2005-12-02

The Poptimists Advent Calendar Day 2

Before I post the Exciting New Poptimists Feature starting today I should attend to the exciting old poptimists feature I started yesterday, so...

( What's behind the door? )

Meanwhile, entirely non-Advent related but we need to keep a lid on the number of posts cluttering up your flists, here's a Eurobosh cover of Simple Minds, as requested by

boyofbadgers.

You know that stuff about not doing too many updates, yeah? Well EFF THAT because...

a NEW Daphne and Celeste interview has surfaced.

"Pop is dead" they claim. Well I said that YEARS ago and I didn't believe it EITHER. (Though it got quoted in a BOOK!!)

Despite this they're still great.

(OK no more updates from me for another 2 hours I PROMISE.)

EDIT: See how I get round this by editing this post! I need a paragraph on Jay-Z's "The Takeover" for NYLPM, can anyone bash one out this afternoon and email it to me...?

WINNER STAYS ON!

OK you might have noticed that Popt'ists has been much concerned in recent weeks with larnin' the membership on the glorious history of pop (Level 42, Baltimora, etc.). But what of the modern variety, it risks neglect? Yes indeed, so here's the second twice-weekly feature that will see the community into the '06 ~~and double the amount of polls I get to do~~:

WINNER STAYS ON!

The concept of WSO is childishly simple. Every Tuesday and Friday I post 2 YSI links, which battle it out vote-style for the title of "The Greatest Track Of Right Now". The loser is forgotten and may never appear again. The winner STAYS ON and appears in the next face-off: so for instance whichever track wins today will be present on Tuesday facing a new challenger.

Which tracks can 'play'? Anything you like - we're not formally limiting it but the idea is to favour what's exciting in current pop (be as wild as you like about yr definition of 'pop' and of 'current') and to encourage debates and shouting and that sort of thing.

To start with we have two of the most frothed-over recent singles.

( POPCLASH )

Please also let me know in the comments box if you want to nominate the next challenger - first come first etc.

Bedtime Bible Verses

So who saw some or all of last night's Madonna documentalry, 'I'm Going To Tell You A Secret'? Much evidence was on hand that while the quality of Madge's music may have gone back up again, she has, in a very real sense, Lost It. The opening credits feature Madonna reading portentously from the Book of Revelation, which is apparently also how her live show starts these days. She explained later that "the Beast" refers to the Material World, which distracts us from being able to see things that don't really exist.

I liked her better when her obession with religion was a bit more blasphemous.

Other lowlight: Madonna sits on a guitar stool playing the guitar and singing a song about her dead Mum while wearing a hairnet. Her Dad sits in the audience and watches, his expression inscrutable.

Well done Stuart Price, however, for pulling faces while Madonna's Dad was saying a pre-show prayer, and for being suitably bemused at her shock that he didn't believe in God (for all her desire to be British, never has she seemed so American), and for drawing a crucial line in the sand even after he'd admitted he does believe in something.

Madonna: "Can we call it 'Energy' or 'The Life'?"

Lu Cont, after a telling pause: "We can call it 'Energy'."

To be fair, she did laugh at this point. Maybe there's still hope for her.