The Cinerama Cup

         A reminder of the scores after the first two rounds: 112 Wow 100 Health and Efficiency 69   Your Charms 39   And When She Was Bad Health And Efficiency v  Wow Another 2-2 draw from me. Joanna, however, was firmly in the H&E camp: H&E just got top spot for me, a wonderful combination of wistful strings and quality loud drums and much more interesting lyrically - it's got peach juice, lakes and shakes, even some old American guy banging on about his mum's 78's (all very evocative), whereas Wow, although an absolute banger (and always a favourite live), is ultimately just another iteration (albeit an excellent one) of familiar Gedge material - basically "I really fancy you but you should know that I've already got a girlfriend and I feel a bit guilty and you should be aware of that. Ah, f**k it." Health And Efficiency 32 - Wow 48 And When She Was Bad v  Your Charms AWSWB's best performance, but - decent track as it is ...

        A reminder of the scores after the first round: 58 Health and Efficiency 49 Wow 31 Your Charms 22 And When She Was Bad Health And Efficiency v Your Charms My top three from my Cinerama blog reached the final, and I found it really challenging to separate them, so I voted 2-2 in all the ties that paired them up. This ended up being the most close-run tie of the final so far. Health And Efficiency 42 - Your Charms 38 And When She Was Bad v Wow Given AWSWB's 'decent song that was favoured by the draw' status, this was always likely to be a bit of a landslide. Johnny's customary alternative view was: 'I cannot help but feeling a bit ‘meh!’ about this pairing. I fully expect they’ll be placed 1 and 2 in the final reckoning, but to me they are the weakest songs left at this stage.' And When She Was Bad 17 - Wow 63 The scores, with one set of ties left, are: 112 Wow 100 Health and Efficiency 69   Your Charms 39   And When She Was Bad   Home ...

       Our final four tracks are: Health and Efficiency And When She Was Bad Your Charms Wow We are not going to have a traditional knock-out semi-final and final; instead, the panel are going to vote in a 'round robin' format. It will work like the group stage of the World Cup: each track will 'play' each of the other in three sets of matches. For each tie, the judges have three scoring options: 4-0 (Clear-cut, no-brainer decision) 3-1 (Some pause for thought before deciding the winner) 2-2 (Unable to separate them) N.B. I will post the results in three stages, but I won't begin until all of the panel have cast all of their votes, so as to avoid any temptation to vote 'tactically'. (I entered my own scores before any of the rest of the panel voted.) Health And Efficiency v And When She Was Bad By this stage, most of the panel were, understandably, a bit 'commented-out', so there's not going to be that much text in these final rounds. That said, ...

      A comment from Jona: 'When Gricey suggested I join the Cinerama Cup I thought it sounded like fun. It has been, but I had no idea just how much of my listening time and thought I'd end up putting into it.' And quite right too! On to the serious business of the quarter-final ties... Cat Girl Tights v Health And Efficiency There wasn't much in the way of commentary this time round, perhaps not surprisingly at this stage. Johnny, however, had plenty to say about H&E: 'The voyeuristic eavesdropping, the secretly captured street scene overdub makes it so compelling right from to offset, musically it is a wholehearted serving of magnificent gorgeousness. Where much of the Gedge songbook rips it all apart in a brusque few minutes H&E lays it all bare in a tantric anthem to doomed youth and teen devotion.  With an unrelenting gentleness this song tempts you, it teases you, it catches your eye and your ear across that crowded café, it hooks you without you ever...