Come On Let's POLL - ILM Artist Poll #114 - BROADCAST (Polling and Lobbying Thread)

Hello!

I consider Work & Non Work to be a canon album, it was presented as their debut at the time, so would suggest that the compilations are in there with the other LPs/EPs. But there maybe should be a rule about whether we combine Microtronics or not.

Ha! Nice alias.

That sounds reasonable. The two Microtronics are so plainly linked thematically that that feels like perhaps the least contentious case to me! I also get how Work & Non-Work served as a cohesive Broadcast-in-'96 statenent.

Future Crayon seems messier. The likes of EP1, EP2, and Pendulum are 20-ish minutes long and the latter came several years later. Before that compilation arrived one wouldn't necessary group all that stuff together. On the other hand, arguing for the exclusion of one compilation out of three seems kinda bonkers!

I think people will have to decide for themselves which to go for with Future Crayon, if they can say whether they prefer to vote as LP or EPs on here then we can probably come to some sort of consensus. (I am not fussed either way)

I'd be reluctant to omit Future Crayon which is such a massive gorgeous slab - the constituent EPs are pretty much all perfectly-formed items but but suspect they'll get a bit lost in the voting next to the 'main' albums.

WANW includes the four tracks from the Book Lovers EP - this EP was where I got on the Broadcast bus but it wouldn't occur to me to rank it separately from WANW now.

future crayon had non-single trcks on it, whereas WNW didn't

"Hammer Without A Master" originally released on Wap100 We Are Reasonable People (1998) WAP100CD

"DDL" originally released on All Tomorrow's Parties 01 (2001) ATPR CD1

(not that anybody had the very early singles from WNW)

I only really know W&NW & TFC and not the individual component releases. For anyone like me, it would feel a little perverse to decompose them and then work out where I'd rank the EPs.

I think a consensus is emerging. :)

XP: Wasn't the recording of "Lights Out" on W&NW a bit like those tracks though? From an NME comp rather than a single? (I've never been 100% sure whether that was the same version tbh.)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/work-and-non-work-mw0000028624

says it was all previous singles. "but since most of it appeared elsewhere within the previous six months and not a single second of previously unavailable material is included, it's not worth much to fans of any duration."

(ignoring the point that the first two singles were largely overlooked and were not available on CD)

not that anybody had the very early singles from WNW

Well it's funny you say that, as I was going to start a gradual two-week daily run-through of favourites with this fairly dull anecdote.

In early 1996 I was in the habit of buying a few 7" singles every week from Magpie Records in Worcester, sometimes from bands I'd heard on the radio, sometimes I just liked the cover, as I did with this one:

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

I liked 'Living Room' fine, but 'Phantom' just changed everything. Never heard anything like it before or since, that clockwork rhythm, it sounded like the 'fairground' demo tracks on my uncle's Hammond(?) organ, but with the Theremin(?) making it sound like it was possessed by mournful spirits. The portal for me not just to Broadcast but to avant-garde music.

Here it is - Phantom

"Lights Out" was on the NME's C96 CD, I had to send away a cheque to get it, lots of odd stuff on there.

yeah, i see that now. that page i linked to and discogs just ignore track 9 not being on the singles completely.

first two singles were on Duophonic and Wurlitzer Jukebox so i'm not quite sure why i overlooked them, but i did. first i heard was booklovers and by then the first two singles were already on the rarities wall at Sister Ray for 10x what they originally cost.

I remember a live session on Mark & Lard just before the release of The Booklovers, but doesn't seem to appear on the Maida Vale CD, I think I probably taped it, will have a look for it.

There was an instantly-memorable live version of Come On Let's Go which was broadcast on Radio 1 at some point between late-96 and spring 2000 - poss as part of a set they did for R1 Sound City in early 98?

I remembered COLG from the 97 Evening Session, primarily because it seemed to be the most Book Lovers-esque of their new tracks (i.e. the only one not in 3/4 time) and this new live version felt much springier and (incrementally) faster than the prev version. When it finally got a release on TNMBP in 2000 I was kind of surprised that it wasn't more uptempo in final studio form.

But now it is 20+ years later and I wonder to what extent I've invented this memory. I may have been craving a more buoyant COLG for almost 25 years, bloody hell.

Further investigation indicates that it was Oct 97 rather early 98 - as evidenced by the NME cassette that had 'Misc' on it. 90 seconds of new Broadcast material was basically all we were getting between 97 and 99.

