Pop Premiership Week 2 RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Here are zenith's write-ups - expect revelations between half one and two. And another chance to see the byzantine DRAW RULES in hott action.

"General comments: I'm very happy with how this turned out, cos there are at least two classic finds on here and several more I'm glad to have or curious about. I think I knew when I said one of the things I liked was "girls with guitars" or something that that was a very broad church, and a couple of these which I wasn't keen on demonstrated that... There should be quite a big gap between 10th place and 11th, though.

1. DJ Khaled ft Akon, TI, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Birdman - "We Takin Over" - Southern rap! Fuck yeah! I think T.I. is the first guy on this track? Or someone who sounds a lot like him - oh wait, he says something about being the king, dead giveaway. This is a great start cos I will definitely be keeping this. It is really, really hard to not make this number 1, cos it and the winner are great examples of probably two of my favourite kinds of music. This is totally alexmacpherson's choice, right? 2nd Place - WIN - alexmacpherson gets tactics spot on.

2. Juniper Moon - "A Veces Si, A Veces No" - Girl punk. Musically this is not really the kind of punk I like... it kinda depends when this was recorded, if it was the early 90s or before that's forgiveable, if it's current it's not. 7th Place - DRAW - jel_bugle fortunate to escape with a point.

3. The Walkmen - "The Rat": This is 'The Rat' by The Walkmen, far and away the best thing they ever did, and I suspected it was this within the first 15 seconds... I love it though, and I'm not sure where I put my copy if I ever had one, so cheers. Someone once pointed out it managed to sound a bit like 'Common People' and a bit like Oasis and yet nothing like either. I'd rate it higher if I didn't know it so well. 5th Place - DRAW - honours even for strange_powers.

4. Beastellabeast - "The Final Mistake": 'The Final Mistake' by Beastellabeast, right? This was on Fluxblog. I totally deleted this off my harddrive the other night, but now I think maybe I shouldn't have. Weird, unpop pop. 4th Place - DRAW - katstevens plays out an entertaining tie.

5. Klee - "Gold": This is nice, and I feel like I should be able to identify it. I am being very good and not Googling the lyrics, but I know I'm going to kick myself. Or maybe I'm not, and it's just that Hooky-style bassline and Ladytron vibe that feels familiar. Damn, though, I'm sure the "golden" lyric rings a bell too... 3rd Place - WIN - smooth performance takes inhibitorylinks top.

6. Sonny Sharrock - "Portrait of Linda in Three Colours, All Black": It's a bad sign that I am wanting to skip to the next one after 40 seconds of this and there's still about 8 minutes to go. I was really hoping that was just an intro... it was, but what is this? This feels very... worthy, somehow. Experimental. I'm sure there are many people at Plan B who would love it. Oh god, improvisational horns. I suspect there are 10 people in this band, and 7 of them are vegans. Finger hovers on the skip button... Oh god, wailing. If it hurts, stop doing it, woman. Skip button hit. League of Sukrat more like! Is this from dubdobdee? 11th Place - LOSE - hauntedballroom punished for giving players too much freedom.

7. Sonicflyer - "Tonight": That's more like it. Although I thought it was going to be a bit less jangly from the intro. Still, this is perfectly decent female vocal indie rock, which I find it very hard to dislike. Again, something naggingly familiar about the voice, but a bit too quiet to pick out. 6th Place - WIN - a lucky victory, but fugitivemotel won't be complaining.

8. Kittie - "Brackish": Anxious guitars! Uh-oh, this is metal? I was worried that it would be a very deep voiced metal guy who came in. Instead it's a slightly generic girl and a veryfastangry guy. Collective number of tattoos in this band: 38, across 4 or 5 people. They're probably called Tarantula or something. 10th Place - LOSE - bad-tempered match ends in defeat for bengraham

9. Sneaky Sound System - "Pictures": Sounds like the poppiest thing so far! This is either one of those hipster bands who aspire to be 80s pop, like New Young Pony Club (although it's not them), or it's one of those pop acts who have never quite won over the pop audience, like Portabella. Or it could actually be from the 80s, but I doubt it. I like the slightly shouty chorus. I'd totally play this out, y'know, and be heartbroken if people didn't dance. 1st Place - WIN - xyzzzz_ in a tactically masterful display.

