A Year In Pop: 5

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

First of two polls today (the second being a January round-up). The more familiar pop names are starting to wake from their start-of-year slumbers, albeit nearly all with later singles from recent albums. Have a sift through this lot!

[Poll #922486]

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

*cough* tag

What's the January round-up poll all about? You're not going to re-poll everything so far AGANE, surely?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No - I'm going to do this one, see what happens, and if the results aren't interesting I'll just list each month's 'winners'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Not heard most of these as yet. I am awaiting a t0rr3nt to come through tonight, or I'll just cane YouTube a bit.

in order

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Nelly: best of the year so far for me, it may not have the impact of her big singles last year but unlike 'Maneater' and 'Promiscuous' this seems...more Nelly's, like no one else could sing it. As I've said before Timbaland is really amazing when he's trying to be Coldplay. Lyrics are beautifully nonsensical, I love the way Nelly delivers "oh you don't mean nothing at all to me" in this dreamy, pleading way.

Nas: I never expected him to be this good again! Hurrah! Brilliantly taut, he sounds fresh and confident for the first time since 'Made You Look', and will.i.am seems actually to be developing into a really rather excellent producer.

Beyoncé: omg her voice at the end is incredible

SEB: I wasn’t enamoured of this when I first heard it at all, electrorock seems so useless and boring now as a formula for UK pop (cf Sugababes’ really awful ‘Easy’), it’s retreading old ground in ever-decreasing circles. But! Then I saw the video and SEB totally sells the song, she is completely wonderful in it.

Sov: the beat is pretty decent, one of the better ones on the album, but omg the lyrics Sov just shut up whey are you even releasing this over here.

Gwen: actively annoying, this yo-yos on the same two notes in a particularly strident way which sits uncomfortably with the reggae lilt, Akon doesn't save it, it is relentless in a bad way

Take That: zzz

Bowling For Soup, Kasabian: die

Re: in order

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I might UNTICK Sophie E-B because as good as she is in the video, the song on its own is pretty dull and it certainly doesn't deserve to win.

Re: in order

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Hm, will have to look for the video when I get home. I was underwhelmed by the song too, although I quite like Sophie.

Re: in order

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I may have to untick the SOV for similar reasons

Re: in order

[koganbot]

Nas's "Thief's Theme" from 2005 - which uses the same Iron Butterfly sample as on "Hip Hop Is Dead" - is even better. Not to needle you, Lex, I mean this seriously: There's really a lot about rock that you like, and a lot that you currently like draws heavily on rock; it's just current musical and social uses of supposed "rock as such" that you dislike. But you should try to avoid projecting those current uses on the past, and you should avoid projecting current uses of the past onto the actual past, though that's hard.

From my perspective (an old rock fan's), hip-hop and techno and teenpop and country are more rock than most current rock is (esp. than most current indie rock is).

Fact checker in da house

[koganbot]

"Thief's Theme" was 2004.

Re: in order

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The thing is when I listen to 'In A Gadda Davida' now I can hear the amazing riff, but if I'd heard it first...well, I'd have heard it, and then I'd have heard it dragged into this sludge of dreariness and topped with some really off-putting vocals.

People somehow manage to tease me for both a) being more indie than I say I am, and b) having an unfair kneejerk reaction to guitars - but they can't have it both ways! I have always liked rock done well: Hole, PJ Harvey, Ashlee Simpson. But I don't like it when other music forms make concessions to rock and in so doing lessen themselves, which is why I'm all "ugh guitars" when I hear them in dance or hip-hop. And above all else I don't like rock BOYS, I don't like their voices and I don't like their attitudes towards music and I don't like the way they iron out everything feminine from their music (and I hate it even more when they try to be feminine). The last boys-with-guitars album I liked was the first Interpol one!

Re: in order

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I always get 'In Da Gutter Davina' confused with 'Sunshine Of Your Love'. You'd like the Ella Fitzgerald version of that probably.

Re: in order

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

i LOVE the Ella version of that! do you have an mp3 of it? i only have it on CASSETTE...

Re: in order

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i don't think i have it. i have a remix of it on MINIDISC tho.

have you moved yet? i want to dump these fab records on you.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

In the video Sophie Ellis Bextor is so thin I was utterly distracted from the song, so cannot give judgement.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Kat have you heard the new MIA single? On her myspace, AMAZING.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes! I saw the video on popjustice yesterday. Great stuff.

