Board 8 > Rank the Tracks Week 30: Spice Girls' Spice (+ The Stranger results)

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CasanovaZelos
09/26/21 10:06:37 AM
#1:


Previous results can be seen here:
https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Rank_the_Tracks

The rules:
1. Listen to the album in full
2. Rank every track on the album
3. For the results, there will be a curve at the top of each list; two additional points between #1 and #2, and one additional point for the next two ranks. This way, the songs that really stick out to someone get an edge that is not immediately negated by someone else putting it lower. In the case of Demon Days, someone's 15th track will get 1 point, 14th 2 points, 4th 12 points, 3rd 14 points, 2nd 16 points, and 1st 19 points
4. If you want to include comments for individual songs, I will compile them in the results
5. The results will be posted at the beginning of the next topic
6. The deadline to vote is Sunday, October 3 at 8:00 AM EST - though if you are for whatever reason listening to the album around that time, just say so in the topic and I can delay a bit
7. You can sign up to be added to a user cycle for after we finish the queue; once we get through the last planned album, the next person on the list will choose 3 albums which the other users will vote on for the next topic.
7a. To ensure people are being given an actual choice, the three nominated albums must be by different artists. You can otherwise stick to a similar sound or era.
7b. The tiebreaker for these polls will be whichever is listed first in the poll options - make sure to deliver the results in order of your own preference (which will hopefully have the added benefit of influencing people toward your first choice if they can't decide).
7c. The order of the user cycle will be randomly determined, but users will first be sorted into tiers by how many of their nominations have been covered during the early nominations period.

Spice Girls' Spice track list:
1. Wannabe
2. Say You'll Be There
3. 2 Become 1
4. Love Thing
5. Last Time Lover
6. Mama
7. Who Do You Think You Are
8. Something Kinda Funny
9. Naked
10. If U Can't Dance

Schedule:
10/3: Iron Maiden - Powerslave (TheArkOfTurus)
10/10: Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves (Snake5555555555)
10/17: OutKast - Aquemini (Giggsalot)
10/24: Of Monsters and Men - My Head Is an Animal (Jesse_Custer)
10/31: Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Snake5555555555)
11/7: The Avalanches - Since I Left You (SpikeSetsFire)
11/14: Moby - Play (SpikeSetsFire)
11/21: Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill (Seginustemple)

User Cycle sign-ups:
11/28: MetalmindStats
12/5: TheArkOfTurus
12/12: Snake5555555555
12/19: Jesse_Custer
12/26: ZaziGuado
1/2: SpikeSetsFire
1/9: Johnbobb
1/16: VeryInsane
1/23: CasanovaZelos
1/30: Seanchan
2/6: Giggsalot
2/13: RyoCaliente
2/20: darkx
2/27: neonreaper
3/6: Great_Paul
3/13: jcgamer107
3/20: ChichiriMuyo

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CasanovaZelos
09/26/21 10:11:29 AM
#2:


Billy Joel's The Stranger results

The participants sorted by deviation from final results (there was a tie for sixth and I treated both songs as ranked 6.5 for this calculation):
ChainLTTP (7)
neonreaper (7)
Arti (9)
ZenOfThunder (9)
Johnbobb (11)
CasanovaZelos (12)
MetalmindStats (15)
Jesse_Custer (16)
Seanchan (17)
HBJDubs (18)
SpikeSetsFire (19)
Raetsel_Lapin (22)
Snake5555555555 (27)
BlueCrystalTear (27)

General Album Comments

Snake5555555555: Simply fantastic album, front to back. I've always been a huge Billy Joel fan, and to me, and I think many others, this is his masterpiece. There's not a single dud on this thing. It's a perfect portrait of romance painted with strokes of rock and roll, soft lulling jazz, and some of the best lyrical craftsmanship this side of popular music. "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" is a 70s progressive epic rivaling the likes of Stairway to Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody with twice the packed storytelling, with well-paced plot beats and a poignant tragedy that I'm sure more than a few young whirlwind lovers can relate to. The storytelling continues on "Movin' Out" a cute song with a fun groove that nevertheless deals with the harsh realities of societal and family pressures, to follow your own passions despite what any other people may say or belittle you for. The rest of the tracks explore love in all its different facets, like the taboo & promiscuous Catholic girl crush in "Only the Good Die Young" which is pure rock and roll on every level, or "She's Always a Woman" in which Joel warmly sings about a woman's (it was written for his wife at the time specifically) flaws and unfeminine traits, and how, despite everything, she's still the perfect woman for him. I could play this album in full all day, it's perfect for whether you want rowdy rockers, a romantic score to set the scene, or when life gets you down and you need someone there for you who always understands.

