22nd July 1998
So far as I can determine by thumbing through my old email logs, I never wrote anything like a comprehensive review of volume 1. The marks here are the ones that I awarded for the purposes of the ``taste'' spreadsheet, which is reproduced below.
Date: Fri Jul 24 18:12:36 +0100 1998 From: mirk@ssl.co.uk To: all@ssl.co.uk Subject: Official Taste Results
Well, here are the results. You need a wide screen to read them, so get your xterms nice and wide, and look at the following table.
For each track, reading from left to right, it shows: its position on the CD; who awarded it what votes; the minimum and maximum scores; the total scores; the standard deviation; the average; who submitted it; and the artist and title.
The tracks are sorted by average score:
TRACK Mirk Alec Mas ChrisW Sarah Chris Emma Nich Sacha MIN MAX TOTAL SD Average From Artist - Title ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #13 6 5 7 7 10 7 9 9 --- 5 10 60 1.69 7.50 Sacha Prokofiev - Dance of the knights #22 5 9 9 8 6 9 5 6 5 5 9 62 1.83 6.89 Mike Sam Brothers 5 - Lafayette special #20 7 9 4 6 8 5 8 7 7 4 9 61 1.56 6.78 Steve Led Zeppelin - I can't quit you baby #5 6 8 6 4 7 8 6 8 7 4 8 60 1.32 6.67 Mike Jefferson Airplane - White rabbit #1 6 --- 8 9 8 7 6 6 3 3 9 53 1.85 6.63 Alec Ed Alleyne Johnson - Oxford suite 4 #21 6 7 3 7 --- 10 7 5 5 3 10 50 2.05 6.25 Sarah Joan Baez - Forever young #6 --- 8 4 6 7 8 6 6 4 4 8 49 1.55 6.13 Mirk 'The Mission' soundtrack - Gabriel's oboe #12 3 8 3 --- 7 10 5 6 5 3 10 47 2.42 5.88 ChrisW This mortal coil - Song to the siren #7 9 6 4 5 2 6 8 --- 7 2 9 47 2.23 5.88 Nich Hendrix - Love or confusion #10 5 7 6 7 1 8 --- 4 8 1 8 46 2.38 5.75 Emma Lush - Lady killers #18 5 6 5 6 7 5 6 --- 6 5 7 46 0.71 5.75 Nich Fleetwood Mac - Rattle snake shake #14 8 7 6 3 1 8 9 5 4 1 9 51 2.65 5.67 Mike Tom Waits - Underground #15 --- 7 5 4 8 4 7 5 5 4 8 45 1.51 5.63 Mirk 'The Mission' soundtrack - Brothers #17 5 4 4 3 9 4 6 6 8 3 9 49 2.01 5.44 George Beethoven - 2nd movement of 4th Piano concerto in G major #16 8 6 2 7 4 --- 5 4 7 2 8 43 2.00 5.38 Chris Shawn Colvin - Tennessee #8 8 5 6 6 3 --- 5 4 5 3 8 42 1.49 5.25 Chris Rachel Sweet - It's so different here #11 7 8 --- 6 2 3 5 6 2 2 8 39 2.30 4.88 Mas Michael Nyman - Wheelbarrow walk #3 0 9 5 --- 2 2 8 4 8 0 9 38 3.33 4.75 ChrisW Pixies - Debaser #9 --- 5 5 4 10 4 5 4 1 1 10 38 2.49 4.75 Mirk Chopin - Prelude #1 in C major #19 --- 4 6 2 10 3 6 5 2 2 10 38 2.66 4.75 Mirk Chopin - Prelude #14 in Eb minor #2 3 4 6 5 2 3 --- 4 6 2 6 33 1.46 4.13 Emma Kiss - Heaven's on fire #4 --- 4 7 3 4 4 5 3 2 2 7 32 1.51 4.00 Mirk Sondheim's 'Sunday in the Park with George' - Lesson #8 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 97 136 111 108 118 118 127 107 107 124.69 AVG 5.71 6.48 5.29 5.40 5.62 5.90 6.35 5.35 5.10 5.67 SD 2.23 1.75 1.71 1.88 3.17 2.51 1.39 1.50 2.17 0.91
So congratulations to Sacha who, against all odds, turns out to have the musical taste which is most in harmony with most of his workmates - or in some sense, the ``best'' taste. (I would have liked to define ``best'' as ``most similar to mine'', but I couldn't be bothered to work out how to do the variance calculations. For what it's worth, I think that honour goes to Sarah.)
The minimum and maxmium can be read as indicators of user-friendliness: so, for example, no-one gave Rattle Snake Shake less than 5, even though it wasn't that well-liked on the whole. The atrocious Debaser was the only song loathsome enough to get a zero from anyone. By the opposite token (is that a phrase?) five songs achieved the distinction of being awarded a perfect ten by someone other than their nominee -- Song to the Siren, Dance of the Knights, Forever Young and the pair of Chopin Preludes.
The standard deviation can be seen as a measure of how much the songs split people's opinions. It's perhaps not surprising that the Rattle Snake Shake should be the least divisive song - everyone likes it about the same - but that White Rabbit is second on that score is a surprise, at least to me. I'd have though that was weird enough to split the vote quite strongly. On the other hand, two very different tracks are first and second in the most-widely-differing-scores stakes - the execrable Debaser and Chopin's Prelude #14 - strange bedfellows if ever there were!
Finally, it pains me to admit that Lesson #8 was the company's least favourite overall song; and I claim the hideous honour of having no fewer than three of my songs scores worse than or the same as the unspeakable Debaser - surely among the most offensively shite songs ever recorded.
Ah well, that concludes the mighty Spirit of SSL saga - until Volume 2.