|
Post by greendemon on Sept 15, 2020 16:58:54 GMT 1
Good to see some love for Infinity Land rediscovering it was one of the best parts of compiling this top 10. There's a bit more to come from that album.
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 16, 2020 12:44:18 GMT 1
Another gem from my favourite Biffy album... 7. Saturday Superhouse (Puzzle, 2007)Putting this above 'Living Is A Problem...' might be a bit controversial; in reality, there really isn't much between my #9 through #6, but on my repeated plays of the album when compiling this list, this is always one of the songs I looked forward to the most. There's almost nothing that special about it - it's just a very straightforward rock banger, but if you were going to pick the most perfect straightforward rock banger from Biffy's back catalogue, you couldn't do much better than this. It's an early indication of the direction they were going in with Only Revolutions, but a little less overtly Foo Fighters-esque. As a counterpart to the 'terrible recommendations' thread, I've always thought of 'Saturday Superhouse' as a great starting point for getting someone into their music, as it's very accessible but also just a great song. One more to come from Puzzle - place your bets now
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,395
|
Post by TheThorne on Sept 16, 2020 12:46:46 GMT 1
Another gem from my favourite Biffy album... 7. Saturday Superhouse (Puzzle, 2007)Putting this above 'Living Is A Problem...' might be a bit controversial; in reality, there really isn't much between my #9 through #6, but on my repeated plays of the album when compiling this list, this is always one of the songs I looked forward to the most. There's almost nothing that special about it - it's just a very straightforward rock banger, but if you were going to pick the most perfect straightforward rock banger from Biffy's back catalogue, you couldn't do much better than this. It's an early indication of the direction they were going in with Only Revolutions, but a little less overtly Foo Fighters-esque. As a counterpart to the 'terrible recommendations' thread, I've always thought of 'Saturday Superhouse' as a great starting point for getting someone into their music, as it's very accessible but also just a great song. One more to come from Puzzle - place your bets now It’s got to be ‘Folding Stars’ it was my favourite at the tine but it’s just so sad
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 16, 2020 12:47:33 GMT 1
Had to edit my post after your reply as I found the official video in decent quality
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 16, 2020 13:06:00 GMT 1
I promised you an album track as well as more Infinity Land, so here we go...
6. Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave (Infinity Land, 2004)
So we go from straightforward, mainstream Biffy, back to their weirdest album. I've talked a bit about Infinity Land already and how I wasn't sold on it initially. Even then, this track was one of the exceptions: I always used to look forward to the bit in the middle of the album when you get this one and 'Only One Word...' back to back! Like pretty much everything on Infinity Land, it sees them playing around with time signatures, contrasting dynamics and tones, unusual sound effects (hand claps in this case), but here they manage to combine all of that into this multi-textured masterpiece. Again, it sounds like multiple songs melded into one. The more I listen to this album - and this song in particular - the more I think I've underrated it in the past.
This is the highest-ranking song from Infinity Land but I do have one more album track in the top 5. I would be surprised if anyone guesses that right as it's not one I've talked about much on here!
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 16, 2020 13:06:50 GMT 1
I will post the first bit of the top 5 tomorrow as I am still changing my mind about the precise order of some of them...!
|
|
Roo.
Member
Posts: 17,801
|
Post by Roo. on Sept 17, 2020 0:23:43 GMT 1
Oh I thought for sure it'd be Glitter And Trauma or Strung To Your Ribcage that showed up! I do love Wave though, although I'd struggle to think of an Infinity Land song I don't love!
I'm going to have to have a good think and come up with my own top 10 for Biffy, although I think I'll be very biased towards 2 or 3 albums.
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 10:42:39 GMT 1
You should!
I have to say I don't think I'd put either of those that high in my mooted ranking of all Biffy songs - I don't dislike them but then there isn't a lot of Biffy's material that I do dislike! I actually think my next favourite on IL after the two in this top 10 might be 'Pause It And Turn It Up'.
