Your help is wanted for an article I'm doing for UNSCENE Mag

THE place for your Sisters-related comments, questions and snippets of Sisters information. For those who do not know, The Sisters of Mercy are a rock'n'roll band. And a pop band. And an industrial groove machine. Or so they say. They make records. Lots of records, apparently. But not in your galaxy. They play concerts. Lots of concerts, actually. But you still cannot see them. So what's it all about, Alfie? This is one of the few tightly-moderated forums on Heartland, so please keep on-topic. All off-topic posts will either be moved or deleted. Chairman Bux is the editor and the editor's decision is final. Danke.
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nightmusic
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Vital Statistics...

CyberAndy feel free to use the following (or ask me for more info...!)

Using the above 49 posts as the dataset, I thought I'd have a go at teasing out some hopefully interesting statistics... I've tried to keep this brief...

Firstly, the average age comes out as exactly 37 years old, which is also the median age. The 'standard deviation' or spread of the ages is 6.9 years.

The 10 most popular songs are:

1.
Ribbons (18 appearances)
2.
Nine While Nine (12)
3.
Body Electric (11)
4.
Temple of Love (10)
Lucretia (10)
5.
Suzanne (9)
Marian (9)
Floorshow (9)
Crash and Burn (9)
Burn (9)

The most popular album is Floodland (23 times) and then First and Last and Always (17 times). The other releases nominated were all way behind.

The average number of gigs attended was 15.8 (or a median of 10 – which is a more appropriate figure as the average has a very high standard deviation). There are two 'clusters' in this set; people that have been to 40 or more gigs and those that have been to 25 or less.

The most popular line-up unsurprisingly came out as Eldritch, Marx, Adams, Hussey, with the current line-up in second place. Given this result, it is notable that Floodland is the most popular album, given that the 'line-up' for that album was much less popular.

I had hoped to find correlations in the data; for example one might expect that the number of gigs attended correlates with the ages, but I actually found no such correlations...
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LouLou
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at one point i was seriously considering running a quick and dirty cluster analysis on the songs but i couldn't be arsed to code all responses in a single datasheet :oops: :lol:

more interesting stuff could be done had the songs been listed in order of preference though :|
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czuczu
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A Top 5 songs that contains 10 songs.

And not one of them is Alice.

I demand a recount!
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LouLou
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czuczu wrote:A Top 5 songs that contains 10 songs.

And not one of them is Alice.

I demand a recount!
there's no Lights either! :eek: :evil:

RECOUNT!!!!
_emma_
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LouLou wrote:
czuczu wrote:A Top 5 songs that contains 10 songs.

And not one of them is Alice.

I demand a recount!
there's no Lights either! :eek: :evil:

RECOUNT!!!!
That's because 90% of the respondents thought: "I cannot answer this. It is not possible to choose 1 one album, 5 songs, and one favourite line-up or gig." :)
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Holly_DelRey
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Your Age: 32
Top 5 Sisters songs ever: Temple of Love(without Ofra), Some Kind Of Stranger, Driven Like The Snow, Ribbons & Dominion/Mother Russia. (none of the last 4 in any particular order)
Favourite Album: First And Last And Always
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 0 - I still have my Sisters gig virginity (that shall change in Feb ;D )
Favourite Sisters Line-Up: Current
Favourite Gig: N/A
Worst Gig: N/A
Best Tee-Shirt: Tie between F*ck Me & Marry Me Young & Temple Of Love.

No memories as I haven't been to any of their gigs yet.

No connections really but Chris is on my arsebook. Seems like a really nice & cool bloke 8)
🇨🇦 🔁 🇺🇲
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sultan2075
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nightmusic wrote:
I had hoped to find correlations in the data; for example one might expect that the number of gigs attended correlates with the ages, but I actually found no such correlations...
Probably a much stronger correlation with geography, I'd guess.
--
The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
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SeiBiT
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Age: 18
Top 5 Songs: Alice, Train, Nine while nine, Colours, Driven like the snow
Favourite Album: Floodland
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 0 (Hopefully next year...)
Favourite Sisters Line-Up: Eldritch/Catalyst/Christo
Favourite Gig: N/A
Worst Gig: N/A
Best Tee-Shirt: Distance over time
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nightmusic
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Regarding preferred songs, I tried a couple of things...

Firstly, weighting the responses as if they were in order of preference... maybe subconsciously people did that (I think I did). We get (in order from 1 down to 10...)

