Chart Championship Week 1 RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

As before, check back later (say 1.30?) for revelations. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice that I've made adjustments to the scoring (middle place=draw; unsubmitted tracks count as lowest placings in this reckoning, because otherwise the 6th place track is losing a point purely because somebody else did not submit). Over to Martin!

"01 Neko Case - "Set Out Running": I'm not sure, but I think this is Neko Case. I love it - powerfully and beautifully sung old-fashioned country music. Why do I not own ANY of her albums? I'll remedy this. 1st Place - WIN: skillextric gets his tactics spot on for decisive victory.

02: 3LW - "More Than Friends (That's Right)": Lovely teen pop-R&B music of the younger end of the market - very cute, very catchy and danceable, if a touch derivative of all sorts of other people. Terrific. I think it's 3LW. 4th Place - WIN: Youthful line-up comes good for byebyepride.

03: Yummy Bingham - "You Ain't Ready": I like this too - bright and crunchy-electro R&B sounds. I feel like I ought to know who it is, but I don't. 3rd Place - WIN: jeff_worrell records crisp win.

04: Yma Sumac - "Malambo No.1": Immensely annoying to the point of unlistenability: music that should be behind a "they're jungle fresh" jingle with some woman singing in an operatic voice and screeching, plus another growling voice, probably from the same person. Appalling. 10th Place - LOSE: crushing defeat means early-season pressure for lockedintheatti.

05: Carlinhos Brown - "Quixabeira": Sadly there was an album tag of some sort left on this one, so I know it's by Brazilian singer Carlinhos Brown - I wouldn't have known otherwise, and I wasn't familiar with him. The music sounds too busy most of the time for his sweetly gentle voice, but both parts are likeable. 6th Place - DRAW: honours even for blue_russian.

06: Dykehouse - "Chainsmoking": From someone who doesn't know me very well, I suspect - indie, not the worst I've heard by a long way, but still not remotely to my tastes. 9th Place - LOSE: piratemoggy's tactics not quite gelling.

07: ESG - "Dance": Almost a Motowny opening, then vaguely funky and weakly sung indie. They have a very good bassist, but I'm not terribly taken with anything else here. 7th Place - LOSE: flair players can't do the job for lisa_go_blind.

08: Claude Ely - "Aint No Grave That Can Hold My Body Down": Old-fashioned-sounding country gospel yelling (I know the original of the song by the very great Rosetta Tharpe, from 1947). It's more than fine with me, quite rousing, though nothing terribly special - it's hard to follow such a great singer and guitarist. 5th Place - WIN: epicharmus grinds out a narrow result.

09: SHE - "Superstar": Big modern euro (or maybe eurovision) rocking. I can't even identify the language (except the odd line in English, obviously), far less the act. It's okay, but it does nothing for me. 8th Place - LOSE: poor start to the campaign for poptasticuk.

10: Taylor Swift - "Should've Said No": Country again, female voice, leaning a little too much to AOR but otherwise very good indeed. Is it Taylor Swift? I reviewed a single by her recently for Stylus, and it's very like her. 2nd Place - WIN: caretaker manager steers anthonyeaston's side to a win.

Comments

[zenith.livejournal.com]

I will laugh if 04 turns out to be 'We Share Our Mother's Health'.

the great unknown

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

It wasn't, I would have recognized that.

Despite my worries that we'd all be guessing EVERYTHING, in fact this week were almost the exact opposite. I'm curious what people's strategies are -- are we all choosing things we expect to be obscure? (Or are we keeping our strategies secret?)

Re: the great unknown

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think the winning song in this round played it very well tactically - a modern performer in a genre Martin potentially likes a lot but doesn't love so much he will know everything in it.

Re: the great unknown

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, Tom: was the sequencing of the tracks (for both leagues) deliberate or random? There appeared to be some attempt to make a mix that flowed well.

