Covid-19 Invitational Tournament-Heavy Hitters #1

Hello and welcome to the Covid-19 Invitational Tournament.  I have selected 120 songs from 120 different artists and I have "invited" them to participate in this tournament.  The concept is that you are "The Man" and you have the power to influence the mainstream world to fall in love with a song from a progressive rock band.  Whilst I know that we would prefer that this hit song be a 25 minute epic or a 3-minute masterclass in dissonance all of the songs that I have chosen are of the 5 minute or less variety (I cheated and picked a couple of slightly longer songs but most of them are 5 minutes or less).  All of these songs have been released in the last 3 years (a couple that I chose that were released in 2017, so may be slightly more than 3 years).  I have broken the songs into 24 brackets of 5 songs each.  There are 6 different categories and 4 groupings of each category.  Once the totals are tallied the 4 winners of each bracket plus one wild card will move on to the next round.  I have chosen the songs either because they are catchy, they have good lyrics, they can be danced to, they have a good hook, or mostly just because I like the song. This means that most of the songs are from crossover, symphonic, or Neo, but hopefully there will be a few surprises along the way.  

From this list, Phideaux.

rushfan4 wrote: Man With Hat wrote: I somehow get the impression this will not be a contest for me.  Sadly, you probably are not alone since these are likely the songs that many of you love to hate, but to me they are good songs.  I guess is that all I can hope for is that some of these songs connect with a few people.  Maybe you will like some of the "surprises" or maybe you won't.  I imagine I might not have the right audience here, but if not here then nowhere and if nowhere then that leads us back to here.

I love Muse. Their new album is great. Algorithms is yet another showcase of Matt Bellamy's beautiful arrangements.

Alright, so day one didn't exactly "shock the world" but maybe it'll pick up steam as we go.  Thank you for those who have voted and commented.  There has to be an audience out there for these songs. I know that the crowd gets pretty excited for Permanating on the Steven Wilson live DVD.  There's gotta be some folks from Manchester that are like "dude he's singing about us! *devil horns*.   I love listening to the epics and the complex chord changes as much as the next PAer, but I've always felt that our prog friends can also write damn fine catchy "pop" tunes as well.  I think that the feeling amongst all of us old-timers is that this forum has grown really stale with all the conversations about Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, Rush, King Crimson and all the 70's bands.  There is room for discussion about other artists and that is really what I am trying to start with this tournament.  I am trying to "introduce" you to songs from the last three years.  I get there are those of you that are going to hate these songs because there are no out of tune saxophones or oboes or that they aren't using vintage mellotrons or moogs and that there are those of you who heard Genesis play in 9/8ths so nobody else is allowed to do that because they are just being but hopefully, there are some of you out there who just like to hear a good song.   Anyhow, here's hoping for more discussions and I will be adding the next bracket soon.  Cheers!

Wow!  A prog song about Manchester?  Get's my vote!

The Wilson tune is the worst. Phideaux, the best. Never been a fan of Muse. Neal and APP meh.

Thanks for doing this and I hope more members join in. Current music is severely overlooked here. Any chance others can suggest some tunes?

Edited by Grumpyprogfan - July 23 2020 at 10:26

Though I sincerely hope these polls will pick up steam (and I intend to participate in all of them), I think the number of responses so far for a poll based on new prog music is quite good. Of course, it would be nice if people who have no interest in this, or just don't find the music to their taste, kept it to themselves. This is a general remark, not aimed at anyone who posted here.

Having taken the time to listen to all of these, the Phideaux really stood out as my clear favourite. I found it excellent.

I was listening to Phideaux's Infernal the other day and while I really enjoy the album this song just really stood out for me as the song that would have been the huge hit back in the day.  Kind of the Another Brick in the Wall of Comfortably Numb of today so to speak.  It was kind of the inspiration for me for the entire tournament.

Edited by rushfan4 - July 23 2020 at 12:12