The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 1, Group 9

       

Group 9

• U.F.O.
• Emporia
• Astronomic
• Felicity
• Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
• Can You Keep A Secret?
• I Am Not Going To Fall In Love With You
• Snapshots
• Skin Diving
• Drink You, Eat You
• Pain Perdu
• Rotterdam
• Anyone Can Make A Mistake
• Dalliance
• Santa Monica

The Results

I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion regarding 'Dalliance' in future rounds, so I will only mention here that it achieved the highest winning score so far even before the last of the votes was cast. A few people did raise an eyebrow at how high I placed 'Anyone Can Make A Mistake' on my blog (I suspect that Kirk was one of them, given that he gave it a zero here, calling it 'filler'), but it finished in a very strong second place. 'Devastating and euphoric in equal measure,' commented Johnny, 'it still punches a lump into my throat and pulls a tear to my eye.'

I had suspected that throwaway b-side cover 'U.F.O.' might find itself at the foot of the table, but it did have a handful of supporters, John for example finding it to be a 'fun interlude'; 'I don't get the disdain that people on the forum seem to have for this,' was Keg's view, 'it's groovy.' Most were less impressed, however, with Harry renaming it 'P.I.S.H.' It was actually the 4 Songs EP track 'Pain Perdu' that got the wooden spoon. James cringed at the lyrics (the 'grandmother' line presumably being the chief culprit). 'The sound of water being treaded,' thought Keg. 'Drink You, Eat You' fared little better, even though Kirk, James and Harry all thought it deserved a place on El Rey.

'Astonomic' was praised by Johnny ('The old man has still got it, after all these years') and Ian ('great harmonies') but nearly half of the panel couldn't find a point for it. I think there's a lot to love about 'Can You Keep A Secret?' (which was no.55 on my blog). Ian, Steve M and Kirk also gave it a decent score, but Johnny thought it 'just ok - that's all' and Keg dismissed it as 'meandering'. 

Both Johnny and James enjoyed the 'heartbreaking' qualities of 'Snapshots', but it was another that got too many zeros to progress. The other song to make an early exit was 'Emporia'. Kirk thought it 'Brilliant... the lynchpin of Going Going' and Ian was also a fan: 'I love Going Going because he tried different stuff, time signatures, dynamics etc. This is one of the best tunes on that album.' But too many 1s, 2s and zeros left it 11 points short of qualification.

Lengthy epic 'Santa Monica' came in third, its total of 101 making it by far the most successful Going Going song thus far (the previous highest was 'Little Silver' with 44). It gave Keg pause for thought:

When "Going Going" came out I noticed that several songs tipped a knowing wink to TWP's back catalogue. What was going on here? Were they giving us subtle clues? The last track on the album sees the road trip comes to an end as we arrive in the Californian city. Journey's end. Was it also to be the end of something bigger? A final backwards glance as the door was closed for good? Happily this proved not to be the case and they're still with us today. As for "Santa Monica", musically this has a hefty splash of "Octopussy" about it and lyrically "returned my smile / became worthwhile" references "A Million Miles". The extended playout is quite hypnotic

'Rotterdam' scored considerably less well than the other Seamonsters tracks that have appeared up to this point, but still made it through easily. It pipped 'I Am Not Going To Fall In Love With You' to fourth spot by virtue of getting a higher score from 10/17 of the judges. The latter was the highest scoring 24 Songs track so far, buoyed by a maximum 12 from Keg ('a glorious strumming racket that goes on and on but doesn't outstay its welcome') and James. Even Gav M - who has been very sparing with his points for last year's songs - found it a bit of an 'earworm.' 

The other qualifiers were 'Skin Diving' ('Like going to the Saturnalia auction house and finding an Imperial Ming vase among the Moorcrofts,' according to Harry), 'Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah' (which both Gav M and Ian described as 'a great pop song') and 'Felicity'. The panel were somewhat divided regarding the merits of the Orange Juice cover. Both Harry and Gav M rated TWP's cover as superior to the 'plodding' original; Ian even broke his 'no points for covers' rule, describing it as 'sexy.' On the other hand, Keg's comment was 'I used to like this until I heard the original Orange Juice version and realised how embarrasingly inept it is.'

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