Pop Premiership Week 11 RESULTS now with REVEALS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Judge is IN. dubdobdee says:

"So thx everyone and well done finding me stuff i didn't know -- not as hard as you might think, my knowledge is all big unexpected holes. Glee-count: high! Surprise-count: low but one definite mystery. Economy-count: haha 2 songs at or over the ten-min mark and one at nearly 7! Write-abt count: well about half of this stuff I could have written lots more about. Can't-write-about count: hmmm, we shall see shan't we?

01. Ish Marquez - "Gin Is Not My Friend": The yelps that open this are fantastic -- then when it reaches the actual real song the singer is pulled between an intense lean into the story and shape, and relaxing back and enjoying the feel of his own voice -- and the latter gets to me more than the former. Me, I'm torn between the way it reminds me of Love (yay!) and Men at Work (boo!): the latter based on a mishearing ("Dave" for "Babe") which was a symptom of the faint forcedness of the feel of the tale the singer's telling about himself (he's telling himself ME SO BOHEMIAN, but I'm more interested in his uneasiness except when he's on his own, only he won't let that become the subject of the words. 7th place - LOSE - strange_powers out of title race after narrow defeat.

02. Green Velvet - "Shake And Pop (Grantman Remix)": I wish it was more rigorously formalist/self-descriptive, less "satirical" -- the voices saying "shake and pop" sound more sardonic than celebratory, and to pull that off it needed to be a bit less brittle. Keeps its crispness, what B3n W4tson would call its "objectivity": to me that's a mark of fear, of course. Imagining the "social" of this song is what bamboozles me here, I think; I can't really imagine it somewhere I'd enjoy being (or even somewhere people that i like wd go, even if i just said, OK, aee you when you get home!). 10th place - LOSE - nervy hauntedballroom side slip to defeat.

03. Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom – “Relevee (Carl Craig Remix)”: I got very excited that this reach of near-minimalist Techno (?) might be permutationally prime -- that the three main riffs (one being the beat track) only came together at the combined product of their length! It's not, they're all standardly four-square, but the asymmetry is strong enough that it took me ages to work out a way to count and hear this, and i enjoyed those ages. Very rich and inventive down within its elegantly narrow line, as the filters and flanges breathe -- I slightly feel the central riff is a bit too blurry soundwise (maybe less so if hyperloud at a rave), but it makes up for it with the sudden arrival, 8 (!) mins in, of clattery arhythmic piano, like garage feat.Mike Mantler! 3rd place - WIN - alexmacpherson keeps it tight at the back as play-off bid gains pace.

04. Cascada - "Everytime We Touch (Styles And Breeze Remix)": Someone is so shameless they headed straight for my SCOOTER-BUTTON!! And IT WORKED: bcz i am (it's widely known) 1xHO 4 BOSH... What have we here? i. chipmunked passion; ii. a speed-up; iii. crowd sounds (dubbed I hope!); iv. anthemic keyb-brass skatey inserts; v. that little tremble (more moving than anything else in this collection) in "her" voice ("I can't let you go0o0o0!"); vi. VOCODER (actually pitch-shifting, but everyone calls it vocoder); and vii. BOSH BOSH BOSH!! 1st place - WIN - braisedbywolves plays the direct game: the purists won't like it but the fans rejoice as they're saved from relegation.

05. Helloween - "Walls Of Jericho / Ride The Sky”: LET THERE BE SHRED! This even features a THUNDERSTORM! In my psyched mind's eye, these limber longhairs stand on-stage atop a MIGHTY LEGO CASTLE!! I am guessing this is Jel_Bugle's entry, and supposing this is maybe Dragonforce? If I had a complaint I'd say a lack of texture-detail -- is it live? -- but I am grinning happily from start to finish. 2nd place - WIN - jel_bugle notches up another entertaining win.

06. Poulenc - "Toccata" (performed by Glenn Gould): Somewhat thrown by this -- my notes say "post-stravinsky dryness", 1930s, german, neue sachlichkeit? (sp.)" -- but somewhere in the middle the little ragtime turns and staccato bonk of the bass notes suddenly made me wonder is it CONLON NANCARROW? How many actual pianos is this plz? Or is it one big giant player piano? Concerto for player-piano? I like the arrangement -- hiring the orchestra just to play at the start! Anyway, this was the SURPRISE, and i want to know more. 5th place - WIN - inhibitorylinks squeaks a win and has one hand on the trophy.

