Chart Championship Week 3 RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Revelations at the same time as the Pop Prem - I have realised that my spreadsheet is at work (where I am not) and so I can't update the actual scores in the league until Monday.

Here are jeff_worrell's comments:

"General remarks: first, well done to all players for finding 11 things I have never heard before. Moreover, there are 8 or 9 tracks here that deserve a WIN – deciding on the 4th to 8th rankings was bloody hard. There is nothing here that completely knocked me out in a "must get everything they have ever recorded" sense, but a lot of B, B+ material. Most players appear to have picked up on the words "girl-pop" and "electronic" in my bio and gone with one the other (or both); a few others sparked on the "breaks" reference. Sadly, no prog or Radio So-Cal FM.

01. Kid 606 - "Temptation": Instrumental cover of "Temptation" by New Order which, amazingly, manages to be even more indie than the original. I like some things in this ambient electronica style, e.g. Schneider TM’s "The Light 3000" if we're talking cover versions, but this is a bit underwhelming – certainly not enough going on here to justify the 6 minute running time. 10th place - LOSE - poor performance from skillextric's men.

02. Faye Wong - "Cheung Oi" Chinese (or possibly Korean?) vocals, but the string arrangements and sitars suggest a completely different part of Asia. I love the culture clash element. Beats are a bit generic indie-dance, but this does not detract at all. 4th place - WIN - solid display gives lostintheatti the win.

03. DJ Krust - "True Stories": I hope whoever chose this did not misinterpret my saying I liked breakbeats. I tried to make it clear that I meant drummers like Clyde Stubblefield and Mickey Roker, not the misappropriation of the term by lame drum 'n bass acts. There was a stray album-artist tag on this mp3, so I now know that this is DJ Krust. He did a few good things in the mid 90s with Roni Size and DJ Die. But I assume this is from a few years later, after the Maoist cultural revolution in d'n'b that savagely expunged all the decadence, all the prog and jazz-rock elements, i.e. everything that was GREAT about the genre! Leaving me with 11 minutes of monotony to endure. One day these musical war criminals will face justice. 11th place - LOSE - martinskidmore banished to stands in nightmare performance.

04. Emilie Autumn - "How Strange": A real oddity. The melody and the groove are straight out of R&B, but the singer appears to be from the Kate Bush school. The multi-tracked vocals are the best element. The song as a whole is a tad samey. Hard to dislike, but not easy to love either. 9th place - LOSE - eclectic squad fails to gel for piratemoggy.

05. Out Hud - "It's For You": Is this a ZE label artist? It has all the elements that Michel Esteban goes for: breathy baby doll lead vocals, disco/funk guitar riffs, jungle drums, ringing phones. It definitely has an NYC feel. I love ZE-music by the way. This track isn't a classic, but it really takes off when the piano enters at 3'24". I am really sorry that this is not going to get any points. 7th place - LOSE - byebyepride can feel unlucky after undeserved defeat.

06. Moonbaby - "Kitsch Bitch Kool": Freeze! Surrender! OK then. Really dynamic track, with fantastic, propulsive drumming. The lyrics and their delivery remind me of "Swinging London Town" by Girls Aloud. I wondered in fact if this might be a Xenomania song. The riff on the strings at 4'30" simply builds the excitement even higher. My only criticism is that this ends with a fade rather than a bang. 1st place - WIN - magnificent attacking display by poptasticuk

07. Katy Rose - "Watching The Rain": I suspect there may be some who will be allergic to the flatly intoned quasi-rap of the verses of this song, not to mention the full-of-cliché rhyming scheme and lines like "I'd spin and twirl and laugh with them/ And drown my thoughts perchance". Not me, though! In fact, it’s the chorus that lets this song down. OK, you’re watching the rain fall. And? Is that it? Still, this is better than its ranking suggests. 8th place - LOSE - ex-caretaker manager koganbot frustrated in his first game in full charge.

08. Dawn - "I'm Afraid They're All Talking About Me": Super slice of 60s melodrama, the theme of which appears to be paranoia – wanting to be noticed and loved, but frightened too of being the centre of attention. I suspect I haven't yet begun to uncover all the layers of this song, even after 4 listens. There are parallels here to the current teen pop I really like. Kudos to whoever picked this. 2nd place - WIN - lisa_go_blind takes the kudos after classy performance.

