☘ The holy tide of Christmas All others doth deface • Traditionals & Other Classics • II God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen I know, I know. I'm late for the European timezone's Xmas. I also know that God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen is actually an English traditional carol, not Irish. But then again, despite my complete detachment from anything remotely christian, it's undeniable that this song 1) bangs and 2) was covered by a few of our Irish Ladies. Moya went for a more traditional approach, while Loreena instilled her trademark World influences in her version. Andrea, as we've already seen, interpolated the song for her lovely Begin Again. from An Irish Christmas, by Moya Brennan from A Winter Garden - Five Songs for the Season, by Loreena McKennitt from Christmas Songs, by Andrea Corr But which is my favourite version of the song I hear you ask? Well, I'll have to bend the rules again and move to Scotland this time around, because icon Annie Lennox still has me by the xmas balls with her thundering, paganism-laden, vocodered, incredible version.from A Christmas Cornucopia, by Annie Lennox Incredible. See you soon x no but forreal ☘ @Sprockrooster likes this.
Loreena also reliably delivered her annual year end message on time. Unfortunately no video this year, therefore let me share this gem from last year: In 6 minutes, she manages to adress Covid, the bad influence of social media, climate change, and most hilariously a building project in her hometown she doesn‘t like. What a queen!
Willing to meet Willing to go Willing to share *sigh* #41 Moya Brennan Lead (and only) single of Whisper to the Wild Water • ☘ • Released in 1999 Official artworks for Europe, Ireland and promo • ☘ • Restored by yours truly Europe got the best artwork here, it's true. • Scores • 7,620 Highest: 9 @Sprockrooster @If You Go • 8,5 @Verandi Lowest: 6 @IEngineered @DoggySwami My score: 8,5 Trajectory: 30 - 40 - 40 - 41 - 41 • PJ Awards • Highest charting 10-less song From now on, every song got at least one 10! Most consistently scored song - TIE With a difference between extreme scores of 3 (9 - 6). Tied with a song from a different Irish Lady which will end up in the Top 3 (!) Least PJ-friendly song Nominated by @IEngineered • The song • Poor Moya, here we go again! Follow The Word is the opening track and only single of 1999's Whisper to the Wild Water, Moya's second and final "Christian" album. I didn't realize in time for the rate that there was a Pop Mix for the single release too (embedded above) but I think the original album is better; who knows though if the gays would have sent it to the Top 40 because of it. We'll just never know! I think it's a great song! It's very well produced, varied and full of interesting flourishes despite the theme, from the Gaelic lyrics and the layered voices to the Uilleann pipes "drop" and the drums. Follow The Word is one of Moya's most experimental yet accessible songs, a New Age banger if you will! But what did the audience say? • Commentary • @DJHazey (7) "I feel like this song does a lot of different things, none of them in exemplary fashion though. It’s always enough to keep my attention and a far better experience than when I first listened to it though." @Cutlery (7) "Moya harnesses the power of electric instruments for a bit and boosts her melodrama, and I think I like it." @jtm (8) "Ooh electronic production, a guitar and her vocals. This is great!" @pop3blow2 (8) "Meanders a bit, but still holds my attention pretty well." @saviodxl (8) "Ok, this one has some sort of 'atmosphere' I can get behind." @Filippa (8) "Beautiful, mystical, spherical melody." • The B-side • Featured on the album but also on the Irish CD single, Life heavily features... an electric guitar??? Yas gurl slay! • Non-Irish PJ catnip • ☘ Next up: the Top 40!!!
Top 40 Codes: Title = Still running Title = One of the last 10 eliminations Title = Previous eliminations Andrea Corr 5/8 Hello Boys Shame On You (To Keep My Love From Me) Ten Feet High Champagne From A Straw Oh Brother Pale Blue Eyes Tinseltown In The Rain Begin Again Sharon Corr 0/4 It's Not A Dream Over It We Could Be Lovers Full Circle Dolores O'Riordan 8/12 Ordinary Day When We Were Young Human Spirit Stay With Me Black Widow Switch Off The Moment Skeleton It's You The Journey God Be With You Loosen The Noose [with D.A.R.K.] Summer Song [with The Cranberries] Moya Brennan 4/12 Against The Wind The Days of the Dancing Big Rock Heal This Land Follow The Word Whisper to the Wild Water Show Me Tara Tell Me Now (What You See) [with Hans Zimmer] Merry Go-Round Green to Gold [with Grand Canal] River of Songs Sinéad O'Connor 8/12 Mandinka Troy The Emperor's New Clothes The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart Fire On Babylon Thank You For Hearing Me This Is A Rebel Song It's All Good No Man's Woman The Wolf Is Getting Married Take Me To Church Loreena McKennitt 9/12 Stolen Child Snow Huron 'Beltane' Fire Dance All Souls Night The Old Ways The Mystic's Dream The Bonny Swans The Mummers' Dance The Highwayman Caravanserai Ages Past, Ages Hence Lost Souls Extras 6/10 Brídín Brennan - Hang On Cara Dillon - The Lonesome Scenes of Winter Eimear Quinn - The Voice Eleanor McEvoy - Sophie Enya - Ebudæ Mary Black - Past the Point of Rescue Mary Coughlan - Double Cross Orla Gartland - Did It To Myself Siobhan Fahey - Was It Something I Said? Una Healy - Battlelines In the last 10 elimination, Moya and Sinéad lost the most tracks, with 3 each, while Loreena was the only Irish Lady not to lose anything. Questions for the public now! Which song are you positively surprised is still here? Which 3 songs do you want to leave ASAP? Which 3 songs do you think will actually leave in the next 10 eliminations? Let a gay know! ☘
1. The Old Ways 2. God Be With You, Fire on Babylon, The Wolf Is Getting Married 3. Pale Blue Eyes, Black Widow, Battlelines Loreen is going strong lately, which is massive. She could stand to lose Lost Souls at this juncture, maybe Highwayman too. Follow the Word is interesting left-field song, but the title track is a better and glad to see it hangs on instead.