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 11:31:22 GMT 1
As a measure of how fluid this is, the next song was #2 until this morning... 5. Mountains (Only Revolutions, 2008)As far as I'm concerned, from here on out these are all joint #1. This one is a bit of a strange single: released in summer 2008 after the last single from Puzzle ('Who's Got A Match?') came out earlier that year, it looked for a little while like it might be a non-album single but then appeared on 2009's Only Revolutions - much to my delight, as I loved this song from the moment I heard it, with its piano-driven melody and its lyrics about defiance, determination and sticking together. Listening to it on the album, it does sound like a bit of an oddball and musically sounds a lot closer to Puzzle, but I still think it's easily the best song on there (though I do marginally prefer Puzzle to its successor, so...) Another brilliant straight-up rock song and one of Biffy's finest. Happily this seems to be one of the few occasions when Haven agrees with me about Biffy - this one made #3 in Time Machine It also reached #5 in the charts, their first top 10 single and their biggest hit to date! So that's it for Only Revolutions but next up is a bit of a curveball...
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 11:53:36 GMT 1
I alluded in an earlier post to a song I'd completely forgotten that had bulldozed its way through the rest of my top 10. It's also the most recent entry in the top 10, and my highest-ranking Biffy Clyro album track...
4. Different People (Opposites, 2013)
While a pretty good record (or records), particularly for a double album, Opposites is never going to be my favourite. It has some fantastic singles - 'Black Chandelier', 'Biblical', 'Victory Over The Sun' - but a fair bit of filler as well, which I think is kind of an inevitability with double albums (I still think the gold standard was set by M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming). The two CDs are called 'The Land At The End Of Our Toes' and 'The Sand At The Core Of Our Bones' - kinda pretentious, maybe, but I quite like the names!
I can actually remember the first moment I heard 'Different People'. I'd copied both CDs of the new album to my MP3 player, as we did in ye olden days of 2013, and had listened to the first one - 'The Land...' - on the train home. I liked it, but wasn't crazy about it on first listen. As I was walking home, I switched to the second disc, the first track of which was 'Different People'. It opens with Simon crooning 'Baby when you hold me' and for a moment I thought, oh god, I'm going to hate this... and then after two-and-a-half minutes of this incredibly slow, understated intro with some low-key guitar and synth in the background, it all just kicks off! I resisted the urge to play it again immediately, but I spent the rest of the 'The Sand...' just looking forward to being able to hear it again, and that's when I knew it was going to be one of my favourite Biffy tracks.
Before starting this, I can't remember when I'd last played Opposites in full so had completely forgotten just how good this is. It really wasn't supposed to end up this high but every time I play it I wonder if it shouldn't be higher. Biffy have some absolutely cracking album openers but this has to be one of the best they've ever done!
So if you've been paying attention, you may have worked out that the top 3 contains the final song from Puzzle, plus at least one song from the one album from the 5 in the top 10 that I haven't mentioned yet. All will be revealed tomorrow...
|
|
|
Post by -Big Dan- on Sept 17, 2020 12:47:11 GMT 1
I might have to invest some time into listening to Biffy and find out once and for all why they seem so loved around these parts.
|
|
|
Post by Razzle Dazzle on Sept 17, 2020 12:50:45 GMT 1
boo how could you do that to Mountains, top 2 for me easy
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 13:03:37 GMT 1
boo how could you do that to Mountains, top 2 for me easy It was in my top 2 this morning As I said, these are all equal #1; the top 3 are only the top 3 because they all have special significance for me personally. You think this is bad, just wait until you see what I have put at #1...
|
|
|
Post by Razzle Dazzle on Sept 17, 2020 13:12:54 GMT 1
Oh no not the Matt Cardle cover
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,395
|
Post by TheThorne on Sept 17, 2020 13:22:20 GMT 1
bet its '...Jaggy Snake' the sign of a early hard core militant Fan.
usually followed by everything they did after that was commercial sh*t!