09. The Field - "A Paw In The Face": Smooth, minimal house. I love the way this track unfolds slowly, with minor variations of the guitar sample (revealed in full right at the end - I recognise it, but cannot place it) every 8 bars or so. Yes, this is exactly my kind of thing. 3rd place - WIN - steady play gives epicharmus a fine win.

10. Major Lance - "I Wanna Make Up (Before We Break Up)": Quality 70s soul tune. I cannot identify the singer, but he sounds familiar – I may have a track or two by him on compilations. Since this track stands out a mile in this bunch, last night I tried playing it in the middle of a bunch of my favourite tunes of the same genre. It just about it held its own. Hard to say whether I like this more than the two tracks ranked just below it, but I am going to reward what I think was a brave choice. The synth that enters right at the end of the song helped, of course. 5th place - WIN - brave tactics pay off for blue_russian

11. Trentemoller - "Take Me Into Your Skin": I love, love, love the structure of this track. The way it builds slowly, adds new layers, recedes a little, then builds even more to the huge climax. It's also extremely pretty. The only reason it is not ranked higher is that it is not quite emotional enough for me – there is more style than substance here possibly? 6th place - DRAW. - infov0re unlucky to only come away with a point.

Comments

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Woo! Two wins in a row, I was a bit worried after my crushing last place defeat in week one. Totally agree that track 6 deserved it's first place - it's a great pop song.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

cor, Faye Wong has a huge discography, doesn't she? I also hadn't realised she'd collaborated frequently with the Cocteau Twins. I only really know her from Wong Kar-Wei films.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Yay! (I think) a win finally!

I had a couple of ideas on what to submit, but again sort of went with the first track that seemed like it might work.

I can't comment in detail because my music is at home (where I am not), but I have to say that I disappointed overall this week. As I recall, again this week there wasn't anything I could immediately identify, although my reaction was much like Jeff's to track 1 - a lot of things that I really didn't feel like listening to all the way through. (Nothing personal, guys and gals :)

[koganbot]

Ah, falling to defeat yet again (I clearly should not send anything that is not Taylor Swift, though my song was complimented nicely by the judge nonetheless):

Anyway, not counting my own (number seven) this is how I'd have ranked them, winners to losers; didn't know anything other than mine, didn't dislike anything. If I were the one doing the ratings I'd be in a quandary, given that the one I ranked ninth is as good as the one I ranked fourth. So I just made quick decisions.

These would be my winners:
--TRACK EIGHT: Sweet soul singing but with an arrangement somewhere between forest and elf land, makes my jaw drop; I can't place this in space or time, but it's very good.
--TRACK TWO: Deep fog, power drumbeats, an Asian woman rides 'em like a surfer.
--TRACK ELEVEN: Dark guitars and endless seas. My mind wanders, but I love the mood.
--TRACK FIVE: Another excellent mood dance, develops tunefulness beyond mannerism. Piano enters, accompanies sex sounds that are more silly than sexy, but silly is not bad.
--TRACK FOUR: Beautiful r&b, a woman is half frazzled into hysteria, though sometimes falls back too much on her vocal training.

These would be my losers, though they all played well:
--TRACK SIX: Strong, rich, and tuneful like Girls Aloud; its self-consciousness hinders its passion, but not irrevocably.
--TRACK ONE: Excellent feedback dissonances scrape against the rhythm. The dissonances make their way into moodiness. Keyboard threatens to make things gloopy but avoids fatal lushness.
--TRACK THREE: Suspense, dark night in the city; then beats come running through the jungle. Moodiness threatens to swamp this, but murder-ball beats enliven the proceedings.
--TRACK TEN: Opening riff sounds just like "Push It" at the start, then horns and deep funk bass announce early Seventies soul, with its weird combination of disappointment and optimism.
--TRACK NINE: More moody dance atmospherics. Cheer up folks, it's only a life-threatening depression.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

The lyrics & vocal delivery of your track are very very reminiscent of the song 'Wish' from the film Run Lola Run - exactly the same deadpan semi-rap delivery, and all of the lines beginning with 'I wish...'. They are too similar (to my mind anyway) for it to just be coincidence.

[koganbot]

You're right, though "Wish" is - appropriately, it seems, from the vid - more an electro-suspense thing, while mine's more girl pop. Mine came out three or four years after Lola.

Jeff, I had a teenpop track that was more L.A.-stylee than this one, but ultimately decided it wasn't as good. The one I chose was L.A. too, but not riding down the '70s highway and uncharacteristically full of rain.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I suspect all your song needs is one more idea.

