Poll 07 No.4: MOST HORRIBLE MUSICAL THING

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This was one of a couple of categories where one pick got a LOT of nominations, so we shall see if that translates into head-to-head success.



[Poll #1106005]

MOAR pollage on Monday though I don't know what it'll be. Details of the TRACK OV THE YEAR POLL coming later, or then, or at the weekend or something.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Of these:

Cuet Is What We Aim For released a really dreadful single but I was surprised the memory had lingered enough to get nominations. They are really bad, the unacceptable face of emogum I fear.

Kate Nash is awful and what's more inexplicably liked by public and peers, so there's the element of injustice too.

Panda Bear makes annoying music and the level of praise he gets in certain circles is deeply baffling but he doesn't really deserve to be here.

Pigeon Detectives - very tempting to vote for them as just a stand in for all the dreary joyless bad rock of 2007 but their badness is general as opposed to specific i.e. I can't remember anything BY them.

Westlife are as terrible as ever but I get the feeling they're a rapidly-spending force - they're by no means omnipresent, I think you'd have to look a bit before Westlife were in yr face.

Nash it is.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I need post no comments b/c these are my thoughts to a tee - though I would argue that Panda Bear's music is dreadful enough to warrant a place here for certain.

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

Oh God, Pigeon Detectives by FAR. I don't know enough of Cute is What We Aim For and Panda Bear to comment, Westlife I've just learned to blank out, Ka'e Nash is forgiven on the grounds of 'Pumpkin Soup', but the Pigeon Detectives are inexcusable.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

The PDs are the type of thing that you CAN forget but as soon as you're reminded the red mist descends and YOU HAVE TO KILL (or nominate in a poll, as I did)!! GRR HATE CRUSH ETC ETC.

I've seen the video to "Home" by Westlife three days in a row now! If I see it when I get back from the pub tonight I'm worried Stockholm Syndrome might kick in??

[spazhammer.livejournal.com]

i voted nash, as i'm indifferent towards the pigeon detectives (they are easy to ignore, unlike nash, who is everywhere)

westlife would get my vote, but they have won it every year since they were put together, so they deserve a year off, besides, hopefully they will split up soon, its not like theyve really done much this year (have they? one single wasnt it?)

i hate kate nash. i'm not bit-ter, but her vocal style does my nut in.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/291925.html - Westlife were THRASHED in last year's poll.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

that's "bi'-'er", inni'

oh look, now i'm going to have to go and look up the proper symbol for "glottal stop" now aren't i?

ah, here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop) we are:

that's "biʔ-ʔer" inniʔ?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I'm going to let Knash off even tho that photo of her is really bad and should be replaced with a still of her on Ross show.

Why are Panda Bear here? Ridiculous irrational Lexism.

Can't remember how CIWWAF and the PDs actually sound like so will have to, boringly, vote for the Wessies.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Panda Bear is there cos someone nominated him and the randomiser threw him up as 5th pick. Someone else nominated "freak folk" which he is something to do with.

He might well get my tick in a "most overrated" poll though.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I can forgive Knash as I like Foundations despite her annoying voice, it's a great pop song, the strings in particular are really effective.

Westlife still deserve this, I find them as offensive today as when they first started, which is quite an achievement.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I didn't even nominate him! but it is MEET AND RIGHT that he is here.

[koganbot]

I'm actually going to do some research here, as mcatzilut posted a passionate defense of "Curse Of The Curves", so I need to reevaluate that one and listen to some of the other artists nominated.

I guess I was the only one to nominate the View (who may not be the worst thing ever, actually).

Are you perspiring from the irony?

[koganbot]

It would be helpful if someone would list or link the low point (or high-profile moment of annoyingness) for each performer. Here's "Curse Of The Curves".

Beware of parisitical prepositions

[koganbot]

I guess the song's actual title is "The Curse Of Curves."

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

(I sort of like Foundations whatever shut up)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Foundations would be a great song if it weren't for about 50% of the lyrics and her BLUDDY VOICE. I reckon it is ripe for Karaoke reinvention.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

I'm making Pigeon Detectives a kind of scapegoat for all the shit British indie I've heard this year. I didn't nominate anyone because I didn't think Reverend & The Makers deserved any more attention.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I kinda like 'Heavyweight Champion Of The World', better than any Hard Fi single + they have a cute keyboardist altho this is not so relevant.

