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

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

We had K Minnow in last year's polls (it briefly nudged into the chart at Xmastide)!

The one you've missed out is the other Adele single, which I don't think ever charted before.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

This link is better than the radio 1 one, as it has the full chart, and is easy enough to see which are new to the top 40

http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hot Chip - this is a lovely little tune but I wish his voice wasn't quite so weedy. I can totally imagine Superpitcher or Apparat doing this in a proper awesome ubercoolische microgoth emo way, but every time I hear this I find myself thinking "it'd be way better with a stronger bassline *there*" and so on. Borderline non-tick as I don't really want to hear it again until someone else sings it.

One Night Only - worst band name ever. They sound a lot like Keane but with guitars. One of the dullest things I've ever heard.

Elliot Minor - aha it's Busted but dressed in black. Not bad but the chorus isn't quiiiiite good enough for a tick.

Kylie - er, again. Whoops.

MB ft SC - god this is dire. Bring back This Could Be Underwater Love!

URBNRI - oh GOD this is even worse. Why would anyone want to emulate Bobby Gillespie's vocal style? Boring riff, boring sounds, terrible vocal.

*sniff* I'm gonna have to go for DON'T LIKE ANY :( :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hot Chip - yes please! as per my review of it. I think it's probably the best song they've ever done though obviously by themselves they'll never touch the skyscraper heights of Erol Alkan's remix of 'Boy From School'.

One Night Only - the entire song sounds constipated

Elliot Minor - not even bothering any more

Kylie - as meh as it was last year

Mark Brown and Sarah Cracknell - OK I guess? probably the lowest level of tickability though

The other Adele single is really fucking terrible, what is she playing at? The lyrics are like a 10-year-old's response to 7 July or some shit. (http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/reviews/story/0,,2249847,00.html)

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

The thing with Hot Chip is always that they're playing round with other styles of music and by and large getting them wrong, but they often get it wrong in a wonderful way. Sometimes they just get it wrong full stop mind and I've never been 100% sure whether the amateurish feel is a fault or a virtue, or swinging between the two several times within the course of one album. This one falls into the latter category. A trancey remix would be nice though.

The Mark Brown/Sarah Cracknell one brings out some kind of Pavlovian response in me where I feel an irrepressible urge to go out and get a mortgage or a bank loan or something. I don't want my pop music to remind me of the financial services industry thankyou.

Haven't heard any of the others and don't really care.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Hot Chip - This one has been going round in my brain all weekend after I didnt play it at Poptimism: HOT CHIP'S REVENGE. I think Matt is right about the amateurishness working on this one. In my head the vocal sounds like China Crisis! Tick.

One Night Only - I quite liked its bounciness but rly is there a special school where they train people to be boring singers?

Elliot Minor - I always think, oh EM get a raw deal, we all like Busted dont we, and then I hear them. They are OK at writing verses that make you think you're going to get a really great pop-punk chorus, on this evidence.

Mark Brown ft Sarah Cracknell - residual loyalty to la crackers doesnt stop me recognising and disapproving of the hook here. Also she's pretty watery on it. Incidentally, there is a fucking DELUGE of post-Feist nonsense on the advertbox at the moment.

URBNRI - SWEET CHRISTMAS. I think the phrase is "God help us if there's a war".

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.