AYIP Supplement August 2008: Masks and Whips and Microphones

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

After a quiet July, August got us back to over twenty #41-#75 hits on the UK singles charts. These are tabulated below, with youtube links except for where I couldn't find any (Nicki Bliss??). WHATEVER WILL YOU TICK?

[Poll #1259801]

Four of July's 11 tracks are ahead of the 30% mark as of the now, a pretty good proportion actually. Three of them are Ladyhawke's "Paris Is Burning", The Feeling's "Turn It Up", and Goldfrapp's "Caravan Girl". But way ahead in front, and indeed leading the whole thing, is "I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me" by Annie (from Bergen), with an impressive 81.8%!

No disqualifications occurred this month.

Comments

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

I shall tick BWO bcz they make me laugh. When I hear them, I have a vision of Mr. A. Bard trying to genericise pop to a place where there is nothing left but references and allusions to other pop. (I realise & appreciate this is not a lexish project, but it has anatolian appeal I'm afraid!)

Being Swedish, he obviously does this by combining ABBA with someone else, in this case Madonna:

ABBA 1) Title.

ABBA 2) "Take the chance on me"

ABBA 3) At 2:00 in vid, Voulez-Vous riff

Madonna 1) "Dance, dance, dance to the bourgeoisie" = reference to her "Music", than which I can recall no earlier reference to the "bourgeoisie" in a pop lyric.

Madonna 2) "You're confessing on the dance floor", well duh ect.

I've missed a lot I'm sure, but the thing here is surely we are the lab rats. Or something.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

M2) "Dance all night with the bourgeoisie" rather.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But even then the references are clumsy and hackish rather than subtly meta! I mean that bourgeoisie line barely scans and makes no actual sense. Even Rachel Stevens did this better.

Also would that BWO dude had learnt something from Abba and Madonna about how to make pop sound good.

[koganbot]

I'm considering ticking BWO, despite my disliking both singer and lyrics. I like the melody and I think the rhythm and instrumental flourishes are powerful. That said, I haven't actually ticked and probably won't. To do so would feel like ticking Alphabeat, which I have done once but only on behalf of a remix. Equally borderline are DJ Q (voices good but all the "fun" sounds are not only distracting but undercut the force of the track), Boys Like Girls (I get zinged nicely by the harmonies in the chorus, but I hate the nasal dorkboy sound of the voices, and ticking these guys would feel like ticking the Jonas Brothers), and LL (the track sounds too diffuse; also, as I've said, I'm in giggle mode when it comes to hip-hop/r&b lovemen).