A Year In Pop: 13

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Not a lot to exercise us this week, so just as well there's the March round-up to think about too! (Edit: NOES i made it radio buttons not check boxes - ignore the first qn and just answer the March text qns)

[Poll #959432]

March: The Facts

1. LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum (overall position: 2)
2=. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (op: 3=)
2=. Ciara - Like A Boy (op: 3=)
4. Christina Aguilera - Candyman (op: 10)
5. Hilary Duff - With Love (op: 15)
6. Maximo Park - Our Velocity (op: 22)
7. Calvin Harris - Acceptable In The 80s (op: 28)
8. Scissor Sisters - She's My Man (op: 29)
9. Robbie Williams/PSB - She's Madonna (op: 34)
10. Pink - Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely) (op: 37)

A Year In Pop: 13 take 2!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Answer this one instead.

[Poll #959438]

GOOD FRIDAY POPTIMISM - Dancing! Live Bands! Crisps! Market Research!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

In case you didn't know, we have a POPTIMISM ALL-DAYER at the Union Tavern in Clerkenwell this Friday. We are men not beasts - by "all-dayer" we don't intend starting before 3. But if you come along at 3 you will get the FULL PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES including:

- Crisp tasting!
- Boardgames
- Martin "Lover Man" Skidmore's Smooth Soul Selection
- The GRAN'S DOLE POPRY with Tim Hopkins on the decks and Tracer Hand on a beat-up old geetar.
- Acoustical sets from top acoustical songwriters!
- Kate and the Kurves playing something which may or may not be acoustic, to be honest I don't know, but it will be GREBT I am sure!
- A special transatlantic pop love-in from MC MC and Lena.
- The usual DJ rampage from Carsmile, the Barnet Ape, and this month Matt DC and Starry Sarah.

And what am I doing in all this? Nothing less than the riotous return of the POP MUSIC FOCUS GROUP. This venerable Freaky Trigger feature was famous for being very complicated and taking 3 months to compile: now however we will get it turned around in UNDER AN HOUR* thanks to the miracle of pen and paper technology. Be there, upstairs, from 8 to 9 to have your say on the hits of 2007 so far. It'll be like a poll come to life! (except less scary).

*& then I'll post it on FT on the Saturday.

I Love #1s - 1977

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Last week's pop pinnacle poll placed Take That AND Coolio as the joint best picks of 1995, with 35 ticks each. Tie-breaker below! This week: The King Is Dead, God Save The Queen? It's 1977 and not a Sex Pistol in sight!

[Poll #959505]

(never let it be said that poptimists is short of polls...)

Brad Paisley Ticks

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

He was interviewed in EW this week, and Paisley talked about how important this song was, because Country talked about being outdoors. Now, this song is about the eternal joys of having sex outside (and it has some real naughty lines, esp. for someone who proclaims his class and from someone whose last great hit was about Mama and Jesus.)

The problem is that country rarely talks about the outdoors anymore, except as a playground, and ideas of nature have become a playground for the suburban. The song then, is kind of creepy--he wants to take a woman from the bar, and bring her to a secluded "moonlit" meadow, where he will strip her, and "crawl all over her". The checking for ticks sounds like a cute cover for something sinister.

I never really got Paisley, his realtionship to women has been courtly in that suburban megachurch kind of way, and this is the first time that he has ever sung something explicit in its eroticism, and done another way, it could have destabilised the outdoors/suburban;bar/moonlight dialectic that infuses much country.

But the way he sings it, it has a serial killer vibe.