Look what just showed up in my Spotify Discover Weekly list:
This is on you @pyatnitski 
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You’re welcome.
Update. Tomorrow or more probably Wednesday for the finale. Off to see Sleater Kinney tonight, in fact. Should be good.
Also, we had some people round yesterday and I played category 2 without saying anything. No real reactions but I heard one person humming Django Reinhardt, so I was correct to rate that highly.
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Sleater Kinney were great. I haven’t really listened to any new stuff since they reformed but I probably should have.
Anyway, reveal tonight (barring the unforeseen). I haven’t totted up since round 3 or read any writing attached to R5 entries yet so as to reduce bias to the tiniest amount. I don’t even know which song will win as I write!
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Ok, category 5 where we explore:
5 - Best last-track-on-the-album track
Most albums end, but only some end with something that just feels right as a last track. Feel free to tell me why you think that along with the submission, and I won’t mark people down for not fitting with my own understanding - it’s a lot to do with the album itself anyway. (If you’re under 34 and have never even listened to an album then sorry for discriminating, but what on earth are you doing here?)
Kick off in 90 mins or a bit longer, just need to make my tea and get a decent head start on writing this nonsense.
@cassette
@Jalfrezi
@microbet
@mjiggy
@Pauwl
@Rivaldo
@seities
@suzzer99
@SwankyWilder
@TheDuker
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Ready for the rail
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You’re more than railing this - you’re a playa.
The climax! The final hurdle! The sweet release!
What fun we’ve had. Well, I’ve had, anyway. Well, mostly, I mean it did start with fucking Queen. I hope it has been an OK experience for you all, and I think I’ve only driven one of you to renounce Walruseses altogether (sorry mjiggy). Not bad.
Sadly I wish I could say we were ending on the strongest category, but we’re not. In the final accounting things slipped into place, but for a while I was worried there were about 7 songs in the middle all the same and none I truly liked. Probably just a lack of applied listening on my part and I found stuff to appreciate in all of them by the end, but I do think we’re not quite on the hollowed ground of categories 1-3. I think you all nailed the brief, though, congrats.
What would I have submitted? Well, you don’t get more “last track” than the last track on the last album1 by the great Leonard Cohen, which was made as he knew he was dying. Luckily it’s incredible.
1 I’m ignoring the one his son just put out posthumously
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In tenth place with one point
Interpol - Lief Erikson
Another last place where I’m going to say the song is fine. I vaguely remember Interpol being a big deal back in the day and introduced to me as a band I might like. I never did, but they don’t do anything to offend me at all. There were a few times here where I separated songs that seemed of similar quality by putting the one with sections of varying quality ahead of another consistent entry—so privileging high points over steady achievement. Interpol was the victim in such a decision.
It has a sort of precise quality to it that I enjoy and it sticks to a monotonous rock-build format that I like. The singer has a good, distinctive voice too, but overall it always seemed to pass me by a little bit and perhaps never really quite get started. I dunno, like I said I didn’t dislike it, it just ended up here by other songs being better.
After having ranked it here I found the submitter saying:
This might run afoul of your “moody indie band” hatred but well, someone had to do it.
and then:
At least give it a chance!
Oh dear.
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Blocked for me so I guess it’s not jiggy! 
Well, I think the one that was submitted was blocked for me, so who knows!
In ninth place with two points
Powderfinger - Pockets
So this is the other side of Interpol, a song that starts off a bit aimless sounding (at least to me) and drifts through the first 3 minutes plus not doing much, but then decides to get serious and ends with 2.5 minutes of a decent rock song. It’s fairly obvious stuff as far as music goes, but still pretty satisfying. In fact, Spotify tells me they were “one of Australia’s most popular radio-friendly rock bands” and this then sounds exactly like I’d expect.
I’ll now put what the submitter said as it offers a different, but completely understandable interpretation of the song:
I feel like this band deserved so much more recognition. I love the atmospheric moodiness that this song starts with, which then morphs into some some more climactic rock. That sequence works really well for me as a last track on album song.
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Yeah this was me - and I completely understand the rating. This song just “clicks” for me and I was looking for a reason to spruik Powderfinger so here we are.
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In eighth place with three points
Cream - Mother’s Lament
I confess to never having quite got on with Cream. I half suspect that’s not because of their music so much as because Ginger Baker always seemed like a massive dick and Eric Clapton did lots of annoying rubbish elsewhere, but that’s the way it is. This, though, evokes nothing of that and is fun, it’s just that, at the end of the day, it is a bit of a novelty song.
Enjoyable, though, with the silly accents and amusing story1. It’s even a decently constructed tune and I can certainly get why it fits the category, but, despite all that, even putting it as high as 8th feels a little disrespectful. Sorry. You should probably have just submitted one of Baker’s endless solos—a terrible secret I don’t think I’ve yet revealed is that I play the drums.
1 I must add, in the interests of fairness, that, as someone who had a little baby semi-recently (since grown slightly) I was a bit triggered by the idea of a comedy song about one drowning. I tried to get over that as special appeals to parenthood are awful, but maybe it played a role in it coming low. Sorry.
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Toad!
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Ha, I listened to a version this afternoon because you can’t have too many drum solos.
makes a note not to submit Baby’s On Fire in future
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In seventh place with four points
Wilco - The Late Greats
I really liked Uncle Tupelo back in the day, but when Wilco emerged I didn’t much care for them. Then everyone went crazy for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and I bandwagoned them for a bit (it remains a really good record), but the album that this is from jolted me off once again. They’re still going, I think, & I respect them for that & they have my good will.
The first time through the playlist I had to go back and check on this one as I’d completely forgotten it had played, but as the listenings went on I ended up finding a pleasing song. A nice, simple melody, played well and I’ve always been a fan of Tweedy’s voice and delivery. It even has a likeable piano-y, space-y bit in the middle to flesh it out from what might otherwise be a pretty slight track. This is probably where songs I just liked start from.
It’s a great encore track. It also has that vibe (not sure why) of the kind of song you’d want playing as the last track of the night, sweeping up, wiping tables, winding down after seeing a great gig. I used to love playlists full of this kind of stuff saved for that after-show vibe.
I wasn’t quite feeling it to such an extent but yeah, I can see that.
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Wilco’s me. About where I expected to place.
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I’d like an apology from Pyatnitski for how much he apologizes with his reveals.
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Sorry.
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