MUSIC LEAGUE - a way to gamify your music taste

MUSIC LEAGUE IS A FUN GAME WHERE EVERY ROUND YOU PICK OUT SONGS BASED ON A THEME
THEN A PLAYLIST IS CREATED
THEN YOU VOTE ON THE SONGS VIA UPVOTES AND DOWNVOTES

WHO WANTS TO PLAY MUSIC LEAGUE?

I'll start a ILX league with a basic 5 round game - winners will get to pick the theme of the rounds in the next game.

You can play on mobile or web.

JOIN HERE https://app.musicleague.com/l/ec1767aa53a34d73aa8cbd4f9c5e8aa1/

Looks interesting but it seems you need spotify to sign up and I'm not going to use spotify, sorry.

Samwell - What What In The Butt

exactly! i dont pay for spotify and i still play

The Roches - Hammond Song (Arthur Baker "Downtown" rmx)

lol one of my besties plays this, she is always pissed of at the rest of the comparatively mainstream tastes in her group

3 players so far woo!

Yeah I’m in. Sounds fun.

aight i'll do it

we have 4!!!

SIX!!!

I HAVE JOINED THUS

THIS

Oh I’m so happy

Im the one with the Steve Perry avatar

this sounds awesome, I'm in

i have entered the building

good you're the one I wanna beat

I definitely won't be this first round though lol

10! WE HAVE A LEAGUE PEOPLE!

like a maniac I have my choices set up for the next rounds too

It took me a while to work out how to submit my votes. It looks like you're given an allocation of 10 plus points and 2 minus points, which you can distribute amongst the songs however you want, i.e. you can give a song more than 1 plus/minus points, or you can leave a song on 0 points.

Yah I can change that I’d people want that’s just how my other leagues are

It's good this way!

The fact that you can give out negative points is gonna tank my chances at ever winning this thing

Jumped aboard too late for Round 1, but I'll be able to play in Round 2.

The chat and comments make for the best part of the leagues. Plus non-algorithmic music discoveries.

Oof should have disabled downvotes. I feel bad downvoting other people’s noms and there’s nothing I think even warrants them in this round.

Someone less lazy than me should transcribe the tracklists from the playlists in here for future reference.

So we have to give two downvotes and also can't give more than three upvotes to any one song? Is that right?

No more than 3*

I like downvotes because I’m a hater

If only the White Mountain Cooler jingle from 1986 was on Spotify. Damn thing has a "You Give Love A Bad Name"-style chorus intro, a verse, a pre-chorus, and another chorus, all in 30 seconds!? I guess that means that their next commercial was their "New Jersey"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1XlpbUVaUY

I’m lolling a little at the blurb that’s longer than the song it’s describing

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Oh it’s a relief to see my song climb the standings as more votes go in lol

lol, this is not the experience I am having

I didn't get last place so that's nice

One voter remains. What could possibly be riding on it?

looks like my song is the one people are the most indifferent to, that's something at least

Wow! ILX hates weird Paul!

I thought it was ok, it was just not as good as all the other songs, so I had to downvote it per the rules of this game

Love it

(The hater energy)

Just voted - maybe I needed at least 900 more gecs

Very interested in the tracklist for round 2! Love grooving.

I’m gonna suck so bad at round 3 I don’t know any britpop music. I don’t even know what can be considered as Britpop besides the obvious things. Are the Stone Roses britpop? Is early The Verve allowed?

I'm not even sure I know what a groove is so I might sit the next one out for fear of making an embarrassing mistake.

Thanks to the first round for "Final Day" which I did not know and which has been haunting my brain for the last few days.

This round made me realize that the short songs I respond to most are the ones where the song itself is in some way about not quite having enough time. Also, I think, why I have always responded more strongly to the Stones cover of "Good Times" than to the Sam Cooke original: the Stones version is shorter, under two minutes, and I think that's one reason it's always given me a more intense feeling of a fleeting golden moment that will not be repeated.

so no one else is waking up every morning with "Bart and Marge, they are in charge" stuck in their head?

