"I Can Hear the Grass Grow" MUST be on it - or I'm shutting down the list!

Walk Upon the Water (my personal fave)
I Can Hear the Grass Grow
Night of Fear
Fire Brigade
Feel Too Good
Do Ya
Cherry Blossom Clinic

After that, um...Blackberry Way? California Man? Brontosaurus? I have a three cd set of their stuff and I kind of stall out after my six or seven favorites.

Pretty much the tunes that are already on the greatest hits comps.

There are a couple of GH comps, though, including the classic one with the truck on the cover. I think that one misses a lot of great songs and includes too much sludge from the Lynne period. "Fire Brigade" needs to be there. "Omnibus", which Alexmagic referenced is a contender that's never on comps, is it? "Brontosaurus" is the best of their Power and Glory of Rock numbers, and needs to be included. Some of the numbers you suggest, Tvox, are what I think turns a lot of people off. As much as I love "Feel Too Good", that's a tough pill for many to swallow. That's a lot of P&G of R! Two songs that you suggest and that are considered among the band's best-known tracks I think kind of suck: "Blackberry Way" and "Cherry Blossom Clinic". Then, is their version of "Do Ya" essential? I'm not sure it's a Top 10 among their stuff. "Night of Fear" I can probably live with. I don't recall "Walk Upon the Water" - that must be a needle-lifter for me. Do any other Move fans - real fans like I consider myself - agree that they put out a high percentage of turds and awkward songs that only true believers could swallow?

See, this is the kind of discussion that has always kept me from exploring the Move at all. That and the existence of Jeff Lynne.

What I would do, in constructing this intro, is identify the 5 or so templates of Move songs, such as the driving Who-style number, the delicate Beatles-style number, the '50s pastiche, and The Power and Glory of Rock workout. Then I'd try to find the best examples of each. This approach, however, may assume that newcomers to the band can handle the broad scope of song templates.

I'd be unable to cut such a comp to 10 songs but here are a few more I like a lot:

Beautiful Daughter
Until Your Mama's Gone
Useless Information
It Wasn't My Idea To Dance

Please explain, BigSteve. I'm intrigued. And is your hangup with Lynne based on his Look? There's much to dig by The Move prior to Lynne's ruining the band's overall Look.

Thanks, Al. I'm suggesting 10 songs because multiple-CD sets have failed to turn on a new generation to this band. "Beautiful Daughter" is a strong contender for the McCartney-style numbers. "Useless Information" is a stone-cold winner that's often excluded from comps.

Is anyone else as big a fan of "Chinatown" as me?

What I meant was that Tvox suggests a seven-song list, and it already has songs on it you think kind of suck.

And I admit that my original aversion to ELO-era Lynne had a lot to do with his Look. But I've just never liked his work. I hate the way he records background vocals. Even though he's worked with some people I really like and who seem to really like him (e.g., Tom Petty), my aversion based on ELOphobia remains.

I love Chinatown. That's one of the first Move songs I knew. It must be on that two LP best of - the one with the moving van on the cover - that I remember buying from a dealer with a few crates of LPs on the UPenn campus back in my college days. (I know I bought a couple of albums that day but the Move is the only one I remember.) That was my first Move purchase.

I understand the 10 cut limit. For me, though, the appeal of the Move is the great variety and I don't know how to break that down to just 10 cuts. Even if I eliminate songs that I know I like but that I strongly suspect most anyone else wouldn't like, I'm still over the limit.

I'm not a big fan of the later proto-ELO period stuff (except for the songs I previously mentioned), or for that matter, the Auntie Ethel's Peppermint Bicycle Emporium period. I like the psych-mod stuff the best. Walk Upon the Water, from that period, is definitely no needle lifter:

http://20-248-e.onlinestoragesolution.com/
spikepriggen/public/Walk%20Upon%20The%20Water.mov

BigSteve, the only reason I came forth with my opinion that a couple of the songs suck was not so much for my own edification as much as it was for the benefit of those who might be introduced to the band through this compilation. Plus I want to stir up some necessary shit. The Move has been living under the radar in the US for too long. Maybe part of the problem has been that no one's done an adequate job of packaging a sampler of their music. We can change that, but some honest opinions must be expressed, some feelings might be ruffled, and we'll have a laugh at the end of the process. I know we can work through this!

Mmmm... I just tried to activate the link to the "Walk Upon the Water" video that you sent us, Tvox, but we don't have permission to go there. Sorry about that. I know which period you mean, and I'd lean toward that period as their strongest as well.

Hmm...try it from this page:

http://bedazzled.blogs.com/bedazzled/2005/06/walk_upon_the_w.html

How about Hello Suzie and Wild Tiger Woman?

