Acclaimed Music Forums

Welcome to Round 2.8 of Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019. This is the last week of Round 2!

Vote for your favorite album in each match-up.
Remember, anyone can vote as long as the voter has heard both albums.

Good-spirited comments are encouraged, but not absolutely necessary.
Deadline = September 17th at 10am EST.

Here's a link to the bracket for the entire tournament:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?t ... Moderately Acclaimed Albums 2019

Match-ups:
1. U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. Rush - Permanent Waves
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy

Falling on my head like a memory

1. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me
4. The Sound - Jeopardy

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Tom Waits - Closing Time
St. Vincent - Marry Me
Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen

1. U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. Rush - Permanent Waves
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy (Voting against 80s post-punk, I have surely lost my mind)

1. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. Rush - Permanent Waves
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen

First time voting in this, and I gotta say it's fun. I found a gem in Childqueen, which i'd never heard before. Lucky me!

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella
St. Vincent - Marry Me
Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen

U2 - BOY
TOM WAITS - CLOSING TIME
RUSH - PERMANENT WAVES
THE SOUND - JEOPARDY

Good news for this week, I know most of these albums enough to make a snap judgement rather than relistening to all 8 (a daunting prospect with all the other stuff I have on atm). No ranking though...

Boy < The Idler Wheel...
Songs For Drella < Closing Time
Marry Me > Permanent Waves
Childqueen > Jeopardy

Voting against Songs for Drella and Permanent Waves was very hard...

Despite liking a few of their songs enough to put them on our 80s EOY lists, I'm generally not a U2 fan. But try as I might, I can't help but come to the conclusion that Boy is one of the better post-punk albums I've listened to during this tournament. I didn't really connect with the lyrics and it's probably an advantage that Bono's voice isn't as much in the foreground as he would later in their career but the major key riffs and lack of cynicism give the album a vitality that some of U2's contemporaries didn't even seek, the best example of which is Out of Control. The Electric Co, meanwhile, wouldn't be amiss on Chronic Town.

After listening to Tidal in the wake of the choruses poll I ran on here, I thought this match-up would result in an easy choice. Unfortunately for Fiona Apple, I was right but in the opposite way I expected. Kooky and firmly mid-tempo where Tidal is tightly-wound yet sophisticated, The Idler Wheel...is worse off in my eyes for its jaunty piano and melodies that follow the piano lines too closely, while the lyrics aren't witty or cutting enough to counteract the rinky-dink instrumentation. The stark and sultry Regret, which sounds more like what I expected but with added yelling, and the clattering pots-and-pans backing of Anything We Want indicate two different directions the album could've taken and I would've preferred either.

The underdog Boy snatches it from The Idler Wheel....

Brad wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:01 pm Falling on my head like a memory

Oh and this is a line from The Eurythmics' Here Comes The Rain Again, am I right? Do I get a prize?

Listening to Fiona by coincidence as I open this thread, appropriately.

1. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen

mileswide wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:41 pm

Brad wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:01 pm Falling on my head like a memory

Oh and this is a line from The Eurythmics' Here Comes The Rain Again, am I right? Do I get a prize?

Bingo, the prize is pride!

U2 - Boy
Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella
Rush - Permanent Waves

3. U2 - Boy (1980) vs. 4. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (2012)
1. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs for Drella (1990) vs. 2. Tom Waits - Closing Time (1973)
6. St. Vincent - Marry Me (2007) vs. 8. Rush - Permanent Waves (1980)
5. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen (2018) vs. 7. The Sound - Jeopardy (1980)

Brad wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:24 pm Bingo, the prize is pride!

I accept my prize in the name of love!

mileswide wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:52 pmthe best example of which is Out of Control.

Out Of Control is my favorite U2 song. Boy is my favorite U2 album. I did not nominate it. I am not a big U2 fan. I am a big fan of the album Boy.

My picks:
1. U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. Rush - Permanent Waves
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy

As an aside, I've seen U2 5-6 times (War tour through Zooropa, the latter solely to see opening band the Pixies), Fiona Apple once, Lou Reed twice, and Rush 3 times (Permanent Waves tour through Signals... lost track of them for a while after that).

Thanks!

Brad wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:45 pm Out Of Control is my favorite U2 song. Boy is my favorite U2 album. I did not nominate it. I am not a big U2 fan. I am a big fan of the album Boy.

Top choice! I'm dangerously close to liking an entire handful of U2 songs now (OOC, Pride, With or Without You and The Wanderer but I'm trying to convince myself that doesn't really count as Johnny Cash sings it).

