(no subject)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Back! Back! BACK!! It's the Pop World Cup with not one but TWO round of 16 matches.

Group E winners GHANA take on pre-tournament favourites JAPAN: Can julietk maintain Ghana's momentum? Can cis build on a sluggish start?

And BRAZIL seek to repeat their group F triumph against dark horses the CZECH REPUBLIC. What has rookie manager mostlyconnect got up his sleeve? What fresh discoveries has thenipper brought us?

All tracks can be found at http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/popworldcup/ and if you've got any problem then email me at freakytrigger@gmail.com.

REMEMBER! These are two separate matches - you'll be rating Ghana against Japan, and Brazil against the Czechs, not all of them against each other. So let's meet the teams:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Doing it as separate polls means you have to vote separately, i.e press submit on EACH poll, probably refreshing in between. If you fill in both and then submit just one your votes for the other won't appear. Sorry - I didn't think this one through!


GHANA

Ofori Amponsah - "Sardin": Manager julietk told us: "Another out of the hiplife stable - and nominated for no fewer than 8 categories in the Ghana Music Awards this year, so this is a performer on top of his game. Although a little extra time may be required for this Ghanese side to really hit home, since the track clocks in at a possibly rather overdone 6 min."

JAPAN

Tommy February6 - "Love Is Forever": Boss cis let us know that: "♥ Tommy february6 is the first solo project of Tomoko Kawase, onetime singer in the brilliant green (the best mid-nineties British indie band to come out of Kyoto). She loves Pikachu, cheerleaders, dressing up and eating sweets, and makes cute-as-buttons synthpop with librarian-fetish glasses and a bit of a drinking problem. "Love is forever" was released in 2003, and it's blue-sky happy and charming, all italo beats and big spangly chorus. give tommy all of your love!! ♥"

BRAZIL

Bonde Do Role - "Melo Do Vitiligo": Supremo thenipper informed the press that: "Our chief post-colonial rip-off merchant scout, Diplo, is excitado muito about his latest discoveries, fresh from the streets of Rio. Eschewing the beautiful game for a Route One, hoof it up to the big sample approach, Bonde de Role are sure to strike fear into the opposition's defence."

CZECH REPUBLIC

Moimir Papalescu and the Nihilists - "Summer Deviation": Gaffer mostlyconnect informed us: "A whole country bursting with hope, with everything, this is our year, is this our year? This is our year. Talking about the USA, talking to Japan. She says: "what a find!". This is how this goes: robots, a whoosh, then everything at once.

The Nipper a hero in the streets from his playing days, velvet-coated EPs passed around like monuments. A gesture of respect - this sounds like Cansei De Ser Sexy. The biggest stage in the world! "They don't even enter Eurovision", all those years underground now bubbling up into electro and hip-hop and experi and jumbled up folksongs. It's a coming of age, a paper diary left open to show you haven't been home in months, that 'deviation' blowing the perfumed embers up into the air- "lets make the world dumb", this goes, and you'd half believe it means it. Do it for pop music."


How will these matches be resolved?


The knockout rounds work very much like the group stages, except now you get TEN points to divide between the two teams in each match, and you don't have to give a team a point if you don't want to. You'll notice that we have TWO separate polls, one for each game, so you don't have to fill in both at once.

The voting will be done by text poll - this is to keep the results secret. Please enter your scores as follows

"Ghana - 5. Japan - 5." (and "Brazil - 5. Czech Rep - 5")

Except with the "5"s replaced by your scores. If you want to vote but can't use the LJ poll, please email your scores to freakytrigger@gmail.com.

[Poll #721581]

[Poll #721582]


Your voting deadline for both these games is Noon on Monday, and new games will go up on Tuesday - the remaining round of 16 games between Spain and France, and Ukraine and Togo (so I need tracks and teamtalks for those matches by Sunday night, ideally).

As ever, the Pop World Cup thrives only on you the supporters - please listen and vote!

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Tom can you send me any Togo stuff you have!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oops yes! I will try and remember this tonight.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Dammit where has that pesky Czech pic gone?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There we go. Antlers!

[zenith.livejournal.com]

What's the fixture date for England's new match, Tom? My PA seems to have mislaid my calendar in a Spearmint Rhino.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

England v Portugal is the first quarter-final, so week after next.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

I was abt to send you that exact picture! Cheers Tom.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

ooh flip, better remind thebopkids...

...any more of the nelly f album available yet?

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

It can be if a suitable BUNG is made available to the Brazilian manager.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Brazil's entry is rather "special".

Posts About Fucking

[(Anonymous)]

As I prepare yet again to thrill to the play of the vaunted Brazilians, I want to spare a moment to ponder their brilliant play in the previous round, especially their ingenious "Cansei de Ser Sexy Says Let's Make Love And Listen Death From Above" strategy. As it happens, sitting on my This Is Just An EP So The Used Record Shop Won't Take It pile is Death From Above's Heads Up. May I make a recommendation? I've listened once again to the EP, and I propose that the strategy be renamed "Let's Make Love and Listen Death from Above, but Not at the Same Time, Please." Not that I've conducted the experiment as originally framed, but I do recall "Let's Make Love and Listen Big Black's Racer X" being problematic back in the day. Deploying Death From Above would likely be far worse.