Panda Bore

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"1. Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
I think this band encapsulates what music from this era will be remembered for. They tap into a universal thing, and they are masters at masking amazing pop hooks in the most confusing atmospherics imaginable."

- WHY IS THAT A GOOD THING???!?!??!?

Ahem I just saw this at the top of Pitchfork's "Guest List 2007" feature and thought I wd share on this thread. As you were.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Shame on you if you chose Kate Nash. I mean, REALLY.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Bbbbbut that VOICE!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Every time I pick up the London Paper I seem to see someone else who will be the "new Kate Nash" - Remi Nicole, someone else called Kate, someone else called something else.

Maybe if all this is true we will be on our knees by the end of 2008 BEGGING for the original Kate Nash to come back.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Sandi Thom will come back and we'll all be grateful that at least Knash has some tolerance for the modern.

[koganbot]

This is harder than I thought, since listening to the artists I notice moments of tunefulness and personality and such. Certainly nothing is igniting my negative passion in the way that Before The Music Dies did last year. Anyway,

Cute Is What We Aim For: Affected bullshit.
Kate Nash: Quirky bullshit.
Panda Bear: Affectless bullshit (and he was number three on the Stylus albums list).
Pigeon Detectives: They're Not So Bad, Really (which may make them the worst of the lot, for being the epitome of meh)
Westlife: Oh, come on, they've got some nice songs here and there.

So Westlife is certainly not the most horrible of the musical things nominated. And Kate Nash has talent and she gets to me, which means there's some value here, even if it's negative value. (And as andthatisthat points out, the Pumpkin song is pretty good.)

Which means - grr - a relisten to Cute and Panda and Pigeon.

HORRIBLE not "most pervasively boring-as-fvck"?

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

CIWWAF is the only one that actively annoyed me on this list. I should have voted AVRIL as a possibility, though. I was THIS close to ticking Pidgin Detectives, but the phrasing of the category required active irritation and not ambivalence (even though my ambivalence toward the Pigeon Directive probably relates to more "stuff that irritates me about music").

Tho Now That I Think About It...

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I guess that makes Panda Bear the Pig Detectives with more indie cred. And I tried to listen to that stupid album like three times before I gave up. So hmmmmmmmm. (But again, I wouldn't call it horrible, more like "why am I wasting my time with this?")

[datura800.livejournal.com]

Westlife, easily, and always. I WISH they were running out of steam, but that album is selling horribly well.

In real time

[koganbot]

Cute Is What We Aim For "The Curse Of The Curves": In favor of this, it is a somewhat tuneful emo melody, and the guy is emoting, and as Mordy points out, he dies of girl-administered poison at the end of the video. On the negative side of the balance sheet, even if the lyrics are self-conscious about their ridiculous overwrittenness, they're ridiculously overwritten; and as emo singing goes, this is especially weak. But I have now listened to this four times today and I have yet to take poison, so this may well fall short of the horribleness necessary to get my vote.

Panda Bear "Bros": OK, he starts with a Spector rhythm from some Ronettes classic (I think), one that Brian Wilson lifted for some Beach Boys classic, but then he enters with boringly blank layered voices behind a layer of haze which perhaps would be interesting if only it had revealed or concealed a good or even a quarter-way interesting melody. In this track's favor (beyond the Spector rhythm), there is a moment or two of piercing harmony. Also in this track's favor, there are far worse tracks on the album (which I will point out once again was number three on Stylus magazine's album list). But in Panda Bear's favor he's got one better song on his album.

Pigeon Detectives "I'm Not Sorry": Well, this song is meh, But It's Not So Bad, Really, there's genuine force in the chorus. On the negative side, they rhyme "change" and "rearranged." "Take Her Back" is also Not So Bad, Really.

Mr. Bear, you are my winner!

Re: In real time

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What bugs me about Panda Bear is the indecisive faffiness in his sound, that half-melody on "Bros" that sounds like he's just humming to himself while he paints his fence or something. I can kind of understand why it's pretty and comforting and lovely to some people but even that seems like it should be such a minor pleasure - instead it's "Hmm, good at invoking a listless indolence - ALBUM OF THE YEAR I THINK!"

Most of this is projecting but the sound's so diffident it's hard not to.

Discrimination against Americans

[koganbot]

OK, now that I'm seeing the results, I think the American acts are being unfairly overlooked here.

[koganbot]

But I still wish that the randomizer had given us The View. Would have given Miss Nash a run for her money, I'd wager.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

OH GOD. I knew there was something I wanted to nominate. Curses.