A Year In Pop: 18

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A new month, a new poll! Get that tick rate going again!

[Poll #982157]

All previous polls are still open, etc etc. if you've "got into" any of the year's pop platters since their initial blushing entrance to the charts.

Comments

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Sheila is just now hitting the charts?

JAMIE T

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Chavtastic or deserving of an ASBO? Discuss.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Michael Buble is nice! The song is definitely One For The Mums but he has a lovely voice OH YES I AM A DEMOGRAPHIC WOT OF IT.

Hellogoodbye and Dada = marginal ticks, former for the vocoder, latter for the Benassi effect.

Jojo = great! Hurrah for Toto samples.

Funeral For A Friend = poor. No ticky. Didn't bother with Jamie T.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hellogoodbye - didn't expect this, was very annoyed; maybe a 5% possibility I'll turn round on it and grow to love it a la 'The Bad Touch', 95% though I will continue to loathe it

Dada - what Tom said, I am kind of bored of ticking all this bosh I will never hear or want to hear again

JoJo - couldn't remember this at all at first but when I went back to the album was pleasantly surprised. I like the way she gets out of the way for the good Toto bits and the sample gets out of the way for the good JoJo bits. Should have been credited to JOJO & TOTO a la NELLY & KELLY.

The others - you are joking

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I review singles for Stylus, and I don't recall hearing any of these. If I were home and could check, I might find I am forgetting one or more of them, I expect.

ok slight revision to my position

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

have been listening to hellogoodbye on my itunes, where it is followed by the Hilary and Hayley Duff version of Our Lips Are Sealed, and the galz are totally pwning the boys.

[koganbot]

Well, I've heard all these but already forgotten most of em, except for the JoJo, which I rave about but manage to underrate here (it's a 9! a 9, I say!).

[koganbot]

Anyway, not counting the JoJo, this is what my notes tell me I thought.

Hellogoodbye - Singer puts on a dorky wanky whiteboy pop voice (which is not as bad as a dorky wanky whiteboy indie voice), which undercuts this a lot, the "this" that's undercut being an expressively tuneful U2ish melody not unlike "With Or Without You," but much weaker. Borderline nontick.

Funeral For A Friend - Eight-to-the-bar beat that's dumb but OK, a high not-strong voice soaring above. If the tune were more tuneful I could be suckered into liking this, but the tune's not there, so I'm free to hate the voice.

Dada f. Sandy Rivera and Trix - One doesn't expect a song called "Lollipop" to be subtle, but the blatancy of the come-on here is irritating and unsexy and ultimately makes this feel real cold. Damn Brits. But this track works anyway, a strong functional beat and reasonably tuneful background riffs. Borderline tick.

Michael Buble - Don't think I'd heard him before. Was expecting aggressive normality à la Powter. My expectations were not totally wrong, but this is more of a throwback to pre-r'n'r "stylish" pop, w/ soul touches updating it somewhat. Terribly weak and dry. No tick.

Jamie T. - A style of indie dorkiness that has possibilities, like that Streets guy, the ordinary bloke thing pushed into intensity. 'Cept this doesn't make it. If it had any kind of a hook, the voice maybe could take off from it. But this is hook free and tickless. No tick.

(Now got to go pick the losers out of eleven tracks that are way better than any of these except the JoJo.)

[koganbot]

jo jo i think you are so good at singin and you are so young too and really pretty! all the best for the future luv nikitaXxXxXxxx

i think you are really good at singing and you are really pretty i love you're new song 'anything'!

Boys who like girls

[koganbot]

The sample is too small to be statistically significant, but so far my prediction (poptimist boys are more likely to like JoJo than poptimist girls are) is confirmed, though this isn't Kat's fault. (I assume that outside of poptimists and into the mainstream this reverses: mainstream girls love JoJo; mainstream boys are indifferent or hostile.)(So poptimist boys aspire to be mainstream girls.)