Damn. I wish I had gone for my original choice of Rock and Roll part 2 by Gary Glitter. Knew the Smith’s was a mistake
1 Like
In 7th place with 8 points
Ben Folds - Still Fighting It
"So music generally doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I don’t listen to music to be disturbed. The closest I can think of is this song. Some dude is singing to his son. I’m sure it’s not the first, and it won’t be the last. I sang this to my own son every single night when I was trying to get him to fall asleep and I love it. But one line that he repeats has started to really resonate with me. “And you’re so much like me. I’m sorry.”
God dammit, Ben. There are worse people that my son could turn into, but I was a bit of a trainwreck in my 20s. The very thought that my son is going to follow a similar path scares the hell out of me. Now, every time I sing this lyric to him I get a little extra emotional because despite the fact that he is only 1, I see him do certain things that I used to do as a child which are not entirely unrelated to the issues I developed as I got older ."
Review
I liked your write up. Good explanation. I just can’t stand Ben Folds. It sounds so generic to me. Sorry.
1 Like
Didn’t quite curse myself but close
In 6th place with 9 points
Alison Krauss - Down to the River to Pray
“Is it fair to say that Christian songs about baptism make me uncomfortable? To be fair, as a secular Jew, all religious music makes me uncomfortable. This song has both an uncomfortable subject matter and sort of a haunting quality to it and yet I still like listening to it, just wish it had more Krauss and less background singers.”
Review
I liked your explanation the best. " a haunting quality to it and yet I still like listening to it," Bless your heart. This would have been a better category explanation than what I put. I feel the same way about religious music. I listen to a lot of old gospel blues songs.
5 Likes
Must have been rough to judge these when you even hated 7th place, yikes.
1 Like
This “O brother, where art thou?” soundtrack is pretty stacked. Gillian Welch and Norman Blake.
1 Like
Krauss was mine. My initial idea was to submit some turn of the last century blues song where the recording makes it sound unearthly (think Robert Johnson) but I wasn’t really feeling any of them for my entry. Ended up sort of panic entering this song so I’m pleased that it did relatively well.
3 Likes
In 5th place with 10 points
Prince Buster - Ghost Dance
"Prince Buster was one of the few artists I considered for the first category. I won’t ramble too much about Ska and how brave Prince Buster was for releasing a song like ‘Judge Dread’ in gang-ridden Jamaica. This was always one of my favorite songs but it’s also extremely eerie. It’s an open letter to the deceased (most of those names are either known people who have been killed or unknown people who probably died). The strange “ghost-y” sounds he makes when saying “Baah, toughest!” has always haunted me. It’s a salute to the dead that is both scary and enduring. The last verse has some of the most beautiful, honest lyrics I’ve ever read.
Tell them Prince Buster says, so long
Sorry they had to go so soon
Since music be the food of love, I’ll forever sing on "
Review
This was a good entry and I think you understood my intention with the category. I can see how you find the lyrics haunting, but for me the music makes me want to dance. A bounce up and down dance, not a gallows dance. Cool song though.
3 Likes
the haunting part for me was always the ghosty-burpy way he sings “Baah, Toughest”.
I was wary about the song and not sure I explained it properly as the song isn’t really self-explanatory, glad you liked it. Prince Buster was awesome.
I’ll whitesplain this and say that Judge Dread was a very rare and public criticism of the gangsters and crime in Jamaica in the 60s. It was so rare to talk against them that other artist actually recorded songs in response that support the ‘rude boys’.
I heard that you was the one there on Sutton Street
Who tell the judge, ‘rudeboys don’t care’
Well, this is King Street, and my name is Judge Dread, and I don’t care
4 Likes
In 4th place with 11 points
Mount Eerie – Seaweed
" There’s a lot to feel uncomfortable about here. Maybe you know this story. It’s a concept album about his wife’s death, recorded in the room that she died, using mostly her instruments. Phil could only record at night after their young daughter had gone to bed. I picked this track for the lyrics, the unsettling piano that kicks in around 2 minutes, and then that damn last line that concludes the lyric but ends halfway through the musical phrase ."
Review
This has a good haunting feeling to it. More lyrics driven than the top 3, so this comes just short of the podium.
3 Likes
I’m right there with you.
I guess a song about sexual assault was maybe a bit too much. At least I can say one of my previous walrus entries inspired an entire category (Kate Bush was mine in the grab bag walrus).
1 Like
I liked this one as I had to stop listening half way through, so it did its job.
I was going to go with “Kim” but I decided that was too disturbing even for me. Now I can only wonder how much I missed the mark on the other entries.
Mount Eerie is me.
2 Likes
Well, it’s about that time.
Après une pause…
1 Like
I wasn’t explicit but Ben folds is me
Given the fact we definitely don’t have the same taste in music, I fully expect to bomb the next couple of categories
2 Likes
I figured I bombed 2&4, cautiously optimistic for 1&3, and have a live one for 5 but seems like people frequently do the opposite of how they feel (except goatinski)
In 3rd place with 12 points
Shiro Sagisu - Creeping Shadows (Bleach OST)
“Turn this one up real loud in your car and reality becomes a horror show (even more so). The pure dread on those synth stabs is just crushing. The Bleach OST would make my top 5 OST of all time and has some amazingly tense and dark cinematic moments.”
Review
This one starts out really good and I’m feeling it. Repetitive drive building tension. Then the solo starts and kinda wrecks it for me. They built up a feeling of dread and then when I’m expecting to be shredded apart, I instead drop back down. Anything but that solo would have been amazing and made this top spot. Really good entry though.
1 Like
You literally just described how I knew this track would be received but that first 20 seconds or so, just pure as fuck. I often play this in the CD player in my car and just hit restart to loop those initial vocals.
1 Like
In 2nd place with 13 points
Brian Eno - Baby’s On Fire
" From Eno’s brilliant first solo album after leaving Roxy, I chose this for the disturbing lyrics allied to Fripp’s hyper-neurotic guitar. Deserves to be played loud."
Review
This is a great song. Repetitive drive and weird Eno style sounds. Dissonance. The solo mostly works for me in this song. This loses the top spot only because I already know this song. If you had submitted something I didn’t know from his other albums with Fripp or Cluster, it would have aced easily.
3 Likes