Chart Championship Week 8 RESULTS (now with reveals)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Championship leader skillextric dispenses justice. (And get yer week 9 tracks in if you haven't already - it's not likely that I'll be able to send reminders out and the leagueofpop@gmail.com inbox is looking thin!)

Revelations at 3.30 ish. Incidentally a lot of these tracks still had "composer tags" on - I've edited the bits in William's comments where he mentions this to preserve the surprise for any who didn't see.

"Cheers for these - on the whole, a solid bundle, but it felt like a lot of the songs were the kind of things that need to bed in over time. I really, really worried about the five things I gave as qualities, cos I was looking for surprises more than anything else, and I got them, but some weren't perhaps as surprising as I'd hoped. With one notable exception, though, I didn't really dislike any of it, and hopefully my comments aren't quite as prickish as I felt they were when writing them.

01. Malcolm Middleton - "Break My Heart": It's Malcolm Middleton, presumably off one of his last two albums cos I've only heard his first one. There is such a thing as too much self-deprecation, and Malky gets a wee bit too close a lot of the time, but I somehow still find the bugger endearing. Even if this is a good minute too long for no reason, and sounds quite like Ben Folds albeit not sung by Ben Folds. For some reason, that's not quite enough today. 7th Place - LOSE - frustrating defeat leaves infov0re stranded in mid-table.

02. KateGoes - "Boomshadilak": I know two people who rep for Brummie tweesters KateGoes, who this is by—me, and poptasticuk. Which quite possibly gives the game away a bit here. The bigger problem is that I think this is called 'Boom Shack-A-Lack', and I have definitely heard it before cos I've seen them do it live… and I have no idea where that leaves us scoring-wise. [I'M SAYING DRAW - ED.] This ain't 'Heartbeat' (remind me to YSI/Sendspace that, cos it's brilliant), their best song by a distance, but I still like how they take twee and ratchet it up to nigh-Joyce Grenfell levels (this is where someone points out that Joyce Grenfell was anything but twee, and I sort of agree, but wonder what else Kate's pronunciation of "kangaroo" could possibly be reminiscent of), way beyond more or less everyone's saccharine levels, except possibly mine. And poptasticuk's. I will be shocked if anyone else ranks this higher than last—there's so many obvious things to hate about it—but this picks on a very vulnerable bit of my brain and strikes with incredibly piercing accuracy. 4th Place - DRAW - poptasticuk plays out entertaining draw.

03. Split Enz - "Bold As Brass": Unfortunately, the composer tag's been left on, but fortunately I have no idea who XXXXXX XXXXXXX is (from the sound and the surname, I'm suspecting Average White Band, but I won't ruin it by checking), so I'm more or less none the wiser. It's pretty definitely from the 70's, bit Alex Harvey-esque, and it's… well, it's unspectacular—there's some sort-of carnival whistles, and it's pulsing somewhat, lots of fizz and buzz. That piano is nice, and it's all very jaunty and so forth, and I suspect that were this record made today it would be about 50 times worse. It just doesn't do that much for me, things happen in it, but they just happen, nothing more. It's OK, but doesn't leave an impact. 8th Place - LOSE - blue_russian creates chances but can't finish them.

04. Mahlithini and the Mahotella Queens – "Thokozile": Uh-oh. Someone's triggered my nostalgia duct, this sounds an awful like the African records Peel used to play and now lots and lots of happy memories of wondrous unpredictability are flooding through it. Wonder what Zender Berlin are up to nowadays? This springs all over the place, I am nodding like a bastard, yes, yes yes. It just goes on for ages, doesn't it? In the best possible way. Thanks for whoever took a punt on this, it's really exactly the kind of thing I'd been hoping for, in that I really had no idea what I'd been hoping for. 2nd Place - WIN - martinskidmore finding his stride late in the season.

05. Peter Jefferies – "On An Unknown Beach": Hmm. Pleasant. But… not anything beyond that. Lots of gubbins about "the shadow in the wa-ter" or something, and possibly points for rhyming "sand" with something other than "hand", but this is just flat-out ponderous. Lovingly crafted, maybe, but predominantly ponderous. I have an awful feeling this is what I get for saying I like The Delgados without qualifying why. 10th Place - LOSE - byebyepride can't buy a win right now.

06. Au Revoir Simone – "Violent Yet Flammable World": This shares problems with a few of the songs I disliked in the bundle—it's a little too long, and lyrically it's somewhat on the dithery side—but it's somehow much more interesting. Those cricket-leg clips in the background, for instance. That eight-bit synth that rises in and out of the piece. The fact the drum intro sounds identical to 'You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve' (I know the beat's identical to a lot more songs than that, but this has the precise echoes of that specific instance of it), then veers off somewhere else instead. There's a lot more going on, a lot more to think about, it's a big electronic dream that I feel like I have to keep unpacking, compulsively. It's intriguing me for reasons I can't put my finger on. This is generally a good thing. 3rd Place - WIN - smooth win for jeff_worrell keeps play-off ambitions alive.

