... And Raise You 40

Ha! I did get it done by Sunday! Mostly because I was too tired after work to play games and listening to music is easy, although in this case I wouldn't exactly call it relaxing. Remind me not to do it again next year. Yeah... right...

Anyway, here's part two of the series no-one wanted. My specialty! See the first installment for the rules. 

Hah! "Rules"!

1. Cortisone - FHUR - ooh I like this! Skittery, fractured club beats with a scifi gloss. Keeps shifting focus, too. As they say, bangin' - A
2. The Ball - Youth Sector - 80s funk/disco with a disturbing twist, not least in the band's fashion choices - B+
3. That Girl - SpaceAcre - If they ever ban animal masks there's going to be a lot of indie bands flat out of ideas for the next video - solid indie-rock - B
4. not a vibe - Chubby Cat - Got a strange feeling we've had Chubby Cat on the blog before... B
5. British Rail Class 170 Turbostar - Static Caravan - ok, we have a winner for the best band name/song title combo... Half Man, Half Biscuit do Kraftwerk. I really want to see what these people look like - B+
6. Holy Smokes - Shtëpi - Whoever told you the post-punk revival was over was lying. They just keep coming. What are the Glaxo Babies doing now, that's what I want to know? Their day finally came and they're nowhere to be found. - B
7. Statue - Tilly Valentine - A blessed relief after all that clanging and banging. Sweet pop r&b. C+
8. Nothing's Gonna Change - Rowan - What I said about post-punk before? Same for guitar bands. C+
9. Girl God Gun - Gen and the Degenerates - Oh, this is the one we've had before. Sorry Chubby Cat, my mistake! Also, more post-punk fractured funk. Top end, though. A
   
   
10. Letter of Resignation - Problem Patterns - FFS! Forget post punk, now it's 1978! A minute too long but otherwise great, especially that solo. B+
11. Keeper - Natalie Lindi - Not sure what this is. Pop balladry, I guess. - C
12. Twist - Joe T. Johnson - Link goes to David Dean Burkhart's channel and this sounds exactly like that would lead you to expect - C
13. All in Your Head - Caleb Kunle - funky R&B - slick - not doing it for me, though - C
14. SOLEIL - GEORGIAN - Strikingly odd video that fits the lush, quasi-goth tune. Nose rings really seem to be making a comeback. - B
15. Rituals - Mouse Teeth - it's like whoever did the playlist programmed the last one and this so you'd go "Oh, no, you're right - that's what a strikingly odd video for a quasi-goth tune really looks like!" - C
16. E1 - Latir - not easy to label, so, good for that. Brooding comes to mind but a little playful as well - B
17. You're a Lot - SISTRA - Pleasant, unmemorable - C
18. Sundays Are Always Quiet - NO PHOTOS – Had high hopes for this from the title but it's not my kind of thing at all. - D
19. Move On - Temm - Pleasant. Nothing else to say. - C
20. Knuckle Sandwich - Some Remain - Blimey! That woke me up. Post-punk, here we come again, only with some hardcore thrown in. Video's clever. - B
    
    
21. Heartbreaker - Internet Cafe - I really liked this but Internet Cafe is a flat-out weird name for someone peddling smooth drum&bass infused R&B - B+
22. Out of My Mind - Jonathan Patel - There's retro and then there's archival retro. Even the font screams 1973. Fine if you can't find your time machine. - C+
23. Ringing- TEEG - Not going to attempt to label this. Really oughtn't to be listening to it. - C
24. Feeling It All - Nadia Kadek - Possibly the first song I've ever seen on YouTube with a completely black screen throughout. Minimal visuals, minimal music. Certainly makes you concentrate on the singing. Makes me feel I ought to be in a church hall somewhere, drinking warm orange squash and concentrating hard. - C
25. Solve - Izzy Withers Prod. Eddie Lopes - Is someone playing some kind of existential joke here? Now it's a plain pink screen with a female vocal and minimal musical backing. Well, minimal until the drummer wakes up around halfway in. This is gorgeous - delicate and fragile. Lovely. B+
26. Somewhere in the Middle - Niji - Jazz-funk instrumental. Really, what else is there to say? - C
27. DRILL VS GRIME [THE PRELUDE] - Jords, Lil Sykes - Like I could tell the difference! - C
28. Southbound - ladylike - I thought I knew where this was going and then it went all prog on me! C (Or B+ if I was fourteen again.)
29. Feeling Like  - JayaHadADream & Wasalu - Dreamlike and soothing in a way it really oughtn't to be. - B
30. 24 hours - Chloe Slater - O. M. G! My absolute favorite so far. I just watched in awe. The disconnects between what she looks like, what she sounds like, what the backing track is doing and what she's saying are like a series of drug hits. I felt jangled to glory. One thing I haven't addressed at any point is how these 90 acts would actually look on stage at Glastonbury. Chloe would be mind-blowing. Apparently this is literally the only thing she's ever done, too, so her set would be hella short! - A. Thinking it might be A+
    
