Songs Draft - Commentary

Commentary from Albert (last 3) and Adam (first 3) on the recent songs draft. Keep in mind the following: Albert is crazy, and Adam is perhaps one of the most arrogant pricks of all-time.

Chris's draft: Like A Rolling Stone, Dock of the Bay, The Weight, Johnny B. Goode, Heartbreak Hotel, Georgia On My Mind, Unchained Melody, Papa's Got A Brand New Bag, Tiny Dancer, Simple Man

Christopher unequivocally wins the award for "smallest range in year songs were released," and I definitely win the "Most Pointless Award" award. Blessed with the first pick in the draft, Chris saw no point in hiding his goal: keeping Albert angry. While it's not very hard to keep Albert angry, Chris did snatch Dylan AND The Band from under his cute little nose.

In doing so, however, Chris managed to amass a fairly impressive roster of songs, with "Georgia On My Mind" in Round 6 proving a most admirable nab. With suitable balance between ballads, hard-rockers, and plain-old-Good-Songs, his draft shows a true appreciation for the best songs ever recorded - and also Lynyrd Skynyrd. Props for Johnny B. Goode with #24 overall, too.

Slips: "Dock of the Bay" was probably a reach with the 12th overall selection, and Skynyrd doesn't really deserve a spot in the canon. Also, piggybacking on one of the louder (if not entirely legitimate) critiques going around, Chris didn't pick any female performers - though I'm sure he intended to. The results from everyone's favorite suburbanite could probably best be described as a Chipotle burrito - all the ingredients are there in a nice little package, but pinto beans make you fart.

Final grade: B+.

Sarah's draft: River, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, My Girl, Let's Get It On, Passionate Kisses, Nightswimming, Eli's Coming, Independence Day, 6'1", Romeo and Juliet

Well, your faithful team of Fantasy Drafters sure managed to build a fire on Main Street, but Sarah shot it full of holes. (Wrap your mind around THAT one, people.) While Sarah has managed to scrape together a leaderboard climb never-before-seen in Fantasy Drafts history (mainly, because such a thing does not exist), the only reaction this commentator had was indeed, "Oh, Mama! Can this really be the end?"

Sarah, full of visions of a world where "River" is the sixth-greatest song of all-time and "Eli's Coming" is a better song than "Wedding Bell Blues," tried to get a little too clever for this draft. With a self-described draft strategy of picking songs she liked instead of songs that were important, Sarah inevitably hampered her ability to please the Powers That Be, namely your commentatorati.

With a few strong showings (Diamonds, Let's Get It On, Romeo and Juliet at the end), Sarah managed to save her grade, but not her reputation for wandering aimlessly off the beaten path. In her quest for variety and quirkiness, her train rolled into Confusion Junction by the end. Quite simply, I refuse to believe that many of these selections are in the top 60 songs of all-time. I'll excuse her desire to avoid the horrific conformity that generally grips a fantasy draft like this, and award her a grade commensurate with her misguided but ultimately reasonable selections.

Final grade: B.

Albert's draft: My Generation, Satisfaction, Folsom Prison Blues, Born To Run, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Another Brick In The Wall (Pt. 2), The Thrill Is Gone, Light My Fire, No Woman No Cry

It appears that for the first seven rounds of this draft, Albert took his strategy from a rebellious 14-year-old's poster collection. While all of these songs are excellent ("Hello, I'm Johnny Cash"), they lack the ingenuity normally required to receive a superior draft grade. I was surprised Albert didn't go ahead and take Bob Saget's Full House performance of "My Generation" instead of the Who's original, and "Born To Run" seemed all too au courant to be a Round 4 pick. Great song; overrated.

Johnny Cash in Round 3 is a defensible move, and getting BB King, The Doors, and Marley to close out his draft was a strong, strong finish. I take a little umbrage with the song choice for his Pink Floyd pick, particularly with it coming in the 6th round, but the irony of Albert working in education (of which, apparently, "We don't need no") makes it OK. "Light My Fire" is an outstanding late-round selection, as I mentioned earlier, and proved outstanding fire-drill tape-loop fodder for my dad back when he was manning the board at WRSU.

All in all, Albert had a reasonable if bland showing - again, you have to spice it up if you want to get some props. This is particularly true of a draft like this, where the bar is set higher for an audiophile like Al. There we were now - we demanded - "entertain us!" And Albert gave us the Fantasy Draft equivalent of Dylan at Newport in '65 - full of expectation, short on content, dissatisfying to true fans and haters alike, but in retrospect not too shabby.

Final grade: B+.

