A kung fu fighter in a disco

Human League vs Madonna: This was the hardest of the four - I like both tracks but my love for them has dulled a bit. In the end it's the multiple voices and viewpoints in the Human League song that sway me, and Phil's discomfort seems richer than Madge's rapture.

Jackson vs Joy Division: The easiest of the four. Disco beats despair, as Joy Division's story proves anyway.

Missy vs Michael: Frank's comment last time about the anger and fear and wit and suchlike in Billie Jean convinced me that it was more than a warhorse, but I'm still voting for Missy.

Britney vs Pet Shops: Another fairly easy tick even though it's not my favourite PSB track (7th or 8th favourite single, maybe) - the discussion last time about "Are people just voting for Madonna because it's Madonna?" springs to mind, maybe I am just voting for the Pets because it's them, but they did and do mean an awful lot to me, and it's hard to separate the particular connections they made with me from the music.

From:

Frank is right about 'Billie Jean', it's an amazingly layered/rich pop song, and the narrative is really striking in terms of who it gets the listener on side with (backing the superstar millionaire popstar over single mother).

'Work It' is still better though. Would've ticked 'Billie Jean' over every other song today except 'Like A Prayer'.

From:

awesomewells.livejournal.com

I finally get a chance to tick Work It (been agonising over that decision for several rounds) and it's losing. Gah!

From:

katstevens.livejournal.com

These were VERY HARD.

The first two fites are between evenly matched B+ songs. The last two fites are all A+++. I am sticking with Toxic over WEG though, the former being in my top ten pop songs of ALL TIME (WEG would probably make the top 25). Missy vs Jacko is too close to call musically so I went for the one with the better video.

From:

The thing with all the torturous fights and bad results in the previous rounds is that it’s getting easier now! No real hesitation about any of these though I feel kind of wrong in ticking DSTYGE and not the waaay superior Billie Jean – it’s all about their opposition.

From:

infov0re.livejournal.com

"Don't Stop.." vs "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is totally, totally killing me.

From:

Indeed! In fact, I'm going to have to think long and hard about THREE of these fites.

From:

katstevens.livejournal.com

Canon fans may be interested to know that as soon as I have got my pile o work finished for this week I will be compiling CANON RESULTS - all of them, right from the beginning - and putting them on a post linked to from the info page. So if you ever need to know the Top 10* Beautiful South songs you'll know where to look. So if you want to change your mind on any of them (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/tag/canon) make sure you do it today! There will be fresh canon action tomorrow lunchtime.

*I will be listing only the Top 10 for each artist, but will link to the original poll.

From:

ninebelow.livejournal.com

Cheers for the warning. I have just gone back and done The Cure, ABBA and Prince. Speaking of which:

Batdance: 15 votes
Money Don't Matter 2 Night: 9 votes

Scandalous.

From:

blue-russian.livejournal.com

These fites frequently leave me wondering whether I would vote the same way if, for example, I were at home when I saw the poll and could listen to each track, instead of being sitting at my desk at work.

Case in point, "Toxic," which I know is quite good, but on some level I connected with WEG. And the, erm, emotion there wins me over. All Toxic had Britney was in a uniform. But maybe if I could listen to Toxic, because I WEG is certainly well-worn.

LWTUA is wonderful, but its stiffness is thrown into harsh relief going up against supple Michael and his fancy footwork.

From:

It looks like LWTUA is finally going down. Even though I've consistently voted against it, I will note it's the lowest ranked record to have got this far.

From:

heh, someone with a LOT more time on their hands than I have should do a Glenn Macdonald-style "voting alignment" analysis after this is over

From:

koganbot

"Toxic" has a snake-charming riff and makes codependency seem fun. But I voted for WEG's erm-emotion over "Toxic"'s playful venom.

From:

The older record is winning on all four of these (admittedly v marginal in the case of MJ vs J Div)

From:

only two of these songs are anywhere approaching "new" though, this is golden oldies section!

From:

It makes me think of something I noticed when doing the NOW! canons, where in NOW!s from the eighties votes seemed to cluster very heavily around certain well-known records, whereas in the later ones there was a little more of a spread? (i think this happened? please correct if i imputed this) That the canon, the common consensus that x song is good, becomes more solidified the further back in time you go.

