Another Year In Pop: 26

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

We're halfway through the year, and Ne-Yo and Jordin/Chris have Coldplay trapped at no.2 in a cunning pincer movement! Elsewhere Mariah finally hauls her dead grandmothers into the top 40, and enough people downloaded '99 Problems' in 2 hours to get it to number 95...

[Poll #1213640]

(apologies for the deleted entry - forgot to put the last two options in!)

Comments

[koganbot]

Ironik "Stay With Me": Pretty song vocodered and chipmunked while a dull guy talks in front. I've nothing against chipmunking in principle; it works best when there's something fundamentally delirious about the material. Whereas, the melody here would be "pleasing." If this is a cover I might like the original. NONTICK.

Glasvegas "Geraldine": Pretty riffing w/ big drums and sub-Bono balladeer singing half-extravagantly in front. The prettiness isn't all that pretty, the passion is not credible, the accompaniment is just padding. Rote. NONTICK.

Mariah Carey "Bye Bye": As Mariah tracks go, this is easy, a summer mist, occupying a range between sentiment and bubbly. Most interesting feature is that her passionate payoff near the end is mixed way back so as not to disrupt the mist. A definite TICK, but I miss the Mariah of intensity and irresponsibility, the madwoman of the melismas.

MGMT "Electric Feel": A dance song that deliberately doesn't want to get its feet untangled. I like the bass part - it's a stub, you can build moods and beats around it, a late-night swaying motion. And the unemphatic singing could augment the mood, letting the feelings penetrate without their being pushed. But in this instance being unemphatic doesn't prevent the vocals from unmusically amateurish, the basic indie wet blanket. Compositionally interesting, but the singing makes it a drag. Really, I don't see what these people gain by failing to hire some dime-a-dozen, competent session singers. NO TICK.

Freemasons f. Katherine Ellis "When You Touch Me": Competent belt-it-out soul singing that in this instance doesn't deliver, since this doesn't just need competence, but a song. There is a song here, but it's given to 'Rama-Girlsaloud unison backup singing, and the blazing belter gets in the way. Freemasons triumphed last two times up, this is a disappointment. BORDERLINE NONTICK.

Courteeners "No You Didn't, No You Don't": The rhythms slide around each other interestingly, a shambling facade masking actual force - which doesn't make me like the rhythm, however, as it is too fast and pushy for dancing, an unintentional antigroove. Singer has a casual way of not-quite emoting, mere restraint pretending that it's nuance. NO TICK.

Black Kids "Hurricane Jane": Puzzles me. As with the MGMT, this has a gaggle of not-quite-together, not-quite-musical voices. Not the accidental antigroove of the Courteeners, but dance music that emphatically doesn't want to kick. Why? BEMUSED NONTICK.

Proofreading

[koganbot]

being unemphatic doesn't prevent the vocals from BEING unmusically amateurish