Pop Open Group L: THE EIGHTIES

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Eighties! We're living in the Eighties! Four tracks available at http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/pop-open-week-12/ in streamed form. My PC was erratic last night so I wasn't able to put them up as a zipfile - I will sort this out tonight.

Anyway, give them a listen, decide which you like best, vote below. This poll will run until next Monday lunchtime.

[Poll #1072847]

Thanks to the four contestants, though I've forgotten who one of them is so I won't name names.

Comments

[koganbot]

I was originally a bit fazed by the gloss of track one and the staginess of track three, but now both of those are growing on my tremendously, leading to another three-way photo finish for second place. The way things look at the moment:

Track One: "Don't Trust Ovid"? Er, "Don't Try To Stop It." Really funny glossy technicolored Smash Hits version of the Fifties. The Fifties gloss is actually a cover for crypto disco. There's a sneaky suspense-movie break that doesn't conflict with the breeziness of the whole. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this guy is not American. Loses points for not being as good as Kenny's "Fancy Pants." Would do well in a weaker group (not that we've had any weak groups recently).

Track Two: Ah, a Dwight Twilley tribute band. (No, not Twilley, he'd not have done this piano-guitar thing.) Well, I'm a professed lover of mid-Sixties Dylan and mid-to-beyond-mid-Sixties Byrds, but also a professed hater (or at least doubter) of almost all performers who come across as "new Dylans" and "new Byrds." But this piano has a dark jazz density that moves me right away, and the guitar gets the quick restlessness of McGuinn that most Byrds copiers overlook, so there's lots of beauty and motion packed in. And the singer has a good pang, even though Pettyoid Dylan is quite a cliché by now. The lyrics are not only cliché, they're resentment-ridden nasty stuff, petulance posing as deep feeling. But they don't undercut the dense, restless beauty of the sound, so this has a strong shot at second, if it can fend off...

Track Three: The singer's drama-school enunciation put me off at first, but by second listen I adjusted and she came to sound a lot more natural. And the harmony at the end of the chorus jumped me as haunting, on second listen. And the paper-thin haunted-house synth jumped me as funny. Good tune, which might be what gets this across. And the lyrics give hints of being about something, but I've not given them a close examination and I wouldn't bet on it.

Track Four: I was just saying to myself this morning as I got out of bed, "You know what I haven't heard lately and really have a hankering for? Some German* neo-ska pop from the Eighties, but not just any German neo-ska pop from the Eighties, rather a track that captures the r&b leanings of the original ska in its keyb solo and the hidden jazz tendencies of ska in its sax, that uses ska as a day-to-day r&bish dance rhythm rather than as herky-jerky punkiness, yet has a singer who's at home in himself and isn't remotely trying to sound Jamaican." And this fits the bill! Easy winner.

*or is it Dutch?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

ah! I can guess what track 1 is just from Frank's description! "Good song, that", as Dale would no doubt say.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

...and hearing it again it still stands up as a great single IMHO. Shame I can't vote for it.