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The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 5. 21st CENTURY CHRISTMAS – Polls
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— 7 December 2023 Tom

This is the POLL POST for Round 5 of the League Of Extraordinary Tracks – and the theme is 21st Century Christmas records!

Here’s how to vote:

  1. Listen to the 11 tracks in the playlist post
  2. Choose up to FOUR favourites and vote for them below but –
  3. DO NOT VOTE for any tracks you knew before the poll!

That’s all – best of festive luck and thanks as ever to our 11 nominators for their seasonal selections.

[ays_poll id=111]

Latest comments (of 19)

Mark G   12 months ago

Do "Replies" work?

Mark G   12 months ago

Looks like my reply got lost... Anyway, no I didn't know anything about theme picking, just picked a fun track from the Hi-5 Christmas album that's become a tradition at our place since the kids […]

Helene Hoffman   12 months ago

Ironically I considered nominating JD McPherson's "Socks" (nixed it because I thought it was a little too structurally similar to "Sinners" the rockabilly song I submitted for R2.) JD co-wrote the […]

Son of Mecha Mummy   12 months ago

Loved the Superimposers track, probably going to see about working that into my Christmas music playlists. Also voted for Irma Thomas, Chilly Gonzales, and Mighty Mark. Only song I had to DQ was […]

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 5. 21st CENTURY CHRISTMAS – Playlists
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— 7 December 2023 Tom

HO HO HO it’s the League Of Tracks CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. As his topic pic, Santa Jel chose “21st Century Christmas Records”, and our 11 nominators have brought the festive goods.

As usual this is the Playlist post, and once you’ve listened to these 11 songs – a compact stocking-full at 36 minutes – you should go vote for your favourites in the POLLS post.

For the first time all 11 tracks are on Spotify as well as YouTube so take your pick!

Our line up is:

  1. GUILLE MILKYWAY AND THE JELLY JAMM SOUND ORCHESTRA – “Holding Hands Around The World”: from the 2012 compilation A Christmas Gift For You From Elefant Records
  2. HI-5 – “…Santa Wear Your Shorts!”: from 2001’s It’s A Hi-5 Christmas
  3. NICOLE ATKINS – “Every Single Christmas”: a 2020 single!
  4. METROPOLE ORKEST ft CARO EMERALD – “Something For Christmas”: from 2017’s MO x Caro Emerald by Grandmono EP
  5. SARAH NIXEY – “Christmas Without You”: a 2012 single!
  6. THE SUPERIMPOSERS – “Chasing Christmas”: from 2011’s Christmas Again! If You Want It EP
  7. MIGHTY MARK – “What I Want For CHRISTMAS”: a 2023 single!
  8. THE X-MISSES – “She Gave Me Hell For Christmas”: from 2018’s Christmas Reminiscences
  9. KACEY MUSGRAVES & LEON BRIDGES – “Present Without A Bow”: from 2016’s A Very Kacey Christmas.
  10. IRMA THOMAS – “Christmas Without The Creole”: from the 2004 compilation Christmas Gumbo
  11. CHILLY GONZALES ft JARVIS COCKER & FEIST – “Snow Is Falling In Manhattan”: from 2020’s A Very Chilly Christmas

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 4. ALL CHANGE! – Results
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— 6 December 2023 Tom

A tricky theme caused nominators some difficulty but listeners had less of a problem this week, with a very clear winner in the side projects and line-up changes round.

Third place went to New Order offshoot THE OTHER TWO but! this was in fact a ringer put in by me to replace a missing track so it scores no points (sorry Mark!). So the bronze actually goes to synthpop rivals PROPAGANDA with the song from their difficult second LP. Silver goes to EKKAH, the side project of two Arcadian Kicks members. And the runaway winner this week was V/Z with “Habadash” – a collaboration between Valentina Magaletti (V) and Zongamin (Z) which is also a 2023 jam, always nice to see those do well.

