Another Year In Pop: 6

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's nu-mumpop vs old-mumpop! And some other stuff in the busiest week so far this year!

[Poll #1136678]

There is another BIG POLL to come on Poptimists today - DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL especially if you like BORING OLD ROCK MUSIC (erm). EDIT: BIG POLL delayed until tomorrow, sorry dudes.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

GOOD:

Timbaland - hey this is much better than I remember it being, in fact I think it's not just "any good at all", it is unreservedly GREAT. Intriguing opening line - what, pray, are so special about Venetian skies? Like...Venetian blinds, but not? Er. Unless Timba's mispronouncing "Venusian skies" in which case, awesomely inappropriate imagery. The whole song has this kind of dreamy all-encompassing untethered blissful feel to it, it seems like it'd be perfect for a roadtrip across America or something. Video is less good: Tim needs to wear a shirt, Nicole needs to not wear a balaclava.

Goldfrapp - I thought Will's write-up of this was brilliant last week, I agree with it. I'm impressed that they went back to this sort of pastoral sound - going glam on Supernature may have been commercially successful but it sounded so rote and dull in comparison to their other stuff. I love the yawning, cavernous moment midway through which sounds like it's going to swallow you whole before the song comes back, bigger and more forceful than before. Really great lyrics too, and the way you only half-hear them (because she doesn't enunciate) is very effective, you feel as if the song is coming at you through a haze.

BAD:

Michael Jackson and will.i.am - when I heard will.i.am's album one of the oddest things about it was how little personality there was to it - I hadn't expected that from someone who'd been increasingly obnoxious and out-there with his productions. Of all the things will.i.am could be I didn't think he'd be boring! Here he does the same thing to an MJ song which wasn't exactly exciting in the first place. WVS.

The Feeling - a half-decent tune struggling to bust free of the band's inherent wimpiness. His voice is so ineffectual.

WWW - I didn't realise they still had a career and am somewhat dispirited to discover that they do.

30 Seconds To Mars - I think Jared Leto is gross, personally. For all the vidfeo spectacle and bluster there really isn't much song here, is there?

Adele - as I said last week, wtf is she playing at here? Patriotic but stupid seven-year-old responds to 7 July for homework assignment. Embarrassing.

Morrissey - I got so annoyed when watching this last night, seeing this racist fat fucking CLOWN strut around on stage, smugly rewarding the faithful with his pearls of wisdom as if these banal lyrics meant anything or offered any insight at all. It's so pompous and self-congratulatory. I hate him so much.

Biffy Clyro - had lost will to live by this point let alone actively subject myself to a Biffy Clyro track :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Somehow, despite Timba making such a big deal out of his presence on 'The Way I Are' and 'Scream', both songs seem...oddly anonymous? Like, so generic that they sound less like "Timbaland, Most Important Producer In The World" and more like some dude ripping Timba off? They both play by the rules to the letter, and end up somewhere quite amazing and pure, because it's the gorgeousness of the sounds and melodies somehow divorced from Timba being annoying. It could be anyone, so it's...universal and all-encompassing.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've still listened to that album a grand total of 0.8 times, and something pretty spectacular would have to happen to get me to listen to it now. Timbaland is background telly music, not music I make an effort to listen to.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's still a bad album! 'The Way I Are' and 'Scream' both benefit from being taken out of its context.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

as would 'Bounce' and 'Miscommunication' - making Shock Value almost a half-good album.

Reposted from a post last week...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I thought the Goldfrapp was better than previous Goldfrapp and WBS made it better yet, but she seems to be a better trendwatcher than executor - pretty much EVERYONE ever accused of nicking ideas off Goldfrapp does them much better! I am hoping that her new barbed softieness heralds a Frazier Chorus revival is developed in intriguing ways by her peers.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Wetx3 - Marti Pellow looks blimmin' awful these days. It's not your fault Marti, it's the ravages of time and heroins. Could he invest in a paper bag with holes for the eyes or summat? Hahahaahhahahaha he just said 'floating on the winds of DESPAIR'!!!!! Zomg this is truly awful. Not even my mumpop love can earn this a tick.

Lovely The Feeling - HOORAY disco stomptastic. Obbly-obble-oo!