I'm also assuming the little girl xylophone and Idle Raceyness of Here We Go Round the Lemon Tree would be a bit too much for the beginner. Same thing with that whistle tooting in Curly.

Man, I love "Curly", but god knows how many potential Move fans I've scared off by including that on comps. You may be right about saving that for "Vol. 2," Mockcarr. "Hello Suzie" is a P&G of R contender. "Wild Tiger Woman" may be controversial, even among hardcore fans. Are any other Move fans scared off by parts of that one?

1. Do Ya –has to be on, to convert the people who know of an ELO connection and are resistant because of it. Everybody’s first reaction is to like this version better because it sounds more “raw.” Even though I’ve come around to liking the ELO version better again, this is still a card you gotta play

2. Sunshine Help Me – a live cover of a Gary Wright/Spooky Tooth song, it turns up on the one live Move recording that gets official releases. Rocks really hard and has some great guitar playing, if you ask me, and you want to let people in with that instead of trying to sell them on something like Curly, which I also like a lot.

3. Fire Brigade – as good a way as any of bringing in the weirdness, the essential Roy Wood-ness of the band

4. Message From The Country – Lynne song, big and expansive sound that people can hang a Beatles influence on if they need to “recover” from Fire Brigade

5. I Can Hear The Grass Grow – I would have had Night of Fear on, but either one works

6. Omnibus – shorter, just a great song. One of Wood’s best and I love the bridge

7. Brontosaurus – Turkish Tram Conductor Blues is better at this, but Brontosaurus is the one to start somebody off with. Hello Suzie or When Alice Comes Back To the Farm could also go here, maybe.

8. Words of Aaron – Same role Message from the Country plays at #4, big Lynne song without being as odd as What? or Open Up Said The World At The Door; you can tag a Beatle-y sound to it if they need a landmark

9. Useless Information – Just a great song, and this keeps the same distance from Omnibus that Omnibus has from Fire Brigade

10. Beautiful Daughter – I’m not sold on this to close, but there should probably be a more typical Carl Wayne lead vocal on here.

I think this covers most of their various directions to figure out what part of the band a person likes. I wanted to go with Fields of People on here to close, but the extended ending could drive somebody away. Yellow Rainbow or Night of Fear could go in that 10th spot. If you’re bringing somebody into this as a Beatles fan, Blackberry Way comes with its own weird Beatle-related back story and Lynne’s The Minister is like a murkier Paperback Writer.

Do any other Move fans - real fans like I consider myself - agree that they put out a high percentage of turds and awkward songs that only true believers could swallow?

Oh yeah. Wood needed a filter if they were going to be big.

And is your hangup with Lynne based on his Look? There's much to dig by The Move prior to Lynne's ruining the band's overall Look.

I think The Move had a pretty awful look even before Wayne left, Lynne joined and Wood started embracing his Napoleon hat, eyepatch-wearing time traveling caveman aesthetic.

Good stuff, Alexmagic. That Spooky Tooth cover is a winner. Get your choices in, Townspeople, before we circle back and try to pare down these fine recommendations. I'm pretty sure we'll end up with a mix that attracts converts. We can post the final results in the coming week, or maybe right before or right after Hear Factor hits bigtime (just awaiting a few more mixes - they may be at the Post Office as I type)!

'Ella James' is my sleeper choice.

So my guess is there aren't many Move fans in the Halls of Rock. Slightly surprising, as always.

I'm one!

I think "Something" might be a good intro (but then, I was not aware that Curly was a proven turn-off, because I would definitely choose that too) as it has a nice, soulful vibe, and it isn't too freaky.

I haven't had the time to really keep track of the 10 tracks that are currently making the cut, but if "Wild Tiger Woman" isn't near the top of the list, I'm resigning my RTH commission.

Incidentally, I clicked through to the Kaiser Chiefs' version of "Flowers In the Rain" from the vuh-deo you posted, and it was GOD-awful. Now *there's* a band that did a quick nosedive. I'm a bit surprised; their first LP was pretty darn good, and they had an *awesome* stage show.

HVB

You know, it's possible that one reason the band lacks a few more fans than it might otherwise have is all those crappy Best-Ofs that floated around on record. I remember some of you guys going on about this band years ago, and then I picked up some Best-Of package. Really terrible sound, no notable system of organization, just a few bits of tinny caterwauling that made no sense. So I'll be interested to see whether my impression is a function of the quality of the band or just of the record I made a mistake in buying and got rid of long ago.

You've tapped into exactly what I'm getting at, Mwall. Quality control was lacking in the presentation of The Move from the git-go. We're here to rectify that.