Sydvicious's Draft: Day In The Life - The Beatles ~ All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix ~ Paranoid Android – Radiohead ~ Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2 ~ Say It Ain't So – Weezer ~ White Room – Cream ~ Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel ~ Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen ~ How Soon Is Now - The Smiths ~ Thriller - Michael Jackson

Sydney, the little redhead that could, got out to an impeccable Olson-twinish start, by nabbing a no-brainer top 5 selection (which was also my first pick in our Beatles draft). She followed that up with Jimi’s version of Dylan’s masterpiece All Along the Watchtower, which I had slated at #7. She kind of stumbled with Paranoid Android, and I’ll be up front I don’t really like the band. It seems all their songs sound the same (a subtle attempt to say “I’m a loser babe, so why don’t you kill me”). Also picking them before contemporaries such as U2 & Nirvana maybe gave them a little more clout than they deserve. Sydney may have stumbled but she had a place to fall, and that was in the delicate loving arms of Bono – Pride (In the Name of Love) is a phenomenal song, and U2 truly is a seminal band, a good timely selection in round four. Say It Ain’t So is a wash for me, good song, good band, but nothing really differentiates that musical output from their other songs or Nirvana, RHCPs, Pearl Jam, etc. etc. It’s like getting the same thing at a restaurant every time you go, sure you’ll be happy, but you’ll always wonder what would happen if you got the clam basket. Taking White Room with Layla still on the board is a minor oversight, but points for picking the correct Cream song. I’ll pass by Solsbury Hill because it makes me think of Salisbury Steak and Mac N Cheese microwaveable meals. I like Bohemian Rhapsody, but I think this is a back door attempt to lend credit to her #1 overall selection of a Wayne’s World quote in the movie quote draft. Plus I like Fat Bottomed Girls more (there I said it, wow I no longer feel like Atlas). We’ll bypass How Soon is Now cause Syd had the coup of taking Thriller 59th, it’s the point neuf of the arch de triumph.

Correct Song for the Artist, Correct Round: 4; So-So (I’m fine with it): 4; Iffy (only redeemable with the selection of Michael Jackson): 2…all in all great job.

Final grade: B+.

Bryan's draft: All I Want for Christmas - Mariah Carey ~ For Once In My Life - Stevie Wonder~ Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel ~ Scenes From An Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel ~ Toxic - Britney Spears ~ Hit Em Up - 2Pac ~ Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson ~ The Way I Am – Eminem ~ Big Poppa - Notorious B.I.G. ~ My Way - Frank Sinatra

Maybe Bryan got caught up in the death or birth of his savior, or maybe with his sister being home for Christmas he wanted to give his friends something different to talk about, either way he took the sugar-coated bubble gum, big breasted, All I Want for Christmas. This is the biggest train wreck in fantasy draft history, like not only is the band on the field, but some crazy lunatic just drove the Titanic through Lake Placid. The only way he could recover is if you believe in miracles. No! For Once In My Life is a good song, but has nothing on Sir Duke, Another Star, or Superstition. Bridge over Troubled Water is truly an emotional thought-provoking song, and I have no problem listening to it in the dark, sobbing and holding hands (with Bryan’s sister). Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire, the only way you could go. Rap had a place in this draft and that place was in Bryan’s lap, although taking perhaps the three biggest rappers of the hip-hop revolution surprisingly didn’t bring along some of the biggest rap singles. For my money there is only one thing better than Hot in Herre, Brooklyn Zoo, & We Thuggin, and that’s when she calls me BIG POPPA. My Way could have been the steal of the draft, but well, he had too much help in making the selection.

Anyway I’d like to say I could give Bryan an A for effort, but someone made his last two selections for him, so with a D for effort, his grade gets pulled up to a...

Final grade: D-.

Adam's draft: Dazed and Confused - Led Zeppelin ~ Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys ~ Imagine - John Lennon ~ Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin ~ London Calling - The Clash ~ Into the Mystic - Van Morrison ~ Layla - Derek and the Dominos ~ Love and Happiness - Al Green ~ Crazy - Patsy Cline ~ This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

I’ll give Adam major points for not taking Stairway to Heaven, and Dazed and Confused is an admirable choice, but I would have gone with Whole Lotta Love. Either way there is very little argument over this selection; like choosing between blondes, brunettes, or redheads, I mean hey, it’s all good. Good Vibrations is just a stellar cool wave of music, a tad early for the second round, but nothing catastrophic, almost gave me excitations. Imagine is a great song, if not better than Vibrations, at least on the same level, great grab in the third round. Chain of Fools is not Respect (the great Otis Redding cover), and in my opinion was quite a faulty choice, while Chain is a tremendous song there is a reason its #2 on the album to R-E-S-P-E-C-T. London Calling was apparently the first selection Adam counseled someone not to take, only to turn around and pick. Cant really fault him for that though, good strategy good pick, just don’t leave him alone with your sister, he might try to date her for like 3 years. What to say about Into the Mystic, I don’t really know – I cant get the image of a bloated Van dancing in a red velour vest at The Last Waltz out of my head – kind of a bland choice, don’t cha think? Layla is a great pick, not quite the woman who launched a thousand ships, but she was stolen from George Harrison; his life was too blissful anyway, he needed his come-upens. If you go Al Green you have to go Let’s Stay Together, just a phenomenal song, truly Al’s masterpiece. Sorry Adam, Zed’s dead. Crazy is a good song, and a woman sings it, of course it’s about her being nuts – aren’t they all though, with their diamond swatches, baby blue pinky rings, and lovely lady lumps. Now for the second GTS of Adam’s draft: This Land is Your Land. I was deciding between it and No Woman, No Cry; I believe Adam said “you have to go Marley.” I did and with the very next pick he took the wonderful Woody Guthrie tune – bravo!

Correct Song for the Artist, Correct Round: 6. So-So, 2 (man Van got a beer belly). Trying to be cool and pick an atypical song: 2. All in all well done, and that’s how I like my steak.

Final grade: A-.