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

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..."

Re: NW5

[koganbot]

I find the title very subtle, as I have no idea what it means.

Re: NW5

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

it's a postal district (= zipcode) in London: Kentish Town area

Re: NW5

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Woah. This new alBUM is not averse to being a proper actual Thing!