Yet Another Year In Pop: 1

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Welcome to YET ANOTHER year in pop! The UK charts were pretty dismal at times in 2008 - let's hope things pick up in 2009 and we can end the decade with a bang (though I expect it will be a while before Alex Burke is knocked off the top). So what sparkling new releases are going to rejuvenate and invigorate the virginal charts this frosty Monday morning?

[Poll #1325705]

Hmmmmm. There are barely any tracks in the top 75 that haven't been hanging around since at least November but patience, people! There's plenty of stuff scheduled for release later in the month (including a new Helen Love single? WTF???).

(Also: you have until 12noon GMT tomorrow to go back and tick any of the 2008 polls that you missed out or have changed your mind about!)

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Rudolf? Get with the dateline, grandad.

2008 pollage

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

well that gives me something to do this afternoon ;)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

can i just say thanks to Kat for doing these posts - they are now my favourite bits of poptimists posts

(i don't agree that 2008 charts were dismal)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

What was good about them?

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i know you didn't like them. but i did. i liked a lot of the number 1s for starters. it only went really bad right at the x end.

not a vintage year, i'd agree - but i was saddened with poptimists dissing of lots of chart fodder this year.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

One of the big problems is that only 2/3 as many songs got into the charts as in 2007! So even if the level of quality had remained exactly the same, the statement "There are less good songs in the charts this year" would have been true. And it meant the OK ones stuck around long enough to become less OK, while the bad ones stuck around long enough to be horrid. We've moved a big step towards a slow-moving US style chart, I think.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

good point - the 'hanging around along to annoy' factor may explain a lot of what i've not liked on here. of course 'there are less bad songs in the charts this year' is also true - making it even better than ever, you novelty driven ADHD fools you! :-)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

for me it wasn't just that the songs at the top of the chart were mediocre-to-bad (though I really disliked a lot more big hits than I usually do) - it was that there was so much AWESOME music which just wasn't charting at all, for whatever reason, so I resented the ones which did make the top 10 even more than I would otherwise have done.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

"there was so much AWESOME music which just wasn't charting" but this is always the way. the chart is that sort of a beast. the stuff i really REALLY liked this year was not going to seriously trouble mass charts - much as i would love it to. (to everyone else's dismay i'm sure)

[koganbot]

Some would stick around and grow on me, except that I never listen to British radio or watch the British video stations.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

7 or 8 "DON'T LIKE ANY"s out of 52 tells its own story, I feel (and there was some very generous ticks from me in some other weeks to avoid more of those)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

We've moved a big step towards a slow-moving US style chart, I think.

SEVERAL big steps actually. I happen to have this lying around:



(It's for Top 75, btw.)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

(or, to be more precise:
Nov 52 to Sep 54: Top 12
Oct 54 to Apr 56: Top 20
Apr 56 to Mar 60: Top 30
Mar 60 to May 78: Top 50
then Top 75)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

wow that is striking

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Yeah I just noticed this graph says that 2008 had the fewest entries in an all-75-year EVER!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've written a big thing about this on FT - hope you don't mind me using your graph!

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/01/the-strange-death-of-the-uk-charts/

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Cool! Don't mind at all!

Actually it occurred to me after posting that it could probably make an interesting post in itself (incl discussing those other ups and downs as well), but by then it was late at night, so didn't happen.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

of my top 100 tracks, only 18 were made the top 40 altho there's probably another 22 top 40 hits i rated so i could have a top 40 top 40 of the year

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

When are they going to release some properly good music, eh?

Although that said I do listen to 'Just Dance' about five times a day and have been doing so for the past six months.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

generous tick to all three woot

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

yes!

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Just Dance gets an 'any good at all' but I really can't see why there's quite so much fuss about her.

Sugababes really are shit now aren't they? How did it go wrong so quickly after being good for so long?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I think their latest stuff is the proverbial Return To Form (although they're picking all the wrong tracks as singles).

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

ah..I was basing my opinions on the singles, which have been awful. Which are the good album tracks then?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

My favourite at the moment is the closer, "Can We Call a Truce".

I also like "You On A Good Day" (pop side) and "Side Chick" (R&B side). "Beware" is in the tradition of sassy Sugababes songs. "Unbreakable Heart" is another good one (starts like a ballad, ends up as a dance track). The worst you can say about all of these is that they remind you of other songs they've done. Mainly I like the album cos all three are now really confident singers, even/especially when singing solo.

[nunya-b.livejournal.com]

butting in, but in my opinion the entire album aside from the two singles is more than sound; i even adore "hanging on a star" which has some fergie/gwen chanting bits and should by all rights be terrible, but is not.

"murder one", which has since been retitled "every heart broken", is one of the very best songs they've ever done.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I got too annoyed by the Lady GaGa video over the holidays to give it a tick. Maybe when the irritation wears off? This is why I should not go near video channels.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

what a gross week to start of the year.

