Another Year In Pop: 3

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

TOP BBC SOUND OF 2008 Adele makes her bustin' chart debut this week though it's not enough to deny Basshunter. In other news: how bad a band name is Courteeners?

[Poll #1124829]

The amazing advent of SOUND OF 2008 Adele reminds me that I should collate the results of our thrilling SOUND OF 2008 poll. Where did Adele end up in the Chump League? See below the cut:


1. CONGRATULATIONS GLASVEGAS who win the prize with their comment "There's something really authentic about a lot of doo-wop and '50s rock 'n' roll."
2. MGMT - "The album does address many similar themes dealing mostly with current apocalyptic confusion and post-apocalyptic survivalism."
3. Duffy - "I'm just learning about my voice at the moment, what I can and can't do so it's a discovery about me."
4. Foals - "We make music that tries to be progressive in some small way - in whatever way you can still do now."
5. Santogold - "Nina Simone and Bad Brains are my two biggest vocal influences."
6. Vampire Weekend - "People would be less interested in us if we were doing something they had heard before."
7. The Ting Tings - "We write a track, we record it and within the first hour if we're not feeling it we erase it, it's gone."
8. Jo Lean And The Jang Jong Jing - "The goal is to have a nine-year-old girl and an 80-year-old man in a different country dancing at the same time."
9. Adele - "I don't think I have to be all glamorous and lose weight and stop smoking to be a good artist."
10. Black Kids - ""We definitely take something away from every era. I realised a while back that pop music's all about theft." (How did this come last??? - shocked Ed.)

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Adele - Joss Stone for people who think good-looking women are evil

Courteeners - die

Madness - I thought they WERE dead? Die

Radiohead - DIE for fuck's sake why does anyone have time for his tuneless bellyaching any more, and none of this bollocks about how they've revolutionised the music industry either, a) untrue b) who CARES when the product is this shitty

Kelly Rowland - phew! though I am looking askance at everyone who's only paying attention to it b/c of the Freemasons remix. The remix is quite something, esp the full 10-minute version (allegro/lento movements!) but the og was fab as well, like a caffeinated 'Like This'. They're BOTH GOOD. Which is more than you can say about any of the other new entries which should hopefully wind up with 0 ticks between them.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hahah x-post re Freemasons. The original is ok but not as good as 'Like This'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do you know if there was ever a big boshin remix version of Rihanna's "Unfaithful" - there MUST be surely but I don't remember encountering one.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh almost certainly - I don't think I ever heard any though...

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

By good-looking here, do you basically mean thin?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Both good-looking and thin. Joss Stone is annoying but gorgeous. Adele looks like a potato. Clearly the latter is MORE AUTHENTIC and the former is a symbol of EVERYTHING WRONG IN OUR SOCIETY.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Adele - this one's better than the other song of hers I listened to. She doesn't strike me as a very interesting performer but the song itself has a good chorus. I don't think I'd bother re-listening to this one so no tick.

Courteneers - NOEZ it are a Stereophonics The Early Years tribute band!

Madness - I've been wondering what all the big black NW5 posters stuck up round Newington Green were for! This is really plodding.

R-head - this video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=UKrsBVFsfIQ) gives me motion sickness but they don't half look funny! Funnier than usual, I mean. I quite like this track. But then again I quite like RH except when I'm at werk, blimming s0dding R4d10head grrrraaargh. ARGH I DON'T KNOW. Yes, yes, I like this. Tick.

Kelly - FILTH! This sounds very much like Survivor-era DC, what with the talking-quite-fast & big cymbals. Hmmmm, I'm not convinced dudes. WAIT A SECOND OMG - check out the Freemasons remix (http://youtube.com/watch?v=nc8_QWK2pQE)! Deserves a tick on its own :)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Like This' sets the bar v high though, no shame in that. I really like the Freemasons remix, but I'm just...suspicious of all these Popjustice readers who refuse to listen to r&b unless someone's slapped some poppers all over it and made it not-r&b.

Also as Kelly herself has explained the song is about how she wants men to put some WORK into wooing her, what else could you possibly think classy Kelly was talking about!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'but I'm just...suspicious of all these Popjustice readers who refuse to listen to r&b unless someone's slapped some poppers all over it and made it not-r&b.'

i do like the original but prefer the remix just because i think it has a bit more going on or just a bigger sound, kinda 80s soul vibe which is a big plus for me generally.

so why prefer the original mix anyway? it's not like R&B should sound a certain way. how do the Freemasons 'poptimise' it exactly? as i described above perhaps but why might this be bad?

i seriously need my brain rinsing out

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

When I kept seeing those NW5 posters, because I have been reading too much haxx0r speak, I thought they were NEWS posters?? And I briefly got excited that they were releasing a single in Europe or something??

And then I realised, and felt really stupid... in my defence I was so hungover I could barely SEE but still...

Anyway, that would be better than NW5, which is just pointless and rubbish and sheesh we GET IT Suggs.

Yeah so the only other one I've actually heard is Adele and I've forgotten what it's like so no ticky ticky.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I have that natural urge to react against the hype...but lord I love that Adele song.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Adele - this is OK, by which I mean "a bit better than Joss Stone" - I wonder if the Joss-ster is really to blame for the trend towards 'classic' 'smoky' voices? The strings are doing more work than the voice in persuading me I should care, but neither does enough for a tick. What does "Chasing Pavements" actually mean?

Courteeners - could do with dialing down the bombast, though this isn't quite the wretched skiffle-indie I was expecting. No disgrace, but in the harsh environment of 08 I'm not ticking it.