Ribbons, Body Electric, Nine While Nine, Marian, Floorshow, Crash and Burn, Lucretia, Alice, Burn, Driven Like The Snow

But that's probably unreliable (though the list is very similar to the unweighted list). If one assumes people put their favourite first, then four others they also like, one can take only the first song in each selection and we get (top eight songs from 1 to 8... thereafter there were lots of songs with same ranking):

Floorshow, Some Kind of Stranger, Nine While Nine, Neverland, Marian, Lucretia, Body Electric, Alice

Notice that Alice now appears in both lists, but, however, Lights was far behind and actually got the same number of votes as... YCBTO...

Statistics can be twisted to say virtually anything, apparently... :lol:
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DomConway
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nightmusic wrote:Regarding preferred songs, I tried a couple of things...

Firstly, weighting the responses as if they were in order of preference... maybe subconsciously people did that (I think I did). We get (in order from 1 down to 10...)

Ribbons, Body Electric, Nine While Nine, Marian, Floorshow, Crash and Burn, Lucretia, Alice, Burn, Driven Like The Snow

But that's probably unreliable (though the list is very similar to the unweighted list). If one assumes people put their favourite first, then four others they also like, one can take only the first song in each selection and we get (top eight songs from 1 to 8... thereafter there were lots of songs with same ranking):

Floorshow, Some Kind of Stranger, Nine While Nine, Neverland, Marian, Lucretia, Body Electric, Alice

Notice that Alice now appears in both lists, but, however, Lights was far behind and actually got the same number of votes as... YCBTO...

Statistics can be twisted to say virtually anything, apparently... :lol:
Loving your stats!

My 2p:
Your Age ; 34
Top 5 Sisters songs ever ; Heartland, Neverland, Driven Like The Snow, Crash & Burn and gonna copy Avaritia and cheat with Flood I/II as one :)
Favourite Album ; Floodland
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters ; 6 I think
Favourite Sisters Line-Up ; Not sure but the last couple of gigs have been so good I'd probably have to say the current one
Favourite Gig ; Leamington Spa, 2010 :)
Worst Gig ; London Astoria, May 2 2006 where we could hardly hear the band
Best Tee-Shirt ; Utterly Bastard Groovy
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markfiend
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My Age: 40 (oo-er)
Top 5 songs: Alice, Ribbons, Summer, Floorshow, both Floods (;))
Album : Floodland
Seen them about 20 times
Favourite line-up: Von and Patsy. (I changed my mind about three times here :lol:)
Favourite Gig: 2005 "Night off at Joseph's Well watching Near Meth Experience"
Worst gig: Leeds Uni 2006 - too quiet!
Best T-shirt: PWRY or the Gegen Nazis one.

Meeting the band: got a kiss of :von: at the Near Meth 2005 gig, as documented on HL passim :lol:
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
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DocSommer
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markfiend wrote: Meeting the band: got a kiss of :von: at the Near Meth 2005 gig, as documented on HL passim :lol:
picture? ;D
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Ghost
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Your Age ; 28
Top 5 Sisters songs ever ; Temple of Love (original), Some kind of stranger, Nine while nine, Driven like the snow, Alice
Favourite Album ; FALAA
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters ; 3
Favourite Sisters Line-Up ; Andrew Eldritch, Gary Marx, Ben Gunn, Craig Adams
Favourite Gig ; Gaia 08'
Worst Gig ; Lisboa 06'
Best Tee-Shirt ; marry me young'
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Pista
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nightmusic wrote: Firstly, the average age comes out as exactly 37 years old, which is also the median age. The 'standard deviation' or spread of the ages is 6.9 years.
Really?
is that one SD or +/-3?
Cheers.
Steve
Just like the old days

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The Fat One
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Joined: 10 Mar 2010, 18:35
Location: Directly Above The Centre Of The Earth

45
Alice, Emma, Burn, Body Electric, Sister Ray
Reptile House (Does this count?)
Around 15 or 16 times
Adams Eldritch Gunn Marx
Electric Ballroom 11th August 1983 supporting Virgin Prunes
Forum London 2009
Jesus Loves The Sisters
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bangles
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nightmusic wrote:Vital Statistics...

The most popular line-up unsurprisingly came out as Eldritch, Marx, Adams, Hussey, with the current line-up in second place. Given this result, it is notable that Floodland is the most popular album, given that the 'line-up' for that album was much less popular.
I'm actually suprised - i thought it would be either Marx, Adams, Gunn or the Current encumbants...

