The History Of Jop Part 19 aka You have so many relationships in this life

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I decided to do a Jop poll after all, so here's 1997. With "Lovefool" left off for appearing twice, you have nine picks on twenty-five songs - a generous allowance!


[Poll #861316]


Joptimism 1996: Predictable, Us?

1. Common People (38 votes)
2=. California Love (33 votes)
2=. Born Slippy (33 votes)
4. Lovefool (31)
5. No Diggity (30)
6. Woo Hah! Got You All In Check! (28)
7. Setting Sun (23)
8. 1979 (20)
9=. Ready Or Not (19)
9=. Macarena (19)

Thank heaven the Macarena scraped in there ahead of Beck!]

TYPO ERROR: That should be "Cornershop" doing Brimful of Asha, not Chumbawamba - apologies for Cornershop and all their fans. Also it's "Da Funk" not "The Funk". Mondays, eh.

Comments

Beep beep, who got the keys to the jeep? Brrrrrrrrm.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I couldn't believe I didn't know of this song before I heard the Missy Elliot best of.

Re: Beep beep, who got the keys to the jeep? Brrrrrrrrm.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Hearing (and seeing) it on a pub TV was one of my big wake-up calls of the year.

Good List

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This was the hardest for ages - much agonising over the final farewell tick (sorry Cornershop) (but also sorry to the other Daft Punk, to Puffy and Ma$e, to the Chemical Brothers, etc etc.)

Da Funk

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I love Around The World too, but it's just not as *good*. I am trying to find a way of explaining why and failing. It isn't to do with the brilliant video as Around The World scores well there too! I think this was the first dance record I was exposed to that was relatively sparse (i.e. not rave, eurodance or Prodigy-harshness) but that I still LOVED and it sort of threw me!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i pretty much hated ALL of these songs the first time i heard them. except Busta and Daft Punk. Didn't really like Missy until I saw the 'Sock It 2 Me' video. Spice Girls and White Town love came much later. was a bit disappointed with the direction Prodigy took for 3rd album but was still v excited when 'Firestarter' went in at #1.

Into at the time (shameful directors cut edition)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I RLY RLY RLY liked "Bitter Sweet Symphony" at the time.

Re: Into at the time (shameful directors cut edition)

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Dude so did I! AAAAND I reckon katstevens did too ;)

Re: Into at the time (shameful directors cut edition)

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

<lex>FOR SHAME!</lex>

The top 20 in music videos

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Each costume represented a different instrument! The dog had a broken leg! You'd have thought Damon could have afforded better wallpaper! Ma$e can float! Comedy fat costumes! Jyoti Mishra's mouth on a tv screen! Brilliant.

Re: The top 20 in music videos

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Not forgetting five Extremely Badly Synched ladies causing havoc by running through St Pancras...

Obvious question:

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Is that the original Brimful of Asha, then?

Re: Obvious question:

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No remix is specified.

I hope it's because of the typo that no one is ticking 'Criminal'

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I fear that it's just that no one likes Fiona Apple :(

Wipeout 2097

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Hurrah it's electronica!

Re: Wipeout 2097

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

HURRAH!

wo est Fluke?

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Hooray! We are now firmly in alt.music.alternative territory!

Indeed we are!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My Top 20 Singles of 1997 (at the time)

1. Primal Scream - Kowalski
2. Smog - Ex-Con
3. The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony
4. Speedy J - Patterns (Remix) (I did not know what this was at the time)
5. Denim - Summer Smash
6. The Blueboy - Remember Me
7. Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
8. Eruption - Don't You Want Me
9. The Chemical Brothers - The Private Psychedelic Reel
10. Prefab Sprout - Prisoner Of The Past
11. Double 99 - RIP Groove
12. Source Direct - Two Masks/Black Domina
13. Souvlaki - Inferno
14. All Saints - Never Ever
15. Jonny L - Piper
16. Stereolab/Nurse With Wound - Simple Headphone Mind
17. N-Trance ft Rod Stewart - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
18. Tricky - Tricky Kid
19. Porter Ricks - Spoil
20. Fugees - Rumble In The Jungle

Against "Autumn Sweater"

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Who LOVES this song? My horrible unfair suspicion is that the people who voted for "Autumn Sweater" were largely deaf, non-responsive when it comes to singles. They had an empty space on their ballot and they filled it with a known quantity. (Lots of P&J singles seem like this.) I do not understand why anybody would care very deeply for it, even for terrible reasons, stupid reasons. It translates as almost a vote for the album, not the song, and the YLT album is a fucking great one, their best, but the only song that kills me is "Deeper Into Movies." It feels like the White Album, the obvious dreck (organ workout, Beach Boys cover) makes it all seem more emotionally coherent somehow.