Congratulations to Mondosalvo on snagging those 12 points, which puts him into joint 3rd on the overall leaderboard, while at the top previous sole League Leader Joe Kay is joined by Ed Still. Halfway through and things are still very tight…

Round 5 is our Christmas Special, with 11 21st Century Christmas songs to pick from – that’ll be up later today. Round 6 will be “No, not that one” – tracks which share a title, but nothing else, with a very famous song. Russ Abbott’s “Atmosphere”, your time is now.

Latest comments (of 4)

Steffen Rayburn-Maarup ?   12 months ago

*weeps*

Edward Still   12 months ago

Feel I have been very lucky with three straight 2nd places.Voting Extensions have helped me out more than once!

Helene Hoffman   12 months ago

Fourth straight 4th place/7 pt. finish, lol. Slow and steady wins the race? :) (Will probably still need at least one track that will function as the breakout sprint at the end)

Steffen Rayburn-Maarup ?   12 months ago

My record so far in this league has been shared gold; near bottom; shared silver; near bottom – så I have high hopes for the Christmas round!

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 4. ALL CHANGE! – Polls
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— 26 November 2023 Tom

Here’s where you can vote in the latest round of the League Of Extraordinary Tracks! Our theme this week is ALL CHANGE! – line-up changes, collaborations, and side projects.

How to join in? It’s simple:

  1. Go to the Playlist Post and hear the 11 new tracks.
  2. Vote for UP TO FOUR of your favourites but remember – you should only vote for songs you didn’t already know!
[ays_poll id=110]

Latest comments (of 24)

jonathanb   12 months ago

My four votes went to the current top-four placeholders. Not sure exactly how to feel about that, but it doesn't feel right, somehow. :/

rabbitfun   12 months ago

Still voted for it, or I would have been down to just the two.

rabbitfun   12 months ago

Same here! Like with so many 80s and 90s rap(-adjacent) tracks, I had no idea about the samples (or about them being samples at all)

rabbitfun   12 months ago

My observations, based on just one listen, with no concern for how they play into the all-change theme at hand. It would be great if I could make more time for this, but my musical agenda - not to […]

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 3. INSTRUMENTALS – Results!
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— 26 November 2023 Tom

We’re back! Apologies for the late running of this round – I’m juggling a lot of different projects at the moment (and writing a lot more for Popular of course). But we have Round 4 finally ready to go so here are the RESULTS of our League Instrumentals week. Thanks to our players for what I thought were a particularly strong and varied set of tunes!

Things are still pretty tight at the top but there was a clear winner last week, several votes ahead of the two joint-second place tracks: kosmische vibes from Ashra and post-(Daft)-punk electro fun from Ratatat. The winner though was the whistle-while-you-work rhythms of the Ghana Postal Workers, a field recording nominated by JOE KAY who moves into the lead in our overall scoreboard. He’s only a few points ahead of the field, though, with much to play for.

The Week 5 challenge is going to be a festive special – 21st Century Christmas Songs! As for Week 4, that’s a bit trickier to explain – maybe I should just put it up…

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 3. INSTRUMENTALS – Polls
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— 8 November 2023 Tom

This week’s theme – picked by a League player, as usual! – is INSTRUMENTALS (which I’ve decreed can include whistling). As usual, thankyou to our 11 intrepid selectors for choosing tracks to vote on.

How do you take part?

  1. Go to the Playlist Post and listen to the tracks.
  2. Pick the four you like best that you haven’t previously heard.
  3. Log in here and vote for them!
[ays_poll id=109]

Latest comments (of 24)

Helene Hoffman   13 months ago

Immediate votes/adds to my streaming library: Doggett (Toussaint was mine so no surprise that I voted for the other 50s R&B/jazz piano guy), Birhane, and (sigh) FourPlay. Last vote was a tough […]

Helene Hoffman   13 months ago

"Java" was a 4 letter words outtake for me too! I was glad to finally have a chance to nominate it for something else (I was twitching on the sidelines when 4 letter words & short songs came up […]

Tom   13 months ago

I am honestly not sure - I think there may be a box I can tick to allow it, but that would also allow changes of votes, which wouldn't be a great idea.

Tom   13 months ago

My other votes went to the jazz and funk contingent - Bill Doggett and the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, though Allen Toussaint and Kirhom Birhane could easily have got votes if my mood was only […]

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