Rate The Song: A Celebration

[digitize]

I'm going to be out today when I should start today's set of polls (the second half of the Boy-War era unreleased songs), so I have to start them early. There are three sets of polls open for a few hours because of that - I'm really sorry. If you've yet to vote on all three, feel free to do so - they should be scattered about the first and second pages of Everything You Know Is Wrong.

Please rate A Celebration on a scale from 0 to 10, using whatever criteria you feel allows you to best evaluate the song as a whole. I will not set criteria for people to based on, but if you feel like your best evaluation of the merits of a song comes from voting only based on, say, the studio version, go right ahead and vote that way. Full information on the Rate The Song series may be found in this thread.

Have fun! This poll will close in 96 hours.

 

[The Panther]

I don't know what to say about this one. It's easy to admire for effort and high energy, and it's the first vaguely 'political' lyric... but the song just isn't anything particularly good.

 

[LemonMelon]

SHAKE!

SHAKE!

Love that guitar riff. 7.

 

[JoRu]

Underrated stuff, that's for sure! Pretty good lyrics, great verses...and then there's that guitar riff...

Definitely an 8.

 

[prbiker15]

Love it. Love the guitar riff, and the lyrics are not bad. Gets an 8 from me. So good.

 

[theedgeu2]

9

 

[Padj]

7. I would give it an 8 but the videoclip is too silly

 

[The Panther]

7. I would give it an 8 but the videoclip is too silly

You mean you don't like all those close-ups of Bono's ass in tight red pants??

 

[Nick66]

Groovy track, but not as groovy as the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

 

[digitize]

I rather like this song.

 

[gvox]

Starting to smell like glue in here..

 

[OpenG180]

Groovy track, but not as groovy as the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

Now i'm sure: i like the nick662012 better.

 

[An Cat Gav]

10 from me.

One of the edge's best ever guitar riffs. Great video too, partly for thr camp value but partly because it's better than half of the videos they've made since.

 

[The Panther]

Just wondering... to people whose standards for '10' are forgotten obscurities that the band themselves hated, like "Treasure" and "A Celebration", what are you going to rate songs like "With or Without You"? Are you aware that '10' is the highest possible rating...?

I'm just suggesting some perspective is good. On the other hand, if you really think these tunes are worth a '10' (i.e., equivalent to the greatest song in the history of the band), then fair play to you...

 

[digitize]

Just wondering... to people whose standards for '10' are forgotten obscurities that the band themselves hated, like "Treasure" and "A Celebration", what are you going to rate songs like "With or Without You"? Are you aware that '10' is the highest possible rating...?

I'm just suggesting some perspective is good. On the other hand, if you really think these tunes are worth a '10' (i.e., equivalent to the greatest song in the history of the band), then fair play to you...

I've been pretty much thinking the same thing but not really wanting to say anything.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

7. 5 for the song. 2 for the red trousers.

 

[Globo14]

Just wondering... to people whose standards for '10' are forgotten obscurities that the band themselves hated, like "Treasure" and "A Celebration", what are you going to rate songs like "With or Without You"? Are you aware that '10' is the highest possible rating...?

I'm just suggesting some perspective is good. On the other hand, if you really think these tunes are worth a '10' (i.e., equivalent to the greatest song in the history of the band), then fair play to you...

This is what I'm doing. For example, New Year's Day is one of my favorite U2 songs, but I only gave it a 9. I'm saving 10 for only a handful of songs later on in the contest.

 

[An Cat Gav]

Just wondering... to people whose standards for '10' are forgotten obscurities that the band themselves hated, like "Treasure" and "A Celebration", what are you going to rate songs like "With or Without You"? Are you aware that '10' is the highest possible rating...?

I'm just suggesting some perspective is good. On the other hand, if you really think these tunes are worth a '10' (i.e., equivalent to the greatest song in the history of the band), then fair play to you...

