The Lux Familiar Cup 2023: Baguette Dilemma Round voting
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED
Results to follow soon.
And we’re off! Voting in The Lux Familiar Cup 2023: Baguette Dilemma Round is open for 4 weeks from Sunday 14 May to Sunday 11 June 2023. If you weren’t around in 2019, 2015 or 2011, this round is pretty straightforward. You’ll be presented with two songs. Simply click on the one you prefer. That’s all there is to it! You’ll then get a chance to do it again. And again. And again.
If you don’t know one of the songs, please click ‘skip’, even if you have strong opinions about the other song. Only vote if you know both songs, and have a preference. Give up whenever you like. Come back later and do some more.
If you want to listen to any of the songs before voting…
…there’s an index to them on Spotify here
…and an index to them on YouTube here
Note: CtSO reserves the right to cancel ALL the votes from anyone who votes a ridiculous number of times. Ten votes is fine. A hundred is fine. Even a thousand, if you’re enjoying it that much. But 10,000, as someone with nothing better to do tried last time? That’s a no from us. This is supposed to be just a bit of harmless fun. There are 220 songs, and you won’t see the same song many times, so the chances of you being able to vote a specific song into or out of the top 32 are pretty minimal.
What happens next?
Scoring will be by win percentage, excluding skipped matches. After the voting closes, 32 songs will qualify for the knockout stages starting later in the summer. These will consist of the highest-scoring 6 songs from each of these eras in the band’s history: 1985–1993, 1995–2000, 2001–2008, and 2011–2022 (all have about the same number of songs) …joined by the 8 songs with the highest scores not qualifying through the process above.
- Previous: The Lux Familiar Cup 2023 – Tournament Preview
- Next: The Lux Familiar Cup 2023: Baguette Dilemma Round results
- Feedback: Email Chris at chris@chrisrand.com
✉ Letters Sent (76)
Skip to the most recent comment
(3 years ago by Exxo)
Two fat feet (out of retirement)
WHO DARES WAKE ME AT THIS TIME
14 May 2023
D list paul ross
Wasn’t me but props (as the kids say) as always to CTSO for yet another seamless and very enjoyable (apart from the decisions) Baguette Dilemma round.
15 May 2023
Golden biscuit winner
Terminus to win thanks to the full-knee replacement demographic
15 May 2023
TWO FAT FEET
Is there a word for the half hour of so of discombobulation you feel when you realise you accidentally voted for a song you don’t like over one you do, thus wrecking the whole tournament?
15 May 2023
Dick Quax Running Shoes
Any exciting intrigue in the pool games yet? I have had ‘Stavanger Töestub’ facing off against ‘Slight Reprise’.
15 May 2023
Golden biscuit winner
How can Visitor For Mr Edmonds be in there?
And why did someone upload it to Youtube?
15 May 2023
Golden biscuit winner
Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess
Evening Of Swing (Has Been Cancelled)
Skip
Favourite child?
15 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Gulp. I quietly launched this on Saturday, and by Sunday lunchtime it had had about 2000 matches voted on, mainly I suspect from people who’d just stumbled upon it here. Then – after lunch on Sunday – I mentioned it on Twitter, and later in the afternoon, emailed out to recent commenters and subscribers on this site, and mentioned it on a couple of Facebook groups. It’s been highlighted on social media by the likes of Nige Tassell, Andrew Harrison and Robert Bathurst, bless ’em all.
And 24 hours after the first announcement, we’ve already had over 141,000 matches voted on.
15 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Despite votes coming in at nearly ten per second at one stage, things are working out smoothly, I can report. The Top 10 songs at this early point don’t contain too many surprises, nor do the bottom 10. The song with the most ‘skips’ (the least known, I guess) is the one I’d expect. My favourite song is failing to crack the top 50, again, and another from my top 5 is languishing outside the top 100. You bastards.
15 May 2023
EXXO
Bless ’em maybe, but the more folks who forward it on the wider web, the less likely it is that you’ll actually get voters who know every song?
15 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Always a possibility, but there’s no evidence that any significant numbers of people are taking part and making lots of random choices. It’d be a bit boring!
A lot of visitors are giving it one vote then not going any further (presumably as they realise it’s not for them) but the impact of this is minuscule anyway; it’ll be background noise which will not favour any particular song. The vast bulk of voting is from people who’ve made tens or even hundreds of votes already and might well make more. There’s a lot of skipping going on too, which is great.
