A Year In Pop: Week Two

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

After last week's appetiser the chart gets back to feasting (on its young) - THIRTEEN new entries to rate and contemplate, we see now why Stevem's monthly polls were so huge. Possible points of interest include the BBC's "Sound of 07" Mika with the highest new entry, and nu-ravers The Klaxons getting their first proper hit. And of course download revolutionaries KOOPA.

[Poll #908393]

I have downloaded all of these and will give them an listen and report in the comments thread. But don't take my word for it!

Comments

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

I like the Nancy Sinatra version of the Jarvis song, but he just sounds tired. Just Jack are horrendous.

URGH

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

what a ropey old bunch! last week's lot had two really properly amazing songs in it, this week's barely scrapes two ticks. I actually watched all of these on youtube last night and in most cases couldn't get past the first minute mark.

Jarvis was a marginal but ultimately a non-tick because Nancy Sinatra sang that song perfectly - as if she recognised her younger self in the girl she was singing to, or she may even be singing to her younger self from the vantage point of age and experience. And she's imparting wisdom, the stuff she's learnt because she's been there, but there's this sadness that she knows that the younger girl isn't going to listen to her (but she understands, because she didn't listen either), and also this undercurrent of "I used to be young like you" wistfulness.

Jarvis on the other hand sings it like yr dad bristling "you're not going out like that young lady". NO TICK

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I prefer the Nancy version, but Jarvis's is good too. I like Jarvis's take on "Baby's Coming Back To Me" more, though. It's gentler, which fits better. He should have release "From Auschwitz To Ipswich" as the single, though.

I thought I was down with the whole Mika thing because "Relax, Take It Easy" was so splendid, but the album to me is as dull as the second Scissor Sisters album, whereas "Relax" suggested something as fun as the first Scissor Sisters album. FEH.

The Evanescence one is not bad.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Nancy's 'Baby's Coming Back To Me' is one of my favourite performances EVER - I highly doubt Jarvis could improve on it.

Yeah Mika and second Sizzasizzaz comparison is otm.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Nancy's singing is better than Jarvis's, but I like the arrangement of Jarvis's version more.

I strongly dislike "Grace Kelly" I have decided.

particularly horrendous

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Mika - we have a new Fool Williams except Mika's voice is actually physically unbearable
Jamie T - possibly the WORST SONG I HAVE EVER HEARD, what is with that appalling Mike Skinner impersonation???
Ordinary Boys - so glad this isn't a Dizzee cover

Re: particularly horrendous

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

hahaha, i thought it might be a "reworking" of i ♥ u as well...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Jamie T MUST GO. He is deplorable.

The Klaxongs song is their least 'rave' yet but it's Any Good At All so I gave it a tick.

Mika is ok! Again, just worth a tick, but not worth seeking out. The Ordinary Boys song is pretty dire. Haven't heard the rest (note to self: must watch more Hitstv)

My Verdict

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Mika: marginal nontick - I think there's potential but even ironically his ingratiation grates. Also does he have to telegraph his marketing strategy (nu Freddie) in the lyrics?

Just Jack: WTF??? Where did this come from and what is it doing at #4? Hookless, sour-faced moralising about celebrities - I know it's January but even so.

The View: passed me by without the shadow of a trace.

Freemasons: best thing here on first listen - completely standard issue house belter with plenty of gumption.

Klaxons: New rave my bum, this is a New Fast Automatic Daffodils 12". Arf arf but I ticked it anyway cos I quite liked that second-wave indie-dance sound.

Ordinary Boys: Predictably wretched faux-everyman guff from Preston.

Automatic: A sad decline from Monster, lyrics seem to be whingeing about how they mean it and everyone else doesnt.

Koopa: SPEAKING OF WHICH!! I didn't know the actual song was about how real they are! As Carsmile has wisely said, this sounds like the Mega City Four. Contains the amazing lyrics "The English scene is in the dump / Trying to improve on punk / In fact, they're slack / It's time to BRING IT BACK!". The thing to note about Koopa is that they may not have a label but they do have Sandi Thom's PR agency, who clearly specialise in getting chart action for grumpy dumbos.

Evanescence: Not feeling it really.