Re: Posts About Fucking

[(Anonymous)]

It was Brazil, right, who did that Cansei de Ser Sexy track, right?

Suddenly Plagued By Spice

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

ooh I think I have a Tommy February6 album on the CD-R that barims gave me recently. I haven't listened to it yet though.

Re: Posts About Fucking

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

It was indeed.

These First Impressions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Japan team are at last showing glimpses of the form that made them so fancied. A delightful tactical update of managerial legend Pete Waterman's "Total Pop" I think.

Czech Rep: admirably tight back four but a wasteful midfield may cause problems.

Brazil: highly physical but I'm not sure they have the end product - this might be closer than it looked on paper.

Ghana: It's been a theme of African teams in this tournament - great build up that just fizzles out in the final third.

dune rockcritic

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

when is it time to explore the frank herbert/frank kogan/spice connection?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I really want to hear these ones this time round :(

Re: dune rockcritic

[(Anonymous)]

I think Kogan/Herbert has something to do with square dancing (cf. the Dosado Experiment, the one where the dancers inhabit the same body).

Poptibot

[(Anonymous)]

Ghana vs. Japan will be a quandary for the refs, as this time they won't be able to give an unfair advantage to both teams. Right, I'm still stung by the mistreatment the Italians received in Round One. On first glance, both these teams appear absurdly easy to defend against, as neither is capable of varying from the expected. But wait, what is this? Japan distracts you with shenanigans from the cheerleaders, and then scores a goal on the break? Well, I wasn't expecting that. Woke me up, momentarily at least.

Soporific Spice

[(Anonymous)]

As for the Czechs, in Round One they showed they could win with no coach - hell, with barely a team. What about this round? Well, why mess with a formula? They won being loose, and loose won't necessarily mean lose this time, either. They don't care. They're free, they're crazy, they care more for style points than goals, they'll tweak the refs, moon the crowds. The Harlem Globetrotters of Futbol.

Problem for the Czechs is that the Brazilians are just as crazy and have been honing their lunacy through years of blastouts in favelas and clubs. So their madness has focus, coaches and players proud to pull from scrap heaps and slums and from the Euro-American detritus, party party funk funk but with old Shadows Of Knight and Troggs tapes to give bite to their bite. As my man Em from the city of Detritus says, "When I go out I'm a go out shootin. I don't mean when I die, I mean when I go out to the club, stupid."

Party hats vs. party bash. Might be the match of the tournament, if not in chops, then at least in kicks.

Enthusiasm is Spice

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

These are two of the best rounds of the tournament so far! On paper, it looks like a walkover, but I fear the favourites could find themselves guilty of complacency in both cases.

GHANA - Like many of their African rivals, there's a general feeling that for all that silky passing, they lack the confidence to really go for it and put the ball in the back of the net. Also, it goes on way too long.

JAPAN - I still get the feeling this squad isn't quite performing to its potential, but maybe they're saving themselves from the latter stages. That said, they're tight, well organised and surprisingly nimble.

Verdict - Despite the Ghanaians enjoying greater possession, it's what you do with it that counts. 2-0 to Japan.


BRAZIL - After their storming performance in the group stage I'd tipped this Brazil team to go all the way, but this second half performance is worryingly reminiscent of today's Real Madrid team. All the big guns are there, but they're vulnerable at the back and there's a general feeling this team isn't quite the sum of its parts. On the other hand, AC/DC samples are a surefire way of bribing this particular judge. However...

THE CZECHS are pulling off one of the comebacks of the tournament! In total dissaray and alarmingly leaderless, it's a wonder they made it through the group stage at all. But the new manager has come in, unashamedly copied German tactics and put in a strong performance.

Verdict - well into extra time, but a late goal by the Czechs breaks through the Brazilian's dodgy back four and sends its team of Galacticos packing.

Re: These First Impressions

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

After the first half, none of these teams showing the form needed to take them all the way to the title, although the Japanese showed a few moments of inspiration.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

you're right, we didn't come down not nearly hard enough on Italy.

First thoughts

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Japan continue to disappoint - or, to be fair, the players that cis prefers to field are just not my cup of Shizuoka green tea. As others have said, it's pure SAW revivalism and I would prefer things a bit more eclectic. This song was nearly saved by a tremendous middle 8 tho', so maybe it will grow on me.

Ghana's effort seemed solid by comparison, if unspectacular. But infectious enough that, again, it could grow on me.

Brazil hit the jackpot again! To date I've had reservations about much of the favela Rio booty baile funk-a-ton that Diplo & co. have unearthed, but this track sounded near faultless to me.

Czech Rep: dark horses, definitely. Could spring a surprise in second half, but I still fancy Brazil to overpower them in the end.