Yet Another Year In Pop: 8

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Lily holds on to the top spot once more, while best pals Miley and Taylor get some chart action to share between them.

[Poll #1354094]

Lower reaches watch: some Brits-related re-entry shenanigans going on, with high climbs from Kanye, Take That, Duffy and the Ting Tings. Lovely.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

In such a good mood about "Fly on the Wall" and (to lesser extent) Taylor getting in this week that I decided to give U2 THE TICK. (So does this mean that "Fly on the Wall" has officially done better in the UK now than it has in the US?)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

U2 - I think this is better than U2 normally manage! That's still a nontick, but a marginal one. Unedified by Bono rapping, but the music's OK and interestingly constructed by their standards.

Miley - GRRRR! Tick.

Taylor Swift - I am bored of romeo and juliet references. Use other lover pls. Good chorus, good voice, snoozy verses. Happy to give it more tries but this isn't getting a tick just yet.

Rudenko - Yes, am enjoying this, in the same kind of "won't pay too much mind to it" way as Kid Cudi. Tick, don't like the guy's breathy voice though.

Gary "In the name of God," Go - Heard this with the wife on the radio last week and we both tried to work out which of the post-Blunt crop it was: whoever it is, we thought, they must be desperate for material. But - trick question! - it was someone NEW! Well, "new".

Honey Ryder - I think Honey Ryder are the first band whose press releases I've been spammed with at my pitchfork mailbox to have made it into the UK Top 40. Well done them. The story is that the guy is a former Credit Suisse banker who realised that the gravy train was about to derail he was unfulfilled and wanted to live his dream of making pop music which sounds a bit like Sixpence None The Richer meet the Lighthouse Family. No tick.

Take That - I see the Epic Gary/Jaunty Mark release schedule is being wheeled out again. This is not anywhere near as good as "Shine", especially not when it remembers that's what it's meant to be. No tick.

[koganbot]

I haven't been paying much attention to Radio Disney, but they did give "Fly On The Wall" a big push last August, so I'd say the answer to your question is "No, not yet" though I think the big push registered more in album sales than downloads (according to Wiki "Fly On The Wall" got 229,000 downloads total, which is one third of what the new Eminem single did in its first week).

[koganbot]

U2 "Get On Your Boots": Verse parts and chorus are so stylistically divergent that this feels like a collage. Metal riff is impressive, what follows is the lamest attempt in history to imitate the rhythmic talk-rant of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," then Bono partially redeems himself by swishing his way up into the higher register. This might be worth a tick for its variety except the fake Dylan rant is so pitifully bad it undercuts the force of the rest, maybe because the rest doesn't have much power anyway, even if the high register swish provides a few nice moments. NO TICK.

Miley Cyrus "Fly On The Wall": Miley, on the other hand, does surprisingly well w/ a conjurer/shaman tune, working sass and dance into her mystery. TICK ON THE WALL!

Taylor Swift "Love Story": Voice ripens, has a catch of sadness in it as always, no matter the key change and happy ending. TICK.

Rudenko "Everybody": Voice is sliced, diced, tranched, and resold. Everybody's doin' it. Competent slow groove, needs more. NO TICK.

Gary Go "Wonderful": Everyman vocals that lift and soar without losing their reassuring dullness. NO TICK.

Honey Ryder "Fly Away": Guitar provides a U2ish cushion of air, singer responds w/ more lift and greater variety than a Gary Go would give it, but the result is yet more soaring blah. NO TICK.

Take That "Up All Night": Pop veterans do an unexpectedly gargantuan cover of the Slaughter hair-metal classic. I WISH. No, this is just a dance in the park, pleasant friendly beat, yet more mediocrity as comfort food. Serves its purpose and shouldn't be sneered at, but I'll never go back to it. NO TICK.

Sexy boots? Or mud-caked wellies?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I like the U2 song quite a lot, because of rather than in spite of its many borrowings. Mr Declan McManus in particular is prolly onto his lawyers as I type. Still:

- "Pump It Up" is as good a song as any to be 'inspired by', I s'pose
- the Take That song sounds like Simon & Garfunkel in the verses and "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" in the chorus, so why pick on poor Bono, eh?