Seeking comfort Seeking comfort somewhere #40 Dolores O'Riordan from Are You Listening? • ☘ • Released in 2007 Photograph from the Are You Listening? photoshoot Artwork & lettering by yours truly I snapped with this one no it's true. • Scores • 7,640 Highest: 10 @Sprockrooster @pop3blow2 @Trouble in Paradise Lowest: 4 @jtm • 5 @IEngineered • 6 @DJHazey My score: 8,5 Trajectory: 66 - 65 - 51 - 50 - 40 • The song • And so, Are You Listening? finally loses one of its 5 tracks, even though they all placed in the Top 40. An iconic album me thinks. I'm not surprised at Black Widow being the first one to leave, because I can recognize it's not for everyone; it's a very dark song and sonically one of the most noticeable outliers from the song list. Black Widow was written as a reflection on Dolores' mother-in-law's death from cancer shortly after The Cranberries went on hiatus. One of the most experimental songs in Dolores' catalogue, it starts off as piano-led gothic ballad, before morphing into a heavy metal piece accompanied by an electric guitar and whispers. According to rumors, the song was written for the “Spider Man 2” movie soundtrack, but Dolores later denied it while talking about the track: “I think the Spider-Man thing is just a rumor, something that developed a life of its own on the Internet. I quite like the piano part on Black Widow. I had the melody down and I remember playing it for my husband and he said it’s really nice, but it’s really weird. And I think that’s when we started thinking it might be right for a soundtrack. He said it was ’very spidery.’ Then we started going through what we went through with my mother-in-law and I started putting lyrics to it. The way it all unfolded was such an experimental process for me, never really knowing what it was going to come out like in the end. But in the end I really ended up liking it because it is so different, you know?” I remember that, when I first bought the album, I used to skip Black Widow all the time because it lowkey gave me anxiety and horror movie vibes. This queer has always been soft! In the years though I really grew into loving it; it's still not a 10 because I feel like the piano part is a bit too long and the heavy metal one a bit too short, but all in all I'm happy I included it here. You guys seemed to get into it too, as the song steadily climbed the leaderboard until reaching its peak position. • Commentary • @jtm (4) "This is a nope from me" Sad! @IEngineered (5) "interesting but not fully realised, the song feels like a weak attempt to sound like Evanescence" Stream The Open Door! @DJHazey (6) "Definitely hearing something very-Kerli about the first part, but not necessarily one of my favorite Kerli moments. Yes, the heavy-metal morph makes things better, but I totally expected something more. Okay so not In This Moment or anything, but you’re talking to someone who is about to host the Nu Metal rate." @Cutlery (7) The piano and then turned twinkly melody threads the line between irritating and mysterious oh so lightly. I'd be able to love this properly if the heavy segment was kept till the end, because that's the best part. No lies were detected. @Filippa (9) "What a beautiful song." @pop3blow2 (10) "The seeds of of some modern artists I like feel planted here. Growing an AURORA plant here, perhaps?" • Live • • Bonus track • We love a keychange! • Non-Irish PJ catnip • ☘ Next up: one of the most divisive songs leaves! One of you will be very happy about it, one... much less so.
Yeah, I feel like the song would have done better if it didn't hold anything back and just completely dove into the insanity instead of dipping its toes into it.
