Thanks everyone who signed up to the LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY TRACKS, which will begin next Sunday. Demand was higher than expected – I was anticipating about 20 sign-ups at most and we’ve ended up with 30. That’s too many for one or even two seasons (because I want to limit the weekly playlist to a manageable length – one side of a mixtape, if you like).

So, I’ve taken the first 24 people who commented (w/special dispensation for not-on-Twitter folks) and randomised them into 2 sets of players for two eight-week seasons. SEASON 1 starts NOW – get finding those Placenames and 2020 tracks! It’ll run until August 13th (there’s a break at one point when I’m on holiday). Then SEASON 2 will run from August 20th to October 15th. Season 2 will also start with Placenames and 2020

Assuming it all works fine (!), the rest of the prospective players get first refusal on Season 3, which will run up to Christmas. By then I’ll have learned enough about the format to tweak and improve it too. I’ll open up player entries again towards the end of S2 as well.

Here are the player lists: I’ve used commenter names from the original post.

SEASON ONE! (JUNE-AUGUST)

      • actualee simpson
      • Alison Yoder
      • Baltimore Jacks
      • Dan Bright-Amaya
      • ismathers
      • Job
      • jonathanb
      • Pop-O-Matic
      • Son Of Mecha Mummy
      • TheHarderLine
      • therealbreadco
      • winterhaar

      SEASON TWO! (AUGUST-OCTOBER)

      • Dorsalstop
      • Ed Still
      • healingandy
      • Helene Hoffman
      • j_e_l
      • Joe Kay
      • Kit
      • Mark Grout
      • mondosalvo
      • Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
      • Vinnycrackers
      • Willl

      RESERVES LIST/FIRST REFUSAL SEASON THREE

      • di qualcosa di sinistra
      • bartlebooth45
      • Mitchell Stirling
      • georgethe23rd
      • ajjr82
      • somejerkoff
      • Arron Wright

      WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

      The 12 people in the Season 1 list should find a track which fits the theme PLACENAMES. There’s a list of the tracks in the original Placenames poll here – you should avoid these as the idea is to find something people haven’t heard! Standard rules apply – must be on Spotify, YouTube or Bandcamp. No need to choose a backup – in the event of a clash I’ll let you know immediately.

      To nominate, either DM @peoples_pop on Twitter or if you’re not on Twitter, email freakytrigger@gmail.com

      Deadline for this is midnight on Friday UK time. If anyone hasn’t sent a track in, I’ll substitute one myself.

      The people in the Season 2 and Reserves lists have to sit and wait for now – sorry! But they do have the fun of listening, commenting, and voting safe in the knowledge nobody’s judging their taste… yet.