Pop Open Round 3.1 Reveals and Reviews

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My intention of posting another fite on Friday collapsed because i. I took a day off and found that ii. My home internet was bolloxed. I will post one this afternoon. Meanwhile the voting deadline on fite #1 has been postponed until tomorrow noon, and here are the reveals/reviews:

TRACK ONE: Kumi Koda - "BUT" - enormously banging Europop beat carries this track from start to finish - the singer has the presence to stay in contention with the rhythm but this doesn't have much of a chorus, or vocal hook, and in fact when it starts embracing the chaos and fucking about with the voices it works much better. But the compressed crush of the drums is what pulls me back.

TRACK TWO: Max'C - "Time 2 Get It On" - endearing cheese'n'b - I like the country inflections on the vocals. Stronger chorus than track one but a weaker beat and sounds a little more generic, probably unfairly given that I'm not familiar with wherever Kumi Koda come from. Max'C I would imagine is European too. I like this quite a lot but I think I'd pick #1.

Hear the tracks here: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/11/pop-open-week-141/ (moggy - and anyone else who can't join in - they'll still be up on the FT server for a good long while)

And go here to vote: http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/482068.html - I'm not copying in the poll because you would miss out on all those lovely complex abstention rules.

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Hooragh my internets are back! I shall go and listen now.

[koganbot]

A dead heat for me. I voted number two finally, deciding it had more of an emotinonal (though Tom is right in calling it more generic); also guessed it would need more votes given poptimists predilections.

TRACK ONE: Kumi Koda "BUT": Simultaneously too busy and not quite catchy enough, but quite likable in its bright business anyway, power chords in the background pushing it along, and sudden intense beauty from bits of blips, though not a lot of those bits.

TRACK TWO: Max'C - "Time 2 Get It On": An r&b singer, with a rapper exhorting him (similar to the guest shouter in Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life"!). Gained power, the more I listened, so I voted it, though I can see why lots of voters would prefer the adventurousness of Track One.

[koganbot]

"had more of an emotinonal"

Rather than, say, a harDCoretinonal. But I meant to write was "had more of an emotional push."

[koganbot]

By the way, Kumi Koda sound Japanese to me. Not sure where I'd play Max'C, since there are definite international dance touches - the Asian touches make it seem European* - but they actually mention the South Bay, so maybe they're from, like, San Jose, California.

*If poptimists is one of the few artifacts left from the rubble of the 21st century, I wonder what an anthropologist/archaeologist of the future would make of my claim that "the Asian touches make it seem European." I wonder what I make of that claim. (I'm the one who once wrote a brief Voice piece about Asian touches becoming typical in American hip-hop and r&b, after all.)