a good thing to avoid adding recency bias to the tally.

I'll be watching intently though. ufo, thanks for running this!

recency bias would have been fine though, there's a lot of different views of low among the ballots, but my apologies for not being able to wait further for you octobeard.

here's the results

Too LOW: ILM Artist Poll #111 - Low - RESULTS

whoa, awesome! for some reason i was expecting tomorrow, although now i realize it's because you're in my tomorrow now! :D

*HEADS THERE*