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THE WORLD CUP OF 1985! B-Sides Round 2 Matches 9-12
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Back back BACK with four more matches from the 1985 World Cup, underground polls for the more discerning people’s pop palate. Or something like that.

YouTube playlist:

And onto the polls themselves:

Our first match is an absolute cracker – house music from Mr Fingers v freestyle from Brenda K Starr

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 9: Mr Fingers v Brenda K Starr

MR FINGERS - "Mystery Of Love" (YouTube)

BRENDA K STARR - "Pickin' Up Pieces" (YouTube)

The poll has expired!

Then we’ve got the first of two Robert Wyatt tunes in the B-Sides, this time it’s “Gharbzadegi” up against The Damned.

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 10: Robert Wyatt v The Damned

ROBERT WYATT - "Gharbzadegi" (YouTube)

THE DAMNED - "Shadow Of Love" (YouTube)

The poll has expired!

Proto-gangsta rap vs chic French pop as Schoolly D and Etienne Daho face off in match number three.

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 11: Schoolly D v Etienne Daho

SCHOOLLY D - "P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?)" (YouTube)

ETIENNE DAHO - "Tombe Pour La France" (YouTube)

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And finally it’s the arsequake v punkabilly showdown you probably failed to demand as the Butthole Surfers take on the Redskins

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 12: Butthole Surfers v Redskins

BUTTHOLE SURFERS - "Moving To Florida" (YouTube)

REDSKINS - "Kick Over The Statues!" (YouTube)

The poll has expired!

The Spotify playlist actually has all these tracks – here it is:

THE WORLD CUP OF 1985! B-Sides Round 2 Matches 5-8
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Four more matches of lesser-known or lower-voted tracks from 1985.

This time we’ve got a YouTube playlist set up, starting with Youssou N’Dour

And matches involving Youssou, Indochine, John Cale, The Woodentops, Wayne Smith, Zazou Bikaye, The Dead Milkmen and The Chameleons.

First up it’s a spicy Senegal v France clash – Youssou N’Dour v Indochine.

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 5: Youssou N'Dour v Indochine

YOUSSOU N'DOUR - "Ndobine" (YouTube)

INDOCHINE - "3e Sexe" (YouTube)

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Then John Cale’s stentorian balladry faces the indie-skiffle of The Woodentops

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 6: John Cale v The Woodentops

JOHN CALE - "Dying On The Vine" (YouTube)

THE WOODENTOPS - "Move Me" (YouTube)

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Match 7 sees Wayne Smith’s iconic riddim up against French-Congolese pop from Zazou Bikaye

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 7: Wayne Smith v Zazou Bikaye

WAYNE SMITH - "Under Me Sleng Teng" (YouTube)

ZAZOU BIKAYE - "Nostalgie" (YouTube)

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And finally, the not wholly serious Dead Milkmen battle the really very serious indeed Chameleons.

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1985 B-Sides R2 Match 8: The Dead Milkmen v The Chameleons

THE DEAD MILKMEN - "Bitchin' Camaro" (YouTube)

THE CHAMELEONS - "Nostalgia" (YouTube)

The poll has expired!

There’s also a Spotify playlist which has lots of missing tracks (those B-Sides are obscure!) but has everything in match order.

THE WORLD CUP OF 1985! B-Sides Round 2 Matches 1-4
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Our first actual on-site polls (I hope they work!)

These are our B-Side matches – lesser-known tracks put under the spotlight. Four head-to-heads with 12 more to come, assuming these function as planned.