Nice stats though!
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pikkrong
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Your Age: 38 (39 in 2 weeks)

Top 5 Sisters songs ever: Heartland; Temple Of Love (original); Alice (both); Lucretia My Reflection; We Are The Same, Susanne
(actually I am not satisfied by this list at all because Lights; Driven Like The Snow; Good Things; Train; Summer; War On Drugs; Ribbons and many more should be there as well)

Favourite Album: Floodland (if Some Girls / early singles and Reptile House don't count)

How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 32 - since it's so small number I don't need to say "approx."... yet? :)

Favourite Sisters Line-Up: before That Guitarist came (Gary Marx is God, by the way) and current (Adam Pearson was a top guy, too)

Favourite Gig: Austin 2006, Budapest 2006, Berlin 2009, Leamington Spa 2010 (maybe I forgot something)

Worst Gig: Las Vegas 2006 (that was easy)

Best Tee-Shirt: Sisters Gegen Nazis, Utterly Bastard Groovy, People's Republic... if I have to choose one - right now I would say People's Republic
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nightmusic
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@Pista, in answer to your question - it's one standard deviation,

i.e. ~68% of the ages were within 37+/-6.9 years (of course with only integer ages given that's only approx!)

The Median Deviation of the ages was +/- 3 years....
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avaritia
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markfiend wrote: Meeting the band: got a kiss of :von: at the Near Meth 2005 gig, as documented on HL passim :lol:
Not fair! I'd be less upset about not getting a kiss in 2001, if I knew he had a strict policy of not kissing any fans :cry:
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lex3000
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- Your Age: 35
- Top 5 Sisters songs ever: Body Electric, Floorshow, Ribbons, Poison Door, Come Together
- Favourite Album: Some Girls Wander By Mistake
- How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 54
- Favourite Sisters Line-Up: Eldritch, Pearson, Sheehan
- Favourite Gig: Fenton 1996
- Worst Gig: Nottingham 2001
- Best Tee-Shirt: Heroin Satan f**k
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Dr. Moody
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-Your age:37
-Top 5 Sisters songs ever:Ribbons,Lucretia,Flood II,Floorshow,Lights.
(today anyway)
-Favourite Album : Floodland
-How many times approx have you seen the Sisters: Twenty or so.
-Favourite Sisters Line up: Eldritch, Pearson, Varjak.
-Favourite Gig: Drogheda 1990
-Worst gig: London Astoria 06, second place Mares Vivas 08.
-Best t-shirt: Head and star.




:kiss:
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Caravaggio
Road Kill
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Your Age: 38
Top 5 Sisters songs ever: Alice, Lights, Heartland, Nine While Nine, Dominion/MR
Favourite Album: SGWBM (is that an album? if not: F&L&A)
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 7 times
Favourite Sisters Line-Up: Eldritch, Hussey, Adams, Marx
Favourite Gig: 1991/05/10, Berlin, Germany
Worst Gig: 2006/06/17, Greenfield-Festival, Switzerland
Best Tee-Shirt: classic logo
There have been better plans
But none that I could ever understand...
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Sita
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Whaa! I had no idea I was so average! :eek:
See for yourself:

Your Age ; 36
Top 5 Sisters songs ever ; Lucretia, Adrenochrome, Driven Like The Snow, More, Heartland
Favourite Album ; Floodland
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters ; 2
Favourite Sisters Line-Up ; Eldritch + Patricia ;D
Favourite Gig ; ehm... let's see what 2011 brings ;D
Worst Gig ; Hamburg 1990
Best Tee-Shirt ; not a T-Shirt person
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MadameButterfly
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what was the question again?
it's all about circles and spirals
that ongoing eternity
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Izzy HaveMercy
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Your Age: 35
Top 5 Sisters songs ever: BURN, Lights, Valentine, Poison Door, Temple Of Love (original)
Favourite Album: SGWBM (nice choice, it includes the Reptile House and all the nice old stuff! ;D)
How many times approx. have you seen The Sisters: 15 times
Favourite Sisters Line-Up: Eldritch, Hussey, Adams, Marx
Favourite Gig: August 8 1998, Eurorock, Belgium.
Worst Gig: February 22 2009, Brussels, Belgium.
Best Tee-Shirt: Utterly Bastard Groovy tee.

IZ.
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For Greater Good - Ambient Music for the Masses...
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