[potsie]

Agreed. I like Scar, Atta, Possessed and Drop more than MMAW, Gift Shop, and maybe even Blow. If one of the new songs was going to take one of these polls, I would think this would be the round...but sentimentality is tough to compete with.

Is it sentimentality? Or are the earlier songs just better? I would think most in this group could get past the attachments of "time and place" in an effort to be objective (or at least as much as one could be in a predominantly subjective exercise) when looking at these songs. These polls are confirming for me what I fought hard to deny for many years.

Well, yes, and I agreed with you on that previously...these polls have also forced me to admit I really do like the old stuff better. But I grew up on those albums...they were central at a time when I was discovering music. I listened to them over and over. It's naive to think I could separate that from my subconscious.

There are a number of different factors that are going to impact how you view the songs. I agree that it is likely impossible to remove sentimentality entirely from the equation. However, for me, the greater barrier to being objective is song fatigue. If I'm listening to UTH, I'll skip NOIS. Undeniably a great song, but I've heard it a 1000 times before. Same with ABAC. This is likely more of a factor in my subconscious then sentimentality, and if anything it biases me towards the newer material, although not enough to not vote for it!