Brad wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:45 pm As an aside, I've seen U2 5-6 times (War tour through Zooropa, the latter solely to see opening band the Pixies), Fiona Apple once, Lou Reed twice, and Rush 3 times (Permanent Waves tour through Signals... lost track of them for a while after that).

That's quite a haul, who were the best/worst out of those lot?

Dedicated of course to Andy Warhol, Songs for Drella worryingly starts off like the kind of respectable but unexciting retrospective of their past all old rockers seem to make at some point (Neil Young's Silver & Gold or Lennon's half of Double Fantasy comes to mind). Then Work revs up and the album gets into gear, striking a largely unsentimental tone that's all the more stirring for its matter-of-factness ("You're killing yourself, you can't blame me", Reed states without flinching on It Wasn't Me) and refusal to sugarcoat Warhol (Cale paints him as full of anxieties and petty jealousies on A Dream) while still showing affection for its subject, especially in the epitaphic Hello It's Me. And, for all its occasional 80s-leftovers Casio flourishes, it reminds you who first melded art and rock together, Images perfectly conveying to me what being a genius artist must sound like: an overload of cacophony and mantras.

Closing Time, while expertly played, isn't my favourite Waits album. I can't decide whether it sounds more buttoned-up than his later, unhinged hobo stuff because he hadn't settled on his style of expression yet or he wanted to prove he was capable of writing according to traditional structures and subjects before he showed his crazy side, in the same way as Beefheart did on the more straightforward tracks on his own debut Safe As Milk. He certainly hadn't settled on a vocal styling- while his growl enters the picture around the Small Change album, he still has a high and lonesome, almost country voice here. As the barfly balladeer of repute, however, there is still a definite looseness in his serenading of Marthas and Rosies that could as easily be brands of bourbon as women he can't forget as much as he tries. The title track is what really stands out for me, though, the blend of the mournful trumpet and Waits' careful piano-playing somehow still carrying off a charming seediness more articulate than the vocal tracks on the album.

Another surprise as Songs for Drella sees off Closing Time,

Match-ups:
1. U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. Rush - Permanent Waves

mileswide wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:03 pm

Brad wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:45 pm As an aside, I've seen U2 5-6 times (War tour through Zooropa, the latter solely to see opening band the Pixies), Fiona Apple once, Lou Reed twice, and Rush 3 times (Permanent Waves tour through Signals... lost track of them for a while after that).

That's quite a haul, who were the best/worst out of those lot?

Oh man, tough call as they were all pretty great in their own ways.

I loved U2 when I first saw them (this weekend I'll try to dig up some photos I took on the Unforgettable Fire tour), but by Zooropa I was long gone.

Lou Reed wasn't exactly thrilling live (I believe it was the Mistrial tour and whatever album came after that - not New York, unfortunately), but he was Lou.

Fiona was excellent, though I'm much more into her music now than I was then (When The Pawn... tour).

The Pixies I first saw at the legendary City Gardens in Trenton, NJ on the Dolittle tour. They were amazing. Really good on that first reunion tour in early 2000's too (not so great opening for U2 in a stadium environment thought).

Then there's Rush. If you love Rush's music (and I realize there's a weird love/hate thing with them), they are a spectacular live act - unquestionably superb musicianship that's a wonder to watch. They were my favorite band when I first saw them in 1980 and we had been anticipating that show for months (I still have the program). I remember they debuted "Tom Sawyer" from their "next" album that night. Incidentally, that concert happened the day news had broken that John Bonham had passed away and I was forced to reckon with the fact that I would never get to see Led Zeppelin live.

I'm old.

1. (Tie) U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me
4. The Sound - Jeopardy

No real preference on the first match-up.

Brad wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2019 4:03 pm Then there's Rush. If you love Rush's music (and I realize there's a weird love/hate thing with them), they are a spectacular live act - unquestionably superb musicianship that's a wonder to watch. They were my favorite band when I first saw them in 1980 and we had been anticipating that show for months (I still have the program). I remember they debuted "Tom Sawyer" from their "next" album that night. Incidentally, that concert happened the day news had broken that John Bonham had passed away and I was forced to reckon with the fact that I would never get to see Led Zeppelin live.

Dude, that's devastating about Zeppelin in so many ways. Can't say I'm in either camp for Rush but I imagine live is where they make sense, especially Neil Peart, an utter drumming machine! I need more gigs in my life, planning to go to a few round my birthday next month...

