Now for my thoughts on LM's entry, which I've been looking forward to since I first saw the tracklist.
The opening trio owns. I especially welcomed one of Phantogram's best songs from their one truly excellent album. The Susanne Sundfør song was sensational, almost enough to make me regret not listening to the album when it came out (there were good reasons I skipped it). Gonna be hard to top it as the best opener of the tournament, I expect. I've also been meaning to get around to the Caroline Polachek album - in this case I've just kept on forgetting - so I'm really glad you included a cut from it.
When Charli XCX came onto the scene, I enjoyed her early singles like Nuclear Summer, but then I kinda just never kept up with her. This was alright. And I knew that this tournament would finally expose me to a song by Carly Rae Jepsen not called Call Me Maybe. Not sure either of these songs will make me race out and listen to more by the respective artists but nothing wrong with this part of the tracklist.
I could hardly be more favourably disposed towards Flesh Without Blood/Endless Summer. The former is probably my top song of the 2010s, and the latter is one of the best songs from a slowburn album that has spent the whole decade working its way into my listening to the point that I'm now obsessed with it. Not so sure they necessarily belong next to each other? But I didn't care, I spent eight and a half minutes bopping and singing along.
You've encouraged me to listen to Jay Som before, but Everybody Works didn't stick with me after a couple of listens. Probably gonna go have a good listen to Anak Ko now though, because Superbike is a step up on what I remember. I also enjoyed the Kero Kero Bonito track, which surprised me because I did not rate Bonito Generation at all. I was expecting this song to be a dud. The whole sequence from Grimes to here ticked heaps of boxes for me, loved it.
Velocity : Design : Comfort is one of those albums that I think of as RYMcore, and I've never quite got around to hearing it. This is... not what I expected. I assumed it would be kinda ambient. To be honest, this didn't seem like anything special. Rocketship is another one of those bands that RYM has tried to persuade me of, but which left me cold. More than cold - I gave the album this song is from just 1.5 stars. The irritating keyboard is what does it. A short bite like this is OK, but not the whole album. To be honest I wasn't really into much from Sweet Trip through to Tindersticks. To me the Tindersticks song is a weaker version of what Whipping Boy did on Heartworm.
Gotta say I never expected to hear a Beach Boys song that didn't sound hopelessly dated, never mind actually enjoy it.
On that note, I'll be honest and say that after Sister, which is a classic, the list did lose me a little. It's put together well, and certainly nothing made me recoil negatively or go "this sucks", but it's mostly old stuff that just... doesn't do it for me. Feels more like a time capsule than anything I'd ever choose to play for enjoyment.
Overall, of course, this thing is sequenced expertly, that's no surprise. There are a couple of spots that I found maybe a little abrupt (e.g. Angel Olsen to Timber Timbre) but no big deal really, and I'd only remark on them because it really is something you are so good at - almost anyone else I wouldn't think twice. The one inclusion that I really question, though, is Slide, which... it's not a great song in isolation, but I might not've remarked on it if it didn't stick out like a sore thumb sonically. It brought me a bit out of the list. Remove it and the list loses nothing.
I, too, was struck that our lists have some fairly obvious similarities - their soundscapes, are, perhaps, alternate sides of the same dice (if not coin). I've started playing my own list afterwards and it certainly does not feel out of place. Most of my quibbles above are minor, and all in all I thought this was a really good listening experience. I assume this will be one of the top lists at the end. I know I'll rank it very highly.