Best Song Survivor v2: THE RESULTS

[Axver]

After a quick-fire version of Survivor, we have already reached the end. Like in 2009, I think this format ran very well and created some really interesting results. The grand final was intensely closely fought, more close than perhaps any other final we have had. So here we have Interference's current top thirty U2 songs as voted by you good people of EYKIW, ranked:

30. Sunday Bloody Sunday - 9 votes
29. City of Blinding Lights - 10
=27. The Electric Co. - 11
=27. Mofo - 11
26. Electrical Storm - 12
=23. 11 O'clock Tick Tock - 13
=23. Gloria - 13
=23. No Line on the Horizon - 13
=21. Heartland - 14
=21. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - 14
20. The Ground Beneath Her Feet - 16
=17. Gone - 17
=17. One - 17
=17. Please - 17
16. All I Want Is You - 18
15. Stay (Faraway, So Close!) - 19
14. One Tree Hill - 20
13. Ultra Violet (Light My Way) - 22
12. A Sort of Homecoming - 24
=9. Beautiful Day - 26
=9. The Unforgettable Fire - 26
=9. With or Without You - 26
=7. Lemon - 27
=7. Moment of Surrender - 27
6. Until the End of the World - 30
5. New Year's Day - 31
4. Bad - 32
=2. The Fly - 33
=2. Zooropa - 33
1. Where the Streets Have No Name - 34
(Total voters: 62)

Compare that with the 2009 edition.

With the exception of, I think, the very first Survivor ever back in 2004 or so, which was won by One, Streets has yet again demonstrated its dominance of EYKIW tournaments when U2's whole discography is in contention. However, this tournament was the closest it has ever come to losing its crown, emerging victorious by only one vote, with Bad, The Fly, and Zooropa all an easy chance of claiming first place.

If you are wondering about an honorary 31st place, the following songs all came within a vote of reaching the grand final: Out of Control, Running to Stand Still, Love Is Blindness, Your Blue Room, and Breathe.

Hope everybody had fun with these polls. How did your favourite songs fare?

 

[Axver]

Since my personal U2 rankings seem to often run counter to EYKIW, I'm stoked that not only did my top three U2 songs make the grand final (ASOH, One Tree Hill, Heartland), but that they also put in a good showing: 12th, 14th, and 21st. That top five is really nice too, possibly the best we've had.

Amazed to see Lemon make the top ten after not even being a finalist in 2009. That's a pretty good surge in popularity.

 

[the tourist]

at Magnificent result in the last poll.

 

[LemonMelon]

RTSS and Your Blue Room deserved spots over COBL.

 

[Nick66]

Not a bad list actually, really can't argue much with it.

Streets will almost aways win these things, I think, just because it's pretty much the one U2 song that is universally beloved by serious fans, casual fans, and people who really don't care about U2 at all. The fact that it won even though I imagine a lot of people were voting for Fly or something else just so Streets wouldn't win this time is a testament to its enduring strength. As the 90's representative, Zooropa (which is apparently the new Acrobat) is appropriately #2. Though there are a LOT better 90's songs, including almost anything on AB (like Zoo Station).

Streets, Bad, NYD, TUF, MOS, OTH, & ASOH are all in my U2 Top Ten, so I can't find that much to complain about here...though obviously ASOH and MOS should be higher and clearly Lemon (the new LWTSH) doesn't belong anywhere near the all-time or even 90's Top 10.

Thanks for doing this Axver. Now about that poll of live versions....

 

[LemonMelon]

clearly Lemon (the new LWTSH) doesn't belong anywhere near the all-time or even 90's Top 10.

Without a tour boost, even!

ASOH vastly underperformed, which is a shame.

 

[Axver]

Thanks for doing this Axver. Now about that poll of live versions....

I've thought about it often in the past, but I honestly think it's simply too difficult - and if it's ever done, it will need some serious logistical planning to handle all those different versions. I'm honestly not persuaded that limiting it to all official live releases is the best way to go. Safe to say the distribution of them is pretty uneven, and more people on this forum might have some of the most popular bootlegs (e.g. Dublin NYE, Rock's Hottest Ticket) than fanclub only releases, especially the older ones.

Perhaps if it were done we could just use the DVDs, i.e. UABRS, RAH, ZooTV Sydney, Popmart Mexico City, Elevation Boston and Slane, Vertigo Chicago, and 360 Rose Bowl. It wouldn't be very representative of U2's live career, but it would at least cover releases most people own while not fucking over bloody good versions on bootlegs, b-sides, or fanclub CDs that only a handful of people have heard. Plus I guess it is how U2 have chosen to officially represent their live career to the general public, for better or worse worse worse.