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 13:25:37 GMT 1
Nope, no more Infinity Land! Also my favourite two albums are Puzzle and Only Rev so that doesn't make me a very good militant early hardcore fan I do like 'Many Of Horror' a lot. 'When We Collide' on the other hand...
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 17, 2020 13:28:10 GMT 1
I might have to invest some time into listening to Biffy and find out once and for all why they seem so loved around these parts. I'd start with Only Revolutions or Opposites, maybe The Vertigo of Bliss if you're interested in the earlier material That said if you don't like them, you don't like them! Personally I don't get the hype with Pet Shop Boys or Duran Duran around these parts.
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 18, 2020 12:40:30 GMT 1
Into the top 3 and we start with the Biffy Clyro song that got me hooked...
3. 57 (Blackened Sky, 2002)
The last album I hadn't mentioned yet is, of course, Blackened Sky. For the longest time this was my very favourite Biffy Clyro album: I came to it as a teenager with an emo streak a mile wide, and its dark, angst-ridden mood really struck a chord. Sadly, my opinion of it has waned a bit in recent years; perhaps it's just getting older, but I find some of the more sprawling and angsty tracks a little self-indulgent these days - on their own they're fine, but I struggle listening to the whole thing through. But it's still a fine album, showing great promise from a young band, and even close to 20 years after it was first recorded, songs like 'Justboy', '27' and of course this one still rank among the very best they've ever done.
When I was first alerted to the existence of Biffy Clyro via that Amazon recommendation in 2003, the first thing I did was to go on the hunt for mp3s of some of their songs to get a sense of if I liked them or not. The Vertigo of Bliss was also out by that point so I ended up with songs from both albums, as well as a few random B-sides. Very quickly I realised that Amazon had been onto a winner: I liked almost all of them. This one, though, I just loved the moment I heard it, with that belter of a chorus that I have enthusiastically sang along to whenever I've seen them live. Not long after that I bought both albums in quick succession. And so that's how it all started!
|
|
|
Post by greendemon on Sept 18, 2020 12:52:17 GMT 1
TheThorne called it. At #2 we have my highest-ranking song from Puzzle... 2. Folding Stars (Puzzle, 2007)This has been slowly climbing up my rankings for years now and it should probably be my #1 but my favourite Biffy song has held that spot for so long I still can't quite shift it. As is widely known, 'Folding Stars' is about Simon Neil's mother, Eleanor, who passed away in 2004 - apparently he was away at the time and didn't get to say goodbye. When Puzzle came out, it was always one of the standouts - it's a beautiful, heartfelt pop-rock ballad - but the subject matter made me a little uncomfortable. I mention my dad on here probably more than I should, but he is largely responsible for shaping my taste in music as a kid and, to a lesser extent, even now. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2005. By 2007, the disease had advanced to the point that having a conversation with him (or at least one where you could be reliably sure that he knew who you were and where he was) was becoming a rarity. Of course we knew we didn't have much longer with him and over the next three years he deteriorated rapidly. I was 24 when he died - I only realised this recently, but Simon was the same age when he lost his mum. Most people will experience their parents dying at some point, but no-one else I was close to had lost a parent that young - much less to a disease like dementia which one tends to associate only with very old people - so it was difficult to talk about. Music helped me make sense of it, and 'Folding Stars' in particular took on a whole new resonance. I used to listen to lines like ' In a bedroom with no windows or doors' and think, that must be what it's like to have dementia - to be trapped in a room (the line's actually about his mother's coffin). But instead of making me feel uncomfortable, that new resonance has helped me come to terms with what has been the most difficult experience I've ever had, and which I hope won't be equalled for quite some time. Ten years on, I am pleased to be able to say that it is, in fact, getting easier.
|
|
|
Post by Whitneyfan on Sept 18, 2020 13:06:42 GMT 1
'Many of horror' would probably be in my top 10 songs of the last 15 years by any act, let alone my Biffy Clyro top 10.
|
|