Chart Championship Week 2 RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Busy day on Poptimists today (well probably) because I'm out all day tomorrow. To kick things off, here are piratemoggy's results on the League Of Pop - revelations later on (lunchtime probably).

"I quite liked all of this, in fact there's only one track I'm not a fan of so yeah, don't be offended if I've stuck yours in the low end of the chart. :) I knew two of the tracks but the rest were new to me. I decided to do this now because, err, it was that or hand my essay in on time and that was a pile of rubbish so now have valid excuse to spend 24 hours making it slightly less rubbish. Sort of. Anyway..

01: Michaela Melian - "Brautlied": This is really great; semi-minimalist electronica with a slightly classical bent in the bell noises. I like how it just refuses to pick up its pace, staying resolutely at the pace of a tv slowing heartbeat (err, told you I was a goth) I think it's possibly someone I know -Justus Kohncke vaguely springs to mind but that's not right, I don't think. 3rd Place - WIN: fluid play brings first win for lockedintheatti

02: Misty Dixon - "Are You Lost?": I really like this. Hypnotic trip-pop with chiming girly harmonies, reminds me of 'Ghosts' by Siobhan Donaghy which is obviously not a bad thing. I recognise the voice possibly but can't think where from. 5th Place - WIN: efficient performance by skillextric.

03: The Tribe - "Rescue Me": This is 'Tragedy' by The Tribe innit? Or something. Is definitely them, anyway. I like The Tribe. :) 7th Place - LOSE: freak strike costs blue_russian dear.

04: De Rosa - "Camera": I like this, although it doesn't grab me immediately I can see it growing. I like the bit where there're some wobbly/thrashy/squawky guitars in the middle although the distortion on the singing could be removed for greater effect. At least, I assume that's distortion. 8th Place - LOSE: gutsy performance can't bring win for infov0re

05: kevin blechdom - "Binaca": Bluegrass (?) sort of thing with some drum machine stuff and deranged, swoopy vocals about breaking free of oppressive hygienic responsibility. Which, when you've been awake for a zillion years apart from five hours a day ago, during which you acquired a killer hangover, seems like a great idea. :D Except maybe not 'ever since I got my period, I don't have to buy red panties no more' ... 6th Place - DRAW: late equaliser costs jeff_worrell victory.

06: Nicole Adkins - "The Way It Is": Too big voiced-ballad-y for me, although could have a killer, tightened-up remix. I realise that's a completely inappropriate comment but my music taste is trashy at best and can't handle teh jazz-country or whatever this is, although I can see why other people would like it and the first thirty seconds are ace. Sorry! 10th Place - LOSE: anthonyeaston caretaker crashes to defeat.

07: Magnetic Fields - "Smoke And Mirrors" Gorgeous shoegaze-tronica, shakey little drum machine beat and lo-fi synths that stare out of the window with a cup of coffee in a very entreating manner indeed. 'So give me rust, special effects, a little fear, a little sex' it mumbles and you can't really hold it against it because it's so self-conscious. I really wanted to google this because I'm sure I ought to know/know somewhere in the back of my mind what it is but have withheld self from doing so because cheating is wrong, etc. 2nd Place - WIN: lisa_go_blind scores a convincing win.

08: Ultraviolence - "Hardcore Motherfvcker" I am exactly the sort of person who really enjoys nine minutes of industrial rave with a posh female voice intoning 'hardcore motherfvcker' over the top every few seconds. Bloody brilliant. :D 1st Place - WIN: Direct tactics give martinskidmore thumping win.

09: Cascada - "Ready For Love" Err, I'll confess I didn't listen to more than about 90 seconds of this but, uhm, really not my thing. Eurodance, I think; I really don't like that kind of vocal/beat, I kind of think it's an affront to dance music because I spend far too much time in dingey basements trying to work out which limbs to move in order to look like anything other than an octopus on crack to psy-trance and am consequently a pretentious tart. [just gave it another go and is better than gave it credit for but vocalist is major turn-off, would probably be quite ace if she had different voice] 11th Place - LOSE: nightmare for byebyepride after tonking.

