So, as I said in my last post, the rules of this round were very different than they were in the first round of the tournament, and also in any of Friday's previous prog rock tournaments. Instead of voting on individual matchups, I had to vote on my overall top four albums our of the remaining ten.
This was a hard choice. I was always going to vote the Procol Harum first - I rec'd it because I love it, and it's the only album in the competition that I've rated a 4 out 5. (Having said that, I'm it's not going to win the competition, and it's going to have a pretty hard time just surviving this round. And it would have had a hard time surviving a direct Jordsjo matchup as well - I can tell, based on the comment and the overall tastes of my fellow competitors.)
But for now, the only thing I could control was my own vote. So Procol was going to be first. And choosing the other three albums wasn't going to be easy. I had four albums I'd rated 3.5 out of 5 in the first round, and only 3 spots for them. I needed to relisten to them all in order to make a decision.
Going into the relisten, I was leaning towards rating Jordsojo the highest, with Regal Worm close behind. I was also leaning towards voting for Ibio over Pendragon for the last remaining slot.
After listening to the four albums again, though, I changed my mind. Here was my actual vote:
I make no promises that these will be in the same order in any future rounds. This was really hard. But here's my vote for this round.
1. Procol Harum
2. Regal Worm
3. Jordsjo
4. Pendragon
It broke my heart not to be able to squeeze in a vote for Ibio as well.
In fact, I liked the Pendragon so much on the last listen that I almost considered moving it up one spot or even two.
The voting was up and down. It soon became clear which albums were going to claim the top three spots, and Procol wasn't one of them. Much to my surprise, though, initially, it was in the midst of a tough competition for the fourth and final spot in the Final Four.
It wasn't to be, though. Here were the final voting totals for the top four, per our friend Friday:
1. Regal Worm - 33 points
2. Jordsjo - 28 points
3. Hermann Szobel - 25 points
4. Yolk - 23 points
The unofficial final count (per my own tally) was:
Regal Worm 33
Jordsjo 28
Hermann Szobel 25
Yolk 23
Quiet Sun 17
Seru Giran 15
Procol Harum 13
Pendragon 12
Kollektiv 12
Ibio 2
Honestly, I was surprised Pendragon fared so poorly, after getting off to a quick start in the voting. And I was saddened that Ibio got hardly any votes, as I had very nearly included it in my own top four.
So yes, our survivors who move on to the semi-finals are Regal Worm, Jorsjo, Hermann Szobel and Yolk.
