poptimists | A Year In Pop: 47

Shd point out that the Gallows track features Lethal Bizzle, though it isn't credited as such on the Radio 1 site.

Anyway, four tracks, four ticks - with a certain amount of generosity towards Gallows I admit. If anyone could present a good argument for "Staring At The Rude Bois" NOT just being a punk rock equivalent of "The Tide Is High (Got The Feeling)" then I'd like to hear it - but I'd have ticked that too.

Soulja Boy's track is brilliant.

I wasn't aware that The Tide Is High (the Blondie one) was a cover! The wikipedia entry does contain the line "In 1985, parts of this song was taken and used as a sample for Bryan Adams', Reggae Christmas." Which I previously did not know!

Well, "The Tide Is High" is probably my least favorite Blondie single, whereas "Staring at the Rude Bois" is the only Gallows I've heard, but actually I like it, by-the-numbers punkish-ska gangshouts which of course makes this the opposite of my own concept of "punk" which isn't a sing-along but a melee, but that doesn't make this bad; the singer's not transcendent and there's not the sense of rising up through the sewers and snakes that you get in classic gangshouts like Black Flag's "Rise Above," but this does create an energy rush just like the formula says it should. No problem ticking it, even though I suppose what I just said fails as a good argument for whatever it was you wanted me to argue for. Lethal Bizzle is the most rote an uninspired part of this, surprisingly.

I wanted more from the Dizzee track, by the way; nice bubbles, both vocally and in the background, and his voice has got flow or bounce or kerboing or whatever you want to call it, but there's a sameness all the same. Sure tick, though (as were Girls Aloud and Soulja).

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Argh, so he is - sorry Shayne, have to wait till next week.

& Elvis's Always on my Mind is at 17 (probably the first Elvis I would have ticked this year)

OH NOES - double helping of Elvis next week.

Memo to self - wait until you've had a cup of tea before doing the poll.

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The gridlock effect is a bit worrying - I was thinking "oh I don't remember polling that Foo Fighters track" and it turned out it was when I was on Summer Holiday :( And it wasn't a huge inescapable hit or anything, it's just that nothing's moving.

I will revisit "Uninvited" - seem to remember ticking it.

omg though 'all I want for xmas is you' is at no 46!!!! MARIAH!

'Umbrella' has finally exited the top 40 this week, too. end of an era.

hearing it on the chart rundown last week (at 38 i think) was v OMG!

yes blimey at gridlock. i hear ppl saying the spice girls getting a charity single ONLY in at 11 is rubbish, but rly, look at the competition.

I really, really love 'Uninvited', but then I am a total sucker for gothy house with angsty vocals.

if soulja boy does not get AT LEAST 15 ticks i shall be VERY ANGRY (if sadly unsurprised) - there was a small girl on the bus one morning last week playing this through her phone and singing along to all the YOUUUUUs - this alone would have made my day, the seething faces of the boring boring commuters around me were the icing on the cake. come on, poptimists! i know you hate americans but how can you resist this.

tangled up is largely a v boring album but 'call the shots' is magnificent (although when i listen to it i always think, hmm, you're no 'early winter' are you)

but it is DIZZ who takes the gold medal this week! with a hugely inappropriate summer anthem! slow, fast, up, down, bring it back...

Soulja Boy has both the instant WTF factor and is a real grower too - I keep noticing new little bits that make me grin.

I will be playing it LATE and LOUD at Poptimism on Saturday!

It is also languishing on four ticks, wtf is with people not ticking it (or Dizz!), aargh I wish the haterz would explain themselves!

Sadly I don't think I can make it to poptimism: friend's bday celebrations...but I shall dance to Soulja Boy in honour of it anyway.

I am VERY disappointed that said friend's celebrations clash with my DJ set. oh well what can you do.

Soulja Boy hasn't grown on me - it came on the radio on Saturday morning (admittedly I was feeling unwell) and I thought it was too noisy.

on an unrelated note I am NEVER playing with the fucking TWL dictionary again. aaargh I hate this game! I am a VERY BAD LOSER!

I'm the 15th tick. Do I get a prize? A stuffed bear, a cake?

You are one of the few members of this community with my approval, then, which means more than a thousand cakes.

srsly poptimists need 1x CRASH COURSE in contemporary hip-hop.

like, ok, whatever, people might not like ~~black people~~ 'urban music' but how can you think 'Flex' is NOT any good at all??? how?? that is incomprehensible to me.

but anyway despite a terrific batch of new entries I think the real story is twofold:

1) T2 and Jodie at No 2 OMG I am so happy for them! I really, really hope this is the start of something great, maybe in the same vein as the golden era of 2-step. It's not as if bassline is lacking in more potential hits and it's so prolific...NOW GO BACK AND TICK IT, PEOPLE.
2) Spice Girls on the other hand manage to miss the top 10 with a physically released charity single :ooo (also, haha)

T2 is now up to a more respectable 15 tickys.

Even I like it, people! Who hasn't ticked? What's your problem?

I haven't voted on last week's poll yet! I will listen to the song and vote later.

You will love it*. I think I am going to buy it as a CD single tomorrow, that's how good it is.

*I think, at least...

I ticked all of them! First time ever!