From:

is this clear? I mean: people are more likely to disagree on more recent tracks (perhaps, as well, to more violently love ot hate), and more likely to be... 'toeing a party line' is too emotive, but there's an element of accepted wisdom involved, I think, as well as the fact that songs are in themselves good. Of course the 'any good at all' principle comes into this a great deal with records that might be more consensus and less immediate, and these fites aren't on any-good-at-all grounds any more (at least i hope not!).

(i feel really awkward discussing this because I have the suspicion I might offend someone by implying a sort of 'you don't really like what you like, you like it cos you're told to', but... you know, i was discussing memetic desire this morning! i think it's a good thing! let's not pretend we have more agency than we do, etc etc.)

From:

This is largely an age thing, isn't it? For those of us whose pop lives pre-date all the records in this Tournament, it's less of a factor.

I was going to say 'not a factor at all' but accepted wisdom works in other ways too: the non-canonical drops out of circulation (whereas the canonical has had an extended life on the radio) so you get less exposure to it over the years.

From:

the non-canonical drops out of circulation

yes! this is a part of what I mean: when you are a mere bairn such as I, you learn about older records from e.g. capital gold and vh1 classic, as much as anything else. You hear a lot of great songs, things you love: while no doubt there's a load more of wonderful music out there, if it's not canonised and playlisted you'll never know about it. you make decisions on what you like from a much smaller remit than someone who's there at the time. And sometimes (obv i am straying from the fite at hand here) it's quite hard to tell whether you think something is 'any good at all' or whether you just recognise it.

From:

yes this is completely true - and it also builds up the suspicion, as you witness today's canon building around you, that there are songs and artists getting shafted then as there are now, and the songs we take for granted from then might be the equivalent of the songs we like but have suspicions of from now because of what they're shafting...

From:

This is what used to make the music press invigorating when it did engage with pop - the sense of individual factions (or just individuals) desperately trying to exert some sway on public opinion, even that tiny segment of it that was reading.

It's the problem with the tight demographic focus of NME now - Conor M knows who his readers are, and knows what they like, and knows that by catering to this he will acquire new readers who aspire to be like that. Whereas if nobody really knows what the audience is like there's a lot more at stake in trying to forge it (and successful forgeings are temporary, because there's no overall brand strategy behind things).

From:

This is so, so true - of pretty much EVERY music mag (and probably...every mag! - right now! Everyone's trying to find a target audience, everyone's obsessed with following the leadership rather than leading them. Which is good in some ways but to the extent it's gotten is really, really harmful and stagnant.

I used to think Plan B was different but as soon as it found its niche it burrowed neatly into it.

From:

I don't know if following/leading is quite the right way to think about it, because consumers don't appear with fully formed tastes and then find the brand that matches them. What a brand needs to do is become associated strongly with certain ideas, or feelings, or occasions, to the point where it starts to define those things for the people aware of it. Hence the NME throwing a lot of their attention into sponsoring gigs (association with an occasion) and doing the Cool List (association with a value or concept) and running awards (association with alternative-ness, because the awards it sponsors are supposedly different). It's not following the audience, as much as leading it into a fairly pre-determined and unsurprising place.

From:

koganbot

"Poptimist" is functioning much like the early days of a such a quasi-"brand" (and I don't think there's anything wrong with this). "What a [brand/movement/sensibility] needs to do is become associated strongly with certain ideas, or feelings, or occasions..."

From:

Sure! Branding isn't an alien idea, its the commercialisation of a process (community-building, sensibility-building) that happens anyway.

From:

koganbot

Well, among mags and movements there's a natural progression; the initial movement has to create its audience, so the bands and critics are playing less well-trodden notes and putting forth less well-trodden opinions. When critics first started bandying about the word "punk" in the early '70s they were resurrecting a lot of old discarded songs that were generally considered trash. "Be My Baby" and "Leader Of The Pack" may be canonical now, but they'd been long out of print in the U.S. when I first got them in the mid '70s; got the first on a British import, the second on an anthology that my friends Jay and Maureen found in an oldies shop and gave me for my birthday. By the way, the spirit of those original punk critics was very poptimist.

From:

martinskidmore.livejournal.com

A major point is that it's easy to forget/never to have heard songs from 20 years ago that aren't in any canons and aren't still popular, whereas we'll have heard and remember much more from 2005 or whatever. This accounts for an awful lot of this phenomenon, though that isn't to say the canon doesn't also shape our ideas of what is good, of course.