15 May 2023
Mr Galbraith
Fantastic work Chris, you have made voting on a mobile SO easy that I find myself doing so at almost every opportunity now, at work, walking the dog, queueing in shops etc. I’m definitely racked up my century already!
15 May 2023
EXXO
They won’t tend to be random choices, though. They’ll tend to be choices for whichever they know – and therefore ‘like’ more. Plenty of skipping probably doesn’t mean as much skipping as there should be if one song is unknown.
15 May 2023
schoon
I just voted for Epiphany.
15 May 2023
Jeff dreadnought
I’ve been using this round as an opportunity to re-read the entire thread for each song before voting. It is proving to be an edifying and entertaining exercise and is helping me to make informed choices. It’s going to take a while, though.
15 May 2023
Pete
I don’t know how i got this email about the vote in the first place though i’m not complaining . i did just try to vote but can’t find where to do so .
.. for Albert Hammond Bootleg ..
i actually have one … well it was a release of some of Albert’s music that was unauthorised . i’m still curious as to how HMHB came to write or even think about writing the song
All the best
15 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
You can’t vote for specific songs Pete, in this round there are just random matchups!
15 May 2023
Irish Niall
Is there a set number of pairings that are offered or do we just keep choosing preferences til we’re told it’s dinner time/our turn to cook dinner/bedtime/time to get up/time to go to work/time to get back to work?
15 May 2023
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
I think I know what your favorite is, CtSO, and you can count on me to vote for it every chance I get. (Can you rig this thing to give me more chances to vote for it? I won’t tell anyone.)
16 May 2023
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
And on a note of pedantry, for some reason “I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan” is showing up in the voting as “I was a teenage armchair Honved fan.”
It’s no big deal of course, but given this site’s usual devotion to the tiniest detail of perfection, it’s rather jarring to see it pop up like that.
16 May 2023
Dick Quax Running Shoes
The title of ‘Honved’ appears like that in the 2019 ‘Baguette Dilemma’ Round table, too, when it finished 90th. Who knows what it could have achieved with capitals?
16 May 2023
Brumbiscuit
If we’re going to be even more pedantic, I’d suggest ‘Honvéd’, not ‘Honved’.
On a related note, I get mildy annoyed by football commentators who say ‘Se-vee-ya’ when pronouncing ‘Sevilla’, trying to sound sophisticated. Stick to ‘Seville’ or say ‘Se-bee-ya’, would be my advice. It’s Castilian in Andalusia, mate.
16 May 2023
dr DEsperate
Some South Americans (particularly Argentinians) pronounce the “ll” as “sh”, so Gonzalo Montiel would say “Se-bee-sha.”
16 May 2023
BAD LOSER
As someone who ‘Loves watching Barca’ (after over 40 years going to football matches I saw my first riot at Espanyol on Sunday), I hate it when they say ‘Bay-arin’ and ‘Cucu-raya’ for the former Arsenal right back and current Chelsea left wing-back instead of using the Catalan pronunciation for both.
16 May 2023
dr DEsperate
I’d expect a few more entries from now on, @CtSO: Lammo’s just given a shout-out to the LFC23 on his R6M programme.
Uh-oh – CtSO
16 May 2023
Primark FM
I demand a recount
16 May 2023
EXXO
Haha I heard Lammo mention he would play some HMHB on his show and then I had to go out to play cricket – I suspected somehow that he was gonna spread the word on this and attract more folks that know as many as 6 or 7 HMHB songs but mainly JDOG :-D
16 May 2023
dr DEsperate
They should at least know ‘Left Lyrics in the Practice Room’ now, as he played it before directing his listeners to this website and this competition.
17 May 2023
Exxo
Well anything is possible, in a world where Minnie the Kid Critic appears to have just closed out the Today programme on Radio 4 with some piss-poor reading aloud about Beyonce.
17 May 2023
MULDOON LIVES!
Voting like a madman, not a far journey for me. Please tell me when I can stop.
17 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Steve Lamacq’s shoutout is at 2:25:30 here.
17 May 2023
MULDOON LIVES!
He indeed let the light shine on the lux.
17 May 2023
Golden Biscuit Winner
Not long now until Blur albums are called Darren…
18 May 2023
IRISH NIALL
Anyone else feel deeply conflicted when songs that are similar both thematically and structurally get paired?
I’ve been staring at a prospective monkey knife fight involving RSVP and The Coroners Footnote for about 5 minutes and I just can’t choose.