Why isn't "Misc" on Future Crayon anyway? Or the second section of "Where Youth & Laughter Go"?

I initially thought I'd misread the Maida Vale Sessions sleevenotes. "Look Outside" and "COLG" had been revealed pretty much fully-formed a full three years before I heard them on TNMBP? I should have had better UK intel in the '90s!

I saw them play at the Phoenix Festival in July 1997, quite likely they played some of the tracks from TNMBP but no set list online and can't remember any of the set.

I think Misc isn't on The Future Crayon because it isn't very good, ymmv etc.

Haha. It's a great soundtrack to this footage, at the very least.

"make my sleep his song" is something wonderful

Nag! Nag! Nag! at 2:03 25 Apr 22
Haha. It's a great soundtrack to this footage, at the very least.

There's another channel similar to that one which was attempting to upload a video for every Broadcast track although the last time I looked all the uploads had been blocked by overly aggressive copyright claimers (the same purge that took all Stereolab's videos down for ages). Must've been reinstated at some point though as they're back now.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3D767DF83686F484

Love how even some of the most amorphous Witch Cults segments made it into that batch. :)

Forgot to post something today, so here's an early track from the Maida Vale sessions CD, just an astonishing bit of music to throw away, maybe they thought it was a bit too 'Mysterions' but I think it's much better than that - Forget Every Time

Yes! Seeing as the BBC stuff (plus most of the remixes you pointed out) was my big weird blind spot, I've only been acquainted with it for maybe 6 weeks. But it almost instantly went onto my shortlist.

I hope the post-Witch Cults Ghost Box single won't go overlooked. Not least Inside Out. The Focus Group helps ensure it's agreeably incoherent lol. A fine smeary, quasi-motorik mess imho.

*bump*

Randomly selected track: Minim

(Well, I used Spotify to select it -- probably not truly random.)

Also, just in case it wasn't clear: there doesn't seem much appetite for excluding compilations from the albums ballot, so go for it!

gonna get a ballot together for this, but need to do some listening

Will Unchanging Window/Chord Simple votes get folded in with Unchanging Window votes?

I was just thinking about this! I'd say that's probably the most sensible way to go. Might even go so far as putting "Chord Simple" votes in the same basket, should there being any?!?

Makes sense but I wouldn't throw in Chord Simple - I think its voters will be voting for it deliberately separately.

Probably true. All three variants are certainly retaining distinct identities in my records, for counting purposes. I finalised my own ballot earlier and gave points to one of them! It's more a question of presentation at rollout time, I think.

Though that leaves the option open for voting for all three, I guess. Perhaps unlikely, but wouldn't necessarily want to preclude votes for "UW" and "CS" on the same ballot, at least. Any thoughts on this CaAL?

Anyway, I certainly think people should vote for the combined version just because it's purty. I'm pretty sure it didn't even register that "Chord Simple" had been an elaboration on a section of "UW" until they merged them, and then 22-years-ago me was like Ross here for a while:

The version of "Unchanging Window (Chord Simple)" from EP2 is probably my favourite Broadcast track ever.
― Ross, Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Just thinking about how each track on The Book Lovers EP had another unrelated track as a coda, a bit like a precursor to Microtronics, think my favourite is the one at the end of Message From Home.

artisan and blackwing. i edited them out into separate tracks on my copy, but not sure where i got the names.

they are mentioned in discogs and take their names from the recording studios they were recorded in

Vaguely related: I dig this take on one of their other bonus instrumental interludes, and their instrumental side more broadly.

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/beat-bandit-10-slept-on-psych-breaks-that-will-bend-your-mind/

I was only aware of a couple of these!

https://www.whosampled.com/Broadcast/sampled/

Incidentally, please don't count on any significant extension beyond the given deadline. We'll aiming for the week after that for the rollout. There's still a pretty generous ~3 weeks left, so let's pretend that we 'built in' the near-obligatory extension at the outset. :)

"WE'RE aiming" rather.

A curio today, here is a remix of a Badly Drawn Boy track, think I honestly prefer it to every BDB original - Another Pearl (Broadcast Remix)

starting to dive back into the catalog and it's making me want to re-watch lodge 49

amazing use of broadcast in several episodes, in particular "the book lovers" in one flashback scene

Fun Fact: very earliest ballots have cited 62 distinct tracks and 11 albums thus far. #ExtremelyPrematureFunFacts

I have a playlist of 40 songs ready to go. Feeling good about my choices, but still need to work on ordering them. I'll go through the playlist in the next few days to sort that out.

