Yet Another Year In Pop: 20

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Peas finally nab their 2nd number one, Eminem and Shontelle scrape into the top 40. Plus, what do you get when a duck attempts re-entry? Geddit? RE-ENTRY.

[Poll #1402250]

Lower reaches watch: this week's bizarre re-entry is Dizzee Rascal's Fix Up Look Sharp at #78. Any ideas?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Uhhh why is 'Ain't No Sunshine' in the charts? It's one of my favourite songs ever but..what?

'Boom Boom Pow' settled down as a solid 7/10 once the initial WTF factor dissipated, but next to all the other shit in the top 40 it's a beacon of hope. From the BLACK EYED PEAS, of all people.

Endeavouring not to hear anything else off the Eminem album.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

(specifically - I only just heard that Tommy Sparks song yesterday, courtesy of the Jukebox, I'd assumed it was some sort of Bluntian acoustica but it's ACTUALLY EVEN WORSE. So vile.)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Oh I dunno, it's grown on me. I like the squeaky synth riff more than the song though.

[koganbot]

Kris Allen did a nice version of "Ain't No Sunshine" on American Idol, but that was seven weeks ago, and I can't assume there's any connection.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Some chap sung it on Britain's Got Talent last week (sez EveryHit)

The Bill Withers version of "Ain't No Sunshine" is nice (and I ticked it notwithstanding my "no reissues" rule as it's never charted in the Uk before) but I think the Michael Jackson version is a masterpiece - his best single in fact.

[koganbot]

I'd never even heard of Michael Jackson's version. You're right: it's beautiful. I'll have to take some time to think if I consider it better than "Billie Jean" et al., but I'm considering it.

[koganbot]

The melody sounds faintly Brazilian.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

From the few Youtube clips I've seen of it, Britain's Got Talent may be the very worst of the Cowell-branded reality TV shows, and I swear I didn't realise just how much I hated him until then. What a cunt he is!

I've never heard the MJ version - my favourite Bill W track is easily 'Who Is He (And What Is he To You)?' though. (Britain's Got Talent contestants STAY THE FUCK AWAY.)

[koganbot]

Wow, great song ("Who Is He"), which I don't recall ever hearing. I love the four-chord turnaround at the end of each measure. Hypnotizing.

1973 was a crucial year for my music listening, the end of the old "rock" and the mind-flipping discovery of the Dolls and the Stooges, but meanwhile I completely overlooked the music-melding and transforming evolution going on in soul and funk, and the start of disco. This track was a year after "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"; you can hear the genre seizing white "head music" and make it its own (which had been going on since the late '60s; Sly and Funkadelic would have said, correctly, that a genre divide - the one between Hendrix, Cream, etc. and James Brown - was simply being erased. But new divides were also being erected).

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Wow, WTF is "Beautiful" doing on the UK charts? I think it's one of the best songs on his new album (one of the few good ones, even) but it's not a single, is it?

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

What would you have had as a single then, beyond 'We Made You' and 'Crack A Bottle'? There's nothing else really chart-friendly on there. Agree that 'Beautiful' is one of the best songs on there though - I'm also really enjoying 'Same Song & Dance'.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I thought that "Old Times Sake" was the next US single, plus "3 A.M." was most recently a single.

Only tracks I even particularly like on Relapse are "Beautiful," "Same Song and Dance" (more meta-like than like-like), and maybe "My Mom" or something. Really wish they'd released "Underground" instead of "3 A.M." Not much else I like, though.

[koganbot]

"Same Song & Dance" and that "Baghdad" song make me think he's still got something. Not nearly so sure about this one, which is open and aching but not really... well, not probing, not compelling in the delivery. But I ticked it.

[koganbot]

Sorry Bill, but I don't usually tick re-entries unless there's something special and potent in the story of its re-entry. Ticked the other three, however.

Black-Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow": Mesmerizing, weird, strangely gorgeous, in-your-ear irritating, hilarious. Totally unexpected chart domination in the U.S., the best thing to happen to the charts this year. BOOM BOOM TICK!

Eminem "Beautiful": The sample is wooden, but Em himself is less deliberately robotic and distant than on "We Made You" and "3am." This is very borderline; what's making it potentially tickable is the line about being a hard act to follow, meaning others will have trouble following him but even more meaning he never could figure out how to follow up on his original brilliance. Chorus is clumsily obvious in both its message and sound, though. VERY BORDERLINE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT TICK.

Shontelle f. Akon "Stuck With Each Other": Starts portentous with the chords from Iggy's "Passenger," then a mid-level r&b girl is sweetly vulnerable, and Akon's more heavy-handed poignancy fails to squeeze the life out of things, for once. This is a grower, now provides reliable sway-with-the-rhythm moments. You guys should give it more of a chance. TICK.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Agreed on the chorus, which is really stupid (though I like when he actually tells people what his shoe size is, and when he gives up the metaphor -- "I mean, you don't really have to do that, I guess"). But this is the one track that I kind of like how the overall blandness (or maybe just "distance") interacts with the words. The song sounds like it's wheezing along with him, and even he kind of loses the effort after those first few verses, despite the fact that it's about six-seven minutes long! But his Marshall Mathers flow is fully intact and it seems like he says what he needs to say in about two verses.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

Dizzee = on Jonathon Ross the other week, and at some Radio One festival in Swindon is all I can think of.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it must be on the back of the Swindon gig. A few other acts at the festival have benefited from higher chart placings this week, I notice. "Fix Up" was the download of choice as "Bonkers" wasn't available to buy until this week. Number 1 with a bullet next Sunday, methinks.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I thought 'Fix Up Look Sharp' just benefited from the 'Bonkers' promo campaign putting Dizzee generally back into people's minds, and this being the song they associate w/him - often when an act releases an album I'll suddenly want to listen to their back catalogue out of nowhere.

[koganbot]

Yes - when a new album is released by a star, her older albums rise on the charts too, as do, now in the download era, some of the older singles. E.g., Taylor Swift's "Teardrops On My Guitar" has risen to 51 in the U.K. singles chart.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"Teardrops" seems to be the 'official next single' here though - Radio 2 has playlisted it anyway. It may be my imagination, but it sounds to me like it's been re-recorded with extra guitars to make it 'more rock' and 'less country'. If I'm right, I don't think the new, heavier version does the song many favours.

[koganbot]

Well, back in early '07 (we're talking about a song from an album that came out in '06, by the way), when the song was crossing over, they made a new mix that got airplay on Radio Disney that added guitars and that double-tracked some vocals, to make it more pop. This may be the version Radio 2 is using now. If so, I agree, the song doesn't benefit from these encumbrances. But the verses are still beautifully sung.