A kung fu fighter in a disco

Soft Cell v Breeders - neither of these should be here, especially as I would bet that whatever they knocked out in the last round is amazing. They're both OK, I voted Breeders because they indirectly led to Ashlee and Lindsay, while Soft Cell led to Rihanna's worst song and lots of lame Scandipop.

Cyndi is no match for Neneh.

Surprisingly easy tick for Salt'n'Pepa over K8 - mostly because I don't think this is anywhere near K8's peak, and I much prefer 'Hounds Of Love'. I can't actually see myself ticking against 'Push It', except maybe if it comes up against Madge.

Cameo over Deee-Lite, does what 'Groove Is In The Heart' does but sexier and less 'wacky'.

PSB v Xtina - SO HARD. Both really 'important' debut singles which both acts would go on to trump many times over as they became more confident and ambitious, but these are their ROOTS! I think I ticked Xtina because 'Genie' fizzes in a way 'West End Girls' doesn't.

Haha was it Amerie v KLF in the last round? I remember agonising over that. Both are much better than 'Toxic'; I think I went with Amerie last time and will do so again.

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Oh yeah and there is the OTHER fight which I shall not dignify with even calling a fight. If there is an true poptimism in any of you Missy will win by like 50-0. As I can sadly see this is not the case.

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And I listened to 'Ghost Town' AGAIN and it passed me by without any impact of note AGAIN.

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

do you ever think "pulling at a door that pushes open"?

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I don't see the immediate link between Tainted Love and Scandopop!

OTM on Cameo and Deee-Lite I think.

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dubdobdee.livejournal.com

GRIZZLED GRANDAD SPEAKS OUT but the kids on the hackney bus larf and point and PUSH HIM OVER THE TOP OF HIS ZIMMERFRAME

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Though to be fair Larry Blackmon is no stranger to a particular kind of 'wacky'. (the kind involving CODPIECES). But yeah he disturbed me and enthralled me and made me laugh whereas - even though the song is good - Lady Miss Kier and co. were always slightly annoying. (In the same way as Andre 3000 is! Clearly I am an uptight square who resents bohos.)

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I thought when it was released, and I still think I think, that "Work It" is Missy Elliott's best record.

I may just be remembering it fondly because of the 200-post outburst of enthusiasm on ILM, and the flood of lyric googlers. Those were, as they say, the days.

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

btw, i've totally lost track of what's going on in the bigger picture here. what stage is this in the overall 'game'?

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This (and yesterdays poll) are to whittle down to a last 16.

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justfanoe.livejournal.com

"Cannonball" vs. "Tainted Love" very so what for me. I went with "Cannonball", tho nearly ticked "Tainted Love" due to the fact that it's absolutely massive at karaoke.

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" v. "Buffalo Stance" another so what matchup for me. For whatever reason, I've never been too into "Buffalo Stance", so I ticked Cyndi.

"Billie Jean" v. "Ghost Town" no contest.

Ticked Nirvana over "Work It" in order to induce coronary in Lex. Actually, this one was hard, and a significant tiebreaker was that "Get Ur Freak On" is already comfortably in the next round. (Though I actually like "Work It" more than "Freak").

"Push It" v. "Running Up That Hill" no contest. I went with Salt n Pepa.

"Word Up" over "Groove Is In The Heart" because it holds up better and is less kitschy.

"Genie In A Bottle" over "West End Girls" favorite single of all time, etc.

"Toxic" over "One Thing" and KLF, even though it's not my favorite Britney. May switch this to Amerie, though it's looking like it's not gonna make a difference.

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

i hesitated over most of em. Toxic was the exception.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

I was thinking, only just now, what an ILM thread on "Cannonball" would have been like if the ILM of "those days" had existed when that song first came to the world's attention

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I was quite resistant to "Cannonball" when it came out, it took me a while to admit it was great. I was a big Frank Black fan at the time, and was a bit annoyed when the Pixies split at the "Kim was the talented one" spin in some bits of the press. (Typing this out it seems UNBELIEVABLY petty, but this nonsnese is what being a 20-year old into music is all about I guess)

Anyway, when "Cannonball" came out I tried foolishly and hard not to like it on these grounds.

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koganbot

I'd be against a group stage. Why switch formats now? I love the head-to-head heartbreaks, and the fact that we can continue saying "_______ always seems to get a tough draw." Also, group stages give too much support to songs that are, like, a lot of people's eighth favorite. My guess is that if this round were a choose eight, "Toxic" and "1 Thing" would be running much closer. (I remember in the History of Jop "1 Thing" was a near winner (was second place by one or two votes, right?), but no one commented it as best song.)