Re: Against "Autumn Sweater"

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

If you can make a case for this song as being something more than very pleasant, very sweet filler (not a slam, really -- actually the album seems almost like all filler 'cept for "Deeper Into Movies" and I still think it's GREAT) I'm all ears.

I Get No Down, Like an Elephant

[koganbot]

My Pazz & Jop ballot for 1997 (decided to vote this year because heard through Xhuxk (I think) that Xgau had heard that my song of the year was "MyBabyDaddy" and had therefore said, "I really hope he votes"):

1. B-Rock & the Bizz "MyBabyDaddy"
2. Spice Girls "Wannabe"
3. Savage Garden "To the Moon and Back"
4. Puff Daddy "It's All About the Benjamins"
5. Missy Misdemeanor Elliott "The Rain"
6. Aqua "Barbie Girl"
7. Chumbawumba "Tubthumping"
8. Sheryl Crow "If It Makes You Happy"
9. Fleetwood Mac "The Chain"
10. Soundgarden "Bleed Together"

I wouldn't say that my alienation from professional rock criticism* was ending (in fact it still hasn't ended), but suddenly I've got five songs that made the Big Board rather than just two or three (and recall 1995's glorious zero). Biggest convergence since 1990.

*Amateur rock criticism was doing OK, then as now, on the pages of Radio On, Why Music Sucks, Tapeworm, and Popped.

Re: I Get No Down, Like an Elephant

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

lovely cabbage garden

The Year of No Next Big Thing

[koganbot]

Xgau's essay was entitled "The Year of No Next Big Thing," and I was glancing at the title last week and thinking, "Man, he missed it (though not as much as I would have)." But his point turned out to be not that we were locked in the doldrums - alt.indie was in doldrums that were producing some high quality but little outreach to the world, he thought - but rather that lots of other things were moving in many directions at once, including into a past that seemed full of mystery and surprise (The Anthology of American Folk Music, an anthology compiled in 1952 of music from the mid '20s to the mid '30s, won the reissues category with more votes than either the top new album or the top single). So there were lots of things, if no next big thing.

But he was wrong, the chart really did contain a Next Big Thing, in fact contained at least two. If Timbaland didn't end up totally defining the sound of hip-hop and r&b for the next decade, he certainly was a source and creator for a big part of it - and a lot of the other sources weren't that far from his sonic neighborhood: Miami bass, New Orleans bounce, crunk (already underway), whatever-you-call She'kspere's snake-and-harpsichord magic, and so on. As for the other big big thing, "Wannabe" was Simon Fuller's first big impact on America, but more important than that to future teenpop is that teenybopper girls were now buying girl performers in massive amounts, meaning they were wanting stars to identify with. So the way is being paved for Avril and Ashlee, even if the latter sound more like Alanis and Courtney than like the Spice Girls. (Maybe some of you can speak about the other Big Things, e.g., O.K. Computer (second place on the P&J albums chart), which I've never heard in full so my vague impression that it's old wine in new bottles can do with challenging).

(Best Xgau moment: he describes the Spice Girls flick thus: "their movie defines girl power as bearing a baby - a female baby, with her dad on the lam"; later in the essay, he says of "MyBabyDaddy": "I loved its nutty deep-South hook before I had any idea what the song was about, which is - as in Spice World, of all things - raising a baby (female, but that's muffled and incidental) with its dad on the lam.")

Backstreet Boys, Elton, Jewel, Toni, Usher, Third Eye

[koganbot]

Billboard Top 26 for 1997

1. Candle In The Wind 1997 - Elton John
2. Foolish Games / You Were Meant For Me - Jewel
3. I'll Be Missing You - Puff Daddy & Faith Evans
4. Un-Break My Heart - Toni Braxton
5. Can't Nobody Hold Me Down - Puff Daddy
6. I Believe I Can Fly - R. Kelly
7. Don't Let Go (Love) - En Vogue
8. Return Of The Mack - Mark Morrison
9. How Do I Live - LeAnn Rimes
10. Wannabe - Spice Girls
11. Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) - Backstreet Boys
12. MMMBop - Hanson
13. For You I Will - Monica
14. You Make Me Wanna... - Usher
15. Bitch - Meredith Brooks
16. Nobody - Keith Sweat
17. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
18. Barely Breathing - Duncan Sheik
19. Hard To Say I'm Sorry - Az Yet Featuring Peter Cetera
20. Mo Money Mo Problems - Notorious B.I.G.
21. The Freshmen - Verve Pipe
22. I Want You - Savage Garden
23. No Diggity - BLACKstreet Featuring Dr. Dre
24. I Belong To You (Every Time I See Your Face) - Rome
25. Hypnotize - Notorious B.I.G.
26. Every Time I Close My Eyes - Babyface

