It's time we brought back U2 Survivor

[Axver]

Alright, things are a little quiet on the U2 front, and after some discussion over on B&C, there seems to be agreement that we need to bring back the U2 Survivor game.

Over a couple of years ago, we ran a number of these. Best U2 Song, Album, Cover, Single, etc. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, we basically vote for a list, casting off our least favourite round by round until we are left with one - the winner. For example, in Song Survivor, we voted on each album until we had one song left from each, then they fought it out in a finals series.

The problem was that they became a bit too predictable. Nobody was shocked when the Song Survivor's final was One vs Streets, nor when the Album Survivor's final was JT vs AB. So I'm proposing we do a new one: a "Rest Of" U2 Survivor. Anything that was on U2:18 and the two Best Ofs is out. Let's see what songs Interference thinks are overlooked classics. Bullet The Blue Sky? A Sort Of Homecoming? Out Of Control? Acrobat? City Of Blinding Lights? Treasure?

Unfortunately, I'm not a premium member any more so I can't make polls, so if somebody would like to run this, please come forward! There will be a new poll every day.

Just to clarify, the following would be included/excluded:
- The b-sides are included, even those on the Best Of b-sides disc. I'm thinking that for b-sides and non-album songs, we should split it into 1979-83, 84-89, 90-99, and 00-07.
- "Bonus tracks" on the Best Ofs are included, as they were not legitimate members of the compilation but incentives to consumers in specific territories. October, however, will be excluded as it's on every edition of 1980-1990 - plus it'd be kind of sad for October, the album, to be the only one with all its tracks (and it'd be a Song Survivor repeat).
- Passengers is included, just for fun. Miss Sarajevo's obviously excluded.
- Anything officially released in any context is included. As they will be released by the time its round comes up, the bonus tracks on the JT remaster will be included.
- Alternate versions/recordings of songs on Best Ofs are excluded. Discotheque, Numb, Sweetest Thing, Streets, Walk On, et al. don't get to sneak in just because the album version didn't appear on the Best Of. If we allowed that, then nothing from Pop would be excluded from the game.

Thoughts?

 

[corianderstem]

Thoughts? I just have one:

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

 

[Axver]

Here's my proposed master list. Let me know if I've forgotten anything or made any mistakes, as this is purely off the top of my head. Oh, forgot to add in the original post, covers are excluded.

BOY
- Twilight
- An Cat Dubh
- Into The Heart
- Out Of Control
- Stories For Boys
- The Ocean
- A Day Without Me
- Another Time, Another Place
- The Electric Co.
- Shadows And Tall Trees

OCTOBER
- Gloria
- I Fall Down
- I Threw A Brick
- Rejoice
- Fire
- Tomorrow
- With A Shout
- Stranger In A Strange Land
- Scarlet
- Is That All?

WAR
- Seconds
- Like A Song
- Drowning Man
- The Refugee
- Two Hearts
- Red Light
- Surrender
- 40

THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE
- A Sort Of Homecoming
- Wire
- Promenade
- 4th Of July
- Indian Summer Sky
- Elvis Presley And America
- MLK

THE JOSHUA TREE
- Bullet The Blue Sky
- Running To Stand Still
- Red Hill Mining Town
- In God's Country
- Trip Through Your Wires
- One Tree Hill
- Exit
- Mothers Of The Disappeared

RATTLE AND HUM
- Van Diemen's Land
- Hawkmoon 269
- Love Rescue Me
- Heartland
- God Part II

ACHTUNG BABY
- Zoo Station
- Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
- So Cruel
- The Fly
- TTTYAATW
- Ultra Violet
- Acrobat
- Love Is Blindness

ZOOROPA
- Zooropa
- Babyface
- Lemon
- Daddy's Gonna Pay
- Some Days
- Dirty Day
- The Wanderer

PASSENGERS
- United Colours
- Slug
- Your Blue Room
- Always Forever Now
- A Different Kind Of Blue
- Beach Sequence
- Ito Okashi
- One Minute Warning
- Corpse
- Elvis Ate America
- Plot 180
- Theme From The Swan
- Theme From Let's Go Native

POP
- Do You Feel Loved
- Mofo
- If God Will Send His Angels
- Last Night On Earth
- Miami
- Playboy Mansion
- Velvet Dress
- Please
- Wake Up Dead Man

ATYCLB
- Kite
- In A Little While
- Wild Honey
- Peace On Earth
- When I Look At The World
- New York
- Grace

HTDAAB
- Miracle Drug
- Love And Peace
- City Of Blinding Lights
- All Because Of You
- Crumbs
- One Step Closer
- Original Of The Species
- Yahweh

