Poptimists Tracks Of 2008 PART ONE

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

THE MAIN EVENT! These are #s 50-42 of the Top 50 as voted for by you (there's a tie at #40 so we'll see those tomorrow). Thanks to the miracle of embedding disabled by request you'll have to investigate some of these away from the comforting womb of LJ - sorry, it's The Man's fault.

50. BRITNEY SPEARS - "Womanizer"

Something of a fall from grace for poptimists favourite Britney: the nudie video to her song about a machine that makes women can be found here.

49. BLACKOUT CREW - "Put A Donk On It"

A lesson we can all learn.

47=. THE VERONICAS - "Untouched"

Imperious, desperate teenpop.

47=. DAVEIGH CHASE - "The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA"

Something of a surprise entry, this isn't a single or even released track, it's a performance from TV drama Big Love, which I had never heard of. I will leave it to its nominators to explain the context (tho you can get the gist on Wikipedia)

45=. PUSSYCAT DOLLS - "When I Grow Up"

Embedding disabled on all PCDs' videos, here is this one.

45=. BLACK KIDS - "I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You"

It strikes me that Universal are shooting themselves in the foot a bit by refusing to make the video from nindie pan-flashers Black Kids embeddable! Hear its jaunty retro-jangle here.

44. PUSSYCAT DOLLS - "I Hate This Part"

Them again! Beating its fellow Pussycat track by a whisker - here the girls get a bit more sensitive.

43. IDA MARIA - "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked"

A scratchy vid that takes me back to the halcyon days of Mambo Taxi etc. Not much talked about on Poptimists, it seems to me.

42. PALEFACE ft KYLA - "Do You Mind (Crazy Couzinz Remix)"

For whatever reason, funky house hasn't caught the poptimist imagination the way bassline did last year (though actually I think only T2 showed up in last year's poll). I like Kyla, she has an honest face.

Check back tomorrow for #40-31!

Comments

Re: FAO Big Love fans -

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I believe it's from the second season, I don't know if it has spoilers in though.

Re: FAO Big Love fans -

[koganbot]

I've never seen Big Love so I can't say if this contains spoilers, and its context on the show has nothing to do with why I voted the song. I doubt that there are significant spoilers unless you were expecting various of the characters to be dead at this point in the series (then again, the scene could be a flashback, for all I know). But in any event, you can always listen and not look, since there's no dialogue.

As for the song's context outside the show, it was a country hit for Donna Fargo back in 1971. Is a treacly song about domestic bliss, though with interesting social detail (what's a Bojangles clock?) and connubial overtones, a couple waking up in the morning - newlyweds, I'd assume. And the context of America questioning its moral bearings in relation to Vietnam and drugs 'n' sex and the pill etc. probably gave the song a defensive tinge, which it still probably has. Fargo's singing is somehow both jaunty and placid, giving it a smugness which (as I'm saying) is false in its time. In this new version, Daveigh Chase sings it with an extra twenty wallops of emotion, bordering on a wail, which communicates the intensity of the narrator's passion but also implies that some sadness that the bliss relieved her from is nonetheless present anyway, maybe hanging on from the past or just being a part of the narrator's makeup. Reminds me of Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las.

Actually, I read a five-word description on Rolling Country of the character's role in Big Love, and my guess is that the context of the show makes the performance less complex and interesting than it actually is.

If Daveigh Chase can consistently sing as well as this, she's one of my favorite singers going, though YouTube evidence is sparse and not necessarily positive.