A Year In Pop: 26

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Whoa-oh, we're halfway there! And here's Bon Jovi to mark the occasion.

Expect a special halfway report later this week or start of next.

[Poll #1013930]

Meanwhile - Kate Nash???? Srsly???

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Whaaaaat, Kate Nash at No 2???? But it's...actually the worst thing I have heard since, well, that last retarded Kate Nash single. What? People like her? What on earth is there to like? She can't sing or even speak. She's not funny. Her songs aren't catchy. And how can anyone BEAR that accent?? I mean she is single-handedly making Hadouken NOT THE WORST NEW ENTRY and I did not think that was possible because they are the WORST THING EVER as well!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't really have an opinion yet about Kate Nash - I heard the single, it sounded like someone whinging at me in a bar, except I'm too old and large to go to the sort of bars where that sort of someone would whinge at me. But I was really surprised to see her at #2 - as surprised as I've been about anything this year.

I R out of touch.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have been in a bar with Kate Nash actually! Obv did not know who she was at the time (ages ago) but she was on the train back to Harrow w/ a friend. But if anyone whinged to me like this in a bar, or anywhere really, I would probably blank them.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about Kate Nash and I didn't hear her first single. But I saw the video for Foundations on Fizz the other day and I liked it, I liked the song and I liked her. She's no Gwen obviously, and it does all seem a bit post-Lily Allen, but I can't see anything wrong with it. Unlike, say, that Fergie single which is threatening to undo all the good grace she earned from me with Glamorous.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Does the accent not remind you of the "am I bovvered?" girl? It's exactly the accent middle class people put on when they want to ridicule 'chavs'. I have no idea what Nash's actual intention is when she goes all mockney but it makes it pretty much unlistenable. And there's not even any ATTEMPT to be funny! Like...the Streets and Lily Allen go all out for jokes, and mostly fail, but Nash is just spelling a situation out in really tedious detail as if we are schoolchildren.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The accent didn't bother me so much as the banality. It's like a yoghurt LJ post!

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I suppose I just presumed she really talked that way - does she not? Loads of great singers (into whose company I am emphatically not inducting K. Nash on the strength of one quite good record) sing with accents, and I certainly can't detect any mockery of the working class in there.

There's not always room for funny, but better songwriters usually find room for wit even in sad situations - Billy Bragg's Levi Stubbs Tears is probably a good comparison. All I can say is that on the strength of one listen, I liked it and was not annoyed! Let's give it a week in my head and see if there's a change...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Surely she doesn't talk like that! I've never heard ANYONE talk like that except as a jokey put-on accent. I will make enquiries though.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

do we know if fergie talks like that too?

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

That's a good point... Does it matter? Is it alright to put on a voice when singing eg the Bedingfields? Is there a difference between feigning Cockney for effect and feigning mid-Atlantic blandness to eliminate it?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

As I've said, Fergie's mangled enunciation heightens the emotion of the song for me. How does Nash's mockney accent serve her song at all?

(and it IS put on, I have had confirmation now from someone who's spoken to her)

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

The video is quite good, actually. I like the socks having arguments. I think the main thing that's wrong with the song (for me) is, as has been covered, the fact that the lyrics are all WHINGE WHINGE WHINGE WHINGE, and maybe meant to be funny and failing.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"Foundations" is awful. I quite liked "Birds" (or whatever it was called), the B-side to "Caroline's a Victim". I think Nash has a great song in her, but this ain't it.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I know someone who kept telling me Kate Nash was Great, before I'd heard a note. I don't trust him these days.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Kate Nash exists so that I can find a point of compromise and accord with people who hate Lily Allen - "Hey, let's not fight - we can both agree Kate Nash sucks, right?"