Holla! One of you will be very happy, another... not so much Yeah, get hurt but in love that's just the way Ooh, light your #39 Una Healy Battlelines Second single from The Waiting Game • ☘ • Released in 2017 Official single artwork Sorry for the 4 pixels, this artwork has been wiped from the internet • Scores • 7,653 Highest: 11 @saviodxl • 10 @DoggySwami @Remorque Lowest: 2 [USER=28749]@Beautiful Child 2[/USER] • 5 @If You Go My score: 6 Trajectory: 2 - 11 - 33 - 32 - 39 ... Y'ALL. • PJ Awards • Most PJ-friendly song Nominated by @saviodxl @Sprockrooster @Trouble in Paradise • The song • Me before receiving the first ballots: Me after receiving the first ballots Now, every 11 is valid and I believe in democracy. BUT when I tell you I screamed when I saw this getting an 11 in a list of songs that includes, idk, Sinéad's or Dolores' selection I... well. @Beautiful Child 2 is somewhere in Ireland right now, maybe punching a wall after seeing Battlelines outlasted The Last Day of Our Acquaintance. Meanwhile, @saviodxl is... somewhere in Italy? Portugal? No idea honestly, that girl likes to travel. Ah, The Saturdays. What an iconic girl group. They appeared out of nowhere, colour-coded like a Stabilo highlighter marker set, served countless bops, reached #1 with a terrible song, got routinely pregnant and then... simply disappeared, leaving behind a few broken-hearted gays and song-of-the-century All Fired Up. With every disbandment, said gays can only do one thing: follow the solo music careers of every single one of the girls, each of them finally "free to make the music they always wanted to make". Results may vary: for every Ghosts, there was a Messy Little CumRaindrops, for every Maybe, a Boyz. The possibilities were endless and exciting. So what did The Saturdays want to make, specifically? Frankie and Rochelle, babies. Vanessa and Mollie, an album chose other career paths. And Una? Well... she had a guitar and she wasn't afraid to use it. Una decided to do that kind of pleasant, non-descriptive folk-pop that aims for the quality of The Corrs but ultimately sounds like the debut single of a male X Factor winner. Listenable? Yes. Memorable? Eh. Produced with a potato and a prayer? Probably! But while Battlelines is harmless enough, even catchy, it's the video that's somehow hilariously sad to me. Una, the woman who delivered the iconic "Keep me, keep me, keep on your radar" line looking like a haute couture cock destroyer, was now walking down an old street, guitar in hand, leather jacket on, opening her debut album with lyrics such as "Don't give up" or "Yeah, we gotta get up and we gotta move on". I could feel the authenticity being injected into my veins girls, and suddenly I realized that... most straight people just want to be boring in life, and that's ok. At least it didn't outlast Ebudae. But what did the girl-group-loving gays had to say? We'll have a look right now! • Commentary • @If You Go (5) "It’s fine, I like the verses better than the chorus." @DJHazey (7) "I wonder if you thought the future Saturdays re-rate host would auto-throw an 11 at Una (not to mention she is Hazey’s #1 rated hottie in all of music) but honestly I was pretty lukewarm towards this album. Hey you all saw how much I loved ‘Golden’ in the Kylie rate and I have a laminated Shania stan-card for life, so there’s no an aversion to the country lane she chose to ride in/ Just nothing on the album, this included, ever got a lot of repeated plays. Nothing ‘popped off’ for me." fff I admit I was half expecting you to give your 11 to this. We love surprises! Also yes she's a stunning woman, and from what I remember she bagged herself a total hunk after being cheated on by her trash ex husband so yay you go girl, we are all rooting for you. @jtm (7,7) "What a fantastic end to the rate. Doesn‘t really fit with anything before it but I like it" @pop3blow2 (9,1) “This was a standout track, on a surprisingly solid little album. I think someone compared Una’s solo course to the sonic course Mandy Moore went on… so that comparison endeared this a bit to more to me! ” I really need to go through the Mandy Moore top 10 from your rate and decide if I want to dive in her discography. @DoggySwami (10) "I love this song and I knew from the beginning that I would rate it high. Still, there is a big difference between songs that you like and songs that are objectively good, but I think after this rate Battlelines holds up as a very good pop song." @saviodxl (11) "I live for a countrybop! Una shines playing her guitar (probably the only Saturday that can play an instrument, what's good Frankie?) and her vocals alternating between really soft and throaty explain a good part of why I like her." You know what? I can appreciate a throaty vocal moment. • Official video • Sigh. • Bonus track • Never See Me Cry is a bit of a bop too! She also yassified the guitar along the way, so that's progress. Next step is to set it on fire. • Non-Irish PJ catnip • Remember when Jordin was the best popstar on the planet for precisely 4 minutes? Now she stans NFTs apparently. ☘ Next up: another song that started off in the Top 10 and then tanked! It's from a main girl. Place your bets!
I am just gonna sit here and say that while I am not too fussed about this song, which comes across as a surprise, it should have outlasted Ebudae. Now I will wait for @Verandi to throw something at me.
I'm still very happy that Battlelines got as far as it did. The little extra track that could! I was thinking about Sharon Corr this week...if Freefall had been released in time for this rate, it would have been seriously the biggest promo it would have had.
Hello. I know I've been a disaster with this rate, but I haven't abandoned it! Actually, I pretty much try to get back to this every evening without much success. The past month it was impossible to carve out the necessary time for elimination post while I was drowning in deadlines, work, potential covid fevers, men and sometimes mental health twists and turns. But I'm doing much better now and most exams are done, so this should resume shortly AKA this coming weekend! Again, thanks for the patience! Here's a bop I've been playing endlessly this month: THE HEEEEEEEEEEEAT
