70s Cup Round 2 Match 14 *echolalia 16- Harvey K-Tel 19*

[trans-chigley express]

Both pretty sweet, both new to me.

I'm surprised you've never heard the Kiki Dee one, it was a mid-70s hit. I had to double check you weren't Rayge who is the most likely person to have not heard well known songs


I like B well enough especially the touch of flute here and there but Amoureuse is a fabulous song and I love it to bits.

A

[C]

Pass



.

[Osgood]

Stellar match. Loved B, fantastic groove, voice, sweet arrangement. But I had to surrender to the gorgeous A, one of the best picks this round, together with that Chico Buarque thing. Cheers


A

[Loki]

The Kiki Dee track was actually on my shortlist

You called a bouncy Power Pop tune bland muzak, but you like this? It's a million times more bland. And plodding.

[Jumper K]

A is overwrought and overblown nonsense. Both qualities I admire in songs.
A.

[Penk!]

A is an OK but slightly naff pop effort. B hits some kind of special midway point between sweetness and grit.

[Darkness_Fish]

Is that a proto-Smiths album cover from Kiki, or a re-release? Reminds me of The Carpenters covering a Bill Fay song. I just can't get with all this bombast on all the songs. What happened in the 70s, did unions rule the roost and demand that their had to be 350 session musicians in on every recording? Just write a song, record it, and fuck off. Nice guitar sound though.

Is someone accusing Darondo of letting their people go? Seems quite accusative that cover. It's another schmaltz-fest, soupy strings, weird forced vocal stylings (although not pompous for a change). Frig it, I've just had enough of this stuff.

A

[mantochanga]

I can't believe I'm not voting for Kiki Dee, but -

B is a fine record and a discovery for me.

[algroth]

Unfamiliar to both tracks here. Wasn't particularly fussed with A, but B is some ace stuff!

[fange]

A is good, but B is gooder. Fascinating story behind him and his career too.


B

[Diamond Dog]

The Kiki Dee track was actually on my shortlist

You called a bouncy Power Pop tune bland muzak, but you like this? It's a million times more bland. And plodding.

Each to their own, Loki...... I don't understand my own tastes most of the time, I really don't have time to analyse yours!

[kath]

i've never heard either track.

the only kiki dee i knew in the 70s was the single with elton (leave me alone. i was a hardcore elton junkie then.) i like this and i get it. she's got a wonderful voice, and i can handle that kinda emotional register. what's in the song fits with the song. but i don't love it. i am often accused in my own faves of being dated, which really doesn't bother me. i am a child of the 70s... my 70s, which rarely lines up with anyone else's, mwhaha. but this one does have a nagging sense of... datedness, even for me. holds it back. i wonder if my response would be stronger if i *had* heard it in the 70s.

B is sweeter. i love the way it moves.

(i also hafta say i love the juxtapositions in so many of these match-ups, so cheers for variety, pickers.)

[driftin]

A I guess. Lusher arrangements but also less saccharine.

[harvey k-tel]

A pretty much encapsulates the sound of the 70's as I heard 'em growing up. I used to sit in my sandbox and sing 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' when I was five years old, for fuck's sake. But tugging on the old nostalgia bone can only take you so far, and I'm a bit disappointed that not once during that song did she actually sing the word 'amoureuse', so she loses points for that.
Anyway, it's all moot, because I love that Darondo tune and likely would've voted for it regardless.

B

[Ranking Ted]

I’m really pleased someone has picked A, that style of AOR pop was all over the 70s but tends to get bucketed as ‘guilty pleasure’ material whereas it’s just good quality pop. It’s a bugger it’s against B, which I recall a certain cohort on BCB extolling a few years ago - he’s got a really uniquely odd voice, old Darondo, and this is a wonderful example of his music. I’m pretty torn on this but I guess it’s

B

[toomanyhatz]

That Kiki Dee track is totally maudlin, over-the-top, session player slickness. I loved every second of it. I love that Darondo album too - I think it was Solarskope that hyped it on here - whatever happened to that guy? - but this one has a more typical groove and more strain in the vocal - he probably should've put it in a lower key.

Close, but A.

[WG Kaspar]

A

[Neige]

A, surprisingly.

B isn't bad, it's just not much of a song.

[echolalia]

Kiki Dee must be destroyed.

Kiki Dee must be served breakfast!

Sorry Darondo, no offence.

A

[pcqgod]

Wow, that Kiki Dee song is great!

A.