R.E.M. Survivor - Accelerate

[corianderstem]

Leaving New York and Electron Blue (that surprised me) are moving on to the finals.

Since only a few people piped up about what to do with Accelerate, I'm going with what I want to do - just one, multiple-choice round.

 

[corianderstem]

I'm going with

Living Well Is the Best Revenge

Supernatural Superserious (even though there's something about the beginning that bugs me - I don't like the abrupt BAM! right in-ness of it)

Horse to Water

I'm Gonna DJ (I like this one because while it's a throwaway, I think it has more honest life in it than anything else on the record)

Dang, the final is going to go on forever. There are going to be 44 songs in it. How will that even work? You can only have 30 options max in a poll.

 

[Lancemc]

Let's go with... Hollow Man, Houston and Sing for the Submarine. I do quite enjoy this album.

 

[lazarus]

Cori, you should have mentioned how many you're able to pick. As many as you want?

Sing For the Submarine is the only song with real weight to it, and yes I'm including that POS snoozefest Until the Day is Done.

Houston is good but it ends right when it's getting started.

I'm going with the title track and Mr. Richards.

 

[Irishteen]

Accelerate I guess...for the sake of voting for something

 

[corianderstem]

Sorry - yeah, pick as many as you want. The top two vote-getters will advance.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

LWITBR, Super Super, Hollow Man, and I'm Gonna DJ.

 

[lazarus]

I'm Gonna DJ (I like this one because while it's a throwaway, I think it has more honest life in it than anything else on the record)

This seems like the kind of song that would bug the shit out of you. I'm picturing you being particularly annoyed by the delivery of "...end of the WORRRRRRRLLLD!!!"

I guess you're just a mystery to me, girl.

 

[Irishteen]

I'm Gonna DJ is pretty fun live, not a fan of the album version though

 

[HCL]

Supernatural Superserious
Hollow Man
Until the Day Is Done
Sing for the Submarine

 

[corianderstem]

This seems like the kind of song that would bug the shit out of you. I'm picturing you being particularly annoyed by the delivery of "...end of the WORRRRRRRLLLD!!!"

I guess you're just a mystery to me, girl.

I know. But hey, I'll take what I can get from an album that I found so frustrating.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I'm surprised that only 3 people have voted for Living Well. I always thought that was a pretty clear standout on this thing. Anyway, hopefully there will be more votes coming in.

 

[U2inUtah]

Living Well
Sing For The Submarine
Horse To Water

 

[lazarus]

I'm surprised that only 3 people have voted for Living Well. I always thought that was a pretty clear standout on this thing. Anyway, hopefully there will be more votes coming in.

It's fun, but it's a bit of a generic fast rocker to me? Which they hadn't done in a while, I get it. But to me it doesn't have the depth of other openers like Finest Worksong, Begin the Begin, even Kenneth.

 

[lazarus]

Also, Cori, your decision to do Accelerate in a single speedy round could backfire and leave you with like a 5-way tie for second place. We certainly don't want that many going to the finals.

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, that could happen. Frankly, it could have happened with the last two albums as well, but thankfully it didn't.

It won't be the end of the world (as we know it)* if it does - the finale is already uber-crowded.









*see what I did there?

 

[lazarus]

Or you could do a runoff and just have people vote for their favorite among the ones tied.

 

[corianderstem]

That might be a good idea - thanks.

 

[phanan]

As much as I want this to finish, I kinda would have liked normal rounds for Accelerate, but oh well.

And I'm a bit surprised at the lack of votes for the title track, which is getting my vote along with Houston and Sing For The Submarine.

 

[corianderstem]

Okay, so we've got Living Well Is the Best Revenge and Sing For the Submarine moving on to the finals.

Below is the complete list of songs for the finals. How the hell is this going to work?

Who started this thing - ElMel? What did he have in mind? Because we have a gajillion songs, and polls with a maximum of 30 options.

