poptimists | Yet Another Year In Pop: 5

PCDs - this is on the telly RIGHT NOW and it is great - even better than 'When I Grow Up'. They're so much more at home when they have a ballet bar thing to drape themselves over and the one on the end can do her perpendicular leg thing.

Lily - still awesome

Shontelle - v dull retread of all NeYo/Chris Brown songs from last year combined

Not heard the others yet.

I know about the Airborne Toxic Event because of the minor spat caused by a review of them from Pitchfork, which said that they were an embarassingly overwrought combination of current meaningfulcore nindie tropes (LCD, Arcade Fire, Killers, etc.) The band wrote an "open letter" back, which was hailed in blogland as them sticking it to The Man. As a representative of The Man I stayed well away and didn't hear them as they sounded like they'd be unbearable. Having heard this track by them I am pleased to say that The Man in this case was quite right.

Lily Allen - don't hate this as much as I've hated her stuff in the past but the beat is too tinny and I still can't get with her voice, that accent &c

Tommy Reilly - wtf is with dude's mewling enunciation? like if David Gray was trying to emulate Devendra Banhart, but EVEN WORSE than that?

Shontelle - 'Irreplaceable'/'With You' redux, sure, but it has its own charm I think - admittedly this was only brought out by the remix with The-Dream (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-IlqKnL5FM), but it made the original better in retrospect. Her album's not bad, need to listen to it a bit more to get into it - she's more the female Ne-Yo than the new Rihanna, in that her strength is her songwriting and the way she depicts/evokes specific situations in her lyrics, rather than any particular performative skillz

The Fray - do not exist to me

PCDs - it hurts to withhold a tick here but this song is just lame, clumsily galumphing beat in search of a point, and no hook to speak of. It was like the only boring moment in their otherwise awesome show last week, even more dull than the non-Nicoles' solo bits. I blame Missy. Why are 'Bottle Pop', 'Halo', 'Magic' or 'Hush Hush' not singles yet.

Airborne Toxic Event - who? what? why? awful pompous emo, GO AWAY

Kyla's 'Do You Mind' is at No 48 btw. On the one hand, hurrah! first incursion of UK funky into the charts! On the other, it had better go higher...

TI's Dead & Gone has appeared in the lower reaches too, and that's before the vid's even been released. It'd better be a huge hit.

The video is being filmed on Thursday in LA and I shall be on set!

The PCDs is well below their usual standards but still tickable in my generous estimate.

The Lily song, somewhat to my surprise since I've not been that keen on her before, is my favourite pop song of the year so far.

It surprises me more that you weren't into her before. What's different now? It seems very "Lily does Lily" to me, though obv she's doing "Lily as celebrity urchin" rather than "Lily as London street urchin".

Sadly I'm pretty sure that the PCDs won't grow on me any more, as I've been trying to get into 'Whatcha Think About That' since the album came out, on the basis that if it was chosen as a single it must have something to it, but - to paraphrase the new Ciara - if I don't love it by now, I will never ever love it. It's their first duff single I think :(

Maybe I find Lily talking about celebrity more appealing that Lily talking about London street life! I think it's her strongest ever melody, and I also think it's well-timed: the celebrity satire stuff is way too blunt but something about the song seems to chime with the unease of a country emerging from a consumer bubble. Perhaps I'm just being too Carmodic though.

Oh god that interpretation had not occurred to me but aaagh.

a) I can see how it would fit with the lyrics
b) I'm sure Allen herself will catch on and try to claim this interpretation herself
c) Even though it was probably 100% inspired by bitching about some no-name WAGs
d) Which means that it annoys me EVEN MORE.

Have you heard the new Crazy Cousinz track? It's called 'Inflation' and is based around this amazing ascending xylophone riff and looming, menacing synths - there's definitely a zeitgeisty feel to it! It is the most perfect synthesis of "good vibes" and "recession doom".

Hahaha terrific! I must hear it.

Lytton has got very keen on "Heads Shoulders Knees And Toes" by the way - I am surprised nobody has scanned a certain London Paper article in for Poptimists!

