A Year In Pop: 15

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, aren't there a lot of miserable boys in the chart this week?

[Poll #968699]

Remember that by the magic of TAGS you can go back and fill in any of these polls that you might have missed, so make the polls more ACCURATE.

Busy day on Poptimists today - we have Pop Premiership results up later on.

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I love the fact they all try to rock out to it in the video as though it's clever. :/

Good lord that's a ropey lot

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Akon: lovely summery bounce, sweet lyrics, he convinces me. This isn't a song I would seek out particularly at any point but the kind of song which makes me smile inside whenever I hear it by chance, and then after enough of those chances I realise how much I love it

Nine Inch Nails: grinds, interminably and pointlessly

Klaxons: there is a really good remix of this. My official verdict on the original ("ROPEY OLD SHIT") stands

Muse: oh my god a Muse ballad. The video immediately below this on youtube has the description "Listen as Muse vocalist Matthew Bellamy gets magically transformed into Gwen Stefani with a litte help from a pitch shifter" - I THINK NOT

Elliot Minor: never heard of these people before, hope never to again

Bloc Party: hang on I'm sure the opening shot is of a train pulling out of a DLR station, I'm sure I recognise it, but the train itself is not only blatantly not a DLR carriage but not any form of tube carriage that I recognise! This mild transport geekery is a lot more fascinating than the song, which is the first where his voice doesn't cause my ears PAIN but which is also really dull

Gareth Gates: we can tell you don't believe in change, and also, I thought you'd been dropped? I don't believe in giving people second chances

Fall Out Boy: oh do fuck off

Re: Good lord that's a ropey lot

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

On a more positive note if it stays sunny for much longer I'm going to have to go back and tick 'The Sweet Escape'.

Hurray!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Weee-oo!

I still love it.

Re: Good lord that's a ropey lot

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Fall Out Boy surprisingly good, I thought (that's two highly tickable singles in a row - I may have to give the album a go).

Klaxongs get a tick mainly for the Cut Copy remix, despite my instinctive annoyance at the title (lazy cred-by-association attempt AND what's more it's the book that destroyed my capacity to enjoy any novel ever again). If Judge Pop ever gets around to bringing the Klaxongs before a jury of their peers, I may vote to acquit. Not a fan, but they're not the worst new band around by a long shot.

Re: Good lord that's a ropey lot

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Judge Pop is a busy man but rest assured the Klaxons are on the Mega City Pop Most Wanted List.

Re: Good lord that's a ropey lot

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Do. The FOB album is really very good. So's their previous one. In fact, so's the first one; I think Cork Tree/Infinity are tied for them. I'm far too keen on them to be rational, but they're a great band alltold, and on Infinity they strike a nice balance between "being a punk band" and "being a pop band". MMRS is, at its heart, a big pop song.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

To my shame I have only heard 2 of these despite ACTUALLY LISTENING to at least half of the Radio 1 chart on Sunday! Gareth and NIN both get ticks: Gazza gets marks for effort (he's really trying! He's loving angels instead! Bless!) and Trent gets marks for actually doing something different whilst sticking to the NIN strangled goth "theme" (ie after hearing it on sunny afternoon sat in back yard I actually wanted to hear it again properly).

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever ticked "none of them" before, but I fail to find a redeeming aspect in any of them. That's depressing.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Well a quick review of these on youtube suggests some of these are ok and get ticks, and very few are totally awful, but that they're all pretty dreary. Apart from Akon which steals from several Wyclef Jean tracks and is therefore officially fine by me. Come on Britishes charts, get your act together! Eliot Minor score for having actual metal guitar intro, not just yr emo grunge nu-metal yomp. Couldn't be bothered to finish the track, so no idea if the solo is good or not!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Also a chunk of Ignition remix in there!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Blimey I like a 'slow jam'! Wonders will never cease.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

The solo, which I'm listening to now via youtube, is the most irritating thing ever, it's basically just a major scale bit of pansying around that could be a lunchtime news themetune. Also I do not think they are actually playing their own instruments which is all very well but I bet they mistakenly slagging off McFly for it all over Kerrang! as we speak.

One of them is slightly fit but I can't remember which. I do agree about the intro, though.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

ha ha serve me right for not listening to more than a minute and a half. Still, deserves a tick for making me think fondly of Iron Maiden for about three seconds.

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

I am becoming increasingly weary of Muse, and I consider myself an ardent fan of overblown pomp (cf: My Chemical Romance). They get a tick but only just.

Fall Out Boy get my tick for the forseeable future, i.e. until they make a concept album about Mars.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I really hate that Gareth song. It is awful. It's bad enough that Radiohead did 'No Surprises' in the first place without anyone ripping it off like it's a good thing. :(

Fall Out Boy get ticky because I really like that song, Nine Inch Nails get the Trent Reznor prize for being Nine Inch Nails although the song is also really good and The Klaxons sneak in with the remix, like most people seem to be saying.

