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

I consider Broadcast to be one of my favorite bands, but wow, I'm having a tough time getting to 40 tracks. I clearly gravitate toward the more catchy tunes, not sure if I have the fortitude to decide which Microtonics entry is the best.

At last standing 66 tracks had two or more votes, probably up to 70 with the latest update. Maybe should make a playlist of these to help people who don't want to listen to the whole discography. But also you can submit less than 40 if you like, no shame in that (as long as you include Phantom and Ritual/Looking In!)

"Living Room" was almost certainly the first thing I heard too, on a program devoted to new UK releases. "Sixties-influenced, a bit like St Etienne" the announcer said. (That might have been a halfway helpful comparison at that time? Can imagine "Living Room" in particular airing back to back with "You're in a Bad Way" or whatever.)

― Nag! Nag! Nag!

I seem to remember Bob Stanley calling Broadcast his favourite group at one point.

Chord Simple just came on & vaguely regretting not voting for it separately - I'm not a good music-describer so I'll just say pretty & I love the drums.

I just submitted my ballot. Got in fairly rough order and decided just to not fuss much more beyond that. The result - "Chord Simple" was ranked 41.

Yeah, no real minimum ballot length. Feel free to do weird things with your points too, if that makes it any easier. You could have a 20-way tie for 21st place if you really wanted. Or zany tiered arrangements.

eg.
40 tracks x 20 points = 800 total points
#1-#20: 700 points distributed distributed across the top 20
#21-#40: 5 points each

XP: Just saw your email pgwp! I should be asleep so I'll look forward to data entry in a few hours!

Superb 1998 South bank show featured on Gid Coe's 6 music show last night skip to 2:17 for the Broadcast but stick around for Coe's avuncular charm and excellent musical choices https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00175wr

Out of curiosity have people generally be including the eps in their releases list? I wanted to but it unspooled my mind....

I treated Work and Non-Work as an album but the other EPs, I treated as separate releases.

Same. But I also voted for The Book Lovers EP. Those four tracks are worth voting for twice.

I seem to remember Bob Stanley calling Broadcast his favourite group at one point.

Yes, he said in his obituary for Trish Keenan that "Broadcast, hands down, were my favourite group of the last fifteen years".

https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2011/01/trish-keenan-remembered-by-bob-stanley/

Looks I should have seen The White Bus. Accidentals is even eerier set to excerpts from (largely) that.

The unnamed "instrumental" from that BBC thing is particularly interesting. I really don't think I've heard that sort of guitar from them anywhere else.

^ Er, "Looks LIKE"

89 different tracks have now appeared on ballots. As CaAL said, just on 70 have been seconded/thirded/etc. But tracks in, say, the top 50 overwhelmingly have 7+ votes now.

We're still aiming for votes being finalised by the time Friday is over for everyone on earth. We have a federal parliamentary poll closing at almost exactly that same instant here, I just realised, but this here poll is significantly more important.

*bump*

Some 72 hours left to vote if you wish to do so.

https://time.is/Anywhere_on_Earth

Official bump soundtrack: O How I Miss You

can we submit mixed ballots? i can def piece together a ranked list of 10-15 songs but idk if i will be able to rank all 40

i have 40 songs picked, and my process now is listening, going "wow i love this" and moving the song to the top of my list. repeat process 40 times.

Mixed is fine. You can do pretty much whatever you want in terms of waitings (to a maximum of 40 points) and ballot length (up to 40 items) OR we'll just apply generic values from 40 down to 5 as outlined at the top.

Just start with 20 points x No. of items. (eg. 800 points for 40 items.) And divide up the total however you see fit.

Less than 72 hours… Probably not the best time to only *start* my re-listening. Dear me, forgot just how much music they made. In my head it was, like, 3 records. How have I got a pile of 10 to work through?

You can probably skip Mother Is the Milky Way tbh.

Ha, no way. That could be my second favourite at the moment - just the right balance between abstract and more traditional song structures. Kinda sums up what was good about Broadcast IMO.

Listening through everything it was my least favourite release (and Witch Cults, from the same year no less, is top of my LPs list) - but sth I can see from the votes so far is that there are many different types of Broadcast fan.

Mother has grown in stature for me, since the reissue. It probably didn't help that it was previously just a collection of mp3s that I downloaded and misplaced several times over lol.

"in terms of waitings (to a maximum of 40 points)"

Good lord, my brain barely works at all at 2 AM, it seems. Weightings, obv.

Any chance this could be extended through the end of the weekend?

I'll let CaAL express a view on that in the (UK) morning. I was trying to preserve a small buffer before possible commencement of the rollout early next week.