07. Green Velvet - "Genedefekt": Slight sigh at the easyreach content stab of the vocal here -- the beats and sounds do all this spookwork, then the vocals just mutter "Gene Defect!" and that's kind of nothing-y, the voices sit so tight in their own zone and don't help (i mean, you could skip up off a topic like "gene defect' to write a bunch about this song, but it would take you nowhere the the sounds). Dance music for people who don't want to quite admit that they're into dance music? ("I'm concerned about social issues AND science AND I'm clubbing!") -- so then I started thinking about Metamatic (which is a forefather of this): is there a link between John Foxx intoning "UNDERPASS!" and the Underpants Gnomes: "Phase 2. ????" is the bit that's missing from this song, the jump between the content and the "content". 9th place - LOSE - katstevens relegated after pallid performance.

08. Bjork - "Declare Independence": Reminded me (very variously) of beloved No Wave girl-trio Ut, long-forgotten one-release Peel fave And Yet the Native Hipsters.., and pseudo-marxist avant-blowhards Art and Language -- before I decided to be put in mind of Swiss protogothstresses Malaria! Twenty years ago (back in the era when Declare Independence! seemed more a promise than a doom) I would have been all over this -- I still really like it, the hyperfuzzed bass-and guitar, the bashy drums, the carefully layered primitivism, the cross little girl in the middle (even if "start yr own currency!" now strikes me as more the problem than the solution). 6th place - DRAW - a point easily enough to ensure fugitivemotel safety.

09. Planning To Rock - "I Wanna Bite Ya": See long ago there was Chr!s Cvtler's dourly smug R3commended R3cords roster: music that was politically saving the world by resisting the blandishments of conventional popsong and sentiment --- and really a little too pleased with itself for not being rock, and having non-rock instruments, and singing in a wackily "alienating" way about "sex", and thing is, I had to sit through far too much in that vein. Anyway this is majorly an unfair "reminds me of" vote, I guess, so apologies if whoever suggested it really likes it :( 11th place - LOSE - zenith's side choke at the last stage to leave play-off dreams in tatters.

10. Uyhgur Musicians from Xinjiang – “Nava Muqam”: It's H from Steppes!!!! Grizzled, wrinkly shaman huddles in his smoke-filled yurt, just 70 versts from the bleak polluted salt-flats of the vanishing Aral Sea: the stench of tanned horsehide, the chokingly thick reek of tundra briquettes, everyone present tipsy on fermented elk piss --- ok even with my dusted-off "World Music" hat on I'm not quite sure where this is from, anywhere from Finland to Mongolia, so I've opted for the middle, where there's more Muslim presence and sobriety (this isn't ecstatic vision-trance, it's storytelling). 4th place - WIN - xyzzzz_ snatches a win to keep title race just alive.

11: The Prototypes - "Kaleidoscope": I infer this is called "Kaleidoscope" by Elvis Costello, but I never heard it before (a bit to my surprise): if it's an imitator, he's VERY good at exactly the things which made Costello matter (and gets them wrong the same way also). Long ago I wrote a big piece abt Costello and the State of the Song, and how did he deal with what Dance wz doin to it (ans = fled for safety into jazz and classical form): well this sorta addresses the issue -- but even tho I like the carousel-automaton cyber-relentlessness he uses the beats to bring, pop as pitiless prison, the (great) chorus reminds me too much the strain it is for him to be THROWAWAY (his real prison is his own mannerism). No one in rock knows how to do Surfin Bird any longer. 8th place - LOSE - player registration mix-ups have no effect on bengraham's defeat.

To compound this week's tension I have left i. the track list and ii. my league table at home. However I will try and cobble together a reveal at four-ish.

There's been a fairly steady flow of final-week tracks. I'm not going to do anything with them until Sunday, when I have some free time at last, but get them to me when you can! I'll put the Chart Champ results up when I get them.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is the first compilation where two separate players picked tracks by the same artist. BOTH LOST!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Haha, I never really considered the mad scientist aspect of 'Genedefekt'!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hee I know what No 8 is and the Judge should have guessed having discussed it with me! (It's not my track but I do love it.)

