Yet Another Year In Pop: 13

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Gaga is still on top; Noisettes, AR Rahman and Metro Station enter the top 10; Lily Allen's current singles sit side by side at 16 and 17.

[Poll #1374776]

Lower reaches watch: Miley Cyrus' 'Climb' is doing just that, Gels Alahd and Nickelback jump 80-odd places each and the return of Formula One motor racing to the BBC prompts the re-entry of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' at no.94.

Top 10 watch: Last week you lot voted Taylor Swift as your favourite song in the top ten. Taylor got more than twice as many votes as 2nd-placed TI despite that dreadful dress she's wearing in the video. Well done Taylor!

Comments

[koganbot]

Maybe my problem with the Noisettes, Angello, White Lies, and even Jennifer is that I'm not hearing these tracks in their respective home contexts, an environment where they make sense; they seem botched, the parts of the music not comfortable with each other, not jelling. While oddly enough, Lily's track, which is all about elements not jelling, connects vastly better to the music in the music.

The Noisettes "Don't Upset The Rhythm": The rhythm is a big hunk of what's wrong with this, actually, reduced funk with no roll to it, rigid and sexless. For a moment the melody seems to be working its way towards the floating sadness of Gnarls' "Crazy," but it doesn't achieve much of a mood one way or another. Obviously I'm missing something, since tracks don't jump high on the list for no reason. NO TICK.

Steve Angello & Laidback Luke f. Robin S. "Show Me Love": Again, I'm baffled. Despite the riff being even more upfront than on the original, and the beat steadier, this feels as if the riff and voice are being forced to run an obstacle course. The original had a mystery mood, desire and loneliness on the dark dance floor. The pushy beats here simply subtract that. NO TICK.

Lily Allen "Not Fair": Comic, offhand delivery, but the voice and tune deliver an underlying melancholy. I like Dave's suggestion in Jukebox that this is addressed to God*. Why doesn't life quite work? TICK.

K.I.G. "Head, Shoulders, Knees N Toes": Wish it were these guys doing the Robin remix, since they take this immediately to the night's mystery. Simple dance instructions, but the voice is tense, has a hint of menace. TICK.

White Lies "Farewell To The Fairground": The tune goes aloft while the rhythm tries to pulverize it. Another song I just don't get. NO TICK.

Jennifer Hudson "If This Isn't Love": I suppose I'm just rebelling against the week's zeitgeist, but smooth voice versus jagged beats isn't working for me today. NO TICK.

Asher Roth "I Love College": I know I'm not going to get you to agree with me, but this vocal has total authority, slow and sly while the sway of the music pulls us in. ("Us"? Well, I doubt that many people's reaction to this is indifference.) TICK.

*Dave later retracted this in the comments, since it's not literally true, but it's right anyway. Think of the album as being addressed to life and to Lily's struggle to not give up on it. When people talked about one of her songs being about God, I'd initially forgotten "Him" and thought they were talking about "He Wasn't There." She's so pleased she never gave up on him. But given the songs that preceded "He Wasn't There," do you think she - whoever that is: the narrator? Lily? - is deluding herself? (By the way, in case the song isn't fiction, might it be about her dad? I don't know that family's story.)

[koganbot]

I suspected as much.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "addressed to God" is really meant as "addressed to life" -- it's confessional 101: it's never just about the guy. M2M's archetype guy is a stand-in for the exhilarating mess that is life.

In my inbox today (all spelling verbatim)

[koganbot]

--Setup your game in Bed!
--Last Longer In Bed - Try Viagra Free
--Satify your spouse
--Become King of the Bed

And this just in (I love the "then")

[koganbot]

--Please your spouse more often then not

Re: And this just in (I love the "then")

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Ah, the trials of marriage.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is as close as you'll get to KIG doing Robin S - funky main man Geeneus on the remix:



Obviously a zillion times better.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Yes, "He Wasn't There" is about her dad. It always sounds sarcastic to me, although Lily swears it isn't. (BTW, "Back to the Start" is about her sister and "Alfie," from her first album, is about her brother.)