Akon ft Snoop Dogg: The version I downloaded says "fvck" instead of "love". I'm no Akon hata, but Akon wanting to shag a stripper doesn't make for a very interesting song.

Jarvis: Marginal nontick. National treasure and all that, but as Mcarratala said he sounds tired, and the music sounds like Rialto or some other awful late-Britpopper.

Jamie T: Don't mind the music on this but that voice! Like a drunk pestering you on a night bus. Nasty.

Re: My Verdict

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i liked the just jack caught randomly on realactual radio the other day.

Re: My Verdict

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I said that Koopa was just like Mega City 4. Carmsile may ALSO have said it, but I said it on poptimisits!

Re: My Verdict

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

yes, yes he did.

and jel_bugle said that the automatic were the senseless things.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Aargh why are people voting for Just Jack?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Because it's 4 REAL!!

It's OK, you know. It came on in the car when we were driving back from Arbroath before New Year, and I quite liked it. Catherine hated it, mind.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

oh my god it's in the lead!!!

Clearly, he is the new STEREO MCs!!!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i quite like it as well, but am having a month off polls (probably). i think it's getting A LOT of play, so maybe it's just the only one everyone knows...

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Just Jack has a catchy chorus and a nice guitar sound. It manages to squander almost all of that with boring verses and insipid lyrics, but it remains "any good at all"

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I agree. Also, I think there's slightly more to the lyric than Tom (and the Grauniad reviwer, who summarised it in exactly the same way) are suggesting.

I was torn, but it is, just (jack), "any good at all".

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

I quite like the enjambement on the "karaoke machine" line.

(also i think "v. i. person" is a bit clever)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I like Jamie T, I think he's great. If I didn't have an exam tomorrow I would attempt to write a defense of him properly but I do so, err, it's just sort of what folks get up to, innit? I quite like that. He doesn't take himself anything like as seriously as Mike Skinner, either.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I like its scrappiness, which the video emulates.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I think that's what appeals to me about him. I dunno, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

Youtubery

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Mika (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzA0nG_PurQ)
Just Jack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K72tfYdYROo)
The View (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXCAMOhVsbQ)
Freemasons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7wSfuHP2NE)
Klaxons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAO1nadsrgQ)
Ordinary Boys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnUFtDHwSPU)
The Automatic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDvEMxc4ypk)
Koopa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-H3iKSxTxw)
Effervescence, I mean Evanescence (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF2z0rVs8s4)
Akon ft. Snoop (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siVg57IhA3c)
Jarvis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQnfh_IMpPw)
Jamie T (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-FZ2eIM9yQ)

In my enthusiasm for all things social networking, I briefly toyed with creating a "poptimism" channel on YouTube. But it seemed like a lot of work for something that I can't really use.

Re: Youtubery

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

oof that koopa is rub. are they american?

Re: Youtubery

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

NO, they're from essex or something, aren't they? byebyepride wrote about them a day or two ago - the first unsigned band in the charts.

What does the View song sound like?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

It's reminding me of something, but I can't place what it is.

Re: What does the View song sound like?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Cornershop mixed with something else.

Re: What does the View song sound like?

[koganbot]

No, it's the Clash deciding to do a "fun" "pop" song like "One Two Crush On You" or something and so forgoing their usual pangsty caterwaul and their songwriting ability, so becoming totally negligible, 'cept far more negligible than the actual Clash ever managed to be. As such, it's not so bad, but negligibility does not inspire Frank Tickdom.

Re: What does the View song sound like?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I ticked it for the vocal: the singer's quite endearing. I like the foregrounding of his odd accent (which sounds to me more northern England than Dundee, Scotland, but whatevs) in much the same way Futureheads and Arctic Monkeys successfully did. This tactic isn't played out yet.

The backing is dull indie rock though. And every other View song I've heard is k-rub.

