The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 1, Group 12

          

Group 12

• I'm Not Always So Stupid 
• Metal Men
• Mars Sparkles Down On Me
• Come Play with Me
• Suck
• Real Thing
• Rocket
• It's What You Want That Matters
• One Day This Will All Be Yours
• Go Out and Get 'Em Boy!
• Theme from Shaft
• Kittery
• Lovenest
• Go-Go Dancer
• Living and Learning

The Results

In contrast to the last couple of groups, the panel thought that this one was a strong selection. This didn't make it any easier to score though...

Joanna: 'A struggle to order the top 3... this round really illustrates his mastery at documenting relationships at different stages in life, and how his lyrics and musical style have evolved.'

Gav M: 'Group of Death indeed. In the last round I was too annoyed to write anything – completely the opposite with most of the tracks in this round – where do I begin..? Some absolute stunning tracks here representing the very best of DLG’s work.'

This group also saw the biggest divide between the qualifiers and the rest: the 30-point gap between 8th and 9th place was by far the biggest so far (the largest up to this point was 16 points, in group 4 and group 7).

'Come Play with Me', 'I'm Not Always So Stupid' and 'Suck' trounced the rest. 'Lovenest' was not far behind, even if Johnny considered it a 'weak link' on Seamonsters. There was a lot of affection for 'Go Out and Get 'Em Boy!', although Harry was alone in giving it top marks ('The song that started it all for me and continues to be an enduring love'); Gav M, however, thought that it 'hasn’t aged too well.'

'Mars Sparkles Down On Me' attracted high scores from Johnny ('a beautiful moment'), Joanna and Steve M. Ian, not for the first time, pointed out that 'Mars doesn’t sparkle. It’s a planet,' and so thought it should be 'relegated for factual inaccuracy.' 'It's What You Want That Matters' received a lot of middling marks and very little commentary other than Keg's 'solid but not spectacular,' which perhaps suggests that it may not go much further. 'Go-Go Dancer' divided opinion: I'm fond of it (it made number 63 in my blog) and Ali gave it a ten; on the other hand, John thought it 'one of the weaker Hit Parade singles' and Kirk's verdict was, 'a dirge, a disappointing effort to follow Blue Eyes.'

In what's becoming a predictable pattern, the two cover versions filled the bottom slots. Gav M 'quite liked' 'Theme From Shaft' ('fun and funky'), although not enough to find it any points. Johnny's comment was, 'I’m sure he had fun doing this, but how it fits in to my life is hard to see.' Keg dismissed it as 'silly.' It did, however, gain the second highest total for any song finishing last so far.

In what's also becoming a bit of a theme, Harry predicted that 'Bob will give this 12 and he won't even be drunk.' (He was wrong - Bob gave it zero.) 'Rocket' didn't fare much better, even if Harry thought it 'much more fun than the plodding original.' Keg enjoyed the way it 'strips back the Chinn and Chapman glam sheen in favour of a rock reading... I've always had a sneaking fondness for it.' Gricey was not a fan: 'I woke up with this as an earworm whilst judging this and it annoyed the hell out of me.' Kirk liked 'Metal Men', but the rest of the panel were generally unmoved: 'Not a very remarkable track,' was John's verdict; 'a nothing song,' thought Keg.

Kirk was also pretty much a lone voice in rating 'Real Thing'. 'Great drumming, great dual vocals, great guitars, great song,' he reckoned. There were a few positve comments elsewhere, but Johnny described it as 'disjointed' and Gricey condemned it as 'a mess... poor and irritating.' 

'Kittery' is the first of Going Going's opening quartet of largely instrumental, post-rock influenced tracks to appear in this competition. A lot of the comments about Going Going songs so far have focused on how many of them suffer from being taken out of context, and this is likely to be very much the case with this set of songs. As for this particular one, James found it 'weird listening to this on its own'; 'this has a lot of merit,' thought Kirk, 'but needs to sit within the context of the album.' Ian lamented that it was 'a crying shame that this has to get zero - it’s an element of my favourite part of Going Going.' Bob had no time for it though: 'I hate this song.'

B-side 'One Day This Will All Be Yours' got no more than a smattering of low marks. 'Not sure they are all playing the same song here,' was Kirk's comment; 'a murky racket... terrible production' was Gav M's view. Keg, not for the first time, took issue with the 'budgie had a stroke' line. 'Living And Learning' got a similarly lukewarm reception

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