poptimists | Best Song of 2003: Heat #2

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2000s

Best Song of 2003: Heat #2

Heat #1 saw tATu storm ahead with the best tick-turnout of the decade so far; Yulia and Lena are joined in the final by the White Stripex, Xtina, Jay-X & Beyonxe and RicharX-v-LibertX.

On to heat #2, in which the wailing/gnashing of teeth may rise to new heights. But only five can go through, and it's up to you lot to pick which ones! Choose wisely, o Poptimists...

You get SIX TICKS over the three bits of the poll, unless you played the investigation game on the previous heat and told us all your new favourite (and why). Put your new favourite in the box below and get an extra tick for the next heat - do this on five or more of the eight heats and get an extra nomination slot for 2004! (thx to credoimprobus for this suggestion)

The top five in each heat will go through to the next stage. Make sure you rep for your faves in the comments!

If you want to fill in the 'best song I only heard today' box later, change your vote (or tick too many by mistake), you can edit your votes by clicking on 'Poll #12345' then 'Fill Out Poll'.

You have until Tuesday lunchtime to vote

[Poll #1478382]

Extra ticks for this heat go to

jeff_worrell,

credoimprobus,

meserach,

koganbot and me.

P.S. HALLOWEEN POPTIMISM TONIGHT! Be there or be Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf 2!

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'Bring Me Closer' is track 2 off Michael Mayer's Fabric 13 mix and is full of sweeping emo orchestra and an emo dude on vocals to match. It's like someone has sat down and thought 'I shall now create a track that will make Kat cry on the bus'.

Oh, damn, forgot this!

I'm considering rescinding my tick for this - I thought I loved it dearly but listening back, it's a bit underwhelming (esp Kim's singing at the end - hmmm). Also Xtina's outfit NEEDS TO STOP NOW, especially the socks. However the crowd 'shout-out's might just save it.

I'm very sorry for ticking Red Hot Chilli Peppers but I maintain that this is the only good song they've ever done...

I quite liked that one where they were all covered in silver paint :)

Bouncy, Justin and Elec6 won't need my help. I've ticked six others off the bat, but it ain't obvious to me that this is The Heat of Death. I have one tick free and might be ready to switch others. So keep those YouTubes coming.

75% so far - I (perhaps misguidedly) thought people would be more sick of this song than anything else this year?

I ticked it mainly because I love the video enormous fvcking amounts+++ - she's both terrifying and talented and that orange/purple dress and the exploding car and MY GOD how did she just go from walking along normally to dropping down to her ankles in less than 1 microsecond...

Down to 60%! Theory not yet disproved!

Electric Six! It's not a foregone conclusion - only 36% of votes as I write :-(.

Yikes! Without having heard most of these I used all my ticks already (subject to change when I do listen) without ticking Fannypack, A.R.E. Weapons, Blu Cantrell (just heard this for the first time, as far as I know, and it may get my endorsement in that category), Electric Six, and "Deliverance." Ridiculous.

I hated 'Breathe' when it came out! I've mellowed towards it since but it's still kinda boring.

It has a memorable beat and Sean Paul is great on it too, but I agree the song itself is totally meh.

Ha! And I ticked one too many the first time through anyway.

The Blu Cantrell is amazing, it did nothing in NAmerica apparently (I slept on it til '08), samples a Serge Gainsbourg beat!

Gary Allan "Can't Do It Today"

Country track that's absolutely gorgeous and absolutely rocking. Not on YouTube unfortunately, but please listen.

Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets
David Banner "Cadillac On 22's"

I use the words "strange" and "haunting" too much, but here's a song that's strange and haunting.

Same chords as "Lay Lady Lay,"* but what Banner lays on top is from a different galaxy.

*Which doesn't mean that that's where Banner got it. A blues guitarist friend of mine once told me the name of the "Lay Lady Lay" chord progression, which apparently had been around a long time, but I forget what it's called.

The screwed & chopped version.

Blimey that's a video and a half right there.

This one is great, and "strange and haunting" is indeed otm.

FM Knives Cassavetes vs. The Moneygoround, like the Buzzcocks in dark mode.

I was mildly obsessed with this song just after I finished my finals. Then Garnier nicked it for a hair gel advert and turned it RUBBISH.

(I had no idea they were mostly going on about heroin until last week though)

Oh, yeah, four or five tracks on the album would have been tickworthy (in some other heat, alas). One of the few supergroups that jelled.

i was obsessed with this song too! i always liked how it sounded like they'd sampled two completely different blur songs.

I thought I'd never heard anything by him until I listened to 'Ugly' in the 2001 heats and went "OHHHHH THAT ONE".

However I definitely haven't heard 'Deliverance' or 'Comin Around' before. The former lacks anything like the eeedly-eeee hook of Ugly, but the latter has some awesome squelchy bits AND the fiddle.

'Deliverance' has a great O Brother Where Art Thou? tribute video iirc

Both of these deserve more love. Deliverance is such a great album. However, I'll save the full on lobbying for when we get to 'Jimmy Mathis'.

Agree both are excellent, first time I heard either. I may not have room for ticks (suffering EPIC tick indecision right now), but they've definitely convinced me to look up the album.

OK who nominated this? It's DREADFUL and I would like you to explain yrself pls!