(By the way, "Do You Know (What It Takes)" by Robyn was at 29.)

Uncry these tears

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Unbreak My Heart' is SO GOOD and evidence to support the "all great ballads are really bangers and vice versa" theory. 'We Belong Together' is very much its daughter.

Meanwhile In Dadrock

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's the NME! (I had long since stopped reading)

The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony
Blur – Song 2
The Verve – The Drugs Don’t Work
Embrace – All You Good Good People
Primal Scream – Kowalski
Radiohead – Paranoid Android
The Blueboy – Remember Me
Spiritualized – Electricity
Massive Attack – Risingson
The Chemical Brothers – Block Rockin’ Beats
Daft Punk – Da Funk
Echo And The Bunnyman – Nothing Lasts Forever
Arab Strap – The Girls Of Summer E.P.
Mogwai – New Paths To Helicon
Pavement – Stereo
Cornershop – Brimful Of Asha
Teenage Fanclub – Ain’t That Enough
Daft Punk – Around The World
The Beta Band – Champion Versions EP
Goldie Featuring KRS-One - Digital
Embrace – Fireworks EP
Belle & Sebastian – The Lazy Line Painter Jane
Blur – Beetlebum
DJ Shadow – High Noon
The Chemical Brothers – The Private Psychedlic Reel
Black Grape – Get Higher
Primal Scream – Star
Six By Seven – European Me
Oasis – D’you Know What I Mean
Lo-Fidelelity Allstars – Kool Rock Bass
Bentley Rhythm Ace – Bentley’s Gonna Sort You Out
Roni Size – Brown Paper Bag
Wu-Tang Clan – Triumph
Aphex Twin – Come To Daddy
Belle And Sebastian – 3.. 6.. 9.. Seconds Of Light
The Charlatans – North Country Boy
The Wannadies – Hit
Add N To X – King Wasp
Beck – Deadweight
Fatboy Slim – Everybody Needs
Pulp – Help The Aged
Orbital – Satan
Missy ‘ Misdemeanoe’ Elliott – The Rain
Eels – Novocain For The Soul
Death In Vegas – Rocco
Dinosaur Jr – Take A Run At The Sun
Travis – All I Wanna Do Is Rock
Kirk Lake – Five Finger Discount
Nick Cave – Into My Arms
Supergrass – Late In The Day

Re: Meanwhile In Dadrock

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Haha, this is the year I *started* buying the NME. Most of these records were in my first year student bedroom, I'm sure.

Considering I was completely immersed in NME indie that year, I have no memory whatsoever of:

Kirk Lake – Five Finger Discount

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

My pick of the year C90 - I was making them regularly for friends. I was a student then, what with being so young and all, and didn't have lots of me, so loads of it is just taped from the Peel show, and I hardly bought anything, so it's not wholly representative - also I was going for a bit of variety, as it could easily have ended up all dance:

Rob & Goldie - The Shadow
Helen Love - Does Your Heart Go Boom
Atari Teenage Riot - Not Your Business
DJ Krust - Maintain
Vinyl Junkie - Can't Forget
Portishead - Cowboys
Finitribe - Flying Peppers
Holmes Brothers - The Train Song
Dave Angel - This Is Disco
Culture - Riverside
DJ Quatro - Play With Me
Panacea - VIP Hitz Jagd (sp?)
Hitchers - Strachan
Riddler - Ain't No Way
Bass X - No No No
DJ Shadow - High Noon
Fall - Inch
Lionrock - Wet Roads Glisten
Armand van Helden - Daboodaa Monks
Ivor Cutler - A Pain In The Neck

What no Paranoid Android?

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Considering what a critical fave OK Computer was, I'm very surprised by the lack of PANIC and VOMIT here.

Re: What no Paranoid Android?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I wonder if even filling in a singles ballot was beneath OK Computer fans!

(probably not to be fair)