Pop Open Group H RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Results for the group....OF DEATH. A clear winner and then a brutally close fight for remaining places. Reveals over the next couple of hours.

FIRST PLACE...Kavinsky - "Dead Cruiser" (13 first place votes, 45% of all points) - kill__yr_idols wins.

SECOND PLACE...Harpers Bizarre - "Witchi Tai To" (4 first place votes, 18% of total points) - mackromackro qualifies.

THIRD PLACE...Bob McFadden and Dor - "I'm A Mummy" (2 first place votes, 15% of total points) - stevem78 qualifies.

FOURTH PLACE...One-T ft Cool-T - "The Magic Key" (3 first place votes, 13% of total points) - poptasticuk is OUT.

FIFTH PLACE...Gunilla Thorn - "Merry-Go-Round" (2 first place votes, 9% of total points) - mippy is OUT.

The winner - in this case kill_yr_idols gets to pick which Round 2 group they're in (out of Noughties, Nineties, Eighties, Seventies, Sixties and Fifties And Before) and also which group the third-place qualifier is in.

Tomorrow's group is either LOVE or PASSION.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was surprised that Kavinsky won by such a huge margin - it's a good track but didn't strike me as anything special (tho maybe none of the others did for its voters) - it's the least kitschy of all the submissions this week I suppose!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I didn't think any of the tracks were that special, but 2 and 4 were just awful, so annoying. Would have expected Track 1 to do better! Logically if Aimee Allen won her group, Track 1 should at least have done well here.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It had almost 50% foreknowledge though.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh did it? I hadn't looked back at the poll. In that case I wonder where everyone heard it b/c I had no idea.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Just fluke really - a lot of people know it because it gets played at Poptimism a lot, and it was a track I spread around a bit when I got back from honeymoon where it had been all over european music TV.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

That was just bad luck then for me cos I had no idea you knew the track, and it hasn't been a hit at all so it didn't seem that likely to me that people would know it. Grr! Next time (if I get through) I'll have to pick something no-one could possibly know.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's absolutely no reason why anyone bar the usual europop suspects would have known it. It would definitely have got a vote from me if I hadn't, it's a great record.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Oh poo, I'm out! This is so unfair :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Boo! I liked yours and v much disliked the two ahead of it.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Thank you! At least I have your seal of approval :)

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I liked yours too, can't believe you're out so early, that's quite a shock.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Moi aussi. I gave it my first place vote.

Pleased for stevem though; I love "I'm A Mummy".

Not sure what anyone sees in "Witchy-poo" (or whatever it was called). Has put me right off checking out any more Harpers.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It was the easy winner for me, even in the first group where I've liked all the songs - was the only one which seemed to have something really haunting and mysterious about it (tho Gunilla did a bit on repeat listenings).

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I Love You Alice B Toklas is an excellent slice of hippy bilge.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I know, grr! Did you know the song already?

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

No, I voted for it in second place (behind the winner), although it was a very tough choice between the two. If I'd known it would be so close I'd have voted the other way round!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I probably shouldn't mention that if you hadn't voted, you'd have been through! (You'd have drawn on points with Track 2 and gone through on first-place votes).

Commiserations - like dubdobdee's entry the other week, a really good and not very well known record which got unlucky.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I was going to vote for myself but then realised that people would see what I voted for and say I'd cheated, cos you have to not know the song and obviously I know my own song.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I actually withdrew my votes when it was my group, as I was scared of putting myself out of the competition with my votes for someone else

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have never heard it at Poptimism!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It usually gets played quite early (on the grounds that "people don't know it" - verifiably untrue it seems!) before you tend to arrive.

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

I'd not heard it (or maybe at some inchoate level where I didn't really 'know it') until Pete played it on Lollards of Pop, at which point I forthwith downloaded it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

did i miss a stage or am i being dim? how are we knowing which track is which here?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The stages go -

Tuesday - new Open poll and songs posted.
Thursday - track reveal (but not who submitted what) - in future this will be under a cut tho.
Monday - results.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/403855.html is the reveals for this lot.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

Noooooooooooooooooo!

