Poptimists 2006 Poll: Act of the Year!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Today's category is the slightly nebulous Act of the Year - six acts got more than one vote and we present them below: interesting to note the Poptimists heavyweights who didn't get multiple nominations.

Girls Aloud put out a Greatest Hits record.
Lily Allen MySpaced her way to stardom.
Justin Timberlake brought sexy back.
Paris Hilton was much talked about.
Aly and AJ were the salvation of teenpop.
Cassie stripped R&B down.

[Poll #899559]

Lifetime achievement and Track of the Year to follow!

Comments

Meng are endangered species in pop

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Discuss.

I wouldn't mind if it were true btw.

(How on earth did Cassie make the shortlist though? Even Robbie deserves it more.)

Re: Meng are endangered species in pop

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Pop's always been coded female, though, hasn't it - only the BOYBAND TRADITION really gave men ("men") any sort of presence as performers and that really has died out (unlamented, too: the best of girl groups is ridiculously better than the best of boybands).

(How does Robbie deserve it more than Cassie?! I have no truck with the "they have more media presence" argument when the SONGS are so much better. Cassie made two of the three best songs of the entire year!)

Re: Meng are endangered species in pop

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

This is back to the "what makes a good pop star" argument again innit? For me, media presence is absolutely essential for that.

But FWIW I do like at least three songs on Rudebox more than "Me & U".

Re: Meng are endangered species in pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I agree that if I'd called the category "Star of the Year" I wouldn't have expected Cassie to get nominated or voted for.

Re: Meng are endangered species in pop

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

> "Pop's always been coded female, though, hasn't it?"

Hardly. Beatles, Monkees, T.Rex, Osmonds, David Cassidy, Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Culture Club, etc etc. For a loooong time it was mostly coded male.

Solo artists in history

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

(according to Poptimist canons done!)

LAYDEES - Mariah, Whitney, Cher, Celine, Diana Ross, Britney, Madge, Kate Bush, Kylie (= NINE)
MENG - Elton, Dave Bowie, George Michael, Jacko, Lionel, Morrissey, Prince, Cliff (= EIGHT)

Pretty even.

Re: Solo artists in history

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Most of those meng got few-to-none in the way of ticks for noughties songs though, whereas nearly all those ladies have at least one highly tickworthy song from this decade.

So my main argument above stands.

Re: Solo artists in history

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I have a canon lined up for this afternoon. I have gone off #1 polls for the moment.

Re: Solo artists in history

[koganbot]

Boybands (incl. early Beatles) are coded female too, in that girls are whom they're for. In fact, boybands more female than are female divas, who to some extent are coded gay male.

But two of our choices - Aly & A.J. and Lily Allen - are significantly coded rock as well as pop; and those two codings do not undermine each other but make both these performers threats in a way that (I'm guessing) GA, Timberlake, and Cassie are not. But of course the biggest threat is Paris, who's actually closer than anyone else on the list to "rock star," even if she doesn't code rock. And both she and Lily code more masculine than any of the others (incl. Justin).

Mentioned Paris to a group of teenagers yesterday, and they all said they hated her. Reason given - unanimously - wasn't that she had no talent or that she was famous for doing nothing or that she was frivolous. Reason was contained in one word: "Bitch."

Btw, my vague impression is that emo today is not your grandpa's emo, in that emo guys are coding "female" and "glam" in the way that I don't think they were until a few years ago (which is why emo is starting to bleed into goth). But coding female can mean a number of different things. Which type of female are they coding? Well, I think "bitch" is part of it. But I'm basically ignorant of emo and its star-like behavior, so this could be all wrong. But I think coding female is one of the things that allows them to start acting like stars rather than acting indie or acting like big-selling but starless Adult Contemporary crossover rock bands (Hinder, Nickelback, the Fray). (I mean, how many male rock stars are there today?)

Re: Solo artists in history

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Actually, recent emo strikes me as more outwardly misogynist than the stuff that preceded it (which I guess might have been inwardly misogynist, my frame of reference isn't great, but I doubt that most emo bands of yore would have written a song called "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" etc...of course, the misogyny in these cases -- and maybe it's just P!ATD -- is so ludicrous that it's hard to take it very seriously).

Mentioned Paris to friends at a party, same response. On the rock star tip, I think the reigning rock star of the year -- male or female -- is LINDSAY. Imagine what the press/public reaction to a male rock star living the life she lives and saying the things she says (seems like most male rock stars these days are totally bland loser WIMPS).

