Spirit of SSL v1

22nd July 1998

Spirit of SSL v1, front cover

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.

  1. Ed Alleyne Johnson - Oxford Suite 4 (alec)
        7/10

  2. Kiss - Heaven's on Fire (emma)
        2/10

  3. Pixies - Debaser (chrisw)
        0/10

  4. Sondheim's musical ``Sunday in the Park with George'' - Lesson #8 (mirk)
        10/10

  5. Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (mike)
        5/10

  6. ``The Mission'' soundtrack - Gabriel's Oboe (mirk)
        10/10

  7. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Love or Confusion (nich)
        9/10

  8. Rachel Sweet - It's So Different Here (chris)
        8/10

  9. Chopin - Prelude #1 in C major (mirk)
        8/10

  10. Lush - Lady Killers (emma)
        5/10

  11. Michael Nyman - Wheelbarrow Walk (mas)
        5/10

  12. This Mortal Coil - Song to the Siren (chrisw)
        1/10

  13. Prokofiev - Dance of the Knights (sacha)
        4/10

  14. Tom Waits - Underground (mike)
        8/10

  15. ``The Mission'' soundtrack - Brothers (mirk)
        10/10

  16. Shawn Colvin - Tennessee (chris)
        7/10

  17. Beethoven - 2nd movement of 4th Piano concerto in G major (george)
        4/10

  18. Fleetwood Mac - Rattlesnake Shake (nich)
        6/10

  19. Chopin - Prelude #14 in Eb minor (mirk)
        8/10

  20. Led Zeppelin - I Can't Quit You Baby (steve)
        6/10

  21. Joan Baez - Forever Young (sarah)
        6/10

  22. Sam Brothers 5 - Lafayette Special (mike)
        5/10


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.

Feedback to <mike@miketaylor.org.uk> is welcome!