POP TRUMPS: Week 3

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Another Friday, another round of Pop Trumps! Rules are here - the way your scores are interpreted are totally up to you, but a 10 will beat a lower score.

Unlike the canons, Pop Trumps is not restricted to artists with at least 10 top 40 hits, and in our next contestant's case that's just as well...


M.I.A
[Poll #1131220]

Xtina ratings:
- Singing voice/musical ability: 8
- Consistency: 6
- H0TTness: 8
- Dancing Skillz/Visual: 6
- Chart success: 8
- Extra-curricular activity: 3
- Party Animal Rating: 4
- Eccentricity: 5
- Legacy: 5
- Best track: Genie In A Bottle
- Botherdness rating: 28

Xtina is officially H0TTer than R Kelly! :-)

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Visuals = for the myspace alone :)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes a million out of 10 for her broken Commodore 64 'aesthetic'.

Almost minus a point for the really awkward Kali dance in the Jimmy video but charity prevailed.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

oh NO - gives me a headache. 1 out of 10 I says.

I seem to be out of line with the consensus on 'eccentricity' too - remind me what I'm forgetting here.

SHOW YOUR WORKINGS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Singing Voice: For a parrot she aint bad. My 7 is all about the phrasing which is grebt.

Consistency: Can't actually remember what I put. Anyway I like her new album all the way thru but not her last one.

Hottness: "HIT THAT". 7 or 8, can't remember which. Looking like a character from the background of an old Tank Girl strip = the fitness.

Visuals: 10! See brane post for expln.

Chart Success: Arf arf. My 0 is based on the gap between expectation and performance, clearly there are ppl who sell less in this world.

Extra Curricular Activity: Bringing STREET POLITIX to the MASSES via ART +1. Annoying Dissensus dudes +7.

Party Animal: high score. If it is a street party in Calcutta not yr bourgeois so called 'celebrity lifestyle'. Or an art gallery launch obv.

Eccentricity: Well yes.

Legacy: A big 10! I think she is the most important artist in the world, after Scientific Socialism.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Consensus = there is none! The joy of orga-fun means you can read into it what you will. Eccentricity does sort of cover dress-sense, but also rounding up ten-year-old Australians for your urchin-rap masterpiece.

Re: SHOW YOUR WORKINGS

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

my 5 for the first one = 0 for her voice but 10 for musical ability in all other respects

pish

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

nah, dress sense belongs in 'visuals' category; and rounding up urchins for your alBUM goes to musical ability.

Conclusion: MIA is not eccentric at all! Everything she does is calculated, I suspect. I shall change my 3 to 0.

RLY?!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

10 for legacy? For serial? Unless she has an ENORMO SMASH HIT soon then I fear she will end up sharing a tent with A Certain Ratio in the queue for space-pensions in 2051.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Both chart success and legacy will most likely be boosted massively when she releases 'Paper Planes' as the next single. It has the potential to be a big big chart hit.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes but so did 'Jimmy'!

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

If it's not restricted to artists with 10 top 40 hits that means we can finally have long awaited Bis related polling.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

And indeed, Scooter :)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Too easy: zeros all round for Scooter innit. Next!

Re: RLY?!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Remember that I disapprove of the "test of time" so my ways of measuring legacy are perhaps more idiosyncratic!

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I've never heard a single Scooter song!

THIS MUST BE RECTIFIED

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

it's at about 118 this week on downloads only - hmm

Re: SHOW YOUR WORKINGS

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The trouble with this is I forget my workings half a second after ticking! I ended up giving her surprisingly low scores which don't really correlate with how much I like her: the strongest things MIA has going for her are, boringly, her actual songs. The external stuffz is kind of sucky.

Reason I am a 'Boyz' hata

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

No memorable lines! Without memorable wordplay MIA is just an art student trying to do reggae.

Re: Reason I am a 'Boyz' hata

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, I... I agree with you! :)

Re: Reason I am a 'Boyz' hata

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

:D

She really needs those vocal and linguistic hooks to work, whether it's "hey hey hey hey, uh-uh hey hey hey hey" or "doggin' on the bonnet of yr red Honda".

Jeff falls into authenticity trap

[koganbot]

How does calculated not make you eccentric?

Ambivalence

[koganbot]

Can't sing for shit, great force to her music (this actually wasn't ambivalent, was a high rank)
Can't dance for shit, great color sense (this was ambivalent, but I forget what I put and can't be bothered to click and find out)

Still think Piracy Funds Terrorism beats all that follows.

Re: THIS MUST BE RECTIFIED

[koganbot]

Reminds me of LCD Soundsystem (but seems to be far better)

REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

(these are the dudes we're going to see at Clubland Live Oh Dear God)

Re: Jeff falls into authenticity trap

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Good point. That's a non-sequitur. But I still say she's pretty normal as pop stars go. (Also, back-at-ya: what does authenticity have to do with any of this?)(And who cares about authenticity anyway?)

Re: REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[koganbot]

Confirms my theory that techno-rave is really a form of "rock." (But I am using an obsolete def'n of "rock music," i.e. music that rocks you out.)

Is this considered "real" rave or a bastardization?

Very good, by the way.

Re: REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I will listen to both of these over the weekend and report back.

Re: SHOW YOUR WORKINGS

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

M.I.A. is not a great pop music artist. She is a musical artist who has written and recorded several great pop songs. There's a difference!

Re: REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Oh it's definitely hardc0re techno rather than rave. The thing is, Scooter have been going for donkey's years & are Germany's biggest selling artist (unless you count Boney M, I think) so to a lot of Europe everything else is a pale imitation of Scooter. In the UK they're pretty much a joke, mainly because of this:



(That's the last one, promise!)

Re: REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[koganbot]

So when he keeps saying "rave" and "ravers" and such he's lying?

Re: REFUGEE EDUCATION NUMBER TWO: Scooter's earlier output :)

[koganbot]

to a lot of Europe everything else is a pale imitation of Scooter

Europe is correct. (Except for the stuff that is a pale imitation of Boney M.)

My Analysis of M.I.A's Carrer.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I heard one song that was awful. I heard the one about paper planes, it's okay, I like the cash register sound. I have the notion that she's totally Sunday Observer/Times/etc colour supplement fodder.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Without disliking her output in any way, she's just one of those people I've never got at all. I might have tried harder in the days when I was, ahem, bigging up the output of the Apache Indian. Other thought: All Saints totally ripped off her shtick for that one song, and sold less than nothing. Sounding like M.I.A. is even more career toxic for others than for her.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I gave her zero for everything except Visuals, which I concede she does pretty well. At any rate, she is far too indie to give points too.