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

There are number one places all over the place here. This is unprecedented, right?

https://i.imgur.com/xstlYtJ.png
30. White Horses
Released on HEY WHAT (2021)
331 points, 10 voters
Music video

there is not a huge amount of consensus with the #1 votes yeah

not sure exactly how unusual that is though

The Lamb was my #1. Every distant creak and reverberant stomp is magical to my ears.

I could probably have specified the Dead Pilot version to be honest because that's the one I prefer.

The Lamb is astonishing.

I think the fitting irony of “Too LOW” is that the complaint really applies to anything in the roll-out that misses the top ten.

love all of the last three

"will the night" is great in both versions, the dead pilot version is proto-grouper & the secret name version makes the most of strings out of any of their tracks

"white horses" is my favourite from hey what, those guitar textures are incredible

https://i.imgur.com/Jsn50Td.png
29. Shots & Ladders
Released on Trust (2002)
352 points, 14 voters
2 points for "Shots & Ladders 2" (from the "Canada" single & A Lifetime of Temporary Relief)
Trust version
Shots & Ladders 2

a lot of the ones I voted for are now showing up. The Lamb is the first track so far that is top 10 for me

https://i.imgur.com/qwaodUD.png
28. Breaker
Released on Drums and Guns (2007)
370 points, 13 voters
20 points for "Breaker (Dub Plate)"
Music video
Live at L'Omnibus 2007
Retribution Gospel Choir version
Breaker (Dub Plate) (yes, it's mislabeled)

while the live version would have been great on a great destroyer 2, the sparseness of the studio version's arrangement has a real power to it

my hand just kills and kills
there’s gotta be an end to that

D&G stuff got a big bump for me thanks to DN and HW- and the “Breaker” video is top tier

https://i.imgur.com/MaRXqke.png
27. Shame
Released on Long Division (1995)
394 points, 13 voters
Music video

I voted for the Breaker (Dub Plate), and earlier for Venus (Time Stereo Dub Mix). After the first few records I get most excited about Low when their template gets distressed or abstracted.

the time stereo dub mix of "venus" is great yeah

i'm not huge on long division but "shame" is one of the real gems from it

I never knew they had all these alternative rock-era music videos for their Vernon Yard records!

I love Long Division as a limit-case of their early form, but I get how it can be kind of a tough hang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbCF2OqZOfE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AESrPcQRgc0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_3q0_m7JCY

didn’t specify this version on my ballot but the IG live performance of “breaker” literally brought me to tears

https://i.imgur.com/YKedsTm.png
26. In The Drugs
Released on Trust (2002)
397 points, 14 voters
Studio version

last one for today

i think “shame” was my sole long division vote

Looks like 120 Minutes played "Shame" once, as the final video on July 9, 1995

And "Over the Ocean" once, also as the final video, on December 15, 1996

secret name had a lot of videos, "weight of water", "don't understand", "home" and "immune" all got videos but they're not officially uploaded on youtube & some of them aren't there at all

& i was kinda amazed that the songs for a dead pilot "will the night" got a video

I’m not generally big on lyrics but those of In The Drugs completely get to me.

i'm not huge on long division but "shame" is one of the real gems from it

Same here - I first came to it via the video on the DVD that came with the box set (I haven't seen any of those clips in a long time though).

Weight of Water is one I'd overlooked until I went through the albums again. Shots and Ladders another great track - probably my favourite album closer of theirs?

“Shame” was the only Long Division track to make the ballot for me as well, though “Violence” came close.

I included 4 from Long Division in my top 30, but none in the top 10.

My ballot favored early Low.

y’all need to get right with your opinions about “stay” and “below & above”

long division > i could live in hope (sorry)

I ranked Long Division third on my albums list, it's awesome.

I keep saying this but it blows my mind that anyone could rank a song like "Broadway" over a song like "Whitetail."

I wouldn't even out "Broadway" in my top 80 or 100

I swear if the top ten are all from post-Trust albums I will absolutely lose it.

yeah "Shame" is in my Low top 5 trax

there's a r/indieheads low poll i can point you to that has most of its top 10 from ones and sixes

xp

I love Broadway

i also love broadway and almost suggested BROADWAY….SO MANY PEO-POLL as the name for this thread

Great album poll results, I think the only one I had that didn’t place was “In the Fishtank.” I’d be very curious about how the Burton produced albums are rated in ten years or so. They have this Berlin-era Bowie vibe for me right.

Unsurprisingly, I find “Double Negative” to be their “Low”!

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Monday, November 22, 2021 10:33 PM

I thought of this post tonight, and was thinking about a similar analogy with Eno's work with Talking Heads, where their first record together has more of a "traditional" producer/band dynamic, and then goes on to become more of a collaboration over the next few records, eventually down to similar setups where the band lays down tracks, leaves, and the producer does their thing.

"Shame" made my ballot and "Violence" would have if we could extend it a few more places. Long Division is not one of my favorites, but still a solid listen with those highs

I just realized that Pissing (on GD) has the same chord progression (I think) as John Prine and sees them taking that exercise to the opposite extreme

Yeah, I think "Majesty/Magic" also uses the same progression (and just sounds like a lesser version of John Prine in general). "Pissing" always sounded like their take on Slowdive's "Avalyn" to me.

"Broadway" clicked for me when someone in another thread here said it sounded like the answer to the yearning posed in "Lullaby."

The Lamb (only seven voters !), Shame, White Horses, Weight of Water, No Comprende and Shots & Ladder were on my ballot from yesterday. I can hardly complain about the songs that are not my idea of Low because I doubt my votes were perfectly coherent. I sound like a broken record already, but for me it's a testimony of their consistency. I'd have a hard time singling out a song that does not belong in the results.

Drums and Guns was one album where I only voted for one song, but Breaker with its minimal wave and claps is totally lovely.

"Violent Past" was my #1. The studio recording is a beast, cathartic noise over a churning, insistent, inevitable beat. Like a Nine Inch Nails experiment mixed with Zeppelin's "Kashmir". The lyrics are simple but horrifyingly grim. On the announcement thread somebody wrote that In Silence/Murderer/Violent Past is one of their best three song runs, which is completely OTM. It's their best closing stretch for sure, even if D&G as a whole isn't in their top tier of albums.

yeah, well put. the organ + its embrace of that sort of carthatic distortion are also obvious predecessors for double negative

i'd agree it's their best closer unless you ignore "dark" in favour of "do you know how to waltz"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq--nrquHIA

this is terrible quality but lmao

yeah, well put. the organ + its embrace of that sort of carthatic distortion are also obvious predecessors for double negative
i'd agree it's their best closer unless you ignore "dark" in favour of "do you know how to waltz"
― ufo, Thursday, November 25, 2021 11:18 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

For what it's worth, I'd take In Metal, Shots & Ladders, DJ and The Price you Pay over both. At the risk of sounding blasphemous, the 14 minutes of DYKHTW sound very cinematographic, quite like a GYBE track, but leave me cold emotionally.

i'd easily take "do you know how to waltz" over anything in gy!be's catalogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t_RcCOvhF0

there is this bootleg of them performing it together once though

several XP - I’d do one better and say “Take Your Time” through “Violent Past” is their best album run.

lol y'all are fucking insane