Madness - another track where strings are being used to prop up not enhance. Audibly creaky, poor old things. No tick.

Radiohead - there are good or at least interesting tracks on In Rainbows but this really isn't one of them! I guess the idea is 'put out the strummiest one as a single', if it even IS a single, who knows anymore. What's it about? Search me. No tick.

Kelly Rowland - I was wavering on a tick until the climactic bit, which clinched it, just about. Very marginal though - I will check out the freemasons mix too.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's weird that Joss herself has fallen out of favour, I mean her last album was bad but no worse than this lot.

It is interesting that even though 'classic' 'soul' voices seem to be in vogue, none of them belong to black women. By 'interesting' I mean, again, that the UK media (and public, probably) is institutionally racist. I am not going to stop beating this stick until it sorts itself out and should really pitch a proper article about it.

Why DOES everyone like Radiohead so much?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think with Stone there's an element of "oh she's forgotten where she came from" - all her styling, not to mention her voice, is very transatlantic diva-ish now.

Erm Leona? Though I guess she's being marketed as a classic modern RnB voice rather than a classic soul one.

Urgent & Key

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

How does one actually chase a pavement? Given that they're stationary objects.

(I still ticked the song tho' - the chorus has a monster of a melody and she delivers it brilliantly.)

Re: Urgent & Key

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

yes, it's annoying that it has such a bad* lyric when it's a pretty good tune...

*i was going to put "nonsensical" there, but then nonsensical lyrics are often the best if done properly, this is just jarring...

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

This is the first ever week I have ticked 'not heard any.'

Warning to alexmacpherson: next week may upset you more.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes next week is when I get angry at Mary J Blige getting, like, three ticks or something ridiculous.

Do you know, I looked up Mary J's UK chart performances...I'm scandalised and appalled.

'Real Love' - 26
'My Love' - 29
'Mary Jane (All Night Long')' - 17
'Not Gon' Cry' - 39 (!!!!! fxjh,zxchh)
'Be Without You' - 32 (aaagh)

These are fucking STANDARDS. How the hell did they chart so low? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRYYYYYYY

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I see some people have not ticked "Work". Now, I'm not usually one for moral absolutes, but... if you didn't tick it, and you've heard the Freemasons mix, then YOU ARE A BAD PERSON.

It's really that simple.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Whether OR NOT you have heard the remix!

Pavements = Death?

[koganbot]

Adele "Chasing Pavements": I've paid no attention to the words, but in the video "chasing pavements" may perhaps be a metaphor for dying. Anyhow, I dislike her voice, which is halfway between K8's and Amy's but without either's ebullience. My initial thought was that a less ebullient K8, at least, would also be a less annoying K8, but actually the chorus here sounds recessively reedy, making this annoyingly uncommitted and annoyingly reedy. So this is doubly annoying. Also annoying because this is OK until you get to the chorus. (Btw, my New Year's resolution for 2008 is to use the word "recessive" a minimum of 500 times in the course of a year's music writing.)

Courteneers "What Took You So Long": Jangle gtr strum accompanied by jangle gtr noodle while drum forces the rhythm but is strangely unemphatic in doing so. Typical rueful vocals that signify perspective while being the same old whiny crap. Melody isn't bad, gets buried by the arrangement; but in the spare piano-accompanied version on MySpace the vocals make the song just as bad.

Madness "NW5": This track is gratifyingly not horrible in relation to the Courteneers', and its music hall two-step gives our sad tale a humorous lilt. Oh, but there's a deadening sax solo as if Madness decided to have a few moments when they were as stodgy and worthy as the E-Street Band. So, not bad, but not ticked.

Kelly Rowland "Work": If I ran the zoo I'd use the sitar from the Freemasons version for the verse only, subdue that big hulking bass altogether, and revert to the original mix for the chorus. Anyway, remix is exciting for the overall rhythm but the original highlights the intensity of her single-syllable quasi-jazz singing (which is very Destiny's Child). Tick.

Radiohead "Jigsaw Falling Into Place": Regular ole quasi-Spanish acoustic gtr strum made atmospheric by accompanying background hums, and the foreground disguises its tunefulness by itself being as unemphatic as a hum for the first two thirds. When our hero raises to the upper register this becomes tentatively emotional and tentatively exciting. I think repeated listenings might well help me locate beauty and passion in this, but my prediction is that I'm not going to give this repeated listenings. Hence, I will not commit to a tick.

Re: NW5

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Sax solos on Madness records are compulsory, to give Lee has something to do.

I think "NW5" is getting unjustly shafted here. Sarah upthread sez: "we KNOW, Suggs" but actually the song is a LOT more subtle than its title might suggest. Even having perused the lyrics in full, I'm still not sure what the song is about. The whole is a bit clunky musically, for sure, but I like the contrast between the foreboding music of the verses where Suggs is seemingly critical of the subject of the song and the smiley, sunshiney chorus where he's all "yeah but despite all that..."

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I ticked "Not Heard Any", because it's true, but I will go back through later and tick this properly.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

My exact reaction to Vampire Weekend: "wait, where have I heard this before?" HA.

(PS - it was Graceland, among other places.)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

I think this is my first DLA ever?

Adele: Voice annoys.
Courteeners: Bof.
Madness: Msieu Barso piano lines still push some spinal buttons, but srsly noway.
Radiohead: This hardly even exists.
Kelly Rowland: 0.5 x choon, 0.35 x hook = no tick