10. Mountain Goats - "No Children": I can't decide if this is one of those knowing tributes to down-at-heel folsky Irish bar singer stuff by some intellectual who hangs out in Bowery, or the real thing. This is okay. People who like this probably like the Mountain Goats, which I sort of do... I don't hate this, I respect this, I just would never listen to it rather than so many other things. 8th Place - LOSE - down-at-heel folksy Irishman braisedbywolves comes to grief.

11. Ehsan - "Alone In Tehran" Is this going to bosh? Oh, a bit! Vocoders! Hmmm. Is this from bengraham? This is kinda meh, it could do with turning up the BOSH factor even more. 9th Place - LOSE" - dubdobdee's side fail to gel.

Comments

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

The league leaders have, unsurprisingly, been toppled. I knew it was a risky move going for an all-girl nu-metal act!

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I'm intrigued to know how many other players or supporters recognised my song. #8 with the tattoos and the angry girls. Anyone know it?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Haha, absolutely busted!

Tom, please explain the draw rules again, they make my head hurt.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

OK! I didn't explain them very well last time.

1. There will always be an equal number of wins and losses.*

2. Assuming all 11 tracks are unknown, positions 1-5 will be wins, 6 a draw, 7-11 losses.

3. Known tracks can be draws or losses but not wins.

4. So known tracks in winning places are converted to draws.

5. The win/loss divide is then worked out among the remaining tracks. So in the case where 2 winning tracks are known, the 9 remaining tracks include 4 wins, 1 draw, 4 losses. If all 5 winning tracks are known, the remainder will be divided into 3 (frankly lucky) wins, 3 losses.

*this principle breaks down if the number of known tracks is really huge.

Your head still probably hurts.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Bums, that'll teach me not to read mp3 blogs.

Hurrah, I have a point at last!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

btw I RLY liked the 9 minute skronk! It was my fave track I think.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Must be julio's nominee, I think. dubdobdee's is probably #11 - sounds like some of that Iranian pop he submitted for the PWC, O-Hum was it?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

People who like this probably like the Mountain Goats

haha oops

#10 was the only track I knew, maintaining my record of knowing exactly one song in each mix so far (not counting my own contributions). I'm now very hopeful that I'll hear lots of new things when it's my turn next week.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this was the only one I recognised. I like it lots, though. I wonder what zenith thinks that says about me!

If it had been me...

[(Anonymous)]

WINS for, in order:
1. Beastellabeast
2. Kittie
3. Klee
4. Sneaky Sound System

with the fifth spot possibly going to Tehran. I quite liked bits of the Sharrock (including the vocals!) but oddly, the guitar was the part that put me off the whole thing.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

wait, how can 4th and 5th be draws and 6th a win???

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

cos he knew the 4th and 5th placed songs innit. DO KEEP UP

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

You can't win by picking a song the person knows.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I know I'm predictable but I find it slightly sad that I am the only poptimist who could possibly have submitted a Southern hip-hop track! Still, BACK IN THE GAME Y'ALL. I have every intention of finishing what I was cheated out of in the Pop World Cup :)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think there are quite a few other Poptimists who could have submitted one! It's just the only other one likely to in this group of 12 was the home player.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Draw again. Trying to put in not-unknown songs that may have slipped under the home team's radar is never going to yield a Cup for me.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I like the format of the League write ups, because it seems so revealing of how people listen. I think I tend to relate to people based on HOW they listen, rather than on what they actually like.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes I totally agree, am v much enjoying this - not got round to downloading any of the zip files yet though but v much looking forward to my turn.

TEST CASE: over the long haul, how will this competition treat:

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i. someone w.unapologetic outlier tastes like julio
vs
ii. someone w.unapologetic bigoted extremely er particular tastes within more (apparently) broadly shared territories

Re: TEST CASE: over the long haul, how will this competition treat:

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Surely the answer isn't within the individual's tastes, but within how cannily they can anticipate other people's.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

or to put it another way, if yr tastes are largely formed AGAINST other kinds of music, does this impact on yr judgment abt what ppl might like within those areas? (and is it easier or harder the further these areas are from yr comfort zone?)

