The Poptimists 2006 End Of Year Poll: ALBUM OF THE YEAR

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Poptimists End of Year polls kick off with the unimportant, but still intriguing, category of Album of the Year. Thankyou for your nominations, which have been distilled to a shortlist (by the scientific means of "most mentioned") as follows:

Paris Hilton - Paris: The year's most controversial release - frothy R&B-pop from the heiress-turned-renaissance-woman.
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra Of Bubbles: Luscious electronic pop and atmospherics from German boffinette and henchbeing.
The Knife - Silent Shout: Shrieksome electro artpop from Scandinavia.
Marit Larsen - Under The Surface: Scando singing-songwriting popstrel spans country, twee and Euro-pop.
Beyonce - B-Day: Quickly recorded relationship dissections from the reigning queenbot of R&B.

You, the Poptimists Voting Academy, can grace ONE of these with your tick. Do so!

[Poll #891029]

Another category tomorrow - if you didn't nominate you STILL CAN in the other categories by going here!

Comments

I have to say...

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Although my vote was for The Knife, I think it's kind of ridiculous to call them "pop." I find very little pop about Silent Shout as a whole, and if so, then why aren't we talking about, say, Secret Machines as well?

Re: badly-argued defense of The Knife

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

For me it's just that they sing songs over synth-led rhythmic music with a strong avant-garde element. A bit like...the Pet Shop Boys! I know it's more complicated than that really but perhaps it needn't be?

Re: badly-argued defense of The Knife

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I guess I should "close listen" again - I specifically remember thinking how arty and and non-song (and non-melodic) it was, for the most part.
(Very different from PSB, in fact.)
Unless you just want to be super-inclusive about what you call "pop," which is fine, but seems to defeat the point of poptimism, given who we generally talk about here.

Re: badly-argued defense of The Knife

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I tend to use "pop" super-inclusively, but mostly because I'm interested in how the stuff on the edges crosses into pop and gets turned into it. (Even though to listen to, I like a lot of the stuff that starts and ends up as 'pop').

Re: badly-argued defense of The Knife

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Which begs the question (again) why we are not talking about Secret Machines or Snow Patrol or whoever. No less "pop" than The Knife.

Re: badly-argued defense of The Knife

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Because nobody nominated them!

I've never heard of Secret Machines.

I don't like Snow Patrol but I'd be quite happy to have a conversation about them - Cis has said interesting stuff in defense of epic post-indie pop on here before.