On this week's episode of the Radio 2 In Search of the Perfect Pop Song (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/319183.html) thing, they were discussing middle eights, third verses and endings, and some commentators were bemoaning that nobody much bothers with them these days. I doubt that this matters in most cases, but here I think it did matter.

[koganbot]

I might have gone the other way: shortened the chorus to being brief interpolations so that the drone would dominate the song. But that's the Lou Reed in me. Now that I think of it, there're actually things in common between my song and "Heroin": "I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas/On a great big clipper ship/Going from this land here to that." My song, with its own tiny girlpop apocalypse: "I wish the raindrops on the glass would let me join their dance/I'd spin and twirl and laugh with them and drown my thoughts perchance." ('Cause when the poetry begins to flow, and I really don't care anymore...) My girl's delivery also reminds me of Marc Campbell's on "88 Lines About 44 Women," 'cept without his half-snide detachment.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

That's why I love so many Xenomania songs - they often have great middle eights, intros, outros, extra choruses and so on which really shake up the structure of the song - which works especially well for a listener (like me) with a short attention span. Biology is the classic example.

[koganbot]

"I Wish," being aimed at "adults," is more suspense-ridden and stereotypically "dark." But almost as silly, if not half as poignant or emotive. But the lyrics seem almost as child-like and wishful: "I wish I was a forest of trees that do not hide/I wish I was a clearing, no secrets left inside." But not nearly as exuberantly teenage. (Compare to my song's: "I wish the voices in my head would leave my ears alone/So my eyes would stop their water bleeding and I could find a home.")

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right - the whole concept of basing a song around wishing works much much better in a teenage concept, so your song works better on its own ,although the chorus does jar, it would be much more effective if they'd shortened it or taken the more radical step of eliminating the chorus (vocally at least).

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Damn, a 1st last week, and last this - I obviously have a highly inconsistent team. Mine was the long Krust track, which I totally love - he's my favourite D&B artiste ever. It is from the mid-'90s, back when he was doing lots with Roni, Die and so on - it's called True Stories. Sorry you didn't like it, Jeff!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I had to pan it, Martin. The track wasn't totally without merit: the electronic burbles were mildly diverting. But it was always going to rank 11th, and I didn't want the facts to get in the way of a good polemic ;-)

Still, one good thing came out of it: I dug out Grooverider's Mysteries of Funk from the bottom of a box of CDs as a comparator. This sounded much better than I remembered it being, and I'm totally going to listen to the whole thing this weekend.

left it too late!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

can someone re-upload jeff's zip -- it has expired before i got back to my home computer :(

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Woo haa! I didn't lose! Draw seems quite reasonable; the track was, to be fair, the first track off an eletronic album and as such is basically an "intro" - it's also very, very different to the artist's singles and remixes; he ppurposefully went off and made an album.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Ah, so this is what Trentemoller sounds like! I had been meaning to investigate The Last Resort. Now I definitely will.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's reasonably representative of the album but not entirely.

That said, all his remixes and singles are _way_ harder - really hard electro house. I liked that he realised that wouldn't last for a whole album, so made something more coherent.

But yeah, The Last Resort is stonkingly good.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, when "Chemistry" came out, I posted to ILM that I'm sure "Swinging London Town" was based around Track 6, or parts of it. Glad to see I'm not the only one who hears the link.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Yay, I won!

Moonbaby is Miranda Cooper, one of the main Xenomania writers, in her previous pop singer incarnation. She also did the original versions of Here We Go and Deadlines And Diets by Girls Aloud.

The basis of "A Paw In The Face"?

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Lionel Richie's "Hello."

Re: The basis of "A Paw In [My] Face"?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

a ha! Thanks!

I have meanwhile been researching this (and some of the other tracks) with google, and I note that The Field releases a CD on Kompakt on Monday. I dare say I shall be buying it.

interwebs also sa: "my" instead of "the"

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I am quite rubbish at this really. :D Ah well, at least you didn't think it sounded like 19th Century Opera, which I had a sudden panic it might.

Re: Emilie Autumn, she's a classically trained violinist who went bonkers and made an album full of twonky pop songs, then went bonkers again after recording some stuff for Billy Corgan's solo album (no lie) and recorded a two-disc industrial twonk monster thing that's going down hugely well in goth circles. She is indeed remarkably like Kate Bush, however.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

NB: I have just thought that 'twonk' may be some kind of incredibly rude word. I am referring to the noise of a violin being plucked, not any rude connotations it might have.