 

[Nick66]

I've thought about it often in the past, but I honestly think it's simply too difficult - and if it's ever done, it will need some serious logistical planning to handle all those different versions. I'm honestly not persuaded that limiting it to all official live releases is the best way to go. Safe to say the distribution of them is pretty uneven, and more people on this forum might have some of the most popular bootlegs (e.g. Dublin NYE, Rock's Hottest Ticket) than fanclub only releases, especially the older ones.

Perhaps if it were done we could just use the DVDs, i.e. UABRS, RAH, ZooTV Sydney, Popmart Mexico City, Elevation Boston and Slane, Vertigo Chicago, and 360 Rose Bowl. It wouldn't be very representative of U2's live career, but it would at least cover releases most people own while not fucking over bloody good versions on bootlegs, b-sides, or fanclub CDs that only a handful of people have heard. Plus I guess it is how U2 have chosen to officially represent their live career to the general public, for better or worse worse worse.

Well, if anyone on this board is qualified to do it, it's you, I don't think there's anyone here who knows more about U2's live history. Anyway, counting all the videos, live EP's, fan club stuff, b-sides, etc., there's actually a lot more live stuff out there than people suspect...I believe there would be plenty to choose from. But yeah, maybe include some of the more popular soundboard/radio/TV broadcast boots as well. People can always find them on Youtube, and I bet it would cause a lot of people here to seek out stuff they may never have heard.

Oh, maybe you and Dig could do it together...you pick the songs, and Dig handles all of the statistical stuff.

I just think it would be cool if we had a play list of Inferences favourite live versions of all the songs (well, the songs there are at least more than one live version of). Imperfect as such a poll would be for the reason you mention, it would certainly be more interesting than another round of polling of the same songs (not that this wasn't fun).

 

[Globo14]

Streets at number 1. Zooropa at number 2.

PS, there is no way Moment of Surrender is the same quality as Lemon. Lemon is leagues better.

 

[Globo14]

On a side note, I wouldn't mind administering a Live version song survivor. I have a brainstorm on how to do it, too. Going by albums, each song that has more than one officially released live version would be put in a poll, like the following:

What is your favorite officially released live version of I Will Follow?
Under a Blood Red Sky Audio CD (Germany 1983)
Under a Blood Red Sky Video (Red Rocks 1983)
Live from Paris (Paris 1987)
Popmart: Live from Mexico City (Mexico City 1997)
Elevation 2001: Live from Boston (Boston 2001)
Live from Milan (Milan 2005)
Edge's Picks (Brussels 2010)

This is just versions released by the band. The winner would go on to another survivor to compete against the other winners from the rest of its album (ie the best version of I Will Follow will compete against the best versions of Out of Control, The Electric Co, etc.), and the top 3 or 4 would proceed onto semi-finals, in the same fashion as Axver and digitize did it (early 80's, late 80's, 90's, 2000's), and then the top 4 or 5 from each semi would move on to a grand final of roughly 20 finalists.
It is a flawed design, yes, as songs with only one officially released live version that are fairly loved around these parts (like Zooropa, only released on U22) wouldn't have a chance, but I still think it would be a fun thing to do and would give us at least somewhat of a representation of Interference's favorite officially released live cuts.

 

[Axver]

Globo, I like your ideas and what you propose is pretty close to what I've sketched out in the past, but if you're going to include something as inaccessible as fanclub only releases (it says something that even I have not yet listened to Edge's Picks), why not live versions of I Will Follow that were released as b-sides? There was even one live version of I Will Follow that was released as a single in its own right in some European countries, the 14 May 1982 performance.

I'd suggest that live versions of some songs on popular singles/EPs, e.g. the Popheart EP, are more widely distributed than fanclub releases. Not everybody on EYKIW is a U2.com fanclub member or otherwise managed to acquire the fanclub discs, while singles/EPs by their very nature have been available for anybody to buy.

 

[Axver]

I've devised a very quickfire Worst Song Survivor using the seeding from the latest Best Album Survivor and the results from Best Song Survivor v2. Would like thoughts.

EVERY song that achieved 0-5 votes in Best Song Survivor v2 is in contention. Each album must contribute a minimum of three songs (top tier albums), four songs (mid tier albums), or five songs (bottom tier albums); this means some songs that polled higher will also be in contention to meet the threshold, while some albums will contribute well beyond this minimum just with 0-5 recipients alone.

