MUSIC LEAGUE - a way to gamify your music taste

MUSIC LEAGUE IS A FUN GAME WHERE EVERY ROUND YOU PICK OUT SONGS BASED ON A THEME
THEN A PLAYLIST IS CREATED
THEN YOU VOTE ON THE SONGS VIA UPVOTES AND DOWNVOTES

WHO WANTS TO PLAY MUSIC LEAGUE?

I'll start a ILX league with a basic 5 round game - winners will get to pick the theme of the rounds in the next game.

You can play on mobile or web.

JOIN HERE https://app.musicleague.com/l/ec1767aa53a34d73aa8cbd4f9c5e8aa1/

Looks interesting but it seems you need spotify to sign up and I'm not going to use spotify, sorry.

Samwell - What What In The Butt

exactly! i dont pay for spotify and i still play

The Roches - Hammond Song (Arthur Baker "Downtown" rmx)

lol one of my besties plays this, she is always pissed of at the rest of the comparatively mainstream tastes in her group

3 players so far woo!

Yeah I’m in. Sounds fun.

aight i'll do it

we have 4!!!

SIX!!!

I HAVE JOINED THUS

THIS

Oh I’m so happy

Im the one with the Steve Perry avatar

this sounds awesome, I'm in

i have entered the building

good you're the one I wanna beat

I definitely won't be this first round though lol

10! WE HAVE A LEAGUE PEOPLE!

like a maniac I have my choices set up for the next rounds too

It took me a while to work out how to submit my votes. It looks like you're given an allocation of 10 plus points and 2 minus points, which you can distribute amongst the songs however you want, i.e. you can give a song more than 1 plus/minus points, or you can leave a song on 0 points.

Yah I can change that I’d people want that’s just how my other leagues are

It's good this way!

The fact that you can give out negative points is gonna tank my chances at ever winning this thing

Jumped aboard too late for Round 1, but I'll be able to play in Round 2.

The chat and comments make for the best part of the leagues. Plus non-algorithmic music discoveries.

Oof should have disabled downvotes. I feel bad downvoting other people’s noms and there’s nothing I think even warrants them in this round.

Someone less lazy than me should transcribe the tracklists from the playlists in here for future reference.

So we have to give two downvotes and also can't give more than three upvotes to any one song? Is that right?

No more than 3*

I like downvotes because I’m a hater

If only the White Mountain Cooler jingle from 1986 was on Spotify. Damn thing has a "You Give Love A Bad Name"-style chorus intro, a verse, a pre-chorus, and another chorus, all in 30 seconds!? I guess that means that their next commercial was their "New Jersey"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1XlpbUVaUY

I’m lolling a little at the blurb that’s longer than the song it’s describing

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Oh it’s a relief to see my song climb the standings as more votes go in lol

lol, this is not the experience I am having

I didn't get last place so that's nice

One voter remains. What could possibly be riding on it?

looks like my song is the one people are the most indifferent to, that's something at least

Wow! ILX hates weird Paul!

I thought it was ok, it was just not as good as all the other songs, so I had to downvote it per the rules of this game

Love it

(The hater energy)

Just voted - maybe I needed at least 900 more gecs

Very interested in the tracklist for round 2! Love grooving.

I’m gonna suck so bad at round 3 I don’t know any britpop music. I don’t even know what can be considered as Britpop besides the obvious things. Are the Stone Roses britpop? Is early The Verve allowed?

I'm not even sure I know what a groove is so I might sit the next one out for fear of making an embarrassing mistake.

Thanks to the first round for "Final Day" which I did not know and which has been haunting my brain for the last few days.

This round made me realize that the short songs I respond to most are the ones where the song itself is in some way about not quite having enough time. Also, I think, why I have always responded more strongly to the Stones cover of "Good Times" than to the Sam Cooke original: the Stones version is shorter, under two minutes, and I think that's one reason it's always given me a more intense feeling of a fleeting golden moment that will not be repeated.

so no one else is waking up every morning with "Bart and Marge, they are in charge" stuck in their head?

Oh you seriously need to get on the Colossal Youth album. It sits on its own plane of existence.

Xpost to lily

And Lily: I think of groovy music as music with an insistent rhythm that makes you feel like bobbin your head, your body, your mind. don’t overthink it, just groove.

Sorry kurt (//0~~0//) xps

Do we have to allocate all our votes? As did feel bad down voting

Some of you have a very low threshold for annoyance.

I think I wouldn’t find most of these songs to be incredibly annoying if heard separately in a a single dose, but I have the patience of a saint. Hearing them all together in an hour and a half playlist does get to my nerves in one way or another.

That said - not naming names - but there’s been songs on previous rounds that have annoyed me more than almost everything on this playlist.

djp, i am glad you enjoyed the "greazy unicorn." i was honestly worried more people would like it! haha

Point of clarification - now that we have eliminated the "downvote for duplicate country" criterion, is this next round just which song did you like best? Are we supposed to be specifically weighing obscurity?

Also I just want to say to those who didn't find Phish particularly annoying and thus did not give me points, but also said you have no desire to hear any more: cowards! If you can abide by "Contact" there just may be Phish you will actually dig. Allow me to indoctrinate you. Meet us in the Phish thread and follow Ivy's path!

“Greazy Unicorn” was legit rad! Like an angry version of a Friday Night Funkin’ song

don't get me wrong i find it very annoying, but in an admirable way

Point of clarification - now that we have eliminated the "downvote for duplicate country" criterion, is this next round just which song did you like best? Are we supposed to be specifically weighing obscurity?

