A Year In Pop: 46

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Another slowish week and the charts are starting to silt up a bit - labels holding fire on new releases in the run up to Christmas I guess. Some interest this week though: 1. Niche! 2. Has that Spice single not had a physical release yet or is it genuinely a huge flop - first time I can remember a Children In Need track going DOWN in charity week!

[Poll #1091138]

In other news: huge apologies for the continuing non-appearance of the Pop Open. My home internet was down last night though I should of course have done it earlier. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Comments

Lahayna

[bigdave33.livejournal.com]

I feel the need to interject here, I've seen these guys live recently in Shoreditch and thought they were amazing! The gig that Radio 1 plugged when they got in the charts. I did a bit of research on them and saw a few posts here on these guys. I think you're being a bit unfair though. I saw the you tube clip you were on about and yeah I agree thats a bit weak, but have you read up about them? They got in the charts without a record label!!! They went out on the streets with their mp3 players after registering their tracks and people downloaded the tracks! How many bands would put that kind of effort in, certainly not a lot of the ones I know! Fair play to them I say and good luck! p.s they do have a new video up now if you search on you tube, again its not gonna blow you away but what do you expect from a hard working band on a budget. I think the labels should sit up and take notice. :P

Re: Lahayna

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hello BigDave33 - were you the one on the left or the right in that video then? :)

When I was in a (signed but manager-less) band and funding/managing/promoting ourselves for dear life whilst thousands of pounds in debt and trying to hold down a full time job, I used to google myself constantly too. Hence I am heartily behind bands who put in the hard work to plug themselves & get their music out there by touring or youtubing or whatever. However here at poptimists we tend to judge songs on their face value (imagine the song was anonymous and you had no idea how or by whom it was produced - now is it any good?) Why should the music-buying public care whether the singer has one leg or if they've come from Mars? If the song's awesome/uninspiring/wrong in the head/catchy then *that* will determine whether or not I spend my 79p downloading it. Or should I be downloading it because they're really nice guys? Should I take pity on them and award them a sticker saying "I TRIED"? This might sound harsh but personally I'm afraid Lahayna aren't my cup of tea and it's going to take a lot more than earnestness on their part for me to think otherwise. Saying that I'm sure they'll do very well.

Re: Lahayna

[(Anonymous)]

Ha Ha I can see how that looks - no im afraid Im neither I just saw them live the other night after I heard em on radio 1. I work in music failry close to the gig venue and am constantly going to see gigs. I thought I'd see what was out there on them on the net considering they just achieved something quite rare, and yes I agree with you that you shouldn't give them merit just for trying (Or for being nice guys - they could be stuck up little %^$&%*%'s for all I know!). I quite like the song to be honest and thought that your comments were geared more to judging the song on the video rather than actually hearing the song that got in the charts?

Be interesting to see if they follow it up with anything or fade into complete obscurity like so many signed bands ;)