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Here at Musictravels, we appreciate that everyone has differing viewpoints - especially when it comes to music. So we thought we would give two different reviewers the same single to review, the very cricket-focused "Mr Miandad" by the Duckworth Lewis System... let's see whether they agreed or not. (1) Matt Killeen's Review One of the great contributions MySpace has given to music is the utilitarian necessity for bands to find unique names – of which cricket-obsessed Irishmen The Duckworth Lewis Method are an outstanding example. They know their ELO and they know their Kinks... so well, in fact, that they can pretend they don’t know Dodgy at all. It’s knowingly kooky and almost obligatorily joyful, like a school photo. I should hate this but I just can’t. Every time I summon up some distaste it evaporates in a cloud of bonhomie. There’s even a little fade up that meshes irresistibly with the riff-rolling unaided round your skull, multiplying virus-like to be the soundtrack of the Indian Summer. Should this become a hit it will, almost certainly, become unbearable on the radio. 7.5/10
(2) Mojo Wellington's Review 22 March 1992. South Africa require 22 runs off 13 balls at the Sydney Cricket Ground to beat England and win a place in the World Cup final. But a tense, exciting finish soon descends into a cricketing farce, thanks to a twelve minute rain delay and an ill-thought out rain rule. 22 runs of one ball (or even 21 as it should have been) is pretty difficult in anyone’s book and although Chris “Cocaine Smuggler” Lewis bowled overarm, the finale was never really much of a contest and Brian McMillan could only nudge a single off the last delivery. Frank Duckworth, so the story goes, was listening to the radio commentary of the match and took up Christopher Martin-Jenkins’ challenge that someone somewhere could come up with a better rain rule. One quick call to his old mucker, Tony Lewis (sadly not THAT Tony Lewis), and the Duckworth/Lewis method was born, bringing justice to rain-affected limited overs internationals and the cricket world over (although as England tumbled out this year’s Twenty20 World Cup, they might have been inclined to disagree). But South Africa’s misfortune back in 1992 indirectly gave rise to pop music’s gain in 2009. It is very rare to hear songs dedicated to sport, (let alone entire albums). There may well be a good reason for this. For every World In Motion, there’s an All Over The World (never heard of it? Don’t worry, neither has anybody else – it only ever sold four copies. And Dave A Stewart most likely bought three of them). But Neil “Divine Comedy” Hannon and some other bloke have, under the moniker Duckworth-Lewis Method, recorded the ultimate concept album, taking in every twist and turn that cricket has to offer. Meeting Mr. Miandad, the lead single off the album, begins with a crashing piano run reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands" or The Beatles’ "Let It Be", before finding its way into the style of, well, a Ringo song on any given Beatles album. Hell, Neil Hannon even sounds like Ringo on this tune. So yes, it’s catchy and all, but with that kind of guilty pleasure feeling you get when singing "Yellow Submarine" at two o’clock in the morning in a karaoke bar in Borneo. Or maybe that’s just me. So although Meeting Mr. Miandad may not exactly be pop gold, it’s fun and enjoyable and more importantly, a hell of a lot better than this: "> 7/10 |
