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LEAGUE 43
88
Submissions
9
Players
396
Total Points
League Champion
Carrie61
total points
★ Highest Scoring Song
10
points
PITCHFORK
League 43 Reviewed: The Market Corrects Itself
A league that understood what it wanted to be — even if it occasionally confused accessibility for ambition.
By Cassandra Noel · Best New League: 7.5
League 43 arrives at a moment when competitive curation has perhaps overcorrected toward the legible. Carrie's victory — built on 61 points across 5 rounds — feels less like a breakthrough than a confirmation: the market, as ever, rewards the comprehensible. The final margin: just 2 points.
"Goose Snow Cone" by Aimee Mann — submitted by Carrie, accruing 10 points — is the league's defining artifact. It does what it does without apology. Whether that constitutes a virtue is a question the voters answered clearly, if not always convincingly.
"First listen: what a mess. Second listen: ok that's pretty good."
Shane on Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Remastered 2011 by Queen · Shane's Theme - A Matter Of Life And Death
The "Jared's Theme - Best "And the..."" round produced the league's most instructive moment: Jaso(n)'s selection of "Still The Same" by Bob Seger demonstrated the tension between accessibility and taste that defined the season. "Jon's Theme - D.A.R.E. to Listen" went to Carrie with "Goose Snow Cone" by Aimee Mann (10 pts). And for "Shane's Theme - A Matter Of Life And Death" went to Eric with "Life's What You Make It - 1997 Remaster" by Talk Talk (7 pts).
The field remained largely consistent — a stability that cuts both ways.
Genre-wise, classic country dominated, with country close behind. Nostalgia for the 1990s ran deep throughout. There is something telling in the gravitational pull toward 1990s. Not wrong, exactly. Just revealing.
League 43: 7.3. Recommended, with reservations. League 44 will, presumably, tell us something we didn't already know.