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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 ?   7 months ago

*weeps*

Edward Still   7 months ago

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

Helene Hoffman   7 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 ?   7 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!
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League Of Extraordinary Tracks S2E3: ALL CHANGE!

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 24)

jonathanb   7 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   7 months ago

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

rabbitfun   7 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   7 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 – 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!
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League Of Extraordinary Tracks S2E3: Instrumentals!

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 24)

Helene Hoffman   8 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   8 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   8 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   8 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 […]

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

We’re back with Season 2 Round 3 – and this round the brief was a simple one: find us all some instrumentals we haven’t heard. Note that I’ve decided to allow whistling in the instrumental category (if you want to be stricter than I was, that’s up to you, but the track is well worth hearing IMO). When you’ve had a listen, go vote in the Poll Post.

As usual we have a Spotify and YouTube playlist. The Spotify has all but the final song.

The missing track is “Ghana Postal Workers Cancelling Stamps”, a field recording. It’s the final track on the YouTube playlist:

Here’s our line up for this week!

  1. FOURPLAY STRING QUARTET – “Something Is Going Wrong”: from 2014’s This Machine.
  2. MOONLIGHT SORCERY – “The Moonlit Dance Of The Twisted Jester’s Blood-Soaked Rituals”: from 2023’s Horned Lord Of The Thorned Castle.
  3. RATATAT – “Abrasive”: from 2015’s Magnifique.
  4. WIZZARD – “The Carlsberg Special”: B-Side of 1972’s “Ball Park Incident”
  5. KIBROM BIRHANE – “Mender”: From 2022’s Here And There
  6. CASINO VERSUS JAPAN – “Where To? / What For?”: From 2002’s Whole Numbers Play The Basics
  7. ASHRA – “Sunrain”: From 1977’s New Age Of Earth.
  8. BILL DOGGETT – “Sweet Slumber”: From a 1954 7″ on King Records.
  9. LAFAYETTE AFRO ROCK BAND – “I Love Music”: From 1974’s Malik.
  10. ALLEN TOUSSAINT – “Java”: From 1958’s The Wild Sound Of New Orleans.
  11. “Ghana Postal Workers Cancelling Stamps”: A 1975 field recording, included on the CDs accompanying the book Worlds Of Music: An Introduction To The Music Of The World’s Peoples

The League Of Extraordinary Tracks II: 2.RELIGION – Results!
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— 8 November 2023 Tom

Apologies for the delay posting these and the new poll, though at least it’s given our 11 seekers after pop more time to work on the somewhat tricky Week 4 task..

Anyway, the white smoke has now issued from the Pop Vatican and I can announce the WINNER of Round 2’s Religion challenge.

In third place, SISTER WYNONA CARR took us out to the ball game! In second place, YELLOWMAN delivered some of the teachings of Jah. And the clear winner from was MARY LOU WILLIAMS, whose “Anima Christi” was the perfect combination of spirituality and awesome jazz chops. I think it’s the oldest recording so far to have won a League round – well done healingandy especially as his Round 1 pick came last! As you can see from the leaderboard this time there’s no clear front runner – Joe Kay with a double bronze has an early advantage, but all the top 8 players are within 4 points of each other.

Instrumentals will be up soon – for now, thanks again to your selectors for their handling of a tricky religious brief!

Latest comments (of 2)

actualee simpson   8 months ago

Appropriate, though!

healingandy   8 months ago

Just the most remarkable coincidence that the artist who inspired the week's theme was also the one I happened to pick. Bizarro.

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