Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
I started 'Moderately Acclaimed' tournament started as a ploy to systematically weed out the hidden gems ranked between 501 and 3000 in the AM list. Because people needed more time to do the listening to participate, the game went a lot longer than I'd originally planned. Some of the results were predictable, and some ended up very unpredictable. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was picked by everybody except Nassim who filled out a 'Predict It' bracket as the final victor, but nobody had Pacific Ocean Blue getting nearly this far.
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue (#3 seed in 1971-1982 division, #2278, 1977)
-def 14 Leonard Cohen - New Skin For The Old Ceremony 7-3
-def 6 Neil Young - Zuma 6-3
-def 2 Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle 7-5
-def 1 Marvin Gaye - Here My Dear 9-3
-def 16 Brigitte Fontaine - Comme a la Radio 7-6
-def 1 REM - Life's Rich Pageant 13-11
vs
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (#1 seed in 1997-1999 bracket, #512, 1998)
-def 16 The Boredoms - Super AE 8-5
-def 8 Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen 10-2
-def 4 Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap 10-7
-def 2 Elliot Smith - XO 12-11
-def 1 Beck - Sea Change 15-10
-def 1 The Knife - Silent Shout 16-9
After knocking out all the other obvious championship threats and having Either/Or knocked out by REM, I think everybody expects Aeroplane to win, but in head to head format, you just never know.
The vote will be open two weeks. Hopefully that's enough time for anybody who hasn't heard both albums to hear them.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
My vote goes to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
But giving exposure to an album like Pacific Ocean Blue is what this tournament was all about. I hope to see it do well in the next all-time albums poll.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Pacific Ocean Blue is the real gem of this tournament for me. I gave me a very strange voting pattern: I voted against it in the first half, and the father along it got the better it started to get better match-ups from my perspective. On the other side, you have Aeroplane, which is an album which probably will make it into the top 500 with another update. A total modern classic in every sense of the word. An album I LOVE, something I consider top-5 for the 90s, top 25 of all-time. And well, that beats a hidden gem.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Gotta still go with "Aeroplane." Might not really be a "hidden gem" but it's still brilliant (and also still underrated, as much as I hate using that word).
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
I think I've voted for Pacific Ocean Blue each week... Except for this one. No one really thought it wasn't going to win, and win Either/Or was knocked out that was pretty much that.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
NMH
Despite the at times off-putting singing, it's still an absolute stonker.
Pacific Ocean Blue I enjoyed, but Aeroplane - having only heard it for the first time in early July last year - has shot straight into my heart and there it seems destined to remain. Altogether now:
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
Of course, I was really hoping for an all-Athens (Georgia) final. Mostly because I was hoping to surprise a few people…I was going to take Aeroplane over Lifes Rich Pageant, anyway (yep, it’s that good).
However, I can’t really feel badly about the Forgotten Wilson getting some well-deserved recognition. When, as VanillaFire forecasts (and I agree), Aeroplane vaults into the top 500 next update, I suppose Pacific Ocean Blue will get the vacated crown.
Well you are right that that is the best song on the album. That is one of the emotional songs of all time. The Way Dennis sings on this track is just like he is giving all of his heart out, just like he is dying (and by all accounts, at this time he was so screwed up that he was pretty close to dying 24/7.)
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
I'm not 100% certain about this vote, because I don't actually own Pacific Ocean Blue and I used up my free Lala listen two weeks ago. But, in my computer thingy, Aeroplane is at 22.04 and Life's Rich Pageant is at 28.64, and I picked POB over LRP, so by transitive property, (And since it probably has no impact on the results anyway), I vote Pacific Ocean Blue.
I think if I run this game again (Which if I do won't be until at least 2012), Aeroplane won't be eligable even if it is still outside the top 500.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Music released in 1998 represents 2.8% of my music library; (you gotta love iTunes for how quickly it can satiate nerdy curiosity.) Of those 275 songs, it's a good bet that as of Jan 1, 1999, I probably didn't know about 200 of those.
