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!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

ANYWAY the rest, in order.

Fergie Ferg - brilliant heartfelt ballad ft. "I'm not gonna miss you like a child misses its blanket" - who knew Our Ferg could, you know, sing properly? She is a revelation.

Timbaland - the only song on the album I'm feeling - this is pretty much entirely down to Keri Hilson, whose glacial melancholy is very appealing. I've got a couple of her own tracks, 'Hands & Feet' and 'High Heels' - they're both EXCELLENT, I am eagerly anticipating her solo album. I think the rave synths work loads better here than in 'My Love', fwiw. Incidentally the 'Hands & Feet' chorus goes "Boy you got big feet, and you got big hands/So I already know what's up in your pants/Where'd you get that from, your daddy?", and 'High Heels' goes "I HATE HEELS! I HATE HEELS! Love how they look but hate how they feel" = HURRAH

Gwen Stefani - nicely understated ballad. Not as good as 'Early Winter' though HINT HINT.

That's it for the ticks. I like a couple of songs on the Robin Thicke album but not this one - I dislike him, generally, he's smarmy and smug and his lyrics are a bit creepy, this is one of the worst offenders - "baby you're the perfect weight", stfu boy.

Everything else is pretty much beneath contempt. Ronson/Allen notable only because halfway through I did a double take b/c I thought she sang something about coming on like a "powered-up black man", I googled the lyrics and it's NOT that but the fact that this was actually plausible says a lot.

I have still never heard an Arctic Monkeys song :D

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was tempted to withold my tick for Gwen because releasing this means that Early Winter surely won't be a 'proper' single :(

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Oh b0ll0cks, I thought Hadouken was something else - must go back and untick.

Ronson/Allen - vast improvement on KC version, my attitude toward M.R. has softened since Glasto where I could hear the New Bands stage from my tent & it was quite pleasant listening. TICK

Fergie - "I'm not gonna miss you, like a child misses it's blanket." TICK

Gwen - reasonable effort tho not as good as Sweet Escape. TICK

Timbaland - been spectacularly unbothered considering his awesomeness last year. I own the album and have listened to it 0.3 times. NO TICK

Not heard the rest.

[fathands.livejournal.com]

You have to be joking about the Fergie song, right?! It's fucking terrible.

[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.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Hadou Ken vs Afro Ken?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Clearly you never had a blanket :(

[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]

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.

[fathands.livejournal.com]

Or as Fergie pronounces it 'blayenkeeeedt'

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I quite like the Wombats - they're like Arctic Monkeys filtered through C86, very "12.00 at the New Bands Tent". The lyrics are pretty dreadful though. I might tick them.

re Ronson/Allen

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I never thought I'd say this but COME BACK KAISERS ALL IS FORGIVEN.

God I hope "crap 80s soulboy covers" aren't the new "sensitive indie covers".

[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.

Re: re Ronson/Allen

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Jesus the trumpet bit! Paging Paolo Hewitt!

Re: re Ronson/Allen

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Coldplay cover is the best one I've heard, very KPM allstars...

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

I like the Kate Nash single (and the video), and that's after having been totally baffled by the first one – couldn't tell whether it was a joke or not (although the beats reminded me oddly of Schoolly D). But Foundations is English kitchen sink pop, somewhere between Dubstar's No So Manic Now and Mike Skinner, I reckon. Nice tune, plausible way of talking about the situation. I can see how the bits where she splits a word – "bit-ah" could grate, and I'm not anticipating loving everything she does.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It reminded me a bit of Squeeze so yes, "kitchen sink pop". Except I like Squeeze.

Thicke

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I like this Robin T single! Another example of recent playlisting by Radio 2 leading me to get to know a song and warm to it.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've only heard it once on its own (ie not whilst listening to the whole album) and I agree it did lose something without the context. But the album is so genius that she must have a tick.

[maura.livejournal.com]

that fergie song is the worst piece of garbage to hit the radio this year. she can't enunciate if her life depended on it, making it even more difficult for me to believe that the Fergie-Ferg Persona is able to feel pain about anything not involving a really expensive shoe not fitting.

and extra points off for the use of parentheticals in the song title, which should really be banned after the floppage of lohan's second album.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think it's gorgeous! It sounds very un-Ferg, I didn't know she had something like this in her. I like the stiff-upper-lip feel, you can virtually hear the tears drying on Ferg's cheek.

Re: re Ronson/Allen

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Have you heard Ronson's cover of 'Toxic'? You don't want to. Really don't want to.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

By which you mean: like the Wedding Present?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No, the Wedding Present are English kitchen sink pop!