Yet Another Year In Pop: 40

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Taio Cruz might not have won any MOBO awards last week but he's still sitting pretty at the top of the charts. It's not a good Monday morning for the Backstreet Boys though - their new single about vampires has only made it to no. 72 :(

[Poll #1466732]

Heat #6 of 2002 will be up tomorrow! After 2002 is over I'm going to start going through them a bit quicker so we get at least halfway through the decade before 2010...

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Deadmau5 tick based on what I found on YouTube which may not be the version that's charting here. What I heard was 6 minutes long, contained no singing but had a bit of spoken word in the last minute, a bloke going on about Beatport or something.

Tinchy - is this trance rap? I liked it anyway.

[koganbot]

The Deadmau5 single is here, definitely has vocals, definitely a pop song. Is that anomalous for this guy? I've seen him classified as "progressive house" and the other tracks I heard of his in a quick three-song cram were more austere. Also better. For a tuneful pop song this is drab - I was going to say "is uncommonly drab," but a lot of British dance hits since I've been paying attention to these polls have been strikingly uncatchy in their attempted catchiness, and feel annoyingly rote. (Yeah, I know the guy's Canadian, not Brit, but he's sure not crossing Top 40 in the U.S.) I miss the classic days of Italodisco, when tuneful ditties knew how to ditz around tunefully.

September etc roundup answers, uncut edition

[credoimprobus]

Runners-up for best new, single-wise, would be Amerie's Heard 'em All (flawed but still stunning) and Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA (AMAZING on the radio, but the entirely unnecessary vocal processing rubs me the wrong way* and takes it down a notch).

Oh, also:



(Been halfway to posting it about a dozen times, it's bloody amazing.)

On the albums side, Clark's Totems Flare, which is probably his best yet and an honest stunner, and Tigerbeat6's BASHING Tigerbass vol. 1 compo. (I've also been belatedly investigating hyphy, and bloody hell there's some good stuff to be had there -- but I'll leave that for the noughties polls.)

In the singles of the year so far stakes (and partially combined with the sept. best), I really feel the need to rep for my 12"s, because there's been some AMAZING stuff from the dubstep & extended bass music continuum side this year -- it really seems to be where the most exciting things are happening in 2009. Youtube linkage for demonstrative purposes:
Zomby - The Lie
Calibre - Stolen Shadow
Brackles - LHC (yes, that is Hide U lurking in the vocal samples :D)
King Cannibal - Virgo / Murder Us (may be my 12" of the year, BRUTAL)
Shortstuff - A Rustling
and for lack of the original version of FaltyDL's Human Meadow on youtube, here are a couple of quite awesome remixes.

I'd also like to remind everyone in the world of Two Fingers' What You Know. If you haven't listened to it yet, do it now!


*) tbh ALL unnecessary vocal processing rubs me the wrong way since it became an overwhelming trend this year (and generally speaking I am strongly pro-autotune!)

Re: September etc roundup answers, uncut edition

[credoimprobus]

Bloody hell, forgot this one: Burial & Four Tet - Moth

Re: September etc roundup answers, uncut edition

[koganbot]

One could argue that, for this year's AutoTune, the gratuitousness was the point. However, along about mid-summer it jumped the shark for me, from hilariously ridiculous to just plain tiring.

Re: September etc roundup answers, uncut edition

[koganbot]

(By the way, thanks for all your links. They're always appreciated. I usually at least try to get a chance to listen to whatever you link.)

4ever

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Um, isn't that Veronicas song actually the best song of like 2005 or something?

Re: 4ever

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the UK music industry's capacity for being behind the times.

Re: 4ever

[credoimprobus]

We also had it presented as "the new Veronicas!" on radio over here the other month. I laughed until I wheezed on the inside, let me tell you.

Re: 4ever

[koganbot]

Kat, I've been meaning to propose this, and now seems like a good time: in very rare circumstances in the 2000s polls you should make exceptions to the criterion that states that the year something goes top 40 in Britain is the year it's eligible for the poll. "4ever" would be a borderline case. If it falls right back out of the Top 40, I'd say we should make it 2005 (year released in Australia) or 2006 (year released in the U.S.) because that's when it had its impact on us. However, if it hangs on in the chart for a while, then in crucial ways it does belong to this year.

"Be Mine!" is another case, since its British chart success was in 2008 but its MASSIVE success and influence on ilX and Pitchfork and poptimists, and its reestablishing her as an international figure (even if not an international superstar), came in 2005.