Oh you seriously need to get on the Colossal Youth album. It sits on its own plane of existence.

Xpost to lily

And Lily: I think of groovy music as music with an insistent rhythm that makes you feel like bobbin your head, your body, your mind. don’t overthink it, just groove.

Sorry kurt (//0~~0//) xps

Do we have to allocate all our votes? As did feel bad down voting

only all the weirdo boys

If anyone fancies another league, these year-based ones have been counting back from 2010 and are now at 1963. A good crowd of people there, including one or two who have been on ILM in the past.

https://app.musicleague.com/l/ed26d5b1adc54d84a9e05d4d48290513/

Being before my birth year for a few now, having some imposter syndrome, but enjoying the yearly playlists in that series of year leagues. Resorting to an early piece from a favorite for 1963.

Also, Alba, your personal playlist links are appreciated!

This is a blast. A nice big canvas for ILM to strut its stuff

Too big? My vote is being dragged in many directions

This is my first time doing an ilm league but for next season (if you haven't done already) doing a somewhat topical "xxxxxxxx who just xxxxxxx whats on your playlist" category could be fun.

Have we really gotten to the point where we are going to downplay a song like “Work It” just because we already know it?

There's no right or wrong reason to up or down vote something, I think

I hesitate to give upvotes to a song I'm really familiar with, but wouldn't actually downvote it.

that's been my approach generally, but I've had to down vote stuff I liked in the past (not this round), so sometimes you just have to come up with a reason

I didn't upvote that one because I just assumed everyone else would and it didn't need my help to win.

But I also think it makes the playlists more interesting if everyone doesn't assume that obvious submissions will outperform the obscure ones. I'm definitely here for the discoveries.

you gotta use your downvotes - no judgement

Maybe I should have made this my pick for the rap round then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kppx4bzfAaE

I don't tend to downvote songs I like (unless they're in breach of the particular round's theme) but I definitely tend to be more enthusiastic with my upvotes for discoveries

We keep telling people “there’s no penalty for picking a well-known track and then 75% people get penalized for picking a well-known track. I think we should be a bit more honest about what we’re doing here.

Both people to have voted since the above complaint have awarded 3 points to the song in question. There's a reason we don't discuss individual song rankings before it's actually over. That said, might be time to put Hot Dad away for a bit

And also this round, with only 5 voters left over half the tracks are still in contention for a podium finish.

Plus we've had some massively well known tracks win rounds in the past so they're not always penalised

For me, it's a fun game that I'm enjoying with the added bonus of discovering plenty of good music. It would definitely lose some of its appeal to me if, for example, this round had just been 24 of the greatest (and most well known) rap tracks ever

A song from Medulla won the first round and it was arguably the most obvious and well-known pick for the round concept.

It doesn’t seem to be a constant, it’s more about vibes I guess.

Also the current #1 (and the one that is likely to win) is arguably also a pretty well-known song from a very beloved hip hop icon.

there are shades of ubiquitousness, from "heard once before", to "hear often" all the way up to "this is the #1 example of this thing and everyone knows every note by heart" - and there's a sweet spot somewhere on that continuum, probably something like "I know this well but it's a pleasure and surprise to encounter it again here in this context" - like that Cure song which won a round last time. Of course this all only counts if people like it in the first place, very different dynamic if people dislike it.

Save us Moka, start the albums rollout :D

My votes depend on how much I enjoy listening to the track now. Some classics hold up well, others have lost their lustre. In this round, it was 2-1 in favour of the former.

Yeah I don't downvote popular tracks on principle; sometimes it might be a tie breaker, sometimes I'm just not that into it.

Looking ahead to the obscure countries round, with 25 players and 195 countries there is an 80% probability that two people will pick the same country just by chance (for real! it's the birthday paradox). I think it would be fine to downvote more obvious countries, but not to have enforced downvotes if two people pick the same country.

