Another Year In Pop: 9

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Stagnation in full effect at the top end of the chart, with the entire Top 6 non-movers and the next four just shuffling about a bit. Is there anything going on at the back? See for yourselves!

[Poll #1148002]

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

got a bit excited at the prospect of ticking all four but not feeling the Leona sadly.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

# of new entries in first 9 weeks of 2007: 68 (7.6/week)
# of new entries in first 9 weeks of 2008: 51 (5.7/week)

Record industry contraction? Download effect? Fluke?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh man all my comments got eaten - very quickly:

ALPHABEAT: First time I've heard them I think. Disappointing back-to-1983 power pop done with enough gumption to get a tick.

DELINQUENT: Obvious to me now that all bassline for the next 6 months will get a tick. Combination of delicacy and wub-wub bass works a treat.

GIRLS ALOUD: Tick witheld for releasing the worst track on the album as a single.

LEONA: Big ballad, big chorus, happy to tick this on the promise of seriously anthemic ghey trance remixes to follow.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Leona - hmmm dunno about this. My beef is kind of the same as with that last Alicia Keys single: her vocal is less gasping but there's hardly any variation in the main melody, just an "aaaeeeaeaeaeeieiieaaaaaa" around the same old notes all the time. They should have pumped up the backing vox (the 'allll get better in time' bits) and given it some depth. Can't find any remixes on youtube yet :(

Alphabeat - I love this, mainly because of their perky faces. The dude looks a bit like Morten Harket was presenting Playschool, ie lovely. I'm sure I'll get sick of it soon but awwww they're so cute.

Gels - It sounds much better if you haven't listened to all the best tracks on the album just beforehand. Oh go on, tick.

Delinquent - ah this was on video club, wasn't it? Yep, tickety tick.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

YES:

Delinquent and Kcat - awesome obv, deserves to run away with the win. The most 2-step of the bassline hitz thus far - love the plucked guitar line, love that Kcat sounds like she's in some sort of blissful reverie, omg is this BALEARIC BASSLINE?? It's beautiful regardless.

Leona - I thought this was OK when I youtubed it a week or so ago, which is exactly what I thought when I first heard 'Bleeding Love'. Over the 5000 years 'Bleeding Love' spent at No 1 I gradually realised that it wasn't merely OK, it was in fact a classic pop song of epic proportions, so I'm hoping 'Better In Time' does the same. (It's a double A-side with another song called 'Footprints In The Sand' which is genuinely rub, though.)

NO:

Girls Aloud - this is the first GA single EVER which isn't "any good at all" :( It's just very boring.

Alphabeat - making office parties gayer doesn't make them any more fun ffs. Galumphing, clumsy, offensively jolly. Awful. You're all going to tick this and not Delinquent, aren't you? :(

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

You're all going to tick this and not Delinquent, aren't you? :(
Not me! These 80s pop revivalists are leaving me cold too. I'm not really feeling that BWO single either. Sorry, Jessica.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

I've hated BWO longtime and am irritated to find them in the top 75.

OMG though what is that I see at No 98 - wtf BENGA AND COKI'S 'NIGHT' IS IN THE TOP 100. How did that happen???!!! Amazing but...wow. I wonder if it will go any higher!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It's quite an old BWO song - what's it doing there?

It's also the only BWO song I really like so I will happily tick it if it goes higher.

Their last album was really woeful.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

The first time I heard Alphabeat I thought it was a song from 'High School Musical'. But that's all right!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

It is unfortunate that the only one I haven't yet heard or ticked is the Leona. Which I am sort of meant to be writing a review on, like, yesterday.

Anyway. Alphabeat wildly underwhelm me most of the time ('10,000 Nights Of Thunder' sort of massively pisses me off) but 'Fascination' hit me at a weak point in Woolies the other day so that's alright, the Delinquent ft. KCat is between 'quite good' and 'amazing' as far as I can remember although admitedly I haven't actually listened to it for awhile and the Girls Aloud is alright, although I always skip it when listening to the album and if they don't release 'Girl Overboard' or 'Damn' soon I will pretty much explode.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Surely all it takes for a track to reach #98 is for it to be bought by Benga, Coki, and their mums?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of post-Bucks-Fizz Eurovision contenders, mostly. There are worse things in life than sounding a bit like Belle And The Devotions* - but there are plenty of better things too.

*or whoever.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I have never seen the BWO thing but this is because I am a massive miserabilist. 'Fascination' has some quite good mumpop aspects.

Listening to the Leona now it is sort of functional. Maybe it will become amazing, although probably only if it also gets a Jamie Duggan remix.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's more than eg The Knife ever managed! Anyway I assume Benga, Coki and their mums all got round to buying 'Night' sometime in the past year it's been out.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

BWO don't sound all that joyful to me. They sound spineless, wimpy and wet. Also they appear to be totally unaware of the concept of BASS.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Knife are all orphans brought up in the Arctic wilderness by a raven.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, good point.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It's also that 'Night' just...doesn't even approach being commercial in any way. It's DUBSTEP, dubstep is this weird lurching abstract music which no one even tried to pretend could ever cross over, like they did for grime and so on. It's the least poppy genre in existence. It's incredible that ANYONE outside the dubstep community is listening to this, really.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I think it's the lack of bass that gives me the impression they are cheery. The shiny factor sort of puts me off a lot.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

DITTO, totally.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I think if I'd heard Alphabeat before I saw the video I would like it a lot more. In the video they look like Belle and Sebastian / Franz Ferdinand Glasgow indie hipster c*nts, which jars with the era which the song is harking back to and makes what could have been a pleasant romp sound hollow to me. I realised the other day that Vampire Weekend sound like Orange Juice, reimagined in a post-B&S world.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Really? Have I got the right track (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNStVlJWy88), then? I'd buy this I think, it's got a nice high end, lots of proper bleeps (not that "proper" bleeps are neccesary, but they are nice), though I can see why the video is all about the "In the Deeps".

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i played felicity then oxford comma on saturday to kind of make this point. unfortunately miss_newham didn't follow "you can call me al" with "cape cod kwassa kwassa" later in the evening...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah I love it too and it's a total club anthem but...I mean, apparently for whatever reason this is actually getting daytime airplay on R1, and I can't even imagine that. I mean, since when did tracks as slow and dark and crucially instrumental as that sell outside of their communities?

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Alphabeat album is rather underwhelming. Only half of it's good, the rest is kind of functional but dull.

NOTE RECORD COMPANY PEOPLE: If you get a hit with "Fascination", please do not release "10000 Nights" as the follow-up. For god's sake, "What Is Happening". That is all.

I remain the only person who thinks that "Can't Speak French" is the obvious third single on Tangled Up, and I can't be arsed explaining why. I can't bear to listen to any of the songs off it past "Control Of The Knife" so I must be an old curmudgeon by now but THERE ARE NO TUNES IN THE SECOND HALF.