FELT ALBUM POLL BEGINS HERE

which one has crystal ball

i mean seroisly man i'm never gonna be able to distinguish those albums in a katrillion years man

uh.
funny alan mcgee piece

And what was with the guy on allmusic who called them "new age pap" just for calling a song "Sapphire Mansions"? This was a band that had already named a song "Sempiternal Darkness" years before! What did he expect?

"Crystal Ball" is on The Strange Idols Pattern, thanks. :)

Forever Breathes the lonely word is a fine album.

"Poem" is my kneejerk answer, and I'm sticking with it.

I like the Creation period better, in general...and I can come up with too many complaints about the others if put to the task. "Pictorial", for example, is great, but too slight, as a whole. "Forever Breathes" is maybe overrated a tad. Some of the lyrics are brilliant, while others stretch too far on the side of "pretentious". The background vocals on that record never sat well with me, either.

I understand that Lawrence was unhappy with Mayo Thompson's production on "Poem", but I think the songs are just plain beautiful and evidence a maturity that is lacking on some of the Cherry Red offerings. I gather that by the time of "Poem"'s release, Lawrence had absorbed just the right amount of good stuff from whatever stable of singer-songwriters haunted his record collection at the time.

If "Tuesday's Secret" had magically managed to find its way onto "Forever Breathes", then I would probably vote for that record without hesitation, but...

i couldn't possibly choose one. it would be rude. i love them all so much. i'm gonna have to ignore this thread. people always say such rude and ignorant things on felt threads and i get so upset.

i hope i dint come off as rude. I was referring to my inability to sort them out, which isn't a qualitative statement. A congenital annoyance.

oh don't worry about anything you say! i'm just a big baby when it comes to felt and all things lawrence. you know those hardcore smiths fans and belle & sebastian fans? yeah, like that. that bad.

you're talking to one(b&s), nuff said

Voted Ignite the Seven Cannons, but really, I have to say that because I owned that wacky double-LP cassette with Idols Pattern/Cannons and played it to sad cassette demise, it's a tie.

I can never find Felt records anywhere. I have Forever Breathes the Lonely Word and I'm taken more with it with every passing year (especially "Hours of Darkness have Changed my Mind"), so I'll go with that.

I grabbed "Dismantled King is Off the Throne" off of lovefingers.org recently and it's so great that it tempts me to vote for Strange Idols based only on that.

Felt is a band you either fall madly in love with or loathe. I joined the Felt cult with Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty and stayed with them right up to Me and a Monkey on the Moon.

skot, it's simple. let bygones be bygones.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I went with "Strange Idols" because I used to put the needle back on the first song over, and over, and over...

The two I haven't heard are "Pictorial Jackson Review" and "Train Above the City." What am I missing?

Pictorial is great! Actually, it was the first record by them I ever bought. One side is a series of very short pop songs with some beautiful lead guitar figures, and Lawrence alternating between Dylan and Lou vocal impressions. The other side consists of two long and sorta forgettable Martin Duffy instrumentals. (I do like some of the Duffy instrumentals on some of the other LP's/singles quite a bit, though).

Train is the infamous record where Lawrence's sole contribution was naming the songs. The story told to the press at the time was that the record was made to recoup the costs of one of the band members having invested in a vibraphone. Half of the record is uptempo numbers; the other half is more meditative pieces. I prefer the slower half...I don't think that it's entirely inaccurate to draw a comparison to some of the early Chick Corea Return to Forever mellow tracks.

Can't keep the early ones straight so voted for Me And A Monkey.

The Splendour of Fear!

Back In Denim

Splendour of Fear for me too. I'll have to dig out FBTLW tonight though.

this is impossible! the creation compilation bubblegum perfume might be my favourite felt artifact, the design is so perfect and the weighting of instrumentals, pop songs and concept oddities is spot on. For the purposes of this poll though i'm in a four way bind between strange idols, poem of the river, forever breaths the lonely word and the splendour of fear. ahh if only i can't make love to you anymore had made it onto poem of the river as intended, that would have swung it.

Ah, I neither love nor loathe, I got a greatest hits type thing off emusic, I can't say I'm really bothered.

the thing about felt is you either love them, loathe them or are completely indifferent to them

I went for "Poem of the river", because, well, it's perfect. Lovely cover, lovely songs, lovely production, "Declaration" is the best Felt album opener and "Dark red birds" is the best Felt album closer. And it's not all that bad between them either.

Terrible production on Poem of the River. Muffled sock, blame Mayo Thompson. Lovely songs though.

I think Ignite the Seven Canons is really badly produced too. Has that Robin Guthrie sheen all over it. Also it breaks the Felt rules, not being symmetrical (6 songs on one side, 5 on the over).

I don't think "PotR" is that badly produced - I like the sound of it, it sounds kind of live, and don't forget that the first two songs weren't produced by Mayo at all. I agree about "ItSC" though, I loved the production at the time but now it just sounds too reverby and washy, no bass. I love the Felt rules - albums have to balance, and must the word 'the' in the title.

Only one I own is The Pictorial Jackson Review so I'll vote for that

I bought that one first by accident.

Has anybody noticed how the bass player pretty much plays the same bassline in every song?

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

i think the production on poem of the river is exquisite, crisp and loads of space , i'm thinking especially of the long songs, not so much declaration. mayo thompson gets loads of grief for his 80s indie productions but i think he generally did a good job of letting bands sound like themselves. Good voting. i wish i gone for let the snakes crinkle their head to death now.

Last night I was singing my way through "Snakes" thinking what an under-rated album it is, because it's just so odd and short. But I'd still stick by my Poem vote. I expected "Forever..." to win though, as it would have been my second choice.

it is a magical record. i have a soft spot for train above the city too, i probably listen to it more than me and a monkey on the moon or ignite the seven canons. not so keen on the b side of jackson pictorial review tho. the structure of that record always reminds me of de capo, i wonder if that was deliberate.

I was always disappointed by "Me and a monkey...", I thought THAT had a poor production, and the change in lyrical style didn't really make sense until "Back in Denim" came out, it was very transitional. But it did have good moments, but sometimes it drags, and Felt albums never dragged before, they were short and sweet, even with long songs like "The stagnant lake" and "Riding on the equator", they were never boring. Agreed on side two of "Jackson" too, I sometimes think Lawrence was losing interest in the band by then - hence an unbalanced album again (8 songs to 2?). I could be wrong, though.

I have reacquainted myself with "Let the snakes..." again this week. It made the perfect soundtrack for an hour's worth of ironing yesterday lunchtime. Such a sweet little record - the songs exist for as long as they are needed then disappear again. The world needs more records like that.

Had I seen this earlier I probably would have voted for "The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories".

Wow, someone else liked Snakes besides me! Coolness. I haven't heard that in way too long. Hell, I don't even have it anymore.

I just discovered 'snakes' and I can't stop listening to it. Fans of library music would definitely like this one IMO.

Listening to Forever Breathes the Lonely Word for the first time. Oh man.

So great. The last three songs might be my favorite stretch of Felt period.

“wave” especially is the one of the greatest pieces of music I’ve ever heard