(I think this makes me BACK IN THE GAME)

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

:)

[zenith.livejournal.com]

I think I may have come last two weeks in a row. I am teh fired.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

No.8 was the only won I knew. Funnily enough, it crossed my mind the first time I heard this (i.e. last week) that this would be a good, potentially subversive choice for the League of Pop - it isn't obvious who this is unless you've heard her speaking in interviews a lot.

My five winners to follow later, probably after the reveal.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Really? I hadn't thought about it like that, you may be right, I would've thought the accent would have given it away, plus it's v much like some (one) of her past songs.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oh oh is no.8 bjork?

oops NO SPOILERS

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

-- but that would explain the accent, which is very hard to place

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I recognised the winner, having submitted an album track rather than a single from the CD what feels like ages ago. It is k-awesome, but suggests the Judge should watch more of The Hits!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Yes! I was rather surprised by that submission. It felt like a big risk to me.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I really liked track three, although I felt kind of silly about it - I mean, there's not much to it at all, although I guess this may be textbook "deceptively simple." I also - conversely to dubdubdee - kind felt cheated by the lack of a great release. The piano breakdown was anticlimactic, although anticlimax is interesting, too, sometimes.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"anticlimactic"? Admittedly I've only listened to this track the once, but I had a couple of minutes previously switched off when suddenly this WTF piano part appears. So it gave the track new life for me. If anything it arrives a bit too late in the day.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

fwiw when I've heard it out, the DJ has mixed the piano bit out more often than not.

Hard to believe if you haven't heard it in a club but people went absolutely nuts to it last year, it was maybe THE big club anthem (the other contenders being equally minimal and sparse!). I would totally call it BANGING: it's because my preferred dance music is like this, that I never enthuse too much about Cascada et al.

Your Arms Are My Castle, Your Heart Is My Sky

[koganbot]

If I hadn't heard it before, TRACK FOUR would be my number one for its violent melodies, happy beats, and nouns written as adjectives. (Just kidding about violent melodies.)

Here are my winners, though to be honest I'm glad this set wasn't made for me; while there's nothing here I don't enjoy hearing, the one I rated last on my own draw would have placed third in this one:

--TRACK SIX: Romantic-era program music, aching to be a movie soundtrack, then pianist knocks in some dance rags (or something).
--TRACK ONE: 16-to-the-measure strumming which reminds me of "Shapes Of Things" and then somehow feels like flamenco, then white-seeming guy sings reggae-seeming melodies fairly incompetently yet adds to the intensity of the strumming.
--TRACK EIGHT: Bjork or someone equally irritating does irritatingly Bjorkish vocals that I'm making an attempt to like because this stuff probably influenced Marit Larsen. I don't want to say dogmatically that people who sound like squawking birds are worse than people who don't sound like squawking birds (I like M.I.A.'s "Bird Flu," for instance, and dislike Daniel Powter's "Bad Day"), but in my species we tend to use different mating calls. I kind of like the backing track, which squawks even more than the singer. And somehow rocking and pounding and squawking all come together emotionally when she starts screaming at the end.
--TRACK ELEVEN: Wanky "passionate" "extravagant" vocals, redeemed slightly by his saying "kicky kicky kicky" in rhythm and by a strong melody that he gets into. U2 does stuff like this way better.
--TRACK NINE: Another gem for connoisseurs of squawk, enlivened by a fart-boogie bass played by a renegade tugboat captain.

[koganbot]

My losers, which are enjoyable enough, though kinda non-neck-grabby:

--TRACK TWO: Blips, and vocals that are outblippng the blips.
--TRACK FIVE: Marching band makes excellent negative commentary on British engineering, followed by fanfare, explosion, thrash, and rather ordinary high-voiced metal bawler. Lots of good melody, which the nonstop speedthrash gets in the way of.
--TRACK TEN: Stringed instrument that's bowed rather than plucked, but in keeping with today's theme, the singer sounds plucked himself. I tend to be a sucker for this sort of trachea-ripping timbre, but this fellow is not, you know, taking wing.
--TRACK SEVEN: Techno being technological. Cold rather than fun, though there's excellent bounce in the beats.
--TRACK THREE: Bleepin' melody. Nice foghorn bleats and water washes that appear too infrequently. I'd enjoy the mood except it lasts longer than the Boston Marathon.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Track 11 was me, and I'm really surprised by the reaction. Does it really sound like Elvis Costello? Really?

