Interactive Poll XIII - Surprise, surprise

Still listening to the nominated songs. I've been a bit busy in the past couple of days, and - to be perfectly honest - sometimes the forum was not my favourite place to be.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone (Lorenzo?) noticed that the lady who introduces Carmen at the beginning of the video is none other but Amanda Lear, who was featured in one of the previous polls.

My favorite vote-able tracks from this thread were Portrait, Radian, I Vostri Sguardi, Groove is in the Heart (love the infectious groove), Gyandarvaal, Mahk Jchi (big Robbie Roberson fan, but I was unfamiliar with this album), and Spaceway 70.  Any of these could have made the top 3 easily in any other poll.  In the end, I went with these three:

1. Air - "Radian"

2. Bruno Pernadas - "Spaceway 70"

3. A Filetta - "I Vostri Sguardi"

I was too familiar already with the excellent Neil Diamond track and the King Missile track (and others) that they were eliminated on my part for that reason.

Here's to you another piece by A Filetta, live

---Diethelm - Family Portrait. Foolish song, with great rhythm, first on guitar then on percussion then on piano, then keyboards. It's not clear what kind it is, and that's the beauty of it. Perhaps too long: a slower pace would have benefited. Podium candidate. 

---Pulp Dishes: catchy and slow melodic song where the singer's baritone and guttural voice matters a lot. Good crescendo in the final. Excellent melody. Podium candidate. 

---Air Radian. For two minutes there are only electronic sounds on the keyboards that I don't like, then the hyperfast harp arrives and finally the flutes that change the mood of the song in my opinion improve it a lot, then the drums arrive and the harp returns. The song seems almost a bolero, at this point, an eternal crescendo but on the contrary ends with a long jazzy tail. Good composition and interesting arrangement. Original music. Will he come to the podium? 

---Dvaar: prolonged sound with keyboards or organ up to about two minutes, then hyper-fast horns and a drum machine arrive and the rhythm accelerates more and more, becoming robotic and cybernetic. Original and refined music but the sound does not excite me and in reality I do not see a great musical idea under the excellent arrangement 

--- Rush: excellent performance, wild music. But I don't like it, honestly.

---Fleetwood Mac: nice pop song, great vocals, but I don't like such intrusive and repetitive percussion.

--- Wicked Game. I love this song. The guitar tour alone creates an unforgettable atmosphere.

--- Is This ... Cohen's pleasantly ramshackle folk song ... Cohen is always Cohen.

I wrote earlier that you don't need to vote for the surprise factor but just for how much you like it, but going through things myself I feel the temptation to vote for the most surprising stuff even if there is some good stuff that these days doesn't surprise me at all - such as Leonard Cohen or the one by Bruno Pernadas, which is high quality music but has no surprise factor to me. I read the reason of Meltdowner for nominating this again and yes, it makes sense. I was after this kind of surprise, too, when opening the poll. I won't vote for this as even quality-wise for me personally it would end up in fourth or fifth place.

On the other hand, can't say that I'm going to be a Dee-Lite fan any time soon, but yes, this is original and surprising. Same of course the detachable penis, hell, that one may even scratch the podium.

Mahk Jchi, Carmen, and Steve Miller are half way between surprise factor and greatness. All these appeal to me and are special... and may not quite be up there... but then they might (haven't yet decided on vote 2 and 3).

Halfway through the tour... surprised that apparently nobody else has made a song with this topic! It's a pleasant listen but narrowly fails to enter my top 3 A-Ha songs (and they have >3 great songs... maybe not as many as Nik Kershaw but still...) as well as the top 3 here.

The Neil Diamond one is quality music for sure but not really my cup of tea. Beautiful People - the Hendrix sample idea is fun, the track doesn't get me really.

Dvar on the other hand... this is the kind of music I'm easily game for... but have heard actually quite a bit of such stuff, so low surprise factor for me.

Now listening to Air - Radian for the third time... if it comes out strong again it will snatch the second spot, although it annoys me to always vote for Logan's stuff; other people deserve my votes, too. But also the surprise factor is there... I remember having heard quite a bit of Air at the time, but none was as good as this now seems to me.  Yeah, gotta do that.

So I have a top two now, but half the rest and more is tied for third...

--- Carmen: Bulerias: Spanish prog music. Good commercial music.

---Steve Miller Band. Oh, this is only rock and roll and I like it- Good sound, very inspired song. Great bass. This is what I call immediate music, born from a genuine inspiration. Candidate to the podium.

--- Bruno Pernadas: very relaxed and relaxing song. Easy listening. With his music I imagine women in bikini in a beach in Kenya (or Brazil?)

--- Beautiful People. Well here every credit goes to Hendrix. But okay very relaxing song... cocktail lounge? Or a girl in your room after dinner in the darkness, while you are whispering sweet words...

---Dee-Lite... funny demential funky song.