poptimists | Jop Tournament Round 1.5

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poptimists

Today's pack of four.

[Poll #919230]

Monday: Britney, Beasties, Destinys squared, ABC, ETC.

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From:

blue-russian.livejournal.com

In the end I think these tourneys are ultimately boil down to some gut pop vs. r&b (vs. "indie") voting by people.

(yes, yes, i'm cynical)

From:

koganbot

Well, given that there are seven r&b and one bohemian (KLF, closest to "indie" you're gonna find here, though it's also probably the one most likely to get "dance pop" votes), I don't see how those divisions play out in this fite. But obviously you're reading "pop" and "r&b" off of these songs in a way that I'm not (most of them are r&b and pop). But then, I have trouble reading the genre differences these days. In the U.S., Mediabase divides "Hit" (contemporary hit radio) into two formats - "top 40" and "rhythmic," and then has a different category ("urban") that it also divides into two formats: "urban" and "urban AC," but a station that plays a lot of r&b dance tracks could easily be in any of the first three categories ("top 40," "rhythmic," and "urban"). KS-107.5, the local Denver station that plays "today's hip-hop and r&b," is in "rhythmic." In the last seven days the top five songs on "top 40" were Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right," Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around," Paula Deanda's "Walk Away," and Akon's "I Wanna Love You." I'd call every single one of those "r&b," maybe excepting "Walk Away," though quite possibly some of those tracks will end up with a much stronger showing on "top 40" than on "rhythmic" or "urban." The number 6 song is Daughtry's "It's Not Over," which is the first non-r&b track. Number 7 is Rihanna (back to r&b, I'd say), number 8 is All American Rejects (back to rock). The top five "rhythmic" tracks are Lloyd's f. Lil Wayne's "You" (which works off a Spandau Ballet sample), "Irreplaceable," Ludacris "Runaway Love," Jim Jones "We Fly High," and Ciara's "Promise." Akon's "I Wanna Love You" is six, "Say It Right" is fourteen with a bullet, "What Goes Around Comes Around" is nineteen with a bullet (which means they may be crossing from pop to r&b). "Runaway Love" is nineteen with a bullet on top 40, which means it may be crossing the other way. "You" is forty-one with a bullet on top 40 (it's rise is a substantial but not overwhelming 401 plays; I would have expected it to be huge on top 40, but my guess seeing those numbers is that it makes it no higher than the twenties; but then, it's been kicking around since last summer, and all of a sudden is breaking now, so who knows?). Urban has "Promise" at one, "You" at two, "Runaway Love" at three, Chris Brown's "Poppin'" at four, Pretty Ricky's "Hotline" at five, "Irreplaceable" at six, "I Wanna Love You" at nine, and "What Goes Around" and "Say It Right" basically negligible (under 40 plays each). Honestly, I think that skin color has a lot to do with that. In any event, it's pretty hard to think that a Poptimist Furtado vote is more pop than a Poptimist Beyoncé vote, and as for Nelly vs. Xtina...

From:

koganbot

(One thing the Mediabase charts show is that hip-hop is struggling on top 40 in a way that it wasn't several years ago, when Fiddy ruled. Hard to say, though, since the r&b and hip-hop are so closely mulched together; maybe hip-hop is in a commercial lull.)

From:

blue-russian.livejournal.com

y comment was more of an overall observation, spurred by the fact that today people can't actually vote on those terms in any of these fites.

And although, almost by dimension, most of these and both r&b and pop as you point out, on other days we do see songs that are pop but not r&b. my sense is that "pure" techno/club/dance music (i think the KLF are about as "pop" as, say, Yes or Augustus Pablo) makes it to the pop charts fairly rarely, which is why i didn't suggest it as a separate category.