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freakytigger.livejournal.com posting in

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]

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From:

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

From:

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.

From:

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.

From:

jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

I may have to untick the SOV for similar reasons

From:

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).

From:

koganbot

"Thief's Theme" was 2004.

From:

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!