I mean, James is no slouch either; they had hits too, but (at least here: in other songs they're slyer) they're sincere and direct and wounded. The US video (linked below) goes in the Wings of Desire direction, giving the song a pleasing second gloss. The Church's entry is more mysterious and sweeping.
Another way to think about it is that this is a matchup pitting the aesthetic of the 80s against that of the 90s. “Under the Milky Way” mixes the bombast of the 80s with an irresistible dash of goth. Its eventual use in Donnie Darko pretty much cemented its place in the 80s canon. “Say Something” is less known, a representative of that moody minimalism the 90s did so well. Both songs feature speakers trying to break through to someone: “Wish I knew what you were looking for,” The Church laments, while James pleads, “Say something, say something, anything / your silence is deafening.” Neither connection evidently lasts—or is in fact made at all.
The question seems to be, in part: Do you prefer an articulation of "loveless fascination" ("Under the Milky Way") to a plea to end an unknowable other's silent opacity?
For more discussion of the songs' merits, you may want to read our previous coverage of "Say Something" and of "Under the Milky Way."
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(5) James, "Say Something" (US Version: see previous coverage for link to original/UK video)
vs
(13) The Church, "Under the Milky Way" (official video)
Note: today, some folks are reporting an error when voting in our polls below. We're working on it, but note that it IS counting your votes, even if the error shows up; the software also filters out multiple votes, so you can't accidentally vote too many times. We're embedding the twitter poll, which you can use if you're on twitter, if you'd rather. Or you can click HERE to vote or HERE for the results.
#marchsadness 2d rd, 90s v 80s: (5) @wearejames vs (13) @thechurchband: https://t.co/S9ZEcQGip6: who you got? why?— Ander Monson (@angermonsoon) March 14, 2016
Which sadder is better? Vote by 9am 3/15
Posting this in case I'm not the only one having this problem: I'm having trouble voting today. When I click the vote button I get a message that says my account does not have access to this page. It's not clear if my vote is going through.
ReplyDeleteIt is being counted, but we've had a couple reports like this where you can vote but get that error message when you try to reveal the results. Not sure what accounts for that just yet, and we're working on the problem. Is it only happening with this vote or with the others today too? Does it happen when you're looking at the whole blog or when you've loaded up the page with the matchup on it?
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that it's being counted, but we'd like to figure out why this problem is occurring, so any more feedback you can give us on the problem helps.
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DeleteThanks for looking into it. The couple of votes I made from the main page both gave the error message. When I tried voting on one from the individual blog post, I didn't get the error, but it didn't show the vote tally.
DeleteWe were able to replicate your problem on one of our official NCAA machines; yeah, it was more of an issue from the main page, not the individual pages. Not sure what the problem is/was. Since we can't get it 100% resolved, we're switching to a different poll software for tomorrow's voting once these polls close. The twitter polls of course continue to work fine. Let us know if you have trouble tomorrow on the new games?
DeleteIn the interim, we added a workaround just above the poll: you can vote here: http://goo.gl/bFUIVW and check the results here: http://goo.gl/pPjYnI
ReplyDeleteI continue to be surprised by the strength of support for "Milky Way." Count me with those who find it evocative, moody, mysterious... but sad? not really. Despite its peppier music, "Say Something" seems like the clearly sadder song to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. I quite like the song, but the committee's seeding reflected that we thought it really wasn't a particularly sad song, nor are they a particularly sad band. Surprised and pleased by the degree of support for "Under the Milky Way." They got lucky with a little softer opponent in James (than, say, Sinead, Jeff Buckley, or Smashing Pumpkins) via the draw, but still their cinderella run appears to continue. The way this is going, does it have a shot at the elite 8?
ReplyDelete