JohnnyoftheWell
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5s on 5s: PON vs TOSMOKMUZYKI

You know the drill here we go doing this on mobile nearly killed me let's go um
1Anathema
Judgement

Feedback for this round so far:

"hey now it's not pachelbel's fault that his piece was turned into muzak in the 20th century by jean-françois paillard, he wouldve thrown up if he lived to hear that shit

it is funny though that smok clearly intended his 5 for the muzak version & doesn't know a thing about baroque music " - Havey

" mayb b nicer to pon
like 0.1% nice" - Phero
2KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

RECAP

This is 5s on 5s, two distressingly willing competitors go head to head one of them wins it is a competition of 5s. Is it a tournament maybe.

RULES

Ten rounds, or maybe fewer. Each round contains cogent matches of 5s. There is a criteria it is secret. Win/lose/draw however wins most rounds wins.

THIS TIME?

This time is special because it is a GRUDGE MATCH. The competitors probably do not know this yet, but we will see why soon. The stakes are therefore raised and the loser must LEAVE THE SITE FOREVER I do not make the rules. First we need history let's go. It is time to INTRODUCE THE COMPETITORS
3Vylet Pony
Carousel

In the blue corner: PON (aka Jacquibm)

PON arrived on Sputnik in 2012 and carved out a unique character narrative that has since been franchised and disseminated to the point that few of the many fucking users who have benefitted from it understand the source text not trying to be passagg here shut the shit up and listen we can fix that right now okay. I arrived on Sput in 2011 and therefore own the rights to all this shit.

Original PON was a chill babecake who mixed MLP fandom with a growing, if inexperienced interest in theme park candy metal of the In Flames/Wintersun/Colored Sands strain. His presence was both welcome and welcoming, and his early reviews were easily on par with the best of contemp Sputnik metal journalism (I don't mean to backhand him too much there: he got much better and never shat the bed).
4Vylet Pony
Super Pony World: Fairytails

PON eventually acquired the Staff tag and blazed a trail of increasingly commercially hostile metal reppage over however many years. Three major highlights of his tenure include the time he declared Ulcerate's Everything Is Fire the death metal album of our times five years after its release, the time he got a promo from arch-poser sput user Graveyard's solo project only to use the staff pedestal to rain a 3.2 upon it, and the unlikely role he had in legitimising the Pop Music Is Good Actually movement on Sput via Carly Rae Jepsen as one of the (checks notes) two credible Staffers of that time who recreationally consumed pop music (RIP Brostep).

While PON's Staff years were noble and commendable and fine etcetc., their legacy wasn't fully established until his literal final reviews.
5Vylet Pony
Queen of Misfits

By this point, the kid had been classical pilling like a cat in heat and was able to thrive on the facts that 1) a significant portion of his taste was both canonically enshrined and totally unintelligible to the majority of his audience (the dream for esoteric hevyshit boppers far and wide), and 2) he was able to draw on a significant cultural and technical framework to support critiques of whichsoever latest kvlt viral skronk phenomenon the bums of Sput would be lapping up with or without. As such, the endgame of PON's entire character progression can be surmised from the following two sentences, from his review of Ad Nauseam's Imperative Imperceptible Impulse:

"This penchant for variation and polyphony was – according to the band themselves – informed by a number of 20th century classical composers, such as Xenakis, Scelsi, Ligeti and Penderecki. It’s a relief that this influence extends far beyond the simple inclusion of tortured strings as a kind of dressing, imbuing the core str
6Vylet Pony
Cutiemarks (And the Things That Bind Us)

uctures of each song in a way that feels neither antiquated nor prescriptive."

Whether or not Sputnik's ongoing indiscriminate fetishisation of burgeoning dissoshit is a good thing, or whether PON's Faustian pact with the classicists ultimately worked in his favour will be determined by this contest. PON's journey is the hero's journey and although his fate is uncertain, his role in legitimising both poptimism and po-faced metal-ism was undoubtedly played as a protagonist (easy to say when the majority of folks writing/supporting similar bollocks still occupy NPC status, but)...
7Kalmah
Swamplord

In the red corner: TOSMOKMUZYKI (aka PON WARIO)

There can be no matter without antimatter, no protein without grease, and no franchise mascot without an arbitrarily and often incompetently evil nemesis - and as such PON's entire oeuvre essentially left us destined for TOSMOKMUZYKI.

