At last, someone picks the only Icicle Works song that I would have on a greatest list.
Those guitars are so industrial you can almost hear welders and f*** cranes in them; tremendous.

could change my stereolab song every day. i already have twice. i may even choose to have iron and wines cover version of peng 33 as that is totally and utterly marvellous. i bloody love stereolab me like.

he likes nick drake and elliott smith an all and they both made great records and topped themselves.

persoanlly i think jish should be made a moderator.

I agree with Chip

What starts off as a good idea quickly degenerates into .... my music is best and the more obscure the music, the more points I score....... I just love it.

The Specials - Ghost Town
Pale Saints - Lanuguage Of Flowers
High Llamas - Checking In, Checking Out
Prefab Sprout - Bonny
Elliott Smith - Ballad Of Big Nothing
Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Nick Drake - River Man
Nancy Sinatra - Kinky Love

well i dont think stereolab are obscure. most of the people i knock about with are aware of them, and have probably seen them live at some point. jish likes em, hawklord likes em, mr karl marx has got them on in his car, and i dare bet mr mad john has seen them a fair few times.

i first heard em when i was recording a live sesssion with the field mice on the bernard lanoios show for radio france in 1991. he played super electric and then done the interview with us and we was all going " who the fook was that by then?"

cos latetitia is french we assumed they was a french band. i was pretty gobsmacked when he said they was english, cos none of had ever heard of them.

you have to remember before the internet, nme and melody maker had the power to make or break bands in this country, and if you werent flavour of the day your only outlet was john peel.

in places like france and germany they were much less scene obsessed. they just judged bands on what they sounded like. it was common for bands who were largely unknown over here to be big in europe and vice versa. theres loads of brilliant bands who sold hardly any records in this country, simply because they either couldnt be marketed or because they refused to suck up to the music industry. nick drake sold hardly any records in his lifetime ffs. now just about everyone is aware of him.

stereolab had a foray into the charts a couple of times, and indeed they played on top of the pops at least once i seem to recall. they have been making records for 17 years so they must be doing something right. they are one of those bands who you either really really like or who you really really hate.

you could say the same for bands like teenage fanclub, who just keep churning out great records that are largely ignored by the media.

im not choosing "obscure" bands to score points or to make myself look better than anyone else. i would imagine mr mad john has most of the records in my top ten. thats just the stuff i like best.

AH ...denial of the obscurity element is in no small way a realisation that the inevitable advance of the new, is able to be absorbed or even accomodated in the cocepts you espouse. To realise that to travel in parallel with each new wave or creation is to decide which part of the musical spectrum one can pin a label on and choose as ones own. To span too far for a neatly constucted and lucid thought pattern is to be honest with ones own perception of things musical and ask the question ...when are we gonna sign someone

Can - 'Tago Mago' is an awsome piece of German music. National anthem also one of the best I reckon. Then there was that old guy, Beethoven and his mates. Time to re-assess perhaps?

french cinema i do like though.

Isnt it just a bit pretentious to say you "like french cinema"?

You wouldnt actually say you "Like American Cinema" would you?

Sarah Cracknell??? The bird out of Stereolab???

Rollocks.

For brains, beauty and brilliance, you can't beat..

beatrice dalle ? juliet binoche ? catherine deneuve ? her in amelie ? you cant knock the french birds.

they is always prepared to get their clothes off if the roles demands it an all.

I am not stupid. If I was stupid, I would be having stupid conversations with stupid posters like you. But I am not having stupid conversations with stupid people like you.

So therefore, I conclude that I am not stupid.