From:

I've noticed this too and I think it comes out even more in polls like these, where apart from a few exceptions everyone broadly agrees that all the songs are any good at all - even very good - and the nostalgic solidity of a tried-and-tested classic that has gone beyond transient appeal might be a deciding factor?

From:

a tried-and-tested classic that has gone beyond transient appeal

yes, and I think it's very possible that people can second-guess their own motives, think 'well i really like this now but maybe i'll stop loving it, whereas my opinions aren't going to change on [canonical song]'. it's not just grimey simey who doesn't want to turn out to have been 'wrong' in the past! on both a personal and a public level.

From:

i don't know how much not-wanting-to-be-seen-to-be-wrong there is actually; more a greater willingness to trust what we know we feel rather than what we suspect might not last? this is less "i want to get it right" - i think most poptimists would not be ashamed of transient love, or really believe in a right/wrong - than "i privilege songs which last over songs which don't, or might not".

From:

koganbot

I understand what you're saying, but "well-known" and "canonical" aren't synonyms, and I think it's the former rather than the latter that's influencing votes. Also, "The Canon" isn't a self-explanatory term. (Think of movies. Is Star Wars in the canon? Whose canon?) Among critics, Madonna's place is not secure, and "Vogue" was her only single to get anywhere near the top of the Pazz & Jop lists. But she's probably in the Poptimist canon, if there is such at thing. But the fact that "Get Into The Groove" and "Papa Don't Preach" did well here and "Holiday" and "Everybody" are nonexistent has a lot to do with the two former having been bigger hits. Eric B. And Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul" is probably as canonical as any song ever among hip-hop heads, but it didn't make it into the charts and got meager ticking here, the meagerness due not to your not considering it canonical but to a lot of you not having heard it at all, in some cases not having heard of it. I think "Set It Off" and "Square Biz" (to name a couple that got something like three ticks in their respective History Of Jops) might be competing in this round if more than six of us here had heard them. 'Tis pretty obvious why you wee'uns would vote for songs that you didn't hear when released but that continue to get radio and dancefloor play, as opposed to ones that you didn't hear upon initial release that don't continue to get radio and dancefloor play. Of course, voting old over new might mean something canonical is going on, except "Toxic" is as solidly in the Poptimist canon as anything could be (assuming that there is such a thing as "Poptimist canon") and Britney's something of a polemical touchstone amongst Poptimist types (but it turns out the love for her songs may not be so strong as expected) whereas "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" has never gotten much comment and attention in these parts, while silently racking up the votes here. I think old over new might be a peculiarity of today's choices.

From:

koganbot

Er, xpost; while I was typing away many others were saying the same thing.

From:

I think... hmm. I do think Star Wars is in the canon - although it's not in some artfilm-style The Canon. Maybe I should call it the pop canon: it's the canon of popular culture, and it's formed of all the films that mass popular media assumes you've already seen (and if you haven't seen them you should), all of the records that mass popular media assumes you've already heard (but might need a reminder of). It's not quite a canon of critical consensus, it's a canon of 'things everyone just knows': the stuff people would call any of us out for not knowing about.

I dislike the idea of calling it 'the poptimist canon' because to me the poptimist canon is this thing we're creating here, now, out of fites and polls and tickyboxes and shared mp3s and clubnights, something specific to a certain social group, to us. There are certain things which are held-in-common important to a lot of us, whose importance I've never really felt outside this group - the love of saint etienne that turned out to pervade ilm, for example. 'year 3000' is busted's best-loved song among other people I know, it gets a reaction like no other, but I don't think of it as the best-loved in the pmists lj community?

From:

sorry this is rather skeletal but i have to run.

From:

koganbot

When you get back, tell me what you think of the Jonas Brothers' "Year 3000" (got mawled pretty badly - and unfairly - on the Stylus Jukebox).

From:

Yes it does I think (no surprises really) - though whether people are affected by the canon when voting or whether their (equivalent of) votes continue to build it is another qn.

I have a side thread brewing I think!

From:

lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

Don't You Want Me is a great song, and I would have voted for it against most of the others here, but certainly not against Madonna's finest moment.

