I really didn’t enjoy posting the bottom few places in my walrus each time, and hard to take the knife to what I originally wrote about the tracks so as not to offend too much.
You should have seen my first draft about Bohemian Rhapsody.
In sixth place with five points
Pink Floyd - Two Suns In The Sunset
Obviously after my horrific anti-Floyd slurs in the last round whoever submitted this must have been crying themselves to sleep most nights, but they needn’t have been too sad. This song is fine and it’s not one I’ve heard before so the weight of personal history was absent. It’s atmospheric, clearly very well performed and recorded and is a quality, fairly laid back song.
My favourite parts are when someone mutters “oh no!” in the background, and then the saxophone bit near the end. I dunno, I think I like this enough I might even listen to the album. Hopefully I’ll not get round to it. It did make me skim the Pink Floyd wiki and find this part about their early years, which sounds like something from Spinal Tap:
Sigma 6 went through several names, including the Meggadeaths, the Abdabs and the Screaming Abdabs, Leonard’s Lodgers, and the Spectrum Five, before settling on the Tea Set.
Enough of my weak jokes, the submitter writes:
This one is extra last because it’s the last song on what I consider the last real Pink Floyd album. So it’s kind of them riding off into the sunset.
Which is lovely.
Ditto and Gary Numan.
I’ve been thinking about suggesting a round where only the podium gets points. Less antagonistic. And maybe it reduces the slide towards conservative picks. Like, I’m pretty confident I can pick some safe song that will place 4-5th for most hosts, but that’s kinda boring. I’m wondering if only 1-3 get points forces people to swing for the fences.
Interesting.
Or award Grand Prix-like points to reward the top places more?
eg 25,18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1
Bohemian Rhapsody and Imagine are probably the two most overated songs in the history of music
Sadly I submitted the Cream. The walrus was all downhill after Django.
That is another option but doesn’t reduce the sting of being told you suck, last place.
You wouldn’t say that if you had to sit through week after week of fucking Chicago at number one.
And what about Bryan Adams?
Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina?
EDIT. I guess none of those were critically praised.
I refused to heart that Pink Floyd song on principle but then the saxophone got me.
In fifth place with six points
Yann Tiersen - Everyday Life
As earlier about parts and wholes, this beat Pink Floyd as I really liked the first part, a violin/fiddle instrumental that seems to blend what I assume is some kind of traditional music influence with a stately grace I would more associate with ‘classical’ music. However I haven’t the faintest idea about the music or the artist. The second half didn’t do as much for me, a pleasant but slightly drifting nowhere ambient-y soundscape (still based on violin). I do quite like that sort of thing so I was usually happy to hear it, it just didn’t strike me the way examples of the genre I really like can.
One thing I will enjoy now this is over is checking out back catalogues, and with this track I genuinely haven’t a clue if the first or second half is more typical of their work, or even if both are in fact atypical. Interesting.
Our submitter adds:
This song feels like the ending to a dramatic movie and is a fitting closer for the album.
Which is correct, this is soundtrack-ish stuff. A plus for me.
There’s a Bryan Adams DHL advert that I kept seeing over Christmas where the crowd sings along to midnight at the five and dime that was driving me batshit.
Ive just always thought you can always tell someone who doesn’t understand music because they worship Imagine and B.R
In fourth place with seven points
Foo Fighters - I am a River
I enjoyed the first Foo Fighters album at the time and really liked Everlong, but beyond that have never really listened to them. I’m not sure this will change that, but I ended up being pretty impressed by this track. At first I wondered if it wasn’t a bit powderfinger-esque, with a slightly aimless intro before the song actually gets going, but that isn’t the case. The early parts are very nicely done, with the ambient wash clearly containing the seeds of the track to come and rising nicely as it gathers itself.
When it starts it keeps the quality high, maybe slightly formulaic but when it’s such a solid formula that’s no real issue. The song keeps rising to the climactic chorus you know is coming, and it doesn’t disappoint when it arrives, all crunchy guitars and pop melody. As it continues to build it launches the epic keyboards and then finally a string quartet. Lovely stuff. It’s apparently from their 8th album released in 2014. Like Wilco these guys are a band I’m glad to know are out there plugging away.
Our submitter submits:
Tough category - final tracks tend to be too long and are often unimpressive. This one starts with an appropriately meditative section and builds to a satisfying crescendo that caps a decent album.
Can’t argue with their description of this one, but obviously I’m a fan of long last tracks. Long live self indulgent music!
Foo Fighters is me. Pure ecstasy just to make the top half!
LOL, 7 points nearly matches my total from all previous categories.
And so the final podium.
In third place with eight points
Led Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks
It’s supposed to be an album’s definitive track that leaves its mark on you after listening, but I can only really think of one, and it’s overfamiliar - the most sampled drums in music.
Well, one lucky break for you was that I, shamefully, have never really listened to Led Zeppelin. I have no excuses, I know I should have, just never got round to it. So, whilst I must have heard them all over the place, this is, I think, the first time I’ve ever listened to them on this track and, whilst it’s all very good, the drums are just amazing.
I always knew Bonham was great, a teacher I had used to bang on about him all the time. Actually that might be why I never listened, the guy would particularly rave about him apparently often doing triplets with his bass drum whilst playing 4/4 and that was something that always broke my brain trying to do. There’s at least two ways drummers can sound impressive, one is to play fast and complicated, the other is just to inhabit a ‘simple’ rhythm so completely it sounds endlessly different whilst always being exactly same. I’m sure Bonham could play anything he liked, but this feels like a paradigmatic example of the latter.
It’s wrong to just talk about the drums, though, there’s lots to enjoy here. The whole song has the quality of feeling monolithic at first listen but in fact having quite a bit of variety, the seven minutes fly by. Fine, this time I really will listen to them, OK?
Yes, do. And you’re very lucky in being able to choose the sequence you listen to them, so pleeeease do it in chronological order?
(That was my submission)
pfff…I could have picked Zeppelin for every song.
I’m the sort of moron who always will, even if you’d told me the first 17 albums were terrible.
I had you nailed on for submitting How Many More Times here.