Another Year In Pop: 5

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Tough luck Adele - Basshunter is still giving you a slap round the chart chops! The top 5 is looking pretty familiar, but what else is going on in this week's chart?

[Poll #1132774]

(Apologies if I've missed anything or repeated anything - the blimmin' Radio 1 page hasn't put up the new entry/high climber details yet so I'm going on guesswork here.)

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Alexis Taylor can only dream of having the emotional pull of Jeremy Greenspan's voice! HC are a lot more ramshackle and have-a-go than J Boys (which is why they're nowhere near as good).

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I think they're about on a par with the Junior Boys but I love the Junior Boys' best stuff far more.

I think his vocals are fine and actually quite affecting when he's doing soft and fragile. What bothers me is when the tempo and the abrasiveness pick up and he comes across as someone trying to punch above his weight and failing. Out At The Pictures for example. It's a minor quibble though, I really like the album on first listen.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha it's the other way round for me. I think his songwriting skillz - melodies, hooks and so on are good enough, and the propulsiveness of their dancey numbers effective enough to carry him along, but when the arrangements are sparser his vocal failings are magnified a lot more. (A pity because I think some of their ballads would be really, really good with a better singer, or someone who wasn't so QUAVERY at least.)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i disagree here. if anything Taylor's voice being even brittler at times can result in an emotional pull just as strong as Greenspan's but in a different way.

if the Junior Boys did something uptempo i don't think it would sound any less 'ramshackle' (maybe this is why they stay slow).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Maybe Greenspan just knows his range better but he never sounds as if he's straining to hit any notes (and he can belt it out at times, and he's not averse to sustaining notes). I can't imagine J Boys would ever sound ramshackle - they make a point of always sounding very clean, pure, pristine; and when they're remixed to be uptempo it's always worked fine.

The key difference between Greenspan and Taylor though is that Greenspan's voice comes into its own when the music is stripped away (eg 'When No One Cares' or 'FM'), whereas Taylor's sounds exposed.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i don't really like the sound of Greenspan's voice as much tho to be honest, so any technical superiority isn't so relevant to me. i do like the JB's but find them less fun (as i'm defining that for this argument's sake).