The Wedding Present Cup

          Group 11 Wales Waiting On The Guns Don't Cry No Tears Mercury Bewitched Two Bridges You're Just A Habit That I Am Trying To Break Gone Hula Doll Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family Bubbles Shivers Each Time You Open Your Eyes Spider-Man on Hollywood A Song From Under The Floorboards The Results As was the case with the last group , many of the panel considered this to be a relatively weak set of songs and found themselves having to award points to tracks that might have got a zero from them otherwise. Gav M was particularly vehement on this point: Everything scoring below a 5 would have got big zeros from me had they featured in previous groups. I’m too annoyed with this group to write any other commentary. 'Hula Doll' certainly benefitted from this situation, becoming the first song to go through despite receiving seven zeros. A few found it musically acceptable, but weren't keen on lyrics such as, 'I just kissed her... I couldn’t resist her....

         Group 10 You're Dead Don't Be So Hard The Queen of Outer Space Every Mother's Son Back For Good  Kansas Project Cenzo Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft Go, Man, Go Lovin' You  Le Bikini Big Boots Carolyn Swingers Strike! The Results This was one of those groups generally seen as a bit weak by the panel: there were a few instances where a track got a single point simply because 'there were five worse songs.' In general, cover versions did not do well on my Suddenly It's Tuesday blog:  they were heavily represented in the bottom end of the ranking  and  only two  ('Let's Make Some Plans' and ' Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)')  made it into the top 100 . This is not to say that TWP are bad at covers; it simply reflects the fact that covers tend to be throwaway affairs for b-sides, VA compilations, etc. So it's no surprise that they have not fared well in this competition so far. And on this occasion, two of them joined t...

        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 ...

       Group 8 Back a Bit...Stop Panama Heather Go Go Go Soup Dreamworld Give My Love To Kevin Secretary Softly Softly Convertible Flame On Red Shoes By The Drugstore Palisades Snake Eyes Larry's The Results The top two of 'Heather' and 'Give My Love To Kevin' was predictable, although Kirk, ever the outlier, gave the former a zero and the latter only two marks. 'Convertible' was another comfortable qualifier which brought out a poetic side in a few judges: 'a song that sounds like the sun has come out' thought James; Mike suggested that you should 'just close your eyes, imagine yourself midsummer, on a highway, driving God knows how many mph.... ' I had wondered whether 'Secretary' (the song that was at the bottom of my ranking when I did my blog) might be the first non-cover that would fail to trouble the scoreboard, but it did attract some support. Kirk actually gave it a maximum 12: 'They fit more of interest into 2 minut...

      Group 7 Gazebo Shatner Let Him Have It Fleshworld Lead 524 Fidelio The Loneliest Time Of The Year Don't Laugh  She's My Best Friend Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? Unfaithful Broken Bow La La La Don't Talk, Just Kiss Sucker The Results This was one of those rounds where the panel found it challenging to identify songs that should get a zero. As Harry remarked, 'The hardest yet as I wanted to give points to everything... there isn't a real duffer among them.' The points were certainly distibuted more widely this time: previously, the top four have managed 100+ in nearly every group; here, only two tracks reached three figures. Interestingly, five of the eight qualifiers were non-LP tracks. One of them,  'Don't Talk, Just Kiss' , triumphed by an impressively wide margin. 'What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?' was a comfortable second - 'the kind of story telling that brings out the best of ...

     Group 6 Once Bitten Don't Touch That Dial Step Inside Love  Meet Cute White Riot Always The Quiet One Peek-a-boo Box Elder The Girl From the DDR Undercurrent Pinch, Twist, Pull, Release Ringway To Seatac Spangle We All Came From The Sea You Jane Birdsnest The Results 'Box Elder' became only the fourth cover to make it into the next stage, getting decent marks from the majority of voters. This included a maximum 12 from Mike, who confessed that he didn't even know it was a cover when he first heard it. Keg had 'nostalgic affection' for the track, although he couldn't find it a point and declared the Pavement original to be superior.  It was a familiar story with the remainder of the cover versions in this group, however, all of which found themselves towards the foot of the table. TWP's take on 'Undercurrent' , a 1963 track by Richie Allen & the Pacific Surfers which appeared on a 7" flexi-disc in 1993, left the panel unimpressed...

    Group 5 Unthinking What Have I Said Now? Corduroy Brassneck 50s Journey Into Space Granadaland So Long, Baby Getting Better  Fordland Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) Thanks High Love Machine Perfect Blue Catwoman The Results This group was very different to the last one. In Group 4 , several of the judges found themselves having to award points to songs they didn't very much care for; here, many ended up running out of points for tracks that they would have liked to reward more highly. As Bob, in his inimitable style, put it: 'Another tough round but for different reasons. Whilst the last round had us sifting through rivers of sh*t to find an elusive nugget, this one was chock full of belters.' For the fourth time in five rounds, there was a cover version languishing at the foot of the table with zero points. This time it was TWP's take on The Cure's 'High' , recorded for a 2008 VA compilation . Gricey had never heard it before, and found it 'quit...