The History Of Jop Part 25 aka Don't want to be your Daddy just want you in my Caddy

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

After an enforced absence, the History of Jop polls enter their final lap, reaching 2003. IT'LL ALL BE OVER BY CHRISTMAS! to coin a phrase. You get THIRTEEN ticks across thirty-nine singles: the Rapture were on last poll as well, the greedy beasts, so we leave them off this.


[Poll #888665]


Joptimists Go 2002

1. Work It (46 votes)
2. Can't Get You Out Of My Head (41)
3. Hot In Herre (38)
4. Fell In Love With An Girl (30)
5=. Like I Love You (29)
5=. Lose Yourself (29)
7. A Stroke Of Genie-Us (28)
8=. Oops Oh My (27)
8=. Hella Good (27)
10. Without Me (26)

Also be sure to go and nominate for the Poptimists end-of-year poll. Poll poll poll poll poll.

Comments

Poor old Grime

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Nobody yet saying Dizzee was most important :(

Good year this. I got married, started Popular (with the vague idea it might be finished by now - urk), my white heat of pop love not quite as intense as 02 but certainly not disillusioned as yet.

Re: Poor old Grime

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is disillusioned now?! :(

You could make the Important case for a really large proportion of this list. 'Get Low' - harbinger of crunk. 'In Da Club' - harbinger of that really generic-Eastern ultra-polished Scott Storch strain of hip-pop'n'b which is probably the most ingrained, it's always around in a low-key kidz-on-bus way regardless of what Timbaland fannies around with. 'Crazy In Love' - harbinger of RETRO R'N'B, Rich Harrison and all that jazz (and conversely the chronic illness if not death of hyper-modern futuristic r&b). 'Beautiful' - reinvented Xtina as iconic popstar as opposed to trashy joke.

Is this the point at which the pop kids split from the r&b/hip-hop kids?

Re: Poor old Grime

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No, it's reillusioned now!

I think if such a split exists, probably crunk sparked it.

Re: Poor old Grime

[koganbot]

What do you mean by "futuristic"? "In Da Club" then and "Me & U" now sound pretty futuristic to me.

Although one thing that really jumps out at me about, say, "In Da Club" and "Get Low" is that they're two very different-sounding uses of suspense-film tones. But you can go back three years to the first Ludacris album and hear a similar split, "Southern Hospitality" using one type of suspense-film eeriness, "What's Your Fantasy" using another.

A bit hard for me to define the two types, though: "What's Your Fantasy" and "Get Low" use eerie doleful eastern-European minor keys in crunky rah-rah party music, whereas "Southern Hospitality" and "In Da Club" go for straightup menace (which is still party music, but a somewhat different party). Not to say that minor-key doleful crunk doesn't often go for menace, too.

Wouldn't call "Get Low" a harbinger, given that crunk as such had been a presence since 1997 if not 1993; but "Get Low" was its super-massive breakout; in 2004, you couldn't go more than 20 minutes on a hip-hop/r&b station without hearing a crunk track.

Re: Poor old Grime

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This may be a UK/US divide: a lot of the songs you list just didn't hit in the UK at all (only 'In Da Club' and 'Me & U' really), and crunk's never really taken a hold above street level (apart from sneaking in via the odd crunk'n'b hit like 'Yeah' or 'Goodies').

'In Da Club' is a different kind of futurism to eg 'We Need A Resolution' or 'Grindin' or 'Oops (Oh My)' or 'What About Us?' though, isn't it? The others are predicated on some sort of difference, futurism as innovation; 'In Da Club' basically says that the future isn't about difference or weirdness, the future is generic and right now. There's no wtf about the 'In Da Club' beat, it feels like everything else (obv in a great way).

And post-2003 the biggest r&b/hip-hop tracks (which have hit in the UK) have taken either Storch-generic-futurism ('Baby Boy', entire Pussycat Dolls oeuvre) or Harrison-retro-horns ('1 Thing') as their template (with a sub-section of 80s electro retro: 'Control Myself', 'Lose Control', new Ciara album).

Now that Timbaland is 1xFORCE again maybe it will change? I am not sure where it goes from here.

Re: Poor old Grime

[koganbot]

Well, it all depends what you mean by "futurism": I didn't think of "Oops Oh My" as futuristic at all (even if it was new and innovative). Is the word "futurism" in a lot of use these days? The hip-hop movement that was self-consciously "futuristic" was Bambaataa's electrofunk, which seemed to get a lot of its idea of the "future" from '50s' sci-fi flicks; but then "Planet Rock"'s actual legacy - freestyle and Miami bass and on to today's Dirty South - didn't wave around futuristic signifiers, even though it had electric beats up the booty. And then also (this being my own perception, not necessarily how it was generally perceived) I don't perceive Harrison as retro or Timbaland as futuristic; rather, I think of them both as omnivorous (as was Bambaataa; he'd use Monkees beats and insert dialogue from old movies; idiots were calling this "pomo" at the time). Same way I didn't think of Destiny Child's "Jumpin Jumpin" as retro but rather as laying claim to a whole jazz and r&b legacy of experimentation. I might say the same about the new Ciara; even though it samples/pilfers from the '80s, it doesn't sound remotely like the '80s.

Re: Poor old Grime

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

But Dizzee turned out to be totally unimportant, didn't he?

Re: Poor old Grime

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Fix Up Look Sharp is way better than I Luv U (which is still v good). I still heart Dizzee.

Re: Poor old Grime

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

surely its a 'we'll see', he only 'broke' three years ago didn't he?

Re: Poor old Grime

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Dizzee's transference into mainstream possibly best exemplified by his appearance on Band Aid 20. OK nobody cares about now and most of the people who even bought it probably never listen to it now and HATED Dizzee's bit more than anything else on it, but STILL...

...actually I'm not sure where I'm going here beyond 'hip urban black kid in the British charts* that isn't pandering in certain ways (i.e. RnB crooners like Lemar and Craig David) = an important thing (but not as empty tokenism)

*he wasn't top 10 but still making some sort of impact