Yet Another Year In Pop: 37

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The festival season is over and the music industry is officially back from holiday as we have FOUR new entries in the top ten! Pixie manages to beat the others to the top spot, meanwhile U2's ongoing battle regarding thinking up original song titles continues...

[Poll #1457309]

Remember you can go back and change your answers to any of the previous chart polls for this year - click on the tag '2009', then click 'Poll #123456' then 'Fill Out Poll'.

Comments

ah-wooo

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Love Shakira, like Livvi Franc, don't dislike Pixie as much as I expected to but it's still hardly tickworthy. The Mika single manages to be worse than I expected which from the writer of "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" is a feat indeed: THE BIT IN THE MIDDLE WHERE HE PUTS ON A GERMAN ACCENT OMG.

Mini Viva I only heard once, but sounded a bit underinspired. U2 and Muse I've not gone near.

Re: ah-wooo

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Also the Mika keeps coming up in Spotify adverts, so extra Do Not Like.

Re: ah-wooo

[meserach.livejournal.com]

The Pixie is an improvement, isn't it? She looks like she's having fun, at least.

Really Shakira and Mini Viva are the takeaways here.

Re: ah-wooo

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Much better than the grim Winehouse-isms of that first single.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, the Mika song made me hoot with laughter when I heard it on Friday so I had to tick it. Mind you, I'd been packing for 10 hours and might possibly have been delirious.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

Voted Mika/Muse/Not heard any, which was satisfying.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Um, but if you've heard Mika and Muse, then how could you have Not Heard Any?

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

1. I want to school with Mika! Even if this record was a note-for-note copy of the Kumars bit in Spirit in the Sky I would still really enjoy it because it is Mika! I have been to his house!

2. Cis and I agreed last week in SCIENTIFIC FASHION that Muscle Museum was the best record of the nineties*. Therefore this MUST be good!

*: Cis did not actually agree.

3. I have not heard any of these records.

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

Er, that is, "went". Not "want".

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Ahhh. Got ya.

UH

[cis.livejournal.com]

the best record of the nineties is Rialto's "Monday Morning 5:19", get it right.

Re: UH

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

I don't actually think it is! I mean top five for sure, but it's no "Sink To The Bottom With You"...

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

With The Lex gone and Stevem boycotting these polls, I was planning to step up and do the moan-about-the-state-of-the-UK-charts spiel. But I actually like 3 of these (Pixie, Livvi, Shakira) a lot. And Mini Viva is OK if Xenomania-by-numbers.

Pixie was great on Radio 1 last night. She might actually be a proper pop star after all. "Boys & Girls" is a big rip off of some song or other, (can't quite place it yet), but it's so simple and catchy I don't really care.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Frighteningly, it's 'Let It Rock' by Kevin Rudolph/Lil Wayne that Pixie's ripping off.

[koganbot]

Well, it's actually some protosoul track from like 45 years ago, but I'm racking my memory and not coming up with the song. I thought The Drifter's "On Broadway," but that's not it.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Well yes but the most recent thing it's ripping off then.

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

I doubt it, the Pixie song's been on her MySpace for over a year!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

'Let It Rock's been around for yonks though; I'm not saying there's necessarily a direct connection but that's what the Pixie song reminds me of.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Different mix, though, right? I was startled by all the horns when I saw the video.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

(unofficial) boycott lifted temporarily cos i want to see what people's faves were

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Did Temper Trap appear in one of these polls already? I notice 'Sweet Disposition' has made it into the Top 40 now. It's a really good song... got a hint of The Who's 'Teenage Wasteland' about the intro, whilst the vocals are really lovely and upbeat and happy.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes, we did them three weeks ago.

[koganbot]

Ticked five of seven, which is a fine percentage but everything seems surrounded by chill.

Pixie Lott "Boys & Girls": Early '60s protosoul, given a Girls Aloud shine. "It acts as the second single from her forthcoming debut album," says Wikipedia, and it does sound like it's honing its act without quite being the thing itself - which of course can be better than the thing itself if, say, you're the massively smart Rolling Stones and it actually is the early '60s, but... BORDERLINE TICK.

