Another Year In Pop: 8

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Not an awful lot going on this week - Duffy's still at the top and the highest new entry is at 23. But I guess there must be people in the UK who haven't managed to buy the 'Valerie' single yet in the last EIGHT MONTHS, mustn't there?

[Poll #1144046]

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

The Taio Cruz ft. Luciana song is AMAZING. On basically every level. I can't really discuss it further than that right now since I am basically asleep but just take my word for it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It is amazing, isn't it! I was not expecting it to be so amazing!

Delinquent remix also urgent & key.

People who like this should check out 'Stereotype' by Tinchy Stryder and Goldielocks.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes! I downloaded it immediately after I heard it for the first time yesterday.

[spazhammer.livejournal.com]

i used to be mates with a guy called chris brown. he turned into an arsehole.
the singer chris brown has an annoying littttthp. i just cant get past it when i hear him singing.

seems a pretty poor week for singles. i dont hate the ronson cover of radiohead, but i'm already sick of hearing it (and the original is infinitely better). its a pretty bad showing when craig david is my favourite of all of the singles (and i hate craig david!)

ho hum.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Taio Cruz - AMAZING as has been pointed out! UK R&B reimagined as electrohouse, but without losing any of its r&b-ness. Works as a great parallel to where US R&B is heading these days, the whole return to 4/4, too.

Chris Brown - awww I love him and won't hear a word said against him, even if his soppy ballads are only OK in a sweet "aw bless" kind of way and really he should stick to the dancey numbers.

Craig David - mm, reheated but still lukewarm '1 Thing' three years too late. The contrast between this cheap, lazy crap and Taio Cruz couldn't be sharper.

Yael Naim - good god I feel nauseous at all the twee. DREADFUL hippie bollocks lyrics! Without knowing anything at all about this, I am guessing it has been on some sort of advert? Feist suddenly has a great deal to answer for.

Mark Ronson - vile in every way. Also, he is too fat to even hatefuck now.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

NB: re Chris Brown, did anyone d/l 'No Air', that duet with Jordin Sparks I posted the other week? AMAZING. Actually he can do soppy ballads after all hurrah.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Yep, Yael Naim is on the latest Apple advert, so the Feist comparison is pretty fair!

& Yes, I downloaded No Air - it is amazing, I've been listening to that and Shawty Get Loose (which is even better) loads.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The surging chord change on "got me out here in the WATER SO DEEP" is incredible. 'Shawty Get Loose' should make everyone reevaluate Chris Brown's own 'Kiss Kiss' from last year, which got absolutely overlooked on here, but really it's a pretty brilliant, loose-limbed proto-'Shawty'.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

That Chris Brown song really really reminds me of Beyonce's Irreplaceable...and just checked and they are both written and produced by Stargate. Very similar tunes and production.

I am very excited about the Lil Mama album now

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Ditto, if it ever emerges from the mire known as "Release date scheduled for 'sometime in 2008'"

I think Stargate (with Ne-Yo!) did 'Hate That I Love You' and 'Good Girl Gone Bad' for Rihanna as well last year - I really like this new acoustic strain of sappy-but-conflicted r&b ballads.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Aha x-post! I thought I detected Ne-Yo-ishness in there.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I figured that the recent appearance of the new single (and the involvement of Chris Brown) meant that it was finally closer to appearing. She's too good to be left pre-release purgatory for any longer.

& yep, am with you on this new style of R&B ballad

[koganbot]

Yeah, I've got "No Air," which I think is much stronger than "With You."

Chris Brown is perennially overlooked. "Run It" was totally amazing, some kind of a breakthrough, the r&b achy ballad but dipped deep in crunk darkness, Scott Storch really nailing his own style.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Me toos on "No Air". It might get my vote in the Feb "what's the best thing you heard?" poll actually.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah 'Run It' is classic 4eva - brilliantly generic, by which I mean that it's like the distilled essence of that sort of crunk-pop production, it sounds very pure. 'Gimme That' was also great! And there's a great reggae rmx of 'Yo (Excuse Me Miss)'.

also, BOOOOOO

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

to Duffy keeping H2O off No 1 :(((((

We need a bassline No 1 stat. 'Heartbroken' peaking at No 2 was easier to take because 'Bleeding Love' was a monster, but everything else in the top 10 pales into insignificance next to 'What's It Gonna Be?'

I note, too, a complete lack of 'Paper Planes' anywhere in the top 75! Even Nick Cave does better than MIA. (I quite like that Nick Cave song, too, the first thing by him I've liked since...2001, must be.)

Re: also, BOOOOOO

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh actually MIA isn't properly out until 4 March anyway, was confused as it's already available to d/l. Maybe she can score her second top 75 hit next month!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

the Craig David one has a better approaching-bassline remix where the chorus works well (i heard it on 1Xtra) so ticked on that basis only.