Morrissey - I can't name a single Morrissey solo thing I've liked. God he's a c0ck. At least Marti Pellow seems resigned to his fate and is taking it on the chin, Moz is turning into Cliff Richard without the charisma.

Goldflop - botherd. I've seen this a few times and it has gone right over my head. Not dreadful, not interesting.

Biffy - sounds promisingly like the Hoosiers, but after waiting three mins and still no chorus they can sod off.

MJ & WIA - nice samba milk bottle noise but the song underneath isn't inspiring me.

Timbaland - another single? Blimes he ain't half milking this album. The tambourine is painfully high in the mix, tho that might just be the youtube rip I'm listening to. Poor Keri and Nicole are drowned out! This will probably grow on me in the next zillion weeks that it'll be on HitsTV but until then, no tick.

30STM - ahhhhhh I remember who this lot are, it's Jared Leto's band innit? I can tell by the BUDGET. Is this in celebration of Chinese New Year or something? hahahhahaah go cry emo Jared. He's even got fingerless gloves on, awww. Where was I? Oh yes, botherd.

Adele - CHEER UP LASS fer fvcks sake. She has no fingerless gloves OR smudged eyeliner so what's her excuse?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's only the fourth single from the album! 'Give It To Me', 'The Way I Are', 'Apologize', 'Scream'. It feels like much more because all of them have been bizarrely massive hits, sticking around for ages - it seems solo-Timba is now far more successful than Timba-as-producer (despite the album being unanimously dismissed by critics).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

It's at least the 5th - that one with the Hives was released too.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Not according to everyhit or polyhex...

[koganbot]

According to Wiki it reached number 50 in Australia, possibly because the Australians confused the Hives with the Vines.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

OK so it wasn't released in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_It_on_Me), but I remember the video floating around on the telly last year.

[koganbot]

Yikes, I was only one song away from DON'T LIKE ANY, then at the last minute an unlikely ringer from last week snuck me into tickland.

Wet Wet Wet "Weightless" - I know this is going straight for the mainstream AC market, but as such it's sorta rocked-up new age as if Enigma had decided to become a stodgy rock group. Not awful, but wanky. Ticks nought.

The Feeling "I Thought It Was Over" - Good melody, strange shifts in chords which defeat the melody, and I agree with the fellow upthread who spoke of the band's inherent wimpiness. Ticknot.

Morrissey "That's How People Grow Up" - Voice is huskier than in his famous days. This has the man's inherent presence but doesn't connect as a song, and the huskiness makes it wearying.

Goldfrapp "A & E" - The voice is warm, but ends up as boringly respectable Feist delicacy; and when the pitch rises the delicacy thins into something infantile.

Biffy Clyro "Who's Got A Match" - Walking gingerly around the edge of the melody, nothing about this reminds me of a fire. Song has potential, but the rock clumsiness ruins it.

Michael Jackson f. Will.I.Am "The Girl Is Mine" - Never was wild about this song, but this stands up in the real power and ease of the singing. But Will.I.Am is fuzzy and clodmouthed, and I don't see why I should reward this for taking an OK song and making it worse.

Timbaland f. Nicole Scherzinger and Keri Hilson "Scream" - Beautiful, the way the females sing "Scream," but Timbo has pushed the foreground so far back that the interesting drum thumps become an impediment, and I'm not feeling this (esp. given how little support the genuinely pretty "Apologize" got in these quarters). Strange. I don't know - except I just don't want to hear Timbo's beefy voice at start and finish, even when he's doing an intentionally funny loveman parody; funny doesn't necessarily sound good.

30 Seconds To Mars "From Yesterday" - Kind of overemoted, but this is nice until the giant power guitars come in. From that point, the histrionics are searching for and not finding an actual good melody to get all bothered over. No tick, even if Angela Chase once loved him.

Adele "Hometown Glory" - I hate the way these tropes play culturally: lush but not too lush piano, slow-voiced lounge alto* - I might insultingly call it "folk-lounge," "folk" because she retains a socio-regional** nonupscale accent while being thoroughly upscale (Starbucks here we come). But I vastly prefer this to the irritating, quirky "Chasing Pavements." In fact, the lushness is lush enough to bury the irritating aspects of the voice (and make the lyrics ignorable, and so far I've ignored them). So, in fact, this is the serviceable mainstream AC that the Goldfrapp and Wet Wet Wet tracks fall short of. Tick.