It's the song where everything I love about Madonan came together perfectly - it's a brilliant, euphoric, uplifting pop song for a start, tackling the classic Madonna theme of religion & sex, but the whole package was great too (and surely of all popstars, with Madonna you have to look at the whole package) - controversial video, a great look, and it came at the time where she'd grown up enough as an artist to be more interesting but not so much that she'd started to take herself too seriously, as happened later on. It totally deserves to go through.

From:

WOAH I did not realise M was getting screwed by so much! I'm shocked. I agree with every word anyway, and it's not even my favourite Madge song. I like 'Don't You Want Me' but it has nothing to compare to the sheer euphoric rush of "LET THE CHOIR SING..."

From:

Part of it for me is that the "classic Madonna theme of religion and sex" is a bit BORING - at least when expressly addressed. Never been religious, let alone Catholic - why do I care?

In this case it's an excellent pop song despite the theme though - but not as great as her earlier stuff (I really don't agree that she's "more interesting" in the Like A Prayer era than before: she's more self-consciously autobiographical but the interestingness is there from the beginning)

From:

awesomewells.livejournal.com

OTM.

From:

koganbot

"Don't You Want Me" vs. "Like A Prayer": two songs I don't care that much about, and I actually had to go back and listen to them; the result is that I way prefer "Don't You Want Me" for a rather simple reason: way better melody. The tune to "Like A Prayer" is nondescript, only the arrangement and Madonna's singing make me care about the song; and Madonna's singing is starting to carry the heaviness that makes me like later Madonna less than earlier Madonna. Of course, Human League isn't so vocally light either. So it's the tune.

"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" vs. "Love Will Tear Us Apart": But on this one the riff of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is one of the most tunefully beautiful ever but I'm voting against, 'cause the singing, while in style is fine for what Ian is trying to do, is really really terrible in execution; and though overall I'd say riff overwhelms badness of singing, not against good competition and one of the most beautiful singers ever. (Btw, when I voted LWTUA previously (I don't actually remember how consistently I did), it wasn't a matter of my having been there, since being "there" for me meant a general opinion of me and many of the people around me that Joy Division were a terrible retreat from punk and power pop and were actually Pink Floyd in drab garb w/ Jim Morrison-like vocals that were lacking Morrison's ebullience, so JD seemed like a step back. So it took me a while to admit that I actually loved some Joy Division songs a whole lot. I did feel for the beauty of LWTUA right off. I think "She's Lost Control" has a far better performance. (Did consider New Order to be a step forward and also dull as dishwater [unless it's ditchwater that they're dull as; poll: which is duller, dishwater or ditchwater?], and plenty of other dance steppers were dancing further anyway.))

"Work It" vs. "Billie Jean": Already told my love for "Billie Jean"; my not quite love for "Work It"? Hmmm. I said "too cutesy" last time, which states it too strongly (the track is more cutesy peculiar than cutesy ha ha); it's a delight, but "delight," while praising, also identifies a limit; the song doesn't work itself into my heart muscle.

"West End Girls" vs. "Toxic": Feelings about these two aren't so strong, and therefore once again I relistened. It think WEG is actually among PSB's very best, but then I'm talking as a non-PSB fanatic and maybe I like it for being the one where the disco shows through and the vocals and arrangements don't cloak the disco in their sensibility - and the sensibility, not weighing down the sound for once, sounds beautiful. "Toxic" is fun - quite good - but chillier than a lot of other Britney and chillier than WEG. (I wonder now whether, if I were revoting previous rounds, I might vote WEG more and "Toxic" less.)

Everything I'm voting for today is winning decisively.

From:

koganbot

Er, "Toxic" is starting to make a run at "West End Girls." I won't cry if it gets into the next round, mind you, since it was a near tick.

By the way, Tom, what are the seedings of these? Do you always put the top seed first?

From:

Yes, the song listed first is always highest seeded.

These fights go:

8 vs 9

13 v Unseeded

6 v 22

2 v 18

From:

friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com

Bloody hell, some of the most difficult decisions there in AGES!

From:

awesomewells.livejournal.com

... chances of an all-Jacko final, then?

From:

lollers.livejournal.com

I actually reasoned that Missy would win overwhelmingly, and sympathy ticked Jacko even though my first instinct was that Work It was the better song. Sorry Missy!

From: