Taking Sides: Pram vs. Broadcast

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

they seem to be converging towards the same sound, however Pram exist in a more willfully odd and obscure vision while Broadcast seem rooted more in the senses of classic pop. Which is more preferable?

― keith, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i haven't heard Pram in a long time, or Broadcast for a while come to think of it. i lean on the side of broadcast but only because i find the singer from prams voice trying (she's still with them i presume?)

i agree that pram are more wilfully odd, broadcast sound kinda straightahead with any odd bits being embellishments rather than integral. i was always slightly disappointed with Broadcast, not for the reason stated above, but because they always seemed curiously limp and lifeless, they had some fairly good records but they always sounded a bit flat and monochrome after a few listens

― gareth, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Pram are one of my favorite bands so I'd choose them.

Pram always reminds me of prog-rock (even though they're not a prog band). They're fairytale-ish. Broadcast are urban, Pram are rural.

― Oliver Kneale, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

So what you're saying is that you're paging Robin to thread.

― Josh, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Pram makes the walls spin around really slow, and I have to go and lie down, it's a hot summer day and I'm age 7 and I have just eaten 16 scoops of pistachio. Because I had this idea that picking the flavour with the longest name would make me seem more sophisticated among my peer group. Good job I liked it, and this isn't an entirely unpleasant sickness, because it means I can go and lie down in the quiet room away from all of their silly banter, but they won't think I'm a wet or a sissy because they saw me eat all the ice cream. It's like a 'Rug Rats' version of 'Cool Hand Luke'

― dave q, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Broadcast all the way.

― Andy K., Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Rosie from Pram gets 7/10 for using an old ironing board to rest her keyboard on

but

Broadcast win with 9/10 for the diamond in the drummers tooth!

― David, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I really like Q's post. I also really like "The Noise Made by People". I haven't heard Pram.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i agree with the notion that pram are more fairy-taleish should that be a word and i think it is a combination of rosie's childish vocals, the coninuity of the themes of their artwork showing fantastical scenes and the lyrics that are both vivid and imaginative and not really concerning trials of her world. the girl from broadcast has a voice i could listen to forever, but i would still choose pram because they exist in their own little universe and create mesmerising (at least to my ears) songs of beauty. 'chrysalis' by pram may be my most favourite song ever and on most days pram is my favourite band and i bet they could deliver a truly terrifying soundtrack to some children's film to be shot sometime in the future.

― keith, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I've only seen Pram live the once. but I found them very enjoyable. I'd agree that they and Broadcast plough essentially the same furrow, but Pram's sound is bit more wilfully difficult, which is probably why Broadcast are massively popular and Pram aren't.

That and the fact that every member of Broadcast is more conventionally attractive than every member of Pram.

― DV, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i love them both a lot for different reasons that occasionally converge. 'oh man, you must be so torn,' someone who i just mentioned this thread to said to me.

but i'd have to say pram, not only because i adore their loopiness, but also i don't think broadcast has done anything that's hooked me as strongly and immediately as the second side of 'helium' did—'blue,' with rosie's icy vocals, drops of horns, and the feeling of the song spiraling up up up to its we-all-fall-down ending, is one of my top ten songs of forever and ever.

― maura, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

The last I heard from Pram, which must have been a few albums back, they sounded more like Movietone, only not as slick. As for Broadcast, "Noise" was a huge disappointment for me when it came out 2 years ago. Hadn't it been, like, three years in the making? It seemed kind of slight and timid, considering. But after seeing it praised without end by the swell people of ILM, I've gone back and found the love.

― Curt, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Broadcast, no contest. Pram are irritating in the extreme. The only record of theirs I can stand to listen to is the WJ 7".

― electric sound of jim, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sixteen years pass...

Broadcast for sure.

Unfair to compare these bands, Rosie and trish have similar voices but arguably trish has a lot of range and nuance that Rosie does not - Rosie is more hushed and jagged. In a great way.

Broadcast albums rated

Haha sound
Work and non work
Bsides bonus track version
Tender buttons
Noise made by people
Witch cults
Berberian sound studio

Eps

Extended play two
Focus group collab study series
Mother is the Milky Way
Microtronics all versions

Best album tracks
Man is not a bird
Unchanging window (chord simple)
I look outside
Be colony
I see, I see so
Winter now
Make my sleep his song
Round and round
Be colony - dashing
Winter now
Ominous cloud
America’s boy
Tears in the typing pool
Corporeal
Theresa lark ascending
Echos answer

Papercuts
Book lovers
Anything off work and non work

Extra non album tracks

We are the works in progress

Both bands come from Birmingham afaik.

― Ross, Saturday, 11 August 2018 06:35 (five years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.