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[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This has massive potential to be the very worst thing ever recorded. SAVE US.

In happier news, the radio did a mindmeld this morning when I was in the optician's: for the past couple of days I've had a craving to hear, of all things, 'Stuck' by Stacie Orrico, and what did I hear while awaiting my contact lenses but JUST THAT! I especially love the counterpoint backing vocals right at the end - "don't! know! what! to! do!" Talk about what you love about it.

And throw in love for Lumidee's 'Never Leave You' while you're at it, that's what the radio played afterwards and I started involuntarily bobbing to the beat and the optician looked at me very oddly.

Comments

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

What I love about it: Stacie Orrico! (I love this song but can't remember it at all now my brain is putty)

Tell me what you think of the Paris album, Lex!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is kind of half-hearted Avril guitar pop crossed with half-hearted attempt at generic r&b backing and it works magnificently because it has a monster chorus; it starts off "I can't get out of bed today or get you off my mind"; the video has Stacie going to SCHOOL in a BUS and ignoring a BOY on another bus but also gazing WISTFULLY out of the window. None of her other songs were any good, I have the album :(

Has the Paris album, like, leaked and stuff yet?! I can't wait. It's going to be called Paris Is Burning!

[cis.livejournal.com]

"i could be the one" was also AMAZING, plus totally based on the magnificat. It might not have been on that album though.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that one, it may have been on the album - I never actually made it to the end. Stacie was a Xtian and stuff! She was all wholesome and critical of Xtina, but on the album cover she's totally sticking her tits in the camera.

[cis.livejournal.com]

Aha it was released 2004, so must have been another album (i wrote about it here (http://cis.livejournal.com/1712.html)). It didn't do very well, I think: certainly never heard about her again after that. She was kind of tail-end of the michelle branch/vanessa carlton pop-rock thing, wasn't she? Proper actual teen-pop like what ceddy and fkogan go on about.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes, Branch and Carlton are the people my brain was not coming up with earlier, and you can hear she's their tail-end because of the dual tentative reaches towards the r&b beat and the Avril guitars, she is aware she's a tail-end but she's not quite sure what comes next...

[cis.livejournal.com]

i want to hear it again now!

(i have been totally rocking the gwen album these past couple days, btw, I'd forgotten just how much I loved it! although the complete lack of any proper album tracks is kind of wearying.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of duff ones in the middle, it breaks the album up nicely into the five bangers everyone knows, and the five bangers you listen to less but which are even better when you do bother with them.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Guess what I found when I got home on Sunday! Shaznay Lewis promo single CD with Phones Volt remix on it!

[cis.livejournal.com]

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD lend me lend me! *___________* (so i can rip it at the highest bitrate i know!)

The only two tracks on it that strike me as low-energy if not meh are 'serious' and 'danger zone' (disregarding the two mixes at the end): harajuku girls doesn't have single-type punch but the wtf is so extreme it takes up the same amount of... concentration? And 'long way to go' would occupy album-track mental space were it not for the 'millionaire' precedent. So that means you get a nine-track blast of highly attention-seeking pop before there's any respite: I've been skipping the first four tracks just so my brain doesn't overload.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh I think 'Serious' and 'Danger Zone' definitely have as much high-octaneness as the rest - something to do with the insane treble throughout the production - but 'Luxurious' and 'Harajuku Girls' are just not as good, they're where Gwenny Gwengwen tips into insanely irritating territory, so I skip them. I certainly wouldn't be able to listen to more than five LAMB tracks in a row.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is on the album! I dug it out and looked! It's near the end so I don't think I ever got that far, but you're right, it is totally ace.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

The video was amazing! I wrote loads about it in a letter to a friend but can remember neither what I wrote nor still the song somehow!

I want the album to be, like, microhouse.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I want the album to be crunk, and for Paris to rap, and swear lots, and have mad things done to her vocals.

Of course you can remember 'Stuck'. Try harder Greg. Google it!

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

I am listening to it right now. It is great. I don't remember it at all!

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

I want the album to be crunk, and for Paris to rap, and swear lots, and have mad things done to her vocals.

I think this would be okay? It is the best that is likely to happen.