There will be four rounds feeding into a grand final: early eighties, late eighties, nineties, and 2000s. Progression is determined by seeding: 1 song proceeds to the grand final for every top tier album in the era, 2 for every mid tier, and 3 for every bottom tier. There is also an additional one song proceeding for each album within the era that contributes more than its mandated minimum. Since this creates 31 songs in the final, and Interference's software only allows a maximum of 30 options, I have taken an executive decision to not add an additional song to the early eighties for Boy exceeding its minimum contribution. This is for two reasons: the early eighties already has equal highest representation in the final, and the Boy round was first up, before people really got used to the v2 voting system, so there were less people giving songs with no hopes of reaching the finals a sympathy vote as in later rounds. Later in the tournament, more people went beyond voting for just the number of finalists and gave extra votes to songs that needed the love.

I don't know how well this will work or if it will result in ridiculous results, but it's so short it's worth a shot and if it goes wrong, not much is lost. People will be asked to vote for their least favourite songs, and those with the most votes progress to the grand final. I was considering saying that people should vote for their favourites, and those with the least amount of votes progress (i.e. throw votes at everything you want to save), but this leads to the problem of songs people just don't know. By asking people to vote for least favourites and to not vote for songs they don't know, we get a better reflection of what's disliked, and perfectly good songs won't proceed simply due to their obscurity causing them to get very few votes.

So these will be the categories. Songs without asterisks qualified under the 0-5 votes rule. Songs with asterisks qualified to meet the album's quota.

EARLY EIGHTIES
(eight proceed to grand final)
Another Day
Boy/Girl
Saturday Night
Speed of Life
Street Mission
The Fool
Things to Make and Do
Touch
Is That All?*
Scarlet*
Stranger in a Strange Land*
With a Shout*
J. Swallow
Angels Too Tied to the Ground
Endless Deep
Red Light
The Refugee
Treasure*

LATE EIGHTIES
(seven songs proceed to grand final)
4th of July
Boomerang I
Bass Trap
Sixty Seconds in Kingdom Come
Yoshino Blossom
Beautiful Ghost
Deep in the Heart
Desert of Our Love
Drunk Chicken
Race Against Time
Rise Up
Trip Through Your Wires
Wave of Sorrow
A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel
Hallelujah Here She Comes*
Love Rescue Me*
Van Diemen's Land*
When Love Comes to Town*

NINETIES
(eight songs proceed to grand final)
Down all the Days
Heaven and Hell
Near the Island
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Babyface*
Slow Dancing
Some Days Are Better than Others*
Bottoms
Elvis Ate America
Corpse
Ito Okashi
One Minute Warning
Plot 180
The Swan
United Colours
Viva Davidoff
Holy Joe*
I'm Not Your Baby
Playboy Mansion

2000S
(seven songs proceed to grand final)
Always
Big Girls Are Best
Flower Child
Grace
Love You Like Mad
Peace on Earth
The Hands That Built America
Wild Honey
All Because of You
Love and Peace or Else*
Xanax and Wine*
Yahweh*
Crazy Tonight*
Get on Your Boots
Stand Up Comedy
Winter*

 

[LadySpinHead]

Hey, thanks for doing this, Axver- these polls are always fun, and I'd look forward to a "worst of" or a live versions poll.

As for this poll, I'm happy Zooropa and Lemon polled so high. My favorite song, WOWY, seemed to barely crack the top 10, but I understand the crappy recent live performances of the song has kind of killed it for people. It also continues to surprise me how One is disliked by a lot of people. My second favorite song, but I guess there is a "sick of it" component. On the other hand, before joining interference, I had no idea UTEOTW and the Fly were so popular. Interesting.

 

[OpenG180]

Amazing to see Lemon, Zooropa, The Fly and NYD so high on the list. They are where they naturally belong.

 

[digitize]

Oh, maybe you and Dig could do it together...you pick the songs, and Dig handles all of the statistical stuff.

Count me out. I don't think that it's a bad idea at all; I've just spend enough time running these things in the past year to not have much of a desire to work on another in any serious capacity. Also, Axver handles statistical stuff really well. He did a better job than I did on survivor, though I am fairly proud of my Rate the Song work.

 

[Axver]

Nah digitize, you've definitely got the better grasp of statistics. I pretty much just hope for the best.

As for Worst Song, I'll start it tomorrow unless anybody points out any serious flaws with my proposal above. Might run rounds for three days so that people have a chance to check out songs they don't know...?

 

[bonocomet]

Hope everybody had fun with these polls. How did your favourite songs fare?

Definitely fun, looking forward to the next one.

As for my favorites? I chose to vote for just 10, and 9 of them are in the top 10. I didn't vote for TUF or Streets, and One was my only song that did not make top 10. Streets is still a top song for me though. Had I voted for 11 songs it probably would have been Streets. Maybe.

