The Pop Open Group A - PASSION

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This week's group has as its theme PASSION! The usual rules apply - listen to the tracks, pick your favourites of the ones' you didn't know, vote for them before noon on Monday.

Unfortunately due to home internet issues I've not got the sendspace file sorted out - just the streaming tracks on FT: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/pop-open-week-6/

Piratemoggy has put the individual tracks up here: http://www.box.net/shared/fvduhkv3af

I will try and zip them tonight.

[Poll #1022950]

Thanks to this week's players - atommickbrane, cis, credoimprobus, mcatzilut and ms_bracken.

Comment away! (And - what would YOU have submitted?)

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I really liked these. Well done chaps!

[cis.livejournal.com]

I was orig. going to submit a BRIGHT EYES track for this! then I reconsidered the idea of getting nul points.

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

What would be fun would be coming #1 and then bring able to do a big, "ha ha you liked BRIGHT EYES" reveal.

Although I was in it I thought this group was great - there were really clear winners for me but I still want to d/l all of the songs on this...

[cis.livejournal.com]

My attempts at sneaking records under peoples' radar to prove they "actually like" stuff they say they don't never work, though! I used to try and do it on mixtapes all the time, mislabelling songs or mixing up all the artist names on the sleeve, and people still insisted on not liking the records I thought they should have liked. rude, I call it. (plus alas it's quite early bright eyes, so it's crashy bleaty lo-fi about teenage fumblin in high summer in yr parents' attic or something, transparently conor oberst. it's one of my favourites.)

It is a great group! 'well gee there go my chances of winning anything' I thought as I listened. ;)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

My tactic was to "forget" to put the track listing on the tape at all. That never worked either. Rude is right.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I nearly did that with Money, (it was going to be 'Light Pollution' OH DEAR OH DEAR OH DEAR) but fortunately I did not.

Which one were you going to send or do you not want to reveal this fact?

[cis.livejournal.com]

"Pull my hair": it has this huge clattery drum noise, guitars of 1994, and sounds like it was recorded in a bucket.

(Had I been in group Death I would definitely have submitted 'arc of time'. well, almost definitely. it has pretty guitars and stuff! it's about the importance of maintaining yr personal relationship with jesus! what is not to love, i ask you.)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's one of the few ones I'm lastingly fond of pre-'Digital Ash...' (which blew everything he'd done previously so far out of the water, for me, that I lost interest in nearly everything else he's ever done bar Desaparecidos, who I am very partial to when am in a bad mood/writing an essay)

I think there is probably a Bright Eyes song for every group (or at least, Conor Oberst in his various forms since I feel Desaparecidos would be better for Injustice or indeed Love but that's just personal preference) -I might have suggested one of the Cassadega tracks for death cus they are all about ghosts innit but 'Arc Of Time' is probably his best thing on the subject.

Bright Eyes are such a guilty pleasure, in the sense that even he sounds guilty about having made the music so you can't help but feel you shouldn't quite be listening to it even if you suspend all social shame.

I am going to go and finish getting drunk and stop rambling crap now.

[cis.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I'm perhaps the total opposite -- I didn't much like Desaparecidos, or digital ash/wide awake (in fact i deleted my copies of those two due to hard drive contraints, keeping only arc of time): the earlier stuff has held my attention much more successfully. I kind of lost interest in Bright Eyes until a friend had tickets to his last tour, where I went and possibly cried when they played 'laura laurent' what of it rediscovered the love of resentful alt-country indierock.

There probably is a Conor Oberst song for everything! I don't know if it's cos of a wide range of topics or cos, you know, there are just that many songs.

I don't know if Bright Eyes are a guilty pleasure or what: they're one of those groups I'm noisy about liking because all these people whose taste I respect don't like them, so, you know, maybe I'm making a point. In a sense it's guilty because it's so easy to use for wallowing and wallowing until the absurdity of the situation gets too much for you; the records appeal to all the inner lameness of my soul, but then I'm quite proud of my lameness (idk i think it makes me a better person or sth? every second I spend listening to bright eyes is a second I'm not spending kidding myself that I'm cool). So, yeah, complicated relationship, possibly more complicated than the records themselves deserve.

(I don't even have the excuse of drinking for the rambling! oh dear.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

This is probably the most interesting group so far -- not my favorite, but actually kind of hard to make a choice (might go back and change mine, dunno).

Will say that the guitar on Track Two reminded me of t.A.T.u., which scored bonus points.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

ooh now i am intrigued

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Sendspace hates me but I put the tracks on my box.net thing in this folder, which would sort of take some of the bandwidth off your space at least:
http://www.box.net/shared/fvduhkv3af

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Thankyou!!

