The Month In POP - August

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

[Poll #810937]
Continue in the comments if you run out of space!

Also, quote of the day from everyone's favourite wapper, Fiddy Cent:

"You wanna know something? I actually like Bush. In some ways, I'm the George W Bush of hip hop - nobody likes me, but I'm still gonna run it for the next four years."

The History Of Jop Part 2 aka Clap your hands everybody if you got what it takes

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The second instalment of this poll series takes us to the Pazz and Jop poll of 1980 - if you don't know what Pazz and Jop is, refer to the previous episode (or ignore it and do the poll anyway). You get to pick NINE of these.

( When the routine bites hard )

And now here's the results of the 1979 poll: the Joptimists Top Ten

1. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (44 votes)
2. Rapper's Delight (40)
3. We Are Family/Greatest Dancer (37)
4. Good Times (34)
5. Pop Musik (31)
6. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick/Reasons To Be Cheerful (30)
7. My Sharona (28)
8. Dreaming (26)
9. Hot Stuff (25)
10=. Gangsters (21)
10=. Life During Wartime (21)
10=. Damaged Goods/It's Her Factory (21)

Christgau Fired!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Ironically coming just as freakytigger wonders whether Pazz and Jop will continue under the New Regime at the Village Voice, comes the news that Robert Christgau has been let go, apparently for reasons of "taste."

Ladies Men

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

so i bought death of a ladies man this week, and the fight b/w cohen and spector for supermacy, or for the words and the music to work against each other in such a tense way, makes it an incredible listen, i was wrong about the album.

but listening to let it be again, where something similar should happen, it doenst, its just an ugly, sentimental record.

my thesis was, interesting things happen when

a) spector is allowed to win
b) spector fails to win, but struggles to try.

though the second half of this thesis is disprovable with let it be, and i found for a decade, death of a ladies man an impossible listen...

i dont know what this means, but it keeps reminding me of poptimist, because we keep paying attention to who is behind the curtain (ie the new paris is kind of amazing b/c scott sorch (sp) is amazing), and these two examples seem like an interesting test case of what happens when people with strong, interior voices work together.

why does death of a ladies man work and let it be fail?
why is cohen pleased w. death and displeased with let it be?

(this is the only time that cohen is lush, he went from guitars to casio, and well the beatles were always lush, but differently lush than spector)

(the aesthetics of "lushness". maybe?)