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

[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.