That said, might be time to put Hot Dad away for a bit

no it isn't

Hot Dad can't hold a candle to the OG Devastatin' Dave

see the problem is that song is "Zip Zap Rap" and therefore does not fit "anything but rap", whereas the Rappers don't like rap (they're afraid of it)

I tried nominating the Parappa the Rapper song that is based around Can’s “turtles have short legs” (aka the Instructor Mooselini rap).

Fortunately for the competition it wasn’t available as it would have been an easy win.

I can envision an issue with familiarity in the next round, not because of the ubiquity of a specific song, but the likelihood of 2 people choosing the same artist within different guises or band names, potentially splitting the votes. But I'm super-psyched because this round might set a record in the number of "holy crap, I had no idea that existed, where has this been all of my life!?" songs

So clarification on First Live Act round. It's first one you saw (even if parents took you) but assume it's ok to choose the headliner and not the support act (who would actually have been the first band you saw live)?

Anyone who was on the bill of the first live performance you remember seeing

You can skip Sesame Street Live etc but not a symphony concert

Lol. Cheers

This first live act round is not going to go well for me, I fear, as I've no control over what my 11-year-old friend invited me to see with him.

Fortunately for me, when I was eight my parents took me to see The Cure/ Curtis Mayfield/Charli XCX co-headline tour

It's basically impossible for me because

* Went to festivals with hippy parents, probably saw someone at Glastonbury 1983? But no memory of it.
* Then vague memories of local folk festival, I could name some of the performers in the kids tent, very unlikely to be on Spotify.
* I remember a guy at the commune who would play accordion sometimes released an album, don't think that counts as a gig. Ditto a guitar guy.
* Actually remember bits from a couple of acts from Cambridge Folk Festival, was it '91? But doesn't feel like My First Gig at all.
* First I went to without parents was Heineken Free Festival in Leeds in 1995, the first band on were a local group called Jack Planet, who (research tells me) never released any records
* So think I'm going to have to go with the first act I saw that day who actually released a record, which is uh an odd choice

In those circumstances I'd probably just forget the festivals and go with the first actual gig I went to

Or do what you did. It's all good

First non-festival gig was a local Worcester band called Overview who featured a school friend and never recorded anything.

Stop challenging capitalist assumptions!

I keep trying to think of something earlier but by this point I'm pretty sure my first concert is something I went to with some friends that I didn't really like much then and don't really like now either.

I am basing my submission on a simple criteria - agency. Who was he first concert of a musician for which I thought "I want to see them live", then I personally purchased a ticket?

All apologies to the hyper-corny ""rap"" artists who appeared at my then-girlfriend's church lock-ins, or competent cover bands that my junior high school would book for assemblies, like 'The Edge', etc.

question of clarity about the next round: are you supposed to downvote if you've heard the song before or if you think anyone in the league has heard the song before?

I assumed it's only if you've actually heard it before

For anyone enjoying "In a Big Country," might I recommend my favorite Girl Talk song "Hands in the Air," which mashes the track with "Whoomp (There It Is)." (It also happens to sample "Invisible Touch" from Genesis and two Janet Jackson songs.)

Eight hours left to vote, stragglers

Eight hours left to vote, stragglers

as promised
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/97435031_10158428047120600_2325011667299074048_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s1080x2048_tt6&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=D0NNdESVBB4Q7kNvgHn_jA8&_nc_oc=AdjNvZQKq60Nmql7xfmFjwXCY0okc2rlpJf1LhdUtNVyHMCP9-tOgxfylqmW4K9_c20Mx8NVYLCaXUjkAS3upW2k&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AT0tprU_xyaB0wVwvAe4g1X&oh=00_AYDM4cg8BSvL1XL3jT58XOSphHGIwhrt-5r_uyYilGNa4g&oe=67DE61C9

Awww 🥹

That is so cool.