April 02, 2012

Data

A few days ago I asked for suggestions for a theoretical "best of" MTX collection, mostly because I've been working on getting the back catalog back together for digital re-release and it seems like a "greatest hits" type option would probably be good. Plus, I was just curious.

I got way more responses than I expected (and I appreciate them very much.) I hadn't intended to do a systematic tally, but there were too many to keep in my head at the same time, so I did. I suppose it's a pretty good measure of what the most popular tracks are, though it's not in any way scientific. The general thrust of it is not surprising, but some of the details weren't necessarily what I expected. For instance, "More than Toast" is #1 by quite a big margin. I knew people liked that one, but I wouldn't have guessed it was so clearly preferred to all the others that are so similar to it. Ha.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the top twenty, tallied from responses received via blog comment, email, facebook, and twitter. I only counted songs from MTX releases; I didn't count "likes" to facebook comments; when someone listed the same song twenty times I counted it as one; and when someone said something like "just put all the tracks from Love is Dead on it" I didn't count that at all.

More than Toast 159

Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend 112

Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba 95

Sackcloth and Ashes 94

The History of the Concept of the Soul 85

Swallow Everything 83

Book of Revelation 75

…and I Will be with You 73

Dumb Little Band 71

King Dork 70

Tapin' Up My Heart 68

Velveeta 68

At Gilman Street 63

Last Time I listened to You 61

Fucked Up on Life 61

Here She Comes 58

I Fell for You 57

I'm Like Yeah, but She's All No 57

Naomi 56

Thank You for Not Being One of Them 55

The next two "tiers" of "vote"-getters were:

Deep Deep Down 54

I Wrote a Book about Rock and Roll 54

Love is Dead 54

Danny Partridge 50

I Believe in You 50

She's No Rocket Scientist 50

She's Not a Flower 50

With My Looks and Your Brains 50


Not sure I'll stick with the list exactly, whatever I do wind up doing with it, but this is all pretty good to know.

Thanks again for "voting."

Posted by Dr. Frank at April 2, 2012 03:55 PM
Comments

I made a "best of MTX" mix for my sister a few years back, but I only fit 19 tracks on it:

1. The History of the Concept of the Soul
2. At Gilman Street
3. Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend
4. Tapin' Up My Heart
5. How'd the Date End?
6. Alternative Is Here to Stay
7. Sackcloth and Ashes
8. I Just Wanna Do It with You
9. Dumb Little Band
10. Here She Comes
11. Love Is Dead
12. ...And I Will Be with You
13. King Dork
14. I Wrote a Book About Rock and Roll
15. Spy vs. Spy
16. Mr. Ramones
17. She's Not a Flower
18. Sorry for Freaking Out on the Phone Last Night
19. Shining

Posted by: Pete at April 2, 2012 04:16 PM

Hmm.. I Love You But You're Standing on My Foot didn't make the cut, but otherwise I support this list ;)
Like I said before, there are too many good ones to cut it down to only 20!

Posted by: Jesi at April 2, 2012 04:39 PM

Sweet! I could live with that.

Very interesting...

Posted by: Matt R at April 2, 2012 04:41 PM

I have great regret for not putting Velveeta in my list.

Top 21!

Posted by: MikeR at April 2, 2012 05:13 PM

If you re - release the back catalog.. please don't make it "sound better" because it never does, however new inserts and lots of words to read make it worth it to me not to thieve it from the internet but to go buy the things for the second time.. So it's like double good.

Posted by: Chris Mattern at April 2, 2012 10:33 PM

Ooh, if I put in my vote for "Deep Deep Down" and perhaps someone else does too, will it make the list? I love, love, love that track.

Posted by: Rev. Syung Myung Me/Kitysneezes.com at April 2, 2012 11:33 PM

(that said, I can't think of a track from the top 20 I'd wish down. I love the other bottoms like "Naomi" and "Thank You For Not Being One Of Them" so incredibly much too.)

Man, why couldn't you have written more lousy-yet-inexplicably-popular songs, so that way I could have been an elitist snob and been all "Oh, [Number one song on the list] is SO OVERRATED, you should bump that one for my choice! Gaaawd!"

Posted by: Rev. Syung Myung Me/Kitysneezes.com at April 2, 2012 11:36 PM

The Gun Crazy 7" blew my mind. I loved all of the other albums and releases, but Gun Crazy was the very peak of greatness.

And am I correct that the Show Business is My Life album doesn't count?

Posted by: Scott Tripp at April 3, 2012 12:06 AM

Chris, I am hoping to be able to re-mix at least some of the records. Milk Milk Lemonade's snare sound is a real barrier to listenability on many of the tracks, for instance. The vinyl of Our Bodies Our Selves sounds about 1000% better than the CD master. Those sorts of things happen when your budget only allows one try.

Scott: thanks for the compliment about Gun Crazy. I only counted songs on official MTX releases for this exercise. Show Business is something separate, but it will be available too.

Posted by: Dr. Frank at April 3, 2012 12:39 AM

Pretty much the only thing I'm missing from the MTX discography is the Road To Ruin LP, but I don't own a record player. Have you ever thought of putting it out on CD?

Posted by: Scott at April 3, 2012 04:30 AM

Scott, it is going to be released digitally imminently; not sure about CD.

Posted by: Dr. Frank at April 3, 2012 02:01 PM

"Alternative is Here to Stay" really needs to be on this collection.

Posted by: Dave at April 3, 2012 03:21 PM

What no votes for Cingular wireless worse than hitler?

Lol just kidding...

Posted by: Justme at April 5, 2012 02:20 AM