poptimists | POPTIMISTS REVIEW OF 08: Most Horrible Pop Thing

You're viewing

poptimists
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

freakytigger.livejournal.com posting in

As before* this is being done canon-style - you get THREE picks plus! whether you pick the X-Factor or not in the main poll you can take part in the special sub-poll.

[Poll #1312786]

*all polls will be open until the end of the year when official results will be posted.

And remember - send yr list of 10 top tracks to leagueofpop@gmail.com before the end of the year too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

chuckeddy.livejournal.com

My quasi-defense of the Ting Tings (and why people dismissing them for being arch and self-conscious reminds me of me wrong-headedly dismissing bands like the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode back in the '80s for pretty much the same reasons) (among other tings):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/06/apparently-at-l.html

From:

alexmacpherson.livejournal.com

PSB (and Depeche Mode, of the little I've heard by them) had a superb grasp of songcraft though - their appeal (to be a bit reductive) was in the way their surface self-consciousness was allied to really substantial lyrics and melodies, like a Trojan horse sort of deal. The Ting Tings don't have anything except their mannerisms.

From:

koganbot

I think you were right the first time about Spandau, Duran, PSB as to their draining the life from disco (which doesn't mean they weren't any good at all, of course)(and recall that last year my number one single had a Spandau Ballet sample).

By the way, I still haven't made up my mind about the Ting Tings. They've got something - force, a way of focusing the attention, OK beats. The singer is an irritant, but "irritant" isn't necessarily bad. She seems nice in interviews. She sings like an idiot. I gave them "borderline nonticks" whenever they showed up in Another Year In Pop, with the proviso that I was to go back and rethink (which I haven't done yet, and I have less than three weeks remaining).

From:

chuckeddy.livejournal.com

Oh yeah, I'm not saying the techno-pop bands *didn't* drain the life from disco; I'm just saying that that was no reason to dismiss them as harshly as I did at the time for that reason alone. I'm still not a huge fan of most of that stuff. As for the Ting Tings, I don't love them either -- they made, like, maybe by 135th favorite album of the year or something. Give or take 10 or 15 notches. I'm not a big new wave revival fan, either. But they do the new wave bounce at least as well and consistently as, oh, CSS or Franz Ferdinand, to name two. (Or Black Kids, whose album I actually like more.) *All* of whose singers can also can be irritating. And Ting Tings' singer only irriates me sometimes (with yeah, the drum the drum the drum and eeeee topping the list.)

Bottom line is, nobody I've ever heard who says they don't like arch and self-conscious pop or dance music (including me in the '80s) has ever been consistent about the issue. Erykah Badu and Solange Knowles are at *least* as arch and self-conscious as Ting Tings are -- a lot more so, if you ask me. Personally, I think Ting Tings are a lot more fun. But if folks disagree, cool.

From:

chuckeddy.livejournal.com

Actually, looking back at that Rhapsody post, I *did* kind of say that those Anglo-fops didn't drain the life from disco. Well....some of them didn't. Dead Or Alive maybe. Or Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Or Haysi Fantayzee. Or somebody. Sometimes. But I do definitely still prefer Donna Summer to the Pet Shop Boys (whose first albums, at least through the end of the '80s, I like. After which they drained the life from their *own* sound, to my ears.)

From:

chuckeddy.livejournal.com

(And actually, I definitely do like my couple *favorite* CSS tracks more than my favorite Tings Tings or Black Kids tracks. (Maybe Franz Ferdinand too; that one would be a close race.)