It's the one standout track off of the FIFA 2007 soundtrack. I counted on the fact that hardly anyone plays FIFA because everyone prefers Pro Evo. There's very little information about the band in question (except for one their MySpace), so all I know about them is that they are unsigned (I believe) and that they are British. Oh, yeah, and that pretty much every single one of their MySpace friends only knows them through this track being on FIFA!

Really? Costello? Are you sure?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY -- and not just sounds like, but thinks like and makes songs like!

[koganbot]

The Costello comparison threw me too, as this sounds somewhere between pomp and emo to me. But then, I kind of stopped paying attention to Elvis C. after This Year's Model, so for all I know the comparison is spot on.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Helloween dude! The greatest band ever from Germany! From their first album, circa 1986! On their live DVD, the singer (their second singer), describes the bass player as having "a little too much beers in his head" that always makes me laugh.

Hooray!!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

happy happy helloween.

I remember seeing them supporting Iron Maiden at Wembley Arena, like years and years ago.

happy days.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I might be out of the running now...

My winners (excluding Bjork, which I knew)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

06 - I think there's only one pianist here and no automation is involved, it's just that the writing is very dense. Any concert pianist worth her salt could pull this off though. Many years ago, when I was at uni, our composition tutor once asked us to write the most complicated and difficult (to play) piano piece we could imagine, and most of us could only come up with things that were in fact piss easy to perform.

07 - Totally take mark's point about the so-whatness of the lyric, but I've always been a sucker for robotic voices spouting repetitive sci-fi phrases.

01 - This sounds really strange to my ears. Can't pin it down at all. This, along with 06, is the track I'm most interested in the reveal for.

Can't summon up a lot of enthusiasm for the remainder, none will make my "best of" comps. But:

10 - This ticks the "any good at all" box easily, while still making me want to fast forward it whilst it's playing. I wondered if it might be Indian, but obviously not from the part of India that produced Indian "classical" music: raga form, Ravi Shankar, etc. Mark's guesses on its origin may be better guesses, though.

03 - See comment above. Enjoyed this a lot more on second play, knowing that there was a surprise in store near the end. The arc of the track still feels odd though. Needs an edit!

The Prototypes (ProtoCostelli?) would snatch a draw, probably. Ben is wrong to say this is the best song on FIFA 07 soundtrack, however. Young Love's "Discotech" is better than this for one. I notice there's a Bersuit Vergabarat song on there too!

jeebus, Cascada are rubbish, aren't they? Worse than Scooter if that's possible :P

Re: My winners (excluding Bjork, which I knew)

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

NO!!! Cascada = good.

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

track 10 - mine. Really not getting a win off this might've been the equivalent of missing an open goal. Dubdobdee on this reminded me of an old w!re column of his on "world music" releases.

I'll reveal that it comes from this CD (http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1037728/a/Music+From+The+Oasis+Towns+Of+Central+Asia.htm).

The play-offs are really so close now... :-D

[inhibitorylinks.livejournal.com]

Hooray for my squeaky win!

The dubious Soulseek tells me it was actually a duet, although Glenn Gould himself is (was?) a freakishly talented musician. And possibly a bit of a nutter in general - if you listen closely, you can hear him singing along at times.

This wasn't actually the Poulenc piece I wanted to submit. There's another "Toccata" for solo piano that I think blows this one out of the water (see here (http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_inside.html?item=1772143&cart=338841276138610852&page=01) for the first page of it, if you're into that sort of thing), but I could not find a decent recording ANYWHERE :(

I think this could all be summed up to say:

Glenn Gould = crazy, Poulenc = brilliant, esp. his piano works, and this piece = great, but not as great as some of his other works.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I heard the singing along. I very nearly ventured Glenn Gould, but I know of at least two other concert pianists that do this as well.

wow, "Relevee"???

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I didn't recognise this at all in remixed form! (I own the original version)