 

[Globo14]

Globo, I like your ideas and what you propose is pretty close to what I've sketched out in the past, but if you're going to include something as inaccessible as fanclub only releases (it says something that even I have not yet listened to Edge's Picks), why not live versions of I Will Follow that were released as b-sides? There was even one live version of I Will Follow that was released as a single in its own right in some European countries, the 14 May 1982 performance.

I'd suggest that live versions of some songs on popular singles/EPs, e.g. the Popheart EP, are more widely distributed than fanclub releases. Not everybody on EYKIW is a U2.com fanclub member or otherwise managed to acquire the fanclub discs, while singles/EPs by their very nature have been available for anybody to buy.

Very fair points. That is the reason that I'm not sure if I would be the best for the job, as I'm not totally up to snuff on all those b-sides and EP's.

 

[cobl04]

at Magnificent result in the last poll.

Thank god we've moved on...

 

[Vlaco]

RTSS and Your Blue Room deserved spots over COBL.

Obviously.
MOS is way too high for my preferences. Awesome that Zooropa and Lemon made it this far. Not a bad list at all

 

[Galeongirl]

Thanks for running it ax! It was great fun, as usual.

Spoiler

I'm glad Streets won, again.

 

[U2girl]

Fly and Zooropa this high ? Really ?

 

[LemonMelon]

Unless I'm in need of glasses, yes.

 

[dazzledbylight]

zooropa #2!!!!!!!

 

[BigMacPhisto]

at Magnificent result in the last poll.

Hilarious, but not surprising. The new U2 album is always overrated around here for about 18 months, then people face reality.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Comparison of the two lists.


Gainers:

Lemon - Up 24+ Places (Not On List to #7)
Moment of Surrender - Up 24+ Places (Not On List to #7)
One - Up 14+ Places (Not On List to #17)
Zooropa - Up 13 Places (#15 to #2)
The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Up 11+ Places (Off List to #20)
11 O'Clock Tick Tock - Up 8+ Places (Off List to #23)
Heartland - Up 8 Places (#29 to #21)
New Year's Day - Up 6 Places (#11 to #5)
One Tree Hill - Up 6 Places (#20 to #14)
Gloria - Up 6 Places (#29 to #23)
Electrical Storm - Up 5+ Places (Off List to #26)
Please - Up 5 Places (#22 to #17)
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - Up 5 Places (#26 to #21)
Mofo - Up 4+ Places (Off List to #27)
Ultra Violet - Up 4 Places (#17 to #13)
The Fly - Up 3 Places (#6 to #3)
Beautiful Day - Up 2 Places (#11 to #9)
Stay - Up 2 Places (#17 to #15)
Sunday Bloody Sunday - Up 1+ Places (Off List to #30)
The Unforgettable Fire - Up 1 Place (#10 to #9)
All I Want Is You - Up 1 Place (#17 to #16)

Same:

Where The Streets Have No Name (#1 on both lists)

Losers:

Magnificent - Down 25+ Places (#5 to Off List)
Acrobat - Down 22+ Places (#8 to Off List)
Running To Stand Still - Down 17+ Places (#13 to Off List)
Fez-Being Born - Down 14+ Places (#16 to Off List)
Kite - Down 9+ Places (#21 to Off List)
Walk On - Down 8+ Places (#22 to Off List)
Love Is Blindness - Down 8+ Places (#22 to Off List)
No Line On The Horizon - Down 10 Places (#13 to #23)
Gone - Down 8 Places (#9 to #17)
With Or Without You - Down 7 Places (#2 to #9)
A Sort Of Homecoming - Down 5 Places (#7 to #12)
The Electric Co. - Down 5 Places (#22 to #27)
Breathe - Down 4+ Places (#26 to Off List)
City Of Blinding Lights - Down 3 Places (#26 to #29)
Until The End Of The World - Down 2 Places (#6 to #4)
Bad - Down 1 Place (#3 to #4)




Only two worth really mentioning as far as tour boosts are concerned are One and Zooropa. One was pretty much loathed around here circa 2009 since it would appear every night in the setlist, played in a typically uninteresting manner. Whereas Zooropa clearly has a huge bump due to its appearances at the end of the U2360 tour.

 

[Axver]

Thanks for doing that BMP! Probably the biggest winner is One, surging from not even progressing from the Achtung round to making the grand final. I think all the other songs that came from off the list to place in the top thirty this time at least made a quarter/semi final in 2009, though somebody would have to go through the U2 Song Survivor tag to confirm.

I'm not sure you can explain One's bump due to tour impact though - the last tournament was held immediately before 360 began, in May/June 2009. I was trying to avoid a tour boost, especially as we already had a new album boost for the NLOTH material.