10: Linda Sundblad - "Who": 'He's spreading his thighs in the blink of an eye like he's a ginger girl' is surely one of the most inappropriate lines in history but this is lovely. Icy, epic scandipop, innit? The strange thing is that this woman probably has a really similar voice to the one on track nine but she's just doing something different with it. Is this Robyn? It sounds a lot like her in places but that's probably just because I know nothing about scandipop. Although to be fair this could well be French or something since I'm a rubbish judge of accents. 4th Place - WIN - poptasticuk pulls off late win.

11: Leonard Cohen - "So Long, Marianne": This is 'So Long, Marianne' by Leonard Cohen. Unless of course it's a cover but I think it's the original... has been a long time since listened to Leonard Cohen- not sure why, think stopped after read 'Beautiful Losers,' although I liked the book so I'm not sure why. It's a great song but my sleep-deprived attention span can't really give it the credit it's due. 9th Place - LOSE: classy team lets epicharmus down on the night.

This was ridiculously difficult and several of the tracks I really like have lost, just because there were other tracks I really, really liked etc. I thought it was all pretty ace and a lot more accurate to my taste than I expected given my very vague descriptions."

Comments

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

If number seven is what I think it is, then it's one of the, oh, thirty best songs ever recorded.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Really? It's probably not even one of my 10 favorite songs by the band (assuming I'm thinking of what you are, which is a good bet) in question.

[koganbot]

Ha, possibly my least favorite today, but slow and trippy's not my trip. (But it's not a bad track, actually.)

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

When I think about it, you're quite right. I'll try again: it's thirtieth best song by the best band in the world.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I can go along with this. 5 years ago I definitely would have gone along with it. Even now they have to be close to my favorite band.

[lisa-go-blind.livejournal.com]

I concur!

:(

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

How, pray tell, Moggy, could you, a 20-year-old in Wales, identify an album track from somethinglocally released in Boston in, like, 1990? ("Rescue Me," I think, but close enough...)

Disappointed I am.

Re: :(

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think "lose to freak goal" may be the blurb for you this time Mitya!

Re: :(

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

RickyT got v excited listening to this last night! It struck some sort of indie nerve deep within him & he played it on repeat several times :-)

Re: :(

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It has been going around in my head all morning.

Re: :(

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

The whole album is pretty good, I think. Happy to YSI if you want.

The amusing thing in retrospect is that they were hotly tipped for their lead vocalist, but listening now the a lot of the vocals are kind of wobbly. (But the keyboardist sang a few, including this one I think.)

Re: :(

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I actually don't know. I had that Tribe album on a tape so I'm assuming I copied it off a friend unless it was part of my parents' stash and I nicked it at some point, which is possible more likely. I had no idea they were from the US or that long ago (thought they were britpop, confirming the fact I actually have no idea what the hell I'm listening to 90% of the time) -sorry, it was a random chance I guess.

Re: :(

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

The Britpop thing isn't that far-fetched, in that it does sound rather like early Lush, who arguably became Britpop in the end. I strongly suspect they really, really wanted to be on 4AD.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Apart from mine, the only one of these I know/own is No.2 - and I surprised myself a bit that I recognised it, as I'd only played the CD from which it comes maybe twice. Some of it got a third spin last night: this is probably the best track on the album. I need to get some of Jane Weaver's solo records, I think.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, pretty much. Under the old rules one of Tribe and LC would have been a loss and one a draw, depending which PM knew best. But now points are determined by ranking first, and any wins for known songs are modified into draws, with wins being pushed down the ranking accordingly.

(As blue_russian pointed out, this means that a team can "win ugly" i.e. take 3 points with a disliked song.)

[koganbot]

Tom, I take it that you officially changed the policy for recognized songs - not that I really remember the old policy, but wouldn't the Tribe have been a draw and the Cohen a loss, while under the new, the Tribe would only have been a draw by finishing in the upper half, which it didn't. Is that right?

I confess...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

...that the description of the track you hate makes me almost certain it is the one I submitted. I'm a bit surprised because I thought liking eurobosh album tracks was pretty much a requirement for membership of poptimists, but I realised I was running a risk! At least you really hated it rather than just being 'meh' about it. And if you really think it's 'an affront to dance music' then I'm glad I at least managed to provoke a response.

