AAm Gourmandises: Thunderdome LIVE Chat Party! Sunday May 3, 2009 1pm PST/4pm EST
 

Hello, Lilly Town People!

For the next chat party, we'll be switching gears a bit, again...


Ten songs enter! One song leaves! ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE! Get ready to help select the best of the best from Alizée's first album, as all ten songs battle it out mano-a-mano in a round robin tournament, until one emerges victorious and is crowned KING OF THE RING!!

Will Alizée's heavyweight breakout hit 'Moi...Lolita' take home the prize? Will top-rated contender 'L'Alizé' manage an upset? Or will the under-rated dark horse 'A quoi rêve une jeune fille' come from behind to bring home the belt? Your votes will decide!



---

"But how do I join?" you ask? It's actually pretty easy. All you need is a headset & mic (or just a mic and your computer speakers), and to download the Ventrilo client. Then you configure a few settings (really easy to do), connect to the server, and you're off to the races.

Click here to read a really easy-to-follow tutorial that Tomtentp wrote up about it, complete with screenshots! Or just watch the video below!

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The settings for the Vent server that Jung has set up for AAm are as follows:

Once you're in, all you have to do is click on the 'Video Commentary' room to join, and press the left CTRL key to talk!

The date and time are still tentative. I'm not married to them by any means. So if you'd like to request a change, speak up below! Whatever works for everybody works for me!

Questions? Concerns? Problems setting up or connecting to Vent? Go ahead and ask below. I promise I won't make fun of you...much. :p

Thanks guys! Hope to see everybody there!

Hahaha sounds good man.

YESS! Man I'm glad. Today was an awesome show, and I'm more than happy to continue to participate in them just because they're an absolute blast to do.

Rounding up the best of the Alizee fanatics to battle out the best songs.

See you on May the 3rd guys!

And maybe everyone should go verify that Ventrilo works for you since a little change was make to the server to allow the Mac guys to work. It still makes records for me, so I guess that means it works.

Not that I talk a lot in the ventrilo :p, but I can't make it on Sundays. Just wanted to make sure that you guys know the reason of my absence in the past chat parties.

:eek: so... it means I can use it?? ( cause I'm on Mac..)

u shouild be able to.

Yes, I can confirm that it works for the Mac now.

Cant wait.

Alright, having figured out some logistics here, I'd like to present some options to the group. As I see it, there's four different ways we can structure this.

1) "Round Robin"-Style

Every song faces every other song over the course of the chat party, with the panel voting for one or the other, and ties broken by the chatroom. Songs are assigned 3 pts for a win, 1 pt for a loss. The song with the most points at the end is declared the winner. This method has the potential to be a little long and drawn-out--I've counted, and it will require a total of 45 match-ups--and the end might be a little anti-climatic. Statistically, though, it's also the most "fair". (I have to admit it kind of hurts my head to think about it, though. I was an English/Drama major, after all.)

2) "Playoff"-Style

We divide the 10 songs into 2 "conferences" of 5, then do a quick vote to determine the songs' ranking within their conference. The bottom songs from each conference are dropped, and the remaining eight are bracketed like so.

"East".............."West"
1............................1
..> A..................B<.
2............................2
.........> X vs Y <.......
3............................3
..> C...................D<.
4............................4

Again, ties go to the chatroom. This method only requires between nine and thirteen votes total (depending on how difficult it is to rank the individual songs within conferences), so it allows more room for discussion and debate, and is a little more climatic...but it's kind of bogus in the sense that every song doesn't get to face off against every other song. Also, for the purposes of the podcast, I'm concerned that we might blow through this too quickly.

3) "Survivor"-Style

Exactly how it sounds: in this method, instead of voting for a winner, in each round the panel is instead chosing a song to "vote off the island", until we come down to the final two. Then we vote for the winner. This method is by far the easiest to manage, is probably a little more "fair" than Playoff-style, and has the potential for some pretty heated and exciting debates...but again, it's hardly scientific, and we might blow through it too fast.

4) Some weird Frankenstien mashup of the above :p

We could easily mix and match elements of any of the three styles--say, divide the songs into conferences, then do a round-robin within each conference to decide the final match-up, for example--in order to draw things out or make it more interesting. Whatever you guys want.

Of course, if anyone has any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Let me know what you think, guys!

Well, if you could assume that everyone knows exactly what their rankings are for each song, it logically only requires 9 votes and which two you match up is irrelevant because each person would already know which one he prefers more.

So, for example, if ML beats LOT, then we give LOT a chance against G and LOT wins, then it goes against ML again. Why would anyone change their vote here? ML would win again. So, the problem would be if you would say that G is better than ML even though it's not better than LOT, but ML is better than LOT. That's very indecisive.

I'll just say that when playing football, for example, it does not work the same because each game played is different. The rankings are based on a competition not a predetermined vote. The songs never change. It's not like we have several performances of each song that we are comparing. Now, if she had performed each of her songs several times during concerts and whatnot, then it would be a bit more interesting. We do have performances and remixes, but only of certain songs.

