poptimists | Yet Another Year In Pop: 32

It might just be the fact I've been listening to the mighty Crowded House all morning but really what the fvck is that Girls Can't Catch song? I mean honestly. It just ...it's the distilled sound of the bits of Xenomania that are somehow key to their sound but irrelevant to the music and I don't even know if they wrote it. Also, video is embarassingly rub; I'll dig it up in a minute.

Haven't heard the Tinchy/Amelle but suspect will be horrified, no idea who Ian Carey is.

I forgot leadsingerygirl also does that annoying Pixie Lott-style oversing 'I HAVE A BIG VOICE' thing, even though she REALLY DOESN'T.

Also, next video I see about girls beating up boys on some level I am going to SET FIRE TO SOMETHING. Not a boy, obviously. It's just so c0cking embarassing. I think in this sense Girls Can't Catch may have quite a lot of barriers to overcome before I crack and iTunes their album, as with the Sats. (Who I quite like these days, to be fair)

O GOD the "we are confident gurls WALKING TOGETHER" video thing is such a cliche.

Moggy did you read the GAMMA WOMEN thing I linked to :)

Oh no, I forgot I was going to do that when I got to work! I shall go and read it now.

It won't help. With anything in the world.

I'll just leave this icon here and comment on yr journal later when my brain's finished dribbling out of my head.

Good god what an awful name/song/video/band. On hearing that Goldfrapp intro get reused AGAIN I actually literally did a facedesk.

Unfortunate for them that I heard this while in the midst of an Electrik Red splurge. Girls Can't Catch never stood a chance. Honestly they just sound so impossibly amateurish, limited and pointless next to what Electrik Red are doing. And yet which of those acts appears to have a semi-viable career. This is why I hate people.

I just discovered that the incredible 'Electrik City', which I'd thought was a leaked demo which inexplicably never made the Electrik Red album, was actually their first single from a Darkchild-helmed false start three years ago, and it has A VIDEO.

- A+ stuff all round
- impressively, a consistent aesthetic w/what they're doing now - the vision is clearly the group's and they haven't diluted it in any way - 'Electrik City' could easily fit on How To Be A Lady
- god, that swelling bass and those whispers just slay me

AWESOME. AWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOME. I lovelovelove Darkchild anyway but ...ARGH, AWESOME. I wonder if there's any of the rest of that incarnation kicking around?

Also: interesting that it's their aesthetic. Really have to write that 'Electrik Red Are Girls Like Me' thing sooner or later.

Holy CRAP.

And an Uptown Top Ranking cover to boot?

AMAZING.

AMAZING AMAZING.

If you haven't heard How To Be A Lady: Vol 1, their Dream-produced debut full-length and by ALBUM OF THE YEAR by approx several hundred miles, you need to! It probably won't be getting a UK release because people are fools, but it's ~out there~ on the internet.

I've heard a few cuts from it here and there - "Drink In My Cup", I recall - but nothing grabbed me yet as immediately as this. In context of this though, will def. take a closer look.

More Electrik Red tasters! Given that we haven't really talked about them on Poptimists and better this than Girls Can't Sing.

Let's just have a full-on Poptimists thread for 'em, shall we? Mass video/audio stream pimpage and general drooling. It'll be great.

I may do that tomorrow, when I've written a thing.

Ugh, Onsmash videos inexplicably not embedding.

Drink In My Cup (http://videos.onsmash.com/v/bIH3Lab4eCSGssNM) (my video of the year)
Friend Lover (http://videos.onsmash.com/v/f8Yas2G7l3h3UwM7)

still can't believe this came out three years ago and no-one seemed to pick up on it (don't recall mention of it on ILM either)

As Popjustice person keeps saying.

Croquet.

Rubbish dump.

Egads, why?

I went to listen to the Tinchy and it sounded fine but I can't remember anything about it, other than that Amelle FTS has a nice voice and Tinchy Stryder doesn't really. Better than "Number One" which has shrunk on me something drastic.

I'm really into the Tinchy/Amelle: it's a cooing, soft, big-hearted, romantic track and there's always a place in my heart for rap artists willing to be that wide-eyed. Just pretty.

One day I will actually get people to listen to his excellent older tracks that I posted here (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/660550.html) when he first started getting hits with this APPALLING, CHEESY, TREBLY ELECTROSHIT direction.

I listened to some of them Lex and they also sounded fine - similarly 6/10 but in a different genre.