I love it (though I didn't nominate it). Electro-beats, wastrel fear, power chords, Save The Children earnestness. I read here that the synth riff that opens the album sounds like thin electric wires in a mesh arrangement. Also mentions quadratic equations (not the A.R.E. Weapons album, but the linked review).

This video seems to contain a cat. But is it really a cat?

Eye for an Eye opens UNKLE's excellent Never, Never, Land album, and sets up its bleakness brilliantly: it's absolutely merciless, a giant war machine crushing everything in its path and leaving nothing but a scorched landscape behind. The numerous dialogue samples from The Thin Red Line are chillingly effective, scattered like guideposts throughout the song.

And if for nothing else, play this for the video, which is fucking INCREDIBLE.

On the completely opposite end of the scale, here's Zombie Nation with a sparkling burst of technicolour ethnic magpiery (shush that is totally a word).

I quite like this. Sounds like "Gangsta's Paradise" seized by doodling ghosts.

I'm not sure who originally nominated this, but it's great. Give it a listen and give it a tick, and it can still get through...

I nominated this! It is SO GOOD!

Sadly I have lost all internet access de to moving house and don;t really have time to go into this at length right now, but the Dresden Dolls are SUCH A GOOD THING. Amanda Palmer does fucked-up-gril 1000% better than any other pop artist known, I love the whole look and the music ain;t half bad either.

Here, Amanda's sexually playful side and her no-one-will-ever-love-me emo side collide beautifully in the bridge, which suddenly shreds the soul halfway through what seemed like a playful song about a fantasy sex toy. I mean, it IS a song about a fantasy sex toy but it's also about Amanda's damage, because all songs with Amanda in them are about her damage.

Look, just listen to it curse you all

Have you heard Little Peggy March's "Wind Up Doll"?

Oh yeah, I nominated this. I'd better plug it a bit. Will probably tick as well. Now that he's suddenly HUGE in America, it's worth recalling where he started from.

Aw come on, ppl! Here's Fannypack with a none too tactful warning to the ladies out there.

Things I am pleased about:

* Evanescence look set to qualify which is a doubleplusgood thing as I suspected they might stuggle especially in such a strong heat. "Bring Me To Life" is the nu-metal generation's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and is a preposterous monstrous religion-and-sex power-ballad very much to be celebrated. I was so obsessed with the "Fallen" album back in the day.

Things I am at least somewhat sad about:

* No-one (NO-ONE!) has ticked Mis-Teeq's "Can't Get It Back"! Ok it is not their finest hour but it would totally be my eight tick if I had one, and indeed I might subtract ticks from Justin and Beyonce who are sure to qualify just to spread the love a little.

Video also features brassieres on the head of perturbed judges in wigs:

I mean come on that is a classy slice of tuneage right there. Not one tick? "Keep your zip closed" Oh Alesha why did you give up on the rapping...

*

Heh, "Bring Me To Life" is back in the lower reaches of the UK Top 100 singles chart this week, thanks to the (slightly scary) cover by opera diva and new "forces' sweetheart" Katherine Jenkins, which itself crashes in @ #74 in the chart.

'Bring Me To Life' is an obvious classic but I like Call Me When You're Sober (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izYIO9VtjUs) (from 2006) better thx to the RIDICULOUS VIDEO where she is Red Riding Hood and starts LEVITATING before the wolves can get her :D

I am an ever-loving SUCKER for trance when it's well done. My song of the year for '03* is trance; one of my top 5 tunes of '05 is a trance remix. This one gets me with its crystal-pure vocals, floating in space over the beat, which is a trance trope that never fails to choke me up like the music-emo loser I am.

*) we won't be seeing this one until the '04 polls, though, since it didn't chart till January

Aw dude, we're all music-emo losers when it comes to early-00s trance :)

Music-emo loser solidarity high-five! :)

Oh man, I have to post this one too, just because this fan video, as basic and cheap as it is, is BRILLIANT:

Jebus but I haven't listened to this album since 2004. There are some good tracks on it (like this one) but it was just TOO LONG.

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Best Song of 2003: Heat #2

When you're feeling so hopeless

Re: When you're feeling so hopeless

Can't Hold Us Down

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Open to persuasion

Bouncy's castle remaining steadfast?

Bouncy's castle DEFLATING

Re: Open to persuasion

Ridiculous

POO Cantrell more like

Re: POO Cantrell more like

Re: Ridiculous

Re: Ridiculous

My world hasn't stopped turnin', but it's fallin' apart

Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets

Re: Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets

Re: Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets

Re: Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets

Re: Pimp my voice and mack these beats, and pray to the Lord for these Mississippi streets

I shake their hands 'cause I'm out of sedatives

Diamonds and Guns

Re: Diamonds and Guns

Re: Diamonds and Guns

no one lives forever - in fact, we all die

Bubba

Re: Bubba

Re: Bubba

Re: Bubba

A.R.E. Weapons

Re: A.R.E. Weapons

RUN, RUN, RUN BUT YOU SURE CAN'T HIDE

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Coin Operated Boy

Re: Coin Operated Boy

Re: Coin Operated Boy

Jay Sean's breakout hit

Only 2 ticks????

Ups and Downs

Re: Ups and Downs

Re: Ups and Downs

Almost certain to get my 'best new' vote

Re: Almost certain to get my 'best new' vote

Re: Almost certain to get my 'best new' vote

no subject

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