If one compared a whole group of performances with different songs, one might even have a favorite performance and have them all ranked up, but in choosing which song is best one would have to choose performances of that song more often than any other. So, while a particular performance of JEAM might be your all time favorite, there could be more performances of JPVA that are better than some of the performances of JEAM and JPVA could come out as the ultimate winner. Again, I don't know if we really have enough Alizée performances to do a competition of that sort.

But anyway, I'm open to any style that the group decides on.

lol courtesy of our friends from spanish AF :p

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1662/liga1ronda.jpg

the big game :p:

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3917/francoiscoty1.jpg

Not necessarily. I'd argue that while everybody knows which song is their favorite, probably knows which is their second-favorite, and might know which is their third-favorite...after that, it tends to get a little murky. The idea of matching up each song with every other song is that it really makes you quantify it. Sure, you probably know where ML stands in comparison to everything else... but AQRUJF (wow, what an awful acronym!) or MM?

That's where the real differences in opinion would come in, I think, and that's what would allow for some interesting movement in the backfield (i.e. the not-singles), and could even allow for an upset if a song like, say, V3 gets more "wins" against the competition than you'd expect.

Wait, I'm confused...why is LOT going up against ML a second time? There aren't any "rematches" in any of the three structures I proposed! :D

In the first example, every song "fights" every other song only once, and is ranked according to how many victory points it racks up over the course of the "season". (But it will literally take 45 votes for every song to face every other song only once!) In the second, we're eliminating songs bracket by bracket until we come to a final "East vs. West" showdown. And in the third, we're simply picking off songs one by one, round by round, until we come to the final two.

I'll admit I'm probably overthinking this, but at the same time I think it may actually be more straightforward than I'm leading you to believe. I might not be explaining myself very well...I'll draw up some examples.

Yeah, same here. Again, if anybody has a better idea, I'm all ears.

LOL Uh, yeah, what you said.

Well, damn. I finally get to use a mic on one of these chat parties and I can't make it. I have to go to some stupid basketball banquet and then a graduation party. Oh the irony. This is the first one I have had to miss, but I wont miss the next one.

Heh, that's ironic. It's too bad you're going to miss it. I think this one's gonna be pretty spirited!

OK, I normally try to avoid double-posting, but it's been a few days, and I'm purposely trying to bump this as a reminder for everybody, sooooooo...

After much cursing and gnashing of teeth, I've finally figured out how this is gonna work.

• • Every song faces every other song, over the course of eleven rounds
  
• .
• • The first round has five face-offs, the rest all have four. Every song sits out two rounds.
  
• .
• • A song earns 3 points for a win, 1 point for a loss. Ties are broken by the chatroom.
  
• .
• • The song with the greatest number of points at the end of all this nonsense will be declared KING OF THE RING!

Here's how the match-ups break down round-by-round, according to the handy-dandy Excel worksheet I'm going to be using to keep track during the actual chat party:

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6701/gthunderdome.jpg

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/652...nderdome02.jpg

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/1...nderdome03.jpg

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/5...nderdome04.jpg

(Yes, I know the colours are awful. Deal with it. :p)

I've got it set up to total things as we go, so I can give round-by-round updates as we go along:

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4448/gthunderdome05.jpg

(You can download the workbook here, in case you want to follow along at home. Any values you plug into the boxes on Page 1 will automatically fill in on the totals chart on Page 2.)

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, guys! Otherwise I'll see you all there tomorrow!

LOL This is hilarious! wow good job, mad skills! Alrighty then. I will continue to listen to those today and try to get my rankings together.

ok awesome man, defenetly Im there lol, man some are tought choices to make:)

Will try and make it as well, should be able to since my Sunday is free, as long as the folks or my friends don't plan anything. I will give the album a good listen tonight and try to rank them I suppose, I know nothing about music though; just that I like the way it sounds, hope I don't come off as stupid lol. :p

Ok, another great time. We actually had fun the whole time going through all 11 rounds and the winners were a mystery right up to the end. So, here it is:
Song Points
Moi ... Lolita 27
L'Alizé 25
Gourmandises 23
À Quoi Rêve Une Jeune Fille 19
J.B.G. 19
Parler Tout Bas 17
Veni Vedi Vici 15
Lui ou Toi 13
Mon Maquis 13
Abracadabra 9

I was a bit surprised at Parler Tout Bas ranking that low and really wanted L'Alizé to win, but I'm pretty satisfied overall. Here's the ranking I had, though I'm not quite certain about some of these. The first 4 I think are really great songs and should definitely be at the top:
L'Alizé>>
Moi ... Lolita>>
Gourmandises>>
Parler Tout Bas>>
Lui ou Toi>>
À Quoi Rêve Une Jeune Fille>>
Mon Maquis>>
Veni Vedi Vici>>
J.B.G.>>
Abracadabra>>

Woo! That certainly went over well! Thanks as usual to everybody who came out to participate, it was a really good time! Just like I thought it might, the debate got pretty heated at points, but it seemed like everybody had a lot of fun even when they were in complete disagreement! :p

We will definitely have to do this again soon with MCE!