19 May 2023
professor Abelazar Woozle
Yes, I’ve already had a couple that I skipped because it was easier than making a decision. At least in the Baguette Dillemna stage we can do that…
19 May 2023
IRISH NIALL
I just voted for Oblong of Dreams over We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune and I feel like I’ve entered some new chapter of my life.
None of this is Kansas Toto. Not one fuckin bit of any of this is Kansas.
26 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Well, we’ve reached the halfway stage and over 300,000 votes, I kid you not. Still two weeks left though, and songs are moving up and down the scoring table, albeit at a decreasing rate, as you’d expect. Every one of the 24,090 combinations of songs has occurred at least twice now, incredibly. Keep voting!
https://lux23.site/
27 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
If you get any of these ties in the next few hours, you’ll probably be just the third human in history to see them paired up. Vote carefully.
£24.99 From Argos v The Bastard Son Of Dean Friedman
99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd v Man of Constant Sorrow
Albert Hammond Bootleg v Oblong of Dreams
Bad Review v Deep House Victims Minibus Appeal
Bad Review v Mars Ultras, You’ll Never Make The Station
Blood on the Quad v Reasons To Be Miserable (Part 10)
Breaking News v On Finding The Studio Banjo
Give Us Bubblewrap v Upon Westminster Bridge
Gubba Look-a-likes v Upon Westminster Bridge
Hair Like Brian May Blues v With Goth On Our Side
Mileage Chart v Monmore, Hare’s Running
Rod Hull Is Alive – Why? v Terminus
Stavanger Toestub v Theme Tune For Something Or Other
Styx Gig (Seen By My Mates Coming Out Of A) v Time Flies By (When You’re A Driver Of A Train)
27 May 2023
Transit full of Keith
Never understood why “£24.99 From Argos” and “Nove on the Sly” didn’t perform better in past Luxes Familiar. They’ve stood up very well in the pairings I’ve been getting. Likewise underrated: “Prag Veg At The Melkweg”, I’d love to hear that get a live outing.
27 May 2023
EXXO
I’m thinking of adding a sweepstake to the Llangollen form where you have to guestimate how many times the phrase “I(‘ve) don’t/can’t/never understand/ understood why” precedes comments about LF Cup ties.
27 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Well the rest of us are all enjoying the commentary.
27 May 2023
dr DEsperate
Though I(‘ve) don’t/can’t/never understand/understood why.
(That’s 2.)
27 May 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Well over 400,000 votes now. Voting closes on Sunday lunchtime. Songs from the early noughties are proving to be the most popular, and songs from the mid-late nineties the least, but that’s in line with previous votes.
The top four have been fairly solid since the start, but there’s a fair bit of movement below that, and there are even a couple of songs rising up the top ten that could conceivably still break into the top four. I suspect the steady changes are favouring less ‘classic’ songs, as after three weeks, voting is probably skewed towards more committed fans, and …you can guess the rest.
The ‘guarantee’ that at least six songs from each of the four ‘eras’ will make the knockout stage of 32 should only have a small impact. On current form, it may drag in two or three songs from the mid-late nineties, potentially at the expense of both older and newer songs. But positions 20–40 only span win ratios of 63.4% to 68.7%, so I expect to see a lot of last minute changes.
Over to you:
https://lux23.site/
6 June 2023
IRISH NIALL
@CtSO
The data is fascinating. I’m sure it’s been pointed out before that if this site were dedicated to the activities of most other bands then the great bulk of votes would likely involve titles on the first two maybe three albums. Then we’d see later releases reflected like some barometric graph of the air being sucked from the room at gigs when such acts announce “this one’s off our new album”.
For example, and as I’m currently wearing a Metallica tee I can as easily as anyone else here guess such a project on their canon of work would read like a tracklisting of 1986s Master of Puppets -then peppered with a few off Ride the Lightning, probably just One (and maybe Blackened) off And Justice for All, Enter Sandman goes without saying …and they’d be out with flashlamps looking for everything else.
7 June 2023
EXXO
Very true. Another example – when I was in a student band in ’84-’85, the only proper outfit we ever shared a stage with was The Monochrome Set (indeed, I only joined as a replacement so that those remaining after a split could fulfil that gig, as well as those leading up to it, and then retire to concentrate on exams, etc). The set I saw TMS play at a festival last Saturday, 38 years on, was pretty much the same songs in the same order as that night in 1985, mostly songs from their 1979-85 heyday, with one song added from 1991. Nothing from their TEN studio albums since then. The order they would finish in if it came to a popularity vote (amongst non-completists who liked the band) would probably be the same as a vote in 1985 too.