People can feel free to do so! I have three copies of the thing, but no scanner. Fame at last. 'Heads Shoulders Knees N Toes' is so good, I did the dance at Night Slugs on Friday. LAYDEEZ LEMME SEE YOU GET DOWN LOW :)

I'll upload 'Inflation'...

what is this mysterious London Paper article? Not all of us live in the snowy iceplains of the metropolis.

it is a half-page picture of me raving at Night Slugs - it's one of my fbook photos - accompanying a Chantelle Fiddy piece about London clubbing, inc. the 'Heads Shoulders Knees N Toes' dance craze.

b) This is the interpretation she's been giving all along, though.

I think the Lex is getting stuck on content and personality here: the big difference with The Fear is that Lily is serving the song, rather than just the whole thing being a vehicle for her attitude (I really like Smile, but not much else she has done until now). And it's a kind of whooshing tune, and she's never done anything that sounded like that before. Sonically – as I may have said before – it is far closer to About You Now than to any of Lily's previous stuff.

Of course there is a hook! Bay-baaaaaaay-eh, bay-baaaaaaay-eh...

I have to say I haven't really listened to the album that much. As in more than once. Um.

idk the "He got to go!" bit just seems like a huge signifier of attitude w/out anything to back it up to me...

I'm not surprised re: the album, it is 18 tracks long after all (apparently including the various itunes bonuses, it comes to a total of 23 tracks wtf). 11 of those tracks I have never listened to again, but it's worth it for the seven I've incessantly jammed... ('When I Grow Up', 'I Hate This Part', 'Halo', 'Love The Way You Love Me', 'Hush Hush', 'Magic', 'Bottle Pop').

i still can't get over how amazing halo is. i've sort of ignored the rest of the album as a result.

How amazing is the outro? "I didn't mean to fall from grace, I didn't mean to fall from grace..." And how perfectly suited to the role of corrupted angel is Scherzinger?

it blows everything else on that album so far out of the water... and the cat noises at the start are a genius touch. nicole's perfectly suited to the bitterness, it can support a bit of oversing as she's wont to but doesn't let it get too out of control. it could have the most amazing video set in a police interrogation cell, too.

Tommy Reilly: winner of the Orange Unsigned act thingy last week, hence his appearance here (it was on telly)

I have no idea how or why he won, as this is beyond awful.

lily- oh fvcking go on then. i quite fancy her in the video.

tommy reilly- don't know, don't want to know.

shontelle- think i like this one.

the fray- i played their first alBUM 45874898977 times due to it being soft comforting MUSH of the sort that is jolly good when you're having a bit of a wobbly but i heard a bit of this on 'the arse with miquita' or something and it was total dribbly pantsxcore. of course this is mostly true of their first album, too but situationalism and that.

pussycat dolls- didn't actually rate this one that highly on the album but works quite well on its own. if they don't release halo i am going to be VERY CROSS.

airbourne toxic event- fvcking ridiculously overblown melodrama with absurd ideas-above-its-station. tick, then.

i just checked and the shontelle is ace. if anyone has ticked 'if i was a boy' and not this then you are very deeply wrong.

a) they are named after a weighty cultural metaphor oops no I mean a bit of silliness passing itself off as portentous and significant in a not-very-good Don Delillo novel. (Although the joke may be that the whole novel is a parody of novelistic self-importance in which case it is too clever for me).

b) 'I know, everyone liked that LCD soundsystem song, you know the one about 'all my friends'. Fucking hell, even John Cale liked it, and he was nearly no. 1 everywhere in the world with his cover of Leonard Cohen, so he must be good. Why don't we make a song which SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME BUT LESS INTERESTING and take the electronic bits off so we don't scare the horses.'

c) put a donk on it you miserable c*nts.

that is my response too to the name JEEBUS cite novels that AREN'T written in order to be cult-stud set texts plz thx bye (i quote like delillo's novel abt lee harvey oswald but blimey he writes dull grey sentences)

"dull grey sentences" <--- call yrself this!