Squawk

[koganbot]

If you're talking about "Bird Flu," it's cacophonous, you can hear the feathers flying. This is NOISE! It's hilarious. I like it a lot.

[maura.livejournal.com]

'say it right' is like the best freestyle song that never got released to radio in 1987. i can almost picture nelly f singing this in a poufy prom dress.

[koganbot]

I ticked all but three of these (Take That and "Listen" and Bowling For Soup). Of course, my favorite, the Furtado, has been on the U.S. charts for a long time. For some reason, the record co. figured that you Brits would prefer the dying-dogs one first.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

"Say It Right" is my favorite song on the new Nelly Furtado album, and by a pretty fair amount (though I like the album). Two of my nonticks (Kasabian and Nas) were because I don't know the song, the other two "Listen" and Take That I genuinely dislike.

[koganbot]

The Nas track samples "In A Gadda Davida" (so it samples Iron Butterfly copying Cream), which is the second time in three years Nas has done this! The Kasabian is catchy poppy neo-garage rockish, not extraordinary but worth a tick. I can't figure out why Poptimists hate Kasabian. Is there something in their image and public presence that make them something Poptimists want to dislike? The Take That does what I was complaining about in my P&J comments about Daniel Powter's "Bad Day": It's dull and aggressively normal, and sung much more clumsily than "Bad Day." I have nothing in principle against clumsiness, but here it's just another way of embracing tedium and stodginess.

I've not heard the full Furtado alb, but I do like "Say It Right" more than the other three singles. My favorite Nelly F. from last year, however, may be her version of "Crazy"; fewer pained hesitations than on the Gnarls, which makes Nelly's less crazy-sounding, but better.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Say It Right gets a reluctant tick from me. I can see it getting really annoying if I heard it too often.

[koganbot]

While we're at it, Sadie Ama's "Fallin'," which has stalled up in the 50s, is a wonderful r&b sigh, probably better than "Say It Right," almost up there with the best of Ciara ("Oh" and such).

[koganbot]

Actually, Sadie is something of a JoJo without the high-harmonies.

[koganbot]

But not sure it's better than "Say It Right," actually, now that I listen to "Say It Right" again. But I think I prefer Sadie's singing to Nelly's - Nelly is always one-emotion-at-a-time.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I agree about Sadie Ama (it may yet climb into the top 40, not sure whether it's been properly released) - did you hear any of the grime stuff she did? She and Katy Pearl both had very similar vocal strategies to Ciara, I remember comparing Katy's 'Mr DJ' to 'Oh' at the time (cannot find it in lj archives, it's from 2005 though). 'So Sure' by Kano and Sadie is incredible, if my CDs weren't in boxes spread across two houses I'd dig it up--- HANG ON WE LIVE IN THIS AMAZING AGE OF YOUTUBE, hang on hang on will a 3-yr-old obscure grime single be there, yes it is omg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyJggJd9O4s), wrongly titled and everything! Can't be bothered to trawl through the Pearl Harbour clips to find 'Mr DJ' but here's 'Leave Me Alone' by DaVinche ft Katie and Kano (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4kXK8reg3U) (helpfully she spells her name Katy and Katie and KT at random).

Sadie is the sister of one Shola Ama, who was a young British soul singer who was briefly very big indeed in the late 90s - she got a coke habit though, since recovered (and indeed made a few grime singles, I saw her live in '03 and she was magnificent) but I don't think she's planning any sort of industry comeback.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, here's (http://poptext.blogspot.com/2005/07/davinche-ft-katie-kano-leave-me-alone.html) what I wrote for Poptext on Kano/Katie.

[koganbot]

Yes, heard "So Sure"; it's on Sadie's MySpace. I like it, but think I prefer "Fallin'," even though the latter is less edgy and underground. "Fallin'" deserves to cross to America. Can't see any reason why it won't, since I wouldn't have known from the sound it was British. But for some reason Brit r&b has had a hard time getting heard here.) I'll listen to "Leave Me Alone" when I return in a couple of hours.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Bowling for Soup are great! It's the only one I've heard, apart from Take That.

Shiney McShine

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I think 'Shine' is great. It's rapidly becoming my favourite Take That single ever.