[koganbot]

Btw, while visiting Wiki I discovered - assuming that Wiki is right - that, though "Fly On The Wall" has Antonina Armato and Tim James on the writing credits (producers and co-writers of "See You Again" and "Potential Breakup Song" and many other good ones), the production is not by them but by Max Martin.

[koganbot]

255,000 total digital downloads, actually, which means maybe a little more than a third of "Crack A Bottle"'s first-week numbers.

[koganbot]

As a public service I'm linking the Slaughter vid. Features a cµm shot.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Don't have much to say this week, not just cuz I'm on deadline...can't get with the Miley, it falls awkwardly between GRRR and overly perky, as with '7 Things' she can't quite pull off whatever needs to be pulled off.

Really like Taylor S - I have both of her albums lined up in itunes and once all these damn articles are finished I am going to embark on a big Taylor discovery session this week. So much better without the video, the song's all about the details and the minutiae, and the video just goes in the opposite direction and detracts from the song.

The Rudenko is like a Eurobosh take on the PCDs' 'When I Grow Up'. Destined to be unticked when I go back through this in five months' time and have no recollection of it.

Others are just boring. It seems like there's a new James Blunt every week - why is this!

Also having heard the new singles from Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk, I am never ever going to root for a grime MC to cross over ever again. Utter, utter shite. Sadly I think they'll both be big hits :(

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've been really remiss about the chart polls of late - combination of werk mentalism and apathy I guess - but hurray this week I have heard all the ones I particularly want to hear. 'Up All Night' might not be as good as Shine but it's still good; Taylor and Miley have both grown on me a lot; Rudenko is still pleasing electro-bosh. U2 can fvck off, no interest in the others. Right, back to the spreadsheets...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also, when they played at the Grammys, U2 flashed the lyrics up in huge letters as their backdrop - the question is WHY would you do this when said lyrics are things like:

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha the first placard reminds me that i saw a squirrel scrabbling thru a weastebin in clapton square's little park on sat -- he didn't run away when i got close and that is bcz he was trying to extricate a NEARLY COMPLETE CHOC ICE, which he eventually retrieved and retreated with

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

now i want Britney to release 'Mmm Papi' and perform it at the MTV Awards in this way

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

his laughter was eternal and his joy was real!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

haha U2's song was the only song performed at the BRITs that ended up lower in the final chart than it was in the midweeks

[koganbot]

I agree about the Taylor vid. The dressy dresses in the "Our Song" vid had been so incongruous as to be fascinatingly weird and who cares if they have nothing to do with the song (and they really defy the country standard of dressing like your audience), but "Love Story" is just Prince Charming and Princess Taylor stereotypes that do nothing for the song's actual fear and hope ("we'll make it out of this mess"). The vid for "Teardrops On My Guitar" is brilliantly spot-on normal in the high-school scenes and so bizarrely strange in her doll-costume and fake glitter tears in the "home in bed and dreaming scene" as to be brilliant too. My favorite vid is the pre-megasales "Tim McGraw," which is also my favorite song of hers, the guy playing the boyfriend having such a handsomely unrevealing face that he's perfect as the boy ambivalently addressed in the song. Great use of standard pastorale scenes that the song lyrics give an edge of uneasiness to. Compare to the great Deanna Carter's "Strawberry Wine" ("I was thirsty for knowledge, and he had a car"), the prototype for both the song and the vid, but the video for "Tim McGraw" has a much clearer sense of its story. "Picture To Burn," which I totally missed at the time, seems like a quickie concept "let's do a takeoff on a whole bunch of new wave and rock show videos" and is disappointing in the way it hints at some "Kerosene" or "Before He Cheats" action but then keeps taking you back to the rock show. "White Horse," which just came out last week, works really well as the anti-"Love Story" vid; e.g. the way she finds out that her boyfriend is going with someone else is by seeing him carrying groceries to the other girl's door. I like the way that she plays neither poor nor fancy in the restaurant and house settings. (Too bad I don't like the melody more.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do you think they called it "Get On Your Boots" rather than "Get Your Boots On" because they knew it would not stand comparisons to King's "Love And Pride"?

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

YES

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I like Miley Cyrus, but she always sounds so angry.