NON-ALBUM TRACKS 1979-83
- Boy/Girl
- Another Day
- 11 O'clock Tick Tock
- Touch
- Things To Make And Do
- J. Swallow
- Treasure
- Endless Deep

NON-ALBUM TRACKS 1984-89
- Boomerang I
- Boomerang II
- The Three Sunrises
- Love Comes Tumbling
- Bass Trap
- Sixty Seconds In Kingdom Come
- Luminous Times
- Walk To The Water
- Spanish Eyes
- Deep In The Heart
- Silver And Gold
- Race Against Time
- Beautiful Ghost
- Drunk Chicken/America
- Wave Of Sorrow
- Desert Of Our Love
- Hallelujah Here She Comes

NON-ALBUM TRACKS 1990-99
- Alex Descends Into Hell
- Lady With The Spinning Head
- Salome
- Where Did It All Go Wrong?
- Slow Dancing
- Viva Davidoff
- Bottoms
- Holy Joe
- North And South Of The River
- I'm Not Your Baby (maybe not?)

NON-ALBUM TRACKS 00-07
- Summer Rain
- Always
- Big Girls Are Best
- The Ground Beneath Her Feet
- Stateless
- Are You Gonna Wait Forever
- Levitate
- Flower Child
- Smile
- Native Son
- Xanax And Wine
- Fast Cars

I'm sure I've forgotten a couple of songs here and there, but you get the general idea of how it would work.

 

[phanan]

Didn't you do a non-single U2 survivor previously?

EDIT: Yeah, I found the last thread. Running To Stand Still was your winner.

http://forum.interference.com/t153127.html

 

[Axver]

Didn't you do a non-single U2 survivor previously?

I think we might've. I can't remember all the ones we ran now!

But this one is, I think, substantially different, as it features plenty of singles. It's just the big hitters that are out. We might, for a change, have an unpredictable outcome.

 

[Rosebud]

Sounds awesome!

 

[coolian2]

Yay

 

[pepokiss]

I THINK....


the only rule to this should be that no song can be in more than 2 records... so all the ones in the best ofs and 18 are out.. except b-sides

 

[Mr. V]

sound idea

 

[Axver]

So who's going to run this thing? I don't have $12 spare just to run a bunch of online polls.

 

[corianderstem]

I don't think I trust myself not to thoroughly muck the whole thing up.

 

[Axver]

It's pretty easy really. Just create a basic post that you use every time and fill in the blanks with the appropriate song names. If you use Firefox, it can be of great assistance when making polls by filling in at least some of the fields (unless first in the list gets kicked out). That certainly is a timesaver.

 

[FitzChivalry]

Here's my proposed master list. Let me know if I've forgotten anything or made any mistakes, as this is purely off the top of my head. Oh, forgot to add in the original post, covers are excluded.

BOY

- An Cat Dubh
- Into The Heart

My only request would be that "An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart" be one song, like it was on the original LP and early versions of the "Boy" cd. I hate when they're broken up into 2 separate songs, like on the later versions of the "Boy" cd (with the original cover photograph).

The songs are always played together, as one, live. I think they should face off as one.

Just one of my pet peeves. That's all.

 

[bathiu]

My only request would be that "An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart" be one song, like it was on the original LP and early versions of the "Boy" cd. I hate when they're broken up into 2 separate songs, like on the later versions of the "Boy" cd (with the original cover photograph).

The songs are always played together, as one, live. I think they should face off as one.

I agree

 

[Varitek]

thumbs. up.

 

[Axver]

My only request would be that "An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart" be one song, like it was on the original LP and early versions of the "Boy" cd. I hate when they're broken up into 2 separate songs, like on the later versions of the "Boy" cd (with the original cover photograph).

The songs are always played together, as one, live. I think they should face off as one.

Just one of my pet peeves. That's all.

This one's always been divisive. After all, the vast majority of pressings list them as separate songs. Combining them would make the tournament quicker though, so I'll favour it for that reason.

 

[Aardvark747]

Nice one Axver. Good call.

 

[Utoo]

I'd offer to do it, but I don't know how much I'll be able to get on here in the next couple of weeks once Little Utoo comes.

This NEEDS to get done, though. This place has been far too boring of late.

 

[corianderstem]

It's pretty easy really. Just create a basic post that you use every time and fill in the blanks with the appropriate song names. If you use Firefox, it can be of great assistance when making polls by filling in at least some of the fields (unless first in the list gets kicked out). That certainly is a timesaver.

You know what? (deep breath) I'll step up and do it. Can you help me out with the first one or two polls, just so I see the template and any other tidbits I should know?