Re: Solo artists in history

[koganbot]

Coding female doesn't stop one from being misogynist. But I think (and this ties in to what you were saying about Lindsay) that coding female allows postpunk "sensitive" men to ROCK, since the full-on cock rock thing is no longer available to or believable in them.

Re: Meng are endangered species in pop

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

There be plenty of blokes about in hip-pop (Justin, P Diddy, Chamillionaire, Emineminem, Fiddy Pee, Sean Paul) but Robbie is the only British white male who has made an impact this year (apart from Lil'Chris!). Poor old Mattie Busted just wasn't up to snuff.

Hahaha - Virgin Radio's Top 500 Songs of all time (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/music/charts/top_500/index.html), and as noted by Popjustice, top 25 is all white males.

Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

I keep mentioning this here to almost zero response, but of the few males with any presence in American teenpop, the most popular this year - the Jonas Brothers - are coming on just like Busted, and their biggest Radio Disney hit is a cover of a Busted song.

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do they come complete with the secret desire to make awful grunge rock?

I wonder if the Busted fans remain silent because the betrayal still aches.

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

Their first hit - "Mandy" - deliberately starts off exactly like "Anarchy In The U.K" and then turns into a total boyband song. I think this is a good thing (for this song, not necessarily for their future). Knowing little about Busted, I'm wondering if the grunge desire might have improved their pop until the desire won. (Btw, the Matt singles didn't sound so bad the one time I listened, when piratemoggy linked 'em. If it's the same Matt we're talking about, that is.)

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Matt singles weren't the problem - search YouTube for "Fightstar", Charlie Busted's post-Busted band, for which he split Busted.

I think the tension and grunge desire DID improve them, definitely, except when it was allowed to drive the pop out (as on most of their slow ones). I don't think they'd have had as good a grasp of dynamics if they hadn't been into 'proper' rock. (The knottiness of "Crashed The Wedding" is an example of what I'm incoherently thinking about)

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

Wikipedia: "AJ Michalka is currently dating Joe Jonas of The Jonas Brothers. AJ stated this in M Magazine." But that's in the cached version, not the current, so they perhaps broke up. Or maybe never were. Jonas Brothers were home-schooled too, like Aly & A.J., and I'm guessing - therefore - are evangelicals. Which didn't stop them from starting with the "Anarchy" chord. Did probably hold them back from saying "I am an antichrist," however.

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Naw, they broke up, I think. Pretty sure I read that over on Tommy2 (http://www.tommy2.net), anyway, where they have their RD parallel universe top 5 lists up. Jesse McCartney as male artist of the year, Miley Cyrus as female artist.

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

http://www.myspace.com/jonasbrothers

Busted vs Jonas

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1. Synths on intro and 'middle-ought'. (Win for JB)

2. "Took a trip" has become "Took a ship" (Neutral - presumably this is a drugs change?)

3. The great-great-great grandaughter is now "doing fine" not "pretty fine" (Win for Busted).

4. "Triple-breasted women swim around town, totally naked" has become a line about girls with Star Wars hair that I couldn't make out. (Big win for Busted - this is one of the best and best-delivered lines).

5. Hanson-esque "Huuuuuh yeah!" before last choruses. (Win for JB)

6. "It had outsold Michael Jackson" becomes "It had outsold Kelly Clarkson", presumably because outselling MJ isn't that difficult these days. (Win for Busted, as "Jackson" at least has one vowel sound in common with "Platinum")

Re: Busted vs Jonas

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

But Kelly Clarkson is more of an act of solidarity on the part of Jonas Brothers (even if the line itself doesn't work...but it DOES work contextually in a sort of "orange you glad I didn't say banana" way, even though I heard JB first). So when they say "and another one and another one...and another one!" with respect to boybands, you feel like they might be THRILLED with this future, instead of more neutrally semi-sarcastic (semi- since both of 'em are boybands themselves). Triple-breasted women (plus the Busted video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=2FJXF6qdyIg) vs. Jonas (http://youtube.com/watch?v=kUaKBrdMGec)) ultimately puts Busted on top, though.

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

any sign of a YSI or should i capture from youtubes?

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

Well, the MySpace is better sound quality than YouTube. (Think my promo is copy-protected; anyway doesn't contain "Year 3000.")

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

oddly i can't get myspace to play. i think this is an intel mac / flash problem

Re: Not much has changed but they live underwater

[koganbot]

MySpace has frequent technical problems anyway. (The Cassie tracks were giving me grief earlier today.) If AOL Music lets Brits in, you can try here:

http://music.aol.com/artist/jonas-brothers/778430/main