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

[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