The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 1, Group 13

           

Group 13

• California
• Sticky
• You Should Always Keep in Touch With Your Friends
• We Interrupt Our Programme
• Think That It Might
• Mothers
• Venus
• Dan Dare
• Drive
• Jet Girl
• It's Not Unusual
• Summer
• White Horses 
• 1000 Farenheit
• Three

The Results

After a run of groups that were considered either notably strong or weak by the panel, this one was seen by many as - as Gav M put it - 'middling'. Certainly the marks were more a little more evenly spread out this time, especially in the middle section of the table. This resulted in a nail-biting finish for the last qualifying spot: with one set of votes to come in, 'Mothers' was trailing 'We Interrupt Our Programme' by a single point. In the end, things swung in favour of the John-Paul Sartre Experience cover (which both Keg and Harry thought superior to the original). Although it was edged out at the last, 'Programme' did perform better than most 24 Songs tracks - only 6 of the other 22 featured so far have finished in a higher position. That said, although Harry felt it was 'a glorious and triumphant racket,' Bob only gave it a point because he 'ran out of zeros' and Gav M dismissed it as 'mightily irritating.'

Despite some close results elsewhere, we had by some distance our biggest winning margin so far, with 'You Should Always Keep in Touch With Your Friends' a massive 71 points ahead of its nearest rival (the largest gap up until now had been 50 in group 7). It got a 10 or 12 from all but three of the panel and an average of 10.6. (Keg wished us to note that he had this song played on Annie Nightingale's Sunday evening request show in September 1989. Sadly, he does not have a recording of this momentous event.)

Notwithstanding the decent performance of 'Mothers', there was a predictable clump of covers at the bottom end of the table. 60s TV theme 'White Horses' (originally recorded by Irish singer Jackie Lee) would have joined the 'nul points' list had it not been for a seven from Steve M. 'I know, I know,' commented Johnny, 'it’s just the sort of thing he does. It’s no ‘Crusoe’ though is it?' Bob, in characteristic fashion, renamed it 'Sh*te Horses'.

Two of the better-known covers were received with a little more affection, if not a great deal more points. I can't abide Altered Images myself, but even those who like them weren't that fussed on TWP's cover of 'Think That It Might'. Kirk might have thought that it was 'spot on,' but Gricey found it 'bland' and Johnny thought it 'dull and dreary.' Bob renamed this one too: 'Think That It's Sh*te'. He didn't rename 'It's Not Unusual', instead commenting that 'it's awful but kind of fun.' Gricey described it as 'a fun cover,' but Harry took a much dimmer view: 'Crap. I could have the writing skills and the wit of Oscar Wilde and I'd still struggle to come up with a better description.' 

The other 24 Songs track in this list, 'Summer', was praised by Kirk ('the grower from 24 Songs, with the ghost of Simon Cleave in some of those guitar parts'), but only received a handful of low marks elsewhere. 'An inoffensive ramble,' was Johnny's verdict. Given the stick that it frequently gets on the forum, I had thought that 'Jet Girl' might fare worse than it did. Several of the panel, however, had some sympathy for it, pointing out that it worked better live than the comparatively limp studio versions. Keg enjoyed its 'summery sunshine sounds.'

'1000 Fahrenheit', from the 2012 4 Songs EP, was another that Kirk valued more highly than most; Ian also considered it 'better than some of the tunes that made Valentina.' However, around half of the panel gave it a zero and inevitably Bob re-christened it '1000 Fahrensh*te'.

As for the remaining qualifiers, 'Drive', 'Sticky', 'Three' and 'Venus' all had their critics but still amassed strong totals. ('Sticky' beat 'Drive' to second place by virtue of winning the head-to-head votes 10-7.) A few people raised an eyebrow at how highly I ranked instrumental rearrangement of 'Dare' 'Dan Dare' in the blog, so I was pleased to see it go through with relative ease. 'California' is not the most highly rated of the Hit Parade a-sides (the one with 'the least effort put in,' reckoned Bob) but still qualified fairly comfortably.

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