But neither of those matter to me as much as this one:

According to everyhit, Lil Jon's "Get Low" scraped into the bottom of the U.K. Top 40 in 2005, only getting up to 38. I don't know why it charted then. But the crucial fact is that its success two years earlier in the United States was possibly the most significant event in hip-hop this decade, for better or worse, in that it solidified the dominance of the Dirty South and it determined what a whole hunk of hip-hop/r&b radio was going to sound like in 2004 and 2005 as well as helping other developments like screw, and further developments like snap and hyphy and jerkin', to have national commercial potential. Now, I don't know what impact the track had on you guys in '03, but it had an impact on what I'm guessing some of you were listening to in '04 and are likely to nominate for that year, and it feels wrong to be assigning it to 2005 when we'll already have been evaluating its progeny in the 2004 poll.

Re: 4ever

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

In all honesty Frank I doubt it's going to be an issue - I'm almost certainly going to change the rules again before we get anywhere near 2004/5 seeing as 1) I have worked out how many weeks there are left in the year and by gum we are somewhat behind here guys 2) as the UK charts became so static from 2007 onwards we could probably fit all the half-decent charting entries into one poll anyway 3) the likelihood of me having a nervous breakdown, never going back into work again and mothballing this entire endeavour is RATHER HIGH at the moment :(

Re: 4ever

[koganbot]

Aw! Well put your sanity first and do what you have to do, whatever it is.

Best of September

[koganbot]

OK, deciding that September is everything I've heard through right now:

Relatively new to the world as well as to me:
Ashley Monroe "Consider Me"
Lady Antebellum "Need You Now"
Miranda Lambert "That's The Way The World Goes 'Round"
Miranda Lambert "White Lies"
Wiley f. Emeli Sande "Never Be Your Woman"

New to me but not to the world:
t.A.T.u. "Ne Ver Ne Bojsia"
Rickie Lee Jones "White Girl"
Beanie Siegel f. Jay-Z "Glock Nines (Ratatat Remix)"
Nneka "Heartbeat" (original)

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Interesting that no one is commenting (here, anyway) about Fame, either the movie or this remake (which is moderately dreadful, IMO - "remember my name" is exacty the least likely thing after hearing this song).

[koganbot]

Yeah, I finally got around to listening and, um... (well, I'll finally get around to my roundup in a few minutes)... Naughton was in 3LW, whose name does ring a bell.

Cascading harmony, inviting us to surround ourselves in its blinding emotion

[koganbot]

For about nine months in 1977-early '78 I lived across the street from the High School Of Performing Arts in midtown Manhattan, could see dancers through my window. Don't know if anyone lived forever, or learned how to fly.

Deadmau5 f. Rob Swire: What I told Jeff upthread, inexplicably drab for a dance-pop hit; would have been better austere, not pop. NO TICK.

The Veronicas "4ever": Yup, song of the year, that year being 2006 for me, 2005 for some others, maybe 2009 for a few more. From the archives: Harmonic Convergence: Aussie teenpop sisters pit identity against intimacy for either sharp sentiment or caustic sap. By Frank Kogan. TICK.

La Roux "I'm Not Your Toy": The rinkidinkiness isn't just a flubbed throwback to a primitive time in electro when people had less of a choice as to what to do with their dinks. Elly's voice seems to be trying to invent itself from an old Victorian hiss. In any event, this sounds as charmingly frazzled as "Bulletproof," and isn't nearly as grating as "In For The Kill." Unfortunately, it isn't nearly as moving in its frazzledness as "Bulletproof" is, either. BORDERLINE NONTICK.

Tinchy Stryder "You're Not Alone": Emo rap; For two second I was ready to hate this, but the song Stryder finds himself in is quite pretty, opening up the sound and telling him the world can open him up too. BORDERLINE TICK.

Naturi Naughton "Fame": A strangely doo-wop start, while an unexpected swing rhythm establishes itself to make sure we don't call this a rehash. The result is too lightweight, the rhythm skipping easily over any possible impact. NO TICK.

Daughtry "What About Now": Big-lunged baritone weeper, Daughtry doing his job, but the track has made any possible sonic point by the two-minute mark. NO TICK.

Re: Cascading harmony, inviting us to surround ourselves in its blinding emotion

[koganbot]

Elly's voice seems to be trying to invent itself from an old Victorian hiss.

Meant to type "from old Victrola hiss."