Like probably all Sput infamies, TOSMOK initially appeared on the site's political list in the guise of a brutish flame spammer from the depths of hell. These were bad days and threw up so much s m o k that it took us a while to adjust to the fact that he, too, claims to listen to music. Okay - about that:
8Kalmah
Swampsong

The TOSMOK story by and large mimics the PON trajectory, but inverts the optics at every stage. Transcending the melodeath pantheon to build an empire out of the least appealing music known to man? None of that - Smok venerates the likes of Insomnium, Kalmah and Children of Bodom, and treats their existence as an excuse to shart Cyclotron-style on the rest of music as a whole, *especially* the (majority) parts that have next to nothing in common with it. Anything dissonant is first against the wall; RIP to PON. This is propped up, because of fucking course, by a rampant disposition for the most bland classical nothingmusics on the planet - this shit has sanitised so many retirement homes that Havey himself has a recalcitrant aversion to anything in its proximity. More on that later.
9Kalmah
Seventh Swamphony

The upshot in this in terms of digipresence could not be a further contrast from PON, who was able to employ cool powers of reason to weigh in on arguments with low-effort victories, and [Chill man][endearing animal image][unfluttered banal remark]s for literally everything else. Though he is far less prone these days to giving us an insight as to what skele might have looked like with a baseline degree of erudition and self-awareness, TOSMOK uses the syntax of logic to proactively dismantle any notions approaching conventional wisdom whenever the opportunity arises. You and I could never pull half of this shit off - just try it. Unable to furnish a coherent argument for why soulfulness is the core of music but Marvin Gaye is a useless representation of soul? Throw in a gratuitous classical comparison and watch those heads swivel while you run out the door.
10Kalmah
The Black Waltz

Got your back against your wall as to whether the criteria you set for worthwhile art is perhaps a tiny bit massively janked out? Pull the trick that PON was frequently (and unfairly - eternal reminder that this site can't parse for shit) accused of, and blame it all on your entirely arbitrary use of nebulous descriptors, understandable to no-one else on the planet without a degree in phenomenology and the arcane.
11KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

THE MATCH

Now that we have the biographies ironed out, it should be obvious that PON is the hero whose powers of logic and lexis are good and TOSMOK is the agent of chaos come to invert everything PON ever gave us for cheap laughs. End of story?

Uh no no - this is 5s on 5s and the optics are BLIND! Context is important, but if you looked at those two ratings charts without the faintest idea of who produced them, you would assume that TOSMOK was a flippant but tbqh highly welcome cheekymonkey poking fun at the increasingly desperate efforts of metal crusties to champion the artistic merit of concerted skronk JANK, whereas PON's 5slist (of which we shall be seeing everything) is one of the most wretched facsimiles ever produced of the kind of humourless elitism you *don't* want to fall into under any circumstances whatsoever. Can good still beat evil when good wears the trousers of the stooge, and evil plays all comers against themselves with Mephistophilean deftness? Let's see…
12Ad Nauseam
Imperative Imperceptible Impulse

ROUND ONE: First 5 on the list

PON: PON's first 5 is one of the stronger offerings from the rolling bandwagon of trendy melody-allergic technical bullcrap currently functioning as this site's lifeblood for people too mature to listen to core and too celibate to pretend to find merit in Deftones. It is also the last album PON has reviewed to date, which is exactly the kind of ouroboric ironic deliciousness one never expects but always loves to see in a first 5 on a list. It tells us many things about PON, begins with A, and is also beautifully recorded. A good start.
13Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND ONE: First 5 on the list

TOSMOKMUZYKI: TOSMOK's first and only 5 is Pachelbel's Canon in its first and most impossible form. You have heard this piece before it is Pachelbel's Canon (more on that later!) Since the listing in question does not correspond to any given recording, I will take it to entail every available version of the piece including non-classical covers. This does not matter right now. All that matters is how it looks as the first 5 on the list. It looks like a statement. We will unpack it later. It sets the tone for TOSMOK's 5s just fine.
14KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

Winner of Round One: Pachelbel's Canon is a notable and heroic piece of music that continues to inspire many young minds across the world. Many generations have been ruined since the fucking 1960s. Stupid hippies stupid Beach Boys stupid Pachelbel. III will be forgotten by all but the people who really need it. It is safe.

WINNER: PON
15Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND TWO: Bedroom 5s (kink)

TOSMOK: My default gag here would have been something to the tune of "lol pach canon will give you a hot water bottle and tuck you into bed kiss kiss goodnight hurr turbo virgins", after which I'd probably have awarded it an ironic victory because hurr chastity points

…but then I saw that high school lesbian love triangle classroom nude massage scene in the Forest of Love set to Jun Togawa's metamorphic rendition of guess which piece of usually-innocuous-muzak and everything changed forever. I am not bringing those vibes into the bedroom (see literal aerial car crash follow-on within film for why). Curses upon SMOK - this is just further evidence that he understands nothing of the baroque legacy. Bleugh.
16Deathprod
Morals and Dogma

ROUND TWO: Bedroom 5s (kink)

PON: Unlike TOSMOK, who for all his iconoclastic rampage is ultimately a normie ratbag, PON does not do bedrooms. During nocturnal hours, he can be found in a motherfucking *crypt*, though his parlance favours 'temple'. This is adequate cover for why none of his 5s should be brought within 100m of bedroomspace under any given circumstances. Get thirsty, go slow, turn off the lights and go full deathcult on that(?) bitch. m/?
17KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

Winner of Round Two: This is a clear-cut case of ugly misplaced tragic erotic misfire vs. unassuming immunity bonus. No further thought is needed.

