The Velvet Forum

I decided it might be fun to hold a contest to determine what is the best/most popular Velvet Underground song. To that end I created on my website Foggy Notion a Velvet Underground Song Contest, in cooperation with the kind people who run The Velvet Forum and allowed me to run the necessary polls on this forum.

Starting January 3, 2005, songs will be put up in pairs every working day for a vote (weekends off). The winner of the daily vote moves on to the next round, until one song remains ? the best Velvet Underground song, listeners? choice.

There are 92 songs in competition (all original songs officially released by The Velvet Underground). In order to arrive at a main tournament of 64 songs, there will be a preliminary round in which 56 songs will compete in head-to-head matches for a place in the main tournament, two matches per day. 36 of the best-known Velvets songs have been granted exemption for this preliminary round.

The 28 songs that survive the preliminary round will be joined by the exemptions in the main tournament, which will have 3 rounds, a quarter final, a semi-final and, of course, a final. Voting results will be tallied and displayed over on Foggy Notion.

To make it worth your while, I will give away one VG+ grade copy of the 1965 pressing of Michael Leigh's The Velvet Underground, the book that gave the band its name. A poll was held to determine what the winning criteria will be (correct prediction of voting percentage for winning song, plus additional criteria; application closed).

As mentioned above, polls will start on Monday, January 3, 2005. Each match will run for two days to allow everyone to vote, and will start and end at 18:00h CET (GMT+1).

Exercise your right to vote!

Yeah okay, sounds like fun!

I wonder what the last two titans will be in the final showdown? "Heroin" vs. "Sister Ray"? "Venus In Furs" vs. "Pale Blue Eyes"?

This is a great, fun idea. No doubt it will be some worthy, if lesser known VU song that wins as the luck of draw will surely put 'Heroin' up against 'Sister Ray'!!!!!!

jimjim wrote:No doubt it will be some worthy, if lesser known VU song that wins as the luck of draw will surely put 'Heroin' up against 'Sister Ray'!!!!!!

This is exactly what's so appealing in my eyes about the tree-structure knockout system we know so well from tennis and football (soccer) tournaments. (For the record, I'd like to state that all matches are strictly random and no seeding has been implemented.)

This system allows the voters to consider the matches and so the songs on an individual basis and inevitably will see the best songs float to the top because they are consistently voted best. But at the same time it, of course, potentially adds the drama of, say, a second round match between two huge favourites

One more thing though....it is the songs we are voting for, right? So, for example, WGO from live 1969 wouldn't be listed seperately from ts studio version?

jimjim wrote:One more thing though....it is the songs we are voting for, right? So, for example, WGO from live 1969 wouldn't be listed seperately from its studio version?

Yeah, it's a song contest (as opposed to a track contest or whatever). I've given it some thought but this format seemed best. Else we'd end up with eight versions of Sister Ray vying for the top slot!

Scope limiting was always going to be a problem, a compromise between the songs and recordings angles. What about Wild Child and Men of Good Fortune, songs we know were written (and indeed played) in the Velvets days? And songs only known from (perhaps obscure) bootlegs? But there is no (easily available) reference material to base your choice upon. This is why I chose the format "All original songs officially released by The Velvet Underground". Should all be easily obtainable/referenced.

For the sound excerpts, I used the "best-known" version (sometimes there is only one version, as with the Loaded demos, which makes things a bit easier). But feel free to 'optimize' the song by thinking of the version that you like best!

Just for reference. Does this mean that for example Ocean(1969/V.U.) will be voted on and not Ocean(P.S.A.S.) even though they're lyricly different or I Found a Reason (Loaded) will be voted on and not I Found a Reason(Fully Loaded) will not be even though they're essentially different songs

Essentially different songs? How come? I don't agree with that assessment at all... They're different arrangements of the same song. And yes, that's what it means.

radiofreesimulacrum wrote:Just for reference. Does this mean that for example Ocean(1969/V.U.) will be voted on and not Ocean(P.S.A.S.) even though they're lyricly different

No, it's the (admittedly Platonic ideal form of the) song that's voted on. Think of its best/most appealing form when you're voting, whether that be the 1969 live version or the 1970 Fully Loaded demo or whatever you want, really.

arjan wrote:As mentioned above, polls will start on Monday, January 3, 2005. Each match will run for two days to allow everyone to vote, and will start and end at 09:00h MET (GMT+1).

Exercise your right to vote!

What does "h" stand for? I only know AM and PM.