Girls Aloud - about bleedy time, oh man I still heart this LOADS and here's why: the 'ahh-berp' vocal samples, the microhouse backing (v similar bass&drums to track 2 off Michael Mayer's Fabric mix, not to mention the same melancholy in the chords), the girls seamlessly finishing each other's lines, the up-and-down chorus melody ("ti-ee-ii-ee-ime" etc), the beautiful middle eight from Nicola where they're grabbing the stars in time-lapse mode... ALL THE TICKS EVER. This is still vyeing with Avril's 'Girlfriend' for my single of the year.

Dizzee - cor, listen to those lovely warm wallop blips! With them and the bass it's like being underwater! Good video too - esp the Mike Skinner chap reading poetry from a book for his audition. Tick.

Soulja - Youuuuuuuuu! Youuuuuuuu! Ohhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhh! These on their own would get a tick. Which is just as well as the rest of the track (sparse steel drums, tickling high-hat) is non-existent.

Gallows - my word this is an ugly, angry chap with a scratchy shouting voice. Yuck. The tune itself isn't bad at all, but lacks a really smashing chorus hook to pull it off. Under-impressed by Lethal B's rap as well, none of the humour or lyrical dexterity that made 'Police On My Back' so awesome. Hmmm, borderline non-tick. Nearly there but not quite!

can you explain why souljah boy is any good?

It sounds really majestic! Those massive synth hits on the YOOUUUUUs, the pounding beats...it's like 'Hollaback Girl' but sloooowwwwwed down to this sinister, could-swallow-you-whole pace (like Ciara's 'Oh' was to crunk); like Soulja Boy is trying to see how minimal he can take the sound while still retaining the grandeur, and without removing the fun. It is a lot of fun to do the dance...

Why don't you like it?

FLEX = SO AWESOME. I'd kinda forgotten how awesome, having not listened to Maff + English in a while; I think it comes into its own better as a single, too, in isolation from the rest of the album. Lets you notice it better, and all that!

I went completely off the Gurls earlier this year (suddenly this spring Wake Me Up & ilk sounded INCREDIBLY DATED to me; imagine my disappoinment when the new lead single followed the same old formula instead of moving forward), but Call the Shots absolutely redeemed them for me. Wonderful!

Ditto on GA. 'Wake Me Up' really has not aged well - for me it started dating the minute it was released as a single. I just...hardly ever listen to them any more, really! And they're still OK and good and all, but just nothing to get all excited about.

Glad it's not just me that feels this way! (I kinda feared I might be speaking poptimist heresy by saying that, not that I'd let that stop me, heh.)

it does appear to be poptimist heresy, but if heresy means going against the kneejerk plaudits for poptimist-approved acts, I think we need more of it round here!

I find your distaste for the GA album a bit odd Lex - it's not substantially different to their last 3! Sure, you could argue the formula is wearing a bit thin, but nobody else is quite doing it. The "no surprises" card is an odd one to play - were you really expecting surprises from a Xenomania GA record?

(& the track that *is* a departure is the one you singled out for hate - "Black Jacks" feels like a lost All Saints single from their second album!)

Well 'Fling' is a surprise too in that it's actually UNLISTENABLE but these are not the surprises I want from GA! I dunno, the first four tracks are stellar and then it just abruptly loses its charm, there's nothing making me go back to it (haven't been compelled to return since the first listen). The lyrics are like an embarrassing parody of normal Miranda Cooper lyrics, too.

"Fling" is the best thing on it!

It sounds like they're trying so desperately hard to make "The Mental Girls Aloud Song" but of all the ingredients only remembered the wackiness :(

I don't think there are many other ingredients other than the chorus and the beat! And there don't need to be. It's a music hall song basically, the most English GA have ever been - it's seaside postcard naughtiness, not wackiness, which I know you can't stand either :)

Well they've always had a Carry On element to their music but usually there's something else there to counterbalance it! (ie to take the focus away because, yes, seaside postcard naughtiness is a terrible aesthetic, if I want to hear pop stars being rude we have Kim and Trina actually BEING rude)

I like hearing it unleashed sometimes - the second track, can't remember the title, is a bit like that too: the imaginary theme from the Brit comedy film about "Girls Aloud".

I haven't really got my head round the record after "Fling", cos I just dumped all the tracks on shuffle and half of them never seem to come up: the only real clunker for me is "Can't Speak French".

I like the second one - until the fifth track I thought it was going to be a really interesting record in that it seemed to be more dance than ever, not in the scattershot melting pot way but in the way everything was streamlined and focused. Is 'Can't Speak French' the fifth one? It's kind of symptomatic because it's the sort of awkward clunky song they normally manage to pull off somehow (like 'Real Life'), whether through lyrics or performance or whatever, but 'Can't Speak French' is just graceless. And then it gets worse! I was really thankful for 'Crocodile Tears' at the end.

BECAUSE THE DANCE IS AMAZING (http://youtube.com/watch?v=sLGLum5SyKQ), if a little difficult for us with dance deficiencies. Much more so than the Chicken Noodle Soup, anyway. Once I did the Superman and the YOOOOOOU hop I thought differently about the song, even though I sorta liked it before that.

At times it makes me slightly sad to think that the only thing I seem to like recently is Girls Aloud, but I'd rather pin any sort of lasting responsibility on society and large and not my waning cultural tastes.

A Year In Pop: 47

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the voice of reason

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Bit late, have been doing WORK all day, what's with that eh

alex

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Why you should all tick "Crank That"

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