WINNER: PON
18Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND THREE: Refrigeration?

TOSMOKMUZYKI: Well, will it refrigerate or won't it? Huh? HUH!! If this were a freezer round, it might be a different story - Pachelbel's Canon ain't got a crystal's worth of frost in it - but refrigeration just requires steady maintenance of a smooth not-gonna-melt-ur-shit vibe, and I'd argue that if Pachelbel didn't achieve exactly that, then Brian Eno's ambient interpretation of the piece sure af did. He won't exactly stop your milk from going off, but put your feta inside this boi's jaws and its contours will come out as before. KEEP.
19Autechre
Confield

ROUND THREE: Refrigeration?

PON: This needlessly record-shaped chin sharpener has been inside your stupid fucking fridge since before you bought it, and there it will stay forevermore. Is it a miracle that two lean cunts one day burnt it to a CD-R so that the PONs of the world can have us marvel at how little music they listen to, oh shit yes. Is it going to change the extent to or manner in which you consume your stupid fucking fridge? Hold my very much below room temperature fucking beer.
20KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

There is no explanation for this round and if you think I should have provided one, I will personally finance your therapy until your music taste improves.

WINNER: TOSMOKMUZYKI
21Rudimentary Peni
Death Church

ROUND FOUR: Most surprising 5

PON: PON's most surprising 5 is actually a pretty great album, and-

actually I'm going to end that sentence there lol.

Death Church slaps and is nasty. This shit is anarcho PUNX / earlydays hxc and has grit, paranoia, delightfully unpolished musicianship, and everything else you'd usually never ever associate with a curation cabinet full of meticulously practiced Things That Ordinary People Can't Make Without Diplomas (other than burgeoning mental illness, to which end this record is about as full of diagnoses as they come). Going solely from the almost disconcerting ease with which the band/album titles blend into the rest of PON's 5s, I am more than half convinced that he has never in fact heard this record and simply 5'd for optics, but it's a welcome enough plot twist that, honestly, fair.
22Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND FOUR: Most surprising 5

TOSMOKMUZYKI: TOSMOK's most surprising 5 is Pachelbel's Canon, which tbqh is such a stately, multi-situational piece of such universal appeal that I am shocked he enjoys it in the slightest. This wretched kid has filtered himself on a ludicrously vast range of records that it butterpliers my stomach to see that he is, after all, just like the rest of us. This shit is the equivalent of Baseline 5ing Morning Musume or tectactoe 5ing the Killers - not the worst self-own in the form of an uncharacteristically basic simp, but one that makes me suspicious
23KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

TOSMOK has a slight disadvantage here in that his critiques are so chaotic and inconsistent that anything he did lay down a 5 for would clash in whatever way against however many of his dunks. PON's preferences are more narrowly charted and his character coherently outlined, and it's easier for him to make a departure as such

WINNER: PON
24Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND FIVE: Least surprising 5

TOSMOKMUZYKI: TOSMOK's least surprising 5s is Pachelbel's Canon, which tbqh is such a basic, colourless, inoffensive shell of a piece that I am not shocked in the slightest to see that it's the only piece of music incapable of filtering him in the slightest. This wretched kid has blazed such a contrarian trail of piss that it is ultimately a source of ironic joy to see that at the end of the day, he can't help but mark himself out as just like the rest of us. His failure to 5 any specific performance of Canon and Gigue in D, instead allying himself with the highly obscure source text made popular but a mid-20th century mood muzak takeover, suggests either an indifference to anything resembling contemporary relevance or a basic level of ignorance as to what exactly he is rating. Both of these are very much in character. Huh.
25Ulcerate
Everything Is Fire

ROUND FIVE: Least surprising 5

PON: PON's least surprising 5 is an album which which he has made every effort to define not only large swathes of his gentile personality, but also the site itself. His success in the former regard and *kinda* also the latter suggests that this was a landmark waiting to happen for a long time - Rome was not built in one album! Ulcerate fit PON's anime-glasses-up disposition for uninviting theoryskronk with extra decibels like a hand in SMOK's MUM and I am quivering with boredom at this point in the birb blurb blurb
26KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

As we saw in the last round, consistency is everything here, but PON's donk quest to make the world a squarer place can go on no longer at this point - Ulcerate as a personal statement 5 is long out for novelty opinion at this point and also nakedly short on the personality many mistakenly credited it with to begin with. SMOK gets this one for Sisyphean absurdist points.