ChainLTTP: Love me some Billy Joel even if 90% of his songs are overproduced.

Seanchan: The dirty secret is, despite this being my nomination...I've never actually heard this album before! Okay, okay, that's more like a half truth (or a 2/3rds truth to be precise).

My love of Billy Joel is almost entirely from that 2 CD Greatest Hits Volumes 1 and 2 that was put out in the mid 80s. I've heard that collection a million times (and I'm only slightly exaggerating). But we can't (or shouldn't) nominate greatest hits albums, and so I looked and quickly realized most of The Stranger (6 of the 9 songs) is on that collection. And now here we are.

I did a full listen and my brain had such a hard time processing the 3 songs I hadn't heard. The other 6 are practically ingrained in my soul at this point, and so I just wasn't sure what to think about the "other" songs. Did I think lesser of them just because they weren't on the Greatest Hits or because they are truly lesser? Going to do another listen this week to give them another chance.

MetalmindStats: The Stranger was probably the single upcoming album I was most looking forward to - I was planning to participate this week back even before I decided to try returning in full. I guess my first listen brought me face-to-face with the flipside of setting expectations rather than going in fully open-minded, though. In short, my initial impression of The Stranger was unexpectedly middling, milquetoast, and generally mediocre. Now I'm hoping familiarity will ease me into numbers 2-3 the way it usually does, rather than breeding contempt - but if not, I guess I'll always have Vienna.

Then again, I actually like We Didn't Start the Fire, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt.

BlueCrystalTear: Top to bottom, this is Billy Joel's finest work. Not a single bad song here. I can see why the rankings are all over the place.

ZenOfThunder: damn i love this album

Raetsel_Lapin: Fantastic album.

CasanovaZelos: The weird thing about this album to me is that I really do not care about any of these songs on their own, but I can enjoy them together. The Stranger is a much better album than the sum of its parts.

MetalmindStats: I kind of knew my first take was indeed wildly premature once certain songs popped into my head as I revisited this topic to compose my original thoughts. The circumstances in which I conducted my second listen leave only one explanation, which is that I, for whatever reason, decided to have a contrarian opinion and initiated this week looking to fit that narrative. Without that baggage, I found The Stranger roughly as enjoyable and to my taste as I had expected all along.

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CasanovaZelos
09/26/21 10:17:15 AM
#3:


The Stranger track ranking

Note: There were three ties in this ranking; my tiebreaker is whichever song has a better average. If the score and average are the same, I leave it as a tie.

9. Get It Right the First Time (Track #8)
Score: 34 (Average Rank: 7.71/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Snake5555555555 (#2)
Biggest Detractor(s): ChainLTTP, Jesse_Custer, Johnbobb, BlueCrystalTear, ZenOfThunder, CasanovaZelos (#9)

Seanchan: Perfectly fine but nothing special.

BlueCrystalTear: Really the only forgettable song here, simply because it pales in comparison to the rest.

8. Everybody Has a Dream (Track #9)
Score: 41 (Average Rank: 7.29/9)
Biggest Fan(s): BlueCrystalTear (#2)
Biggest Detractor(s): neonreaper, Arti, Seanchan, SpikeSetsFire (#9)

Seanchan: Not terrible but easily the bottom of the list for me.

BlueCrystalTear: Also a powerful song.

6 (tie). Vienna (Track #5)
Score: 70 (Average Rank: 5.57/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Raetsel_Lapin, MetalmindStats (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Snake5555555555, BlueCrystalTear, ZenOfThunder (#8)

Seanchan: Easily the best of the 3 "new to me" songs. As an aside, something about the opening piano notes and the lyric "Vienna is waiting for you" reminded me of Boxing by Ben Folds Five ("has boxing been good to you"). I did a quick listen to that again and, ye gods, it's like my brain forgot how bad Ben Folds singing is. Also, not really that similar!

BlueCrystalTear: Putting this so low feels wrong. That shows you how damn good this album is.

6 (tie). She's Always a Woman (Track #7)
Score: 70 (Average Rank: 5.57/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Jesse_Custer (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): HBJDubs, MetalmindStats (#9)

Seanchan: Despite this being a Greatest Hit, I've just never been a big fan of this song.

BlueCrystalTear: Another great ballad that really echoes the sentiments well.

