A kung fu fighter in a disco

The "endorsing of the sentiment" thing is what puts me off Luke Haines actually - I feel like by advocating him I'm advocating his curdled misanthropy, which even though I feel curdled and misanthropic sometimes concerns me. Maybe I worry about it because I feel I agree with bits of it.

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koganbot

Ashlee Simpson. So much to say, don't know where to start, and I need to go out now. Said over in my own livejournal that no matter what's going on in the song there will be these sudden moments of eloquence, words that suddenly open everything up into the richness of a human being. None of the people involved (Ashlee, Kara, et al.) seem to be analytically piercing thinkers, yet somehow Ashlee's words give you a much deeper picture of a complexity of an actual relationship than you ever get from Ray Davies or even Mick Jagger (the latter being the man who takes my vote as best lyricist ever). And there are fewer such moments on Ashlee's second album than her first (not to mention certifiably ordinary moments, of course), so I wouldn't say that this woman knows what she's doing; but she did something: created a woman, got her on record.

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koganbot

(Not to mention certifiably ordinary moments = more of these on the second album than the first, also.)

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I like the lyrics to recent records by Hold Steady, Neko Case, Spoon, and Of Montreal. All for different reasons - on the Spoon records there aren't that many words, and they're suggestive rather than allusive, but kind of percussive and have a kind of restrained violence, like the music; for Neko Case they're allusive story fragments ('I leave the party / At 3am / Alone thank God') which work really well with the mood of the record as a whole; Hold Steady is very obvious and quite didactic / pedantic story-telling which fails to work as often as it works, but works so well when it does work as to be really quite powerful; and on Hissing Fauna, the Of Montreal guy just weaves this amazing kind of quest romance story (e.g. his mind has become 'vile to its creator' posing the problem is he his mind's creator, or is God, or nature etc...) into the more usual self-dissection of indie-ness (this is how I overcame my objection to the album as indie-pop -- I realised it was indie-pop as self-critique.)

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But I don't spend that much time paying attention to lyrics TBH.

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koganbot

Lil Wayne is in some kind of zone; I've never really paid his lyrics the attention needed to figure them out - figuring them out may be not the point, however.

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On the pop side, I liked the lyrics to GA 'Biology' to one of the Rachel Stevens singles, and to Tash-Bed's These Words, all for particular reasons I tried to explain at the time.

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I think GA's lyrics are terribly hit-and-miss, more often miss - I wish they'd be more direct sometimes!

I think directness is something I've come to value more and more in lyric-writing. Tho I still like the moments where remarkable resonant uncanny images leap at you from out of a song, of course.

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Yeah, listened to I Am Me several times in the past two days and aside from a few key tracks it really doesn't captivate me like Autobiography does -- there are way fewer little crevices to explore, most everything is surface (the surface is impressive, so I really enjoy listening to it). Reminds me of the bigness and (relative) lack of depth in the second season of her show, actually, where you start to think she's trying to move toward something and doesn't know quite what it is, whereas in the first show and on the first album she has no clue about ANYTHING but is undeniably moving toward something...this Ashlee-idea that's quite interesting on both the show and the album, album being markedly better than the show -- and, as

girlboymusic reminds me all the time, this is probably because of the fluidity of co-authorship. I can't tell a Kara line from an Ashlee or John or ______ line on Autobiography, can only guess, but there are several lines on her second alb where I go "KARA!" or similar reaction, a sort of fragmentedness, despite the relative strength of the tunes, amazing production.)

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Just downloaded a bunch of Lil' Wayne in the past few days and vote for him. "To the kids, drugs kill, I'm acknowledging that/ But when I'm on the drugs I don't have a problem with that."

I also think one of the features of the hyphy I like that sells me is the lyrics, weirdly enough, because there's a real ear for novelty in the production AND the lyrics. Great introduction of new slang, all the songs sort of talk to each other.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

I ignore lyrics 90% of the time. But when an artist's lyrics do attract my attention, I really pay attention.

When I finally get round to posting to LJ my "hagiography" of the new Aly & AJ album, I suspect I'll be mentioning the lyrics a lot and even quoting a few.

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Well it took a while to figure out Biology and I only bothered because it seemed intriguing -- other than that I've never paid attention to any.

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An obvious recent one - 'Umbrella'. Sweet and soppy, but not gushing. Practical, even!

