The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 2, Group C

                



The panel must award a total of 136 points to the songs in these groups; no song may receive more than 25 points, and they must give points to at least 10 of the 16 songs. The top 4 go through to the last 32.

Group C is made up of the qualifiers from groups 5 and 6 in the first stage.

Group C

  • What Have I Said Now?
  • Perfect Blue
  • Don't Touch That Dial
  • Ringway To Seatac
  • Granadaland
  • Corduroy
  • Always The Quiet One
  • Spangle
  • Brassneck
  • Thanks
  • Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
  • Box Elder
  • Love Machine
  • The Girl From the DDR
  • We All Came From The Sea
  • Pinch, Twist, Pull, Release

The Results

In general, the judges found this a tougher group to score than A or B. However, several of them commented that they'd 'settled into' the new scoring method and felt that they'd now found an approach that suited them. Only James has stuck with the same pattern throughout, awarding 16, 15... down to 1 in every round so far. The total number of zeros given increased to 60 (compared with 54/51 in the first two rounds) and six judges used their full quota of six zeros (compared with three on the last two occasions) - perhaps an indication that the panel are being a bit more ruthless and focusing their marks on the tracks they really want to go through...

Having squeezed through in eighth place in group 6, only six points ahead of 'Meet Cute', it was no surprise to see 'Pinch, Twist, Pull, Release' struggle here. It did get a eight from Harry, Bob and Johnny ('beautiful, a heartbreaker,' said the latter), but this didn't stop it finishing at the bottom of the table. 'The Girl From the DDR' would have taken that spot, had it not been for a 25 from Gav M: 'I love this – it’s a good, clever little song... reminds me of happy days of travelling the length of the country when I barely missed a gig.' 'We All Came From The Sea' was championed by Ian ('the best of the 24 songs by a country mile'), but eight zeros left it mired in the relegation zone.

Two of TWP's most highly regarded covers, 'Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)' and 'Box Elder', ended up in this group. Neither disgraced themselves here, but they were still a long way short of qualifying. This, and the fact that 'Let's Make Some Plans' - another popular cover - finished in the bottom three of Group A, does not bode well for the other four surviving non-originals, 'Him Or Me (What's It Gonna Be?)', 'Mothers', Getting Nowhere Fast' and 'Pleasant Valley Sunday'.

Mini songs did well in the first stage, but 'Love Machine' was the only one that didn't come in the top three of its group. Consequently, it was no surprise to see it fail to progress, although it did manage a creditable tenth-place finish thanks to decent marks from Harry, John and Gricey.

In group 5, there was much discussion regarding to what extent 'Brassneck' has been diminished by its ubiquity (and also by the type of casual fan who throws their weight around at the front of the stage when it's played). This didn't stop it reaching the second stage, albeit only in fifth place, but its luck ran out here. Other than James' top mark of 16, its highest score was a ten, and Harry, Ian and Gav M blanked it altogether. It will be interesting to see what transpires when we get to 'Kennedy' in group G...

One of the more divisive songs in this round was 'Spangle', with hefty marks from Harry and Joanna, but also a sprinkling of single-figure scores and zeros. The latter generally came from those not enamoured of the version that appeared on Watusi. 'Always The Quiet One' achieved third place in group 6, but struggled here as some of its support dropped away.

By the time around half of the scores had come in, it was obvious that a clear top six was developing. It wasn't clear which of the four would make it through until the last few marks came in, although 'What Have I Said Now?' (despite my reservations about the song, which didn't even make the top 40 in my blog) established a clear lead early on and finished top by some distance. In the end, it was 'Ringway To Seatac' and 'Granadaland' that missed out.

'Perfect Blue' pipped 'Don't Touch That Dial' to second place by virtue of winning the head-to-head votes 10-6 (marked in red in the table below). 'Corduroy' qualified in fourth place, despite a zero from Gav F: 'the most overrated song in TWP’s entire back catalogue.'




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 1, Group 9

Image
        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
Read more

The Wedding Present Cup: Index / Introduction

Image
Scroll down for an index of posts... Welcome to the Wedding Present Cup competition. We will be voting on the 223 songs I covered in the Suddenly It's Tuesday blog plus the tracks from 24 Songs . As I pointed out in the blog, the whole notion of ranking the songs is of course fundamentally flawed, and this cup competition will be no different. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun doing it... Comments expressing disagreement, support, exasperation or disbelief are welcome, as long as they are constructive and polite! The Format The first stage will consist of 16 groups of 15/16 songs, chosen by a random number generator. Votes will be in 'Eurovision style', i.e. 12/10/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1. The top 8 from each group will go through. The second stage will consist of 8 groups of 16. The top 4 of each group will go through. The panel can award their marks 16,15,14... down to 3,2,1 - or they can redistribute their points as they see fit, within these criteria: Total points
Read more

The Wedding Present Cup: Stage 1, Group 1

Image
  Before we get started with the first group, a reminder that the panel (all members of the Something & Nothing forum ) are voting 'Eurovision style', i.e. 12 / 10 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 marks. The top 8 go through to the next stage... Group 1 Montreal Nickels And Dimes Nobody's Twisting Your Arm  End Credits Bells White Christmas Bear We Should Be Together Signal At the Edge of the Sea My Favourite Dress No Twenty Jackies Boo Boo I Lost the Monkey Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?  The Results 'White Christmas' was universally panned: 'an excruciatingly bad cover of an excruciatingly bad song' (Steve M); '[Gedge] sounds like he just downed a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream' (Ian); 'Why? There is no point in covering this' (John). Keg had a slightly more forgiving view, even if he didn't give it any points: Perfunctory cover. Doesn't really do much for me, although the surfy lead guitar is a nice touch. It's one
Read more