Another Year In Pop: 2
Jan. 14th, 2008 02:13 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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poptimistsNow Leon is gone, and Basshunter rules the roost. But what else is going on in our beloved charts this week?
[Poll #1121009]
[Poll #1121009]
katstevens.livejournal.com posting in poptimists
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Date: 2008-01-14 02:24 pm (UTC)Lupe Fiasco - wow, top 10. Happy for him! I'm not wholly down with his nerd schtick but it's easy to overlook it. Am impressed on a couple of listens with the new album, it seems a bit over-long but there are some absolutely terrific tracks on it. Like this: I like that he's approached the whole potentially yawnsome sleb theme without really being judgey-judgey about it, but it's the second verse which really makes it for me - "you better wear your shades, the spotlights here can burn holes through the stage - down to the basement, past the Indian graves where the dinosaurs laid; then out through China, nearly miss the airlinersl; magnified times five, unless it's pointed at the rhymer, ricochets off the moon and sets the forest ablaze." That's amazingly evocative, it's something Lupe does quite a lot - run-on lines where he doesn't really pause for breath but moves the narrative through this range of unexpected imagery. It's very cinematic, and I mean that in a v specific way - it's like a camera panning through locations, and you feel yourself in motion while it's happening.
Robyn - I still hate her, seeing her hatchet face on posters everywhere irritates me a lot. I also hate that she has a couple of really good songs, of which this is one. Also it's something like three fucking years old now. GO AWAY. I shall have no qualms in rescinding my tick if it looks like winning, no way should she have more approval than Kanye or Lupe.
British Sea Power - overwrought blah indie blah. Inoffensive I guess but can't hear anything in it which would render it tickworthy.
Oystar - wtf is this doing in the top 40?? I hate this country.
I didn't try the Wombats. I hope they die.
Homecoming >>>>> Stronger
Date: 2008-01-14 03:17 pm (UTC)Re: Homecoming >>>>> Stronger
Date: 2008-01-14 03:25 pm (UTC)Re: Homecoming >>>>> Stronger
Date: 2008-01-14 03:45 pm (UTC)I think having CM on the track really helps with shifting the focus away from "HI DERE I AM KANYE ALL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME", even if CM's role is a shuffling orphan boy wanting more gruel.
Re: Homecoming >>>>> Stronger
Date: 2008-01-14 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 02:37 pm (UTC)Kanye - omg it's got Chris Coldplay Martin on it! How strange. I really like the piano backing and the kick drum which pops in and out like it's on flexitime or something.
Robyn - this is still good! Lovely cello noises and catchy pixie melody. This is her second best song.
Oystar - OH GOD NO comedy song about bank charges. MEIN EARS.
BSP - I don't think I've ever actively sought out a BSP song before. They sound a lot like the Killers if the Killers decided they weren't quite Phil Spector enough. It's not unpleasant but ultimately uninteresting.
Wombats - where were this lot in the incredulity league again? Hahahah they totally sound like Groop Dogdrill. This song is actually way better than the last one they did. I think they'd work quite well with a female singer, or at least a bloke with a spookier voice. Or even an angrier voice. Borderline non-tick.
groop dogdrill
Date: 2008-01-14 03:28 pm (UTC)Heartening news from the world of R1 playlists
Date: 2008-01-14 02:44 pm (UTC)BASSLIIIIIINE taking over the nation.
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Date: 2008-01-14 02:59 pm (UTC)Other than that, Robyn and Kanye get a tick for being pretty good.
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Date: 2008-01-14 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 04:20 pm (UTC)http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1936&Itemid=243
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Date: 2008-01-14 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 03:11 pm (UTC)I really like his voice. And generally this song sounds much fresher to me than the Kanye song. But that could just be because I've heard loads more Kanye stuff than Lupe stuff up til now.
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Date: 2008-01-14 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 03:24 pm (UTC)Obvious ticky for Robyn there. Ace.
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Date: 2008-01-14 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 03:27 pm (UTC)i don't think i've heard this new one yet.
Chicago Day on the British charts
Date: 2008-01-14 05:19 pm (UTC)Kanye West "Homecoming." I always like his voice, but he's not finding the words to give me much sense of this siren Wendy. But as Lex says, this does give a feeling of wrongs needing to be righted, kids back home wanting to rap to stardom without knowing what to rap about, while Kanye's international success creates a gap between whatever'd grounded him when he was back home with Wendy. A kinda obvious sentiment, though. Chris lowkeying in his background singing, not bad but... lowkey. I'm not getting the overwhelming sense of loss and redemption from the Lake Michigan line that Lex does. I knew someone and we were sitting in the park along Lake Michigan right at the point where it curves east, and I haven't seen her for 32 years and I owe her apologies, so maybe the line will hit me if I'm flying into Chicago someday. Tick, mainly for trying to be about something and for Kanye's voice as it tries to tell a story. I'm giving him and Lupe an A for effort.