Re: the great unknown

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This week it was actually random!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I know what No.4 is! It's the only track (apart from mine) that I knew already. I'm surprised that Martin (a) didn't recognise the voice, and (b) hated it that much.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

oh, I see dubdobdee has correctly guessed the singer below. Again, I'm surprised he's never heard her stuff either.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i'm a bit surprised too!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

think the language in 9 is asian (maybe cantonese?)

i dimly recognise 6 -- from the "indie-funk" era of the au pairs etc (but yes, very nothing-much singer): i love the moment when the drummer goes round the toms; the song already has almost no rhythmic tension and he REMOVES EVERY LAST BIT THAT *IS* THERE hurrah

vaguely wondered if 4 is yma sumac (who i've never heard)

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I think I have heard her once before, and I think I had the same kind of reaction!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Track six (which I'll own up to now since am off to three hours of seminars) is akshully one bloke in his bedroom on his own, so is drum machine not drummer. :)

I think I have a slightly different perception of the track than most people would cus I have the album it's on and it's like a massive explosion of glee/hate in context. And I am a lamer for a bit of shoegaze-plonk. :D Don't think was ever actually very released, though. I dunno. I found it on Epitonic many moons ago.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

sorry actually i meant 7 when i said 6, re drumming -- haha that's ESG, i remember when they were the COOLEST THING EVAH (=black new york grrrls doing "white manchester" funk!) -- my friend rob who died had their debut EP and we were all terribly excited!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

in fact half the jazz insects wanted to *BE* ESG! rob was pur bassplayer and this is a VERY ROB bass line!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Magnificent Lexian pwnage from Skidmo there.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

It was released as a single, a dance single anyway. One of my favorite songs from that year, sorry to see it do so poorly. Maybe you're right and it is its placement in the album.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Ah, I thought it might have been an EP or something. 'Midrange' is one of my favourite albums. :)

Argh!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Few things so crushing as getting an "eh" on a beloved track. Now I know how Lex feels!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I'm just quite pleased mine wasn't recognisable. :D Didn't think it'd go down too stormingly but decided might as well send something I really liked since couldn't think of anything else.

the tags problem

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Not sure how this showed up with other people who listened to tracks in the two leagues, but for me, when I imported them into iTunes, I saw three bits of information. Two tracks had album covers (iTunes - in OSX anyway - appends the image to the actual mp3 file, so you have to manually delete them), while at least one still had the composer info (although in this case it didn't tell me anything).

Everything else "revealing," though, was missing - artist, track name, album.

Re: the tags problem

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think there's no easy way round the itunes issue - I'll keep deleting the main ID tags and that's about all I can do :(

Re: the tags problem

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I just thought I'd note it - I made a point of (trying to) clean those iTunes-specific tags out of my submission this week.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

No.9 is actually Chinese!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I wasn't totally paying attention when I was listening (paradoxically, I was *concentrating* on trying to figure out what language it was), but I think I liked this.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

It is excellent, of course you liked it! I picked it because I knew Martin liked Japan, so he might stretch to Chinese music too, and also I saw that he'd like a Vanilla Ninja song and this sounds quite similar. Perhaps I put too much thought in, and should have just gone for something random and great (but I think this is great so hmmph).

[koganbot]

Jessica, your poor strategy is to my benefit, because I love TRACK NINE. Is it from this year (or late last year)? If so will deserve consideration when I do my year-end top fifty.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid it is quite old. Bit more info here http://www.last.fm/music/S.H.E

Young 'uns are old 'uns

[koganbot]

I like the fact that Martin (not altogether inaccurately) describes TRACK TWO as "teen pop-R&B music of the younger end of the market," given that its basic riff is a year short of three decades old, and this version uses the hip-hop arrangement of it that's only four years younger than the original. (Won't give away more until Tom posts performers, though I will say that I don't know who does this, though I obviously do know from whence the sample came.)

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I meant aimed at the younger end of the market, probably by fairly young performers, rather than that it's a very new record.

[koganbot]

I think your designation is fine; I just like the fact that young 'uns can pull so well from the old without seeming retro (though the track feels like something of a mishmash).

[koganbot]

How I'd have ranked 'em, discounting TRACK TEN, which I already know (in fact I lobbied for its inclusion), though it'd most likely have been my number one, though with strong competition from TRACK NINE:

-TRACK NINE (guitar crunch - quite welcome after the fairly lame bluegrass mandolin whiffling on TRACK EIGHT - and I have never heard anything quite like this, the intense Asian? East European? vocal line, mixed into sweet pop but powered by the guitar crunch and then the vocal shifting an intense freestyle wail, which carries this over the top)
-TRACK SEVEN (like the spare funk arrangement a lot; think the singer is quite interesting and idiosyncratic, much like Taana Gardner, though agree that unlike Taana she doesn't quite cut it; I wouldn't think of her as sounding indie, though)
-TRACK THREE (as disparate and daring as TRACK TWO but pulled together much better, though I'm still mostly unmoved by it)

