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

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freakytigger.livejournal.com posting in

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

koganbot

My Pazz & Jop singles ballot for 2003 (w/ an excerpt from my comments). In April or so Xgau had said that we were in the midst of hip-hop's worst commercial moment, a statement I found inexplicable. I think he was deeply offended by "Get Low," ended up voting for one of the other remixes of it (other than the one I voted for) because it had fewer of the original lyrics. If my memory's right, he mentioned that it was his daughter who had to convince of the song's greatness.

I'm not sure I would now call this my best list ever (and how come I didn't put "Baby Boy" on it?), but "Beware Of The Boys," "Get Low," and "In Da Club" could well end up being my top three songs of the decade. Amazing.

FYI, Beat-In-Azz - real name Michael Crooms - had previously been calling himself DJ Smurf, and is now calling himself Mr. Collipark. Recent productions include Young Jeezy's great "Trapstar."

1. Panjabi MC f. Jay-Z - "Beware of the Boys/Mundian To Bach Ke" (Sequence)
2. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz f. Ying Yang Twins - "Get Low" (TVT)
3. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz f. Ying Yang Twins and Pitbull - "Get Low (Merengue Mix)" (TVT)
4. 50 Cent - "In Da Club" (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope)
5. Justin Timberlake - "Cry Me a River" (Jive)
6. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz f. Mystikal and Krayzie Bone - "I Don't Give a F" (TVT)
7. Black-Eyed Snakes - "Rise Up!" (Chairkickers' Music)
8. Electric Six - "Gay Bar" (XL)
9. David Banner - "Cadillac on 22's" (SRC/Universal)
10. Celine Dion - "Drove All Night" (Epic)

This is the best singles list I've sent since 1999, maybe the best ever - which, given the unfathomable amount of music and my feeling of always playing catchup, may not be a particularly significant statement. But 2003 wasn't my worst commercial hip-hop moment in years, in fact was among my best.

One quick example: Beat-In-Azz, producer on most Ying Yang tracks, has found a way to use LARGE sounds while still including lots of elements within the music. This is not easy, as big sounds usually drive everything else out. He's capable of running spooky whoo-whoos, Ennio Morricone whistles and horn blasts (which are spooky themselves), and Euro-operatic synth-orchestra accompaniments all at once, and this along with whatever the rhythms and rappers are doing. I'd have thought that the Morricone sounds, especially, would have demanded open space to be effective - room needed for reverb and starkness of line. Somehow, in this guy's music, these are not lost. (Best Beat-In-Azz I've heard so far: "Sound Off" on the Ying Yangs' Alley.) All this on records that don't aspire to do more than throw a good party, apparently.

And when I throw my mind into hip-hop, I am finding some lyrics to move my heart and engage my mind (see review of Me and My Brother) but I do think I'm having to meet the genre more than halfway in this regard, and I long for a Shady or Spoonie, someone who will make the move towards me as well. Maybe it's here where I understand your disappointment.

From:

freakytigger.livejournal.com

Was "Get Low" a jump in terms of objectionable-ness?

From:

chezghost.livejournal.com

i'd be surprised given popularity of 2 Live Crew/countless others back in the day.

probably more just a sense of 'sigh...not moving on thematically are we?'

love it tho ha ha

From:

koganbot

Xgau's review of Kings of Crunk

Kings of Crunk [TVT, 2002]
Buried on this cruddy album is a great gimmick half perfected on the climactic "Get Low": oi anthems gone south, crude and compelling unison chants about flexing muscle in a club where another clique does something you don't like, such as breathe. Socially retrograde, but so was tango, and Lil's namesake Elton beat him to the theme by three decades. What's truly retrograde is the rapping--when Too Short takes a turn you'd think Rakim had dropped in from paradise--and the pimp shit eaten by boy-toy-for-hire Oobie and bull mackstress Chyna Whyte. As if in illustration, this version of "Get Low" includes an indistinct verse about stupid bitches poppin' pussy on a pole. It's omitted from both remixes on the new Part II. They knew what to do. Now you do too. C

From:

byebyepride.livejournal.com

I see he has revised his position since then, since he was plugging Crunk Hits 2 on NPR! Or perhaps he thinks the rapping is better on the more recent stuff. Although I assume he has just learnt to not care.

From:

koganbot

Stupid of me to begin my third paragraph with the phrase "And when I throw my mind into hip-hop," given that I'd obviously thrown my mind into hip-hop when listening to the sounds that I'd analyzed in the previous paragraph.

Another astonishing fact about 2003 is that my top three tracks were on indie labels, though they obviously are not "indie" in the sense that, e.g., the dipshits who put on the Plug Independent Music Awards (some of whom pay me to write for PTW, I believe) tout themselves by saying, "We're a community that thinks for ourselves – we don’t take our cues from mainstream media or marketing. PLUG is about the independent music community coming together to recognize our own."

From:

koganbot

My third paragraph does foreshadow the fact that hip-hop isn't nearly dominating my listening and my lists in the way it was three years ago. What changed? I heard Ashlee, basically, and her lyrics gave me something to care about and identify with, more so than I had with anything since The Marshall Mathers LP.