What is the best track on "Script of the Bridge"?

if thiiiis is the stuuuuff dreams are maaaade oooof
no wooonder i feeeel like i'm floooating on air

(that one)

yeah me too. Approaching 100 plays on last.fm w/that.

There is no way in hell I can pick a fave off this album. Forget it. Not now, not ever.

Gasp! I can't believe Lillywhite produced them and I didn't know it until now. Holy jesus.

I haven't had Fan & the Bellows in sooo long...omg

"Don't Fall" has always been a source of inspiration for me. The whole album is just about unimpeachable.

I've heard "Less Than Human" too many times in too many variations (live, acoustic, session, etc). It just comes off as whinging now.

The Pernice Brothers do an insanely great and different version of "Up The Down Escalator".

this album kind of tapers off at the end somewhat, huh? i'm having trouble remembering how "a person isn't safe anywhere these days even goes"

days" even goes

this album kind of tapers off at the end somewhat, huh?

UH NO, the last half is fucking fantastic. And shame on you for suggesting that "View From A Hill" is "tapering off."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

xpost - yep, "View from a Hill" is pretty much the highest possible note to close an album out on

btw i voted like a week ago, "Second Skin" iirc.

Curt1s, what did you vote for?

i'm going w up the down escalator

I voted for "Second Skin." VFAH is second. They're essentially the perfect inverses of each other.

I meant to pull out this album this weekend but somehow got derailed and put on Strange Times instead. Anyway alas, this is still on the floor in front of my stacks, waiting to be picked up.

I voted for "Second Skin." VFAH is second. They're essentially the perfect inverses of each other.
-- Curt1s Stephens, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 01:56 (5 hours ago) Link

You are correct. And the best part of all this...is that earlier this year I saw Mark Burgess and Yves Altana in Austin TX and they played a handful of Chameleons songs among the new material, including "Second Skin" (encore!) and "View from a Hill," and also, um, "Looking Inwardly" and I think "Perfume Garden," all four great of course.

I must have died a thousand times!

But it makes no difference in the end
He's coming after you, my friend...

But, yeah, I'm a sucker for the extended elegiac echoey coda, so "View From a Hill" gets my vote.

"escalator".

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

even though i didn't vote for it i'm still surprised 'monkeyland' didn't get a vote.

surprised "View From A Hill" only got 2!

Definitely no surprise at the winner...

This indicates very little. Just 24 votes? The Chameleons not high on the ILM all-time popularity list...

I think potential voters have gotten jaded to polls.

Okay, I did actually listen to this whole thing today and it's really lost something since my teenage years...just feels like trying to wear a jacket I've outgrown. I didn't get a chance to vote, but I was gonna say Up The Down Escalator because at least that sounds somewhat happy. View From A Hill and Less Than Human were the only others I found I could still enjoy. But then this was always my least fave Chameleons album to begin with.

This indicates very little. Just 24 votes? The Chameleons not high on the ILM all-time popularity list...

i dunno; personally i was thinking it'd only get 12-15 votes, so 24 surprised me!

i retract prev. comment in consideration of "view from a hill" which is actually really lovely

the coda to "pleasure and pain" is one of my favorite things about this album, shame it didn't get a vote

Shiiiiit I havent been on ILX in weeks and I miss this poll :(

WOuld have voted for VFOH, just to confuse Curtis ;P

O, Traycepaws!

Revive to note that the CD remaster is out.

A 2-disc set featuring a re-mastered version of the original album, plus three exclusive mixes - and a live concert recorded on the band's 1983 European tour. Twenty-seven tracks in total. The album is presented in a digi-pack sleeve with brand new artwork by guitarist Reg Smithies.

Full Tracklisting:
DISC 1 (re-mastered album) - Don't Fall / Here Today / Monkeyland / Second Skin / Up The Down Escalator / Less Than Human / Pleasure and Pain / Thursday's Child / As High As You Can Go / A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days / Paper Tigers / View From A Hill.

DISC 2 (previously unreleased mixes) - In Shreds / Dear Dead Days/ Things I Wish I'd Said/ (live in concert Bremen 1983) Don't Fall / Here Today / Thursday's Child / A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days / Less Than Human / Pleasure and Pain / Second Skin / Paper Tigers / Monkeyland / Singing Rule Britannia / Up The Down Escalator / View From A Hill

Woo, another live show!

That's sarcasm.

I imagine the vaults are pretty bare at this point, though the interesting odds and sods stuff released on Imaginary in the early 90s must be way out of print.

Yeah, that's my thought. There was a live in Berlin disc from 1983 released at that time.

How did I miss this poll? Then again, all I would have done was move "Thursday's Child" up from a tie for 5th into sole position.

Listened to this again recently. I agree with Bimble: this always seemed like the least of the three albums (still a great album though obv) - perhaps the songwriting is as strong or stronger than the second album (will have to listen to that now to confirm) but it misses the lush swirl on most tracks, and Mark hadn't really learnt how to sing properly.

Easy to see why "Second Skin" is so popular. It rises above the rest. So epic. And "View From A Hill" sounds like the work of a later, much more sophisticated band - just beautiful.

But I think my favourite track is "Less Than Human", perhaps not so much as a song (though it's very catchy), but the track grooves so menacingly, like nothing else of there's I've heard. It's almost balearic-goth.

nothing else of their's obv.

What Does Anything Mean was my first Chams album...back in 1992, I think, is when I got it...and it will always be the sentimental favorite, especially since what's seen as its biggest flaw by some, the sheer overload of digital delay epic whomp, is precisely why it works so well for me.

"Less Than Human" as balearic-goth...Yello comes to mind for some reason as a contemporaneous reference point. Not sure why!

I worked backwards with about a year between each find (97/98/99) so maybe that's why Script of the Bridge seems a little bit less special to me.

I love the production on What Does Anything Mean. Surely the best thing about it! The keyboards on "Home Is Where The Heart Is"!!!!

Indeed indeed. :-)

Thing is, you can create an alternate What Does using the two BBC session CDs -- they all have more 'live' versions, or at least more quickly recorded, of every song on the album save for the opening instrumental "Silence, Sea and Sky" (which since that's the first Chams song I ever heard at all is therefore even more special, etc. -- it's as perfect an introduction as, say, "Arrogance Gave Him Up" is for Sulk).

seriously, what's 'monkeyland' doing with no votes?

i always seem to miss these polls, but that's the first song that would've jumped out at me

i find this to be a pretty even album packed with gems throughout - strange that only one third of the tracks were represented in the poll

and a half-remembered tune
played softly in my head
he said:

but is this the stuff dreams are made of?
if this is the stuff dreams are made of
no wonder I feel like I'm floating on air