Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 6 Results

Round six is officially behind us, but it leaves us with a serious contender and a new high score, at least for now. Once again, a Nirvana acoustic cover proved popular with the voting public, as The Man Who Sold the World racked up an intimidating 7.55 average. In addition, it made the Wall of 10s thanks to votes from Aiko and G.  It was joined on the wall by GNR’s epic version of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, which, despite the ten-love from Aiko and Chris Roomba, barely squeezed past I Don’t Believe You.

In this rare photo of David Bowie, we see that Kurt Cobain not only covered Bowie's music, but also covered his hair.

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 8

I heard you guys liked ukeleles. I have one of those.

Votes due by Thursday, October 13th at 11 pm EST: After we finish these matches we will be 50% of the way through the round- and 25% of the way through the whole tournament (hooray math!) I don’t have an overarching theme on these matches, but as always, we try to make them compelling. And we’re trying not to make powerhouses play each other early (for reference, our highest scoring first round loser to date was “Romeo And Juliet,” which averaged 6.56 and would have been good for 9th out of the winners so far, so I think we’ve been doing ok.) It’s getting tricky, but we’ve still got some great ones left to listen to. Grooveshark link is here– let’s get going with the descriptions: Continue reading

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 7

Rodrigo y Gabriela ignored the sign

For once I’m  not feeling real chatty, so let’s jump right into the match-ups, shall we? Votes are due by Wednesday at 8pm PST.  Listen to songs here, except “Rockaway Beach.”

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Seeding Preview After 5 Rounds

Hi all- thought it might be nice to share an update on how the winners seeding is going now that we are 5/16 of the way through the Round of 128. Remember, we are only doing one re-rack this tournament and that will be after this round is over. No adjustments after that! Here’s where 20 of our 64 songs that will be advancing stand so far : Continue reading

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 6

Voters, welcome to the working week- unless of course you happen to be a public servant like myself or a very devout observer of Italian/conquest-themed holidays, in which case you’re knee deep in a three day weekend.

We both did entire covers albums, but got no love from the nominators. I guess having ten covers of my songs and two of yours is a small consolation.

Today’s matchups, while relating in no way, shape or form to Columbus Day, do feature interpretations of four great classic rock acts, all of which Columbus would have found most enjoyable had he been fortunate enough to participate in the Covers Tournament. Today’s covered artists include: The Beatles (for a change), The Band, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie. Some of these covers you’ve definitely heard before and some of them you may have even come to know before the original.

Link is here, votes are due by Tuesday evening at 10pm EST.

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 5 Results

they fought the breeders... and they won

Janos ditched the Internet for the weekend, so I’m filling in to give you the results of Day 5. We had some real nail-biters in this set. The big winner of the day, and showing potential to make it to the later rounds, was The Clash doing I Fought the Law, whose average of 7.29 is the highest of the tournament so far.

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Covers Tournament R128: Day 4 Results

Sorry for the late post, although it’s going to likely be the norm for my days of posting, particularly with these new late polls we are propagating. On to results! Another member of the Wall of 10’s slides into second highest average score of all winners as we mark our way 25% through the Round of 128. Let’s review.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Nirvana) defeats Oh Mary (Theresa Anderson,) 157.75-130.1. I love the spirited discussions on “what is a cover, should Run DMC be in this, is every version of The Star Spangled Banner a cover, etc.” Wherever you land, Nirvana’s Leadbelly cover advances here. Three 10’s here as well from Jacob, Grant, and BDay.

Wonderwall atop Smells Like Teen Spirit, 122.4-102.7. Tori barely broke the century mark here.

People loved the novelty of the Social Distortion “Ring Of Fire,” which defeats Hank III’s “Cocaine Blues,” 146.3-116.2. They go on as well.

Last, Norah Jones “Cold Cold Heart” over Eva Cassidy’s “Fields Of Gold,” 142.05-112.71. There’s your 0.01, Bday.

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, day 3 results

Most of these match ups were not very close calls.  No super high average scores for this round, either – but we certainly hit some low lows.  We did have some strong negative reactions to some of these songs (I’m looking at you, Boyz in the Hood).  Do we have any sleepers that might go far? Only time will tell – but high scorer of this round was Hugo with 99 Problems, and I think he’s got some real potential, if he gains points with repeat listens.  We shall see.

Winning is not one of Hugo's problems

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, Day 5

It’s been a great first week at the Covers Tournament, but we’re still looking for those break-out songs that will pace the field for the next month. You can listen here, and vote by commenting below before 8pm…PST on Saturday. Might as well give those left-coasters Saturday night to rock out.

Tonight we start off with two fun, brassy numbers:

Don’t Do It (The Band) vs. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Al Green)

After a six-hour concert, The Band closed out the Last Waltz with this tune, a Marvin Gaye original, though in the movie it’s actually shown as the first song. Al Green brings some zest to the song that introduced the Beatles to America.

I Fought the Law (Clash) vs. Happiness is a Warm Gun (Breeders)

Next up, the Clash bring some real ammunition to this Bobby Fuller Four original. One day in 9th grade I saw the “Rock the Casbah” video on MTV and was just thunderstruck. I hopped over to my buddy Nick’s place, and he was raving about a song HE had just heard on the radio, “I Fought the Law”. The two of us went to Tower Records and split the cost of The Clash’s Greatest Hits, which was ok, because he had a CD burner. This story makes absolutely no sense to someone under the age of 16.

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Covers Tournament: Round of 128, day 2 results

Well, apparently voters have finally found some songs they kind of like. This round included the first two entries in the tournament to average higher than 7. Amy Winehouse’s interpretation of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and Joey Ramone’s swan song rendition of Wonderful World both won over voters and earned very solid and respectable scores (Dock of the Bay also came pretty close to the seven mark, making it the third highest scoring song of the tournament so far). In addition, Wonderful World becomes the first Covers Tournament song to make it to the Wall of Tens (both Janos and Astrid gave it the nod). On the other end of the spectrum, Slightly Stoopid’s version of Leaving on a Jet Plane set a new mark for the lowest average, with a lot of voters reacting unfavorably to the reggae-zation of the Peter, Paul and Mary classic.

"I'd just like to say this gig sucks."

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