Robyn "Be Mine!" - A for everything.
Oystar "I Fought The Lloyds" - Positive message, but this is so wimpy and I guess it's supposed to be funny but there is not one moment of wit, no playfulness in the words, no joy in sounds. Who's buying this? (If you want to hear social satire connected to actual wit and joyous music, here is a truncated version of the Kingston Trio's "MTA," which I adored when I was nine.) Lowest nontick.
British Sea Power "Waving Flags" - Quavering flags. Large but hazy mass of voices, then, the haze muted, a deliberately blank lead vocal floats on the atmosphere. I wouldn't say this epitomizes everything I hate about indie, since there are many more things I also hate that are not present in this song (enforced ruefulness, for one), and at least there's some beauty that this song is burying, but this is so self-defeating, effacement pretending to be a virtue. Its defects are like Panda Bear's but even more defective. Gives a bad name to art.
The Wombats "Moving To New York" - Chords full of dissonances, the whining pleading voice, but at least delivered with some verve. "I'm moving to New York 'cause I got problems with my sleep"??? Sounds all right in comparison to British Sea Power, but I'm not humming the tune. So, not a tick.
Re: Chicago Day on the British charts
Date: 2008-01-14 05:21 pm (UTC)That is, his international success creates a gap between HIM and whatever'd grounded him when he was back home with Wendy.
Re: Chicago Day on the British charts
Date: 2008-05-21 08:49 pm (UTC)British Sea Power are known for gigs in unusual settings
Date: 2008-01-14 07:01 pm (UTC)British Sea Power Bring Rock Music Back to the States
North American Tour & SXSW Dates Announced
"Ambitious, impressive and genuinely moving. chock full of epic music and seductive melodies...the unashamed Big Rock heroes their music demands" 4/5 Q MAGAZINE
"...the tunes on this appropriately titled record are so stirringly anthemic that they virtually challenge U2's domination of the form." Filter
Brighton's British Sea Power will invade North America this spring, bringing their electrifyingly mesmerizing live shows across the pond for a three-month tour in support of their third full-length, Do You Like Rock Music? (Rough Trade/World’s Fair). The quartet, accompanied by a cellist and a keyboardist on this tour, features stops at San Francisco's Noise Pop Festival and Austin's South By Southwest.
Recorded inside a converted water tower, a 200-year-old fort, and the forests of the Krivoklatsko Biosphere Reserve in Czech Republic among other places, Do You Like Rock Music? is a collection of anthemic tracks that still maintain the level of lyrical intelligence fans expect from British Sea Power. Songs tackle issues as diverse as economic migration ("Waving Flags") and light pollution ("Lights Out for Darker Skies") while still making you want to pump your fists in the air. The record was produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire), Efrim Menuck (God Speed You! Black Emperor), and Graham Sutton (Jarvis Cocker, Bark Psychosis).
British Sea Power formed in 2000 after brothers Scott (a.k.a. Yan) and Neil (a.k.a. Hamilton) Wilkinson met Martin Noble (a.k.a. Noble) and Matthew Wood (a.k.a. Woody) at school. Word of the band's riotous shows spread, bringing out Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis who signed them on the spot. In addition to the success they've had for themselves, the band has helped launch the careers of The Arcade Fire and The Killers, both past openers.
British Sea Power are known for gigs in unusual settings. They’ve played by the sea on the Scilly Isles and underground in a Cornish slate mine and at the Betjeman Centenary Gala - the latter alongside Hugh Grant, Nick Cave, and The Prince Of Wales. This tradition continues with BSP’s January 10th gig at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in London. The band recorded much of Do You Like Rock Music? in the Czech Republic, and chose to celebrate the release of the record at the nation's London headquarters. Other (more conventional) tour dates on the reverse of this sheet.
a Notable Fact, surely
Date: 2008-01-15 01:44 am (UTC)Download rule consequences watch ahoy!: With its #68 placing this week, Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" has the second longest chart run ever with (spook!) 68 weeks, beating Judy Collins' 67 weeks in 1970-1973 with "Amazing Grace". Still 54 weeks off beating "My Way", though.