Poptimists Tracks Of 2008 PART FOUR

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The hairy cornflake returns with Nos. 20-11 of your favourite tracks of the year.

20. GIRLS ALOUD - "The Promise"

Perhaps a lower-than-expected showing for perennial Poptimist darlings GA - their retro-themed video is not embeddable.

17=. MARIA DANIELA Y SU SONIDO LASSER - "Duri Duri"

This year the chart's been particularly good for niche enthusiasms getting a welcome shot of publicity. Here's sometime Podcast Panellists MDYSSL with some very bouncy pop.

17=. LILY ALLEN - "The Fear"

It's not even out yet! Though, unlike Cassie, it will be.

17=. KLEERUP ft MARIT BERGMAN - "3AM"

It's not just Robyn who gets to voice moody Kleerup tracks you know.

16. BEYONCE - "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"

If you liked it then you should have embedded it.

15. ALPHABEAT - "Fascination"

Sign of the music biz times (if true): Alphabeat have apparently been dropped by their UK label because their FIFTH single off their album flopped. Remember them this way! (NB the Bimbo Jones remix picked up a fraction of the points here).

14. RIHANNA - "Disturbia"

Last year's runaway winner makes a decent showing again.

13. HOT CHIP - "Ready For The Floor"

They really are trying to look like Buggles in this video, aren't they?

12. SOLANGE - "Sandcastle Disco"

Solange Knowles outpolls her sister, even if she hasn't outsold her.

11. KANYE WEST - "Love Lockdown"

Non-embeddable warriors! Kanye might feel hard done by here to be honest since SEVEN different people voted for this. If we were doing it solely on mentions he'd be at #5.

What powerhouse kept him out of the Top 10? Check back tomorrow when ALL will be REVEALED (and then at the weekend for the monster list of everything).

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Wasn't even aware of that Kleerup track. Is this what poptimists pay attention to instead of hip-hop? It's not very good, a dull song made more dull by the Casio preset production and her incredibly lifeless performance. She seems more interested in the idea of melancholy than actually, you know, singing as though she feels it.

This is the first time I've heard Maria Daniela &c too - this is not what I was expecting! It sounds like it's about to go into maiahiiii maiahaaa at any point (a bad thing). Lest anyone think I'm a total grump, I have discovered one amazing song in this rundown - the Veronicas! '4eva' passed me by when everyone raved about it so I never bothered with this, but 'Untouched' is rather special.

I like 'Ready For The Floor' OK but am pleased it's not higher. Can't think how this would end up as an elite song, it's not that it's bad but it's just...not as good as so many others.

Am guessing Solange suffered from vote-splitting? 'Sandcastle Disco' is better than 'I Decided' (and the bloody Freemasons mix had better not have got any love), though as I didn't vote for either I can't complain.

The news of Alphabeat getting dropped may have made my day :D

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

(Speaking of hip-hop: ONE hip-hop track so far (Lil' Mama)? ONE? Despite this being a stellar year, singles and albums wise? Oh, poptimists.) ("It's not big in the UK" doesn't wash as an excuse given half of these!)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I've still never heard Taylor Swift. I probably should at some point.

[koganbot]

[koganbot]

I wouldn't bet on Taylor this year. "Should've Said No" is great great great but not so great as to have made my Poptimists list (I have it as number eighteen), and since it was a two-years-old album track I don't think the people likely to like it here noticed that it was a single this year on the country charts. "You're Not Sorry" is very good (my number thirty-five) but hasn't been getting much attention (as a single was digital-only), and "Love Story" is good but I'm guessing it's not getting three voters - or even one - on poptimists.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

Was 'Tim McGraw' this year? I would have voted for that as my #3 if I'd remembered that it came out this year!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

(what's kanye then?)

(ok, so this album might be emoelectro, but he's still hip hop, right?)

Results 1 - 10 of about 9,770,000 for kanye hip hop.

Results 1 - 10 of about 6,100,000 for kanye not hip hop.

looks conclusive to me...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Kanye is a (former?) hip-hop artist who has made an album which is not hip-hop in the slightest!

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I voted for Sway n Stush (which I'm very disappointed not have seen so far, I can't imagine it'd be top 10 so figure it's not here at all), plus a TI track (Dead and Gone) which I imagine I'm the only person who voted for it, which is a shame as it's bloody fantastic.

[koganbot]

I think the Sway n Stush has a chance.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I should've voted for Sway & Stush but it ended up coming in at like 30th on my list (http://alexmacpherson.livejournal.com/215505.html).

My favourite TI track of the year was 'Let My Beat Pound' but I did consider voting for 'Whatever You Like' as his biggest hit (which I like) but then um didn't. 'Dead And Gone' is slated to be a single next year and I think it could be huge, it's definitely Justin's finest vocal performance in years.