It's still almost 2.5 days till the end of Friday in UTC-12.* Maybe we'll see how people are going closer to that time?

* it's true, I am enjoying arbitrarily referring to a timezone with no inhabitants.

One more vote for the extension through the weekend
There's a reason every country votes on Sundays :D

I am OK for an extension, would buy me a little time to make the pictures.

XP: B-b-but...

Okay, until 11:59pm Sunday night then! As long as every such ballot contains "Phantom" and "Ritual", obviously.

...and "Inside Out", for that matter, kthx.

Here's the Daphne Oram EP mentioned in that obituary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1S8pDiuzJ4

what do your fans look like?

trish: it’s quite a mixture actually. ha ha ha. I suppose the one type I’ve come across more than any other is this short, small gay computer or website type guy. I don’t know why. I wouldn’t say they’re nerds. when I meet these people, I say “I know he’s gay and I bet he works in computers,” and it will come out and I think “how bizarre.”

This Chickfactor thing is frequently hilarious. Though y'all probably knew this decades ago.

XP: Cool!

ha, amazing!

cf: who is the most underappreciated artist in this country?

trish: autechre. I think they’re fantastic. there’s no compromise with what they do. they’re not massive either; they’ll pull a decent crowd, like at camber sands they pulled a good crowd. the autechre fans are always boys that can’t walk properly, they’ll push your pint into you. rude, horrible boys go to autechre gigs. I always get a laugh out of it. if they wanted to do a commercial track, it would be no. 1.

t/s: small gay computer / website guys vs rude, horrible boys that can't walk properly

lol how many Neil Bullock drum solos should I include on my tracks ballot? (yes, I’ve reached 2003)

It's interesting that the procession of drummers ended up being a bit hard to keep track of, for a band volunteering (in that Sean Hughes interview above) the protracted pursuit of "what bass drum sound we want, what snare sound we want" as the first reason for TNMBP taking forever to finish.

Somewhat related: I suspect them seemingly ceasing to care much about awesome-sounding drums, beyond a track or two, is a factor in Tender Buttons being the least durable LP for me.

Long voting periods are dangerous. Now I'm pondering all over again, a month later, whether the Children of Alice compilation should be on my albums ballot!!!

Help I just listened to "Corporeal" 6 times in a row can't stop

I guess we're back to something like 3 days out from the (revised) deadline. So here's yet another excruciating reminder not to dilly-dally!

90 tracks have received the nod now. And things are still pretty tight on the scoreboard. eg. the present #10 is barely (the equivalent of) one first-place vote ahead of #20.

extend it to Autumn as that's when most of the tracks sound best ;)

xps

I've been there only recently. Corporeal on repeat loudly is so addictive. Something about the drone-warmth & melodic clarity. I just don't want to leave it.

It is autumn here, for few more days! :) I can report that they are indeed sounding good.

I'm not aware of any other ballots originating from the southern hemisphere yet though, 'strue. Though some 'strayans have visited the thread IIRC.

Official soundtrack, for this *bump*, btw: Arc of a Journey

This was a lot of fun. I've been listening since mid-97, but had to write down lyric snippets in my spreadsheet to help remember what song is what--if you'd asked me to hum a bit of "Lunch Hour Pops" a month ago I'd have been stuck. When listening to Ha Ha Sound it was "ah yes the swirly one where the balloons go outside," and it's a favorite. So now I can properly ID most songs from a band I've long cherished. And I gave more attention to Berberian, Microtronics and Witch Cults than ever before. Thanks very much for doing this poll, and also for the great spreadsheet, which was very helpful.

voted!

I received one ballot in the last few hours, which is think is Torei's. (With a special note about 'Colour Me In' -- I figure that's distinctive.) Did you definitely send yours around the time of your post, kraudive?

The one message I had overlooked days ago had been erroneously directed to my spam folder. But not this one. Perplexing!

Just tried to send again.

Yep! Got it. Thanks. :)

I'm just entering a ballot which included "Winter Sun Wavelengths". Something which hadn't really occurred to me before. I recall it was ostensibly improvised but it was definitely a recurring thing in their late sets. I'm certainly not inclined to say it's ineligible!

I guess y'all have a little less than 2 days left, so you best not let it slip your mind now if you'd been working on a ballot!

Official soundtrack for this post: Microtronics 07

I was the one who included "Winter Sun Wavelengths". It was just so mesmerizing when I saw them on that last tour...and something I will never forget. Felt like I had to include it. Probably didn't give it quite enough points unless some other people have it on their ballot.

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