Wire: The A-List Poll

Sunburn jets, price marks, smart bets

And the funny thing is: This album was compiled by means of a Poll! Imagine that!

The first 8 tracks are wonderful.

Apart from "Wrin kill Paws", I don't recall immediately how the rest go.

But, I assume they are wonderful too.

OK, will vote: The revolution's begun!

I stop listening after "Silk Skin Paws" meself.

You're missing three bona fide works of genius if you do that :)

I can't decide right now. I'm tempted to go for something unlikely like In Vivo, just to be contrary. But really, it's between Ambitious, Serious of Snakes, Drill, Kidney Bingos ... oh, hellfire, it's between pretty much all of them. Nads.

Eliminated: Ahead, for not being Ahead II. Harsh but fair. And everyone else will vote for it anyway.

Potentially eliminated: Ambitious, for not being the how-long-is-it-again? Middlesex Gorge version. But maybe not.

My problem with Ahead is that it's not the Band of Susans version.

Kidney Bingos, easily.

Is there a best-of compilation prior to 85?

Yeh, I've got it on vinyl. Fuck, what's it called?

On Returning, that's it.

And the funny thing is: This album was compiled by means of a Poll! Imagine that!

The track ordering is in order of popularity, right?

thanks for finding the title -- am listening to it now!

i hadn't heard this version of 12xU before "got you in a corner got you in a corner got you in a cupcake(?) got you in a corner"

I'm tempted to go for something unlikely like In Vivo, just to be contrary

Actually: no, would it be so contrary? Am listening to the whole album now for the first time in ages and that song really is an absolute fucking joy; in some ways the absolute acme of the sound they were making (texture and melody in perfect harmony).

But then there's Drill ... the band would no doubt put Drill at the centre of this stuff, and they'd be right to do so. In some ways voting for anything else would seem wrong.

It's funny: I'd been meaning to go back and dig out all my mid-eighties Wire stuff for a while, and this thread has given me the reminder I needed. Doesn't make making a decision here any easier, mind.

On Returning, that's it.

I hate that compilation. How can you make a best-of for the first three records and leave off Map Reference, Mannequin and Too Late? And The Other Window instead of The 15th? For the love of God, people...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh, SilkSkinPaws!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Looks about right.

No argument with the results, but "Torch It" is really monumental. I've recently gone back to "Manscape" and the Wir album and while they're clearly not the best of Wire, they've still got great high points.

Ambitious is probably my personal favorite

I remember
I remember
Making the body search

I remember
I remember
Making the body search

I remember
I remember
Making the body search

It feels like this period has been terribly underrated and dismissed due to the production values and technology of the time. But this is primo material!

Lewis doesn't always agree with me but I am really feeling the bass on "Finest Drops" rn!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFn_mGFs1Vg

Never gave 80s Wire a shot, but they have some pretty good tunes. And strange, low budget videos.

I also want those sunglasses Colin Newman is wearing

that mix of SSP is different from the one on A List.

What tune?

Pardon?

Silk Skin Paws

"Kidney Bingos" shreds.

Pardon?

I didn't notice much of a tune there, like a lot of 80s Wire: some guitar pedals, no hooks, a sliver of melody, more guitar pedals. They were great live though.

I see.

Has anyone sampled the authorized bootlegs Wire sells on their site? Any standout gigs?

Also, that Youtube video is the 7" version of "Silk Skin Paws", nicely different.

I did get the full "D&E" gig, I thought it was all fine. If Wire themselves thought it a disaster for reasons other than the audience reaction, then fine. If it was because of the boo-boys, they should have continued to give the audience what they don't want, like Dylan fought on...

And so on.

I'd heard all the songs on this before, but not in this context. It's startling to hear all the "hits" in a row in the first half of this compilation, devoid of any conflict with the listener's enjoyment.
My bias is toward Colin Newman's vocals and melodies (his solo records from this era are my favourite Wire-related releases of all). With that in mind, my personal Wire A-List would omit:
- "Ambitious", "Torch It", "Feed Me" and maybe "Drill"
and include:
- "Free Falling Divisions", "Follow the Locust" and "A Public Place" from A Bell Is a Cup, "German Shepherds" from IBTABA, and "You Hung Your Lights in the Trees/A Craftsman's Touch" from Manscape. According to the recent book Read and Burn, the latter is Robert Gotobed's choice for greatest Wire song; it gets ignored because it is buried as the final track, 10 minutes long, on their least-loved album.

it's a masterpiece yes

It's the perfect balance of the Colin Newman and Graham Lewis sides, it's sort of Wire's "A Day in the Life".

I mean, 23 Years Too Late, but yeah ;)

"German Shepherds" from IBTABA

This is a hauntingly beautiful Wire song, but only this version! And yes, You Hung Your Lights in a Tree/A Craftsman's Touch is a fair candidate for best-ever Wire track, definitely a masterpiece.

Doesn't sound like Wire to me tbh. Some strange choices on this album. Where's "The Offer"?

The A List track listing was determined by their fan club (and some select band associates) voting on their favorite songs, IIRC

Ah, interesting! They never asked me though.

haha, we should have an ILX poll and create the B List

I thought the least loved album was The First Letter.

B List surely everything from Object 47 until now (let's leave Send/Read & Burn 1-3 out of it as they'd rather dominate, I fancy)

Boring, Maryland: I haven't heard the Wir album yet, but the reviews I've read have basically said, "at least it's an improvement on Manscape".

imago: I'd rank the songs on Red Barked Tree above most of those on Send.

The B List exists!

https://www.discogs.com/Wire-Coatings/master/152053

"Manscape" is odd in that the lp version missed out a whole bunch of tracks from the cd version (including the 'title track'), and "You hang...." is three minutes shorter!

I can't remember much about "The First Letter" but I definitely remember it being better than "Manscape", it's still not great though. Graham Lewis is basically the lead vocalist, or there's not much Colin Newman on it at least, it sounds more like a He Saud album in some ways. Actually the best track on it has a lead vocal by Bruce Gilbert!

imago: I'd rank the songs on Red Barked Tree above most of those on Send.

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 01:06 (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay, to me this is madness - Send is one of my all-time favourite albums by anyone

In the list of albums I've played more than five times, "Change Becomes Us" is right in there...

The First Letter is weird and doesn't have many tunes on it. I remember buying it and feeling very misled by the single (So and Slow It Goes) which is an outlier on the album. Manscape is definitely better in a lot of ways (and I never thought it was bad in the first place, but it was the first Wire album I owned).

Right, the single is one of the best tracks, along with Bruce Gilbert's "Ticking Mouth" and "Footsi-Footsi" is really catchy, too.

The best thing from the Wir era is the "Vien" single, with the missing title track "The First Letter" and "Sexy And Rich (Janet)".

And there's a hidden gem which I missed for years - they do a remix of Erasure's "Fingers And Crumbs" which is 9 minutes of gloriousness.

oh jeez I forgot about that, it's epic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7wC0hzmDjI

I love the tone Newman gets from his guitar.