SCORES & UPCOMING GAMES



CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL SCORE: (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 168, (7) Tracy Chapman 159 .......... FINAL FOUR FINAL SCORES: (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 154, (1) Joy Division 90 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 137, (1) The Cure 89 .......... ELITE EIGHT FINAL SCORES: (1) JOY DIVISION 74, (14) Low 60 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 85, (1) Elliott Smith 69 ..... THE CURE 65, (2) Radiohead 58 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 74, (1) Neutral Milk Hotel 44 ..... FINAL SWEET SIXTEEN SCORES: (1) JOY DIVISION 75, (5) PJ Harvey & Nick Cave 24 ..... (14) LOW 73, (2) Concrete Blonde (64) ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 78, (4) Gary Jules 44 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 74, (6) Kate Bush 53 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 54, (13) The Church 49 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 73, (3) Sinead O’Connor 35 ..... (1) THE CURE 109, (3) Tori Amos 86 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 76, (6) This Mortal Coil 50 ..... (1) JOY DIVISION 96, (9) Mazzy Star 91 ..... (2) CONCRETE BLONDE 76, (7) Bob Mould 28 ..... (14) LOW 60, (6) Crowded House 51 ..... (5) PJ HARVEY & NICK CAVE 65, (4) Alphaville 38 ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 113, (8) Replacements 88 ..... (6) KATE BUSH 87, (3) Nirvana 64 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 99, (2) The Eels 62 ..... (3) GARY JULES 103, (12) Morrissey 63 ..... (6) Kate Bush 72, (3) Nirvana 53 ..... (3) SINEAD O'CONNOR 66, (11) Ride 27 ..... (13) THE CHURCH 106, (5) James 44 ..... (2) JEFF BUCKLEY 95, (10) Smashing Pumpkins 40 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 80, (9) New Order 56 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 102, (7) Nine Inch Nails 99 ..... (6) THIS MORTAL COIL 61, (3) Indigo Girls 60 ..... (4) TORI AMOS 89, (5) Swans 40 ..... (1) CURE 82, (8) Tom Waits 68 ............... FINAL 1ST ROUND SCORES: (5) PJ HARVEY & NICK CAVE 93, (12) Midnight Oil 38 ..... (7) BOB MOULD 63, (10) Peter Murphy 47 ..... (1) JOY DIVISION 117, (16) Erasure 19 ..... (6) CROWDED HOUSE 98, (11) Leonard Cohen 54 ..... (7) TRACY CHAPMAN 199, (10) The Smiths 162 ..... (5) MORRISSEY 115, (12) Morphine 83 ..... (3) NIRVANA 137, (14) Slowdive 102 ..... (8) THE REPLACEMENTS 128, (9) Dream Academy 82 ..... (13) THE CHURCH 262, (4) Magnetic Fields 193 ..... (10) SMASHING PUMPKINS 165, (7) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 155 ..... (9) NEW ORDER 160, (8) Sarah McLachlan 78 ..... (1) JEFF BUCKLEY 204, (16) Bjork 92 ..... (4) TORI AMOS 78, (13) Echo & the Bunnymen 22 ..... (8) TOM WAITS 72, (9) The Pretenders 22 ..... (6) THIS MORTAL COIL 51, (11) Yaz 31 ..... (3) INDIGO GIRLS 71, (14) Pavement 26 ..... (9) MAZZY STAR 132, (8) REM 46 ..... (2) CONCRETE BLONDE 88, (15) Psychedelic Furs 34 ..... (4) ALPHAVILLE 71, (13) Dead Can Dance 36 ..... (14) LOW 120, (3) U2 65 ..... (1) ELLIOTT SMITH 63, (16) 10,000 Maniacs 24 ..... (2) EELS 50, (15) Counting Crows 46 ..... (4) GARY JULES 62, (13) Depeche Mode 19 ..... (6) KATE BUSH 59, (11) Sisters of Mercy 20 ..... (1) NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL 42, (16) Violent Femmes 12 ..... (11) RIDE 25 (6) Peter Gabriel 24 ..... (3) SINEAD O'CONNOR 37, (14) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 17, ..... (5) JAMES 24, (12) Red House Painters 23 ..... (7) NINE INCH NAILS 46, (10) Wilco 31, (5) SWANS 31, (12) Pet Shop Boys 18 ..... (1) THE CURE 50, (16) Gear Daddies 10 ..... (2) RADIOHEAD 40, (15) Liz Phair 35


CURRENT GAMES BELOW — PAST GAMES ARCHIVED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

Monday, March 7, 2016

First Round Matchup: KATE BUSH at SISTERS OF MERCY

(6) Kate Bush, "This Woman's Work"