7 June 2023
BAD LOSER
I recently looked round the site and found a gig review from around 2010. It seems one guy registered just to say that he wouldn’t go and see the band again. His reason was that they didn’t play what he believed everyone wanted i.e. Back In The DHSS in its entirety. His views met with firm resistance, and rightly so.
When I was 18 this was some of the best stuff I’d ever heard. Now, just 4 songs from the first 2 albums make it onto my playlist of 53 that I would offer to someone who wanted me to recommend their songs to them.
If that guy has since revisited the band, he will find plenty to laugh at as well as finding great depth in songs that will likely feature in the latter stages of the cup.
7 June 2023
Old tige
Anyone share my obsession with the Cardigans? Their two late career albums are fantastic. Long Gone Before Daylight may be the most underappreciated pop album of all time.
9 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Not sure they’re in this vote.
9 June 2023
Natalie at the back
I am loving this, even though last time my favourite song didn’t get in the top 80. One, probably stupid question that doubtless has been answered before, but why are No Regrets and King of Rome excluded from the vote.
Likesay iI am sure this was dealt with in the past but don’t remember seeing the answer. Many thanks, and roll on Sunday, hip hip hooray.
9 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Both are cover versions of somebody else’s song, we’re just sticking to the recorded originals here.
9 June 2023
Transit full of keith
cough *Worried Man Blues* cough cough
9 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
OK, songs on albums, and original songs not on albums.
9 June 2023
Old tige
@Ctso Quite right, I apologize. I was hoping to tie in with the Metallica and Monochrome Set comments but it didn’t come off.
10 June 2023
Dick Quax Running Shoes
Disappointed that there were no ‘I Voted in the Lux Familiar Cup 2023 Baguette Dilemma Round’ stickers at my polling place.
11 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED. Results will follow soon, once the team at the VAR Hub at Stockley Park have conferred.
11 June 2023
gipton teenager
I didn’t get OOD once in maybe a couple of hundred pairings. Seems the universe is indeed ruled by chance and indifference. Hats off to CtSO.
11 June 2023
JD O'GLOVES
Phew! It was fast and furious in the fast and furious round! Thanks CtSO, looking forward to the last 32!
11 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Just going through the data now: looks pretty clean, and I’ll announce the qualifiers on Monday lunchtime.
Total ties counted: 484,618
Voters (by IP address): 2,357
Only one person tried to spoil things – the same person who tried to do it in previous competitions. He voted on 3,311 ties, skipped 56% of them just to rush through and get a particular song (“Chatteris”) to appear as many times as possible, and managed to vote against it 219 times. Sigh. It made very little difference, “Chatteris” remained well inside the top 32 qualifiers anyway, but I’ll wipe those votes regardless, because I think we all want to see where all the songs were genuinely placed according to the other 2,356 voters.
12 June 2023
dr DEsperate
Excellent work, @CtSO!
With this massive level of voter fraud, I think you should demand photo ID for future rounds.
12 June 2023
GORDON BURNS
@CtSO Clearly a lot of intrigue in the pool round. I wonder if the mega-voter is nervously waiting to be outed. You wouldn’t do that though, right? By saying “He”, you’ve narrowed it down slightly.
12 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
I think it’s all there in previous tournament discussions GB, I really can’t be arsed.
12 June 2023
Transit full of Keith
Look, it just wouldn’t be the Lux Familiar without the Chatteris Vote Rigging Ritual, and I for one am glad to see someone still stalwartly respects and maintains these fine old traditions. Like cheese-rolling in the Cotswolds, or setting fire to Edward Woodward in the Hebrides, it marks the changing of the seasons and is something to cling to in a chaotic and rapidly changing world.
12 June 2023
Transit full of Keith
Just to clarify, it wasn’t me
12 June 2023
Irish niall
I hope it wasn’t me either though I may have voted around three and a half thousand times and can’t think of many I’d vote ahead of Chatteris once or twice much less on a couple of hundred occasions.
I’m confused as to what outcome they were trying to elicit.
12 June 2023
EXXO
To be honest I had no idea it was that many – I ignored the contest until you plugged it a few days ago then I just thought I’d see if it looked any different this time and thought I’d see if I could get to vote for Frequent Electric Trains and Oblong. Before I knew it the old terrorist instincts had taken over and maybe a couple of hours had whizzed by (and yes I do have anything better to do). Will ignore it from now on. Promise.
