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]

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 :)

[datura800.livejournal.com]

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

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

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

[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]

'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!

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.

[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]

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?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

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

[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.)

[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.

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...

[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.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

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

Warning to alexmacpherson: next week may upset you more.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.