[koganbot]

Order I'd have ranked them. (Track One would have been my number one except I know it, so it would only get a draw, and I won't give away whom it's officially by, but I will point out that in the exciting 2007 competition for guest spots (winner is the first to 100), Akon and Lil Wayne continue neck and neck.) Like everything else, don't love anything, tracks falling nicely into two tiers; consumer guiding it I'd say first five hang around B-PLUS, second five around B-MINUS, all expand my mind nicely; wonderful idea this League is, Tom.

top 5:
--TRACK FOUR (a debutante goes jazz-freaky, scat-punky, is an appealing rhythm babe but not enough of a drama queen)
--TRACK FIVE (Iranians refracting beauty through a vocoder, which has become a mark of Tehran disco, though this guy's not as wondrously, piercingly gorgeous as the Mahshar woman Mark introduced us to in the Pop World Cup)
--TRACK NINE (funkyish Europop; vocalist has chutzpah but doesn't make me swoon)
--TRACK EIGHT (hardcore scatterboy duets with tough female bawler, who carries the track to victory)
--TRACK FIVE (instrumental prettiness, which nicely dreamy foreign vocalist doesn't quite hook into; chorus takes it to a win)

bottom 5:
--TRACK TEN (know who this is but not this track; the sort of thing you will certainly like if you like the Mountain Goats, though [very much like the Mountain Goats] over-fetishizes the oddly ordinary)(I've been using the verb "fetishize" a lot ever since mcatzilut told me I remind him of Adorno)
--TRACK SIX (quick strums explore gently, while woman volunteers to be tortured to death)
--TRACK SEVEN (nice gtr hum becomes standard gtr jangle; dreamy singer better than previous dreamer but can't quite compensate for normality of jangle)
--TRACK THREE (lovely guitar onslaught, but indie guy gets entangled in his own muscles while trying to channel Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan)
--TRACK TWO (guitar onslaught w/ Clashy tunefulness; is this Thug Murder? I remember them as less dexterous; this is very nice for being my least favorite)

[koganbot]

first "TRACK FIVE" was actually "TRACK ELEVEN." (my post prob'ly makes all sorts of other mistakes)

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else immediately recognize sonicflyer the second week in a row?

[fugitivemotel.livejournal.com]

Heh, as I said in my email when I sent the mp3, I realise these choices probably seem horribly vain, but actually I am just hideously lazy and sonicflyer songs were the only mp3s I had in my email account, accessible from work!

However this week I found a song by ANOTHER BAND in my old inbox, so I will be submitting that instead!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'm spotting a theme in fugitivemotel's tactics...

[fugitivemotel.livejournal.com]

Foiled!

[koganbot]

Say more about Sneaky Sound System; I'd categorize their track as r&b/funk, but something about it made me feel it was going for the European pop market.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Don't know much more than a google search would give. I found out about them after talking to a - now probably former - ilxer and asking for recommendations/what are you into lately.

'Pictures' ws my favourite from their album. A few more tracks on their myspace page (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=90640662).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think the one that stood out for me this time was Klee, for niceness. Most of the others hit 'interesting' more than 'likeable', a couple of them didn't even hit that.

I already knew the Sonny Sharrock, though wouldn't have recognised it blind. It is a bit too much for my comfortable tastes at the moment. I also knew the Beastellabeast from the CD Kat made me.

This is the first Mountain Goats I have ever heard. When I moderated ILX I tended to avoid regulars' music on purpose in case I violently hated it and by extension them.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

It is, as zenith spotted, not entirely standard for them. It's usually one bloke and a guitar rather than a pianner.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

We must be happy with a draw, but it's really not good enough. Sometimes in life, you go against your better judgement and allow yourself to be influenced by others. At the beginning of the season, the team decided upon a policy of "you get what you are given", and it worked in the first week - but this week, we saw the "girls with guitars" and went with that. We were lucky, and I'm not happy with that. Still, the season is long, and I have faith in the squad, and not change my mind about team selection. This is the Pop Premiership and it's an even steeper learning curve than the Pop World Cup.