Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground Box CD1 Poll

the other 19 songs could be any songs, ever.. and my answer would still be cattle and cane

that's when i reach for my revolver!!!!!!!

good sleeper: song from under the floorboards

MoB

Burma til the day I die.

Mats

The phone is ringing and the clock says 4 a.m.

This is a great box set, and this disk is especially great. I went with "Temptation".

mission of burma, all the way.

but as for this box as a whole, no green, no credibility.

"A Forest," very easily.

damn this is hard. Right now it is a tie btwn "A Forest," "German Film Star," and "Black Celebration." Depeche seem kinda out of place on this comp but I love them too much to exclude them off the bat.

IT'S OBBBVIOUUUSSSS

(it is not actually obvious to me why I voted for that song.)

I've fallen for Temptation. Had they chosen Roddys Walk out to Winter or
Halloween by the Dream Syndicate things mightve been different

Ghosts

Up? Down? Turnaround...

I know the meaning of life. It doesn't help me a bit. I know beauty, and I know a good thing when I see it.

Temptation, with Cattle & Cane and I Will Dare close behind.

voted "A Forest"

oh the pain, I voted for tell me when its over, because I played it over and over when it came out and I got one of them french writers and wee-cakey-things-that-look-like-boats rush. I'm still annoyed it didn't become No 1 in the pop charts.

However Cattle and Cane is beautiful and Song from under the floorboards is one of the finest things a group of humans have created ever. I wish I was three people and could have given them a vote.

Oh and very nice album, even the couple of tracks I'm not a fan of are class.

many good songs (passions, dead kennedys, j&mc...) but I voted for A Forest.

toss between japan and dm. "ghosts" means so much to me and has got me through some pretty rough times, but these days i'm more in the mood for "black celebration" (though i'd find it difficult to seperate it from "flies on the windscreen" and therefore "a question of lust"; bc is one of those albums where i have to listen from start to finish, like tusk).

they are very similar songs i guess, subject wise.

A Forest indeed.

This is extremely hard and I am surprised at there being so many marvellous songs here. "Ghosts" and "Black Celebration" are probably among my fave songs ever. I guess I will have to go for "Ghosts". But then, fantastic songs by Aztec Camera and The Cure too.

I don't get why "I Will Dare" is consistently trotted out as top 'mats. It's their most underwhelming "hit" (relatively speaking) song, to my ears. Maybe you had to be in kollej in '85 to get it and/or I'm a retard (no offence to any retards out there). That Grant Hart song smoked my brains, though, so no contest for me. The moment in the video where the huge hunk of spit flies out of his mouth while he's singing Changed My Life.

It's easy to forget how great "Radio Free Europe" is. Laps a very strong field in this case.

this was the first box set that i posted as a poll that i actually do not own. i wanted to hear this before voting but won't have time to hear it first. there are some incredible songs on this compilation with some i have not heard in a long time. so it comes down to "A Forest," "That's When I Reach For My Revolver," "Tell Me When It's Over," "Temptation" or "Oblivious." i had to be true to myself and vote for the Cure.

the girl was never there
it's always the same
i'm running towards nothing
again and again and again...

The quality of the tracks I'm familiar with, makes me want to check out the stuff I've not heard (Dream Syndicate/MOB/X).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Funny, the period covers my teens and early twenties, and I know almost every track really well, but find I can't muster much enthusiasm for any of them. (Unlike the Nuggets and So What boxes, where nearly every one's a winner.) Seems like a really odd set of picks: "just like honey' over 'Upside down'? Really? Dead Kennedys. I suppose.

johnny hit and run paulene vs. just like honey vs. that's when i reach for my revolver vs. temptation

so i'm the only one who voted for "just like honey"?!?

no, i might.

i voted for "just like honey" b/c it's my favorite, but the only other song on this (mostly excellent" CD that would be as epochal would be "radio free europe." which i like well enough, but not as much as at least five other songs on the CD.

johnny hit and run paulene vs. just like honey vs. that's when i reach for my revolver vs. temptation

This, with Dead Kennedys and Go Betweens also in the running. Really tough one. I bought a copy of Los Angeles by X yesterday, it's really good!

Also, that Magazine song is really good.

Lost of good songs here, but I wouldn't want to listen to them in this sequence.

The sequence is a bit weird indeed. It seems like this CD contains tracks from the entire 80s. But I guess the rest of the CDs in the box do too, and that they haven't chosen to make it chronological. A bit like the "Nuggets" box sets, who are not chronological either.

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

I like these results. "Temptation", "A Forest", and "...Revolver" are three of the great songs of the 80's.

yeah a good spread of votes too. Nice poll!

Not good enough spread when "Black Celebration" had zero. I almost voted for it, and it's better than 90 per cent of the songs here.

I almost voted for it too, but I thought it was too much of a stylistic outlier in this box

this compilation captures a bit of my 80s listening, tho it misses some jangle and psychobilly. i woulda voted jmc song, tho the jam, rem, huskerdu, x, new order and replacements all figured highly--at the time. weirdly, the two songs im most curious to hear once now are magazine and aztec camera, probly because ive not heard them since the 80s.