At the other end of the respectability scale you have Fergie/Black Eyed Peas (not just 'My Humps', but 'Fergalicious', 'Big Girls Don't Cry' and , where the lyrics are so astonishing/jaw-droppingly mental that one suddenly realises they are utter genius and transform mediocre beats into a thing of wonder and joy.

Even Rihanna jumps on the catchy nonsense bandwagon with her 'ella-ella-eh-eh-eh' - although the song would have probably worked without it, you can't deny it adds that extra woomph to the song.

I'm not a massive fan of non-Anglophone lyrics, but I do love stilted translations. Sentences that make perfect grammatical sense (or not) but that no native English speaker would dream of constructing. See Infernal, Cansei etc.

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Well my favourite lyricists are Forster and McLennan and they're pretty direct.

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Goddammit I should proof read my comments. "not just 'My Humps', but 'Fergalicious', 'Big Girls Don't Cry' and even 'London Bridge*')

*"So get up out ma face! Before I spray a can of mace! My lips make you wanna have a taste! You got the zz zz zz, I got the bass!"

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Neko Case's New Pornographers bandmate AC Newman has said that his lyrics are often nonsense, just placing words and phrases where he thinks they sound best with scant regard to overall sense - and yet they still come over as inventively cogent for the most part: Watch them run although it's/
The minimum heroic (from The Bleeding HEart Show).

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Wouldn't have thought I'd have said this this time last year (at ALL) but uh, Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana actually has really interesting lyrics. She's progressively taken on a teen-scorned angst approach, and the results are interesting, because she's fundamnetally cheerful but saying some fairly nasty things to the guys in her songs...

From "Eastnorthumberland High": "Your my type of guy, I guess/ If I was stuck in East Northumberland High for the rest of my life/ but people change/ thank God I did."

From "I Got Nerve": "I know what you like/ I know what you think/ Not afraid to stare you down until you blink" [sounds like "bleed"!]

From "Start All Over": "Out of the fire and into the fire again/ You make me want to forget/ And start all over" -- that was co-written by Fefe Dobson and it shows. Fefe's a great lyricist herself, very funny and hits hard with the spite: "I've been livin' lately like I'm dying all the time/ Might do something crazy like jumping off the Hollywood sign/ 'Cuz boy you make me feel like I could fly"

Miley's best lyrics -- the ones I actually believe she might have written herself -- are from "See You Again": "The last time I freaked out/ I just kept lookin' down/ I st-st-stuttered when you asked me what I'm thinkin' bout/ Felt like I couldn't breathe/ You asked what's wrong with me/ My best friend Leslie said 'Oh she's just bein' Miley'/ the next time we hang out/ I will redeem myself/ I can't wait to see you again"

Yo, I'm 13 again and I've got a crush on that girl in my science class! Except she's crushin' on the jerk that ends up calling Miley at the end of the song (what kind of idiot asks a girl he likes WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER??).

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(not a definitive list of fav trax - just what sprang to mind)

Groove Armada - "Song 4 Mutya" - GOOD: the muttered "Don't panic panic Mutya" bit never fails to raise a smile. Only annoyance is not changing "don't drive erratic" to fit the scenario in the 2nd verse.

"Umbrella" - OK: Lex really likes the lyrics - I think they're fine, they do the job, nothing annoys me.

MIA - "Bird Flu": GOOD: Mix of imagistic stuff and show-off bait-the-hataz stuff, combines on the standout line "Credentials are boring - burnt them at the burial ground". Lyrics not the draw though.

Good Charlotte - "Keep Your Hands Off My Girl": OK: Excellent delivery of lyrics which could be embarassing if done badly.

McFly - "Transylvania": POOR: Trying to be 'trippy' or imagist, just fall into gibberish - though the gusto of the songwriting and delivery saves them.

Gwen Stefani - "Early Winter": OK: There's one attempted effect that doesn't work - the hesitant 'always was one'/'never was one' bits - and one that does - when the song stops for Gwen to suddenly lose patience and go "Why do you act so stupid? You know that I'm always right!"

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Plz tell me when this runs!

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Oh and S1m0n R3ynolds spotted in his OMM review one of my favourite lyrical moments this year - in Klaxons' "As Above So Below" when after 2 verses of dreadful cobblers they hit on the chant of "Galloping galloping beams faster / Join together and still faster" and it's really effectively hypnotic.

