Chart Championship Week 4 RESULTS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

And now the votes from the poptasticuk jury.

"Everyone has chosen so well, I feel bad having to pick winners and losers. Well done Poptimists! The songs seem to me more varied than some of the past selections, which I was pleased about. Now I have a whole load of ace new music to listen to - thanks guys!

1. Bonnie And The Treasures - "Home Of The Brave". Nice Motown-y sound (certainly of that era), female vocals. I'm a big Motown fan but haven't mentioned that before so a good taste-prediction. 10th Place - LOSE - unflattering scoreline for martinskidmore.

2. Data Panik - "Cubis (I Love You)". Fun 80s/90s style, a bit shouty but only as necessary. Obviously British vocals (I'm guessing Scottish cos the girl reminds me of Manda Rin from Bis... is it her?), both male and female. Lots of different ace bits. This is great! 1st Place - WIN - lisa_go_blind goes top after busy performance.

3. Jorge Ben - "Taj Mahal". Weird but very jolly. Liking the nonsense lyrics, plenty of 'dedede's and 'lalala's. Not sure where it's from - could be Spanish or Eastern European, which is a pretty wide guess! Goes on a bit, though, and doesn't really go anywhere. 8th Place - LOSE - epicharmus lacks penetration in the final third.

4. Ooberman - "Blossoms Falling". Ooh, 90s post-PSB British boypop - ace! Sounds like a gay Blur. More great 'lalala's but other lyrics too so beats the last song by far. 2nd Place - WIN - journeyman squad play their socks off for skillextric.

5. Bananarama - "Doctor Love". Super-80s sounding electro-pop, quite sharp but nice girly 'woo' bits. Is it Bananarama? Either them or someone very similar. 11th Place - LOSE - jeff_worrell won't believe this scoreline.

6. Miranda! - "Una Lagrima Sobre el Telefono" Euro dance-pop! In foreign, most likely Eastern European. I like it - although it's not the absolute best of its genre it's better than the majority, which can get a bit mindlessly boshy at times. Would be good for a bit of 'big fish little fish'. 7th Place - LOSE - World Cup stars fail to produce for lockedintheatti.

7. Ben Watt ft Est'elle - "Pop A Cap In Your Ass". I was immediately put off by the length (3 mins over the optimum pop song duration!) but it's actually a cool, interesting song which I enjoyed listening to. A mix of slightly 90s-ish dance sounds and a girl with a London accent describing her shoplifting exploits. 4th Place - WIN - gamble pays off and inf0vore climbs out of relegation places.

8. Manu Chao - "Bongo Bong". The backing music is familiar but I don't recognise the singing. Oh, I just realised - Robbie Williams and Lily Allen covered it. I don't know this version, though, so you're safe. It's good, but could do with more singing and a little less speaky bit. 5th Place - WIN - koganbot scrapes a win.

9. Ingenting - "Slapp In Solen". Yay, someone found something Swedish! Lovely. Typical Swedish indie-pop, a bit like Håkan Hellström. 3rd Place - WIN - tried and true tactics kickstart blue_russian's season.

10. Of Montreal - "A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger". Very jolly, cute indie pop, funny lyrics about living in Norway! Some great 'papapa's and squelchy background noises. 6th Place - DRAW - piratemoggy's first point of the season - could easily have been all three.

11. Mott The Hoople - "Saturday Gigs". A ballad in a very British accent (a bit Bowie-ish), sounds quite 70s. Not what I'd normally listen to but it's enjoyable nonetheless. 9th Place - LOSE - ageing striker fails to perform and leaves byebyepride under pressure.

I can't believe I'm putting the one I presume to be Bananarama at the end, since they are pop legends, but it just shows how much I liked all of the songs.

Comments

Re: Indie vs. Pop

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'll post something to try and explain tomorrow, and we could discuss it some more. Basically I don't mean that indie ISN'T also pop (in the broad sense) but that there is a particular indie ideology which a) applies indie attitudes to pop music (e.g. 'I'm into more obscure Scando-pop B-sides than you are') and / or b) actually claims to BE pop music (there is quite a specific genealogy of this which I think we have discussed somewhere, e.g. the moment when Creation records is inventing an alternative pop universe -- this is what pop would be like if the 70s had never happened).

re (b)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

paging nick lowe* surely**

*"pure pop for now people" as alt.title for "the jesus of cool"
**or possibly even greg shaw