5. Just the Way You Are (Track #3)
Score: 96 (Average Rank: 4.29/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Johnbobb, SpikeSetsFire, BlueCrystalTear (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Snake5555555555 (#9)

Seanchan: Has grown on me tremendously over the years; it's just a beautiful song that's even better here because the Greatest Hits version is missing a verse or two.

BlueCrystalTear: All. The. Feels. This song gets me every time.

4. Only the Good Die Young (Track #6)
Score: 96 (Average Rank: 3.86/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Arti, Seanchan (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Jesse_Custer, Johnbobb (#6)

Seanchan: One of my favorite songs of all time and my go to when I think about "favorite Billy Joel song".

BlueCrystalTear: Fun, awesome, and strong lyrically. Mixes angst with maturity.

3. Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (Track #4)
Score: 101 (Average Rank: 4/9)
Biggest Fan(s): Snake5555555555, ChainLTTP, ZenOfThunder (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Raetsel_Lapin (#9)

Seanchan: Just a stone cold classic.

BlueCrystalTear: Goes on a bit long but it's thoroughly enjoyable.

2. The Stranger (Track #2)
Score: 110 (Average Rank: 3.43/9)
Biggest Fan(s): neonreaper, HBJDubs (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): CasanovaZelos (#7)

Seanchan: I've been known to whistle this at random just for fun.

1. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) (Track #1)
Score: 110 (Average Rank: 3.29/9)
Biggest Fan(s): CasanovaZelos (#1)
Biggest Detractor(s): Raetsel_Lapin (#6)

Seanchan: Solid song though I always get a little bored of it before the very end.

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Seanchan
09/26/21 8:45:57 PM
#4:


...can't believe Movin' Out and The Stranger were the top 2... I bet they wouldn't be if they weren't the first 2 songs on the album. But I'm thinking you could probably say that for quite a few of our rankings...

Already done two listens to Spice. First listen was "this is terrible, even the singles aren't very good". Second listen was "fuck..this actually isn't that bad...familiarity really does make anything palatable."

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"That was unnecessarily dramatic". - NY Mets motto (courtesy of InnerTubeHero)
Congratulations to azuarc, the guru of gurus and winner of GotD 2020!
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ChainLTTP
09/26/21 9:16:13 PM
#5:


Seanchan posted...
...can't believe Movin' Out and The Stranger were the top 2... I bet they wouldn't be if they weren't the first 2 songs on the album. But I'm thinking you could probably say that for quite a few of our rankings...
Movin Out only had one #1 while Scenes had three. I didn't realize the latter was so polarizing!
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-hotdogturtle--
09/26/21 11:58:25 PM
#6:


This is coincidental timing, because I accidentally listened to a portion of this album like 4 days ago... And this is the week right before the topic that I was actually planning on joining (Powerslave). So I think I'll probably join this one just to get some practice ranking songs (which I am notoriously bad at).

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With what? ROT-13? -CJayC
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CasanovaZelos
09/27/21 12:37:06 PM
#7:


I've listened to this album before and the Spice Girls craze is among my earliest memories but I really cannot remember any song outside of "Wannabe."

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Seanchan
09/27/21 1:32:18 PM
#8:


2 Become 1 was a single, and I'm pretty sure Say You'll Be There was as well, as both were familiar to me. Obviously neither hit the mega-hit status that Wannabe did.

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Congratulations to azuarc, the guru of gurus and winner of GotD 2020!
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CasanovaZelos
09/27/21 9:15:56 PM
#9:


Bump

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SpikeSetsFire
09/28/21 6:54:46 AM
#10:


1. Love Thing
2. Say You'll Be There
3. 2 Become 1
4. Who Do You Think You Are
5. Wannabe
6. Something Kinda Funny
7. Last Time Lover
8. Mama
9. Naked
10. If U Can't Dance

Love Thing performed live is even better than the album version.
And holy shit Posh Spice was sexy!
She might have been the weakest singer, but she completely steals the show here.

https://youtu.be/BnCGkwf_v3M


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Seanchan
09/28/21 9:32:37 AM
#11:


So here's the story from A to Z...this album is way better than I initially expected. This isn't complicated music; it's just fun and unpretentious. I was struck by how "90s" it sounded. The hit single was Wannabe, but it's a lot of the deeper cuts that have beats and the hip hop influences that just screamed "90s" to me.