Re: I confess...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It was one of my favourites, obv. When I was doing a bit of desk research on profile sites for work last year, LOADS of Scottish raver/chav* girls and boys had that song as their play-on-loading music so I got quite familiar with the first 30 seconds.

*I'd like a non-perjorative word to use here, but I can't think of one - using it in the way the commenters on the indie/emo thread use it, as a designation of a not-them sub-cultural tribe.

Re: I confess...

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I would have said that liking big eurobosh *singles* was close to universal. That really did have album track written all over it.

Re: I confess...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

The whole album is genius, though -- one reason for sending out a Cascada track this week was so I could evangelise about the album on poptimists without blowing the surprise. Obv, if I had played the track on a week when someone who liked teh bosh was at home, that would have helped ;-) Anyway, I will go on and on about the Cascada when I get a chance.

Re: I confess...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

ok, not the WHOLE album, but a lot of it. Nik Kershaw gets boshed!!

Re: I confess...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Aaaa I KNEW it was Cascada!

How I'd have ranked 'em

[koganbot]

I recognized two: The Cohen, which would have been first or second though it's hardly my favorite of his (I'm still not 100% reconciled with his voice, which is too much like mine, though a lot better (what does that say about mine?)); and Track Six, which was one of my recommendations to Team Anthony, and would have been in my top five otherwise, though I completely agree with Moggy about the oversinging. Anyway, of the others:

--Track One (arty minimalist slow developers don't usually hit the top of my chart though I can like them, and this one is quite pretty)
--Track Eight (can't say that I'm a hardcore motherfucker myself, and this is not as fun or as abrasively galvanizing as it wishes, but I enjoy both its abrasions and its humor)
--Track Ten (I adore the style, pretty girl Europop with a Madonna wail thrown in, but the song's not taking me over the top)
--Track Two (more of the art minimalism that I supposedly don't like, though less arty and minimalist so I should like it more than my fave Track One except it turns into "Frere Jacques" or "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" or something, though it's pretty nonetheless)
--Track Nine (now, I'm fine with the big spazzy super beats but I wanted lots more from the tune)

these'd have been my losers (though they're all pretty interesting):
--Track Four (jumps immediately into excitement, but the oddly quizzical vocals deep-six it for me)
--Track Three (singer is trying to be tunefully poppy but I still get a sense that she's trapped in postpunk puritanism)
--Track Seven (not my least favorite, actually)
--Track Five (very terrible vocals, like an NPR announcer going all smug and lecturing on us; given the lyrics, which are something like the opposite of smug lecturing, this is funny, but that doesn't help it sound like good music; really interesting though; wonder what I'd think if I heard it a lot)

What I liked:

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The prettiness of 1, the structure of 2, the tune of 4, the size of 6, the bosh of 9.

Score draws deserved for all the others, though - already knew the Mag Fields, consider myself slightly allergic to Cohen but didn't mind this.

I will admit to not having lasted out the nine minutes of Ultraviolence. I am a softcore motherhugger.

Re: What I liked:

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Thank god at least one of the songs I picked in 5 minutes before leaving for holidays without even knowing who I was picking for worked out in the end. I always knew Yma Sumac was a bit of a risk, but glad that this week's one worked out for me. I normally hate arty minimalist stuff like that but the prettiness seduced me the first time I heard it and it's one of those tunes I just keep wanting to share with other people because I love it so much.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Nicole Adkins track.

Like Rodney not Trace

[koganbot]

Atkins not Adkins, actually. Think she's pouring everything in like a first novel and hasn't pulled it together totally, but there's lots of passion and power and I'll be really interested to hear what she does next and how she manages her lung power. Gave some great interview answers which'll be posted on Paper Thin Walls sometime between tomorrow and June. She sounds dark and gothy for a lounge babe, which is why I thought Moggy'd like it.

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Reminded me a lot of Stevie Nicks at first (and then turned into some weird alternate-universe Stevie Nicks, who hooked up with urg, I don't know, Leonard Cohen instead of Prince back in whatever year that was).