    
31. You Wanted This - Jodie Nicholson - I don't think I did, you know... Another black screen, this time with a rather pleasant instrumental track playing over it. How is this a submission for a live performance at a festival? And yet... B
32. Shade of Blue ft. Jess Edie - FineMusicUK - I'm getting confused now. I guess in the chillout zone. Do they still have those? - C. Maybe B. I'm losing the ability to tell one thing from another.
33. I'm Fine, I'm Alright - Hongza - I think this might be an actual band. I'd almost forgotten such a thing existed. Not sure I wanted to be reminded like this. - C-
34. ELEPHANT - Zoka The Author - Very odd video. Again with the animal masks. Pretty original, especially the violin. - C+
35. Untied (Left You Behind) - Con - Nice groove, soulful r&b, lowest views of all the videos so far, I think (13) - C+
36. Voiceover - Soft Top - very muso pitch in the blurb, citing Steely Dan as an influence and name-checking half a dozen bands the eight of them have been in before. Polished AOR. That's not really a compliment. - C
37. Oxygen - Auger - Synthygoth! He has a deeper voice than that guy out of Tindersticks. Made my speakers rattle not to mention my chest. - B
38. IF WE FALL - Affection To Rent - Grunge, apparently. Also the singer was "hand-chosen" by members of D. C. Fontaines. Very, very rocky. As in rock music. Not as in shaky. It's not at all shaky. - C
39. Ticket To Rock - Daxx & Roxane - Fuck me! Timing is all. Did I say the last one was rocky? This would give AC/DC a run. I literally had no idea anyone under 60 still made music like this. Or wanted to. Seriously, it sounds exactly like the second support band on a Thin Lizzy tour sometime around 1975 - C
40. Under Attack - BackRoad Gee - Something going on here I don't understand. This has 1.3m views. Reminds me oddly of Spearhead. I think it's the arc-welder. - C+

Oh, wow... and that's the end. I'm really confused by the numbers. Everything I read said there were 90 on the longlist. With three flagged on YouTube as "unavailable", there still ought to be 87 but I count only 85, which is the same as the playlist, so I didn't miss any. I guess whoever said there were 90 must have rounded up.

I can't say I'm missing the extra five. If I'm brutal, almost none of these would ever make the cut for a post here. (Lol at any of them caring!) Even the ones I like mostly don't feel exceptional and most of the others are so far out of my remit I can't pretend I even know if they're good examples of their style or not

The prime exceptions are Chloe Slater and George Houston. It was worth going through the rest just to discover those two.  24 Hours I think is both a wonderful song and a super-clever video. The first time I heard it (I've listened to it half a dozen times now.) I didn't get the irony, as you might get from the notes I made. Then the second time I read the lyrics and realized what was going on. 

I still kinda wish it was what I thought - a preppy, rich girl flaunting her privilege - just for how gloriously, nuanced that would make it as a pick for Glastonbury. I get it now and it would still be very meta. I'm not entirely sure why everything on the wall is backwards, though. Does that signify something or did Chloe literally film the whole thing in a mirror? 

As for George, as I said last time, I think he's going to be a big star. I'm pretty sure he thinks so, too. He'd go down a storm on a festival stage although maybe storm isn't exactly the metaphor I'm after.

Good luck to both of them. And to all the other eighty-three acts. Or is it eighty-five?

Still not sure about that.