Stylus Singles Jukebox

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1758

A somewhat uncontroversial week, I'm disappointed to be honest that the Bananarama won it, it's adequate but not much else, very much someone wanting a "Cant Get You Out Of My Head" of their own, and it sounds a bit dated to me.

I'm quite pleased that the SSJ has recruited a real actual rockist too who will give good records zero.

(A 9 for Bonnie Prince Billy from Mr. Macpherson? Anyone would think he was indie or something!)

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That 9 was nearly a 10! But I think BPB is not indie.

I'm also disappointed that Bananarama won, I think 2005 has seen the pro-pop massive drop their standards with quite alarming haste.

Roxette >>>>>> Uniting Nations by SO MUCH!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh and if anyone says anything nasty about Ciara next week my GUNS will be out.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Nonsense, Roxette is a bit lumbering whereas Uniting Nations is the sweetest candyfloss.

But then I never liked Roxette.

BPB used to be in Slint, didn't he? It doesn't get much indier!

(The Kids: "Who are Slint?")

I like "Oh" even more than "Goodies".

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

BPB is like the indiest thing ever!

[zenith.livejournal.com]

It's indie in the good old sense. I don't think most pro-pop people really hate indie in that sense, it's the shit guitar bands that pollute the charts that they hate.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Also on re-listening I really didn't like the guitar stuff on that BPB track - sorry Mr Sweeney.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Roxette are much banginger though! And 'Oh' is some sort of genius pinnacle of human achievement.

Who are Slint?

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Pouting Powter looks a lot less like Woody Harrelson in that photo than he does in bits of the video.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Slint are the most overrated indie band in the entire history of indie.

It is true that Roxette did better in the "dancing while doing the washing up" test.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I thought he just took photographs of Slint? The front cover of that famous album is by him, I think.

Altcountry and post-rock and all that sort of thing are a different kind of indie, aren't they? A bit like zenith says... they're what I was listening to when I wasn't so much into indie anymore. Non-indiedisco indie. At the risk of sounding like a_closet_indieist , not 'indie' but 'alternative'.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

They did an ATP or summat.

Imagine Jesus and Mary Chain without the joy and sparkle.

(nb JAMC = LAME)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

So 'alternative' means 'even less popular indie' then?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he wasn't actually in Slint. But one of the early incarnations of The Palace Bros was Oldham + Slint mkII. So the uberindie association is still there.

Alternative is even more of a rub term than indie tho, innit? And I worry that we're getting perilously close to defining indie as 'guitar music I don't like' here.

[cis.livejournal.com]

mmm, kind of. Maybe 'alternative' is the wrong word, because it can honestly mean anything, but there's a definite (even if it's narcissism of small differences) genre-in-terms-of-fanbase there - stuff favoured by CTCL-as-was, maybe DrownedInSound as well. Your mathrocks and the like, that can be occasionally co-opted by more mainstream indie or indie-rock (eg biffy clyro), but they exist as their own self-contained world.

Am tempted to call it more... America-facing, or America-centric, by which I mean that not only are more of the bands from the US but also the basic set of accepted influences, the history they're working from, isn't that of british indie or even of the Big Indie Names. It *is* all the Slint and the Fugazi and the whatnot.

So, yeah, the indie of indie.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I'll have you know I own the Maximo Park album and what's more like it.

You're right on alternative as rub term tho, I just wanted to get a dig in at the drunken lex.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh right, Ricky T indie.

Actually I like that stuff far far less than the disco stuff, which at least has gawky disco potential.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Hmph. That's a bit like me describing Japanese Psych as Tom Ewing Rock. I have approx 0 clue as to what's going on in that subgenre nowadays. I occasionally pick up the odd recommended-by-Jess-H album but that's about it.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

For as long as you wear the Les Savy Fav T-shirt I will contentedly assume you are 'covering' that 'beat'.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I consider myself pwned.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha roxette GL3NN M4CDON4LD to thread

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'd say that this 'alternative' stuff also has a lot more tendencies to co-opt grassroots genres like folk and country, too, and this is why it can be quite horrific when done badly but Actually Properly Good when done well.

in other words there's far less of the retro-rock'n'roll crap and prostation before The Q/NME Canon Of Rock which makes most (British) indie so bad.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

You own a Les Savy Fav t-shirt?!

I have never heard a Les Savy Fav song ergo I am NOT INDIE and YOU ARE!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I fear that this is becoming a meme :(

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But isn't drawing on these "grassroots genres" another retro-genuflection, one even further back. (Deeper Magic from before the Dawn Of Pop - there's a pre-rock canon just as surely as there's a rock one).

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I do indeed. You have almost certainly seen me wearing it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is, definitely, but a) it sounds nicer, b) there's a deeper well of stuff to rip off draw upon, c) the original sources are less familiar, d) possibly irrelevant but less irritating media coverage.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

So unfamiliar am I with the workings of this thing you cal indie that I must not have recognised it.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Also, e) "It's so good to hear actual human beings playing actual instruments, not straitjacketed by click track or submerged under a flood of studio syrup." ;)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

If ever a man needed the tender touch of Jacques Lu Cont it's Will Oldham.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

The straight-ahead Groove Coverage-esque dance cover of "Fading Like A Flower" done last year by Mysterio is somewhat better than the Dancing DJs version, I think.

But FLAF is a very underrated Roxette single, it was always my favourite.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm currently fantasising about electrohouse remixes of Joanna Newsom at the moment!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'It Must Have Been Love' is my Roxette pick.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I like the way that the first four Common reviews each seem to contradict each other.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

IMHBL has one of my very favourite pop moments of the 90s - the bit where Marie goes "but it's over NOW!" - specifically, the "NOW" that immediately precedes the "it's where the water flows" bit. That one note = heartbreaker.

Also, feel inclined to stand up for "Wish I Could Fly" for featuring the word "ajar", a much under-used words.

Per is still having moderately-sized hits in Sweden. All dull ballads, too.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was delighted when I wasn't asked to do Common.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I have only just noticed this textual joke! HMPH and BAH.

[juror8.livejournal.com]

I decided not to bother reviewing this week when I realised that my only interesting comment would be that Lethal Bizzle's nose is the exact same shape and size as KRS-One's.