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

Only Love Can Tick Your Heart

[koganbot]

Hot Chip "Ready For The Floor": Godawful attenuated indie voice; you who defend it upthread are wrong, and even more wrong is all the poo-poo adorable noises they use for beats. And a pale attenuated tune sounding like McCartney trying to essay a style that's older than he is. And it's quite a good melody, taking this to tickland. Damn it.

One Night Only "Just For Tonight": See, this has stronger singing than those Hot Chip losers do, and a half-way present vocal. But it sounds even more trapped in its style. Also, terrible band name. Borderline, but I don't have to tick if I don't want to, right? So I won't.

Elliot Minor "Still Figuring Out": They describe themselves on their MySpace as "indie-rock-classical." Stop insulting yourselves! You are a teenpop boyband, w/ chops. I definitely should have ticked them last year, but I don't think I did. Oh well, the past is the past. Now all this song needs is an annoying, emphatic emo chorus and this would be, I don't know, a song worth ticking. Instead, we get an annoying, emphatic Bowling For Soup-style wanky cuteness. Hmmm. Borderline. Geez, if I'm going to tick Hot Chip I should tick this. NO! That is ledger book reasoning! (Voice pops in, "But I find ledger books useful in not bouncing checks and ruining people's lives and stuff.") Oh, I don't think I'll care one way or another if I hear this again. My ledger book doesn't care either, so we're in accord. No tick.

Kylie Minogue "Wow": As untickable now as it was before. Could have been a nice, slight bit of dance piffle, except the voice being as resolutely slight as the arrangement makes this almost defiantly negligible, which does not help it sound good.

Mark Brown f. Sarah Cracknell "The Journey Continues": Ms. Cracknell, as far as I'm concerned you will forever be known to me as The One Who Didn't Sing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." Anyhow, here we have an annoying, irritatingly mannered good voice on a classical sample augmented by an annoying, irritatingly mannered good voice from the woman who didn't sing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." But this is a nice song, I'm afraid. Borderline, but a tick, despite my conviction that these arty subdebs need to be punished.

URBNRI "Young Free Simple": Don't know if this is intentional, but the punk-mugging vocals are funny in their pugnacious way. As good ol' clumsy pop-punkers all they need is a tuneful-enough tune and they're on the highway to tickville. So is it tuneful enough? No. Not so bad, but no.

Re: Only Love Can Tick Your Heart

[koganbot]

Just listened to the original "Eliza's Aria" and I have to admit that Brown/Cracknell make it much better in their own context.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I much prefer the original. But "The Journey" just about merits a tick