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

So exciting. It's funny. I thought we were going first. And we end up going last! :-P

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well, third last. Violence is next week and then finally Religion.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well. Late enough. :-P

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Already know tracks 1 & 4. Track 1 was shared by charltonlido about a year ago IIRC. I've been searching for a CD by the artist (with no joy) ever since. "Passion" was of course the entire raison d'etre of the band responsible for track 4 (at one point anyway). But I'm not sure this track is a particularly good example of them living up to their creed. In fact, I actively dislike it.

Of the rest, one easily stood out on first play. But the other two had potential so not sure how I'll vote yet.

(Track 5 still has image and copyright tags attached btw.)

[(Anonymous)]

I think track 1 came from WFMU's 'on the download' rather than any lj user.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

no, I finally remembered where it was shared (by julio courtesy gareth):
http://community.livejournal.com/sukrat/23748.html

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

Passion One: this reminds me of a song I'd find on one of those bootleg "Top Of The Pops Volume #X" cassettes you'd find somewhere in the dusty corner of a thrift shop. This would be one of those exclusive songs that wasn't already a charting hit, perhaps to give the cassette maker's cousin a break in the industry. I enjoyed this, but it went off my attention after a couple of minutes.

Passion Two: This is precisely the type of music I WANT to mine more. I call this "Baja Fresh!" music, because this is precisely the type of modern Spanish/Mexican pop you hear at a Baja Fresh! franchise... and if anything, what they play there in general sounds that a mixture of modern AOR like Radiohead or Coldplay mixed with late 80s/early 90s UK indie dance pop -- the blend of choice among latino/latino pop makers these days, I guess. This song in particular sounds like Curve without the fangs. Sigh, I've asked the people at Baja Fresh! so many times how I can find out more about the music they play at the store, and they always evade my question telling me "well, this is just.. Spanish pop. I have no idea what the songs are.. well, sometimes I do, but it's just pop music, teehee. Next" They think I'm completely mad for wanting artists and title tracks. I've emailed Baja Fresh!, but to no response. :( At least there's this song. GOT MY #1 Vote

Passion Three: I blame my tenure of living in Orange County, California throughout the 90s decade, but third wave ska with early Gwen shades sends me to sleep. (No Doubt and Gwen post-2K = wonderfulicious, however)

Passion Four: This is precisely the hole of early to mid 80s UK pop that evades me. If Beechwood put out those Pride Of Independents compilation CDs back when the CD first came to be, I'd imagine this song would be on it as a dark horse.

Passion Five: Not usually a fan of a cappella treatments, but this one is weird, without falling into the Laurie Anderson well. (I like Laurie Anderson, but I've heard a lot of bad imitations of her.) I like the odd harmonies in the "huh" "huh" "huh" "huh"s, and the vocals hover nicely above it. Some twists and turns, but a nice transcendental pop song that fits the theme well. Got my #2 vote

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Like last week, I'll write them up as I listen, stream of consciousness style.

Track 1 - Weird, weird tune. Sounds a bit Arabic/Turkish. Surely this is a song about love, not passion? I like the drum beat, but the song doesn't really do it for me.

Track 2 - Agree with the comment above about the guitars sounding like T.A.T.U. In fact, this whole song sounds like the sort of pop which regularly tops the charts across Europe. This could even be a Eurovision entry in my eyes. I approve.

Track 3 - Ska-lite, a hint of Blondie, probably more so than No Doubt because the vocal is more Debbie Harry than Gwen Stefani. S'ok I guess.

Track 4 - Followed immediately by Smiths-lite. I'm amazed by how many of the "passion" songs seem to actually be love songs. It's ok, I quite like the trumpets/trombones in the background, but the song is pretty average in the context of the three previous.

Track 5 - Is this a cappella? Yes, it does appear to be. It's alright, as a cappella goes.

Jeez, my answers sound identical to mackromackro directly above. I'm going to be a bit different though and give my #2 vote to Track 3. Track 2 gets the first vote.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

The bit where Track One suddenly drops into the actual words to I Feel Love was jaw droppingly unexpected. Wonderful!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I agree with strange_powers about track 1 -- I love this track to bits, and easily my no. 1. I can see no. 4 growing on me, but a little bit too Costello, although I suppose the brass should have given it away... I'm down with the ska, whereas the metal didn't really do it for me passion-wise. No. 5 was TOO passionate, and the graphic stuff at the end actually put me right off my breakfast.

ewww

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Does the singer of track #5 actually say she was ****ed by John Reid?!?

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Hope I'm not too late. I only knew track 4.