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dubdobdee.livejournal.com

haha mrs john murphy

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=904749&qid=4&mode=ans

On balance I agree with Frank's main point though. If you need to liven things up a bit, there are other ways than by changing the format - e.g. make the poll "answers viewable to: None".

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All answers viewable does is make who is voting for who invisible, not the totals. So all we'd miss is Lex shouting at

awesomewells!

I will take the comments on a group stage into consideration. I realised over lunch that it would fuck up the whole seeding thing, too.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

If you did each fite as a text box though, rather than radio buttons, it could be totally sekrit. Would be a bit of bvgger for you to have to count up all the votes, admittedly.

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Yeah I might well do that for the quarter finals! Wouldn't be too difficult with only four.

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chezghost.livejournal.com

Tainted Love > Cannonball
But not much between them. My 'Tainted Love' love now is based largely on always being reminded of Eccleston Who bopping to it in The End Of The World. And the 'Where Did Our Love Go' sequence obv.

'Push It' is one of the best party tracks ever really.

The problem with 'Word Up', and it's Cameo's fault, is that I always think of the Gun version. So Deee-Lite wins by default.

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chezghost.livejournal.com

heed the lessons of the Champions League re group stages further on!

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koganbot

I voted Breeders because they indirectly led to Ashlee and Lindsay

This is an intriguing statement. I'd heard Ashlee and Lindsay as Alanis-Sheryl rock-leaning singer-songwriter types - for Ashlee add Courtney - embracing power-pop and dance-pop melodies, with Melissa Etheridge's former guitar player melding it all together for them and tossing in a bit of hair metal. Or, if you want to trace it back further, think Dylan and Joni embracing garage rock and girl groups.

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koganbot

Kogan In Distorts His Memory To Make Polemical Point Shockah! (But anyway, Kelly C got twelve to Amerie's four.)

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Isn't Alanis a descendant of the Breeders herself though? And Courtney clearly seems to be, to me. I wouldn't call either Ashlee or Lindsay descendants of Sheryl, they're not inoffensively MOR enough, Sheryl has never been about the Punk Rock.

(Ashlee and Lindsay seem to take their most immediate cues from Avril, whose Breeders-style punk influences seem more obvious.)

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Several quite close fites have suddenly been (as good as) won.

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But Ghost Town >>> Billie Jean. I mean, it's about real stuff instead of Annie, I'm not your daddy. And it's the SPECIALS, who are infinitely cooler. Two Tone Specials >>> It don't matter if you're black or white.

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I love Deee-Lite but I wish they'd released some more decent stuff. I have their "greatest hits" albumen, which has a couple of good trax, but nothing like Groove.

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Of course it's entirely possible that it's good because it's a rip-off off a Bootsy bass riff, but I've not heard the original in context so I'll leave that one.

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The Billie Jean stuff really happened to MJ, didn't it?

We established last time that "Ghost Town" is about the rubbish midlands club scene, which is also real of course.

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Celebrity baby whinging is not quite the same as late70s/early80s gritty industrialism. I didn't think it was just about clubs, but decline of manufacturing and no jobs and Thatcherism and stuff. Maybe I read too much into it. Plus, spooky music!

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I prefer Ghost Town too FWIW. (And yes all that stuff is in it too - in general though I think that stuff doesn't suit the pop song medium half as well as worrying about a girl claiming to have fathered yr kid)

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I'd certainly be worried if some girl was claiming to have fathered my kid....

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koganbot

I don't think my votes in this round signal much about my sensibility. I mean, "Oh, he chose 'Billie Jean' over 'Ghost Town,' that must mean _____?" Well, what does it mean? I'd have chosen "Billie Jean" over "Push It!" too (though with a moment's hesitation). Anyhoo:

"Tainted Love" vs. "Cannonball." I keep forgetting how good "Cannonball" is when I don't listen to it. Which means it never really sticks in my heart. "Tainted" is oh-so mannered and sensitive, which can be irritating, except I think Soft Cell succeeded in being funny instead, with a Pang Of Tangy Ache as well. Tick for "Tainted." Lex, "S.O.S." doesn't rank w/ "Pon De Replay" but several months into 2006 it was one of the few new tracks on Radio Disney that was standing out against the vast swell of HSM/Cheetah Girls mediocrity.

"Buffalo Stance" vs. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." "Stance" is playful in a way that does kind of ram its playfulness into your eyesocket, but the eyes are mostly pleased, as are the ears. "Girls" rams its fun down your throat, too overbearing (though I like it, mind you). Stance Tick.

