Album Archetypes?

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

(On recommendation of Frank+Dave, I'm starting a post here for the first time. No crucifixion, plz!)

So I noticed, while switching this week between my new favorite albums of the month (Dolly's Backwoods Barbie, Vampire Weekend's Absurd Indie Debut, and Laura Marling's Alas I Cannot Swim) that I keep returning to similar sounding albums each year. Not only that, but to a specified, almost dogmatic number of them. Two years ago I really dug Beth Orton's Comfort of Strangers, last year I was really into Paula Cole's new album. Now I've got Laura Marling - another dark-sounding folky record. Every year there's at least one country album that really speaks to me, and at least one indie album that gets played a bunch.

Now some of them serve social purposes. There's the album that I listen to while on the subway (2006: Lily Allen's Alright Still. 2007: Fall Out Boy's Infinity on High. At the moment: Vampire Weekend). There's the defining summer album, the album I like to listen to when it rains outside, the album I hear in every club and @ every party I attend.

So, how about you guys? What kind of album archetypes do you come across year after year? Have you ever found yourself thinking that the album you're currently listening to sounds a lot like a certain album from last year? And the year before? Do you think that this is due to lazy listening? (These albums serve somewhat as a 'free lunch' to use a Koganism.) Or is it that you relate to something in each of these archetypes that attracts you to new examples of them. (For me, probably every folk album goes back to listening to my mother's copy of Joni Mitchell's Hits.)

The Mini Pops = so wrong.

[dansette.livejournal.com]

Another Year In Pop: 7

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dudes we've totally got a new number one! Welsh lass Duffy has booted off Basshunter into the murky depths of number three. But is she any good at all?

[Poll #1140294]
NB Tickers should bear in mind that the Utah Saints track is a new remix, 'Something Good '08'.

Podcast Panel #10

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Keke Palmer - 'Music Box'

Direct link above and it's streaming at http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk for the next 24 hours.

Its submitter says: "Keke Palmer got semi-shafted last year with a pretty great album. Not sure how many people actually heard her best song, "Game Song," but if it was too many, her second-best (to me anyway) song is a totally sappy but pretty number about growing up in the ghetto called "Music Box." Mom fallen on hard(er) times gets a job as a janitor and proceeds to WIPE UP HER OWN TEARS. I mean that is insane."

[Poll #1140325]

To submit a track for the Podcast Panel send an mp3 to leagueofpop@gmail.com - keep em coming!

VOTES STILL OPEN ON: Natalia y la Forquentina! Avenged Sevenfold! Fleet Foxes! and ending tomorrow Trina!

VOTES CLOSED ON: Ivanushki International (Final score: 5.64) and Lancelot Link (Final score: 7.2)

back to beige

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

My unease with the new wave of nu-Amys has been steadily increasing, as anyone who's paid attention to poptimist comment threads recently will have noticed. It was heartening yesterday to discover that I'm not the only one: Kitty Empire's brilliant column in yesterday's Observer says it all.

Key paragraph for me is this:

What a shame, though, that brains and other important body parts - ears, guts, gristle, balls, belly, soul, that kind of thing - have also seemingly vanished from female pop's body politic in the wake of Winehouse's success. Every record label is chasing their own Amy - preferably a white one and one without all that ink and crack. (If you are black, British and - say - called Estelle, you have to take your retro soul-pop stylings to America to be given a proper hearing.) Suitable candidates are being fast-tracked into tidy marketing synergies and given generous press coverage. All these second- and third-generation Amys are, without exception, easier on the ear and a damn sight less trouble than Winehouse herself.

I'd also argue that the problem isn't only that the anaemic, polite reverence of Adele et al do the soul genre a disservice (tbh with Adele it's less reverence and more her total stupidity which is the problem). I've also seen this 'wave' being hyped up as a distinctly female-led one, as though it's a triumph for "women in pop" - women who are autonomous and charismatic, not pliable pop puppets. (This umbrella would include Allen, Nash, Robyn et al I guess. But not Murphy because she isn't lining anyone's pockets.) But comparing these girls to the women who were in the charts even 12 years ago - PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Tori Amos, Björk, Beth Gibbons - they don't even begin to compare. Those were women who weren’t afraid to be aggressive, to be cathartic, to scare people, to experiment with language and sound. Now all we get is blah blah blah “my boyfriend’s a bastard and I am just like you” everygirl bullshit. You couldn't imagine any of the current crop, except Winehouse, actually scaring anyone.