Yet Another Week In Pop: 19

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Tinchy still number one; bvgger all else happening really, so let's have a top 10 update as well.

[Poll #1397995]

Comments

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Rare to find so many I very much dislike at the top - 2-5, 7. Close between Ciara & Justin and Lily Allen for my vote.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

There is such a schism of GOOD/BAD in that chart. It was a hard choice to pick my favourite (La Roux, Ciara, Beyonce, Allen) but it would equally hard to pick the worst (Tiny Dancer, Harris, Eminen). Perhaps just ban men from pop?

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

all terrific - not a bad single in the top ten (and indeed most of the top 40 is in pretty rude, if slow, shape).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Kiss Me Thru The Phone' is a bit disturbing in that it seems to be Soulja Boy trying to be The-Dream, and Soulja Boy's lyrics are as retarded as ever ("Baby, I been thinkin' lately/So much about you/Everything about you/I like, yeah, I love it"), and actually the entire concept of the song is retarded (wtf is a kiss through a phone even like?), if oddly innocent in these days of sexting and so on. BUT I CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD. IN A GOOD WAY. I actually really enjoy listening to it. What can one do, eh.

Out of the two good songs in the top 10, I prefer middling Ciara to middling Beyoncé. (I mean, middling for both of them is still 8/10, these are both great songs, it's just that 8/10 is middling for artists who bring the 10/10s with regularity.) The top 5 is pure horror - three nemeses of mine, and two tracks which make me mourn for a genre I loved.

The top 10, marked out of 10

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

8 - Ciara, Beyoncé
[huge gap]
4 - The Pussycat Dolls
3 - Tinchy Stryder, Lily Allen
2 - Lady Gaga
1 - Ironik
0 - La Roux, Calvin Harris, Eminem

:(

[martinv.livejournal.com]

The top 10's looking pretty good to me at the moment. A couple of dodgy tracks, but at least it's all relatively interesting. There's a distinct lack of bland (in my opinion) in there, which can only be good.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

have pretty much abandoned the 7-10 range for top 40 stuff now so:

6: Justara

5: Bouncy, Stryder, Gaga, Rouxchops

4: Eminem, Allen

3: PCDs, Ironik

2: Calvis (but i have forgotten how it goes so maybe it's a THREE just can't be bothered to listen again)

2009 top 10 hits so far

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Saturdays - Issues - 4 - Jan-09
Kanye West - Heartless - 10 - Jan-09
Lady Gaga featuring Colby O'Donis - Just Dance - 1 - Jan-09
Girls Aloud - The Loving Kind (re-emergence) - 10 - Jan-09
Kevin Rudolf featuring Lil Wayne - Let It Rock - 5 - Jan-09
Pink - Sober - 9 - Jan-09
Alesha Dixon - Breathe Slow - 3 - Jan-09
Kid Cudi vs Crookers - Day n Nite - 2 - Jan-09
Lady Gaga - Poker Face - 1 - Jan-09
Tinchy Stryder featuring Taio Cruz - Take Me Back - 3 - Jan-09
Lily Allen - The Fear - 1 - Feb-09
Shontelle - T-Shirt - 6 - Feb-09
Pussycat Dolls - Whatcha Think About That - 9 - Feb-09
Eminem featuring Dr Dre & 50 Cent - Crack A Bottle - 4 - Feb-09
Daniel Merriweather featuring Wale - Change - 8 - Feb-09
Prodigy - Omen - 4 - Feb-09
TI featuring Justin Timberlake - Dead And Gone - 4 - Feb-09
Taylor Swift - Love Story - 2 - Feb-09
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You - 1 - Mar-09
Akon featuring Kardinal Offishall & Colby O'Donis - Beautiful - 8 - Mar-09
Flo Rida featuring Kesha - Right Round - 1 - Mar-09
Saturdays - Just Can't Get Enough - 2 - Mar-09
Beyonce - Halo - 4 - Mar-09
Vanesa Jenkins & Bryn West featuring Sir Tom Jones & Robin Gibb - (Barry) Islands In The Stream - 1 - Mar-09
Oasis - Falling Down - 10 - Mar-09
Metro Station - Shake It - 6 - Mar-09
La Roux - In For The Kill - 2 - Mar-09
Ar Rahman featuring The Pussycat Dolls - Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny) - 3 - Mar-09
Noisettes - Don't Upset The Rhythm (Go Baby Go) - 2 - Apr-09
Lily Allen - Not Fair - 8 - Apr-09
Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone - 1 - Apr-09
Ciara featuring Justin Timberlake - Love Sex Magic - 5 - Apr-09
Eminem - We Made You - 5 - Apr-09
Tinchy Stryder featuring N-Dubz - Number 1 - 1 - May-09
Ironik featuring Chipmunk & Elton John - Tiny Dancer (Hold Me Closer) - 3 - May-09


is April always that quiet?

