Archives – 2024 – March  

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 7. BLACK POP HISTORY 1978-1981 – Polls
Read and comment
— 8 March 2024 Tom

This is the POLL POST for the Black Pop History round in the League Of Tracks. Want to actually hear the songs? (And you frankly should) Go to the Playlist Post.

As usual the rules are simple.

  1. You can vote for UP TO FOUR of these eleven tracks.
  2. You can only vote for tracks you DIDN’T KNOW before the poll.

You are strongly recommended to vote on a desktop if you can – there are issues with the mobile plug-in that makes it crash the post.

18
League Of Extraordinary Tracks S2E7: BLACK POP HISTORY 1978-1981!

Please pick up to FOUR of these tracks.

DO NOT PICK TRACKS YOU ALREADY KNEW!

Spotify and YouTube playlists in the playlist post.

The poll has expired!

Latest comments (of 10)

rabbitfun   last month

Never realised Linzer produced "Cherchez La Femme" (and the whole first Dr. Buzzard album in fact), but it makes total sense, because "Native New Yorker" sounds like it was made under the assumption […]

koganbot   last month

Ranking Joe "Tribute to John Lennon": "Good thing John Lennon never killed by a black man" jumps out as dead-on social commentary in the midst of what otherwise is verbalized as Lennon's popularity […]

koganbot   last month

The Romantic Noise "I Fell In Love With A Baby": Hard Rocking Shit from the early Seventies that somehow has ended up in a late Seventies/early Eighties Black history poll – Hard Rocking Shit being […]

koganbot   last month

[Sigh... Apologies if these end up as double posts. WordPress killed my original attempt to post so now I'm dividing these up to see if they'll go through separately.] Odyssey "Use It Up and Wear […]

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 7. BLACK POP HISTORY 78-81 – Playlists
Read and comment
— 8 March 2024 Tom

The penultimate round of the League Of Tracks is a companion to the excellent poll we’ve just been going through on the main site, exploring the work of Black musicians between 1978 and 1981, from the zenith of disco through the birth of rap on record to the first stirrings of house and techno.

256 awesome tracks is, it turns out, simply not enough, so here are 11 more. When you’re done listening, go vote in the poll post!

As usual there’s a Spotify and a YouTube playlist. Annoyingly, this time BOTH are missing songs, but they’re different ones. If you listen to the YouTube playlist you’ll get everything except Francis Bebey’s “Libreville”. I’ve moved “Libreville” to the beginning of the Spotify playlist to make it easier to catch up.

But Spotify is missing three tracks which ARE on the YouTube list, from The Romantic Noise, J Walter Negro, and Ranking Joe. So you will need both, sorry (or if you’re not on Spotify, another way to hear “Libreville”).

Spotify playlist:

And the relevant YouTube section:

Here’s what we’re listening to this time. In a League Of Tracks FIRST, we have two nominations from the same artist!

  1. FRANCIS BEBEY – “Libreville”. From 1981’s Bia So Nika. Spotify only.
  2. MELBA MOORE – “Pick Me Up, I’ll Dance”. From 1978’s Melba.
  3. BENNIE MAUPIN – “Anua”. From 1978’s Moonscapes.
  4. THE ROMANTIC NOISE – “I Fell In Love With A Baby”. A self-released 1978 single. YouTube only.
  5. PAULINHO DA COSTA – “Deja Vu”. A 1979 single on Pablo.
  6. ODYSSEY – “Use It Up And Wear It Out”. From 1980’s Hang Together.
  7. GODMOMA – “Godmoma Here”. From 1981’s Here.
  8. RANKING JOE – “Tribute To John Lennon”. From 1981’s Tribute To John Lennon. YouTube only.
  9. JIMMY ROSS – “Fall Into A Trance”. From 1981’s First Time Love Affair.
  10. J WALTER NEGRO & THE LOOSE JOINTZ – “Shoot The Pump”. A 1981 single on Zoo York Rekordz.
  11. GODMOMA – “Hands Up (Punk Funk)”. From 1981’s Here

Latest comments (of 2)

koganbot   last month

That's actually good! Would've loved being on that dancefloor, surrounded by all those colors.

Andrew F   last month

I'm delighted by the tip into the existential despair at the end of the Odyssey chorus. The difference between 'left' and 'else' is miles of empty space. I also thought "Wait, I know, this, but I […]

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 6. NOT THAT ONE! – Results
Read and comment
— 8 March 2024 Tom

Better late than never (well, I hope it is) – here are some results for the “Not That One!” round of the League, a high concept selection where the sole criteria was sharing a title with a more famous tune. So it’s indirect congratulations to Beck, Beyonce, Bobby “Boris” Pickett and The Rolling Stones for making the inclusion of our Top 4 tracks possible in the first place.

This was a woefully undervoted round – which is partly down to the poll plugin having an absolute sod of a time on mobile. For the remaining two rounds, if you can, vote via the desktop site!

Still, thanks hugely to all those who DID vote and of course to our eleven players, who came up with a wonderfully varied selection. Bronze is shared this week between the Plasticenes’ “Loser” and Sarah Webster Fabio’s “Work It Out”. Kate Davis’ not-a-graveyard smash “Monster Mash” takes silver, but the clear winner this week was “Play With Fire” by 70s soul duo Barbara & Ernie. That means that nominator MONDOSALVO gets his second third win in a row and moves into first place on the leaderboard, but only 3 points ahead of Joe Kay.

The seventh round is Black Pop History 78-81, tying in to the poll that’s been running over on Twitter. And then we have our final round and one final brief for the nominators – Unlikely Cover Versions. Good luck!

The Discourse