Yet Another Year In Pop: 34

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Another number one for David Guetta - this time it's Akon helping him out.

[Poll #1448129]

REMINDER: Tomorrow the 2000s polls resume with a vengeance - you have until tomorrow lunchtime to make up your mind about Wyclef and Andrew WK. Remember, if it's a tie then I get the deciding vote...

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

YES, THAT'S RIGHT. I LIKE KASABIAN.

I'm not sure I'm remembering the Esmee Denters as the right thing but if it's the one where she's looking sort of sweetly ineffective in the video then I seem to remember quite liking it.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, it's this one. She's doing that annoying voice thing but it's mostly alright.



By 'that annoying voice thing' I mean 'trying to have a bigger voice than she does' -as a very loud, growly person I think people with more delicate voices should just admit it and use them normally; it sounds so strained and constipated otherwise. Some people sound pretty, some of us sound like Marilyn Manson, innit.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha you didn't like it when you first heard it (your key Jukebox pull quote, which was very much OTM: "WHO CARES, WHO CARES?").

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Oh god, you're right. Well, I'm nothing if not inconsistent. It kind of went with my alebrane(tm) this morning.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Esmee Denters is popular in the UK now. Huh. How did that happen.

Remember being really disappointed by "So Fine" but thinking "oh it's probaly some random leak, can't be the actual Sean Paul comeback, right?" Sadface.

Disco Stick Fuck Off.

I would like to point out that one of the Andrew WK ticks appears to be from someone (sonicice) who a) is not a member of Poptimists, b) has not voted before or since to my knowledge, c) has Andrew WK as one of their few LJ interests.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

There is exactly ONE song in the entire top 40 that has any sort of shot at my year-end list :o

(To be fair, "Birthday Sex" is a strong contender for Actual Single of the Actual Year.)

[koganbot]

I paid Sonicice to vote in the poll, since, owing to my bitterness at J-Lo's imminent defeat, I wanted to fuck things up.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I thought sonicice was perhaps Lex's secret drunken rock persona.

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Esmee Denters: I'm momentarily distracted by the line about "changing your DNA" into imagining a (far superior) song about dating a mutant, and then that image means I can't enjoy the actual song as it exists. Claps are good tho.

Sean Paul: Every time I hear this I find I can't remember it a few seconds later. Not a good sign.

Lady Gaga: This, on the other hand, is burnt into my memory, as a collection of cringe-inducingly-awful moments. Its the truly dire record she was always threatening to make.

Just Jack: A song so resolutely middle-of-the road that the protagonist gets run over by a taxi. Studiously mundane.

Haven't listened to the Kasabian, because of policy, or the Temper Trap, because of who?

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Kasabian's finest moment, perhaps? They've finally reached the point in their careers at which they stop trying to sound like Oasis, and start trying to sound like 'White Album' era Beatles.

My opinion has traditionally been:
Kasabian on record = very average
Kasabian live = astonishing ability to rev up a crowd

'Where Did All The Love Go' might be the first Kasabian song I actually like to hear on the radio.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Nah, their finest moment is still 'Empire.' I've never seen 'em live but there's something about their general sound that appeals to half-buried rockist!me.

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

An extremely poor week for new entries and I hope this doesn't represent the beginning of a autumn of 1982-style downturn (in reality it simply represents a slow week in summer).

Esmee Denters - anonymous, efficient, could-be-anybody pop. You'd think a Justin Timberlake discovery would have more originality but given that the usual Dreary Squad (Ryan Tedder &c) are being marshalled for her album this clearly isn't the case.

Just Jack - worst single of the year. I'm not keen on songs where the singer dies ("El Paso" and so forth) but this is creepy as well as dull. And I speak as someone who was hit by a 52 bus and lived to tell the tale. I mean, Eno got knocked over by a taxi and invented ambient music so in 2009 Just Jack just won't do.

Sean Paul - sounds as though he was pressganged into doing this. Limp rhymes, next to nil enthusiasm and it's just not enough these days to push a few buttons and clock in and out of making pop.

Kasabian - look, I'm all for school rock band competitions but keep it to Anne Boleyn Secondary, eh, chaps?

Lady Gaga - the only new entry this week I like and it's the fourth single off a nine-month-old album. Says it all.

Temper Trap - Australian U2 tribute band - chord sequence from "With Or Without You," guitar lines from "Where The Streets Have No Name," strained vocal of "I Still Haven't Found Where I'm Looking For" - bore me rigid but thanks to the cricket it'll stand a fair chance of getting to number one.

[koganbot]

Esmee Denters "Outta Here": This is like five months old, isn't it? 'Tis a song that Rihanna or Jordin would nail; but Esmee is just some nobody (sorry, even if you're a YouTube sensation, you sound like a nobody) doing a song that sounds like something Rihanna or Jordin would do a lot better. And you know what? I kind of love it. Because I tend to love anything that sounds like Rihanna or Jordin might want to do it. TICK.

Just Jack "The Day I Died": Prosaic, almost unmusical, emphasizing the mundane in order to find little bits of the emblematic and the extraordinary in it, except that the effect is thoroughly mundane and not very musical. NO TICK.

Sean Paul "So Fine": He uses a heavy dancehall voice to hack out melodic vocals that, despite their heaviness, aspire to the delicate feel of the original early '60s Jamaican attempts to capture the floating style of r&b vocal groups like the Impressions. Doesn't pull it off here, unfortunately, the heaviness being too clumsy and the song is nothing special; still, I like the style. BORDERLINE TICK.

Kasabian "Where Did All The Love Go?": Harmonies lightly ladled atop good, punchy petulance, though there's a Casbah break I could do without. TICK.

Lady GaGa "Lovegame": Unapologetic infantilism that's compelling enough in its infantile way. TICK.

(I realize that a lot of the antagonism towards this woman is based on her apologetics, but from evidence of her singles, the apologetics never affect her music.)

The Temper Trap "Sweet Disposition": Singing that tries weightlessness but just achieves blank tedium. Vacuous whoosh, I suppose in the mode of Coldplay or U2 but can't manage even an approximation of their broad, airy sweep. NO TICK.

[koganbot]

Question: Where did all the love go?

Answer: It was just a game.