Mika "We Are Golden": Woulda been somewhat catchy enough to get near the borderline if it had a singer who could manage more than mere gestures. I mean, his falsetto goes over the top if your top is only an inch from the floor. Lyrics invoke teens running free but also running from running while the lyrics run from knowing what the fuck they're about. Sorry, we are not stardust, we are not golden, and if there's a devil's bargain at issue it sure ain't conveyed here. NO TICK.

Mini Viva "Left My Heart In Tokyo": The emotional distance here is courtesy of the actual Xenomania alienation machine, which adds polish and then hires a couple of young women to go through the motions of scraping it off. There's some subtextual drama, appealing elements that refuse to appeal, a powergame or something, and I'm intrigued but not really moved. BORDERLINE TICK.

Muse "Uprising": Just as self-conscious as the Xenomania but enjoying itself a hundred times more, as the boogie at the bottom makes fun of the extravagance on top. TICK.

Shakira "She Wolf": All the tracks seem so knowing this week, without necessarily knowing anything that's worth shit, but this is pretty entertaining, Shakira deliberately encasing her gargling vibrato in a benign ditty, giving just the most darling little wolf howl. TICK.

U2 "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight": His "go crazy" falsetto is as weak as Mika's. This track is meaning to mean a lot, but it fails at making anything seem at stake. Strange how it nods at, you know, Springsteen, or U2, without seeming to know how to try anymore. NO TICK.

Livvi Franc f. Pitbull "Now I'm That Bitch": "Hi, my name is... you won't remember." Great start, another hurt tough girl, chilly little sprinkles, and an equally hard bass line. But this doesn't know how to build from there, and so far she's just another singer, what's her name, someone or other. BORDERLINE TICK.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to how anyone can listen to the Shakira song without spending every moment wanting to punch her even harder than the moment before, let alone find it charming.

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

Pixie – a substantial improvement on her first one (where she really was Men At Work to Winehouse’s Police); still in Retrobloke pop land (how Emma Bunton, Candie Payne etc. must be seething at their Joanne the Baptist roles here) but the flirting buoyancy of her performance and its essential good nature see it through any “Let It Rock”/”On Broadway” Customs gates. TICK

Mika – now gather round kids, Grandad’s gonna tell you about an OLD OLD group called Sudden Sway who once did a musical (well, they put out a CD) called ’76 Kids Forever and blow me to Salford if this doesn’t sound like a bad outtake from that overlooked epic. The “GOWWWWL-den”s are bad enough, as are his characteristic what’s-the-point glottal octave faux-leaps, but as usual he’s trying way too hard and I suspect really wants to be a bank manager. NO TICK

Mini Viva – argh, Xenomania, stop it with these dreary spud-u-like robots! Did Mini Viva use to be Mania? And if not, who’s looking or indeed caring? Getting on for four years past their best, are Higgins’ mob, and sounding it; forced, forced, forced glee, jollity and “sass” as if you could buy a can of it in Asda. Vagabond are even worse. NO TICK

Muse – how do they get away with it when Mika doesn’t? First, they don’t TRY so hard – if they want to do three-part symphonic epics, well it just comes naturally to them! They’ve been dreaming of it ever since their chemistry set days! Second, they have the same degree of good humour as Ms Lott; and thirdly and most importantly, they’ve got a tune and emotional projection – this song actually develops and Goes Somewhere (even if only to Barnet Church) and I don’t mind it at all; nor will I mind having to write about their new album, as I almost certainly will be doing when the time comes. TICK

Shakira – ah, that lovely 1981 Funkapolitan guitar drive, those remnants of Pet Shop Boy echoes in that sorrowful high chorus. Didn’t think “Hips Don’t Lie” was all that, but this is lovely and deceptively, and wickedly, seductive. A deserved number one if Taio Cruz or Madge don’t beat her to it next week. TICK

U2 – I guess the reason that Temper Trap record is doing so well, movie soundtrack and assorted sports incidental music notwithstanding, is that it’s a better U2 record than the new U2 record for those who like U2 records. This is like Tiger “Tim” Stevens and his Radio Clyde buddies wrapped around a lamppost in Govan belching WE ARRA BOYZ and indeed there is no tune to save them from drowning. Except the bit they recycled from “Streets” or “Looking” or “Christmas Alphabet.” NO TICK

Livvi Franc w. Pitbull – never mind Where’s Wally?, Where’s Pitbull on this record? I do like it, though (even or especially if she’s really singing “that kind of shit”) – reminds me of a feminised “Killer.” TICK