I want, still: loads of minimalist styles, sometimes like Villalobos sometimes just like Justus, Paris whispering and cooing, 35 minutes, mirrors. She'd be so great at it!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That would be great as well, actually. She drawls in a perfect languorous way for microhouse. But I want the full force of her empty plastic personality in her music and I am not sure microhouse would be the best vehicle for that.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

P's plastic personality is anything but empty!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

She's beautifully blank. I think she totally means to do it, though.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

I like Nicole Richie better.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

for me it is paris in concept but nicole in practice (there was a terrific interview with her in the guardian weekend about a month ago). concept, i am afraid to say, probably wins out for me.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

if nicole richie made an album it would sound like jewel.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

She is in the process of making an album! So I guess we will find out. I think it more likely that she will sound like a jewel, rather than Jewel.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

nah, it will be a confessional! like her novel thing. which makes me think jewel, alanis, that sort of thing...

hilary duff is hideously underrated, in this field. she is awesome.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

omg i heart hilarity so much! i need a hilarity album but can't decide between the one which appears to be some sort of greatest hits but which doesn't have 'the math', or the album proper with 'the math'.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

just get both. you can never have enough duff. she has heart, that girl.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I love how she sings 'telephone'. It goes something like "I keep wishing you would call me on the teh-leh-phowwne'

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes! She kind of does a weird half-pause stutter thing before each syllable, and it's that classic pop lyric thing of saying the word 'telephone' after 'call me' which is, like, actually completely unnecessary.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Exactly - how else could he call her? I suppose if they had Skype he could call her on the in-ter-neeet.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what Skype is but I have been singing this alternate line to myself all morning, and trying not to dissolve into laughter in the office. Pop stars singing about the internet = hilarity; I think Destiny's Child did it best but let's not forget Britney's classic 'Email My Heart'.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Skype is where you can call people over the Internet. It's very clever cos it doesn't cost anything no matter where you're phoning. There have been other songs about the Internet. I particularly like Damn I Think I Love by ace Dutch popstars K-otic, which is about a relationship over the Internet - lyrics here! (http://www.5pmusic.com/lyric/98842.htm) There's also Cheekah Bow Bow (http://www.elyrics.net/read/v/vengaboys-lyrics/cheekah-bow-bow-(That-computer-song)-lyrics.html) by the Vengaboys, which is probably the most amusing of Internet songs.

Speaking of themed songs, I've recently been thinking of songs related to Greece and classics to make a mix CD for revision - have you any suggestions what I could put on it? Some egs of what I have so far - Temple of Love by BWO, Olympia by E-Type, Never Let It Go by Afro-Dite. So far I've found that all the classics related songs are really great!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

And all afternoon I was racking my brains about this instead of working. So far I have drawn a blank except some singer-songwritery stuff - 'Troy' by Sinéad O'Connor, 'Hey Jupiter' and 'Pandora's Aquarium' by Tori Amos, and yes I know this Roman instead of Greek but 'Venus As A Boy' by Björk is still ace. I will think some more tonight though.

Skype sounds a bit scary insane, though not quite as scary insane as those K-otic lyrics. Oh Europeans.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I thought Tori would have done something Greek-related. Are any of the songs you mentioned good, or just typical singer/songwritery stuff?

I have spotted quite a few references in songs (Aphrodite in Diva by Dana International for eg) but there are very few songs actually about classics. If I was including Venus I could have Bananarama!

K-otic were actually a brilliant band, don't be fooled by the insane lyrics. They made some brilliant pop, although they broke up after 2 albums.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

You'd probably like 'Hey Jupiter', it's a proper classic weepy ballad - the album version is just Tori plus piano, but the single version was kind of trip-hoppy.

Yes I meant those K-otic lyrics were insanely brilliant! I can imagine someone like Whigfield doing them back in the day.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Special present: http://s64.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0CMB3BBE9Q9J51BWI3B1DWGD7O

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh awesome! And helpfully I'll be downloading this weekend so I'll be able to grab it tomorrow. Cheers dude.

[tommymack.livejournal.com]

You're not wrong about that Embrace thing. I never thought I'd find myself longing for the Kaiser Chiefs...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh I wouldn't go that far, myself. I just give thanks that my sport doesn't have theme songs, unless you count eg Jennifer Capriati requesting that they play 'Bombs Over Baghdad' when she walks on court "to show support for the troops in Iraq", but that's just hilarity.