Yet Another Year In Pop: 36

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Jigga deals with his North London problems well enough to beat Heidi & Co to the top spot.

[Poll #1454305]

Do feel free to go back and change your ticks on any of this year's chart polls - voting will remain open on all of them until the end of the year. Here's how they're shaping up so far...

1 Lily Allen - The Fear
2 Britney Spears - Circus
3 Veronicas - Untouched
4 Girls Aloud - Untouchable
5 Britney Spears - If U Seek Amy
6 Ciara ft Justin Timberlake - Love Sex Magic
7 Miley Cyrus - Fly On The Wall
8 Dizzee Rascal - Holiday
9 Florence & The Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)
10 Kelly Clarkson - I Do Not Hook Up
11 Pet Shop Boys - Love etc
12 VV Brown - Shark In The Water
13 Gossip - Heavy Cross
14 Lady Gaga - Just Dance
15 Lily Allen - Not Fair
16 Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
17 Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
18 Cascada - Evacuate The Dancefloor
19 Little Boots - Remedy
20 Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden - Bonkers
21 Beyonce - Halo
22 TI ft Justin Timberlake - Dead And Gone
23 Lily Allen - 22
24 Keri Hilson ft Timbaland - Return The Favour
25 Little Boots - New In Town
26 Bat For Lashes - Daniel
27 Pink - Funhouse
28 Keri Hilson ft Kanye & Ne-Yo - Knock You Down
29 Freemasons ft Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer
30 Taylor Swift - Love Story

Rankings calculated via the extremely complicated method of multiplying raw votes by percentage (hence the relevance of the 'Don't Like Any' boxes) - Lily and Britney have a clear lead ahead of the rest of the field.

Favourite single missing from the list? Taylor cruelly languishing while Miley rides high? It's up to you to go back and tick (or un-tick) anything you might have missed!


Reminder: You have until Friday to nominate tracks for the 2002 heats - please comment on the nomination post over here so they don't go missing. I'll post up a list of noms so far on Tuesday.

Comments

[koganbot]

Jay-Z f. Rihanna & Kanye West "Run This Town": This is Rihanna's first time back from the beating, which outshouts any other consideration, and any voice that isn't Rihanna's is an interruption. Jay-Z accommodates by rolling off the beats rather than dominating them. And Kanye just sounds tacked-on at the end, plying his metaphors for boobs and other sexual parts, and who cares? So it's just Rihanna in the spotlight, her voice the same instantly recognizable burnt wood as always, burnt sorrow, same not-exactly charisma and not-exactly personality, simply an unmistakable sound that's been the voice of American music for two years. The track's not all that, but she is. Yet now there's this unavoidable wonderment: who is she? TICK.

Sugababes "Get Sexy": The 'Babes sound like they can't be bothered even to simulate joy. What went wrong? NO TICK.

Wale f. Lady GaGa "Chillin": You're all gonna dismiss this, but you're wrong. GaGa, going subdued and functional, makes this her sweetest and best vocal, a nice hypnotic little sing-song. The Steam "goodbye" hook is tasteful, for once, and lightweight Wale is charming, teaches us to pronounce his name, makes a basketball pun, "Got a buzz like a nigga Chris Mullin." TICK.



Jamie T. "Chaka Demus": Strange mixture of a happy Caribbean backing and a slightly morose who-gives-a-fuck vocal. The juxtaposition is interesting but I don't like the way it sounds. NO TICK.

Friendly Fires "Kiss Of Life": Unemphatic too-normal-to-open-my-mouth vocals, accompanied by incongruous third-world percussion that attempts interplay, but it's with a guy who won't play. NO TICK.

The Prodigy "Take Me To The Hospital": Jitters meet electroshock. BORDERLINE NONTICK.

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Wait, so the only good thing about the Jay-Z/Kanye/Rihanna track is that Rihanna appears on it and we like Rihanna? I mean, that's precisely correct, but I don;t see how it's enough to save the song from being pretty dang dull all told.

I mean it may just be that Kanye has really been getting up my nose this year, almost through sheer ubiquity alone.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Not just Rihanna, it's Rihanna dressed as a Black Panther…

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I really really really want to tick "Chillin" for at least one reason koganbot gives -- Lady GaGa's best vocal ever (though I'm somewhat partial to "Paparazzi" tbh) -- but Wale's rap is just so mediocre, and the rest of the song seems too functional (not amazing in and of itself) to be much more than a spotlight for said rap. It's not a BAD rap, really, it just feels like a weirdly throwaway thing to stick a big spotlight on. GaGa has the right idea hanging around in the background.