Yet Another Year In Pop: 43

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Chezza gets the first GA solo #1; electro/grime kids yodel for charity; someone sings an old Xtina song on the telly. It must be Monday!

[Poll #1476517]

(There's still a few hours to nominate songs for 2003.)

Comments

[koganbot]

Is this the worst week ever?

(I'm not rating the Xtina re-entry, which would probably only have reached my borderline anyway, the strong singing and full production not totally masking the nondescript melody.)

Cheryl Cole "Fight For This Love": The rolling synthesizers call for overflow from the vocals; instead we get what's barely more than a read-through. NO TICK.

Young Soul Rebels "I Got Soul": Moments of passion from the women singers, neutralized by the chorus, while the rapping is buried in the overall hum. And Jukebox already gave us all the good wisecracks. NO TICK.

Cobra Starship "Good Girls Go Bad": Unimaginative, half-decent pop-rock, gets a tick for seeming like technicolor amidst this week's perpetual gray. BORDERLINE TICK.

Alphabeat "The Spell": Ever since the "Boyfriend" remix hit me hard, I've wanted to revise my standard "not enough tune or emotion" response to these people, but unfortunately here I'm back at not enough tune or emotion. The song calls for someone to wail the "oh-oo-oh-oh-oh-oo-ohs," and Stine Bramson's not the one. NO TICK.

Foo Fighters "Wheels": Alright pop rock without much help from the singer or song. NO TICK.

Calvin Harris "Flashback": His singing is about as mediocre as mediocrity can get, and I can't get passed it - it's a blanket of ordinariness that smothers everything. I seem to be repeating myself from review to review. NO TICK.

Paolo Nutini "Pencil Full Of Lead": Huh? I mean, huh? Sounds like aliens kidnapped Louis Prima, extracted his personality, timing, and talent, and left us with this shuck. NO TICK.

Copy editing desk

[koganbot]

Bramson = Bramsen

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

Nearly 293,000 sales for Cheryl first week - why?

I noted on yesterday's chart show (talk about an anticlimactic ending in both senses) that everyone who rang or texted in said they hoped CC would be number one because they loved her - not the record. So it's a sympathy vote. Encouraging that in the current economic climate so many people have got so much money to squander on unreciprocated sympathy.

I've just got past the stage where I forget how the song goes while it's still on but it really is a struggle to remember anything about it. Tom says in his Grauniad piece that it's "catchy" but unfortunately to me it sounds like track 13 on a rejected third Melanie C album. Unutterably anonymous, practically tuneless, and, even "on her own" she has no choice but to perpetuate the "Cheryl Cole" brand so here we are, lumbered with a worthless record whose only function is to allow Cheryl Cole to be Cheryl Cole for a little while longer. And she can't do a big fuck off "River Deep Mountain High"-type epic because she hasn't got the pipes, nor I suspect the motive, for it.

Still, as with most recent "hits," nobody's going to remember it in six months. It really is 1982 all over again; such a good start, such a shitey end, with John and Edward no doubt becoming this age's Renee and Renato come Christmas.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i guess i chose the wrong week to give up giving up poptimists!

oof

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

aw come on, this (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/728625.html) is great!! ALL MUST TICK. (oops, sorry, wrong poll type)

[ijgrieve.livejournal.com]

Ticked six this week, more out of the excitement at having a decent sized batch of new entries from a variety of different genres than from any of the songs being particularly great.

Alphabeat (though it's no match for Fascination or 10,000 Nights) and Foo Fighters were clear ticks, the other four were borderline; particularly Paolo Nutini which gets a tick for being different rather than actually any good tbh.

Young Soul Rebels is horrible, takes the Killers most irritating song and makes it even worse.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

'The Spell' has an insake hook, not sure where claims to the contrary comes from