[koganbot]

It's a Ryan Leslie remix. (Is the original Ryan Leslie, too?)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Taio & Luciana - I'm no fan of Miss Screechy and her middle 8 clangs, but at least she's in the background here and sounds less sneery than usual. The electro beats is good and I like the 'come on girl' chorus but the verse is really dull. Taio has a lovely warm singing voice but if you're going to have zero melody then you need a more interesting backing than 'bip-bip-bip'. Or you should just take off the vocal entirely and let the (perfectly good) backing stand up for itself. I can't tick this but I'll come back after I've given the 4x4 mix a listen.

Ronson - Oh bugger off.

Brown - Good footwork there Chris! He's quite sweet, isn't he? Is this a Ne-Yo production? It's VERY 'Hate That I Love You'. Which I like. Awww, tick for def.

Yael - This song makes me want to kill myself.

Craig - not as good as Lets Dance but still enjoyable.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I declare the 4x4 mix GOOD (http://youtube.com/watch?v=KV6-jr2S-_o)! It totally addresses my beef with the original, making the verse way more interesting, keeping it simple when there *is* a vocal melody, plenty of mentalness to distract from Luciana's awfulness. OK this does get a tick after all.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

4 out of 5 ticks! Not a bad week. Chris B and Craig D were marginal ticks, though; Craig gets one mainly because I felt sorry for him after Terry Wogan started taking the piss out of his diction on this song.

The Yael thing seems to be the epitome of what The Lex was moaning about on the Duffy threads last week.

[koganbot]

Yes to the Lex moan, and this song really does make the connection between singer-songwriter and neo-jazz-soul (hence making Lex's Tori-Bjork-Courtney-PJ references not as irrelevant as some commentators claimed).

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

If I've only heard one song, and don't like it, is it fair to tick "don't like any"?

[koganbot]

Yes! (You can't say that you like the ones you haven't heard, can you?)

Anyway, since when is this about fairness?

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I guess I didn't mean "fair" so much as "not going to fuck up the stats."

[koganbot]

We Murricans have been fucking up the poptimist stats for a couple years now.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I prefer to think of it as "saving them from themselves".

[koganbot]

But you should give the Taio a chance (even if it doesn't quite hit its home run).

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Whoa. There are too many songs in that song. (Might grow on me, though.)

[pony-meat.livejournal.com]

with you has a great guitar line, simple and sweet

[koganbot]

Hmmm. Could have ticked none, could have ticked all (well, almost all), I fell in the middle:

Taio Cruz f. Luciano "Come On Girl": Beats are brutal for what's at least nominally a seduction song. The whole thing is rather demanding. This is good, actually, this combination; falls down though when he starts singing, which is just kinda merely nice. A letdown from the tension of the talking. This should have been an easy KO, just gets by with a narrow decision, but a TICK for sure.

Mark Ronson f. Alex Greenwald, Phantom Planet "Just": Certainly liking the playful horns and such, and nice jittering funk, and I like the melody and also the way it's willing to veer in a few different directions. But this singer is trying to do the sly floating thing, and really, they need someone who really can float slyly, LIKE ASHLEE SIMPSON, FOR INSTANCE. This guy ain't Ashlee. And this could use less jitter in its funk, I've decided. But the guy's OK, and this is a good song, so TICK it is.

Chris Brown "With You": Pretty boy, pretty singer, pretty song. I'm rather "um" on this, though. It's pretty. It's easy to ignore. Hmmmm. It's beautiful. I'm bored. NO TICK.

Yael Naim "New Soul": Yikes! The quirky singer-songwriter disease has infected France! This is playful. Ack! Playful and quirky at once! But it's low-key. Ack! Playful, quirky, and low-key at once! With bits o' jazz in the vocals! Ack! (But there is a niceness to this half jazz and half-navel gaze.)(You guys realize that Marit Larsen totally obliterates this, don't you? And without having to resort to jazz.) Not as terrible as it could be, but emphatically NOT TICKED.

Craig David "6 of 1": Easy competence, beautiful beats, a-hop a-skip a-glide. I can't fault this, but it needs more ice and fire. A marginal TICK, I guess.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I gotta tell ya, "Just" is still one of my favorite Radiohead songs. The Ronson cover is fine. (Thom definitely doesn't float slyly in the original, though.) Weirdly I have a feeling Thom could be at least slyer about it now; a lot of the In Rainbows stuff was nicely restrained, not so much pasted-on sneer. (But I like the pasted-on sneer in "Just"! Because he's supposed really shallow, right? ....Right?)

Taio is great tho weirdly I almost wanted it to be shorter and cut off the guest spot. Didn't listen to Yael, will wait for the iPod commercial and I sorta like Craig David but for some reason I'm actually going to leave the house instead of listening to it.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Yael's on the Airbook commercial, I think.