First off, Detroit proto-techno from MODEL 500 vs Monsoon’s SHEILA CHANDRA

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1985 B-Sides Round 2 Match 1: Model 500 v Sheila Chandra

Model 500 - Time Space Transmat Sheila Chandra - Strange Minaret

MODEL 500 - "Time, Space, Transmat" (YouTube)

SHEILA CHANDRA - "Strange Minaret" (YouTube)

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Then it’s an industrial v hair metal clash – COIL v RATT

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1985 B-Sides Round 2 Match 2: Coil v RATT

COIL - "Tainted Love" (YouTube)

RATT- "Lay It Down" (YouTube)

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Dancehall don TENOR SAW is up against alternative pop songwriter MARTI JONES

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1985 B-Sides Round 2 Match 3: Tenor Saw v Marti Jones

TENOR SAW - "Ring The Alarm" (YouTube)

MARTI JONES - "Lonely Is As Lonely Does" (YouTube)

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And finally a brutal indie-on-indie match between WORLD DOMINATION ENTERPRISES and THE LOFT

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1985 B-Sides Round 2 Match 4: World Domination Enterprises v The Loft

WORLD DOMINATION ENTERPRISES - "Asbestos Lead Asbestos" (YouTube)

THE LOFT - "Up The Hill And Down The Slope" (YouTube)

The poll has expired!

I’ll be advertising this secret den of polling violence on Twitter too, comment there or here – ultimately I want comments to mostly move here though, but it’ll be much easier once we do Twitter integration on the new site.

Great News For All Our Voters
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As you probably know, Elon Musk is threatening to make Twitter polls a subscriber-only feature

As you may also know, we’re launching a dedicated Pop Polls site here at the start of May, as part of a general relaunch of the site with individual ‘homepages’ for Popular, the Polls, and everything else.

But this leaves the current Twitter poll – about 1985 – in a kind of limbo. So we’ll be running the rest of THAT on this site before the relaunch. (If Musk doesn’t fuck polls up we’ll probably just do the B-Sides here)

It’s also an opportunity to try out the poll widget I want to use on “live” polls and users.

One very important thing: these 1985 polls will use the same plug-in, but the look and feel of the actual new site will be a lot smoother, easier for commenting, better on mobile, etc. I fully expect this to be a bit clunky at best as an interim solution, so hopefully you won’t be thinking “OH NOES the polls are doomed!” on the basis of the ’85 stuff.

We’ll be starting off later with the 1985 B-Sides, but first of all I want to make sure people can actually vote, so here’s a 1985 Test poll I made quickly.

So the first question is – can you vote in this? You should be able to if you’re logged in, but not otherwise.

If not, what ID is it asking for? (We want to make it so you can use Twitter ID to login)

If yes, can you vote more than once? (Ideally the answer is NO)

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This Poll is active until 20th of April 2023 00:00:00

Test Poll: 1985 Dodgy Sleeve Competition

This poll is just to make sure you can vote in the polls while they're on Freaky Trigger.

Worst sleeve of 1985?

The poll has expired!

Donate and Nominate in THE CHARITY CRUSHER
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The May pop poll will be an open entry CHARITY POLL, raising money for international aid charity ActionAid and UK refugee education charity the Ruth Hayman Trust. 

I’ve set up 2 fundraising pages.

Ruth Hayman

ActionAid

For each fundraiser you donate to, you can pick 2 songs to go into the poll, so a possible total of 4 songs. No limits (no no there’s no limits) as to what. Well, hardly any.

Details at the links. This doubles as my 50th birthday fundraiser, so throw in a few quid to celebrate that if you’d like and pick a favourite song!

World Cup Of 1985 Nominations (Twitter Refugees Dept)
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The WORLD CUP OF 1985 will be happening next month, and the plan is that it’ll mark the moment when we FLEE the Musk-ridden cesspoll of Twitter and instead make peoples-pop dot com our polling home.

Most of the nominations will be on Twitter today but if you are an ex Twitter user keen to rejoin the polls once we move, and want to nominate, this is the thread for you. (If you are still on Twitter, ignore this and nominate there as usual please!)

If you don’t know anything about our pop polling ways, these guidelines should fill you in nicely. If you’re a veteran, nothing’s changed – 4 nominations and you’re guaranteed to get one as your main pick.

Pop poll people who are on Mastodon – feel free to tell your tusk site pals about this too.

EDIT: Nominations are now CLOSED and here’s the finished list, from Zazou Bikaye to the 1985 Chicago Bears. 

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