League Of Pop Week 1 REVEALS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm in a huge rush today and won't be near a PC again until tomorrow but orgafun must prevail! So here are the five tracks (and what I thought of 'em, very briefly). My views are of course not intended to guide your votes, which you can cast here: http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/387730.html

Track One: The Normal - "Warm Leatherette": Ballard-inspired track from 1978, the dawn of electropop. The key I think is the tiny shifts in inflection Daniel Miller gives the repetition of the title phrase. Not wholly unsexy.

Track Two: Marcy Playground - "Sex And Candy": I'd need a better knowledge of the minutiae of late-90s American alt-rock to work out how this was distinctive (or any good). About sex, but not to my mind sexy.

Track Three: Latryx - "Lady Don't Tek No": A little too porridgey and dour to be sexy, but I'm not sure "being sexy" is the intention here. My second placed song (discounting ones I knew).

Track Four: Sex Boots Dread - "Tickle Tune": Much-celebrated (though almost unknown outside blogosphere circles) gay rasta track, which unconfirmed but persistent rumours suggest was in fact made by Keith Allen (Lily Allen's Dad). Funny, filthy and -yes- sort of sexy.

Track Five: Candi Staton - "Sure As Sin": Sultry soul slides gently over my forebrain without making a huge impact but Staton has a tremendous voice and this would have topped my list of unknowns whether or not I was taking the theme into account.

But of course my votes MEAN NOTHING compared to yours, so vote away and I'll let you know who picked what and who ranked where on Monday.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I HAVE RESCINDED ONE OF MY VOTES.

Candi Staton - very lucky I didn't know it! I got a Candi Staton best of recently, which has about 484843202 tracks on it, and I'd only listened to the first 15 or so - this is Track 19 on that album!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Because you think it's Keith Allen? (I shouldn't say anything b/c I was thinking of voting for it too, but it's kind of taken what little wind there was out of my sails, too.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Keith Allen is abhorrent => everything he is involved in is also abhorrent REGARDLESS of what it sounds like (my initial reaction was only "so-so" anyway).

Some people just don't get to do certain songs.

[cis.livejournal.com]

what if it's not by him? (KA's involvement is, after all, an unconfirmed rumour)

[(Anonymous)]

I saw Allen on the Jo Whiley show talking about how he made a record under the SBD name. He then sang an excerpt of it. I take that as confirmation, though of course he could be laying claim to the track with 0 involvement. That would have been a strange choice since there was 0 mention of it on the whole of the interwebs at that time.

bopkids

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I find myself in a bit of a quandary here. I have no particular problem with KAllen, if it is he. But armed with the information that this may not be "authentic" (interpret that as you like) it does make me feel differently about the song.

I will listen again (to this, and the other 3 I didn't already know). Most likely my 1st place vote will ultimately stand tho'.

[cis.livejournal.com]

ah well, never mind.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Is it? I got the impression in the pub it was one of those rumours which everyone knows…but I dunno, it’d still probably be a Brit novelty, which would still be fairly abhorrent to me, because there wouldn’t be any humour-from-within (as there would be if it was an actual dancehall artist), it’d be a bunch of unfunny Brits taking the piss out of both dancehall and gays b/c a) bumsex is so HILARIOUS isn’t it, and b) ooh look at this moral high horse we can climb on because no matter how unreconstructed our own attitudes we’re still better than those backwards Jamaicans…

Which may or may not have been Allen’s (or whoever’s) intentions but that’s what I get from him and his ilk in everything they do. I don’t know how tenable this position is but I would definitely say that there are some things that only some people should do, no matter how ‘convincing’ others can be; imagine Lady Sov or Kiley Dean (both of whom have been mistaken for black artists) dropping the n-bomb for instance.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Oh it is certainly Keith Allen - it's unmistakeable, listening to it. I'd prefer it to be a real dancehall act, as that would add something, but I still like it enormously.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Tom please accept Lex's first answer re Track 4. he said he liked it (enough to vote for it) until I let slip who was behind it in the pub last night (apologies).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is VILE.