The Cinerama Cup

          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 F Don’t Touch That Dial Your Charms 10 Denier Apres Ski Unzip You Turn Me On Crusoe 146 Degrees If you take my blog as any sort of reliable guide, this was far and away the strongest set of songs in this stage. Only one of the tracks wasn't in my top 30, five of the eight were in the top 20, and a couple were in the top ten. In general, the panel agreed. Steve M called it both 'the actual group of death' and 'a proper bastard.' Several commented that they gave zeros to songs that would actually have scored well in a different group. The Results Although it ended up coming second (and led the group until the final few votes), 'Don’t Touch That Dial' didn't receive uniformly strong marks. In many cases, this was because - even though it was ...

         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 E Kerry Kerry Starry Eyed Barefoot in the Park See Thru Swim Estrella Sparkle Lipstick Reel 2, Dialogue 2 As I've mentioned before, I ranked these groups in terms of their average scores on my blog, and this one came out mid-table. Several of the judges agreed: Gav F, for example, called it 'largely unremarkable.' The Results 'Health & Efficiency' b-side 'Swim' was generally overlooked by the panel, receiving seven zeros and nothing higher than a six. 'A bit too sleazy,' thought James; 'the lyrics really let the side down on this one' was Derek's view. Marc, on the other hand, enjoyed its 'very catchy chorus.' Another b-side, 'Sparkle Lipstick' , did much better overall, but only Gav F ('soars magnifi...

        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 D Au Pair As If Your Time Starts Now Two Girls Heels Close Up And When She Was Bad Girl on a Motorcycle The Results A very clear winner this time, with 'And When She Was Bad' finishing 39 points ahead of its nearest rival. The fact that it marks, as Gav M put it, 'a bridge from Cinerama to the Wedding Present in one song,' was undoubtedly a key factor in its success - although a few did express reservations about the lyric. The remaining qualifiers, although some distance behind, were still comfortably ahead of the bottom half of the table. 'Heels' (which I placed at number four on my blog ranking) is, in my estimation, gloriously gorgeous and epitomises the best of what Cinerama were about. Keg agreed ('Lovely, big sweeping chorus that DLG did...

       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 C Ears Manhattan Sly Curl I Wake Up Screaming Maniac Get Up and Go Lollobrigida Comedienne The first two groups - despite being more highly regarded than the preliminary round material - didn't exactly set the panel's pulses racing. Which suggests that my blog ranking averages, which had A and B down as the two weakest sets, wasn't too far off the mark. Group C, on the other hand, was the second strongest by the same measure... The Results This time, it was much tighter at the top, but there was a very clear winner of the wooden spoon. Johnny thought 'Lollobrigida' was 'as sexy as hell,' but for most, this was the element that particularly turned them off. 'Sex is really hard to portray realistically in songs,' declared Ian, 'and this ...

      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 paren...

     Now that we've waded our way through the covers, Valentina , etc. we can begin on the competition proper... In the group stage, this is 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 A Tie Me Up Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) Cat Girl Tights Gigolo Edinburgh 7X Pacific Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang The Results We had a very clear winner in  'Cat Girl Tights' , which finished 60 points ahead of its nearest rival. 'One of my favourite Gedge songs from any era,' was Harry's view, 'an absolute masterpiece of a song.' Dave concurred ('a dark, moody fantastic piece of music'), as did Marc ('classic quiet LOUD quiet LOUD which is the hallmark of any great TWP track'). It was not with its critics, however. 'Does nothing for me,' commented Bob; Chris described it as 'drivel.' At the ot...

    The second group of covers, etc. voted for  'Eurovision' style (see the previous post )... Preliminary Group 2 Larry's  Edinburgh 524 Fidelio Always The Quiet One Meet Cute Nickels And Dimes Back a Bit...Stop You Jane Deer Caught in the Headlights You're Dead Diamonds Are Forever Yesterday Once More Elenore There's a good reason why these songs have gone through this preliminary stage, and I'm sure the panel will be relieved when we get to the 'proper' groups. Dave, for example, found this set 'really difficult to rate, probably because about 7 of them deserved a 0.' Or, a s Kirk put it: 'This is a far weaker set of songs than the first lot and I'd easily give them all zeros if I could. The worst thing about this round was having to listen to some of these more than once to rank them against each other.' Steve M's view: 'When the third "best" song gets on the virtual podium because (as I scribbled down) it has ...