Senses Working Poll-vertime: The XTC Poll Nominations and Discussions thread

that's a compliment?

'quite handsome' + 'Thom Yorke thing' were not meant to follow on from one another to be clear, I just saw the second photo immediately after the first

all time

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

Jeez, no limit on # of tracks? I think I can reasonably whittle it down to a top 50 but am not making any promises.

I will weight the votes depending on the lengths of ballots

Could you UNvague this a bit?

In the book XTC - Song Stories, Andy describes Colin circa Drums and Wires as looking like a cross between Chrissie Hynde and Nureyev.

Will probably sit this one out due to busy-with-school-ness, but I would probably only be able to contribute a relatively short, mostly hits-filled ballot anyway.

Οὖτις, are you doing graphics?

You could create hundreds of Dukes of Stratosphear album covers from sites like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliodyssey/sets/ and this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD_Brockhaus%26Efron

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b32_812-1.jpg/640px-Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b32_812-1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b31_217-0.png/378px-Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b31_217-0.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b25_380-0.jpg/548px-Brockhaus_and_Efron_Encyclopedic_Dictionary_b25_380-0.jpg

I will weight the votes depending on the lengths of ballots

Could you UNvague this a bit?

sure. For example currently my default scoring is for a 50-song ballot (from 50 points for no. 1 to 1 point for no. 50). But say someone submits a 100 song ballot, or a 75 song ballot. Then I would adjust the weighting so that it was 75 points for no. 1 and 1 point for no. 75, etc. So the points are going to be dictated, essentially, by whoever sends the longest ballot.

re: graphics - I don't have anywhere to host a bunch of images but if someone wants to help out on that end I would say sure

uh that weighting I mean

you just want us to rank the whole discography you total sadist

haha na I expect the majority of ballots will be in the 10-25 range as with any other poll, but if someone submits a long ballot I'm not gonna just chop it down

but that weighs the balance of polling power with those who've bunged more tracks on for no other reason anyway none of this matters

hmmm love XTC but not sure I can vote as I'm only really familiar with their Fossil Fuels collection and quite biased to the later material on there too. I like 'Poor Skeleton Steps Out' as well though.

yeah i'm a v casual fan, mostly the singles and Skylarking, Black Sea, English Settlement, but I'll spotify the week away & put something together. I like these sort of polls, pretext to direct your listening towards someone you forget to visit much.

but that weighs the balance of polling power with those who've bunged more tracks on for no other reason anyway none of this matters

it probably does a little bit in that they'll have voted for more songs and thus allocated more points, but for a ballot that has 10 tracks the number one spot will still get 50 points, just like the number one spot for the ballot that has 50 tracks. does that make sense?

2 ballots in already!

i listened to a lotta XTC, but really can't do this given baseball

I can't think of many other bands where the last song on the last album they officially released could reasonably be argued to be the best thing they ever did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuk8Ie8i3Pw

^^^absolute stunner yeah

not many bands with 20-year careers where this could be argued, indeed

but then you could reasonably poll just xtc's closing tracks and we'd have a helluva time

Jesus christ, I'm going to find this one incredibly difficult. Even if I did a Top 100 there'd be some painful omissions!

Was delighted all over again by how equally crude and clever "Pink Thing" is this afternoon.

Hahahahaha yeah, "spit in my eye, I'll love you for it"... and then that guitar solo!

So excited for this

hmmm love XTC but not sure I can vote as I'm only really familiar with their Fossil Fuels collection and quite biased to the later material on there too. I like 'Poor Skeleton Steps Out' as well though.

― Non-Stop Hongrotic Cabaret (dog latin)

That's what threads like this are for. Get yer listenin' hat on!

Excited for this. XTC are one of the few bands with a decent-sized discography about whom I can say I've listened to most of it lots and all of it at least a little, with repeated listenings over a period of many years. Although their quirks have become less charming and more irksome to my ears over time, they'll always be one of the greats as far as I'm concerned.

I might just try to rank the whole discography...

I just made a starter list and I'm already at 45 titles. I'll try to stop at 50.

Οὖτις, is there any chance you would accept an unweighted ballot from me (e.g. in a ballot of 21 tracks each vote would get 40 points and so forth)? I can just about manage to make a list of favourites but trying to rank them is making me sad. If this will screw up the system I'll try and work something out.

My first pass was exactly 50 songs. I think its a sign.

I pretty much used my iTunes "most played" list and then shuffled some things around

is there any chance you would accept an unweighted ballot from me (e.g. in a ballot of 21 tracks each vote would get 40 points and so forth)?

I think in that case I would add up what the max available amount of points for the ballot would be (for example, a 50 song ballot with the number one song getting 50 points and the number 50 song getting 1 point would have a total point count of 1,275) and then divide that evenly across how ever many tracks were submitted. In the 50 ballot example that would mean each song would get 25.5 points. Where this gets messy is where there's fractions/decimals left over cuz I'm not going to get into that hairsplitting level of detail on the results, so I'd have to do some rounding.

