POP TRUMPS: Week 1

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Welcome to your brand-new-for-2008 Friday orga-fun! Obviously this is still in the teething stages, so comments/suggestions for improvements welcome.

You may be familiar with the trading card game Top Trumps (with which this poll is in no way affiliated), where various members of a certain set (superheroes, aircraft, dudes from Hollyoaks) do battle against each other. If one player's random card beats another in the named category, the player keeps both cards and gets to choose the next category, and so on.

My aim is for poptimists to create its very own set of Pop Trumps! Which I will almost certainly MAKE and bring along to a future Poptimism. Each week you will be rating a randomly-selected (from my big Spreadsheet Of Doom) pop act over a number of categories, subtley gleaned from you lot a while back.

- Singing voice/musical ability
- Consistency (average quality of output - you may wish to refer to the Canon Index or everyhit here)
- HOTTness [phwoar]
- Dancing Skillz [extended to include all VISUAL entertainment, videos etc]
- Chart success [UK/US/Global - up to you to define 'success']
- Extra-curricular activity [acting/astrophysics/ballroom dancing etc]
- Party Animal Rating [naughty or nice?]
- Eccentricity [Diva or down-to-earth? Awesome or boresome?]
- Legacy

The marks you give are very much open to interpretation - is controversy something YOU like to see in a popstar or are you sick of seeing them in the papers? The only guideline here is that 10 is the highest score (and will 'beat' a lower score) and 0 is the lowest. There's no need to vote for every category, but if you are really undecided then you can give an average 5 score.

Tie-breaker: at the end you have the option name that artist's BEST track. If you don't have a favourite track by that artist then just type in something random to state your disapproval!

The ratings will be announced the following Friday.

e.g. My votes for Diana Ross would be something along these lines:

- Singing voice/musical ability: 7
- Consistency: 4
- H0TTness: 3
- Dancing Skillz: 4
- Chart success: 9
- Extra-curricular activity: 3
- Party Animal Rating: 5
- Eccentricity: 10
- Legacy: 7
- Best track: Upside Down

Make sense? Good!

So! On to our first contestant!


R Kelly

[Poll #1123275]
NOTES: This was originally going to be a 2-person bout, but the poll was getting VERY BIG.

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This idea totally (c)Smash Hits, btw :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also, how the hell do you spell 'subtley'? Subtly? Subtely? Sutterly? ARRGH

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Subtlety innit

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ajd = subtle ("subtile" = obs.)
adverb = subtly
noun = subtlety

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a hard one to rate!

I think there should be some kind of category for visuals - maybe the dancing one shd be expanded to all kind of video-ish stuff.

Also 'originality' maybe?

The reason I ask is that it seems unfair to rate R Kelly without taking into account two things:

- "Trapped In The Closet"
- highly unsavoury rumours.

As it was I counted the first on extra-curric (so high score there) and the second on party animal (low score there).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Visuals = YES definitely. I'll add that to the blurb at the top.

I guess 'originality' could be part of 'legacy' (which I left deliberatly open-ended) - being remembered for something?

The unsavoury rumours is exactly what the party animal bit is for - good or bad, YOU DECIDE etc. Trapped In The Closet could count under loads of things: Extra-Curric, Eccentricity and Legacy!

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

I rated it under extra-curric, and I'm expecting Parts 13-24 in the post anytime soon!

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Ack starting with someone about whom I can only think of "I believe I can fly" and "I believe I would like to get jiggy with 14-year-old girls"

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I Believe I Can Fly is definitely a blot on his career landscape.

Did he ever actually get convicted for the underage stuff?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'I Believe I Can Fly' is an amazing song. I love it.

I think the underage stuff STILL hasn't got to court yet? though prob guilty. All that means is that he gets a high score for extra-curricular activity (token point deducted as reluctant concession to morality)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

OMG I had no idea that he was once 'married' to Aaliyah!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

fsvo of married ew ew

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Consistently ack (or rub) = high score for consistency, then!

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Great concept The Kat. I like it. New Friday orgafun - wooo!

I can't believe he's not getting 100% for 10/10 eccentricity!

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

The fact that much of his eccentricity is illegal/immoral probably hurts him here.

Trapped In The Closet

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine there's many folk here who don't know about R Kelly's foray into opera, but just in case here's a recap:

HURRAY

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

On September 7, 2007...Kelly claimed to have made twenty more installments "that have yet to be filmed", and then reiterated his open-ended stance on the fate of future installments, claiming that the series will end "when the aliens say it's over".

Re: HURRAY

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

When he finally admits he's a big gayist, more like.

Q:

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Has anyone actually heard the NON REMIX version of 'Ignition'?

Re: Q:

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's bobbins.

Re: Q:

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes. I don't like either 'Ignition' tbh.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

How is the final "score" (rating) in each category to be decided. By most picks? Mean and median scores won't work, I suspect.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

A very good question. LJ usually gives an average score for numerical polls but I think I've thrown it by having '0' as an option. I'll do my best to calculate a fair average, I think.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I disapprove of any top trumps analogue that excludes strength as a category.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I was toying with putting 'invisibility' on there ;)

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Guns'n'Roses
'Chinese Democracy'
Invisibility = 100000000000000000000

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

This was surprisingly tough! I kept going through like...singing, slightly above average, consistency, (a little more) above average, hotness and dancing about average (I remember him doing more dancing & stuff earlier in his career?) and I'm like...why do I like this guy again? And then I got to the CONTEXT questions and realized how much Kelly's novelty/shenanigans have shaped him as a pop star for me. Which is unfortunate in this particular case, because I want to just like his stuff without getting all winky and semi-smug about it. But "Trapped in the Closet" and beyond still looms large. I guess I should keep working backwards through his stuff.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This is kind of why I wanted to do something like this - figuring out why we like stuff. e.g. we all know Girls Aloud are overall a better band than Oasis, but would Oasis score higher in any one category (eg Legacy)?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Only the two of us repping for 'She's Got That Vibe' :(

I really prefer early R Kelly to the vaguely minstrelsy figure he's become.