LADY GAGA - needs to fuck off and die, seriously. so much fuss over such an unremarkable song - it's the kind of thing you'd barely give a second thought to if it was by some random faceless eurocrap producers, neither good nor bad but just there, but babble on about artistry in a gwen stefani wig and suddenly you're the saviour of pop? fuck off! it's instructive to compare her to fergie and nicole scherzinger: the former has the mentalism that "gaga" pretends she does, the latter is the permanently-ON pop star that "gaga" would love to be, but they're either unwilling or too dim to act up in interviews so are dismissed out of hand. "gaga" went to school with the hilton sisters, right? she's so much more the annoying rich white girl than they are.

SUGABABES - best of the bunch by dint of not actively pissing me off or indeed impinging in any way at all. so boring. they haven't sunk as low as girls aloud but their days of "any good at all" are pretty firmly behind them. the album is even more bland and filled with non-songs than the last one.

KEVIN RUDOLF - oh jesus god no, i am already having to dodge phone calls from his PR at the rate of five a day :(((((

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

You should still tick "Just Dance" for being any good at all, though.

[lastclearchance.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree with Lex but it was still the only tick for me this week, in a year that I'm hoping to actually keep up with YIP.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

also between this and the comments on funky house, i am beginning to give up on poptimist taste completely.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

longest beginning ever!

[ijgrieve.livejournal.com]

Not a great start. Ticked Sugababes only, and that was borderline - its not one of their best efforts by some distance.

[koganbot]

Lady GaGa f. Colby O'Donis "Just Dance": What this is, it's a terrific early '80s postdisco stormer - problem being that GaGa-RedOne-Akon felt they had to juice it up into a modern heavy-legged stomach puncher. Given that these days so many songs or not-even-songs that are self-consciously retro are meh, this is one that would have been better if it had been self-consciously retro. BIG TICK, but also a missed opportunity.

Sugababes "No Can Do": I'd call this a fascinating reimagining of '60s feisty Motown as '70s smooth disco (or as '00s neosmooth neodisco) except that this is hitting me... well, it's not hitting me, is another track (like the recent Girls Alouds, for example) where I feel as if I'm listening through a scrim. "Retro" is actually becoming a field for a lot of interesting experimentation, but some of the experiments are busts. NO TICK.

Kevin Rudolf f. Lil Wayne "Let It Rock": I've heard worse techno rockers and better Wayne interventions, but this is surprisingly gentle and pretty, made me smile when it first appeared here in Murrica.

[koganbot]

Forgot to add that the Kevin Rudolf garnered a TICK from me.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Wait, so which choice are you supposed to tick for "Haven't Heard All of Them, But Don't Like Any of the Ones I've Heard"? (I can't say "Don't Like Any" if I haven't heard them all, right?)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes you can! Or you can youtube, which when this feature began I conscientiously did for every new entry, but hen you realise that life is too short for some of the dross which charts over here.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm totally lazy about youtubing songs for no good reason (i.e., that don't sound like I'd probably like them). And I probably miss a lot of good songs that way. But hey, I'm old and stuck in my ways. So I guess if I haven't heard all the songs, I'll just lie and pretend I have!

[koganbot]

Xhuxk, you realize you can go back through all the 2008 weekly polls and tick things, though they're being totaled up tomorrow at noon Greenwich Mean Time, which doesn't give you long.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

You can change your vote by clicking on the "Poll #xxxxxx" bit!

I tend not to fill it in until I've heard all the ones I might concievably like.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was quite liking the Sugababes until the chorus. I might still tick it though, it's better than "Girls" and I'm in a good mood.

The Kevin Rudolf is better though, so I'll tick that instead. I don't think this week deserves two ticks really.

[nunya-b.livejournal.com]

lady gaga and her ridiculous "avant-garde" impersonation of a bad drag queen version of donatella versace can rot in hell. "just dance" is not good. it is not fun, it is really very boring, AND it features patented akon goat warbling along with- get this!- an akon impersonator. she can fuck off. and her album is worse. i am really saddened by the record-buying public's acceptance of her.

in sum: she is one of the new "celebrities" whose death- not just disappearance into obscurity- i actively clamor for.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

still mystified by this amount of hate she's attracting from some quarters. the level of hype is stupid altho i find it easy to ignore (not going out of my way to hear the album but will probably like one or two tracks on it). it annoys me a lot more that 'Just Dance' has been around so long (half a year?) and has only just made it into the UK charts. ridiculous.

song itself is OK, catchy if irritatingly casual/could do a lot more.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

What annoyed me most was having it tacked on to the end of all Universal's new youtubes for about 3 months arrrgh arrrgh go AWAY.

[nunya-b.livejournal.com]

to be fair, i only developed this hatred after having had a careful listen to her album. which is an abomination.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

All of these are almost properly good in some way, without even clearly being Any Good At All! They sound to me like someone trying to imitate the style they should properly be bang in the middle of, or something. 3 x borderlines, one way or another...

Also, no-one's commented on "No Can Do"'s blatant "I Want You Back" likeness? That actually sets it back a bit for me. I quite like "Girls", btw, now I've got the album!