Thanks again, all!

Oh yeah, we need to create another thread for it, but to follow up here, we decided to do the Moscow concert next Saturday, the 9th of May at 1pm Pacific, 4pm Eastern.
So, watch the video and make note of any comments you can think of. Also, try to think of any general points, like which is your favorite song, outfit, background?, or whatever.

That was a blast and we had a good turnout, this blew my expectations away figured it wouldn't get that heated or be much a discussion, but it was really good. Thanks to everyone for showing up and throwing in your insight and for Ruro for setting this all up, wait until you all get to listen, it's a good one! I look forward to the next chat as well, cya there ;)

Will try and take some notes since I am pretty sure I can make it ;)

I just want to reiterate my first comment that one could not choose a better album for this. This is a really great album. Alizée's voice is so rich and very pretty, and mostly the lyrics flow very nicely in this album. So, her voice is very musical itself. I can't imagine Alizée doing a better job with this (and of course in general the production of the sound). It's really a shame that not more of the world took notice of this album when it came out (particularly the U.S. of course). If certain other artists, not to be named here, can sell millions of albums, this should have sold even more millions than it did. I think everyone should be generally aware of Gourmandises.
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/5798/50020326.jpg
this being making that sound. is there anything more beautiful? if so, it could only be Alizée herself

Now, having said that, it's true that in the past I have said that I like MCE even a little better; so, doing that album will also be great fun I'm sure! We better hurry up. Alizée's next album will be coming around soon(ish)! (one can hope)

I'm quite Disappointed with you guys on Mon Maquis http://www.defensivecarry.com/vbulle...vol_1/twak.gif I'm thinking a http://www.defensivecarry.com/vbulle.../vol_1/ban.gif is in place for all who voted against it http://www.defensivecarry.com/vbulle...l_1/decil3.gif

Well, at least a sang a bit for you. :p Ok, maybe I need to practice that a bit.

TELL ME ABOUT IT! Man, some of those face-offs were just painful to sit through. It's such an under-rated song...!

I voted for Mon Maquis a bunch of times. Sorry I couldn't make it to the recording, but Ruro had my sheet. One thing I talked to him about, and maybe you all did too, was how much external things like videos might effect the voting. I mentioned JBG and Gourmandises in particular, but forgot to point out MM also as the song in my head when travelling through Corsica.

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Your votes definitely made it in, Ben. In fact, you broke quite a few ties for us, and the panel kept remarking on how much they wished you'd been there to explain your choices. Unfortunately, you and I (and Jung, but he was in the chatroom) appear to be the only ones who rate MM so highly...

Oh, neat! We did indeed talk quite a bit about the impact of "outside influences" on the voting, especially in the case of JBG ("Hip swivel for the win!").

maybe we need to recruit some friends for next time ;)

Mon Maquis is quite a highely under rated song, lyrically it is probably her strongest song and it sounds sooo BA

Ah, if anyone wants to ask about them, go ahead (though maybe best to wait until the podcast is posted?). Certainly many were a hard choice, maybe even a bit arbitrary, and could change day to day. The only thing totally set in my mind is that Moi Lolita and Veni Vedi Vici are top, while Abracadabra's at the bottom. Though even that's really, really good.

Hey hey hey lol u forgot about me lol. Mon Maquis is the best we all know it and love it ahahha.
Another great podcast thanks to all who showed up.

I think it's Veni Vedi Vici that we were most curious about, since you ranked it so highly, and it appeared to be the one we were most evenly divided on. (Most of the ties you broke involved VVV, as I recall.)

Abracadabra appeared to be at the bottom of everybody's list (except maybe M'alizee's) and kind of became a running joke, as did Mon Maquis consistently tying it for last place (until the last couple of rounds, anyway).

Ok I'm sorry I wasnt there very long. I have a very good excuse though, I was at graduation party and it got pretty wild. I am really tired right now so... I think I'll finish this thought tomorrow.

Abracadabra's not bad. It's got charm, just up against heavy competition. Also if you're listening to an mp3, make sure it's high bitrate because the effects play havoc on compression!

Veni Vedi Vici, well there isn't much to say really, I just think it's awesome. Encompasses everything I picture of early-era Alizée. Maybe people forget it cause it wasn't sung in concert. A crime!

That's what I was saying. Abr & V3 weren't in the concert and of course not singles; so, they are overlooked. I think I kind of assumed that it must be that people didn't like them as much. But yeah, with two albums if they decided they had to cut something, they had to cut something. It's like you always here these directors say they put together like 4 hours for a movie and then cut it back to 1h45.
I will again say when we do the Moscow concert (this weekend?) (next Sunday after is Mother's Day (doesn't matter to me as my mother is in another state, but probably for many ...)) I wish Alizée had done L'Alizé also in Mexico. That's like my second favorite Alizée song.