poptimists | Jop Tournament - Round 1, Fites 1-4

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Jop Tournament - Round 1, Fites 1-4

Arduous qualifiers completed, it's now time for the songs that made it through to get horrifically mangled in the tournament proper.

One fite, one vote.

[Poll #916949]

Coming up - Pulp, Kelis, Missy, Kelly Clarkson, MORE Prince...

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'Waterfalls' would have won against any other song here apart from either Madge - 'Into The Groove' however is not merely a song, it is The Way The Truth And The Light.

Everything else easy. This is the first time I have actually ticked 'Heartbeat' which I guess is proof of how it's gotten through a v tough draw.

("Into The Groove" is the #1 seed, incidentally.)

I wanna see the DRAW! It must be like a tennis draw! Seeds 1 and 2 in opposite halves, then 3 and 4 and so on...

It is, don't worry!

I feel as you do, except with "Monkey's Gone To Heaven" instead of "Waterfalls" and "Like A Prayer" instead of "Into The Groove".

Yes - Like a Prayer even trumps the mighty Pixies. If I was the kind of guy who used emoticons, I'd have constructed an elaborate weepy face for that decision.

I am agonising over that. I'm a tad bored of Like A Prayer and I've already voted for Madge once whereas its been so long since I heard Monkey Gone To Heaven that it's gone back to being fresh again.

Botherd about most of these apart from Into The Groove and Temptation. I've heard Like An Prayer too many times but less times than Monkey Gone To Heaven.

Voted for Pixies and TLC bcz I assumed there would be other tracks by M to vote for in other polls.

Voted the favorites in every case, except that I voted for "Heartbeat" over "1999", which is one of my least favorite Prince singles of this era. To be honest, the other 3 weren't even that close. "When Doves Cry" not making it would be sad, but "Temptation" is a good song too.

I think "WDC" is my favourite out of any of these, so I hope it pulls through.

Surprised that "Temptation" is making a strong race against "When Doves Cry" (the latter won the ilX poll as the greatest song of the '80s, beating second-place finisher "Love Will Tear Us Apart" decisively). Also, surprised that "Temptation" seems to be considered the New Order song, whereas I'd have picked "True Faith" and I'd have expected the general Poptimist populace to pick "Blue Monday." What is the special appeal of "Temptation"? For that matter, what is the appeal of New Order in comparison to lots of other performers that use '80s freestyle or hi-NRG dance beats, e.g. Bambaataa/Soul Sonic Force [or insert favorite Arthur Baker track here such as Diana Ross's "Swept Away"] or Hazell Dean?

The second question is easier - I'd guess it's the Pet Shop effect: beat heat meets British reserve. As for why "Temptation", it's one of NO's most straightforwardly joyful tracks, and within the NO story as a whole it's the point at which they break out of the gloom cocoon and start to get over Ian, I guess.

I think you handled both parts of the question perfectly!

It's still nowhere near as good as "When Doves Cry", mind you.

Did Temptation win the NO canon, I forget?

"When Doves Cry" losing would prove that Lex was right and the poptimists DO have no taste.

Pshaw! These are two great tunes, and there are strong reasons to pick either one.

Well, I guess a counter-question would be why the general indifference among Poptimists towards freestyle and hi-NRG and the basic bread-and-butter dance musics of the '80s? An answer might be that you guys don't know that music nearly as well as you know PSBs, New Order, Depeche, but that raises the question how is it that you guys don't know that music? Of course, freestyle didn't cross to Britain, but the PSBs and New Orderers themselves managed to hear it. And then there's the Brit-Euro dance stuff that's also generally overlooked.

I wish Poptimists liked Hi-NRG and Eurodance more too! I think several do, judging by the great enthusiasm in the pub at mentions of eg Spagna. The thing is they just don't come up a lot in the polls we've been doing.

I suppose there was a hint of it in the recent 'italo revival' but that stuff seemed a bit fearful and bloodless to me.

Maybe a Freestyle MP3 week would be a good idea - it's been ages since we had MP3s up here.

The reason that freestyle and hi-NRG and Eurodance don't show up in the Jop polls is that the rock-critic quasi-intelligentsia (of which Poptimists is a part) as a class tends not to go for that stuff. You'd think that people who like Madge and the PSBs would therefore investigate the sources of that music (weren't the PSBs originally under contract to Bobby O?), just as way back in the day Stones fans searched for Marvin Gaye and Bobby Womack and Don Covay and Chuck Berry and Robert Johnson and Slim Harpo.

Well how many Stones fans investigated those sources? Was it a big part of being a Stones fan?

On ILM the people who like the PSBs and Madonna do indeed go back and check out the stuff they drew from - Poptimists is definitely part of the rockcrit intelligentsia but it's also more casual in its fandom.

Plus I think part of the appeal of dance-pop is the idea (or illusion) of live-for-the-moment fun it offers, so the roots of it get guiltlessly ignored.

I don't have freestyle electronically, unfortunately ('cept for that Fannypack mix of "When I Hear Music"/"Lookout Weekend"). Here were the freestyle (and near freestyle) tracks that made the top 100 singles list I did for Radio On in 1992 (alphabetical):

Company B "Fascinated"
Corina "Temptation"
Cover Girls "Inside Outside"
Cynthia "Change On Me"
Debbie Deb "When I Hear Music"
Madonna "Everybody"
Lisette Melendez "A Day In My Life (Without You)"
Diana Ross "Swept Away"
Sequel "It's Not Too Late"
Judy Torres "Come Into My Arms"

"Swept Away" and "Everybody" would probably be considered Close To Freestyle Without Being Freestyle As Such. And this list only scratches the surface, of course; for instance, it leaves off Shannon's great "Let The Music Play" and "Give Me Tonight." "Come Into My Arms" hasn't made it to YouTube or I'd link it so that you could marvel at the similarities and dissimilarities to "It's A Sin." (The two records came out more or less at the same time, so didn't influence each other.)

No doubt some latecomer will break the current deadlock (probably WRONGLY) but how on earth would a tie be settled at this stage?! Marks out of 10?

I think a tie would simply mean both going through to a pick-one-of-three next round.

I listened back to 'Temptation' last night - because I actually didn't remember it - and er I am bemused and agree with Frank now, it is the first NO song which actually seems weak to me? Did 'Blue Monday' or 'True Faith' or 'Regret' get through? If not, HEIN? Confusion.

Well, the lack of Blue Monday, True Faith and Regret is to do with the Pazz and Jop critics, not the Poptimist ones.

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Jop Tournament - Round 1, Fites 1-4

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Surprised by the strength of "Temptation"

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Re: Surprised by the strength of "Temptation"

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