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[koganbot]

Songs on this list that might get an 8 from me (and "The Fear" is at least an 8.5): "Just Dance," "Sober," "Day N Nite" (original version only), "The Fear," "Love Story," "My Life Would Suck Without You," "Not Fair." Number of Brit tracks on that list = 2 out of 7.

I suppose that only one of the tracks - "Islands In The Stream" - is so dire as to get a 2 or worse, though I'm not going to relisten to test this thesis.

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

tracks which get 8 or more (ie that I'm actively enthusiastic about) -

Kid Cudi vs Crookers
Lily Allen ('The Fear' only)
Shontelle (the Crazy Cousinz and The-Dream remixes, not the og)
TI & Justin
Taylor Swift
Beyoncé
Ciara & Justin

That is a v poor return on the year tbh. I'm considering quitting caring about the charts...there's just such a gap between how I feel when I'm immersing myself in all the amazing music which is getting made at the moment, and then looking at the charts and seeing them filled with such shit.

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

it's also an especially poor return on the year considering how old most of them actually are - only Lily and Ciara (and, I guess, the CC remix of Shontelle) are genuinely new to 2009. Three! Three new charting songs which are worth getting properly excited about, and we are over a third of the way through the year! AAARGHHHH. OK that is it, I quit pop.

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

but of those only 'The Fear' is a case of an artist doing their best yet (as with Kelis it seems that whenever Ciara pairs up with someone it's only half as good as her best solo singles).

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Ciara always pairs up with someone! 'Goodies' with Petey Pablo, '1 2 Step' and 'Lose Control' with Missy, 'Oh' and 'High Price' with Ludacris, 'Get Up' with Chamillionaire. Her best genuinely solo efforts - 'Hotline', 'Promise', 'Echo' and 'Like A Boy' - haven't been huge UK hits. I basically agree with you, though :(

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

oh i guess i don't think of the Ciara ft. Rapper singles as actual duets. maybe they are but they're not generally thought of as such? the one with 50 Cent felt more like a duet than the others for some reason.

wtf did happen with 'Promise'? not even on polyhex - was it actually a single here?

Re: 2009 top 10 hits so far

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Nope. Her masterpiece, and maybe my favourite song of the decade, and not releases here b/c...I have no idea! Maybe under the current rules it would've charted...I see her Chris Brown collab, 'Turntables', appears to have snuck into the top 100 on the back of the "controversy" :o WELL DONE, THE PUBLIC.

[koganbot]

Tommy Sparks "She's Got Me Dancing": Reductionist disco, the video designed for people who are afraid of glamour - which pisses me off, as does the fact that he's shouting rather than singing. Neither of which stops this from being catchy. TICK.

Soulja Boy Tell 'Em f. Sammie "Kiss Me Thru The Phone": The melody's half-decent, while the vocals are among the weakest in popular music history. Should've been a Valentine's Day novelty; instead, has hung around the U.S. top ten for four months or so. NO TICK.

[koganbot]

Tinchy = 7
La Roux = 4
Ironik/Chipmunk/Elton = 3
Calvin Harris = 3
Lady Gaga = 5
Ciara & Justin = 6
Eminem = 6
Lily Allen = 8
AR Rahman ft Pussycat Dolls = 3
Beyonce = 6

Oh go on then

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

7 - Lily, Ironik
6 - Bouncy
5 - Gaga, Ciara, Tinchy, Jai Ho
4 - Roux, Calvin
3 - Eminem

In other words, there's nothing here I particularly dislike. But only two I would actively defend.

So, um, yeah - "Tiny Dancer". Don't get all the hatred. I think it's one of the more effective rap-AOR crossovers conceived to date. I put it on the end of the latest pop mix CD that I made yesterday.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

btw 5/10 is also my "any good at all" threshold for polling purposes. I've only just worked that out!

I don't think I ticked Ciara though, on "could do so much better" grounds. This is also partly why Eminem gets 3/10.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i tick 6/10s but not 5/10s. so much stuff is a 5 tho it's frustrating it is.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Ciara w/Yustin is fab. None of the other songs in the top 10 do anything for me at all; whereas – as I think I scrawled here at the time – with The Fear Lily served the song and not the other way around, this one seems to be all about making a dumb point crudely over the weakest (and not even vaguely accurate) pastiche. And I don't like the posthumous appropriation of poor old Porter for the video.