People still had to nom a song for this round
There are 14 or 15 songs that I never would've listened to were it not for the process and this round's 'no theme'.
Despite the complaints, I've enjoyed listening to this batch of tunes. Probably the best playlist we've had since the 'Black performers' round. Even the modern-day rehash/ripoff punk tunes (which I normally despise) all had good riffs & great sections. I don't know why anyone was expecting to be blown away by our selections - we're still the same bunch of twats with questionable taste & limited knowledge. Not like we had Henry Wagons or Jarvis Cocker picking the songs for this round.
You said that picking a song to fit the theme is "part of the challenge", but what's so challenging about using Google, or scrolling through your music folder using a search filter ? (fun thing to do, but there'll be further opportunities to do that in the next few rounds)
Some people say they give votes according to the theme, but that's bullshit. e.g. Iron Maiden's 'Number Of the Beast' won the Talking Blues round. It has a 20 second bible reading from a Vincent Price imposter - the intro is superfluous to the song itself. It was probably the only song from that round which didn't really fit the theme. All the other noms had spoken word sections in the song, or spoken-singing, which was the host's intention. ('Rime of the Ancient Mariner' would've been a better fit from the Iron Maiden catalog.)
People don't vote for songs which best fit the theme - they vote for the songs they like best. The theme just gives us a chance to pick on 1 or 2 songs each round and argue over whether they should've been allowed. So for this round, we don't have those arguments. No great loss.