WINNER: TOSMOKMUZYKI
27Peste Noire
Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor

ROUND SIX: 5 that you should most obviously drop

PON: This is such easy bait that I just spent 3 airborne hrs trying to reflect on a savvier alternative, but there's no two ways around it - literally the only way France could be more insufferable is if it was also fascist, and literally the worst 21st century look fascism continues to enjoy for lawd knows what reason is in anonymous black metal bullshit postulation propped up by people like, in this case, PON because actually the most important thing right now is for us to know they want to take their art seriously.

All that said, the main reason I have zero interest in this band is that even the sappy hack from Alcest couldn't stand to hang around with them. Imagine the lameness of those optics - sort that shit out, PON.
28Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND SIX: 5 that you should most obviously drop

TOSMOKMUZYKI: At this point, I straight up do not buy the idea that this unrecorded piece of transcendent waiting room is a more accurate reflection of SMOK's criteria for greatness than, say, Children of Bodom's HATE CREW DEATHROLL. If that album ain't going up, this one should come down to keep it company and - a still more accurate reflection of Things As They Are - there can be no 5s and no winners and I can finally go to fucking bed.
29KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

I did not ever expect to see SMOK bailed out on his shit by unacceptably racist toxicity from literally the worst European country, but here we are. This entry was more topical than intended, but DEMON OF THE FALL forced my hand boy I cannot wait to see him up here

WINNER: TOSMOKMUZYKI
30Collegium Vocale Gent
Carlo Gesualdo: Responsoria 1611

ROUND SEVEN: buy me a fucking drink

PON: I am somewhat biased against this ALBUM because Spotify cut me off halfway through with a lil "DO YOU LIKE SYNTHESISER INDIE ROCK LIKE FEVER RAY OR THE KNIFE [cue 5 seconds of Grimes-like darkpop]" back to back with a Louis Theroux ad, and it occurred to me that, uh, yes Louis Theroux and Grimes would conceivably sit in the same room as one another and consume this music over gin and tonics. I hate classical music and its lack of label-mandated boundaries! How dare they.

Still, that's already one beverage in play and I've spent enough time around choirboys to know that they a) have absolutely no morals and b) drink like fish. Can I imagine calling a Gesualdo night and expect a row of fine melodious compatriots to assemble, each hell-bent on getting me shitfaced? Yessir.
31Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND SEVEN: buy me a fucking drink

TOSMOKMUZYKI: You cannot do anything more than sip peppermint tea to Pachelbel. Anything more is irresponsible postulation and yes I will have you sectioned.
32KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

For all his preoccupation with stuffy appearances, PON does know when to promote a pissup at the moments that matter. TOSMOK has spent too long languishing in his own pissiness and has little to share in that department.

WINNER: PON
33Johann Pachelbel
Canon and Gigue in D

ROUND EIGHT: spiritual warmth

TOSMOKMUZYKI: How warm should a spirit be? Wrong question! Wrong metaphysics tbh - in the works of TOSMOK, spirit (innate, trainable, capable of ingenuity, definitive of one's self) tends to play second fiddle to its stunted but arbitrarily more important cousin soul (innate, unyielding, inert, on loan from the divine at a crippling interest rate), and I think this is reflected very clearly in Pachelbel's canon: one listens plantlike and grows only in the areas that matter least (attention span, affinity for sunlight, generic feelings of objectless compassion) and none that ultimately count (have *you* tried applying mind over matter to circulation problems uh).

Having said that, Pachelbel is underrated as a charity act and it is unlikely that he would let your spirit go fully cold.
34Munchener Kammerorchester
Scelsi: Natura renovatur

ROUND EIGHT: spiritual warmth

PON: For a 'composer' with such ardent fixation on 'spirituality' 'and' ""transcendental"" _art_, ''Scelsi''''s music is too gaseous to accomodate the vast blocky substance of *my* spirit at least! God, this sounds like a disintegrating radiator and my circulation is wilting in time to it. To cap that off, Scelsi didn't even compose about a quarter of his work - his method for his second period consisted in recording free improv (cool) and then transcribing it with the most rigorous attention to detail attainable (literally the most joyless approach conceivable to free improv). Still, interesting.

HOWEVER, true to Pon's nasty habit of teasing interesting niches and then sneakily pivoting to unapologetic sniffing of the most banally aired dissonant flatulences, Scelsi's second period had concluded before any of these pieces were written (they are all from the following period) - but still, this classical and the rules are compose everything or die. Credit where it's due, Scelsi has indeed died - does his spirit live on? In these wheezing, vaguely unsettling approximations of a haunted retirement home, apparently so.
35KILLING JOKE
KILLING JOKE

Pachelbel will keep your living room tepid. Scelsi is a slightly preferable alternative to Stars of the Lid for saps who would rather be listening to their kettle whining than either. My feet are cold.

WINNER: TOSMOKMUZYKI
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