I was thinking again about "What You Want" aka "Dulcimer Jam" in the middle of the night. It's immensely unfortunate that we have no studio version of that, as I think would be quite popular in such an alternate universe. Freaked me out, it did, what with Keenan banging her twangy instrument and chanting "don't bleed (plead?) for the things you don't need", etc.

Given that it was seemingly the closer or penultimate track for over a year in their duo performances, it was surely becoming one of the most performed songs of their entire career. The crispest available recording might be the very last performance as the festival was, er, broadcast on the wireless. Anyway, it's on my ballot even though we have no definitive recording.

Whoops, that Youtube time index might the end of the song. It begins about 28:40, if that's the case.

Listening through today, Ominous Cloud is the one I had to bump up my list. I could listen to that outro forever.

It's also way higher on my ballot than I might have expected before this exercise! A *lot* of Haha Sound is, for that matter. I fear I underrate that whole LP when it's not playing.

Yeah, a few Haha Sound tracks have risen up my list too. It's always been my least favourite of the three main studio albums, but it really is an astonishing album.

Another thing I should mention in relation to late ballots: Familiar Shapes and Noises!

I didn't initially want to specify a lower limit on the minimum possible size of LPs/EPs, but I obviously ended up doing so where it actually mattered. This isn't "4 or more tracks" long, but I'm not particularly keen on excluding stuff, so it made its way into the results, somewhat inconsistently. Just in case anyone else really did want to list it but didn't, I'm happy to receive amendments. (And strongly-worded complaints about procedural sloppiness too, I guess.)

97 distinct tracks have received votes. We're currently nudging the 20 ballot mark. A quick check of recent polls suggests that that would put this at the TMBG or Cat Power level in terms of size of the voter pool. I actually like how a rollout would look with the current numbers, so this might even be ideal!

On the other hand, something like a dozen more people have appeared in the thread at least vaguely hinting they may vote. And up to half of ballots so far were from people I hadn't previously known were keen. So I haven't a clue what to expect.

Anyway, there's some 36 hours left!

Official soundtrack for this post: this drummer covering the drum part of Man Is Not A Bird

Voted Just made the results more conventional and boring

(Although none of their music is either so I'm probably fine)

Haha. No wrong answers innit. I seem to recall you jiggled a bunch of things around, as you'd hope.

About this time tomorrow the weekend will be over everywhere on earth. I'll close this down then.

Voted

For anyone who is putting together a last-minute ballot and suddenly facing quite how much music is there on the big playlist, here's a list of all non-big-five (W&NW/NMBP/HHS/TB/TFC) tracks which currently have at least one vote.

Witch Cults

The Be Colony
A Quiet Moment
I See, So I See So
One Million Years Ago
Let It Begin / Oh Joy
What I Saw
Ritual / Looking In
Libra, the Mirror's Minor Self
Make My Sleep His Song
The Be Colony/Dashing Home/What on earth took you?

Familiar Shapes...

Inside Out
Tuesday's Offering

Mother Is The Milky Way

In Here The World Begins
Elegant Elephant
The Aphid Sleeps
I'm Just A Person In This Roomy Verse
Mother's Milk Means Music

Berberian Sound Studio

The Equestrian Vortex
Teresa, Lark of Ascension
Our Darkest Sabbath

Microtronics

Microtronics 04
Microtronics 05
Microtronics 07
Microtronics 12
Microtronics 19
Microtronics 20

BBC Sessions

Sixty Forty
Forget Every Time

Various

Hammer Without A Master
'What You Want' AKA Dulcimer Jam
Winter Sun Wavelengths
And I'm Gone
Eyes Open
The Liminal Space
DDL

Remixes

Avril - Be Yourself (Remixed By Broadcast)
St. Etienne - Angel (Broadcast Mix)
Badly Drawn Boy - Another Pearl (The Broadcast Remix)
Miki Furukawa - Coffee (Broadcast Remix)
The Sea And Cake - Interiors (Broadcast Remix)

* checks the time at Howland Island, as one does *

https://time.is/Howland_Island

About 11 hours to vote, if ya wanna.

Ballot sent, extension appreciated!

argh I forgot Winter Sun Wavelengths, but there are several problems with my ballot anyway

^ You have space and time for it, should the oversight become unbearable!