Elliot Minor = annoying rubbish version of an interbreed between McFly and Son of Dork. Or possibly just a Nightmare of You ripoff. That said I would probably like it if Emilie Autumn did it but then she would do it better.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

But it's Gareth Gates ripping off Radiohead! How can it fail? Imagine Rik Waller covering Lucky, that'd be even better.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hahah I was going to make a joke about pigs in cages on antibiotics, but it's too easy...

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

Why can't Muse go away and leave everyone alone?

With every new album the first single is vaguely interesting, and I think "Oh, perhaps Muse are going to do something a bit different now instead of all this overblown epic wank". And they never do! The ballads are always the worst bit too.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

This is very true. They are also the most insanely pretentious people on the planet. As are many of their fans. 'OMG MAN MUSE REINVENTED MUSIC HOW CAN YOU NOT HOLD THEM AS YOUR GODS' etc.

It's like Placebo (as a phenomena, although they are vaguely sonically similar in places too) only vaguely more offensive insofar as at least you know where you are with Brian Molko and he probably doesn't think he's Jimi fkn Hendrix or whatever.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

Ticking both the Gareth single and "not heard any of them" was totally satifying.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Ticked Fall Out Boy and Akon, both fairly easy ticks. The only other two I know and didn't tick are Gareth and Klaxons, and those were both easy nonticks, which made this the easiest poll yet.

American Version:
Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake & Nelly Furtado - "Give It To Me"
Linkin Park - "What I've Done"
Hilary Duff - "With Love"
Bow Wow ft. T-Pain and Johnta Austin - "Outta My System"
Hinder - "Better than Me"

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

I am, incidentally, totally pumped that FOB are doing so well. They are my fave.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's all relative! They may be winning but their current score would only place them 4th in last week's, and THAT week was pretty dire as I remember it.

[koganbot]

Only tick was Fall Out Boy, which has a reasonably good tune.

Muse guy's voice is somewhere between mewling and self-important, isn't as bad as that description makes it sound, but the song is blah and being revved up with good blips and aggressive bass doesn't save it, esp. when bad quasi-prog wanking comes in and then they're all thrown together in a mess.

NIN is unexpectedly plodding. Had an idea from hearing 'em in the old days that they could organize their noise into rhythm: fuzzed and filtered horror and pushiness. But this is fuzzed and filtered dullness, and the chorus sounds horror-house in its inability to convince.

Elliot Minor, pretty good generic emo knockoff by a band that deosn't sound angsty enough to be emo - all this could be good but the song's not quite good enough (but better than most of what you guys have been ticking). Fast prog-metal guitar solo is likable for its inappropriateness.

Akon, one of my rare nonticks for him; goes to his immediate facile beauty but then just sits there with it.

Klaxons, haven't heard the vaunted remix but unless that's what the radio's playing and people are downloading, it doesn't count. Jury's definitely out on these guys: a while back they did a great job of making that Oakenfold/Grace song into a tense glammish rock song; but dull sore-throated singing on this, somewhat compelling sore-throated guitar playing, the latter not enough to make this a tick.

Bloc Party, surprisingly gentle, like old-style strumming Amerindie from the mid '80s. Boring, though. (Though?)

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I ticked Muse and FOB and Gareth Gates! I AM THE ANTI-LEX.

[koganbot]

Oh, forgot to mention the Gates. It's beyond good and evil. But it's bad.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I'm also the Anti-Kogan :(

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

ALL OF THESE SONGS ARE TERRIBLE. WORST WEEK EVER.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Fall Out Boy - i liked the last single but it's normal (awful) service appears to have resumed here

Gareth Gates - useless bloodless voice, instrumental version would be a half-tick

Bloc Party - pretty much as tedious as any recent Oasis single

Muse - liked 'Knights Of Cydonia' but this band are just boring when quiet

Nine Inch Nails - half a tick for the relatively 'unusual' production - shame it's pretty much the same old same old NIN song otherwise.

Elliott Minor - die

Akon - not interested unless he's going "YOOOO HOOOO WEEEE HOOOO"

Klaxons - chicken sandwich where the chicken is ok but the bread is a bit damp for some reason or other

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

You are all coming very close to convincing me that I don't like the Bloc Party one, but I still do. I think. It's the only really good one I think. I like the whole album, it's all swoony and beefy.

I like the rhythmic tricks on the NIN single a LOT, like fifty times more than I like actually listening to the song.

Akon's good but maybe I haven't listened to it enough.

Rest were very liberal interpretation of "at all" ticks.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

As I write this now, there is a 7 way tie for third place. Feel the excitement!