  1. Who Do You Think You Are
  2. Say You'll Be There
  3. Something Kinda Funny
  4. Love Thing
  5. Wannabe
  6. Last Time Lover
  7. If U Can't Dance
  8. 2 Become
  9. Naked
  10. Mama
And if we're gonna post vids of our top song... They were all some very attractive women, though I have to say that Sporty looks way better with her hair down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YriinrRGug

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"That was unnecessarily dramatic". - NY Mets motto (courtesy of InnerTubeHero)
Congratulations to azuarc, the guru of gurus and winner of GotD 2020!
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rwlh
09/28/21 11:31:21 AM
#12:


1. Mama
2. Who Do You Think You Are
3. If U Cant Dance
4. Say Youll Be There
5. 2 Become 1
6. Naked
7. Love Thing
8. Something Kinda Funny
9. Last Time Lover
10. Wannabe
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neonreaper
09/28/21 2:38:09 PM
#13:


Say You'll Be There
My summer fling in 97 loved this song so I have odd fond memories of it

Wannabe
We got trashed and did karaoke to this way back when, it was stupid

Who Do You Think You Are

Something Kinda Funny

Love Thing

If U Can't Dance

Mama

Last Time Lover
I feel like some parts of this song are OK for what it is, and some are terrible, just built for 90s teen chicks. these people were geniuses

2 Become 1
Trash

Naked

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neonreaper
09/28/21 2:39:24 PM
#14:


and yes I ranked this early and didn't rank The Knife at all

I feel like I had a hard time ranking The Knife and an album I really liked had just come out :(

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CasanovaZelos
09/28/21 2:51:59 PM
#15:


neonreaper posted...
and yes I ranked this early and didn't rank The Knife at all

I feel like I had a hard time ranking The Knife and an album I really liked had just come out :(


What album?

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CasanovaZelos
09/29/21 10:03:19 AM
#16:


bump

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CasanovaZelos
09/30/21 11:04:29 AM
#17:


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Seanchan
09/30/21 1:55:21 PM
#18:


I've had Love Thing stuck as an ear worm in my head for the past few days...

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Raetsel_Lapin
09/30/21 6:06:41 PM
#19:


1: Wannabe
2: Love Thing
3: 2 Become 1
4: Last Time Lover
5: Something Kinda Funny
6: Say You'll Be There
7: Mama
8: Naked
9: If U Can't Dance
10: Who Do You Think You Are

A fun album. While I don't know that I'd actually call it good, it's certainly one of my favorites that we've ranked thus far. It's just so much fun that I find myself willing to completely overlook any flaws or personal grievances and just enjoy the ride.
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CasanovaZelos
10/01/21 12:54:13 PM
#20:


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-hotdogturtle--
10/01/21 9:31:53 PM
#21:


Damn, this week flew by. I still have to do my second listen so I can start ranking them.

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With what? ROT-13? -CJayC
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Johnbobb
10/01/21 9:51:49 PM
#22:


Wannabe
Say You'll Be There
Who Do You Think You Are
Last Time Lover
Love Thing
Naked
Something Kinda Funny
If U Can't Dance
Mama
2 Become 1


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CasanovaZelos
10/02/21 11:09:44 AM
#23:


Wannabe
2 Become 1
Who Do You Think You Are
Say You'll Be There
If U Can't Dance
Mama
Naked
Love Thing
Something Kinda Funny
Last Time Lover

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CasanovaZelos
10/02/21 10:41:28 PM
#24:


Final bump?

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HBJDubs
10/02/21 11:38:09 PM
#25:


Wannabe
Say You'll Be There
Mama
Who Do You Think You Are
Love Thing
Something Kinda Funny
2 Become 1
Naked
Last Time Lover
If U Can't Dance

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-hotdogturtle--
10/03/21 1:31:05 AM
#26:


Wannabe
Who Do You Think You Are
Say You'll Be There
Love Thing
If U Can't Dance
Something Kinda Funny
Last Time Lover
2 Become 1
Naked
Mama

This album didn't really show me anything too memorable outside of the one super hit song. But one thing that I did remember, from my first listen into my second, was repetitive lyrics. Several songs end with (what feels like) a straight minute of the same line over and over until they finally let you go.

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With what? ROT-13? -CJayC
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MetalmindStats
10/03/21 3:57:50 AM
#27:


  1. If U Can't Dance
  2. Naked
  3. Wannabe
  4. 2 Become 1
  5. Love Thing
  6. Mama
  7. Say You'll Be There
  8. Who Do You Think You Are
  9. Last Time Lover
  10. Something Kinda Funny
Spice might not be a bottom-three album I've listened to for this topic series, which is a compliment even though it doesn't sound like one.

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