Fallen Angel was mine for ages, the yell at the beginning would scare me half to death, so i'd answer it before anyone could even find out who it was!

Nice work, Chrissie. I don't know what the deal is, here in America. I can't get any interest!

I played TSSK to a friend ages ago and he wasn't fussed, said the melodies were not immediate enough for him. After a few listens he came to accept Mirrorball and The Loneliness of a TCD as the best two.... albeit still saying it wasn't his kind of music... I think he called it background music too.

It wasn't until he heard Powder Blue that his ears really pricked up. He then went on to admit love for Red too and he loves most of Leaders as an album.

He's still pretty blasé about TSSK though. I think it is their least immediate album... the music is more complex and layered. He doesn't believe in music that doesn't grab him first time and the tune has to be very immediate.

In this vein, I would probably go for Red or Powder Blue. If I were to use TSSK it'd be Loneliness due to its power.

Probably Leaders of the Free World or Grounds for Divorce - they're both instantly apealling!

Probably Mirrorball or The Birds. Both of them show the soft and the louder side of the band, both include instrumentals.

I got my Dad build a rocket boys! and he was crying his eyes out to Lippy Kids on the way to work on first listen so I'd go for that (he'd only known One Day Like This beforehand).

For me, Scattered Balack and Whites every time.

My 4 year old daughter loves Starlings. She's into trumpets at the moment, though...

I think varies from person to person. For one of my best friends, who since high school has relied on others (meaning, me) to find new music for him, I played "The Fix", and he was hooked. For another friend who is very into vocals and melody, it was "Great Expectations" that did it. My wife is very resistant to new music. Even after ten years of marriage, I'm still not sure why. For the longest time I tried to get her into Elbow, but no matter which song I played she seemed indifferent. So I gave up. A couple years ago though, on a six hour drive back from visiting family in Oklahoma, I played TSSK straight through. No real response at the time, but a few days later she asked what that album was we listened to in the car. Huh. I thought she was asleep. It quickly became one of her favorites. Go figure.

I love Starlings, and I'm not into trumpets!

It depends to whom I'll introduce it. For my mum I'll use "some riots" and for friends "mexican standoff" for exemple. But they are so many good songs that's hard to choose

i've had only one introduction to elbow where elbow gained a fan. first song was scattered b&w

First song I ever heard was "Weather to Fly" - that got me hooked.
Not sure it'd work for other people, perhaps too mellow.

To be honest I'd say One Day Like This or Grounds for Divorce as the best to introduce, granted they may just be considered overpopular singles here, but they're still great songs, and they're popular for a reason I suppose.

But music is a funny thing - I personally hate it when people "introduce" music to me, but I understand why they do it - I always get the urge to make people love the music I love, but it just doens't work like that.
If you think they'd like Elbow, just say that and leave it there - then the magic of discovery will be left to them, and they simply might just not like it.
Imagine if the first time you heard an Elbow song someone was leaning over your shoulder looking like this:

It'd put you off.

Sometimes the reason I love Elbow is that very few people around me also love them to the extent I do