In other words, in 12 years I've come to discover how musically rich that year was -- Lauryn Hill, Boards of Canada, Massive Attack and Lucinda Williams all released great albums in '98. Not to mention, two of my all-time favorites -- Smashing Pumpkins 'Adore' and an album that I mentioned in last week's bracketology vote -- also came out.
But the cream of the '98 crop has to be "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", a truly devastating LP; a life-ruiner in the best possible way, and one of the most cohesive and fully-realized records that these ears have ever heard. For at least two months of the three and a half years that I've known about it, it was the only record that existed in my world; just something that you find your way back to every so often, and during those periods (maybe a week at a time), there's nothing else musically that matters.
Pacific Ocean Blue is a gem in its own right, but for me it's not even close.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
One more day to vote. Not that the outcome can be affected or anything.
What's surprising me most here is how strongly Aeroplane resonates with people emotionally. To me it comes off as sort of idly existential with a hint of suburban entitlement. I guess we just hear it differently.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
And it's finally done.
The final result...
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue 29 def
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea 0
Not only did Pacific Ocean Blue take down the heavy favorite to win the tournament and complete it's cinderella run, it did so in a crushing shutout! Not a single person...
Wait, I'm getting word that there was a tabulating error! Our people are investigating widespread allegations of ballot stuffing. The people are demanding a hand recount.
The results are in. I have TWO hands. And as for the final:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea 19 def
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue 10
It's only real rival Elliot Smith gone from the competition, the overwhelming favorite takes the victory.
Although the final was predictable, most of the bracket was anything but, so I think (Other than the low vote turnouts in the first two rounds) the game was a success. If it does end up running again sometime, I think we should exclude anything in the AMF top 100 as 'moderately acclaimed', to keep the obvious favorites everybody already knows about from dominating the draw.
Only four people ended up filling out brackets for Predict It (Not counting Henrik who filled one out in January), but of those four it looks like I'm the winner. My entry is nothing to brag about of course, as I had Springsteen in the final. I won because I had Silent Shout in the semifinals, which made me the only one to pick any of the semifinalists other than NMH.
Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Winner: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Congratulations to Neutral Milk Hotel, and applause to BillAdama for running these great polls. Excellent work!
Oh, btw, any suggestions as to how I should include this in the "History of AM Forum Polls" topic? I don't think you have an overview post somewhere, right?
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Congrats to NMH. My bracket got pretty beat up in the beginning with Help losing so early.
Running this again next year using the new update and not allowing albums in the AMF top 100 would be a really great idea, though alot of the quarterfinalists would still be on the ballot.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
VanillaFire1000
Congrats to NMH. My bracket got pretty beat up in the beginning with Help losing so early.
Running this again next year using the new update and not allowing albums in the AMF top 100 would be a really great idea, though alot of the quarterfinalists would still be on the ballot.
That soon? I was thinking of waiting longer than that. But if there turns out to be demand for it, I'd be willing.
Another thing for the next go-around: Any album that qualified for the main draw then fell off the AM 3000 is eligable in the bottom qualification block. That would include Flood, Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, and a few others.
Stephan: You could link to the bracketmaker.com site. Though I don't know how long old tournaments persist there.
Re: Best Moderately Acclaimed Album Final: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea vs Pacific Ocean Blue
Henrik
Thanks BillAdama! This has been one of the games I have enjoyed most.
For the next moderately acclaimed albums poll, what about excluding all albums that made it to the elimination rounds?
That's actually an idea I was going to suggest a little later, to have an entirely fresh 128. But that's not something I'm going to impose on it if it's not popular.
There are also some halfway measures to that. Like 'Only things that didn't make it to X round' or 'For every block of 5, only 2 can have been in the first elimination draw'. Of course, having an 'X round' cutoff would just mean "Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be dominate".