Tinchy Stryder going sh1t has actually seriously impaired my ability to like grime because it makes me so angry that ARGH WHY ARE THEY ALL DOING THIS? Wiley I feel fine with because he's Wiley and he could shit in a box and put it out and I'd still really like it and also he has done several amazing things recently but basically everyone else is making me WEEP.

Yeah, went back and listened again and none of them held my attention that well: the best one was the "could it be magic" one. Mostly I think it's his stuttery flow, which he also does on this new #1, only Amelle B takes half the track so it doesn't bother me so much.

Totally understand that there's a wider issue here - this electro thing has become the way UK MCs (male ones anyway) break through and sell stuff, and that narrows the options for other sounds. Tinchy seems particularly unsuited to it, though I seem to not like him much on anything so maybe I just don't like him.

On the other hand I can't think of a British urban music that's had as much promotion, hype, critical acclaim, respect etc as grime, and if it hasn't crossed over by now that's because it was never going to cross over.

I don't really have a problem w/electro per se, it's just that Tinchy's version of it is SO cheesy and embarrassing, and it doesn't play to his strengths in the slightest (which as you say are limited - no one thought Tinchy was a viable star on this level at all until it actually happened). It's not about "grime" either given that most grime MCs are off doing other things, from funky to electro, in 2009. I mean, I don't really think many of those tracks I linked are that grimy! 'Hands Of Time' is reggae, 'Dance 4 Now' is bassline/electro, 'Princes' is art-rock...

But it's kinda sweet how cheesy it is, I feel. I find myself charmed by his unabashed pursuit of rom-com style smoochy emotion.

yeah i just don't like Tinchy much as a pop MC - there's nothing in his voice that grabs me, so regardless of the genre/production style of his tracks now i just find him pretty dull and feel like his success is "undeserved" on that basis. Dappy's chorus line was the best thing about 'Number One' really (not that it was that great itself).

obv the track he's on with Toddla T and Mr V is great but more for them than him imo.

Oh I'm happy for his success, it's basically really heartening on every level except, er, the musical. Strong element of paving the path, too, which I have to approve of.

looking back to the chart positions of 'Pow' and 'Oi' tho, Grime did have it's day in the mainstream sun, it's just that expecting that to be sustainable was unrealistic (as it was with Jungle...and even Bassline).

Please delete thread and start again.

The only decent New Entry is missing!*

*i.e. "Funhouse"

WHAT they did not mention that on the OCC. D: I shall put it in next week, since Kat will still be on sabbatical.

Oh, yeah, saw the video for that yesterday on The 4Music Hits Factory (or whatever they're calling it these days). It doesn;t seem to have left much impression, except that the video featured evil clowns.

And P!nk looks FIT. And it reminds me of Eels for reasons I can't quite place. V GOOD, TICK. Wish you could edit polls!

You could edit in a second seperate poll just for Pink.....

You can't add polls to posts, it's INCREDIBLY ANNOYING. *bashes lj*

Not that obviously I sit around dicking about with polls all day...

OK, now the injustice has finally been rectified, back to this poll ... aaaaand ...it's Don't Like Any. After all that.

Done a 90, if not a 180, on Tinchy and Ian Carey. Both now get ticks on the 5/10 = tick rule.

Three out of three ticks, which may be a first for Yet Another Year, though this isn't cause for wild celebration, and I like the so far uncommented-upon Ian Carey best of the three:

Tinchy Stryder f. Amelle Berrabah "Never Leave You": Quite pleased with the peppiness and poppiness of the nonstop background tune but it's not showing Tinchy or Amelle to good advantage. This is good enough for a tick but I wish they'd found an arrangement that gave rapper and singer some space. TICK.

Ian Carey Project "Get Shaky": Fast rhythm, strong guitar, the singing is effectively - what's the word for it - tremulous. A girl, an ache, and a beat: Music! TICK.

Girls Can't Catch "Keep Your Head Up": The woman's deep voice is powerful, juxtaposed with the bass throb; the chorus takes me by surprise, gets showy, pulls an attention-getting chord shift. The track is way too undifferentiated from here on, all rev-it-up, but that odd chord change hooks me every time, even if overall this track doesn't come close to the rough promise of its opening. TICK.

Yet Another Year In Pop: 32

warning: hungover and misanthropic

fvck's sake

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sexy, unsubtle

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Tinchy

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"hata" sez

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I AM BOYCOTTING YR POLL

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All you need to make a record is a girl, an ache, and a beat

Yet Another Year In Pop: 32

warning: hungover and misanthropic

fvck's sake

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sexy, unsubtle

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Tinchy

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"hata" sez

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I AM BOYCOTTING YR POLL

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All you need to make a record is a girl, an ache, and a beat

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