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[koganbot]

Chris Weingarten hears Stevie Nicks in her too; perhaps she's got Stevie in her throat, though the singing style itself seems - on this track, anyway - closer to deep-voiced loungers like Peggy Lee, though with a potential for Orbison wails.

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was assuming this was an old recording - late 60s maybe, somebody like Blossom Dearie (although I know Atkins sounds nothing like her).

Hmmm, on second listen, perhaps this mp3 isn't a keeper after all. But I do appreciate the passion of it - I'm really interested to hear more of her.

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[koganbot]

This is new, from her first album, which drops in June; had an EP last year. She's 27.

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I have an allergy to jazz vocals so it was vaguely destined to rub me up the wrong way. The point about gothiness is true, though, definitely, although it's Liza Minelli goth rather than Poe goth.

Re: Like Rodney not Trace

[koganbot]

Wouldn't Amy Winehouse also be a problem for the same reason? (I think "Rehab" is better than "The Way It Is," and maybe it's more soul than jazz but seems to my ears to have a similar sensibility.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

--Track Ten -- grebt madonna's ghost plus "gingergirl" line = TOPP
--Track Nine -- haha begins with ali-gholi noises! easy leader for me, i am a ho for bosh anyway
--Track One: pretty -- not sure i get it
--Track Five: mildly amusing -- liked it more before i knew it was blechdom ="amusing" music for wireheads w/no sense of humour >:/
--Track Seven: can't quite get with the mags ever :(
--Track Six: not big enough OR not casual enough -- between stools
--Track Two: spoiled a bit by the oasis-ish tune
--Track Three: lush were better
--Track Eight: i felt abt the singing the way frank felt about the singing on five -- there was a schoolgirl on SKINS w.a fake "superposh" voice a couple nights back who also made my skin crawl -- no one actually talks like this any more
--Track Four: kinda AWFUL

i knew cohen also

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

liked it more before i knew who it was => proof of the value of these blind tastings

Blectum From... sits better on the other side of your equation above (I didn't like their output much either). kevy b's solo stuff is closer to harrowing than "amusing", especially the last LP

In short, ditch yr preconceptions: the evidence probably doesn't support them!

[koganbot]

I like my only other exposure to Blechdom, "Me Saw Me Momma," which doesn't pretend to even fake sweetness but is straightforwardly raucous and irritating, though there's still something too cutesy (probably not the right word for a track whose main line is "Shut the fuck up and fuck me," but somehow "raucous and irritating" functions as a safety net).

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

She's a mess of contradictions! She was shy and super nice when I met her IRL, ironically - or should that be 'typically'.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

from what i gather the last album was a rather massive departure for her? never enthused by the idea of her before that but kept meaning to track down Eat My Heart Out (though never did)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say "massive" departure - not musically anyway. But it's even more personal/autobiographical than her older songs. It's basically a concept album about the break-up of a long distance relationship (and the woman's meltdown during the process). I hope you read Miss AMP's Plan B piece/interview at the time - it got into last year's Da Capo anthology.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

hurrah!

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Linda Sundblad is a really ace Swedish pop girl a la Robyn and Margaret Berger, who used to be in a rock-pop group who worked with Max Martin. Her voice is often compared to Robyn's, but only on this first solo album has she moved towards Robyn territory as far as style of music. Her album is great anyway so anyone who likes this track will be in for a treat if they research her further.

[koganbot]

This is about the fifth or sixth thing I've heard by Sundblad, and she seems to be throwing a load of things at the wall to see what will stick, and likes to provoke for the sake of the provocation. "Pretty Rebels" has my favorite rhyme of the last month: "Flamboyant peacocks, straight out of detox."

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Yeah the album is quite mixed, doesn't have an overriding sound like Robyn or Margaret's does, but still the songs are all good.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

It actually really surprises me that that track's recent; I was guessing it was 90s, which was what made me think Robyn cus I knew she was around then. I might have a look for some more Linda Sunblad stuff cus she definitely seems interesting from the two tracks I've heard. :)

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Want me to Yousend some stuff?