A Year In Pop: 14

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

After last week's total damp squib (lowest polling numbers ever, too) - this is more like it. Too much more like it you might say with 12!!! new entries as the charts have a big old spring clean. At least 3 tracks here which have had their own poptimists thread! GET TICKING!

[Poll #963576]

Comments

Arctic Monkeys

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That is what it's called on the BBC1 site. No typo!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

TICKY:

Mika - not as good as the first one but still quite good
Natasha - BABIES, hooray! 2nd best single of the year so far after Avril
Tim & Nelly - alright, not horrendous, borderline tick

NO TICKY:

Beyonce/Shakira - starts off ok but drags on, boring
Dan Le Sac - intriguing on first listen, cringeworthy thereafter
Mark Ronson - WEAK BEATS NOES

Haven't heard the rest.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I have so far only ticked 2 of the tracks - Timbonell and Beykira - and neither of them exactly stun me but both are solid 6/10s and quite tickable.

Mark Ronson is a missed opportunity I reckons though it might grow on me.

Natasha Bedingfield is the catchiest thing I've heard here, easily but it really annoys me for a reason I may try and pin down if pushed. So no tick.

Will YouTube the rest over a lunchtime sandwich and tick or not accordingly.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I was totally disappointed by Beyonce/Shakira. Even the video is rubbish!!

I only ticked MCR and Arctic Monkeys.

Natasha has inherited the Bedingfield annoying gene after all :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Gosh there are a lot.

Mark Ronson - I haven't heard the original and I can still sense the over-reverence towards it, and it's reverence pretending to be radical, and do not drag the Supremes into this mess of a record!!!!!! Mark Ronson = Jools Holland of funk/soul/whatever this is meant to be, anyway.

Timba/Justin/Nelly - all three are increasingly smackable, I think...Nelly, only because of the weird pout she makes on red carpets, but Justin seems very in love with himself and his status as Very Important Popstar. The Timba album is pretty bad, apart from a couple of tracks, incidentally. This is boring, I like the idea of the disses but: a) Timba, you have been no better than Storch lately b) Nelly, Fergie is like you but a bit more inventive c) Justin shut up.

Beyonce and Shakira - love it, it's 'Hips Don't Lie' crossed with 'Baby Boy', it's both of them going..."hey, world? Excited that your two biggest female popstars are getting together for a genre-busting monster of a hit? ...nah, we'll do a generic club banger/brand exercise innit, and we won't pretend it's anything more than that unlike Timbaland". Beyonce! Beyonce! Shakira! Shakira! You can't tell them apart in the video, it's pretty freaky.

Arctic Monkeys - I have still not heard a note by this band :) Worst thing here by miles.

My Comical Romance - shutupgoaway&c&c

Erasure - as queasy and wrong as ever I see

Natasha B - BABIES BABIES BABIES BABIES :D

Little Man Tate - didn't bother with this either, I doubt it'll be an improvement on their last

Dan Le Sac - oh god this is AWFUL AWFUL X A BILLION - had to review this in new Plan B singles column and aaargh it's like being cornered by a pub bore for hours on end. This year's 'Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen', reams of crap advice and dull platitudes and lazy puns all passing themselves off as wisdom.

Ne*Yo - this is excellent, smooth but bouncy, like Omarion's 'Entourage' - think this will grow on me even more. All the people on the rolling r&b thread love Ne*Yo - I must remember to check out his albums. I think this is the first song I hadn't heard before it entered the top 40, which I was then moved to download.

Mika and Linkin Park oh I cannot be bothered any more. Hang on Linkin Park still release singles? Well well.

[fathands.livejournal.com]

I find the Mika one so incredibly annoying that I leave the room when it comes on the radio. Same goes for Mark Ronson.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Mika reminds me of Kamal outta Big Brother from a few years ago.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've heard any of them except for ...Babies and I share Tom's annoyance at them. Natasha Bedingfield is just a bad popstar I think.

Stefy stiffs (again)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know Shakira and Bouncy had done a song together. Looking forward to hearing this.

Meanwhile, interesting to note that "Chelsea" by Stefy is again not troubling the Top 75 on its umpteenth re-release. This time despite Radio 2 caning it these past few weeks.

