Lurker > Fluttershy_Pony

Mega
Death

1: Moving in Stereo
2: My Best Friend's Girl
3: Good Times Roll
4: Just What I Needed
5: All Mixed Up
6: Bye Bye Love
7: You're All I've Got Tonight
8: Don't Cha Stop
9: I'm in Touch with Your World

Good album. A lot of hit songs in a rather short package that doesn't drag.

Moving in Stereo: Oh hey, I was obsessed with this song a few years ago. One of those tracks that I played on an infinite loop for weeks. Been long enough since I've heard it that I can enjoy it again.

Simple Plan - Get Your Heart On! > Serj Tankian - Harakiri > Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil

Seems like a pretty good set of albums; "Get Your Heart On!" has a pretty good opening song, "Harakiri" definitely has some great tracks (and even those I aggressively dislike are quite memorable), and "City of Evil"... well, I do like the way the album sounds, I'm admittedly a bit wary of an almost 73 minute long album in this style (though I'm cautiously optimistic enough that I'd still be happy enough to listen to it.)

Smells Like Teen

Toad
Death

VOTES
Carrying the Weight of Life
Fort O'Virbus/Night
Kaleidoscopic Core

Fight

Personally, I'm thinking of Sheamus and the Brawling Brutes' entrance.

Bowser
Alucard

VOTES
Subterranean Sunrise
Renata Glasc, The Chem-Baroness
Pishon Dry Lake

Arachno

Bomberman
Boss

Deleting my old post so I can make some slight changes to the list and post a few thoughts--not many, but I need to test out my new keyboard and want to be on the record as having said something.

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

I really liked this album. I don't usually revisit albums that we've covered too often (outside of the "Rank the Albums" period where I need to refresh my memories), even the ones that I enjoy, because it can be a bit rough trying to make extra time for it. I need to prepare to listen to whatever our next album is, there's usually an unrelated music topic or two on board that I'm trying to follow, I've got my own music that I want to listen to, and sometimes I do things other than listen to music. So, dropping everything to sneak in one extra listen and rearrange my list is very out of character for me & is a pretty good sign that I'd rank this as one of the top tier albums we've covered.

[Later, after having finished the relisten]

Well, it's definitely a long album. I'd say I really, really like about half of it; I suppose if I were to score every song on the album and average them to give a "fair" ranking, this would *probably* wind up several spaces lower in my Rank the Albums list than it's going to... but seven high scoring songs, for me, more than makes up for any parts of the album that try to drag it down.

TRACK THOUGHTS (in no particular order):

Ready to Start: I'm not sure how it'll hold up, but I think this may actually be my current favorite song of the cycle. There's a lot of competition and it likely depends on what type of mood I'm in that day, but still, great song.

Sprawl II: A good song that's dropped a bit from where I had it before. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm typically drawn towards darkness, so a blunt line like "I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights" is basically cheating in terms of 'things I'm obligated to give a lot of points for'. Still, it's not quite as catchy as "Empty Rooms" or as emotional as "The Suburbs (Continued)", so I think I want it moved down just a couple pegs.

The Suburbs (Continued): A short, poignant outro. I'm sure there's an argument that the song is too short for me to be giving it such a high placement--I'm honestly considering moving it up to first--but I'm not really bothered by short tracks. It comes in, hits the emotional beats it wants to, and fades away. A perfect end to the album.

Suburban War: One of the songs I most wanted to revisit and move up a few notches. I have a hard time figuring out why I'm drawn to this track, but I am drawn to it regardless.

Empty Room: The other song I wanted to revisit as I've had this stuck in my head for days. "When I'm by myself, I can be myself"... am I that easily manipulated by such basic lyrics? Yes. ....Ehhh, very close call between this and Suburbs (Continued), but I think I'll jump this one up to second place. Honestly, my top three are all really close this time around, I could cycle them in any order and be content with it.

City with No Children: Catchy tune and the second verse has some very pleasing self-doubt. I enjoy this.

Half Light II (No Celebration): A song that is close to greatness. I love low tones and this song certainly *toys* with the idea of powerful, rumbling tones but never fully commits to it; there's a fair amount of pain over growing up--"In this town where I was born, I now see through a dead man's eyes" is definitely the type of blunt sadness I go for--but I never quite connect with it the way I should. I do like the song, but it feels like it should be something I love and it never quite reaches that mark.

The Suburbs: It's an odd complaint, but the backing music on this track feels a bit too jaunty for me. It is better than I gave it credit for (or, perhaps, my love of "The Suburbs (Continued)" is eroding my ability to judge this track fairly [or, perhaps, both]) and I'm moving it up my ranks a little.

Month of May: Ehh... I shouldn't be so blunt about it, but the more typical rock sound on this track kinda bores me? Like, it's *fine*, but....

1: Ready to Start
2: Empty Room
3: The Suburbs (continued)
4: Suburban War
5: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
6: City with No Children
7: Half Light II (No Celebration)
8: The Suburbs
9: Deep Blue
10: Wasted Hours
11: Modern Man
12: We Used to Wait
13: Half Light 1
14: Month of May
15: Sprawl I (Flatland)
16: Rococo

Didn't list the extra songs this time--"Speaking in Tongues" would probably steal fifth place and "Culture War" would be last.

