I said it last year, and I'll say it again: It sucks going first! This was a brutal and ridiculously close contest, and it wasn't going to end in a tie, as one of our 20 contestants was away this week and unable to vote.
Here's what I had to say:
To the surprise of absolutely no one, I vote for my own entry, Frogg Cafe.For me, Frogg Cafe goes grand scale a bit more often than Pekka. Not only do I not mind the vocals, but the five tracks with vocals are my favorites. (But I've stated before that in general, I find tracks with vocals more interesting than instrumental tracks.) Some people have declared the Creatures LP to be this band's best, but for me, it will always be Bateless Edge. The band had been together for a quite a while at this point without any personnel changes, and it shows.
I liked quite a bit of the Pekka Pohjola. The first track made me think of a slower, more twisted version of Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre", and I liked the last track quite a bit as well. Some of the middle tracks were a little too playful for me, but it's still a good album overall.
Nevertheless, once again, I vote Frogg.
The Frogg boys pulled out to an early 7-2 vote lead, and one of the two who voted for Pekka was Zig, the User who had nominated them. So it was looking good early on.
However, as the week wore on, the vote started getting closer. Soon it was 7-5, then 8-5, then 8-6, and I was hoping to string it out just long enough to pull off the win. But it was not to be, as 4 of the last 5 Users voted for Pekka, giving him the excruciating 10-9 win.
In the end, I think that two of the factors were album length and accessibility. The Frogg Cafe LP clocks in at close to 80 minutes long, while the Pekka Pohjola album runs just a little over a half hour. And while a lot of Bateless Edge is fairly complicated, Visitation seemed more easily digestable.
In the end, at least I exposed Frogg Cafe to some new listeners, and even a lot of the Users who voted against their album enjoyed it and expressed admiration for it. Its average on the Sputnik Music website sits at 3.8 out of 5, which is somewhere between "Great" and "Excellent". So as our old friend Jeff Arthur from the Pisces Cafe would say, that's not too shabby.
Final Result: Frogg Cafe 9 votes, Pekka Pohjola 10 votes.
Onward to the next matchup.
