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

REALLY TOUGH CHOICE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Four of those are totally, totally deserving of a win! I really don't think I can decide properly!

Re: REALLY TOUGH CHOICE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

total kudos to poptimists though for having all three of my own top three in there...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

WOT NO LILY

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I haven't filled in any album-of-the-year slots on the various polls I've been doing - I like most of these well enough but very much for their standout tracks, with two exceptions:

- The Knife I don't like much at all, I've decided. I don't think her voice is good, and I think their 'art' impulses overwhelm their 'pop' impulses, or maybe that they're simply not good enough at the latter to justify the former. Something like that anyway.

- The Paris Hilton (which I voted for) I do like more as an album than a collection of tracks - the whole has a playful mood and the tracks taken on their own or in the context of non-Paris music often sound flimsy.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Two people mentioned Lily but! different records (the album and "My First Mixtape").

She may well get other nominations though (as will several of these).

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Grrr, I've been trying to find a CD of the Marit Larsen alBUM (at a sane price, I mean) for about six months now with no luck.

So I can't vote for that, much as I'd like to, since I've only heard a couple of tracks. I would be surprised if it's better than Bubbles even so.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Voted for Marit Larsen over all those without particularly much nail biting. Marit, Paris, and Amy Diamond are my top 3 o' the year, though I am much more up on singles than albums this year.

RE THE LAST Q

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Does it mean records from 2006, or just RECORDS? As I bought loads of records, but I don't think that many were from THIS YEAR IYSWIM.

Re: RE THE LAST Q

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was rub and didn't make it clear. I was thinking "from 2006" though.

[graciousviv.livejournal.com]

Sorry to put this here but have already filled my categories in so don't think I can go the poll route. Musn't leave out "Ghosthunting with girls aloud" for other pop thing of the year.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i have yet to watch it (it's on the mac at home) and i will review on FT asap

[graciousviv.livejournal.com]

Best bit is Cheryl's outburst while getting impatient with not being contacted from beyond the grave "If y'er here just bang the f*****g table will you"

Re: RE THE LAST Q

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh in that case...close to zero I guess. I bought Scott Walker and Rihanna I think, but nothing else.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if The Knife have very many 'pop' impulses at all - there is the 'dancefloor' impulse to be considered here though...

I'm surprised at how many of these I like as albums.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'm watching it on youtube right now. That bit is ace. "AAAARGH! Cheryl what the fvck did you do that for?"

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also no Justin!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i find it hard to hear knife as pop too. they are too sasha/housey to be realactual pop.

Attention to detail!

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Whoops! I thought it said "How many of these albums did you buy?", so I shouted NONE! I have actually bought around 40 albums released in 2006, plus around another 40 that aren't 2006 releases.

I'm going to write a long list of the 2006 released albums I bought and stick it on Sukrat.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Yes The Knife are all about where the arty impulse meets the dancefloor impulse (meets the goth impulse obviously). I didn't nominate but if I did I would have nominated Silent Shout so nothing lost there.

There are three of my personal top ten in here - both the Marit and Ellen albums have some tracks that I find absolutely sublime and others I find a bit boring. I like Orchestra of Bubbles a lot but if we're on an icy, shiny German house tip I prefer Booka Shade's Movements.

Hobgoblins

[koganbot]

The Paris album is the most consistently great album I know of since Autobiography and Horse Of A Different Color in 2004. And I didn't tick it!

Tom, Please Vote For The Paris Album In Jackin' Pop and Pazz & Jop

[koganbot]

Unless you've locked your ballots, it's not too late, and you are allowed to vote for only one album. There was a year when I voted for only two albums.

Re: Tom, Please Vote For The Paris Album In Jackin' Pop and Pazz & Jop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have locked the JP ballot! I did think about just voting for the Paris album and no others, but I didn't want it to be taken as some statement about Paris-ness or Album-ness.

I may think a bit harder about albums for Pazz and Jop, though.

[koganbot]

I don't dislike the Knife, but I called them "self-defeating" on my MySpace. They quite obviously have pop impulses (which doesn't mean that they fall into the category pop): poppy melodies, for one thing. And the thing is she's a bad singer who can't deliver on the pop impulse. But I wouldn't say like Tom that they're not good enough at the pop to justify the art. Rather, they're not good enough at the pop to justify the pop; whereas if they'd gone full-bore into art-dance, into art-goth austerity and haughtiness, they might have pulled it off. And I've not heard a lot of their tracks, so perhaps I need to remove that "if." So caveat: I may be all wrong. But my guess is that for the art-techno-house stuff, people like DJ Pierre and Andrea Doria eat them for lunch. If the Knife want to continue on as they are, they should go out and get a singer with star quality.

By the way, I've also called Teddybears STHLM "self-defeating," for somewhat similar reasons. They can't get it together with the vocals, which are occasionally great but usually mediocre, and they obviously feel an alienation from pop as such. But it's not the alienation that defeats them, though; it's the fact that they don't know how to have their cake and eat it too, how to go pop and anti-pop at once, how to use the alienation in service of the pop. They need a Mick Jagger type to front them - by which I don't mean a cock rocker; what I mean is someone who's willing as a performer to commit himself totally to the performance in the way that Mick committed himself to the untrustworthy narrators that Mick Jagger the songwriter and musical mind was busy cutting off at the knees. By the way, there are two people on my album list this year have some of this Jagger in them: Paris Hilton and Robyn, both playing a simultaneous commitment and anti-commitment one against the other. (Robyn on my list for the Rakamonie EP.) And I think Robyn's "Cobrastyle" crushes Mad Cobra's. But it's still not the "Cobrastyle" of my dreams. For that, you need someone who can absolutely and exuberantly deliver d-dangy-dang-diggy-diggy with Marcels or Sugarhill Gang passion and force - while also embodying the Paris/Robyn/Mick alienation.

Re: Tom, Please Vote For The Paris Album In Jackin' Pop and Pazz & Jop

[koganbot]

I locked my ballot too - back when the deadline was midday Friday - which means that for better or worse I can't go back and find a kinder way to deliver the message in my opening salvo. But for P&J I'd think you'd easily be able to find another couple of albums to vote for (if you're iffy on 'em, just give 'em five points). The Rackamonie EP is an example: Unless it turns out you totally detest "Be Mine!" and "Cobrastyle" and that you no longer like "Konichawa Bitches," that's enough to vote for her right there (three out of five tracks), and you can listen to "Jack U Off" on her MySpace. And "List Of Demands" is all over the Web. And if you consider that to be old stuff, don't worry, if your motive is to neutralize an implied statement about Paris and about albums.

And I give you permission to vote for anything on my albums list, even if you haven't heard it.

(Now, gotta go cram for my country critics ballot. I think Jennings fils will outrank Colter mère.)

Re: RE THE LAST Q

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Ah, well please revise mine down from 550 to about 25 actually from this year.