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

Old Brains Run Free But Not Accurately

[koganbot]

The Candi Staton song (my number one) was bugging me because I could not could not could not could not come up with a name for the voice, though I knew the voice very well; in fact the one and only time I did a list of favorite 100 singles ever, "Victim" was on there. Anyway, "Sure As Sin" is good bread-and-butter gospel-based soul, doesn't stand out as a song. Xgau: "Maybe she really is a victim of the very songs she sings - though not that one, or 'Young Hearts Run Free.' But her reputation for stiffing onstage makes me think there's something radically self-effacing about her - something the richest and sexiest voice can't quite make up for." If there's self-effacement, I'd say it's working to her advantage in this performance: her voice has tremendous heft, and so this touch of vulnerable tentativeness makes it more human, makes her seared as well as searing. Anyway, an easy number one.

As for the others, Marcy Playground has a casual but sticky drawl and would have been my number two except I already knew it, "Sex Boot Dread" has the same trouble as the Staton (good arrangement in a style I love but the song's not distinctive [not counting the words, which you forget about after a while]), and the singing is pretty good but not on Staton's planet much less her league, but this got my number two tick. Wouldn't have voted for "Warm Leatherette" even if I hadn't known it since I've never liked it, in fact in its day I hated it for being stupid jaded hipster cynical posing bullshit. Not so sure now that it is jaded or cynical, in fact seems funny - however, that's funny "peculiar" rather than funny "ha-ha," and once I eliminate "cynical" and "jaded" from my description of the voice, I still retain "boring." Latryx just kinda sound devoid of spark, though my indifference may be due to a culture barrier - I rarely like British r&b (if these guys aren't Brits they've done a good job of convincing me that they are; but anyway, "sounds like Brit r&b" is a criticism in itself).

Re: Old Brains Run Free But Not Accurately

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Latyrx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latyrx) (note spelling) are US backbacker hip hop, although that's a culture barrier that anyone would have trouble crossing ;-)

Re: Old Brains Run Free But Not Accurately

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because we have pretty identical takes on the songs. Staton was my number one, Marcy's Playground was my number 2 - though I could've guessed it, but I wasn't sure. I think it's funny, because I don't think we tend to like the same kind of music - and I wonder if it's partially attributable to the fact that we're discussing theme, making it more of an intellectual question than just a simple aesthetic one. (I think we share more intellectual affinities - certainly the Frankfurt school.) This occurs to me particularly because I think the 'genre' question is one of the more interesting things about the Pop Open.

Re: Old Brains Run Free But Not Accurately

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Staton would have been my number one by miles had I not known it already - she's one of my all-time favourites. Since I knew that and Sex Boots Dread, I voted for the only one I thought was decent, #3.