Holy cow it's the POP OPEN!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Since there's no Podcast Panel until Wednesday, what better time to put up the two* remaining fites in the Pop Open!

How to play? Easy: go to http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/pop-open-week-231/ and listen to the tracks. Then pick which from each pair (7 vs 8 and 9 vs 10) you prefer, and vote accordingly. EXCEPT - if you already know a track you cannot vote for it, you can only abstain in its favour.

The winners of these will go through to the final, which will be a special week of the Podcast Panel, voting on each of the finalists' songs in turn. They will join mackromackro, lockedintheatti and stevem78 (who knocked byebyepride out in the little-noticed Round 3.3 vote.

[Poll #1143529]

*there is a third one, but I never got a track from umlauts (and to be fair I wasn't exactly chasing one!): if he sends one in I will run it otherwise anatol_merklich gets a bye.

Thanks to cis, infov0re, hauntedballroom and w3ft for these tracks!

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

recognised track 7 so 8 wins by default, tho i quite like it anyway. the intro vocal on track 9 is kinda cute but starts to grate by the time the track actually gets going i find. 10 is a swanky groove that tells you instantly what it's going to do and where it's going to go - solid soul ftw.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Oh my. Sorry to whoever submitted track 10, but never before has any song posted on Poptimists made me want to scrub my ears out to erase the memory of having heard it. I shudder to even recall it.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Tom, this prodding worked fine! I sent you one. Sorry, and sorry to anatol_merklich too!

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I had the same reaction to track 9!

[koganbot]

Unfair draw, as I think NINE and TEN decisively trounce SEVEN and EIGHT. As for FIVE and SIX, I don't think Tom ever told us who submitted what; am I correct in believing that Steve submitted Chungking The Electrobitch, while Alex gave us A Mountain Of One Kumbaya Peddler?

Anyhow, SEVEN has a full sound and a swishy vocal, the vocal having trouble getting all that sound to swish along with it, but the tunefulness makes a good effort to surmount the heaviness. EIGHT combines smooth and hard, sort of like Ashanti having to contend with Ja Rule and Fat Joe. Actually, it's not much at all like Ashanti contending with Ja Rule and Fat Joe. I'm just babbling here; anyway, I'm fascinated by the hardness of the beats, the flow of the Latin singing, the funk trying to nail down percussion that wants to dance in a different direction, and the stiff rapping. The stiffness does take this down a notch; this puzzles me, but in a good way, and it got my Tick.

NINE sounds like an old Appalachian tree-chomping contest that got transferred to Louisiana. I like this quite a lot, the voices running through sand and gravel, while the fiddle doubles as an electric saw. Would have won almost any heat but today's, where unfortunately it's matched against track TEN, one of my favorites of this tournament: Mexican horns provide an archway through which a delicate voice passes, entering caves and winding its way through the hollowed-out darkness. I guess this is "rock steady," but you can hear how dub is on the verge of being invented. Very nice.

[koganbot]

Would have won almost any heat but today's

Would have won my vote in almost any heat but today's, that is.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

whoops. i meant track 9!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'am I correct in believing that Steve submitted Chungking The Electrobitch, while Alex gave us A Mountain Of One Kumbaya Peddler?'

correcto

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

very good idea to integrate this into Podcast Panel btw

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

The most fun is people commenting on tracks I've submitted, of which there is a greater chance in an actual matchup than in a walkover, so I'm happy you sent one! :)

[cis.livejournal.com]

:D

????

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

You are both on crack! Track 9 is teh awesome.

Track 7 on the other hand. I never want to hear that one again. Jeepers.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I already knew track 10, so that's one dilemma less for me.

[koganbot]

I googled TEN to discover that I far prefer it to the track for which this group is now known - even prefer it to the other famous track of theirs, famous for use by early, massively successful DJ.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

dead heat tom! reminder to vote pls! i am not saying this bcs just eager to hear comments on my submission in this round! oh no!