Clube de Esquina > One of Us is the Killer > Knower Forever

Original Gangster > Hes The DJ Im The Rapper > Raisin Hell

VOTES
Northeast Frost Street
Faded Dream of a Psychomeddler
Keep Up (Temple Remix)

Bliss

Snake
Carmen

Cat

Garland
Mario

Fight

Ryu SF
Ryu H
Trevor

Some very brief thoughts on a few tracks or albums:

Listened to the first half of Passengers, the Cryptovolans album. Pretty neat, though "Test of Ascension" definitely feels a bit long... still, I want to try to finish the rest of the album later.

I've loved T.I.M.E. for years, so I'm glad to see it rated so highly. I should probably relisten to the album; I tried it once, but was disappointed that none of the other tracks went for the emotion or power of T.I.M.E.--I might be more in the mood for the album now and less likely to judge it for what it isn't.

The CrossCode arrange song is pretty, I may try checking out the rest of that album later as well.

Meshell Ndegeocello's album seems incredible. Powerful lyrics & good grooves; also something I want to check out the next time I'm looking for a more emotionally charged album.

"IF YOU GO DOWN (IM GOIN DOWN TOO)" is fun in that playfully twisted way that I often enjoy, very nice pick there.

"On the Run" also reminds me of Delta, so I'm pretty pleased that we had essentially the same reaction.

-

And I'm finally caught up on everything. A very belated thank you for running the topic, it was fun.

Serious about going to Itchy & Scratchy Land!

Seanchan posted...

https://www.tiktok.com/@finessir/video/7290683028320406830

I figure this might be amusing to some of the regulars

I unironically enjoy this song.

1: Ready to Start
2: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
[Speaking in Tongues]
3: The Suburbs (continued)
4: City with No Children
5: Half Light II (No Celebration)
6: Suburban War
7: Empty Room
8: Deep Blue
9: Wasted Hours
10: The Suburbs
11: Modern Man
12: We Used to Wait
13: Half Light 1
14: Month of May
15: Sprawl I (Flatland)
16: Rococo
[Culture War]

Included the extra tracks, but left them unnumbered--I figure it'll be easy to skip over them when tallying the results (or include them, if that winds up happening); if it's annoying having them there, I can repost the list.

Clube de Esquina > One of Us is the Killer > Knower Forever

Original Gangster > Hes The DJ Im The Rapper > Raisin Hell

I don't really have an opinion on this; I don't think the nomination meant for the extra tracks and the album certainly is long enough without them... but I like Speaking in Tongues and I've been listening to them since they were in the opening post, so I wouldn't say I'm against including them.

Peach
Trevor

man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you were

Same song as Snake, obviously, but my mind went with the first verse instead of the chorus.

andylt posted...

I like that Ether Vapor track! Never heard of the game before, apparently it's a shoot-em-up not an RPG.

Honestly, I hadn't heard of it either and I don't entirely recall how I found this track. Since I'm rarely into battle themes because they're too "epic battle"-y & final boss themes tend to be even more of what I dislike about the category, I wound up having to trawl Google and YouTube for anything I found interesting.

"Demon Lord" had a high-pitched, chaotic energy that made it really stand out. I wanted something from the Genesis and I was curiously drawn to how odd it felt. I'm still not sure how much I like it, but I have gone back to it frequently since noms ended to try to properly grok what it's doing, which is *probably* a good sign?

"OverDrive" was my last pick and I really don't know how I got to it, but it goes for a more subdued beauty than expected for a final boss song (especially from a shmup) which I felt might help it be distinguished from the pack. It lasted longer than I expected after some other song/s were cut for not being exciting enough, so I'm actually rather pleased it got as far as it did.

I really can't think of anything to say about the SLHRPG song, though it has the distinction of being the only nom of mine that I'd heard before nominations & I like it well enough.

Day

I'm thinking of the WWE Tag Team, which would be The New Day, if it matters. Pretty sure the announcers occasionally say it without saying "The", so it should count either way.

Death
Kong

Athena
Link

Apples

Second thought was Broncos after my mind completely butchered a Home Improvement scene. As I recall it, Tim was having trouble saying "I love you" to one of his sons & settled on using "How about the [sports team]?" as a secret phase they'd just agree meant he loved him. And somehow my mind remembered that as "How about them Broncos?" which... pretty sure that's not how the sentence went & also not likely the sports team referenced.

Sucks

Alucard
Pac

Spark Mandrill
Zero Gravity Area
Skyway

Fun contest, thanks for running it

Get 64

X vs. Zero

Bowser
Palutena

Planet

Game
Boss

Spark Mandrill

...blank.

More specifically, I thought of a Jeopardy contestant buzzing in without a guess and going with "What is... *trails off into silence as time runs out*".

Dr. Wily Stage 1

Brain
Adol

Vader

Snake5555555555 posted...

Is Onimusha Blade Warriors even a vastly played game here? Onimusha itself is barely a popular series, never mind a smash-style spin-off set in the series.

I'm into it! I only played it for the Mega Man characters, but "Megaman, jack into the world of Onimisha!" was randomly hilarious and I quite like the remix used for Zero's theme. That version of EXE amused me more than most fighting game characters & I was very pleased to see him included in the tournament. I honestly thought Blade Warriors was too obscure to make the cut, yet here it is.

...Now to be fair, I haven't played it in many years and it may not be good on an objective level, but there aren't many characters I'd vote over him.

1: daybed
2: holy terrain
3: mirrored heart
4: mary magdalene
5: fallen alien
6: sad day
7: home with you
8: cellophane
9: thousand eyes

Spark Mandrill

Spark's another song that I was fairly strongly against when we started, but it has grown on me as of thia exact moment.

Zelda
Carmen