Another Year In Pop: 21

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm unhappy to see it, but - Snap??

[Poll #1194434]

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Cus of the advert with Brains dancing to it, innit?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Snap - worthy re-entry off back of advert. I wub this song many times over.

Ting Tings - WAY better than the other song! I actually found myself tapping my foot along to this yesterday.

Gusto - terrible rehash of funky house classic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NZk7P1nUI&feature=related). The new vocals are awful - the Freemasons mix is slightly better in that it sounds more like the original with a bit more vworp. Also the video isn't even a proper Benassi. BOO.

Alphabeat - I don't like this at all. They have lost all the perkiness of the first single and it just feels all wrong. Video is rub too.

Not heard Zutons, heard 2 secs of Fratellis on an advert and it sounds awful (ie not even catchy).

Happier news: Ashlee still climbing!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

NO TICK:
Alphabeat -ugh ugh ugh why is this band meant to be saving pop music or whatever? They sound like the crapper echelons of Eurovision.

Fratellis- like Kat I have only heard about two seconds of this in an advert but it sounded like a castrated version of 'Chelsea Dagger' so NO.

Zutons- it is the Zutons of course I am not ticking it. On the other hand, Bloke From The Zutons has grown his hair and actually looks sort of attractive in the video. Woman From The Zutons is still frighteningly thin, however.

Ting Tings- technically I haven't heard this but I am going to say it's crap. Is it the one on the iTunes advert? If so it is definitely crap.

Gusto- absolutely dire re-rub of a song that was never my favouritest thing ever.

TICK:
Snap- this song is evidently amazing. I feel somewhat wrong ticking it, though, like I'm cheating because this song has been amazing for bloody years and I just feel like there ought to be something new and good to tick. Or something.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK so this chart is completely WVS but this other Ting Tings song is like COMPLETELY INDEFENSIBLE CRAP.

I mean it's supposed to be some sort of tribute to having an amazing experience in a club but it can't have been that amazing if the best they can do is this shrill, clunky bullshit. I mean trying to phonetically imitate strings etc with her HORRIBLE ANNOYING SHRILLY MANNERED VOICE is bad enough (aaagh that EEE-EEE-EEE bit) and then when she goes AND THE DRUMS AND THE DRUMS AND THE DRUMS unto infinity...god, you just want to kill. WORST SONG EVER.

And they're called THE TING TINGS for fuck's sake.

Seriously. I dare anyone to defend them.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Not ticking Snap in accordance with The Rule on reissues/revivals.

So Don't Like Any it is for now (although I may tick Ting Tings once I've heard it). The 30-second sample of their alBUM on The R1 Chart Show sounded most promising.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. That Ting Tings song must be onto its third re-release now, no?

Have happily ticked Snap, one of the great dance tunes of all time, especially because of the rapping, and the line "I'm serious as cancer..."

Have ticked Zutons, although I think this is a bit weak by their normally-high standards. I sense that Winehouse's success with 'Valerie' may have knocked their confidence a little, so they've gone for the predictable singles choice to try and cash in, rather than taking more of a gamble with something a little more "interesting".

Fratellis? Have they not been wiped off the face of the planet yet? Grrr.

Special Alienation Week On The Charts

[koganbot]

The new tracks are struggling from alienation but haven't found a way to make the alienation a strength rather than an escape clause. I'm just as confused as last week as to whether the Tings Tings are a Tick Tick. They've clearly got something but I don't know if I want it. Maybe I should get the album just to work this out.

I have the same policy as Jeff on reissues, but it results in one of my rare "DON'T LIKE ANY"s for a week that I actually found pretty interesting. If "Rhythm Is A Dancer" hangs on for a month or so that might mean its presence is to be reckoned with. Surely there are some people hearing it for the first time? Not just tots but elders who were never part of the original target audience and are now seeing the advert? And of course the past is part of the present, but I still don't feel right ticking.

Alphabeat "10,000 Nights": The presentation is really weak. "Pop" in quotation marks. But Annie and Robyn and Teddybears STHLM are all in quotation marks too, but that doesn't mean they equate pop with the absence of all force and character. Is the problem with Alphabeat that they're committed to the weakness more than to the music? That seems like a dumb assumption for me to make. This is actually a good song, a vaguely Motown melody run through a toothpaste machine, given SAW fullness and then having the fullness bleached out, fullness changed to paleness. I Don't Get It! And I WON'T TICK IT.

Fratellis "Mistress Mabel": This is a weird combination of harried and jaunty. There is noise buried among the chords, as if doom were in the background ready to overwhelm it. But (1) the melody isn't a particularly interesting "it" in the first place, (2) the overall sound is unpleasant. But the sound is interesting enough for me to wonder what I might think if I were exposed to the band further, say if I were to start dating someone who loved them. This probably shouldn't be my main motive for getting into a relationship, however. TICKED NOT.

Zutons "Always Right Behind You": More quotation marks. This is roughened where Alphabeat are bleached out, but the result is similarly distanced. And the song is pretty good, and the slide has moments of bite in the instrumental break that have nothing to do with distance. TICKS ARE SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW BUT NOT FOR THIS SONG.

The Ting Tings "Great DJ": Voices not quite in sync, not quite musical, the result is somehow insistent. Closest to a tick, but... POLICY NOT TO TICK ON THE BORDERLINE.

Gusto "Disco's Revenge 2008": I'm listening to the Freemasons' edit. Where the rest of today's tracks sounded distanced, this sounds generic, but the arrangement isn't at odds with the power of the genre. Still, do I give a shit? NO TICKS FROM THE INDIFFERENT.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Alphabeat are a rubbish Lacrosse.

I'm so full of hate these days.

I don't want to be in a world where "Rhythm is Dancer" is re-released. I'm as serious as cancer about this.