Lily Lily Lily Lily. I am seven thousand miles away from the cultural context that makes people dislike her or get offended by her, but my guess is that if I were closer I would like her even MORE, would comprehend her cultural dissonances and restlessness as even more dissonant and restless! What she does without fail is to put cultural and personal dis-ease in beautiful settings, which alway works as music rather than as cheap irony - or works as music as well as working as cheap irony, I should say - because she is absolutely, totally, committed with her heart and her brain to the beauty, even if she has to sample the beauty as she did in "LDN" which I still think is her best song.

Anyhow, the week's songs in a wrap-up. The Fray live in my town and are reputed to be very nice people:

Lily Allen "The Fear": Girl w/ scrappy-voice-gone-gentle. Does it pretty well: lush setting, Lily lyrics that suggest anxiety, of course; the gentleness a balm, which is not "of course"; is touching, actually. TICK.

Tommy Reilly "Gimme A Call": Lo-fi guitar is pleasant, but what's impossible to take is the vast, ugly, sloppy wooziness of the singer. NO TICK.

Shontelle "T-Shirt": Coulda been a good combo of sauciness and loneliness, girl in nothing but the absent guy's t-shirt. But the voice is nothing too. NO TICK.

The Fray "You Found Me": A friend of mine back in my NY days wrote a comic piece entitled, "Opening Lines Of Books I Stopped Reading After The First Line." Iirc, one of 'em was "I first met Jesus Christ in a bar in Acapulco." Anyhow, this song is that book. (Actually, this tune does have a zing in its chorus, but there is far far far too much and too loud of a whine. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if back in my singing days my own voice had just such a whine. Horrible thought, isn't it?) NO TICK.

The Pussycat Dolls "Whatcha Think About That": Prime silliness w/ the anti-Dude chant at the start, followed by a sweetly aching "baby baby." But when the song isn't going "baby" its stuck with its drab melody, and the chant sounds tedious when it returns. NO TICK.

The All-American Rejects "Give You Hell": Toy keybs, and even at the start, before klonking our brains down with the inevitable guitar crunch, these guys are already buffeting us with scratchy pillows. NO TICK.

The Airborne Toxic Event "Sometime Around Midnight": Warm strings make me a bit queasy right at the start, and the sensitive, affected voice intensifies my biliousness, though I think there's some talent here, the godawful but half-effective emotionalism and those guitars coming down like curtains. But, "She's holding her tonic like a crux"? No! NO TICK.

I think "I first met Jesus Christ in a bar in Acapulco" could be a decent opening to a Cutter's Way-style hippie burn-out noir.

What happened to All-American Rejects?

Must've failed the audition.

I used the yahoo chart today as the OCC hadn't updated yet - either it wasn't on there or I just missed it. Probably the latter :)

Lily Allen - the fact remains: she as an awful voice. And she ripped off a Madonna video. And stop with the potty mouth. No tick.

Tommy Rielly - it's 2009, the economy has collapsed, we don't need singer-songwriters anymore, we have to prioritise. If I were a girl, I wouldn't call him. No tick.

Shontelle - She sounds like all the other R&B singers, wow, totally generic. It's better than the first two though, don't think I can tick it.

The Fray - Nu-AOR! I'm gonna tick it, I can't dislike everything.

PCD - This is Big Bro taking over the flow...er, no...I still can't believe that Nicole goes out with the most boring man alive! They need to make a video where they are wearing lots of clothes and just reading or something. Tick.

Airborne Toxic Event - Epic indie part 5555555999818. Can't tick, won't tick.

All American Rejects - Look very annoying in the video, but I like them. TICK!

Aw I kinda hoped this was the PROPER Tommy Reilly.

Yet Another Year In Pop: 5

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Why would you name your band after a fart?

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HE GOT TO GO!

Re: HE GOT TO GO!

Re: HE GOT TO GO!

Re: HE GOT TO GO!

Re: HE GOT TO GO!

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Airborne Toxic Event

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Actually...

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I listened to them all!

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