*commits seppuku*

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

wow i am quite shocked to qualify in the end and not just because more people than i expected knew the track. it was a curveball but relieved it paid off. poor poptasticuk deserved better tho, 'magic key' roolz.

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

As a newbie to any FT related pop leagues, I had a LOT OF FUN doing the nail-biting than expected. And I'm thrilled to get a pass at all. I think I'm shocked overall that less people knew the song, or at least this version. Then again, it was a VERY distant second. (I definitely expected haterz though, heh.)

I liked all the songs in this category actually. I only knew Stevem's, because I picked up those Incredibly Strange Music comps in the U.S. as they came out. I discovered The Fall's cover upon getting Levitate a year or so later, and thought "wait, this couldn't be a cover of that song, is i... omg! Mark E. Smith is singing that song! HFS!"

...

Anyway, whether I was going to be in or out of the Open, I was going to post a little recent YouTube-ography of the covers of the "Witchi Tai To" song...

• 
  Everything Is Everything (1971) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jKF4LWViE) [homemade youtube video] -- This is the original version, written by Jim Pepper, a Native American saxophonist from Portland, OR. It was released as a 45 the same year as the Harpers Bizarre cover. Later on, it was released on EIE's first album in 1971. More on Pepper here: http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/pepper.html. I really like this version, but I think Harpers kinda trumped this version, as overlooked as the original is.



• Ambulance (2005) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuZqwpH5aGE) -- Don't know too much about this band, but this is just a more teutonic rock version of the song that extends the song out. It doesn't really make it soar, just cruises it.



• Live version by BMX Bandits with Evie Sands (early 2006) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4cEI6P22jo) -- This is my favorite cover of the song since the Harpers version. It still pales, but if you're going to do a plain rock version of the song, I guess this is the way to do it.



• X-Press-2 (2006) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsHsPtX-1IQ) -- From their Makeshift Feelgood album. Almost the best recent version and DEFINITELY the best video. Any video featuring a MIX TAPE WITH TEEFF is going to win my heart.

I never heard the Brewer and Shipley version! I need to check that out!

And in case you were wondering what those Harpers boys looked like in the late 60s.



Jeff, if you disliked this song, I'm pretty sure you would have severely disliked the rest of their material. They completely twee'd out Simon & Garfunkel's "Feelin' Groovy", which is really extreme if you think about it. It was also their biggest hit.

And one of these men, Ted Templeman, would later go on to produce more bands of the haunted tiki pop pantheon like Van Halen, The Doobie Brothers, and Aerosmith. The end.

Now, hit me with yer best decade. Fire away. :)

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I can't believe Feelin' Groovy can ppossibly exist in a more twee form.

[kill-yr-idols.livejournal.com]

Can't believe I got away with this! "Dead Cruiser" is probably the least catchy track off Kavinsky's 1986 EP, but it, er, had the word dead in the title (even tho any track could've counted, him being a zombie zombi & all) - his MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/kavinsky) has the k-excellent "Wayfarer" (the one you can DJ) & "Grand Canyon" (slow & swaggering) ... he presses all my Goblin/John Carpenter/Moroder/Faltermayer/&c buttons - "it sounds like every 80s soundtrack all at once!" - but without being too retro; this is the closest I think I'll come to liking Ed Banger.

Was a toss-up between this track & Metalchicks "Dead Loss Angeles" - if yr reading jel, have you heard them?

(also, the video for "Testarossa Autodrive" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQSHg-SJXR8))

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing Kavinsky and Sebastian open for Daft Punk in a few weeks here, alongside The Rapture. VERY excited! (And it looks like Kavinsky and Sebastian are playing a show after the main event in a smaller club nearby. HMMMM!)

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

(kyi, if only I could rob a bank and fund you a flight here. Seriously. You'd be Incredibly Bonkers Stevie)