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

Saturday, March 5, 2016

First Round Matchup: LIZ PHAIR at RADIOHEAD

(15) Liz Phair, "Fuck and Run"

I actually sang this song in karaoke one time a couple years ago, and I have to say it was a weird experience. “Fuck and Run” has a weird affect for a karaoke choice—it’s just delivered so drily, and the lyrics are dark, but yet the music is upbeat, a combination that I’ve always been fond of, and I didn’t really think it through before taking it on. Then I found myself singing “I want a boyfriend / I want all the stupid old shit / like letters and sodas,” in which these courting clichés are both desirable and mockable at once, and are in fact both desired and mocked. This was in the Music Box, Thursday night, I think, in Tucson, after hitting the roller skating rink for Adults Only Night. I was just shocked to see the song on the list at all, and I will always sign up for a song like that just to see what happens. Hard to approximate Liz’s delivery, apparent hardness, or the serious well of sadness beneath it. I didn’t feel good after singing it, and I can’t imagine anyone else did exactly either. I mean, you’re drinking your shitty PBR and waiting for something to happen, finally something interesting is going to happen on a night like this, and there you are listening to some guy sing “Fuck and run / even when I was seventeen / even when I was twelve.” As Allison points out, one way of considering this matchup is to consider that these singers are each writing their songs about the other, which we have to admit is a weird idea, but also a phenomenal one. Thinking about it in that way might just level the playing field a bit.



vs

(2) Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees"

Radiohead is a power program with a legacy and a championship look, but Liz Phair is a tricky first-round matchup. I can’t imagine picking any song in this bracket matching up strength to strength against the fragility and soaring grandeur of Thom Yorke’s vocals here, but Phair isn’t playing the same game, is she? Radiohead’s methodical and technical, seemingly impervious: see how the song moves from delicacy to assertion? How it isolates its vulnerability and turns on it and multiplies it by beauty and becomes anthemic? “Fake Plastic Trees” is a Goliath, perfectly assembled for a deep run in the tournament, if it doesn’t stumble into its David here. 






WHICH IS SADDEST? WHICH SHOULD ADVANCE? VOTE BY 3/6 at 9am
Which song's sadder?
Fuck and Run
Fake Plastic Trees
make your own quiz

9 comments:

  1. Not sure that what Liz is going for is irony here. For what it's worth, though the voting on the blog is seriously leaning Radiohead, the voting on Twitter is seriously leaning Liz Phair. At this point it's anyone's game...

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  2. Radiohead could field four #1 seeds. Unstoppable sadness.

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  3. Quite a few of the high seeds (Cure, Elliott Smith, Joy Division, REM, Smiths, anyhow) could have been multiply represented here with no loss of quality. When you've got the sad you can go to the well and go to the well and it don't run dry. We didn't include multiple songs by a band because more variety seems better. Radiohead could have had several songs off The Bends (High and Dry, anyone?) or OK Computer (No Surprises was in the play-in against Fake Plastic Trees), anyhow; or, whatever, even the singles from Pablo Honey. The more interesting questions are the one-offs, who had one spectacularly sad song and that was it. Phair's no one-off, obviously, and if you're following the twitter voting too (we do two polls, one on my twitter and one here, and they'll be aggregated*), it's almost even at this point between Liz Phair and Radiohead, which is shocking, but there's a long ways to go. This is the only really competitive matchup in the first day of play.

    * Because it turns out non-twitter users can't vote on twitter polls, we thought it better to have two polls and combine them.

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  4. For me, Liz isn't asking us to be sad, exactly. I think she wants me to say, "damn" or "me too" or even "is this what eventually caused Funstyle?"

    It's a hair I'm splitting here, but such is the nature of this matchup, one where I think folks are probably weighing in, good or bad, on how they feel about Radiohead's body of work.

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  5. Or how they feel about big sad sensitive boy rock…

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  6. Which is probably coterminous (though you raise a good point; I voted Radiohead despite souring on big sad sensitive boy rock mainly because it seemed disingenuous to my body of fandom not to own it -- and that video still hits me where my big sad sensitive boy lives).

    My entire comment here would have been avoided if I could have just liked your comment.

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  7. I think when it comes to sadness you got to vote your heart, not your head. For instance I remain susceptible to a lot of the things I've always been susceptible to, and you know what, I'm voting that shit all the way, though intellectually I understand they are in some way adolescent and also losing propositions.

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