07. Lonnie Mack - "Chickin' Pickin'": And another composer tag—this is Lonnie Mack. No idea who he is, though, so never mind. Short, sharp 60's funk instrumental. Massive outbreak of solo-itis. No-one is safe. Trumpets explode all over, coming off like elephants hitting orgasm. Guitarist and organist engage in one-upping competition. Organist just about takes it. It's pretty awesome, yeah. 1st Place - WIN - epicharmus watches from stands as his team romp home.

08. Tegan And Sara - "Superstar": Worst thing here by a distance. Composer tag again comes up, I'm afraid, and this is by Tegan And Sara, which is a pity, cos I really liked "Walking Like A Ghost". Expectations have nothing to do with it, though – the production is nice, arrangement lovely… but it's a petty jealousy narrative and the way she faux-drawls "you're gonna be a starrrr!" because CELEBRITY CULTURE DO YOU JACK-BAGGING WELL SEEEEEEEE???, that bit rubs me up the wrong way so, so badly you would not believe. "Hard-core superstar, by far—you're the ultimate star!" Dunno if anyone here remembers the C64 remix of Pay TV's 'Trendy Discoteque', but that took similar source material and redeemed it through massive banging and, crucially, cutting the clumsy "and such a bitch!" aside after "And we are very rich!" Even the original of that was never this insufferable though – so humourless, so petty, so bloody awful. 11th Place - LOSE - woeful performance leaves piratemoggy reeling.

09. Skeeter Davis - "The End Of The World": I see what it's doing, I'd be an idiot not to, and I also see that's the genius of the whole thing, and I also know that there's something here I'm perhaps not fully appreciating. But maybe I've heard this subtly poignant late 50's-early 60's balladry too many times in my life for it to do anything but thud off the skull anymore. God but it's sweet and the tearducts, yes, they're a-swelling, and that mood of ambiguity—"Why is everything still the same?"—juggles that many emotions at the same time (whether or not the sadness is genuine or forced, the commodification of the teen relationship at that time, maybe it isn't all it's cracked up to be and maybe that isn't actually so bad) that I can't help but realise that yes, this is a bloody good record, but it feels like I'm forcing it to click too much, like I've come in on completely the wrong level. Let's just hold on to the 'bloody good record' part. Or try to, anyway. I'm gonna hate myself for putting this behind KateGoes, but to do anything else would be a massive, massive fib on my part. 5th Place - WIN - koganbot goes top after vital win.

10. Michelle Shocked - "Anchorage": Composer tag pops up again, revealing this to be Michelle Shocked. This is the point where I start wishing I'd not asked for narratives, too. It's just too meandering, too wistful, maybe even too smug. The way she sings "skateboard punk-rocker"—I can tell it's meant to be with wistful regret, an expression of "god, I feel old", and it's quite affecting but also a little bit annoying at the same time. It feels like I'm deliberately being kept at a distance from the number, but I don't know if that's my fault or hers. It's alright, but something's just wedged the gap too far apart. Certainly the organ doesn't help at all, though. 9th Place - LOSE - lockedintheatti left frustrated by underperformance.

11. Throwing Muses - "Cry Baby Cry": Fourth go around and I finally twig the voice as Kristin Hersh, though beyond that I'm fairly clueless—I've encountered her through various songs on various freebie CDs from magazines and the like, but never gone any deeper than that. The sound quality kind of gets in the way a little, holds it back from romping as much as it really ought to—lovely springing noise, though, no question about that, a sort of blindingly off-kilter country rompabout type thing with Kristin Hersh being Kristin Hersh on top. That sound quality's really holding it back, though—too quiet to be quite as mad as I feel it needs to be—but it's good enough for a draw at the very least. 6th Place - WIN - lisa_go_blind celebrates last-minute winner.

Comments

[koganbot]

Just running here after sending off a PTW piece minutes before deadline, so I'm working off notes from a couple of days ago and don't even remember what these sounds like. Anyway, I was TRACK NINE, my favorite song about the time I turned nine years old. (My strategy for picking tunes, by the way, is to have a bunch I want people to hear and to vaguely rationalize which goes to whom on the basis of their intro or what they themselves have submitted before.) Also have heard TRACK TEN (I think it's the second League Of Pop tune that was in our History Of Jop polls): a folkie talking about her lesbian punk life, I like it, but it's still got that folkie recessiveness so I'd probably not have placed it top five:

So here goes, typing fast. Five winners:

--TRACK FOUR: Loping Afro-beat w/ pennywhistle and pretty guitars. Quite excellent. I'm embarrassed that I can't remember who this is.
--TRACK SIX: Uses the "Be My Baby" beat, then an entirely non-"Be My Baby" instrumental drift. My notes say "strangeness in the chord shifts that don't sound dissonant for all their strangeness." Maybe that's because they're not strange? But they're more symphonic (or cinematic) than pop, I guess.
--TRACK ONE: Regular guy makes dismal romance forecast; pianos and guitars contemplate their own demise.
--TRACK EIGHT: Fetching but irritating woman foists pretentious lyrics at us. Why do I always fall for these types?
--TRACK TWO: Postpunk (i.e., stiff) vocals, "mischievous," "dreamy," actual wit. Second song in a row to use the word "shit." Why am I nice to women like this? Surely there's something better than this in the remaining four.