I dunno - it would be sort of annoying but not impossible.

oh no, that's why I picked 21- because it would be 840 points altogether, divided by 21 for 40 per song, unless I've screwed up the maths. If it's any trouble just allocate points based on the order they're listed since it will be as good as any other ordering. I'm excited about the poll!

well that will all work out then

I am really finding it difficult to predict what tracks will show up in the results with the exception of one or two things, I kind of get the impression that there is going to be less overlap on people's choices than most ilm polls? I guess it depends as well on the extent to which people who take part favour the earlier or later incarnation of the band, Fuzzy Warbles are another wildcard.

main reason I wanted to do this poll is that opinions about their catalog are all over the map. Unlike a lot of other artist-polls I expect this to be pretty unpredictable.

like people were saying, they do seem somewhat unusual for a band who released so many albums over so long a period of time that the last third of their catalogue is not post peak mediocre stuff that gets described as 'surprising good' in reviews, REM in the '00s type stuff

I felt I maybe shouldn't vote for any Fuzzy Warbles stuff because I still haven't actually heard all of them (I wanted to! but, god, he just kept releasing those things and I ran out of money), there are a couple of songs from the early volumes that I'm going to have to include though. For those who have heard all of the Fuzzy Warbles albums, did the quality stay consistent or were they front loaded with the good stuff in your opinion?

I got them all (eventually) and then there's gems scattered throughout. The way the volumes are assembled with no rhyme or reason, no chronology, etc. is kind of irritating. These days I just have them all as a single album and sort them by year recorded in iTunes.

11. REM Producer Enquiry – 2:36

^intrigued by this track title from vol 8

Best/recommended listening Fuzzy Warbles tracks that are not demos of officially released songs:

Ship Trapped in the Ice
Young Marrieds
Young Cleopatra (maybe Partridge's most er troubling lyric but damn what a tune)
Wonder Annual
Dame Fortune
Everything'll Be Allright (ridiculous but great children's song)
It's Snowing Angels
This is the End
I Don't Want to Be Here
Sonic Boom
I'm Unbecome
Autumn Comes Around

REM Producer Enquiry is a clattery mostly-instrumental track (there's some chattering about REM from Andy that sounds like its from a phone message or something) with a bunch of overdubbed jangly guitar parts

oo forgot When We Get to England from Fuzzy Warbles

Fuzzy Warbles is definitely worth it for fans of Andy's songwriting. I'd say each volume has about 5 or 6 great completely unreleased songs. The demos are fun but admittedly not something I listen to often.

X-post
Also the Bland Leading the Bland, Obscene Procession, Through Electric Gardens, Tiny Circus of Life, lots more...

yeah I'm not particularly fond of any of those (Obscene Procession has its virtues)

Also "The End", "The End Of The Pier" and "My Land Is Burning".

And the b-sides like "Chain Of Command", holy crap. Or "Extrovert". Or "Red Brick Dreams". Or or or...

main reason I wanted to do this poll is that opinions about their catalog are all over the map. Unlike a lot of other artist-polls I expect this to be pretty unpredictable.

― Οὖτις

I was really active on the XTC forum while it lasted and I was always amazed by the diversity of the forumites. People who came from the punk/indie underground world, people who came from the 10CC/Steely Dan muso axis, pop fans, rock fans... even people who weren't much into music but were really into XTC.

Damn forgot to vote in this. Looking forward to the rollout. My ballot would have been boring and had Nigel at number one anyway.

My ballot would have been the Dukes tracks, with some singles and various Go2/plus/"Take-away" tracks.

'Commerci-alli-TAY!"

ok Hideous Lump is gettin the graphics together, should start the roll out either later today or tomorrow, depending

now taking suggestions for results thread titles

'The Wheel and the MayPOLL'
'Meccanik Dancing (Oh We POLL!)'

why bless my POLL I'm already there

even I never know where I POLL when my eyes are closed

(I'll stop now)

Making plans for My Poll

This is Poll?
The Last Polloon
Ten Feet Poll

Poll Me My Daddy
Summer's Polldron

Tissue Voters (The Arguers)

ApPOLL Venus, vol 1: the songs

When You Poll Me I Have Difficulty.

Also Featuring The Songwriting Talents Of POLLin POLLding

Bless you, Bless You, All of the Pretty POLLS

and just to end the list, everything that could exist, needs the POLLing

^also suggestion for new ilm mission statement

Making plans for My Poll

― Mark G, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 4:44 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^i vote this one

haha 'Summer's Polldron' is good too KP

Life Begins at the Poll

I'm a thirty year old puppy doing what I'm Polled

Last one from me that I just thought of when I was out walking.

Mayor of Simpollton.

oh yeah, that too

^^^ I like it, simpoll and direct.

Train Running Low on Poll Coal.

"WAIIIIT TILL YOUR POLL GOES DOWWWWWNNNN!"

That is an obsceeeeene abomination of a poll.

AND ALL THE KIDS ARE COMPLAINING THAT THE SONGS ARE TO POLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

The Man who sailed around his POLL?

Fuzzy warPOLLs

^should actually do a Warbles poll.

hopefully this is not too much of a spoiler but it is pretty clear most voters didn't bother much w Fuzzy Warbles

:(

my thoughts exactly

AND ALL THE POLLS ARE FOOTBALL SHAPED

I think the best one was the first one, myself... 'The Wheel and The MayPOLL'

Sorry I couldn't get it together for an entry. I would've rep'd for a mess of Fuzzy Warbles.

ok Hideous Lump is gettin the graphics together, should start the roll out either later today or tomorrow, depending

Graphics are ready, let the Funk Pop a Rollout begin! (Well, in about 12 hours or so, seeing as you sensible people are all asleep right now.)