Sweet Sixteen

andyfest vs. idiotjed

andyfest Golden Animals - 'Alice' Twenty-first century hippie folk. I prefer the New Weird America brand of folk music but this is occasionally tolerable. The song is under two minutes which helps. But it also means the song is over before it even leaves an impression. 6/10

idiotjed The Depreciation Guild - 'A Room, A Canvas' My love for The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is no secret. Their sideproject here has never grabbed me in the same way but I've wanted it to since I'm seeing both acts live in a couple weeks. This is maybe the best song I've heard by the Guild yet. Really shoegazey and more electronic. Like a subdued Pains. This makes me really hopeful about their live show which is enough to win this round. 7/10

Winner: idiotjed paints the canvas

Sweet Sixteen

sanchez vs. miceelf

sanchez MGMT - '4th Dimensional Transition' I have read this name so many times over the past year on websites and in magazines but I've never heard a note from them. I assumed they'd sound like MSTRKRFT based on the name but this is more of the trendy indie-dance variety. People have been eating this up with a spoon the past few years, eh? The funny thing is it's billed as dance-rock but I doubt you'll still ever see any of the white hipster boys dancing at the shows. 6/10

miceelf The Winks - 'Guitar Swing' Ah, generic NYC indie rock vs. generic Vancouver indie pop. Who shall show the bigger sign of uniqueness and individuality? The Winks might win just because I prefer indiepop over almost any genre of music, generally speaking. Oh, and this has male and female vocals which I'm a sucker for. This song could have benefitted from some sort of hook. A single line would have been enough to really grab me. This "wa wa wa wa wa" bit at the end isn't quite what I was thinking. Nevertheless... 7/10

Winner: miceelf pops the competition's balloons

Sweet Sixteen

duckyboy vs. e-stone

duckyboy Oingo Boingo - 'Perfect System' Danny Elfman pre-movie soundtracker. Hm. Devo as the top Similar Artist is spot-on. This has no place outside of the '80s. Every single thing about this reeks of that period. The cheesy music. The boing sound effects. The chorus growling. I can't listen to this as anything more than a novelty. 4/10

e-stone John Martyn - 'Dreams By The Sea' Folktronica. On my own terms I'd pass over this but against Oingo Boingo it's got a solid shot. One of the first songs in a long time on here where the lyrics really stand out. Not to say they're great or mindblowing but I actually hear and pay attention to what he says. I don't love this but it's good enough. 6/10

Winner: e-stone tosses his rivals into the sea

Well, those rounds were much more enjoyable than the last bout. Only two or three songs that I really hated. Most of the bouts were tight races between two equally okay songs. Not too much that I thought was great but a lot that I thought was good. The next three rounds should be even better.


The next round of match-ups will be:

jagged vs. miceelf
billyg vs. idiotjed
bort vs. e-stone
thisotherkingdom vs. legonads

This is an outrage!

Aphex Twins I've always only been able to listen to in very small doses, so I don't really know much about them.

I still really like Jamie Lidell, though I still haven't heard his newest one. Any thoughts from those who have?

Hey, if you had said Aphex Twin vs. Jamie Lidell I would've been right with you in thinking there's no way I'd pick them over someone from your station. But the song was quite good.

Quarterfinals

jagged vs. miceelf

jagged David Bowie - 'Ziggy Stardust' Oh, one of the few Bowie tracks I actually like. This is just a bonafide classic and one I can still enjoy because it actually hasn't been overplayed too much (as opposed to Space Oddity). Everyone knows this song so I've got nothing else to say about it other than... 8/10

miceelf Solex - 'Athens - Ohio' Female indie sampler electronic pop artist. My Beatles, right? Unfortunately it's just okay. And against Ziggy okay isn't good enough. 6/10