Just looked up the set list from the 1980 show:
Rush Setlist
at The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Tour: Moving Pictures Warm Up Tour

Setlist
2112 Part I: Overture
2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx
Freewill
By-Tor & The Snow Dog
Xanadu
Limelight
(Early version which contained a different introduction.)
The Trees
Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres Part I: Prelude
The Spirit of Radio
Closer to the Heart
Beneath, Between & Behind
Tom Sawyer
(Early version which contained a different second verse. )
Jacob's Ladder
A Passage to Bangkok
Natural Science
Working Man
Finding My Way
Anthem
Bastille Day
In the Mood
Drum Solo
Encore:
La Villa Strangiato

Holy crap, that's better than I remembered!

Good to see Natural Science, the standout of Permanent Waves for me, in that setlist (Xanadu rocks hard too). Song has riffs and well-judged, ascending key changes to spare, almost makes me want to read Ayn Rand! It might sound minor but I would prefer it if Geddy Lee's melodies were distinct from the guitar lines because too often, it seems like each line of lyric runs on to the next, making it sound like they're making a Broadway musical by-numbers.

Marry Me in its more baroque moments can't fail to remind me of St Vincent's appearances on Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, most notably in the arrangements and backing vocals. Much better is when she moves away from the chamber-folk, be it with the shards of guitar heralding Your Lips Are Red, the indie bossa nova of Human Racing or simply the gasped 'little death' of "Oh, my dear" in Landmines.

Marry Me rules over Permanent Waves.

Childqueen maintains a cohesive sonic palette throughout, which can be approximated to Enya discovering David Axelrod in my book at least. Things do liven up when she leaves the multi-tracked vocals behind on Another Time Lover and WIngs, making them feel more personal. Mother Maybe, meanwhile, is a joyful, soft-focus disco/yacht rock joint that missed its calling as a 70s dinner party staple.

Jeopardy is broader musically both than Childqueen and From the Lion's Mouth, and it's the former album by The Sound that I'd rather have seen progress to the next round. Less purposefully doom-laden than its successor, it better captures the desired mood of despair but does so in a way that gives the listener hope, if not the band themselves. I Can't Escape Myself sets the tone with a spooky keyboard hook periodically interrupting the itchy minimalism of the instrumentation. Missiles shows that they are on safer grounds observing personal, rather than political, turmoil but this is the only point the album dips in quality.

Jeopardy takes a slender victory over Childqueen.

7. U2 - Boy vs. 4. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
1. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. 2. Tom Waits - Closing Time
6. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. 5. Rush - Permanent Waves
3. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. 8. The Sound - Jeopardy

The best week since the first of round 2. All of these are worthy, although my top 4 here are particularly strong. The second match-up would have been a strong finale.

2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy

6 | U2 | Boy
5 | Fiona Apple | The Idler Wheel...

3 | Lou Reed/John Cale | Songs For Drella
4 | Tom Waits | Closing Time

7 | St. Vincent | Marry Me
1 | Rush | Permanent Waves

8 | Kadhja Bonet | Childqueen
2 | The Sound | Jeopardy

Not a very good week at all for me.
Only Tom Waits stands out.


U2 - Boy (6/10) vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...(6/10) = PASS
Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella (5/10) vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time (9/10)
St. Vincent - Marry Me (7/10) vs. Rush - Permanent Waves (6/10)
Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen (3/10) vs.The Sound - Jeopardy (7/10)

Winners in red:

1. U2 - Boy vs. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me vs. Rush - Permanent Waves

Last call before I tally the votes!

We have 2 ties - anyone want to chip in?

18 total voters this week:
acroamor
Bang Jan
bonnielaurel
Brad
Cold Butterfly
CupOfDreams
DaveC
FrankLotion
Honorio
Kingoftonga
Listyguy
madzong
mileswide
Rdwdbob
Rob
Romain
Safetycat
spiritualized

Winners:
1. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel... over U2 - Boy 10-6
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me over Rush - Permanent Waves 12-6

Two Ties this week!:
2. Lou Reed/John Cale - Songs For Drella vs. Tom Waits - Closing Time 9-9
4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy 8-8
***Next vote from someone who has not already voted in these match-ups wins it!!!***

I'm sure that St Vincent was the winner but you show that matchup tied. (You had me excited there for a sec as I much preferred Rush).

Rdwdbob wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:26 pm I'm sure that St Vincent was the winner but you show that matchup tied. (You had me excited there for a sec as I much preferred Rush).

Yes - fixed, thanks Rdwdbob!

I'll be the tiebreaker:

4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy

I'll vote for Songs for Drella, if that's still needed

Thanks guys - that should do it!

Lou Reed/John Cale and The Sound win their respective matches!

Kingoftonga wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 3:33 pm I'll be the tiebreaker:

4. Kadhja Bonet - Childqueen vs. The Sound - Jeopardy

EVIL! You removed my last remaining nomination. I curse you to listening to Jeopardy without pause and on repeat for eternity.