*Is "alto" the right term for her voice?

**You guys will have to identify the socio-regional accent for me (it may merely be a psychosocial region on the musical landscape, rather than having an actual physical location).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Wiki says Adele is from Norf Lahndahn. As much as I like the bit of Norf Lahndahn where I live, I can't quite comprehend why she's extolling the virtues of Tottenham as the majority of said locale is really quite grim (no offence martinskidmore!). Not even background-grim in a optimistically cheerful Junior Spesh people-actually-live-here way, but in a soul-crushing rubbish-strewn retail park estate oh-god-lets-move-to-Slough-instead kind of way. Though it's not as bad as Edmonton.

[koganbot]

Thank you!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Wess Lunnun 'swell more wicked enn-way. Blatantly.

[koganbot]

Btw, every other song on Adele's MySpace is dreadful.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's even consciously extolling Tottenham per se - in fact I don't think she's consciously thought about the lyrics AT ALL, there aren't any specifics of anything in there, it's entirely composed of vague platitudinous we-shall-overcome clichés or just plain LIES. Like in the first verse:

"Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I can call?"
"No and thank you, please Madam. I ain't lost, just wandering"

Since when do people do this in Tottenham! Or even in London! Or ANYWHERE. It's as bad as Sandi Thom, except instead of yearning for a golden age which never existed, Adele's pretending it still exists.

And then:

I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades

We're a verse and a chorus in and this is the closest we get to ANY kind of specific visual imagery about this hometown she's been going on about - and it could be ANY city in the world. Adele's an Everygirl and this is her Everytown, and instead of making her feelings and her home seem universal enough to ring true she makes them sound banal and cardboard.

I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides

Shows that we ain't gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united
Shows that we ain't gonna take it
Shows that we ain't gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united

What shows that?? What, in any of your lyrics, shows that we are united?? "Everybody taking different sides"??? I can't go on. Adele is so fucking stupid. How has this dumb bitch managed to be so successful?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent example of why I don't normally bother paying attention to lyrics :)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Sometimes they just LEAP OUT at you!

Adele's music: zzzzzzzzzz.

[koganbot]

These lyrics are impressively idiotic.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think I was being a bit harsh on Tottenham above. It's an ok place really, just probably not worth writing an emotional song about. I mean, Ickenham is a perfectly great place to grow up, but if I was going to write a wistful song about it I'd write about the tiny patches of it that I experienced, or at least try and capture what makes it unique.

Wherever it is she's from, I find it all a bit strange.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

My blog has had stupid amounts of hits today from angry Jared Leto fans, seemingly pissed off that I dared to call 30 Seconds To Mars 'emo.' For a start, get over it. But also, surely they are about as emo as emo gets?

Goldfrapp is lovely, none of the others are that amazing but I ticked Morrissey for the sake of it cos I'm a big indie loser.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Ooh I meant to say the other day, I like the design for the blog! Robyn in a spacesuit!

[martinv.livejournal.com]

With a big space-gun! Thanks :)

[koganbot]

I'd think you'd get hits from angry emo fans.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I dunno. When I were a lad, emo meant something entirely different to what it seems to these days. This lot look and sound a bit like My Chemical Romance and such, who everyone seems to describe as emo (and which I deliberately refer to as eyeliner-emo due to its lack of connection with anything I used to understand as being 'emo.')

I should probably stop using genre descriptions if they're going to wind people up so much!

[koganbot]

The whole point* of genre descriptions is to wind people up.

*well, some of the usefulness of genre designations is that they give people something to fight over

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

The Moz song, as I was saying on Tom's LJ the other day, did at least made me stop and think about it - what is he trying to say? We concluded he was probably trying to have his cake and eat it. But the fact that he can still push my buttons makes the song tickworthy. Also, the backing is unusually dynamic for a Morrissey song.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

i like the Adele song, but it very strongly resembles 'Breathe Me' by Sia.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I love The Feeling's song so much, best thing they've ever done, and I'm very grateful to whoever played it at the last Poptimism!