We're sitting at 22 ballots now. 108 tracks have been given points.

I already said this, but the pool is *still* just small enough for any given ballot to make a decent splash. I get a play a little side-game, watching the rise and fall of stuff over time lol.

'get TO play', rather

ballot sent, apologies for weird formatting in my email

*thumbs-up emoji*

^ You have space and time for it, should the oversight become unbearable!

I seem to have a knack for misreading you, matttkkkk! Sorry. I now see I somehow took your post as a followup from Neue Jesse Schule.

This is likely my very last excruciating 'hurry up' post. :) If anyone else was planning to submit, the next 3 hours would be great.

I’m happy with your interpretations N!N!N! and I’m fine with my flawed ballot …

I think that's it for nominations, NNN do you have any more in the inbox?

votes not nominations gah

Nope. So the present contents of the spreadsheet are basically it.

Just submitted a ballot, hope it's not too late. No worries if it is tho!

Yep. I'm about 10 minutes from my proper computer, so I'll rush home and enter it, CaAL!

ok with me

Thanks! Apologies for the last-minuteness

That concludes the data collection, by the way. Stay tuned for the rollout.

And thanks for voting, voters! I expected a faaairly lean turnout, and hesitated for years, given the conspicuously chilly reception to the idea in the poll coordinating thread. I think it's likely I would have just let it rest indefinitely without Camaraderie at Arms Length occasionally agitating for it over there!

24 ballots is healthier than I dared to expect. A whisker short of, say, a Prefab Sprout. :)

Look there has been plenty of time for everyone to discover Broadcast, so if 24 is the most we can muster, I am actually forming a judgement of ILXors on this matter.

Haha. 24 is not really a suuuper-low turnout by ILX 2022 standards. eg. Daft Punk apparently attracted 30 participants last month and they surely shifted some serious units and made news bulletins when they disbanded!

Something that came up repeatedly (starting years ago) is the "I love them but the discography is too tiny for this" thing. I guess there aren't many ostensibly 'pop' acts who are actually NOT really that at all for half of their discography.* For some, a lot of the vocal-free stuff and messy later stuff may be almost sub-consciously dismissed at the outset. I think I get how one might end up with a pre-shrunk pool of plausible candidates.

*obligatory Stereolab comparison: I feel like they more reliably retained hummable wordless vocal melodies and driving rhythms when meandering away from the land of lyrics.

. Daft Punk apparently attracted 30 participants last month...

What do you mean apparently? No, THEY did get 30 ballots when all was said and done.

I simply meant "I just went and found a source that told me that's what happened". If I gave the impression I doubted this claim, it was not intentional. It'd be pretty peculiar thing to dispute tbh!

No harm no foul. It just stuck me as weird to put "apparently" in that sentence as if I made up some ballots or something. All is well...

Oh god, no! Nothing like that!

I'd be prepared to believe that my word choices are odd. Like, quite often. Language processing is legit a bit of a mess for me nowadays, lol.

My apologies, I should've brought it up.

Good luck with this poll, it sounds like they have a dedicated fan base. Which should make for a great poll.

Twas a fair query!

Something just occurred me: two consecutive polls for artists with an early release on Duophonic, sort of.

Camaraderie at Arms Length is busily preparing for the rollout!

I've a question in the meantime.

A voter mentioned, when submitting their ballot, that that original second section of "Where Youth and Laughter Goes" (or the interlude after it, if you prefer) was likely kept off The Future Crayon because of an uncleared sample. Anyone know what they might have sampled?

I feel like I've alluded to it a comically large number of times in this thread but perhaps not linked to it directly. THIS BIT :)

CaAL has advised that a rolllout thread will be initiated around Sunday, with the rollout proper likely being Mon-Fri.

I know all the things, but I'm no less excited lol.

Very excited for this rollout!

Here's another unacknowledged borrowed melody. (Mostly in the final 30s.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtqDsZ8skNk

Apologies for radio silence over here, frantically making images when I can find time between busy work week, my wife's visa documents, my mix for 1942, etc. (No worries, I've cleared next week almost entirely)

(If anyone has any images they would like to suggest, feel free to post them here, no promises on using of course, but good to have a decent stock to work from)

Results thread here:

TEARS IN THE TYPING POLL: ILM Artist Poll #114 - BROADCAST (Results Thread)

all very well linking from that thread to here but it's this one that people have bookmarked