Not that any of you will care, but...

[koganbot]

The Linkin Park track is vastly vastly vastly vastly superior to the My Chemical Romance. Vastly. Actually haunting in its fake-goth-eeriness-stuffed-into-a-bag-of-emo way. Lots and lots of tunefulness. Not that I don't have serious issues with the coagulated whine of the singing, and if it ruins the song for you, I understand.

What was supposed to be so great about My Chemical Romance? (Their last single was a lot better, mind you, and would have been ticked. This one I've already deleted from my computer.)

Reporting Back

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Only one extra tick (Ne-Yo), owing to my bar of "not ticking Natasha" setting things fairly high.

Arctic Monkeys - same as ever. Little Man Tate - Arctic Monkeys with lyrics apparently written by an "Instant Jarvis Cocker" program.

Mika and Dan Le Sac - immediate turn off as soon as the voices come in. Speaking of ruined voices, Andy Bell :(

I wd buy a Linkin Park greatest hits album cheap, but I wd skip this track on it.

While leaves Ne-Yo - it feels like it needs to take off and go somewhere, but it never really does: what we have is a very pleasant bit of Lighthouse Family sensitive soul. Unenthused tick.

[koganbot]

"Give It To Me." I find the Nelly F. part totally aching and fetching and wonderful. Timbo needs to tape his mouth closed (especially given that his 2006 wasn't nearly as good as Storch's). Timberlake is just a pretty boy taking up space on this one. I'm very conflicted (like, does this make my top ten of the year or does it fall below the top 100?), but they do let the Nelly melody carry the song, so it's an emphatic tick.

"Babies." This is being orgasmed over on the teenpop thread, though I don't share the infatuation. Even going bonkers she's still a well-mannnered debutante. She's not an ungracious one, however. I mean, I'm not insulted that she wants to have my baby. And there is life in her etchings, under the mannerisms. I way prefer "Unwritten," but this gets a luna-tick.

"What I've Done." Tick.

"Thou Shalt Always Kill." Funny pissed-off wankers who think their received ideas are provocative, and this misguided conviction actually carries the song. Only Brits pull this off, in my experience. Solid tick.

"Love Today." This is the glam equivalent of a garage rock - Mika tries to come on stylish but is really just a guy posing with a mic in his rec room. Hated the last one, this one I like, maybe even a lot. Good Tick.

"Stop Me." Catchy, not amazing. Tick.

"Liar." Shakira's got this haunted Asian agony mysteriously in the background at the start; disappointing afterwards, but a tick.

"I Could Fall In Love With You." Good tune; don't know why it didn't grab me. Only heard once so my opinion could improve if I hear it again. Near miss.

"Brianstorm." Don't know what went wrong. I quite liked "Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor" and several others, but this time Turner is lost in a thicket of guitars and beats. A botch not a tick.

"Because Of You." In one ear and out the other. Maybe it'd stick on the 50th play, but I'll do my best not to find out. A nap not a tick.

"This Must Be Love." Rueful alienated vocals could be good yoked to some other melody, but they undo the lilt of this one.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Timbo: Boring, OK hook. Good singing by Nelly F and Justin. Marginal tick.

Beyonce/Shakira: Very disappointing. Nothing in the song hooks me at all. Boring. No tick.

MCR: Way worse than the last single. Marginal tick. Will listen to it again tonight and may untick.

Natasha Bedingfield: Easy tick. Still my favorite single of the year so far.

Ne-Yo: Smooth R&B. Very catchy and nice. His best single. Easy tick.

Mika: Still annoying. No tick.

Haven't heard the rest. Will try to rectify tonight.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

This reminds me but the very last post I wrote on my dead and almost certainly never coming back blog was a review of the Mika album. It was actually more evil, hateful and critical than anything I've read anywhere else. I'm kind of glad it's not readable now. I meant to show it to people (I said "Grace Kelly" was the "most narratively and intellectually vacant piece of pestilential junk to ever go Top Ten". And it is.). But "Love Today" is certainly the least punchable song on it apart from "Relax". Still rub though. I like "Stop Me" and Tashbed quite a bit. If it were 1987 more people would have ticked Erasure, and rightly so.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

WOAH at M Ronson love :///