Another Year In Pop: 7

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dudes we've totally got a new number one! Welsh lass Duffy has booted off Basshunter into the murky depths of number three. But is she any good at all?

[Poll #1140294]
NB Tickers should bear in mind that the Utah Saints track is a new remix, 'Something Good '08'.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

if it was a really, really amazing song I'd definitely be able to ignore the other factors, but when the best you can say is "er, it's OK I s'pose" then the impulse to overlook everything else isn't so strong. like the Sarah Cracknell thing from last week. as a song OK, but the very lowest band of tickability. the bank factor was enough to drag it below that.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

It just seems a bit contrary that as a community Poptimists prides itself on the things which would draw scorn from the 'mainstream music media' but there seems to be this inverse snobbery where anything lauded in said media is given a really hard time here. And I just don't get that at all. On Friday night I was drinking with a friend in my house and he was having a predictable rant about Duffy and Adele. 10 minutes later I put on 'Mercy' without telling him who it was, and he loved it. The buzz around the song out there is remarkable and I don't think it's anything manufactured, but even if it was...it just seems so irrelevant to anything.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yes i think it's an inverse effect - it's a shame that it's so difficult to hear Duffy before reading (a lot) about her but that's probably half the fault of the listener who ends up loving it.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Poptimists is totally indie, we've established that many times :)

Seriously though - the media banging ON and ON about something is as good a reason as any to dislike something if upon hearing the song it disappoints as a result. It might be a strange reason, but it's still a reason. I think Poptimism is more about a) not feeling guilty about liking what you DO like b) giving reasons why you DON'T like something, rather than just saying 'that's rubbish' or even worse, 'oh that's bound to be shit' without even listening to it!

Obv I'm not casting stones here, I certainly fall foul of writing stuff off before I've given it a chance.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

it's the other way round though! it doesn't go "X is hyped in media" => "I hate it"; it's "I hate X, or find it v dull" => "why is being hyped in the media, are there maybe any institutional problems here?"

I mean, I love lots of media-friendly music. MIA, Kanye, Timbaland and so on. My problem with the Duffy song is that it's a pastiche with no personality; it doesn't sound actively horrible but I find it worrying that this sort of thing is what gets hype in 2008. It's like, can't we do a bit better?

[datura800.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't buy that for a second, i'm afraid. From the moment all of those 'tips for 2008' articles appeared people seem to have been sharpening the knives. I'm not saying for a second that people are pretending to dislike something, but the hype has massively coloured people's reactions. The Duffy and Adele thing has been of particular interest because people have tied themselves in knots criticising their 'authenticity' (which seems completely nonsensical from this community) and also the fact that they're quite clearly going for the Amy market (which is, ya know, how the music biz works). Fair enough if people actually don't like the songs, but it gets a bit tiresome reading the repeated implications that people who *do* like them are brainless victims of hype while someone who loves Hanna Montana is a daring example of independent thought.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Sorry, "how the music biz works" is too much of a handwave here. If someone likes Amy, and thinks Duffy is a poor man's Amy, saying "well thats just the music biz" doesn't make the song any more tickworthy!

(I ticked "Mercy" and have never given Winehouse a single tick, mind you.)

I think there's a bigger conversation to be had about when imitation works and when it doesn't - maybe Lex's new thread will be a good place for it.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

no of course it doesn't mean they should like the song - but if they like the song then the fact that Duffy has been signed because of Amy's success should be irrelevant. But my point was that people repeatedly use the fact that these women are post-Amy as some terrible thing when it is WHAT HAPPENS. You need only look at the glut of post-Bloc Party or post-Spice Girls or post-James Blunt acts to see that. Yet whatever the merits or otherwise of James Morrison, you never read 'Oh he is only hyped because James Blunt sold shitloads of records' as a criticism. So why it should be one here is a mystery.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

You totally do read that! And about Paolo Nutini! You maybe read it less but I don't think that's because they're men, I think it's because the sensitive male singer-songwriter is barely ever absent from the charts so the line of descent is a bit less obvious.

Anyway the argument isn't "D is an imitation of A" it's "D is an imitation who misses the point of A". I disagree with that specific argument (cos A, on record, is not some fiery hellcat who strikes terror into listeners) but it's a little more subtle than "imitation is bad oh noes". I agree that Kitty Empire milks the imitation line a bit more than she should.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I don't think Amy/Adele/Duffy are radical departures for the charts and indeed, as quick as these writers are to throw up the race card they don't seem to consider the possibility of these artists being influenced by black soul singers already in the charts. In the past few weeks I have read countless articles and blogs attacking the post-Amy record company trend and no, I have never seen that for the James Blunt or Arctic Monkeys equivalent. Anyway, IMO anyone thinking Duffy is just trying to be an imitation of Amy is the one missing the point (not that, as you say, there was much of a point to begin with. It's hilarious how Amy is now just accepted as this bastion of wild, real creativity when she's from the exact same lineage as Adele and Leona Lewis).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

> I have never seen that for the James Blunt or Arctic Monkeys equivalent

The record companies jumping on the Arctic Monkeys bandwagon was ROUNDLY mocked by all! Not so much James Blunt, perhaps because JB was entirely uninteresting as a popstar & his successors easily managed to surpass him*. Seriously dude - did you miss the reams and reams of column inches on regional indie & its desperate clinging to the AM's coat-tails?

*Opinions expressed in this sentence may not agree with the author's own views on Blunt.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I honestly did. And I read a lot. Of course I saw observations that certain acts were following in the Arctic Monkeys' footsteps, but not the reams of 'these acts are terrible, they are only signed because of AM and they aren't remotely as good' that A/D have had. I shall google and try to find some cos it would be interesting to read.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Results 1 - 10 of about 21,200 for "arctic monkeys" bandwagon (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22arctic+monkeys%22+bandwagon&meta=)

(OK admittedly a lot of that is Gordon Brown saying he liked them, just to be cool.)

[datura800.livejournal.com]

Yes none of the ones I looked at were actually about other bands aping Arctic Monkeys.

This article was pointed out to me:

http://uk.real.com/music/blog/2008/01/31/duffy-is-a-woman

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also, you might be right in there being higher levels of backlash this time round, but it could be historical fatigue: dudes are sick of the same thing happening whenever an interesting act comes along. They have seen the Artics/Spicers/Britney clones come and go, and judging by past experience, expect little of the Amy army.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Also, it's an obvious point I guess, but hype is more likely to annoy you if it's aimed at you. Hannah Montana hype doesn't really impact on me cos I'm not a 10 year old girl or parent of same. Whereas I travel on the tube, read the London freesheets etc. so my exposure to Amypop acts is consequently higher.