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ICA WORLD CUP 2022 : THE SEMI-FINALS

icaworldcup

In football talk, I’m over the moon that so many of you are voting with each passing week.  The 2022 ICA World Cup has been a bigger success than I ever imagined, to the extent that an idea came to me on holiday for a spin-off tournament for 2023, the details of which I’ll outline in early January.  It’ll hopefully continue to make Sundays a bit of competitive fun.

The quarter-finals, on paper, looked intriguing, but ultimately, three of the four ties had been settled by Tuesday evening which, because of being on holiday and then either travelling or jet-lagged, was the first time I’d had a look at how things were progressing. 41 votes had come in by Tuesday, and by Friday night, nine more votes had come in.  No matches attracted a full house, and the final outcomes in those three matches turned out to be:-

Television 5 Joy Division 43

John McGeoch 15 The Jam 28

The Go-Betweens 19 Orange Juice 25

The final match was a thriller.  It had to go to three recounts. At the end of the first day of voting, Blondie had 17-10 advantage over Human League.  Monday was a good day for the Sheffield synthpop idols with the lead narrowing to four, with the score standing at 20-16.

Just eight votes arrived between Tuesday and Thursday, of which one wasn’t interested in this particular tie.  The New York new wavers were getting anxious as the score stood at 22-21 as we went into the final day.

The Human League then pulled level for the first time in the tie when JG cast a vote at 2.05am.  Aldo and DAM restored the 2 point lead for Blondie by 6.36pm.  Just under 30 minutes later, amd made it 24-23. 

The last word most weeks has gone to hamirthehermit as he usually comes out of his hiding place quite late on a Friday.  This week it was 10.17pm.  And yes, this was the final vote to be counted.

Human League 23 Blondie 25

Every bit as nail-biting as the Argentina v Netherlands match in the FIFA World Cup.

The interesting thing about the four semi-finalists is that two of them were huge commercially back in their time, while the other two were part of the indie scenes in their home cities who enjoyed only fleeting chart success but would later be accorded all sorts of critical acclaim. It’s also fair to say that all four semi-finalists have featured regularly over the years on TVV, and the posts have usually been well received.

It was prior to the start of the tournament that I decided which song from the ICAs would represent the singer/band at any particular stage.  For the semi-final, it was always going to be Track 4 on the A Side. Have fun choosing between these……

Joy Division (ICA 160) v The Jam (ICA 152)

mp3 : Joy Division – Dead Souls v mp3: The Jam – Private Hell

Orange Juice (ICA 219) v Blondie (ICA 198)

mp3: Orange Juice – L.O.V.E. Love v mp3: Blondie – (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear

Voting closes at midnight (UK time) next Friday, which is the 16th of December.

 

JC

46 thoughts on “ICA WORLD CUP 2022 : THE SEMI-FINALS”

  14. The much anticipated Jam- Joy Division final fails to materialise.

    Joy Division- on the song alone, Martin Hannett pulling the strings from the technical area is too much for Weller. Buckler buckles and concedes a late penalty which the boy Curtis smashes home. It’s the fans, they keep calling him.

    Again, based on the song Blondie beat Orange Juice on this occasion. Edwyn’s left his best players on the bench.

  20. Think the results might be a foregone conclusion, buuut- we’ve already had a World Cup of upsets so…
    That said I am going with (at time of posting) the majority here:
    Home win for JD
    Away win for Debbie & gang.
    thanks JC
    anwe

  22. I’m sooooo sorry for Edwin, but ‘Presence’ has always been in my Blondie Top 3. And with ‘Private Hell’, The Jam don’t really stand a chance against ‘Dead Souls’, so it’s:

    Joy Division
    Blondie

  23. The Jam
    Blondie

    (I do like the OJ track… but if Edwyn gets through to the final, I’m calling for a steward’s enquiry!)

  33. Joy Division
    Blondie

    In the second match, I leaned towards Orange Juice at first. But then I discovered that it’s a cover version (Al Green). That gave a few deductions.

    Four iconic bands of the 70s/80s in the semifinals. The program that I wrote derives from this the average age of the listeners of this great blog. It is 58.4 years.

  37. First semi is a no result from me, neither song a favourite and can’t separate the bands.

    Blondie go through in the second semi, narrowly.

  41. Four great songs but life is full of difficult choices and these two, one way or another, touch me more than their opponents:
    Joy Division – Dead Souls
    Blondie – (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear
    Thanks!!

  45. There are very few tracks that would beat “Dead Souls” in my book, and “Private Hell” certainly isn’t one of them. So one more vote for JD please.
    As for the other, am thinking Blondie are resting their top talent for the final, but they ease past OJ regardless.

  46. 4 for 4 last week, I suspect this week I will be swimming against the current.

    Joy Division v The Jam
    My inclination was to vote for the Jam going in, then I listened to the JD song, and was really intrigued by this instrumental I was listening to. And then the singing started. Should have just stuck with the instrumental.

    The Jam

    Orange Juice v Blondie
    Dang. How appropriate would it have been for Edwyn’s song here to have been “What Presence?!” Always felt Edwyn was really stretching beyond his capabilities with “L.O.V.E. Love,” vocally. But ya gotta admire the gumption to try, and it really exemplifies the fire of youth and DIY and pushing the boundaries of what you can do in an effort to grow. So it’s really a quite rough around the edges song, trying to pass itself off as a polished effort. As opposed to Blondie, which is just a polished and produced number that does nothing for me. What Presence?! indeed.

    Orange Juice

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