And thus, our attempt to goad someone else into posting so the curse could take them instead of us was a success…
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*shakes fist at seities
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.
In eighth place with six points
Empathy by Crystal Castles
The relative ranking of the next three songs was difficult as they’re all quite different but all felt like slotting in here. They also each had something contradictory about them. I’m happy with the final placing, but 8th could have easily been 6th and so on.
This track’s contradiction was that whenever it was playing I was into it, but it was by far the last song I could actually remember. Even after 3 or 4 listens to the playlist I could say that I thought the Crystal Castles song was decent, but I honestly couldn’t bring a note of it to mind.
It’s a drifty electro effort and might have even fitted in Pauwl’s category. The main, oft repeated and repetitive hook is great and anchors each of the sections. Apparently they use a keyboard modified with a Atari 5200 sound chip, which I assume is where that sound comes from. It’s just really solid stuff.
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not to be a nit, but what happened to 9th?
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Oops. I guess I’m posting 8 and 9 out of order.
Wow, such a low opinion of me.
So far so good. My submission is too well known, so will settle for a solid, middle of the road nodium.
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I quite liked this one and wasn’t familiar with the artist. Going to research their stuff fo sho. Ty to whoever submitted!
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I’m in
Bring on the curse!
That Crystal Castles songs is great btw
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In ninth place with five points
Born Slippy (Nuxx) by Underworld
An even bigger classic than Groove Armada. I assume most of us are around the age to have heard this approximately a million times. I turned 18 the year it came out so am exactly the right age and it’s genuinely hard to reconstruct an opinion on it. I think it’s actually really quite good so over exposure might be killing it, but I did warn about exactly that and it probably explains why I looked past it in the list.
It is repetitive, and the beat is still enjoyably heavy when it gets going in the middle. Also Underworld did some stuff with The Necks recently who are the best band currently on the planet, so they clearly know what’s up. Everything higher than this is pretty damn good, so I don’t feel too bad about sticking it here. And neither should you!
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You’re welcome
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Underworld is mine. ChrisV mentioned yesterday that he nearly submitted long and dark for this round. I nearly/should’ve submitted rez/cowgirl.
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Yeah, I no commented that for integrity and suspense purposes. Just listening now and I can confirm that Rez/Cowgirl would have done better.
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I was trying to figure out whose range that was in and was going to suggest Sky or ChrisV (but Sky is obv out for this cat already). Now I know to add it to your range as well.
I’ve added a few of their albums to my playlist to go through.
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In seventh place with seven points
Repetition by The Fall
The contradiction here is that it’s The Fall but also not quite something I love. The Fall are a band that I, like most British people around my age into ‘weird’ music, could write about for pages. If you like them, though, you’ll likely already know them, and if you don’t know them you probably won’t like them.
For jalfrezi (I’m sure it’s him) I’ll just say that this one is a bit too slow, the music feels a bit too loose and he’s not quite got the sneering drawl down yet. Pure, unadulterated genius was just around the corner and it’s hard to not think about that whilst listening. All that said, it’s still Mark E Smith and The Fall, so it’s probably worth a win if I hadn’t heard it lots.
(PS Roadrunner would have probably nicked the bronze spot, it’s one of those I still love as much as when I first heard it.)
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You get to add these to my range:
I leave with my head held high.
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< pause whilst I google ‘Witch house’ >
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In sixth place with eight points
The Man by Aloe Blacc
The contradiction here is just that it’s a style of music I rarely listen to but I really liked it, so it took me quite a few listens to properly appreciate it. It’s just ignorance, there’s lots of classic soul I really like I just don’t have a clue about more modern stuff, and what I do occasionally hear is usually very mediocre so I don’t explore.
This, though, is far from mediocre. A really catchy and well produced backing that has groove to spare, and an extremely soulful vocal. The only thing that hurt it was that, like Iron and Wine long ago, the repetition is mostly in the lyrics rather than the music (particularly), so it wasn’t quite the sort of thing I was expecting. The quality still dragged it up to here, though, and in a straight best song contest it may have even gone a little further.
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Another one for my playlist.
This category rules. Great concept, Pyat.
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