Both of the Sweet Sixteen games finishing this morning lacked the drama of some of our better recent matchups, with the higher seed going on to win by solid margins.
(1) The Cure's "Pictures of You" took down (3) Tori Amos's "Silent All These Years" 109-86
and
(2) Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" ended the run of dark horse (6) This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren" 76-50
Neither result is surprising, since both winners seemed to us early favorites (hence their seeds), but we followed "Song to the Siren"'s run to the Sweet 16 with anticipation, and will mourn their loss. It's worth noting here that "Song to the Siren" wasn't even in the bracket until the very last minute, at which point official Committee Advisor Chris Cokinos suggested them to us. (We had "You and Your Sister," which "Song to the Siren" beat handily in the play-in.) So it was a good run, This Mortal Coil, especially for a song unfamiliar to many of our voters coming into March Sadness. We thank you, Brian Blanchfield, for helping to contextualize that song for the crowd. We also wave goodbye to Tori Amos, who leaves us in spite of an outstanding and impassioned essay by Alison Stine.
So: this leaves us with a weekend to relax and take a break and watch some basketball, if you prefer, or listen to sad songs that didn't make the bracket, as we prefer. If you don't want to go without, start with: Dinosaur Jr's "Feel the Pain," Cowboy Junkies' "Blue Moon Revisited," The Lemonheads' "It's a Shame About Ray," quite a bit of the Trashcan Sinatras, Codeine's version of "Atmosphere," Shawn Colvin's "Shotgun Down the Avalanche," Gin Blossoms' "Hey Jealousy," The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy's "Angels," Emmylou Harris's "Red Dirt Girl," and Duran Duran's "Ordinary World," all of which lost play-in games or were got bumped
We'll see you Monday morning for the next two Sweet 16 matchups, featuring (1) Neutral Milk Hotel (repped by Lawrence Lenhart) vs surprising Australians (13) The Church, as repped by Juan Diaz. And (3) Sinead O'Connor (repped by Laura Owen) brings the drama vs (2) Jeff Buckley, as repped by Elena Passarello. See you on the court.
So, after I couldn't shut up on Radiohead matchup about how hard it is to for a song to be sad if I haven't been listening to a song for years, I thought of an exception for me. Songs: Ohia is a band I missed until I had to review a tribute EP following Jason Molina's death. Perhaps because I was immersing myself in the songs and their covers -- and listening actively -- for a week in order to write something, I now have a relationship with them. It's also true that I just listen to music differently in the post Spotify era where something basically has to get me right away or I will go back listening to the National or whatever. All of that really works against slowly developing music or songs that grow and fester, all of which probably discriminates against sad songs more than it does manic songs or boy it feels good not to be dead songs. In any case, though the saddest Songs: Ohia song is probably "Farewell Transmission" and outside of our time frame, here's "being in love," one of the only songs from the era that I didn't listen to in the era that now moves me greatly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow0iQtoKJUY
ReplyDeleteThough I've heard of them and Molina before, I can't say I've ever heard any of their songs. The one you directed us to is pretty good, though, and I'll add it to our missed connections list. Good suggestion. (Though you're right that "Farewell..." is outside of our timeframe, I'll check that out too.)
ReplyDeleteThis weekend, without Sadness matches to listen to, I fell back down the Molina rabbit hole. The trouble with trying to get into his work retrospectively is that every album contains songs that are much less awesome than his best stuff (or at least songs that aren't good introductions to his body of work). The best thing I've seen as an introduction is a spotify playlist called "Best of Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co." that is about 45 songs long and well curated. Because you have so much time to fall down rabbit holes.
ReplyDeleteStill, it's interesting to me that I forgot all about a musician who, in a different universe, made six or seven songs at least that would high seeds here. I mean, (from "Just be Simple"): "you'll never hear me talk about / one day getting out / why put a new address / on the same old loneliness."
My point isn't that the omission of Molina is snub. One can't snub something one hasn't heard. It's just evidence that many artists making sad music are largely, as a condition of their own sadness, inherently off the radar, even a radar as sophisticated as the one guiding this tournament. Which is sad (and maybe evidence that the folks voting here ought to crowd source a follow up NIT? while I'm in the business of giving you a ton more work?).