Yet Another Year In Pop: 9'

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Kelly's jumped a hundred and two places to the top spot; Taylor, Gaga and T.I squeeze in behind her knocking Lily down to 5. Other than that: bvgger all this week, really.

[Poll #1358146]

Lower reaches watch: MY GOD, some new music in the top 100!!!111! Enrique & Ciara, Jennifer Hudson, Ladyhawke and Chase & Status are all sticking their oar in.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Thinking of "Fearless" (album) within a high-concept frame of "first day of high school to graduation," even though this doesn't work perfectly, helped me figure out how it works emotionally a bit. It's more of a grower than her first one, whose immediate impact was obvious but I just didn't give it the attention it deserved until the year after it was released (first heard it, I think, in Dec. of '06). This one is a subtle but deceptively tightly-coiled album, full of little insights here and there that kind of glossed over me on first listens. But I still haven't wrapped my head around it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Really? I listened to both of them for the first time last week - back-to-back! - and Fearless grabbed me a lot faster than Taylor Swift, which had a number of obvious stand-outs ('Our Song', 'Teardrops On My Guitar', 'Mary's Song') but long patches of blah...a typical songwriter's debut, basically. Fearless seems a lot more tightly focused, as if she's consciously stepped up her game and honed her craft. I also disagree w/Frank, I think she has a real knack for effective pay-offs, melodic and lyrical - 'Fearless' is another one of those.

[koganbot]

I really like the central blah on Taylor Swift, "Place In This World" --> "Should've Said No," a lot of which foreshadows "Fearless" ("Cold As You," especially; love the line "I start a fight because I need to feel something").

Fearless has a richer sound that's more swamped in femininity. Not at all surprised that you like it. I do too, though as I implied, I wish its swamp:hook ratio were higher (i.e., want more swamp, fewer hooks).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm not getting any particular sonic buzz from Taylor yet, bar the hooks, but I suspect this is the kind of thing one appreciates in time. Really, this album is just a trove of Easter eggs though - that line in 'Hey Stephen' (which is brilliant anyway), "All those other girls, well they're beautiful - but would they write a song for you?", and then that wry laugh, and the way she sings the rest of the song with that laugh still caught in her throat. AMAZING.

[koganbot]

Yes. Extraordinary singer. I'd like her to try "Take A Bow" in the studio, since her live versions totally pwn Rihanna's.

[koganbot]

Her live intro to "Should've Said No": "Basically, this is a song I wrote about a guy who cheated on me and shouldn't have because I write songs."

I sleep but I don't rest

[koganbot]

Btw, I don't remember if I ever answered your Miranda Lambert question: First album Kerosene, despite its title track, does real well by the thoughtful story ballads, is spottier than the second, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which is great for its "Kerosense"-like incendiary drinking-and-driving fire-breathing tear-'em-up-and-blow-it-all-to-pieces-including-me provocations, and celt-goth-like invocations of doom ("Down"), much more consistent than the first but falls down a bit on the thoughtful ones that were the first album's strength.

Re: I sleep but I don't rest

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I now have Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and will give it a proper listen later but OMG 'Gunpowder & Lead' is incredible.

Re: I sleep but I don't rest

[koganbot]

Btw, I don't know if you saw when I posted about it, but when Xhuxk interviewed country singer and Miranda boyfriend Blake Shelton, Blake told him that Miranda considers Ashlee Simpson a great singer and songwriter.