My friend Kellie submitted a couple of oldies but goodies to run through the Eliminator. And her first pick is Romeo and Juliet, the 1981 release by 80s pop rock band Dire Straits. And its weighted random opponent is current #924 People are People by Depeche Mode.
Here are the two videos:
Analysis: This is the first Eliminator battle involving songs from the same generation that I have done, and it is a different kind of Eliminator fight. Kellie doesn’t yet know this but I’m trying to update my music collection with this project, and Romeo and Juliet is 3 years older than People are People.
I don’t know the song Romeo and Juliet that well. I’ve heard it and for me it sounds like an earlier version of Walk of Life, which is in the top 1000, pretty high up at #504. And another Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing, is one of my all time favorites and in there as well. So adding another Dire Straits song to the Eliminator is not my favored outcome. And this particular song does not seem to have made much progress on the pop or rock charts, which is a little strange for the song and the band. But that said, this song is of course quite a good one and a song that I do like to listen to even today and it is really one of those early 80s songs that is in my wheelhouse. And man were music videos absolutely terrible early on. Yikes. But this song definitely has a more lasting feel to it than the opponent.
People are People is a very weak opponent for Romeo and Juliet. I’ve always thought that all that clanging going on in this song was just annoying and overly synthesized. And Depeche Mode is a 1984 classic that I’m sure I danced around to at the time. But it only got to #1 in West Germany and struggled for a long time to get only as high as #13 in the US. The song did seem kind of groundbreaking at the time, but for the life of me I can’t really remember why. I guess for the kind of rock pop dance fusion going on in a kind of 1980s glory. It is just a song that made the top 1000 because I listened to it a lot in 1985, and that is a not a good reason for it to be in the top 1000 songs.
Romeo and Juliet is going in, but only very low at #913. It probably won’t last long in the Eliminator. People are People is a song that needed to be Eliminated, and now that has happened!
Matt, I am trying to understand the purpose of this game? A bit confused. As for the analysis, Romeo and Juliet sounds nothing like Walk Of Life! How can you say that?
Lol! For sure it’s confusing! I myself am unclear on what it will become! The main idea is that it is a musical refresh project I think. So the 1000 songs will evolve over time, and I think become a lot more current. I’m not trying to make it the top songs of all time as generally agreed by everyone. I’m just trying to have fun with music is all. No doubt you are right the two dire straits songs are very different, until you realize they are two dire straits songs! I think you can hear a lot of similarity in them in the vocals and the background. Don’t expect high level effete analysis! Also if the proposed song is 40+ years old I will throw some shade! I probably shouldn’t call it analysis!
Send me some songs! Ideally newish ones!