Gardening At Night
Radio Free Europe
Pilgrimage
Perfect Circle
Sitting Still
Harborcoat
So. Central Rain
Pretty Persuasion
Feeling Gravitys Pull
Driver 8
Life And How To Live It
Begin The Begin
These Days
Fall On Me
Cuyahoga
Finest Worksong
Welcome to the Occupation
It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The One I Love
You Are The Everything
World Leader Pretend
Orange Crush
Losing My Religion
Texarkana
Country Feedback
Try Not To Breathe
Man On The Moon
Nightswimming
Find The River
What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
Crush With Eyeliner
Strange Currencies
Undertow
E-Bow The Letter
Leave
Electrolite
Suspicion
Sad Professor
Imitation of Life
The Lifting
Leaving New York
Electron Blue
Living Well Is the Best Revenge
Sing For the Submarine

 

[lazarus]

I'm guessing someone is going to start mentioning the b-sides, but personally I don't think we should bother. None of them are good enough to contend in any serious fashion, so let's just get to the final rounds?

 

[corianderstem]

Yeah, I think ElMel had made that call about b-sides right from the start.

I'm ready to go to the finals, but how?

Do I just break them up into equal groups rather than having one massive round with all songs (which I think is not an option due to the limits of options for a poll)?

There are 22 80s songs and 22 90s songs. I don't think it'll give us the most accurate results to do a final 80s round and a final 90s round and then pit the winners together, but I'm open to other options.

If no one else has suggestions, then I'm going to just have to break them up that way and go from there.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

What about somehow breaking them up based on albums? Based on how each album fared in that original album poll that LM made way back. Like, say, maybe put the Reveal and Around The Sun and Accelerate (and the other albums that weren't too popular) songs into one poll.

I don't if that makes any sense. I'm just spitballin here.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I wonder if our friend LemonMelon bailed on this Survivor because he knew that we were gonna have way too many songs in the finals and he didn't want to have to be in charge of such a huge clusterfuck.

 

[Irishteen]

You could put the bottom two songs from each album into a poll and the top 14 get through

 

[corianderstem]

What about somehow breaking them up based on albums? Based on how each album fared in that original album poll that LM made way back. Like, say, maybe put the Reveal and Around The Sun and Accelerate (and the other albums that weren't too popular) songs into one poll.

That makes sense. It would break out as such:

4 songs - would be one batch of rounds
1. Automatic For The People
2. Lifes Rich Pageant
3. New Adventures In Hi-Fi
4. Document
5. Murmur

3 songs - would be another batch of rounds
6. Out Of Time
7. Reckoning
8. Fables Of The Reconstruction
9. Monster
10. Green

2 songs - etc
11. Accelerate
12. Up
13. Around The Sun
14. Reveal

You could put the bottom two songs from each album into a poll and the top 14 get through

I'm not sure what you mean. Why would we go back to the bottom songs, the ones that got voted out first?

 

[lazarus]

Then the albums that were deemed the best are going to compete against each other before facing finalists from the lesser albums?

That doesn't really makes sense.

 

[corianderstem]

I know! I really don't want to do it that way. But what's the best way to pit them all against each other equally?

Unless we do it as an "unofficial" poll, in which I just post a round without a poll and people have to speak up with their vote. Once we get down to 30 songs, we can go back to the regular polls.

That might work, just some manual tallying. But it's not like we have loads of people voting in this, so no big deal.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Then the albums that were deemed the best are going to compete against each other before facing finalists from the lesser albums?

That doesn't really makes sense.

Yeah, I was just thinking that.

What I was really trying to get at is that there is not much of a chance for any song from ATS or Accelerate or Reveal (even though I personally would like to see Imitation of Life make a good run) to make it very far in the finals. So it would be good if we could somehow put those albums in one poll and eliminate some of the lesser finalists.

I don't know. I have to believe that LM had some sort of plan for once we got this far. I wonder where he is. Is LemonMelon ok?

 

[U2inUtah]

I would suggest just randomly assigning songs into the 3 groups.

I think part of the fun of the final rounds will be deciding how songs from Automatic rank against Fables, or New Adventures against Green, Out of Time against Up, etc etc etc