Uh, wait, what? You say Kate Bush wrote the song specifically for a scene in a John Hughes movie? Well, that doesn’t add to the sadness quotient of this song exactly, but it does up its awesome quotient. For instance, navigate to around the halfway point of this helpful cut of the scene for the montage set to song (she apparently wrote the lyrics to the content of the montage: is that horrible or is it great?). More videos should have montages, really, and the official video version kind of does, as it turns out, though in a super Kate Bushy way. Or really, just watch the first simply awesome minutes of the 1979 Kate Bush Christmas Special. Just two minutes, and either you're going to vote for Kate Bush or vote against Kate Bush based on that. Either choice is fine. Honestly, if you added the weird diaphanous bat cape from the first scene of the Christmas special to this song or video you'd have a winner and I'd vote it all the way to the finals based on that. But the more I watch these clips the more I end up talking myself either out of or into this song. I really can't be sure which. But I'm feeling a lot more of something for this song and for Bush. As you know Maxwell does a pretty great cover of this song, which you can look up for yourself, though we have a hard time imagining it'll affect what you think of it in the way that the Johnny Cash version did of "Hurt." I don't know what else to tell you about the song. 



vs

(11) Sisters of Mercy, "Some Kind of Stranger"

Goth is a tricky thing to navigate vis-à-vis sadness: the whole genre is a downer, though it rarely seems particularly sad. I would have guessed in the early stages of selecting songs that the tournament would be seeded with goth, but it hasn’t worked out that way. That’s because, while punk essentially says (I’m paraphrasing the introductions to the Joy Division box set, I think, and not super well, like I'm trying to Brian Blanchfield this up and not resort to actually looking up sources) “fuck you,” goth says “I’m fucked,” or in some cases “we’re fucked: we might as well take amphetamines and try to find someone or something beautiful.” Well, the Sisters of Mercy tend toward the political (not always to their credit) they're best when they're a little more danceable (not to say dancy), but this track, a selection from First and Last and Always, arguably their best album (personally this committee member will always take Floodland, but he understands what was lost when Andrew Eldritch fired the rest of the band and took things in a new direction, and it’s increasingly obvious that First is a peerless album), is sheer desperation, total sadness. It should also be pointed out that this particular member of the committee finds it impossible to separate himself from his longtime love of this band to be in any way objective about this choice. As far as he's concerned, you should be picking Sisters of Mercy here for the upset. Really, if it's Sisters of Mercy or John Hughes movie song, what choice do you have? Sisters of Mercy would definitely bring the bat cape to the video if they had one.





Which is sadder? Vote by 3/8 at 9am

This Woman's Work
Some Kind of Stranger
Quiz Maker

7 comments:

  1. Lord Jesus, keep me near the cross...

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  2. Man, I love some of the matchups today, particularly this one and the Depeche Mode / Gary Jules one. Both are a little random but feel like there's art in the pairing.

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  3. It's interesting to me how many early match ups ultimately pit private-sphere sadness versus public-sphere treatments of sadness often along gender lines. LP/Radiohead was maybe the best example that isn't this one.

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  4. That's true. Since women are underrepresented here (as they were in "college rock"—and we didn't feel like it was the committee's place to be wholly revisionist), the committee tried to distribute the women more or less equally in the bracket and also tried to avoid pitting women against each other in first-round matchups, to keep more of these conversations going further into the tournament. Don't know how successful that was or will be. I'm also very interested in the conversation about private and public sphere sadnesses, as well as how closely the I of the song seems to fit the identity of the singer: in this way I think we're talking about concerns of poetry and the confessional.

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  5. If wanting to take a razor blade to my wrists makes Sisters "sad" then so be it. Actually, I guess I'm not 17 anymore...

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  6. After hearing "Some Girls Wander by Mistake" T-Town summed up the Sisters thusly: "Great music, but what the hell's up with those vocals?" When I first listened to them as a teenager I loved the vocals--such desperation, such anguish. Now they just seem over-the-top and ludicrous to me on First and Last and Always. That's why I like Floodland better now--the vocals are understated in comparison on most songs. Lucretia will always be my favorite Sisters song.

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  7. Concur, though I still seem to hold a fond place for that melodrama in my life. I relistened to Vision Thing recently, and its weird irony and super-overt politics haven't dated very well. Complaining about the first Bush presidency seems bizarrely quaint now. Plus the turn to full on rock opera must have been incredibly alienating for their old school goth fans. That was, of course, the first album of theirs I discovered, so I always liked it, and I still do, but it's harder to take now.

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