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

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Is "penate" a word meaning "shaped like a kn0b"? IT SHOULD BE.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I am not sure I should have ticked Paramore but it is a lot better than Jack Penate so...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Ou est la Ferg? 'Big Girls Don't Cry' is at No 37 and is also THE BEST of the lot.

'LoveStoned' still great, much more enthusiastic about it than 'What Goes Around'.

Everything else is various shades of TERRIBLE with that Paul McCartney thing the worst of the lot - I don't think I've encountered another song as vile this year.

Botherd about stinky field people getting delayed, the rain is NOT GOOD FOR WIMBLEDON :(

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

I am totally pumped that "Teenagers" is the next single. That is super-awesome.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

MCR, Muse and Take That were easy ticks for me. I quite liked the last Gareth Gates single (no rly) but I haven't heard it. Ash are surely well past their best - the album before this one had exactly one good song on it and it's not 1996 anymore.

Maybe I would like the Webbe! "No Worries" is totally underrated.

The JT is probably his second-best single but still NO TICK on principle.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Good God Jack Penate is HORRIBLE.

Muse gets a tick for the music but let down by the singer. First Muse music where I've got the point, I think.

No tick for lumpy Air Traffic - very grim. Hoosiers is catchy but I disapprove of This Sort Of Thing really (I think I mean "powerpop"). I felt sorry for the nerdy actor in their video.

Will tackle others later.

[cocainepeaches.livejournal.com]

I youtubed every single song on the list, for a change, and

Hoosiers - this baffles me a lot. How can such awful rip-off of Happy Togehter have got to #16 on downloads alone?

Take That - I couldn't decide if this was 'not that bad' or 'kind of extremely dull', until 1:30 that is, when I realised the latter. No tick

Muse - Surely Muse have released this song SEVERAL times before? No tick!

Justin Timberlake - I didn't mind this, but to be quite honest I don't think it's amazing enough to warrant a tick. He can do better IMO. ETA: I have changed my mind. After going through the whole list, I see this totally deserves a tick, at least in context

Gareth Gates - Gareth Gates is a no-tick for me on principle (dull) but this is not too bad. It would've got a tick if only I was feeling a bit nicer

Jack Penate - Er, no.

Air Traffic - Argh NO.

Paramore - I was going to tick this, but only because I'd listened to it right after the Ash

Ash - If this is a single I can't even begin to imagine what the rest of the album is like. No.

Paul McCartney - :(

My Chemical Romance - Oh, I quite liked this. Ticky.

Simon Webbe - Good! How come this barely charted? I was very confused at how expensive the video looked until I realised it was stills from the new Fantastic Four movie. Tick.

Well there you go. That was pretty terrible, all in all.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

If Justice and (ulp) Cherry Ghost* had jumped up into the top 40 like they were SUPPOSED to i could've ticked them.

*i know, i'm sorry, but it's been in my head most of the weekend and this happened when i saw them playing it on Jools Holland late last year too :/

the 'Lovestoned' video is pretty cool.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Paramore are a bit rubbish no? She sounds too pleased with herself to be really cross.

MCR

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i LIKE! but what the hell is it reminding me of. something 70s ish, not quite glam. AGH

[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.