I'll give With or Without You and One for example 9's, I gave Treasure a 9 I think and A Celebration a 10 because I simply like them more than the former two. I appreciate that One's structure, instrumentaion and lyrics etc are superior to A Celebration, but the fact is, I just like A Celebration more.

 

[gvox]

the fact is, I just like A Celebration more.

Which is all that should really matter in a poll of this nature. But even in saying that, in your previous sentence it seems you're running the strategic voting thing a bit also, which I want to talk about for a sec..

We're not being asked to pick our "Top n U2 songs", which would by necessity force such comparison type analysis (and also by necessity force hard choices).

We're being asked to indicate our feelings on each song individually and imo no thought should be given to how we will rate another song at the moment we are rating this one.

Any other approach skews the results I think. At the end of it all, the results should be giving us a true sense of how people feel about U2 songs, and hopefully not reflect too much of some sort of strategic voting of best to worst song in the U2 canon.

Just my two cents.

 

[digitize]

We're being asked to indicate our feelings on each song individually and imo no thought should be given to how we will rate another song at the moment we are rating this one.

I would disagree with that, actually. Ideally, actually, I think we would all rate compared to other U2 songs such that we utilize the entire scale. The actual means that are computed as a result of this contest have no inherent value except in comparison to each other, so I personally would advocate voting along those lines... mainly just because it enables you to use the scale to its fullest. Score inflation is a bit of an issue in this contest because it feels bad to give a song that you may not mind a 4 or so, but if you generally only utilize scores between five and ten, you have half as much ability to differentiate songs, so small differences in perceived quality may not be factored in.

I think it's perfectly valid for 9s and 10s to be both really good songs, and for people to give A Celebration a 10 and One a 9 because they like A Celebration more, but the differences aren't huge (even if I totally disagree with that myself). The problem is when people say things like this: "I think One deserves a 9 and J.Swallo deserves a 7. However, because everyone is giving J.Swallo really low scores, I'll give J.Swallo a 10 to balance that out and get it closer to 7, while still giving One a 9."

 

[An Cat Gav]

Which is all that should really matter in a poll of this nature. But even in saying that, in your previous sentence it seems you're running the strategic voting thing a bit also, which I want to talk about for a sec..

We're not being asked to pick our "Top n U2 songs", which would by necessity force such comparison type analysis (and also by necessity force hard choices).

We're being asked to indicate our feelings on each song individually and imo no thought should be given to how we will rate another song at the moment we are rating this one.

Any other approach skews the results I think. At the end of it all, the results should be giving us a true sense of how people feel about U2 songs, and hopefully not reflect too much of some sort of strategic voting of best to worst song in the U2 canon.

Just my two cents.

I agree gvox.
I have been judging each song on its merit, I only made the comparison because Panther asked how if obscure songs could get 10's, how could you score the established classics accurately as the top level had already been reached by b-sides and rarities. I just explained that I happened to like A Celebration more than With Or Without You, it was Panther who brought that song up.

 

[The Panther]

Fair enough, if you like 'A Celebration' more than 'With or Without You' (although I can't really understand that, but to each his own).

Perhaps in the final analysis -- if digitize wants to spend even more time -- he can show the results by era, rather than just against each other. For example, the results could be broken down into eras like
1979-1983
1984-1989
1990-1997
2000-today

or somesuch. It just seems hard for people to rank songs from 1982 in consideration of songs from 2005. I dunno, just a thought.

 

[digitize]

Fair enough, if you like 'A Celebration' more than 'With or Without You' (although I can't really understand that, but to each his own).

Perhaps in the final analysis -- if digitize wants to spend even more time -- he can show the results by era, rather than just against each other. For example, the results could be broken down into eras like
1979-1983
1984-1989
1990-1997
2000-today

or somesuch. It just seems hard for people to rank songs from 1982 in consideration of songs from 2005. I dunno, just a thought.

I have every intention of releasing a PDF that's filled with a whole lot of statistical information, and I'm more than willing to make that a component of it.