I know the basic format of how most people run these types of polls, but maybe we could do it together? You can tell me how you'd like it to go - since it's your idea, and I'll put it into motion?

And what are you thinking - just have 24 hours of voting for each poll?

 

[thelaj]

24 hours is too little. When I did HTDAAB survivor it seemed to need 48-72 hours to account for time-differences and the like.

 

[corianderstem]

I guess I'm just impatient.

But no, that's a good point.

 

[Axver]

You know what? (deep breath) I'll step up and do it. Can you help me out with the first one or two polls, just so I see the template and any other tidbits I should know?

I know the basic format of how most people run these types of polls, but maybe we could do it together? You can tell me how you'd like it to go - since it's your idea, and I'll put it into motion?

And what are you thinking - just have 24 hours of voting for each poll?

Woo! Sure, I can lend a hand. When would you like to get started with this?

As for the length of the polls, I think over on B&C we've really started to tend towards 24 hours simply because it makes the game that much quicker. Of course, the obvious perk of every 48 hours is that you don't need to make a poll every day and it gives more people time to vote. So it's your choice.

 

[corianderstem]

I'm up for starting it in the next day or so, once we've got it all sorted out.

Question about your master list: what are you defining as a "single" and therefore excluding off the list? For instance, there are a few on your list off HTDAAB that were singles ... was the "singles survivor" contest done prior to the album being released?

Do we want to allow another day or so to allow tweaks to the master list? If you wouldn't mind taking care of finalizing the master list, since you know what's already been done, that would be helpful. Then just helping me set up the format (basically, what kind of info do we keep in the initial post in each poll), and I think I can take it from there.

I know I don't want to keep a running list of what's already been booted off in each poll - that made that first post way too long in the Beatles survivor game.

 

[Axver]

Question about your master list: what are you defining as a "single" and therefore excluding off the list? For instance, there are a few on your list off HTDAAB that were singles ... was the "singles survivor" contest done prior to the album being released?

Well, the criteria this time avoids all the debates we've had in the past over what does and doesn't qualify. If something was on the primary edition of the main disc of the Best Of 1980-1990, Best Of 1990-2000, or U2:18 (e.g. October), it's gone. If it wasn't (e.g. The Fly), it's in. Besides Passengers songs, a song has to be officially released as a U2 song and not a cover.

My one concern is do we enter multiple versions of a song, like Holy Joe, or just put up the one entry and people can vote for it based on what they prefer?

So yeah, it might be good if we wait a couple of days just to sort out the master list.

I know I don't want to keep a running list of what's already been booted off in each poll - that made that first post way too long in the Beatles survivor game.

I agree. When I ran various Survivors, I ran a list of what had been kicked off the album or category in question, and then when we moved on to the next one, I simply listed the winner. So that meant we always had a short, concise list.

 

[corianderstem]

Gotcha.

I'll leave it to you to sort out the master list, and I'll figure out the rest.

I think I'd prefer to keep it to 24 hours per poll. Different time zones shouldn't matter - it's still 24 hours, it'll just start and stop at different times. (Right? )

 

[Irishteen]

This should be awesome

 

[Axver]

I'll leave it to you to sort out the master list, and I'll figure out the rest.

Righto. I'll go through U2Wanderer and make sure I've got everything by U2, then finalise the non-album categories. I'll try to balance them so there's a roughly even number of songs, but without lumping distinctly different eras together.

I think I'd prefer to keep it to 24 hours per poll. Different time zones shouldn't matter - it's still 24 hours, it'll just start and stop at different times. (Right? )

Right, yeah. If you're cool with doing a round a day, then go with that. One thing I did when I ran the tournament is that the very final round was open for three days, but I'm not so sure extended finals are beneficial as I don't remember there ever being a decisive swing. Only a few times in the Survivors and Desert Islands have I seen a result change due to the second day's votes.

 

[u2trinity]

Woo! Sure, I can lend a hand. When would you like to get started with this?

As for the length of the polls, I think over on B&C we've really started to tend towards 24 hours simply because it makes the game that much quicker. Of course, the obvious perk of every 48 hours is that you don't need to make a poll every day and it gives more people time to vote. So it's your choice.

so what's B&C ? or is this taking place in EYKIW ?

 

[corianderstem]

B&C is Bang & Clatter, the music forum.

This will take place here in EYKIW.

Maybe I will go to 48 hours instead of 24 ... I'll mull it over and I'm open to brib ... I mean, votes.

 

[Axver]

so what's B&C ? or is this taking place in EYKIW ?

Just the Bang and the Clatter. That's where the recent non-U2 Survivors and the Desert Island tournaments have happened.

But like the previous U2 Survivors, this one will be in EYKIW.