Theme Songs: The Rules (and discussion thereof)

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Okay, here is how I think this is going to work. It's sort of a hybrid of the League of Pop and those TOp Ten lists from High Fidelity except hopefully less insufferable.


THE STRUCTURE:
* Each week or two weeks or so, someone will provide a THEME. When the theme is first posted, we will all nominate songs that fit the theme.
* The goal is to pick a track that is a) good b) fits the theme and c) which you think the person suggesting may not have heard.
* Each person can nominate only one song as their official choice. They may also suggest other songs that someone else might want to nominate, but you have to pick just the one actual Nomination! This is to keep the number of actual nominees to a manageable level and to force you to make tough decisions!
* Each track can only be Nominated by one person, so move fast!
* The person who has given us this week's theme will make an effort to listen to all the nominated tracks, within reason. They will then choose:
a) The best track fitting the theme that they hadn't heard before
b) The best track fitting the theme whether they heard it before or not
c) Optionally, they can give out other made up awards or make additional commentary as they please.
* The person whose Nomination wins the "best track I'd not heard before" gets to choose the next theme. We could also keep like a scoreboard of winners I guess.
* In the event that the person who Nominated the winning track doesn't want to pick the theme next (for whatever reason), then they can instead pass the torch on to whoever.
* A person suggesting the theme may wish to "get the ball rolling" by posting some example tracks which have their theme of choice. This also prevents people nominating those tracks, as it indicates that you have already heard them!

ON THEMES:
* The theme chooser has broad licence to pick whatever theme they like! It could be pretty much anything.
* That said some guidelines seem sensible:
* Broad themes are likely to be less fun than narrower ones. "Songs About Love" for instance, is unlikely to be edifying. "Songs About That Exact Moment Where You First Fall In Love" is better.
* Ludicrously specific is also bad, of course, as you won't get many nominations.
* While I imagine most themes will be lyrical since lyrical topics are easier to pic out, you could do a musical theme as well. "Songs With Guitars In Them" would not be good, but "Songs With Samples of Air Traffic Controllers In Them" might be, maybe?
* If a theme winds up being rather unpopular/rubbish, the theme chooser can pick another one at the point this becomes clear, or just pick a winner quickly from what did get nominated and we can all move on.

POLLS
* Since the above formula is already a bit complex I am not sure that adding in an LJ poll would also be good? However if there is interest I don;t see why we couldn't also have a big poll of all the nominees so the community as a whole can pick something?

PLAYLISTS
* A Spotify playlist will be made of everything anyone suggests that I can find, whether actually Nominated or merely just mentioned by somebody.
* other people can do other things with the playlist data if they like.

QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

Ask them, have some! Below is the place! In particular, if you can see an Obvious Crippling Problem with this format please point it out sharpish before I waste a bunch of time! :)