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.

[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.

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.)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

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

[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.