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

[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.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Aargh I hate that British parochialism which can even think "forgotten where she came from" is a criticism. It's so mean-spirited.

Leona doesn't quite fit in with the 'authentic' singer-songwriters like Adele and Duffy...she hasn't been pushed by the media in the same way and I don't think she's perceived as having the same credibility.

Estelle is someone who's been totally fucked over by the racist media - am keen to see how her next single does, because there's absolutely no reason that it shouldn't be a massive hit (plus it has a Kanye verse), but thus far she's been ignored.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Sadly I suspect the only chance of it being a hit is because of the Kanye verse. It's really very good and I can't wait for the album now

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The album is really amazing - my early album of the year. Am going to try to interview her - suspect she'd have a lot to say on racism in the UK industry.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

but if Joss Stone actually did R&B pop with a thick Devonshire accent...hilarious! oh wait i mean horrible.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Currently I don't have the least interest in any artist marketed as 'soul'! Soul seems to have become a by-word for R'n'B Without The Fun. Looking at the charts for the last three months, the black women are doing pretty well (at least compared to the white women): Rihanna, Leona, Alicia Keys, Keri Hilson, the Booty Luv lasses, Kelly Rowland (just about), Jodie Ayesha. Alicia is probably the only one that qualifies as 'soul', and for me she's the least interesting one out of the lot by a long way.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hmm saying that, white women be doing well also - possibly a pre-xmas thing, but we have Celine, Winelodge, Avril, Kylie, Robyn, Gnash, Britney. And Adele, of course. So it's about even? I think that rather than worrying about what colour our lasses are, we should be wondering why on earth all the UK solo ladies are so PISH POOR right now - poor old Amy can't hold the fort on her own.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's less about what's selling as what new artists the media chooses to push - obviously black artists (mostly US ones, which don't depend on the UK media for their initial push) still sell, but it's disturbing that so many new artists of choice are middle-class white people singing an ersatz version of a traditionally black medium. There is a massive soul scene in the UK, one of many which bubble away outside of the charts, and it's full of singers who can outdo Adele and co in every imaginable area - yet the hype is only given to a white graduate of a performing arts college.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think that British soul - like British hip-hop - has always had a problem in that it's already always 'ersatz' - soul isn't just a "traditionally black" medium, it's a "traditionally black American" medium. So 'authenticity' is already off the agenda.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if authenticity is the issue, given that that's the marketing line on Adele etc. I don't think black British soul singers are more authentic either, they're just BETTER.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

which British soul singers do you have in mind? I agree we should be beyond Gabrielle and Bev Knight now and looking at the girls 10 or more years younger than them, but Estelle aside, who are they?

i imagine Winehouse getting quite a bit of 'woah i thought she was black' when some people saw her after hearing her and not before. so it's not that British audience are against that kind of VOICE...which makes supposed image/cultural prejudice ever weirder.

supposedly if Winehouse were black she would be nowhere (but a lot happier and healthier with it!)

[datura800.livejournal.com]

What's the fixation on Adele's appearance?! No one is doubting that racism exists, but it's not as if black artists aren't stupidly hyped as well (that bloke who was being called the new Prince and was given a HUGE push a few months back springs to mind...his name escapes me as he was duuuuuuullllll). Leona, Rihanna and Timbaland dominated the UK charts last year. There are many things to be said on the issue of race in music, but reducing it to 'Adele is being pushed cos she's white' really does everyone a disservice.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> that bloke who was being called the new Prince

David Jordan? He rly was terrible when we saw him supporting Enrique.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think that was him! He was EVERYWHERE for about a month. Features, billboards...I think one of the papers even gave away a cd of his music.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Was David Jordan hyped even half as much as Adele? It didn't feel like it at the time. Again, black artists obv can and have sold extremely well, but the attitude of both mainstream and indie media towards a) black music and b) black artists leaves a lot to be desired. And Adele's whiteness has certainly made her easier to market; almost every time a black British woman with designs on the mainstream has come along, the industry simply hasn't known what to do with them - so either their careers get screwed royally (Jamelia, Alesha, Estelle) or they're left plugging away as a minor, minor artist (Bev Knight).

[datura800.livejournal.com]

David Jordan was hugely hyped. There was no escape. As I said, I'm not denying racism exists but to even make an issue of it with Adele just seems like looking for things to get annoyed about. And I do not for a second think you could lump all of those artists together and say that they haven't done well simply because they were black. Indeed, several of the artists you mention had periods of big success, which doesn't quite fit into your theory. Not to mention Ms Leona.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's not their success/lack of though - it's media attitudes towards them, it's how they were promoted, it's the level of credibility bestowed on them, etc etc. I'm pretty certain no overt or explicit racism exists even behind the scenes, which probably makes the problem mor epernicious. Hannah Pool wrote a really good article (http://www.bbm-on.net/whiteout__indie_boys_and_their_g.htm) on it a year or two ago. (I'm not usually a fan of Hannah Pool but this piece is spot on.)

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I have a bit of a problem with that article in that it seems to be saying that 'black music' is r & b/rap/hip hop and anything outside that is somehow lesser (the little dig at Bloc Party is just pathetic). Given that she seems to accept that Bloc Party are very successful, and that many of the black acts she mentions were very successful a few years back, is it not more likely a question of the music scene having one of its periodic sea changes rather than an issue of race?? Indie music came in vogue again, few black artists were making indie, so they became less successful. Little to do with their race.

And even within the artists you mentioned their exists a huge variation in terms of credibility, attitudes and success. Jamelia was certainly more successful and credible than, say, Rachel Stevens. Estelle was as hyped as Lady Sovereign, and neither have achieved the success anticipated for them. Beverley Knight is certainly taken more seriously, and has had more consistent success, than Joss Stone.

As I said, I'm not denying there may be something there - but by reducing it to this trite 'these artists aren't successful because they're black, this artist is being pushed because she's white', it just renders it nonsense.