"Billie Jean" vs. "Ghost Town." "Billie Jean" is a stylish sexy delight, whereas "Ghost Town" is dark and haunted and haunting and angry - except that Billie Jean is ALSO dark and haunted and haunting and angry, far more so than "Ghost Town."

"Work It" vs. "Smells Like Teen Spirit." "Work It" is too cute for me. I love Smelly's melody and the way Kurt's voice drags slowly over the beats. Don't love the whine in it; do love the raging tear-it-up exhilarating anquished denial at the end, ranks with the ending of "I Am Me" and "Frankenstein" and "Light My Fire" and "I'm Eighteen" and "Satisfaction." The whine might have sunk it for me against other competitors, but not against "Work It."

"Running Up That Hill" vs. "Push It." Tick it reeeal good. Salt n Pepa are flying. K8 sounds like she's running up a hill.

"Groove Is In The Heart" vs. "Word Up." Yeah, Deelite's cold bohemian detachment sinks this energetic dance track against Cameo's cold bohemian funk detachment. (My most meaningful vote, obviously.)

"West End Girls" vs. "Genie In A Bottle." PSBs are poignant but still rub me the wrong way. Xtina on a passionate pitch.

"Toxic" vs. "1 Thing" vs. "Justified And Ancient." KLF have a nice beat and melody which they ruin with their arch idiocy. So it's "Toxic" and its funny catchy codependency against "1 Thing"'s absolutely catchy me-vs.-the-beats comic dance delight. So why didn't I vote for "1 Thing"? Amerie's voice is too stylized, I guess.

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lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

It's one of those songs that everyone seems to love, but I just don't understand why. There are plenty of songs that I hate but I can still understand why other people love them, but Genie just perplexes me. I find it so bland I can't even pluck up the energy to hate it. And it's nothing to do with Christina - as I love lots of her other stuff. Can anyone help explain the love?

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koganbot

I'm still not following. It's Courtney's singing that Ashlee's taking off on, which has nothing to do with Kim's on "Cannonball," which is mostly this girly dreaminess, w/ punky squeaks thrown in. Courtney precedes the Breeders and is coming from Sex Pistols and hardcore and - ultimately - the Stones (Grace Slick a key predecessor but don't know if she was an influence; if you're looking for punk-as-such female-vocal influences on Courtney they're probably Patti Smith and Poly Styrene and Joan Jett). I don't know. Are there interviews where Courtney is citing Kim? I'm not hearing an iota of "Cannonball" in "You Oughta Know," either. Alanis's marbles-in-the-mouth-harshness was there in her early '90s dancepop tracks, believe it or not. She precedes the Breeders too, and I don't think she got the singing style from Black Francis. Maybe from Dory Previn and Marianne Faithfull and k8. She reminds me of Dolores O'Riordan a lot more than of Kim Deal, actually. I don't own any Breeders albums, so maybe haven't heard the right Kim Deal vocals, but from what I have heard Kim's deliberately low on affect, not going for the riot grrrrl squawl or the cutting angry-singer-songwriter bitchout. And I don't hear anything remotely like Kim in Avril's singing, either. Why would you think Kim rather than, I don't know, Heart or Stevie Nicks?

I tie Ashlee to Alanis more through lyrics - Ashlee says that "You Learn" was one of her favorite songs when she was ten: the woman on a self-critical adventure through life and boyfriends, Ashlee (or Ashlee-Kara-John) being Alanis with a brain.

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koganbot

I wouldn't call either Ashlee or Lindsay descendants of Sheryl, they're not inoffensively MOR enough, Sheryl has never been about the Punk Rock.

You're looking too much at the signifiers. Look at album credits, and start with the name John Shanks.

This is a whole other story, but the Punk Rock Movement and the punk rock I love are pretty much at odds with another, the former doing great damage to the latter. I mean, Stevie Nicks is MOR rock (forget the adjective "inoffensive"; it's a red herring; like, inoffensive to whom?), and she once called herself the anti-punk, which just means she's got no self-knowledge, because she can virulent in both word and groove and she's way more punk rock to me than the Clash are. (Doesn't mean the Clash are worse than she is. Just that they're doing something different.)

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dickmalone.livejournal.com

And Courtney clearly seems to be

You just made my head explode, Lex.

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OK you win! Or at least I probably didn't have much of an argument beyond "when I was growing up, people like Tori and Alanis and Courtney were aligned with each other, and even though this was blatantly untrue sonically I'd always assumed they must have shared a pool of influences, which I'd thrown the Breeders into on the basis that they did the whole fierce-emotional-grrrl-with-guitar thing a few years before the people I cited" - of the female singers you cited as Courtney predecessors I'm only really familiar with Patti Smith.

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