A New Decade In Pop: Week #6

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Owl City are still finding the number 1 spot 'a hoot' (sorry), Jedward can only manage #2 and Hot Chip a measly #41.

[Poll #1522897]

Glee Watch: as well as the Queen cover we have their duet of Heart's 'Alone' at #47, making NINE entries in the top 100. Apparently this week it's shonky bootleg mash-up time so expect more nonsense next Monday.

Hand-wringing watch: 'Everybody Hurts' by REM is in at 90 because the Haiti version was only released on Saturday.

2005 nominations: Open until Thursday evening! Add your nominations here.

Comments

Sorry I can't talk right now I'm KINDA BIZZ-AYY

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

'Telephone' is amazing:



This and 'Bad Romance' are two excellent reasons to buy The Fame Monster, even if the other tracks are nowhere near as good and one of them is actively bad. OK maybe you should just buy 'Bad Romance' and 'Telephone'. The fact that 'Telephone' only unleashes its best hook at around 1.23 and then some marching band cymbals 30 seconds later makes me love it even more somehow.

Re: Sorry I can't talk right now I'm KINDA BIZZ-AYY

[koganbot]

However, it's also a re-entry (Yet Another Year In Pop: 48); which is why I'm not ticking it now.

Re: Sorry I can't talk right now I'm KINDA BIZZ-AYY

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Really? Arse.

Re: Sorry I can't talk right now I'm KINDA BIZZ-AYY

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

which is the bad one?

Re: Sorry I can't talk right now I'm KINDA BIZZ-AYY

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

'Speechless', what she did with Elton John at the Grammys - sounds like Gabriella Cilmi has hit upon hard times and is working the cabaret circuit with a recently bankrupted Elton on pianner.

[koganbot]

I ticked "Telephone" in November but not ticking again as I've a policy against ticking a simple re-entry.

Jedward ft. Vanilla Ice "Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)": The twins are weak, lite, and pretty, with the tough bass line underneath. The contrast could have worked, especially since, when Ice shows up, he gives me flashes of "Ice Ice Baby" as a low-budget rap out of nowhere in the ominous summer night of 1990, before it became ubiquitous a couple of months later. Two problems: I never was excited by "Under Pressure" as a song on its own, and prettiness done weakly isn't all that pretty. NO TICK.

Ke$ha "Blah Blah Blah": Desperate fun that reaches for dumb party clichés and dumber attitudes as if they were some kind of adventure. This is energetic and pretty enough to override my horror, though not catchy or smart enough to make something of the horror. TICK.

Marina & The Diamonds "Hollywood": L.A. Cliché Week continues. Marina's rigidity is touching as she too reaches for a messy life that's beyond her, though with at least some consciousness and ambivalence. The melody gets her over, as do the unconvinced oh-oh,-oh-oh-oh's and oo's that nonetheless are incantory. TICK.

Glee Cast "Somebody To Love: And now we return to Botched Queen Cover Week. Freddy Mercury's ridiculousness required high chops and inspiration; this version does no more than hit the marks. Dutiful. NO TICK.

Calvin Harris "You Used To Hold Me": Like the Ke$ha and the Marina, this is about the gap between performer and life; like the Jedword and the Glee, the gap is caused by incompetence, which Calvin could defeat easily enough by simply hiring a singer: the basic track here is strong and for the first minute I thought he'd triumph, the voice and beats in promising fragments before the song coalesces and the force dissipates. BORDERLINE TICK.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

That Marina and the Diamonds song is properly sh1t.

[koganbot]

Before I forget, Happy Birthday!

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

Some improvement.

Katy Perry is better with Timbaland than with 303 or whichever stupid branding way they choose to spell their name. Ke$ha has the right idea - keep them in their place, ridicule them and get them the hell out of the record asap. The Marina record is very good indeed.

Jedward - same as the Cheeky Girls, as everyone expected; one stupid novelty hit and then with any luck straight to Butlin's.

Glee - seamlessly professional, not a note out of place (AutoTune makes sure of that), not a dance step out of tempo or line, not a bead of sweat on anybody's brow. Totally perfect (technically) and completely joyless, anonymous and empty. Freddie would have liked the royalties and loathed the concept.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I think the thing I hate most about the Marina song is that every time I hear it, I want to write a long, mean-spirited, probably ignorant, probably hypocritical Tumblr post about how people who aren't from America shouldn't be allowed to write songs about America.

On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Exhibit A: Englishman In New York
Exhibit B: Razorlight's 'America'

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Exhibit C: Eurythmics' "King and Queen of America."

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[koganbot]

Need Judge's ruling as to whether the Guess Who count as not from America (they seem confused on the concept).

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Canadian =/= American.

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[koganbot]

Oh good, we get to ban Neil Young ("Southern Man," even though it's a terrific song, and "Ohio," ditto) and Joni Mitchell ("Woodstock," "This Flight Tonight" um, I'd actually make an exception for the latter, esp. because Nazareth covered it).

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[koganbot]

OK, I'm sort of kidding about Neil and Joni, who do embody California pretty well, though I suppose we could make a rule that no one from California gets to write about America either.

Re: On the basis of a few examples I think I agree!

[koganbot]

I would make exceptions for:

Boney M (esp. "Ma Baker," but in general Boney M get to write songs about anywhere they like, especially Russia)

The Rolling Stones (e.g., "The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man," "2120 South Michigan Avenue," "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar," "Midnight Rambler," "Dear Doctor," "The Spider And the Fly" [the last of which doesn't mention anywhere in America by name but I always picture it as set here])

Rachel Stevens ("Sweet Dreams My LA Ex")

Anything sung by Britney Spears (a lot of which were written by Scandinavians)(I mean, if "Piece Of Me" isn't about Los Angeles, what is?)

In a mild defense of Marina, I like the detail that the security guy hits on her by telling her she looks like Shakira! That actually made me burst out laughing.

Also, another exception: Shakira, for the excellent "Where Are The Men In This Town," the town in question seeming to be Los Angeles.

I don't know Dvorak well enough to have an opinion on him.

A plague

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

We're going to get a bloody Glee thing every week for weeks, aren't we? That programme is already causing big problems for me in the office…

Re: A plague

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I will stop commenting on it when it stops being 10% of the charts.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I kinda like the Marina and the Diamonds song...it's like the Silicon Teens!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I am arriving at this thread nearly a week late to say that I kinda like the Marina Song too. It reminds me of Roxy Music a lot.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

And I even later. This last week I've sort of fallen in love with it.