A kung fu fighter in a disco

Calvin Harris comes across as ever more reprehensible every time I think about him.

Anyway it might be because both GA and the 'babes are such veterans these days - I love both new releases but they're basically doing what we expect - I mean they are on the fourth and fifth studio albums respectively! That is a hell of a lot - both have more than doubled the Spice Girls' output already. I think real enthusiasm - in most genres, not just pop - is reserved for new blood (as in first/second album) rather than familiar faces (excepting people like Madonna). And basically there is NO NEW BLOOD along the lines of GA/Sugababes. This is why the hottest topics on Poptimists this year have probably been MIA and Aly & AJ.

Personally the rapid turnover of new faces in both minimal and r&b really keeps me interested - it means the scene itself is fertile. This seems to be the case with US teenpop as well. But let's face it the British pop scene is really, really stale at the moment.

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Having said all of that if any of you lot actually like Kate Nash or Calvin Harris, I really have no words for my level of disgust.

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Yeah, I wanted the question to expand to take in everything in music, not just "British pop", which I don't agree is stale, there's a definite forward momentum but I just don't like any of it (and nor do you).

And similarly you could say that a rapid turnover of faces means a scene is flailing around a bit, if nobody's ideas are strong enough to let them sustain a career longer than a couple of hot singles!

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To answer my own question...

YAY:
- The expansion in range, discofication, hip-hopification etc of emo and pop-punk: they've got the kids ears and they want to revel in that. I dislike a lot more of the results than I like but there's usually something interesting going on.
- Pop-hop is back! (led mostly if not entirely by the Black Eyed Peas solo careers but I'm sure there's more about)
- Akon, Lloyd, um some others I'm sure - really smooshy male R'n'B, again a lot more potential than is being actually realised!
- and yes MIA :)

All of these are potential excitement rather than actual excitement though - green shoots that could go either way (just as I'm interested but not 'excited' in what happens in US teenpop and in Myspace pop for that matter). So lukewarm praise there I guess.

I could do a NAY post too obviously.

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is MIA pop?

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How is she not pop?? (She might be other things too)

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I'm not sure pop-hop or male r&b ever went away!

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Yeah the trend in RnB I like is the balance turning back to really girly, wounded-sounding men - the smooshiness rather than the maleness.

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she doesn't sound pop to me at all :-(

she's off my circumscribed map of pop - which is my own fault. but play her songs in a set of 'pop' and she stands out.

separate question. is she popular?

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She's less popular than the Sugababes but more popular than Maggie Berger :)

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lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

smooshy male R'n'B is and always has been the part of the genre that I loathe the most. So that is most definitely a NAY for me.

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I think the "map of pop" thing is a more general problem though - other people have talked about this too, how the celebration of pop by Popjustice (and us lot a bit) in the early-mid 00s worked as a drawing up of maps which means that it's a lot harder for ideas that could work as pop (in the broad sense of "wow grebt hook wanna hear that again") to break through into acceptance as 'pop' because they don't fit a sonic profile.

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I can hear - tho perhaps I'm projecting a lot! - an undertow of gorgeous existential yearning in some of it though which I wasn't getting so much before. Maybe I've just been listening to Sugar And Poison too much though and I want more nu quiet storm stuff.

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There are always some of those around though - Mario Winans from a few years back, it's the backbone of Usher's career despite the occasional banger, Bobby Valentino too. I agree Akon and Lloyd stand out more (for the former - odd voice and massive success; for the latter - really really good songs).

in orig question, (&, as importantly, what do you see other people getting excited about?) - who are the "other people" here? "other people" seems more fragmented than ever to me now - maybe I'm romanticising the days of old-ILX when everyone would rally round Missy or Basement Jaxx or early Sugababes or Destiny's Child, but there really is nothing approaching that nowadays. ILX is common-or-garden (US) indie these days. Poptimists itself...there's such a LACK of consensus here, I actually have no idea what the favoured aesthetic is!

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haha to me the ONLY way in which MIA is pop is how she sounds! (I guess my fundamental criteria are "catchy" and "good beats".) she certainly isn't popular though I guess this will be answered when we see where 'Jimmy' charts (or er doesn't) in a few weeks. I can imagine it in the top 10, I can also imagine it missing the top 75.

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"Maybe I've just been listening to Sugar And Poison too much though"

re: Sugar. undoubtedly.

(what i am saying here is that listening to sugar at all is too much ha ha ha ha ha)

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to me she sounds as close to pop as the Go! Team

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everyone in world more popular than maggi berger :-(

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I couldn't tell you exactly what the Go! Team sound like (apart from "they give me a massive headache which is why I avboid them") but I understand it's kind of Avalanches-esque slightly ramshackle dance? Like 'Don't Falter' or something except crap. But definitely sonically pop.

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Those Clashing Poptimists Aesthetics In Full

- Old school Popjustice pop
- Post-confessional teenpop and its fallout
- Boshing that'll-do WTF vulgarity
- R&B diaspora
- Songwriting-first Scando craftsmanship
- Well-heeled Mumpop
- Emo is the new pop pop
- Camera Obscura tweepop

Now while it wd be possible to name a poptimist who is into each of these and a poptimist who dislikes all of these it would not be possible to name one who's into ONLY one of them (some are clearly related).

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Róisín Murphy album
Fantasia - When I See U (Polow Da Don rmx)
Various minimal

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Add "Ramshackle nu-big-beat dance pop" to my list of clashing Poptimists aesthetix pls.

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I wonder if there should be a Tabloid Pop category for Britney (who used to be old school Popjustice pop but surely isn't any more), Winehouse et al? There should definitely be an Indie Friendly Pop category for CSS, MIA et al.

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Amidst all of this, we have had a pretty fucking great run of No 1s. 2007 started off msierably, then we had a couple of decent-ish ones...

1056 28 Apr Beyonce & Shakira Beautiful Liar 3
1057 19 May McFly Baby's Coming Back / Transylvania 1

...and then JUST LOOK AT THEM keeping on coming!

1058 26 May Rihanna featuring Jay-Z Umbrella 10
1059 4 Aug Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson & DOE The Way I Are 2
1060 18 Aug Robyn with Kleerup With Every Heartbeat 1
1061 25 Aug Kanye West Stronger 2
1062 8 Sep Sean Kingston Beautiful Girls 4

I can't remember the last time we've had NINETEEN consecutive weeks of greatness at No 1.

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