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I think Fergie's lyrics are quite good, if often bonkers (because they're bonkers). She has these contradictions going on in her songs that make her both insane and weirdly relatable -- "I see you talkin' bout me on the Internet" in the song about how she doesn't care what her haters say about her (I mean Jesus, I assume she pays attention to the press but I wouldn't have guessed she GOOGLES herself! Me too!), or the entirety of "Glamorous," which I'm still totally unable to parse. She's bragging about flying first class, you can't party with her until you've got MONEYMONEYMONEY, but she really wants you to know that she visits her family on the holidays and still likes Taco Bell. (Me too!)

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That doesn't surprise me! The one New Porns record I listened to much started to REALLY infuriate me because it's lyrics sounded like they almost meant something, and were delivered so heartfelt like they must mean something, and they just....didn't!

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Wonderful writers, both of them showing sensitivity and ambition and a sense of humour across their work. Not always that direct - the chorus of Spirit of a Vampyre is gorgeously poetic:

That's when it starts
The electric train of soft cylinder parts
The dull mask of action on circus staff
Mobility the hood of the Hindu scarf
Together at last
Making jewellery at last
HEY! St James Park! OH HEY!

I've listened to that one a lot.

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Woops "next time we hang out/ I will redeem myself/ My heart can wait till then/I can't wait to see you again"

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Glamourous mmmm, the flouncy-flouncy is the line of the year for me so far. It's berserk on so many levels...

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I think they overreach themselves there (well, I say they, but that's a Forster one isn't it). I generally think F&M are brilliant compact writers though, very good at leaving just enough unsaid.

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Gah! "YOU'RE my type of guy!"

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She is a mystery wrapped inside a conundrum. It's fascinating!

Infernal are quite, quite bonkers. There's a spoken word section in the middle of 'A To The B' where she affects a posh English accent to say "It seems to me that all strong independent women make men lazy. All of a sudden they seem to think they don't have to court us properly!", then swings wildly into California-girl for "But boys, let me tell you something, there's nothing like a man who knows how to treat a lady". And the main chorus riff is all about CROSSING AN OCEAN. AWESOME!

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I love that bit in Timbaland's The Way I Are where that D.O.E. goes, "Your body ain't Pamela Anderson, it's a struggle just to get you in the caravan" It conjures up bizzare visions of r'n'b luminaries on crappy UK holidays.

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celentari.livejournal.com

Ah, but he's all ironical and stuff. Cough. Actually I think it's more that I feel like his misanthropy is at least a facet of my personality, and therefore it's ok. It's more when I disagree with something totally it turns me off.

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My favourite lyric of the year tho is on "Pussy'ole" by Dizzee Rascal - the verse where he's describing what a totally unreliable flake the 'Pussy'ole' is, getting his friends into trouble then deserting them, and it ends with

"It started because of him and ended with you!
But I guess that doesn't matter if it's what you're into."

- the sneer on into is priceless.

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friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com

Definitely a lyrics person and I have been thinking perhaps a bit too much about lyrics recently. Of course, dammit, somebody has to go and make a post like this and then they all fly out of my head! Grr! Except for lots of goff ones which are of no real relevance or, probably, interest to poptimists.

Mind you, I seem to have had "Some Girls" stuck in my head recently and I'm sure the lyrics are mostly to blame.

Bad lyrics really can put me off. Dumb is not so much of a problem, it's more stuff which is unamusingly unpleasant or self-aggrandizing without much irony.

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

be more direct = write songs called "hurray for bvm s3x"?

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justfanoe.livejournal.com

It's "my heart CAN'T REST till then" isn't it? Which I like even more than what you've written. Yeah, great lyrix. Wikipedia: "Also, the "Lesley" mentioned in the song is Lesley Patterson, Miley Cyrus's real-life best friend from Memphis,Tennessee, whom was friends with her since the second grade."

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justfanoe.livejournal.com

Line of the year: "Did you hear that, let me repeat that, I want my stuff back!"

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

that sounds like a Pitman lyric!

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Yep, rest. Was transcribing from memory...

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koganbot

The Wikipedian "whom."

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A person like me thinks, therefore a person like me is.

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koganbot

Yes! Put me on your alert list. (Also Jeff, could you send me your email address? Send to edcasual at earthlink dot net.)

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