Cinerama Cup: Group B

     

A reminder of how the point-scoring works:

• The panel must award a total of 36 points
• No song may receive more than 12 points
• At least one point must be given to 5 songs (i.e. no more than three zeros) 

Group B

• Airborne
• Superman
• On/Off
• Health and Efficiency
• Get Smart
• Model Spy
• Always The Quiet One
• Careless

Despite the relief of having dispensed of Valentina and the dodgy covers, Group A wasn't quite the breakthrough into the very best songs some had probably hoped it might be. Averaging out my blog rankings, it was the weakest of the eight groups in the main phase, and the comments certainly seemed to reflect that. By the same measure, Group B was only one place above...

The Results

Once again, we had a very clear winner. The comfortably familar quiet/loud dynamic of 'Health and Efficiency' earned lots of praise, although it wasn't without its detractors. Ian has always been sceptical of the song's merits, especially regarding the lyric: 'like your parents discussing sex.' Keg also found himself feeling 'a bit queasy,' although he did consider the 'bursts of guitar noise... pleasing to the ear.'

I've always found 'Careless' to be solid but unspectacular. Kirk is definitely not a fan: 'Never got this and will fail to understand the amount of salivating that everyone else will be doing over it.' Others were indeed more enthusiastic, for example Marc ('simply glorious, lyrically and musically') and Johnny ('gruff guitars seep into the Cinerama sound and it makes for a perfect mix').

Despite the fact that in some ways it doesn't really feel like a 'proper' Cinerama tune, 'Always The Quiet One' made it into the last 32 with ease. 

'Superman' was another that enjoyed generally solid support but also had its critics. Kirk considered it to be 'lyrically good but musically average'; Dave took the opposite view - 'not a bad tune but it’s lyrics aren’t great.' Ian didn't like either aspect: 'awful lyrics - substandard tune.' Gav M, not for the first time, enjoyed (if that's the right word) a song that reminded him of his past: 'very evocative of a certain brief period of my life, with a particularly poisonous ex - where I would often quote lines of this song to her.'

There was a clear bottom of the table finish for 'Model Spy', despite Gricey finding it 'evocative and different.' Keg was one of the few who gave it a decent mark:

I have a feeling this may be unfairly maligned in this round by the buffoons who baulk at the mere mention of a flute. However, for me this is what Cinerama is all about. It's a groovy instrumental that would work very well as a soundtrack... I bet Johnny Mac is with me on this.'

Johnny did comment 'whoever thought a throbbing bass and a chiming harpsichord would work so well together?' but he couldn't find any points for it. 'John Barry is on the phone,' commented Bob, 'wants his cimbalom back, and his chords, and just about everything else.' Dave was even less impressed: 'I don’t know what he was thinking when he recorded this utter chuff.'

The most divisive song of the round was 'Airborne'. Some found its guitar-free approach refreshing. Dave thought it 'a thing of beauty' and Kirk felt that 'when [DLG] goes a bit braver and pushes the guitars out the way the results are generally worth it.' Johnny was particularly effusive:

'Stunning, gorgeous, swept through with gut wrenched, spleen twisting, heart churning emotion. It’s raw desperation, it’s brittle, fragile, fraught, desolate aching beauty, it’s a resigned tale of a love lived and lost perfectly packing into two bittersweet minutes.'

Its critics, however, such as Gav M ('a bit tedious'), Keg ('too much cello for me... the clunky rhyming couplets don't help either') and Gricey ('sucks') left it languishing in fifth place, 27 points short of qualification.

Kirk rated 'On/Off' as a 'decent b-side' but felt that it sounded 'a little rushed.' Keg loved 'the twangy guitar and the bursts of organ.' Several others had positive comments but couldn't find it many points in this company. Gav M, however, described it as 'a weird discordant mess,' and Mike dismissed it as 'a dull rocker.' 

Gav M was a strong supporter of Torino's 'Get Smart', but he was largely on his own. 'A middling bag of nothing' was Dave's opinion, and several judges took a dim view of the flute towards the end (although I quite like it). Ian raised an eyebrow at the 'single hair' line: 'Don't people change bed sheets in Cinerama world? Dirty devils.'

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