Curatorfest Qualifier 12! CURATED by thedesertpope

Okay, finally checking in and voting myself with less than twelve hours to go. Like I said on Twitter if anyone hadn’t seen it, the *actual* secret theme here is that each artist is an artist I’ve nominated before (Kaoru in Not In English, Waitresses in Four-Letter Words, ConMan in the 2022 poll, and Ginger Root in the 2021 poll). I generally prefer to not nominate the same artist in multiple polls but these are all tempting ones and — I guessed reasonably correctly here — were ones that I thought would make for a fairly even match.
But there are other connections weaved between the four songs; Kaoru Akimoto was a direct influence on Ginger Root’s city pop revivalism, both The Waitresses and Confidence Man heavily trade on having a sing-talker who can toss off a line in a really funny way, “Loneliness” and “No Guilt” feel like songs about fresh breakups where “Better Sit Down Boy” and “Wagamama Na High Heel” are songs where the singer feels like she’s ready to take a chance on someone but only if they show they’re worth her time.
In the end, I voted for Kaoru because “Dress Down” drowning in quals in not one but two polls still stings a little but I’m happy that it’s such a good fight for second place.