Winner: jagged via martian spiders

Quarterfinals

billyg vs. idiotjed

billyg Harry Nilsson - 'The Lottery Song' I just finished downloading a half dozen Nilsson songs last night following reading a lot about him and all sorts of great songs he wrote for other people. If this is indicative of his sound, I'm really looking forward to listening to those. Definitely in the vein of Randy Newman or Tim Buckley, though with his own vocal sound of course. This is great. 8/10

idiotjed Foo Fighters - 'Good Grief' Ah, Foo Fighters. I liked you once when I was in my mid-teens and obsessed with alternative rock and post-grunge. I even liked you more than Nirvana. (Then again I liked Hole and Eyes Adrift more than Nirvana too.) These days I still respect you, Mr. Grohl, and you're definitely one of the few alternative rock bands on the radio I can still tolerate. But I've moved on. 6/10

Winner: billyg wins the lottery; jed cries "good grief!"

I will check it out.

Quarterfinals

bort vs. e-stone

bort Satan's Pilgrims - 'Badge Of Honor' Surf rock. This could be a tough one. I like my surfing to be done on other planets (see Man Or Astro-Man?) usually. I can't deny it's catchiness and appeal but it's instrumental. That's always a weakness for me. Going into this round, it looked like Bort was coasting to the championship but e-stone could possibly trip him up. What will he do? 6/10

e-stone Digable Planets - 'Swoon Units' Oh man. One of the few hip-hop groups I like. If Bort is unseated by a rap song, it will be a major upset. I love them because they're very jazzy. They're actually tagged as 'jazz hop'. I've never heard of that term before but it makes sense. This is definitely a tough call. I feel like it should be a 6.5 but I decided ahead of time to not use half points and this isn't quite a 7. So that means... 6/10

Winner: Damn close.


bort High Places - 'Gold Coin' Oh ho. The first artist to show up on multiple stations. Legonads had some success with this band. Can Bort match it? So far I don't like this song as much as the other one. If Bort's going to take this round, he's going to have to fight for it. Last time I complimented her vocals but this time she's just talking and her vocals are muddy in the mix. Still enjoyable but not to the same extent. 6/10

e-stone New Order - 'Round & Round' Goddamn. This is a knockdown dragout. I love New Order. Bernard's vocals just hit. Bort staggers. The chorus kicks in and the referee starts counting. 7/10

Winner: e-stone fights valiantly to claim the gold coins

Quarterfinals

thisotherkingdom vs. legonads

thisotherkingdom Of Montreal - 'Erroneous Escape Into Eric Eckless' I love Of Montreal. This sounds like their older stuff. I prefer their newer stuff. This has much more of the Elephant 6 vibe which I've gone off of. Their newer stuff is great but this is more formulaic. I don't think I can go higher than a 6/10

legonads Vashti Bunyan - 'Lately' Another artist I absolutely love and another song I don't know by them. I haven't heard all of Lookaftering yet. It doesn't matter, though. A bad Vashti song (is there such a thing?) is better than a good song by most artists and this is hardly a bad song. It's typical for her in terms of performance and tempo but it's really gorgeous and has a nice flute (I think) at the end which I don't remember hearing in any of her other songs. 8/10

Winner: legonads lately

I liked every single song that round. Crazy. They were all close calls again but that's because of the quality of each song. The semi-finals ought to be damn interesting. I think I'll wrap this up right now so I can get everything taken care of before I head off to my afternoon concert.


The next round of match-ups will be:

e-stone vs. jagged
legonads vs. billyg

Semifinals

e-stone vs. jagged

e-stone Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - 'She's Leaving' More new wave. You folks are showing your age. I like some of their songs. They're much better than a lot of their peers, that's for sure. This is an alright one. Good, not great. A pretty solid 6/10

jagged Frank Black - 'Dog Sleep' I used to be really into Pixies and his solo stuff but I lost interest a while ago. This is different enough to easily beat a typical new wave track, though. He changes up the pace, incorporates some horns, his vocals are at their least annoying, and the lyrics are engaging. I'm comfortable with giving this a 7/10

