A New Decade In Pop: Week #3

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Iyaz still on top; the Glee Cast manage to get their version of 'Don't Stop Believin' one place higher in the top ten than the original Journey version which originally charted last year (I am not utterly surprised at this result given I was humming DSB for most of last week and I don't even LIKE it). Apart from that the POWERS OF INDIE have done rather well this week...

[Poll #1513143]

Other Glee Cast entries in the top 100: Take A Bow, Gold Digger, Rehab, On My Own. I wonder what they'll sing in tonight's episode?

2004 heat #5: Coming tomorrow lunchtime! I've typed it out and everything!

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I like Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service and even I think Ben Whatshisface should SHUT UP and FVCK OFF now. God.

Either that or 4Music have to stop playing it five times an hour, anyway.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This JLS song should be a lot more banging than it is - it has the Clubland trance synths going but absolutely ZERO BASSLINE :( I would rate it in the lower 50% of the album tracks.

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

The worst top ten in a long while; only four good songs (2, 3, 7 and 9) = FAIL. Doesn't bode well for the decade.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Plan B song isn't too bad actually - assuming you like Shed Seven.

[koganbot]

Bad singing of good melodies, good singing wasted on bad.

Owl City "Fireflies": The minute-and-a-half of awful toy plinkiness at the start turns my stomach, the fake little-boy breathiness gets irritating real fast, the lyrics are dying trees that thud as they fall, but nonetheless the guy constructed a really good tune. RELUCTANT, BORDERLINE TICK.

Glee Cast "Don't Stop Believin'": Haven't seen the show. Can imagine that in context this club-footed, earnest, mediocre track could be moving, a personal triumph for the characters, and I like but don't love the original (sorta Springsteen run through the washer's slow-agony cycle, not that the Boss himself was such a swift delight). This isn't awful but it's not within miles of a tick. NO TICK.

Plan B "Stay Too Long": Even by garage-rock standards this guy can't sing, and his strained upper register is simply a nuisance. Fortunately for a lot of this he drops the singing in favor of rhythmic talk, and the Kinks+SoulOrgan sound is good bread-and-butter 1966. Makes me smile. TICK.

OneRepublic "All The Right Moves": Yikes, Ryan Tedder gets to be the week's first competent singer. As expected, the drumming's more flexible than you normally get from rock-oriented pop. But the sub-whistlable melody compensates by being unexpectedly dull. NO TICK.

JLS "One Shot": Fine light generic singing within a dramatic arrangement, real good for delivering a good tune, but this one's just ho-hum, and not particularly hummable. NO TICK.

Biffy Clyro "Many Of Horror": Thought the title "Many Of Horror" was one of Kat's puns. Wouldn't call the track a wet blanket, exactly. A dry blanket, more like. NO TICK.

Vampire Weekend "Cousins": People talk about these guys a lot, but nothing anyone said pro or con inspired me to listen. So here we are, bit for the very first time (or second, anyway; did hear an earlier track). If the year were 1977 and someone had said "White terror atop black funk" I might have got interested. Of course, that's Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer." For this one, "off-hand glide atop artificially hectic Afro-funk" might or might not do it. Would help if the words "slyly authoritative" could someday sneak in front of the phrase "off-hand glide," with the phrase "like Ray Davies'" appended to "glide." As it is, this is half-sweet but weak, and weakness is no virtue in itself. GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF BEING TENTATIVELY INTERESTED IN THESE GUYS BORDERLINE TICK.

When rappers sing

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

This 'rhythmic talk' thing might just be the future, you know. I heard Fatback are gonna try it out on their next record. ;-)

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Am feeling that the delicate balance that kept the first Vampire Weekend album on the right side of really annoying for me may have been tipped by this new one, which is far too busy from what I've heard so far.