And after that I stop ranking them 'cause it's pretty much a dead heat of tracks that would fall in the B or B Minus area, in this instance meaning not only do they all have musical merit, almost all of them combine elements in intriguing and surprising ways, but none hit me in the heart or gut. An excellent selection, though, and I adore the confusion of TRACK TWO, even while remaining unswoony. Haven't heard much Neko Case but am prejudiced against her, my prejudice being that she's got the chops but undercuts herself terribly with bad alt-indie arrangements and phrasing that make everything seem distanced. TRACK ONE half confirms my prejudice, in that it's got this obvious alt "We Are Doing Country" exaggeration, and I blame her phrasing, but the arrangement is straightup rather than alt, just a bit trad. And I don't think she remotely cuts it compared to the Lorettas and Tammys and Dollys she's harking back to, much less the modern-day MOR Deanas and Martinas and Joe Dees and Jamies and LeAnns and Lee Anns and Natalies. But I think she's got talent and I'll guess that she never does the totally sappy dreck that some of my current loves are quite capable of unleashing.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

3LW is my favourite here but I already knew it. Of the others I think I'd have put Yma Sumac pretty high! (I don't mind her, and I like mambo-lite) - Neko Case is good but not a winner for me, didn't listen to some of the later ones enough to make much of a judgement, definitely enjoyed Yummy Bingham and of course the Taylor Swift is good: will Frank K's selecting powers sustain the absent Easton for a second week, I wonder?

[koganbot]

Ha! With performers revealed, TRACK SEVEN does turn out to be indie after all, though "indie" as in out-of-left-field rather than "indie" as in "part of indie culture."

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

ESG are very much part of British indie culture - what with releasing a record on Factory in that label's heyday. (Also 99 Records were seen here as a very hip indie.) Soul Jazz, their current home, is also part of a very "indie" organisation, in the pre-C86 sense of the term.

[koganbot]

You're right. And ESG were part of downtown NY indie culture too; I guess what I mean is that they're not from indie culture (except that may not be altogether true, either). But then, Yma Sumac is now part of indie culture, given who's likely to listen to her these days. Nancy Sinatra is part of indie culture (though she's also part of hip-hop culture, thanks to Kill Bill, which managed to cross to both). Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash are part of indie culture (which doesn't preclude their being part of other cultures, as well). In the U.S. Robyn is part of indie culture, grime is part of indie culture. (Don't think "indie" is the right word, since poptimists can link it to tightly to "indie rock," and therefore decide that it doesn't apply to themselves; in my book I used "PBS" as my metaphor for the whole postpunk indie-alternative-fanzine network c. 1987 [don't know if the metaphor translates to British; obv. it needs a British equivalent to PBS if there is one], which of course was appreciative of some pop of the past and lots of stuff of the present that wasn't punk-derived if it could be conceived of as "outsider" in some way. Also I did and do consider myself (and do consider poptimists) part of PBS, even if I hope that I (and we) can avoid some of the shutdown that caused me to label the thing PBS in the first place. But then, I haven't totally nailed down what I mean by PBS - I had the metaphor playing a couple of different roles.)

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

My favourites other than my choice were Dykehouse followed by Taylor Swift & 3LW - the latter 2 I guessed was them but hadn't heard the songs before.

Carlinhos

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Presumably this is written about somewhere on the internet, but given that it really is one of my favorite tracks ever... First of all, Martin's comment about the vocal was a bit amusing because there are actually FIVE quite distinctive leads on the song, with each one taking different lines and different harmony combinations. Besides Brown, you also have Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Maria Bethania (which is pretty much pulling out all the stops on classic Brazilian voices, as well as reuniting four key figures from the tropicalia era, so there are all kinds of resonances there).

Second, the song is more or less an arrangement (by Brown) of a couple of songs sung by fieldworkers, and I feel like that "ripped from the breast of the nation" thing really shows through.

When the tracks were posted, I suggested listening through headphones, and I repeat that recommendation here. Really, really gorgeous, while still being quite upbeat.

(I feel kind of silly gushing over something that sounds like obscure foreign-language folk music, when we're normally arguing about Britney and Klaxons remixes, but anyway, there you have it.)

3LW Ride Fearless Four To The Man Machine

[koganbot]

3LW ride the Fearless Four* to the Man Machine.

*Play "Rockin' It," which was something like the second or third really big electro-funk single after "Planet Rock."

You can't spell SHKYE without S-H-E

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Skye covered Track 9 in English. Not as good as the original. Skye Sweetnam - Superstar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2YAbQXIq2w).