[koganbot]

Most of these are borderline, which means that they're all "any good at all"* but rarely "good enough to rise above the ordinary muck." I basically wasn't paying attention to lyrics so not holding them against anybody w/ exception of Just Jack who's got an interesting pissy voice but I couldn't avoid the stupid pissy lyrics (which were sympathetic to the poor has-been but in such a dumb obvious SUPERIOR way that they may as well not have been) hence no tick. I am usually strong enough to tick Good Music Whose Lyrics I Hate but not Slightly Redeemable Music Whose Lyrics I Hate. Anyway, "Raoul" certainly much worse than "Monster" but still bumps a few pleasure buttons. Freemasons fine generic whatever. Akon always sounds like Akon; Snoog Dogg always sounds like Snoop Dogg, usually requires a really klutzed-up rhythm (as on last week's Eminem) for me not to tick either, much less both, so this gets a tick. And I'll relisten to a few that you all have been finding any good at all to see if there's above-the-muck merit. I mean, this stuff, beyond its not sounding good, isn't even trying to be interesting ('cept I suppose for Mika, who maybe shouldn't try so hard). I don't envy you Brits. Your radio must be better than these charts? Right? Right?

[koganbot]

*Oh, forgot to include this footnote. It's hard to imagine a song that's not any good at all, especially given that I count within Any Good At All the characteristic of "expressing something terrible very well" or "expressing something terrible uncommonly poorly, hence its awful existence enriches my life." Something that was "no good at all" would be such an anomaly that its being no good at all would itself be an achievement, hence it would be good at all. So I only tick when something is positively - or even negatively - er... characterful, or something, in an interesting way.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's January. Nothing happens in January in pop. And I suppose we did get JoJo AND Amy last time. I can't believe Just Jack (ugh!) and Jarvis (zzzz) have got more ticks than JoJo.

[koganbot]

Think that there's a gender split on JoJo, my guess being that Poptimist women might find her threatening or annoying in a way that Poptimist men wouldn't: this is because no one's ever going to think of me (for instance) as a JoJo type, and growing up JoJoish was never an option for me.

But then, I don't always know who's a boy and who's a girl here. The twelve votes for JoJo broke down for me as 7 men, 1 woman, 4 gender unknown. If all four of the unknowns are women, then there's not much of a split, but I think it's more like two to two. You'd be able to do a more accurate count here. (Pictures unfortunately are no guide; e.g., both skyecaptain and justfanoe are boys.)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Our major national pop radio station (Radio 1) appears, as far as I can tell, to play roughly six songs per hour, then plays the same six songs the next hour, repeat ad nauseum. Sometimes it is alright during the night/evenings (Annie Mac's show and the Sessions In The Nations make Thursdays ace listening) but mostly it is AWFUL BEYOND ALL BELIEF. And that's before you get started on the fact Chris Moyles is one of the DJs.

If I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south

[koganbot]

OK, listening to Jamie T. again. He sounds like his teeth fell out. This in itself might be an achievement, a way of rising beneath the usual muck. But it gets kinda ordinary anyway. I kinda like the strange string flourishes, but not the orchestral wash.

[koganbot]

If "Lithium" were my first Evanescence song, I'd probably tick it, but having heard about six or eight or ten Evanescence songs I like more (not to mention every Flyleaf song ever), I'm not going to reward it. It's almost a parody of teary classical goth - "almost a parody" being a positive tickable characteristic, but there are way more exuberantly over-the-top-of-the-moat-of-tears almost-parodies of teary classical goth.

[koganbot]

Klaxons track has potential as fey sing-songy offhand quasi-lounge-reggae, but ends up as scruffy mediocrity. Probably the closest nonticker there was to a tick, but I got bored every time through, and it wasn't atmospherically pleasant during the low-volume background music test, either. Seems as if they botched something good.

[koganbot]

Koopa do sound 'Murrican, don't they? Sorta the wanky mealymouth pop punk whine, like Blink-182 (maybe?), 'cept much worse and with Brit accents. A good average OK melody that they're ruining.

[koganbot]

Ordinary Boys rhyme "better" and "Phil Spector." And the song is basically about writers block. Surely that makes it any good at all! Of course, this is mitigated by the fact it sucks, but those of you with "any good at all" standards should be ticking this!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I quite liked 'Lonely At The Top' but this one is a poor cousin. No ticky!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

don't mind me i am just putting a link (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/295377.html) to the first of these polls (untagged) for easy access, I wanted to see how many ticks they had and am pleased that Amy W leads this year's new releases by Quite Some Way.