12 June 2023
gipton teenager
I’m not Spartacus.
12 June 2023
nige
I think I voted a lot in periods of boredom, but I definitely didn’t “skip” very often and I’ve no axe to grind either way re Chatteris, so hopefully I’m in the clear too
12 June 2023
EXXO
@Niall – not trying to elicit any outcome on this occasion. Fully aware of the statistical pointlessness of my clicks and that the IP trackers would be watching for anomalies. Just that addictive feeling of “Can I stand to do this for another minute?” fuelled by memories of past comments on here.
12 June 2023
Chris The Siteowner
Thank you for coming clean, Exxo.
(And to everyone else – trust me, it’s really obvious when someone is being silly, and when they’re ‘voting normally’, so don’t worry that you might ‘accidentally’ have put a spanner in the works).
12 June 2023
EXXO
Of course it could be argued that it was just a protest against the obvious flaw in the BDR technology. I’ll be very disappointed if someone can’t do the arithmetic from the stats provided on my voting by CtSO above and come to a conclusion about what that flaw is …
12 June 2023
BAD LOSER
No great surprises in the 32 qualifiers: they all looked like songs you’d expect to be ‘There or thereabouts’ but some of the low rankings for other songs are:
63 Harry Quinn
85 Constance
103 UFO
108 Ode To Joyce
119 Floreat
183 Meltonian
and a real favourite of mine because musically it seems so Biscuity: Secret Gig at 123.
12 June 2023
schoon
I used to hate Chatteris, but now I like it and I give talks to youth groups about my former life.
12 June 2023
Huddersfield's Very Own Steve Malkmus
Every LFC, CtSO mentions the past shenanigans, and every time I worry that it might be me (I’m on the spectrum, so sometimes get stuck in a bit of a loop and can end up voting for hours)… until the round is over and it turns out there’s just one person out there with an almost admirably obsessive dislike of Chatteris. I’m 99% certain it isn’t me, as I didn’t vote as much this time around and certainly didn’t skip many ties. Plus, I quite like Chatteris, it’s probably in my top 25.
13 June 2023
EXXO
Mutual spectral respect, Hudd. But it’s my turn to sigh. As said many times, I love every single HMHB song and I would never vote against one because I did not like it. Voting against a particular song came about in 2011 as a reaction to how relatively over-rated it is in relation to other far better, cleverer, more complex and interesting songs, in the early days especially when some of us naively still hoped it was about critical judgement, trying to decide what had more merit and why, rather than just favourites. A reaction especially against the daft things people said, and then a further reaction if they said anything pompously outraged and patronising about the sanctity of absurd online voting procedures. 2015 was particularly horrible because we were given an addictive online tool and literally told to use it as much as we liked, then we were dissed in the most patronising terms when the goalposts were suddenly moved.
It should become, and does become, easier to accept in later years, accepting that it is just about people’s favourites and obvious ones that don’t require too much effort from the listener, and that anyway many participants have probably only heard some songs once, if at all. It’s pretty obvious that ‘A Christmas Carol’ will beat ‘Bleak House’ in a popular vote on Dickens. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ might beat ‘Hamlet.’ These might reflect popular taste, but they would be demonstrably wrong in terms of actual artistic merit. One should just accept that with a sigh. The fact that I only voted for about 2 hours total this time, and that I really tried not to (and am still surprised that I did), is really a sign of acceptance of that.
13 June 2023
paul f
To be honest I’m not a massive fan of the Baguette Dilemma Round format. Partly due to the addictive nature and skewing of results towards the views of the most seriously addicted. But mostly because the format, of itself, could be argued to perform the same function as the Cup. Just publishing the BDR results and awarding the Cup to the highest scoring song is as valid a format as going through with the whole knock-out phase, which I think devalues the Cup. I’d much prefer some album group stages (even if these were done on a mini-BDR basis), although I appreciate it’s not me doing all the hard work, so can understand why a highly automated system is preferable to the organiser, at least until we get to the last 32.
13 June 2023
EXXO
@Paul
Yes. It’s particularly interesting how in the k-o rounds one song seems to take on the cup mantle with aplomb and out-perform some Premier League outfits.
The best single post I have ever written on here never got any love. You need to know the relevant scene in ‘The Damned United’ (which I am sure you do Paul).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp_0ITy8nrk
It still accurately predicts what ‘Chatteris’ will do with its route one tactics in the knock-outs this year. Comment 21
https://halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk/the-lux-familiar-cup-semi-finals-match-2/
13 June 2023