Cursing the previous category. Have had Frankie Sinatra on a continuous loop in my head for over 24 hours now.

This is why I only listened to that playlist once

yeah, same for me. I relistened to a couple of the songs I liked to finalize which ones will actually get down votes. Some songs I didn't listen to all the way through.

Greazy Unicorn was delightfully wild but I still gave it 3 votes up because it imo nailed the round. I did like it though.

this league has been a whirlwind. went from consistently discovering a bunch of great stuff, to a few rounds of just the worst tracks i've heard in years, and now back to some really nice lesser known tracks.

yeah would def prefer the rounds focus on discovery, rather than gamesmanship. i am all for high degree-of-difficulty categories, but would rather have that result in learning about great music (like the obscure countries or stump the experts rounds)

I think the discovery piece is great but I would never penalize someone for picking a familiar song that fits the topic at hand, unlike seemingly everyone else in the league

there were def some obscure categories I had to skip because I couldn't think of a single song that qualified. then the app stopped working for me for a few weeks lol

Big congratulations to the Season 3 winners!

1. Moka: 243 points
2. ledge: 198 points
3. groovypanda: 198 points

Moka is the undisputed champ of the league, having won all 3 rounds by a comfortable margin, but ledge and groovypanda have also been on the pedestal before.

Season 4 will start after a 2 week break (feedback taken: no "bad music" rounds this time, or weird voting rules)

There will definitely be a few open slots if anyone new wants to join.

Thanks, enochroot: your efforts are hugely appreciated.

Seconded. Has been great and the cadence is perfect for me. Nice round to finish with.

this was a lot of fun even though I am terrible at actually winning. Enjoying it because it's both making me listen to a lot of stuff I would normally not listen to and it's also really making me dig through my musical memories to find the best match for each category.

My "Music League Keepers" playlist now holds 211 tracks. This is such an effective way for me to discover music, especially from genres into which I rarely stray.

Yep, thanks enochroot

I quite enjoyed the changed voting in those rounds though

And agree with imago that the voting period does feel a tad long but it's nice having each round start on the same day of the week so overall happy with the cadence

Are 209 of them Inspector Norse? xp

thanks enochroot, congrats moka! now where did I put those ideas for new rounds...

I'm thinking of a couple of categories... will probably send something soon

This has been a fun league! Thanks everyone for your selections, blurbs and comments every round. The league has been one of the few bright things to look forward to in this dire times.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this league. Really enjoying it + digging deep into my own brain.

I hope my comments above about preferring music discovery didn't influence you to get rid of bad music rounds or weird voting, if people like them I'm happy to participate, I just personally like the discovery part. Its all fun though. I don't want to discourage creative or weird rounds just because of my comments. I would have never heard that crazy unicorn song and nobody would have known about Lara Trump's musical endeavors, I'd hate to rob people of that.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this league. Really enjoying it + digging deep into my own brain.

I hope my comments above about preferring music discovery didn't influence you to get rid of bad music rounds or weird voting, if people like them I'm happy to participate, I just personally like the discovery part. Its all fun though. I don't want to discourage creative or weird rounds just because of my comments. I would have never heard that crazy unicorn song and nobody would have known about Lara Trump's musical endeavors, I'd hate to rob people of that.

Yeah, it was a total blast! It's also rowdy to get a curated weekly playlist unlike anything I'd ever encounter in the wild

Season 4 categories are up:
https://app.musicleague.com/l/6a28868ef0fb40c1ba05a65c0b7c1c30/

The first round picks are due in about a week, by end of day (GMT) May 1st.

Newcomers welcome!

yessss - loving the categories!

Woohoo! A decided move in the direction of Eno Oblique Strategies-esque categories (a very positive thing for me)

I'm in! A lot of technical categories, which are not my forte, but I'm up for the challenge

thanks for setting up and looking forward to picking u2 for the first round

Love the categories and glad for the move away from categories like ‘post terrible music’ 😂👍

I thought a lot of the categories from last round were interesting but there were several where I just drew a total blank. these I think I can do :)

Love the categories and glad for the move away from categories like ‘post terrible music’ 😂👍

― pronounced with an ‘umpty’ (Willl), Friday, 25 April 2025 14:35 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok but I for one am not going to let this stop me

(I would never post something I didn't genuinely love myself just in order to annoy people, but previous rounds of this game have made it clear to me that some of you are not on the same page as me wrt what constitutes 'terrible music'. However, I will continue to speak my truth.)

Hopped aboard this round, as Bustermumbles. Excellent thought put into the round categories. Will be a good stretch for me to find submissions as a fan of music, not a player.

yeah, same thing for me, I've never played any musical instrument, so things like weird time signatures is not something I tend to notice. Most of these I think I'll manage to find something interesting though.

Also will continue to post the music I enjoy most and resign myself to being somewhere in the bottom half of the standings

these categories look great

Just under 48 hours until the new league gets underway.

(reminder that everything is 4 hours earlier this time -- for those used to getting in their entries just before the stroke of midnight EST, this time around it will be the stroke of midnight GMT)

There are still a few open slots, for any curious lurkers or lapsed veterans.

Just submitted and bumping thread as there's still three left to submit and only about 15 hours remaining

This first playlist is very fun

Doubt you'll be saying that next round

next round is making me realize I don't really listen to much music that could be described as sad

Tears in Heaven?

I have a playlist as long as yer arm. Though I haven't listened to it in ages.

going to be a striking tone shift lol

I took a pill in ibiza