Winner: jagged has his opponent put to sleep

Semifinals

legonads vs. billyg

legonads OK Go - '1000 Miles Per Hour' Never really been a fan of OK Go pre or post-treadmill video. It's that sunshine rock/pop stuff that all starts to sound alike. Phantom Planet, Rooney, The Fratellis, The Thrills... Not bad but not interesting. 5/10

billyg Al Kooper - 'Get Ready' Blues rock is something I really, really hate. It's right up there with gangsta rap, British pop music, and metal. Thankfully this is heavier on the vocals than on the guitars. He almost never stops singing the entire time and it's catchy. 6/10

Winner: billyg gets ready to advance to the finals

FINALS

billyg vs. jagged

billyg Julie Fowlis - 'Turas San Lochmor' Scottish folk music. This was a bold move by Billy. Foreign language music often leaves me cold. I focus so much on lyrics and words when I listen to music. But this song is really fantastic, regardless of whether or not I understand what she's saying. "Enchanting, beguiling and as fascinating as songs by Kate Bush and Björkâ€

[quote="alongwaltz"]FINALS

billyg vs. jagged

billyg Julie Fowlis - 'Turas San Lochmor' Scottish folk music. This was a bold move by Billy. Foreign language music often leaves me cold. I focus so much on lyrics and words when I listen to music. But this song is really fantastic, regardless of whether or not I understand what she's saying. "Enchanting, beguiling and as fascinating as songs by Kate Bush and Björkâ€

i like it. there's more of an actual band feel on the new one and less electronic stuff which i think turned me off at first but it grew on me after a few plays.

Cool. Thanks, shiv. I'll make the effort to hear it then.

I'll do a 32-team tournament. Here are the first round matchups:

andyfest v. wenchlette
alongwaltz v. twogunsholla
a northern soul v. tkyd
billyg v. timmyjoe42
contradiction v. thisotherkingdom
dalen v. shiv
drinky v. snatchez
duckyboy v. saint
e-stone v. puma
elvis fu v. promethium
f**k you, dave v. patrick
f4df v. paladisiac
flying rabbit v. rparis74
haqdiesel v. red
harry v. radcliffe
jagged v. legonads

I'll post the results as I am able to do so...

andyfest
Cut Copy - "Midnight Runner"
A band I've heard a lot about, but never actually heard...until now. I'm neither loving nor hating this. A tick or two above meh. Like the guitar sound.

wenchlette
The Fratellis - "Flathead"
Love this album, but this song hasn't held up as well over time as some of the others. Still, it's right in my wheelhouse.

GAME RECAP:
andyfest keeps it relatively close until halftime, after which point an apparent lockerroom tirade by wenchlette spurs her team onto an easy victory

FINAL SCORE:
wenchlette 73
andyfest 59

are these ncaa basketball scores?

alongwaltz
Guster - "One Man Wrecking Machine"
Kind of a less cloying Fountains of Wayne. I mostly mean that as a compliment.

twogunsholla
A Whisper in the Noise - "in will"
Quite haunting. If I wanted to be haunted, I'd spend more time watching home movies from when I was a kid.

GAME RECAP:
twogunsholla's offense not uptempo enough to keep pace with alongwaltz, who eventually runs him out of the gym

FINAL SCORE:
alongwaltz 68
twogunsholla 49

yes, i am taking the tournament concept to a ridiculously literal extreme

a northern soul
Brian Eno - "Driving Me Backwards"
Started out kind of interesting, but the repetition eventually ended up being akin to a flock of geese flying into both of the Warm Jets.

tkyd
Pelle Carlberg - "1983 (Pelle & Sebastian)"
This is great! I love the sunny vibe, and am a sucker for tastefully placed bongos.

GAME RECAP:
tkyd goes unconscious from behind the arc, leaving a northern soul drowning in his wake.

FINAL SCORE:
tkyd 84
a northern soul 52

billyg
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - "Lovellevelliloqui"
I've never been a big jazz guy. Still not.

timmyjoe42
Kent - "10 Minuter"
Need subtitles for the lyrics, but the music's OK.

GAME RECAP:
timmyjoe42 ratchets up the defensive pressure down the stretch to win this low-scoring affair.

FINAL SCORE:
timmyjoe42 60
billyg 48