[koganbot]

Is not as big as it used to be in the U.S. either, even though the number one album is Tha Carter III. I don't know what to say. In 2004 my P&J singles list was all hip-hop or dancehall hip-hop in combo, the one exception being "Galang," which itself was informed by dancehall and hip-hop. This year one hip-hop track snuck into my P&J list at number ten, V.I.C.'s "Wobble" - the sort of track that inspires Nas types to declare that hip-hop is dead - and it only placed nineteen out of ten on my Poptimists track list. Of the 35 tracks I was considering for the list, two were out and out hip-hop tracks (the aforementioned "Wobble" and Vein's "Get Up Stand Up" f. Pitbull) and a couple of the r&b tracks had guest rappers (Missy on Danity Kane's "Bad Girl" and Young Jeezy on Mariah's "Side Effects"). The only hip-hop album to seriously contend for my P&J was Kead Da Sneak's uneven (and v. long) Deified. Last year was - for me - fairly sparse as well: two hip-hop tracks in my P&J (one of 'em dropping from my Poptimists tracks list) and three r&b tracks w/ featured rappers. A lot of it is my not looking nearly as much at hip-hop as I was a few years ago. It used to be where I'd listen first, now it comes after a whole hunk of other things. And the decline of ilX has played a role here, since the last I looked at its hip-hop discussion - a couple years ago - it had descended to a lot of snarky half-articulate bullshit. (How's ILM these days? I go to rolling country every couple of weeks, and every now and then I'll also look at the New Answers lists and click on a bunch of threads, with the usual dull results.)

A good deal of this is me: even 1999 through 2004, when hip-hop was first in my sight, I was being engrossed musically in it but except for Eminem it wasn't touching my heart, a lot of the most interesting music coming from the thugs or from frat hoppers like Lil Jon and Ludacris. "Get Low" and "In Da Club" were my numbers two and three for 2003 and would do just as well if I made a decade list for the '00s (number one is "Beware Of The Boys," also from that year - is the Bhangra track "Mundian To Bach Ke" with Jay-Z added very prominently). It's incredible music but part of me just didn't give a shit.

But also, hip-hop doesn't seem to be dominating the U.S. the way it used to. Sure, T.I. and Kanye and Wayne are up there consistently on the charts, but they're hardly dictating the style.

My proofreader took the day off

[koganbot]

Kead Da Sneak = Keak Da Sneak

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

ILM is fine. I ignore like 90% of it but I'm used enough to the regulars on the rolling hip-hop/r&b/techno threads (and even like some of them!). More about sharing new music and immediate reactions rather than "conversation" but that's fine, I go there because there's so much enthusiasm and hunger for hearing new music - I absolutely need to share that somewhere and nowhere else really provides.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

GENERAL POPTIMIST WARNING: Stay WELL AWAY from the Freemasons' remix of "Sandcastle Disco": it's poor even by their recent, radically lowered, standards.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Presumably she benefited from non-splitting, unless you think that she's got another song in the top ten?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"Ready For The Floor" I in the end didn't vote for (I thought it wouldn't need my support) but it's my favourite indie song of the year, by which I mean it's the song this year which does 'awkward vulnerability' best. I assume others got off on that too.

Glad you like the Veronicas!

Solange didn't suffer MUCH from vote-splitting. Again, I didn't vote for her, but I was pleased to see this one do well: it got some buzz over the year but not as much as it deserved.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Someday someone is going to have to explain this "awkward vulnerability" thing to me as it pertains to stuff like Hot Chip (as opposed to the Cassie-esque vulnerability that I like).

'Sandcastle Disco' should've been the lead single - once 'I Decided' established that the Solange Knowles project wasn't a commercially viable thing, it did get forgotten about somewhat.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

it amuses me you like Sandcastle Disco this much when it is much TWEER than Air France (too melancholic to be properly twee).

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

'Ready For The Floor' wasn't even the best Hot Chip single this year - one of my Top 10 votes went to them for 'Hold On'.

I've got a funny feeling that Kings Of Leon might make an appearance in the Top 10. I know they scored big points from me, I can't imagine that no-one else voted for them at all, and they haven't featured from 67-11.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that your imagination is faulty, but then I am applying the same "logic" to MGMT.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Am guessing Solange suffered from vote-splitting?

My favourite Solange tracks are all non-singles, and with one exception I decided not to bother voting for things that weren't singles.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I decided not to bother voting for things that weren't singles.

Snap! (NB not that Snap)

No album tracks or leaks in my top 10.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

The Kleerup song would have been even higher if I'd remembered to vote for it. I actually love her voice, it's not exactly technically brilliant (just like Cassie) but I think she brings across fragility and vulenrability very well. And I guess I'm just a sucker for the retro 80s casio production.