Yet Another Year In Pop: 5

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The wintry weather hasn't stopped Lily parachuting straight in at number one; other high climbers using their pickaxes and oxygen apparatus include Alesha (who moves into the top ten) and Jason Mraz (who just misses out at 11). The rest of the chart might as well be stuck in a snowdrift.

[Poll #1342054]

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

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.

Why would you name your band after a fart?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

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.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

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

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

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.

Airborne Toxic Event

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

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.

[koganbot]

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.

[ijgrieve.livejournal.com]

What happened to All-American Rejects?

I listened to them all!

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

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.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

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

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Aw I kinda hoped this was the PROPER Tommy Reilly.