A Year In Pop: 25

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

JAYSIS WHAT A SHOWER.

I refer of course to the rain that is delaying the homecomings of our merry Glastonburger revellers, not to the twelve new pop acts for your consideration this week.

[Poll #1009604]

(If you want to vote in the Pop Open, by the way, you've got about 15 minutes.)

Comments

[koganbot]

Er, no tickfest this week.

Hoosiers - cocainepeaches correctly identifies the starting chords as a "Happy Together" rip (fwiw, give it various different tempos and it's "Wild World" and "It's A Sin" and Judy Torres' great "Come Into My Arms"), and given that these chords are almost foolproof, I'm impressed w/ Hoosiers for managing to ruin it with cutesy quasi-ska. No tick.

Take That - Sounds like Lennon on a bad day doing a bad McCartney song. Nice high pitch, needs a nicer song and fewer gobs of rote sentiment. Tick that? No.

Muse - Good tuneful extravagance from a band that never quite reach me. Kinda same-y. Borderline nontick.

Gareth Gates - Restrained freestyle feel given to a tune that reminds me of "Love Child." Which'd be an automatic tick without the constraint. But the sappy video - like, babies are nice! - just craps it all up. Borderline nontick.

Jack Penate - Fairly catchy track with sensitively tentative indie singing, but the voice is ultimately meh - except when it hooks into the ska rhythm it gets downright irritating. Definite nontick.

Air Traffic - Sentimental pop w/ high falsetto, surrounded by way too much clatter. Coulda been good if they'd let the singer do it himself. Air tickless.

Paramore - OK pop tune, played too fast; why is this charting when vastly better anonymous teenpop from the likes of Tiffany Affair and LAX Gurlz is confined to the Disney ghetto? Borderline nontick.

Ash - Not nearly as good as their previous single, and the band's tendency to get in its own way sinks this - sinks it fast and deep. Emphatic nontick.

Simon Webbe - Is this guy a long-time star in Britain? I've barely heard him. Seems to personify solid soul mediocrity, but "Ride The Storm" is such a good song that he only dampens it a little. Tick.

Justin Timberlake - I'm with Tom and Lex (and Xhuxk last year on rolling teenpop) in not quite connecting to this guy's recent work; but that's relative to his own great potential. This is a tremendous tick in the context of this week's entries.

My Chemical Romance - epicharmus's writeup in the League Of Pop was definitive. I give this a rollicking rocking tick.

Paul McCartney - I don't know. It's like, his talent isn't utterly gone, but he seems to be blah on principle. No tick.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Simon Webbe was a member of Blue, who were a vaguely rubbish (in that they had about...two or three, maybe, BRILLIANT songs, but there was never any question that they were a rubbish band) boy band from earlier this decade. All four members were charisma vortexes (vortices?) as Webbe bears out here (Lee Ryan actually had a really great voice but never gave any indication of caring what he used it on, or indeed that he possessed any capacity to think at all - I think his crowning moment was some dumb comment along the lines of "who cares about Sept 11 when there are ELEPHANTS DYING???" (it might have been whales actually))

Blue S/D: search 'All Rise' (good), 'Bubblin' (GREAT), 'Fly By II' (rubbish but amusingly so). Destroy THE REST especially whatever song had that "one love for the hip-hop beats" line in it.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It was elephants!

"One Love" is alright. "Fly By II" (and indeed "Fly By") are their finest moments I think, tho "All Rise" and "Too Close" are good too. They were good initially then got rubbish. I am a little surprised Simon has become "the star" now though.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

He kind of fills a Lemar type role, which is surprising to me b/c surely one Lemar is more than enough.

Did you ever hear 'Bubblin' Tom?

[koganbot]

Am listening to "Bubblin'" now, and you are right, it is excellent, a really sweet BSB/*NSync knockoff, the basic pretty pretty pretty sweetboy voices with the subterranean push of r&b. This is what the current crop of Disney boys (Corbin Bleu, B5) wishes they sounded like. Fly By II is a good track but doesn't showcase the sweet voices nearly as well as "Bubblin'."

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I always preferred Blue's "Too Close" to Next's.

Frank, if you haven't heard it (And you SHOULD have, as it was on my '05 singles list), listen to "No Worries" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87pJF1VLfXc). ignore the video, he thinks he's Seal or something and just go aaaaah, that's nice. He really can't hit the low notes, mind you, but it doesn't matter.

[koganbot]

Very nice track, though I'd attribute a lot of its beauty to the woman sampled (?) in the background.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I can imagine liking it if it was by Gabrielle or Mutya or someone with a bit of warmth to their voice, but even then in an unenthusiastic 6/10 way, and when Webbe does it...he really is a black hole of charisma. Am with Frank, the sample is the best thing about it.

[redcommieapples.livejournal.com]

Jesus I was in love with Lee for the longest time, despite the infamous elephants comment. I forgave him because dying elephants probably gave him the inspiration to sing like he did. He was the only interesting thing about the band and I'm still convinced that "Army Of Lovers" is a brilliant song (or video - I can't really separate the two).

I'd thought Blue had more than 3 or 4 great singles - but that's about it. And "Too Close" was pretty much a note for note cover of Next's song with Lee Ryan emoting on top of it. "All Rise" is great - the world needs more pop songs with courtroom metaphors.

Simon Webbe is actually the UK's most successful black male artist.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Really? I would have thought Seal would have sold more records (to date).

[redcommieapples.livejournal.com]

err, I meant currently - of the 00's. I read it in the guardian a while ago.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK here's 'Bubblin' (http://youtube.com/watch?v=uayVMg5gJRg) which is still a TERRIFIC song, I love the beat bubbling (DYS) away and Lee's Xtina-holler. And All Rise (http://youtube.com/watch?v=cPBX5vvXYBM) omg it's a good song but the video makes me cringe (but also laugh).

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Completely agree that "Bubblin" was Blue's best song.

Webbe appeals to the Radio 2 listener in me, I guess.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Is "Ride The Storm" someone else's song then?