Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Trax Poll Results: TOP TEN TODAY)

if you guys recall this started as a discussion of essentially the authenticity of taylor writing an outcasty teenage pop song and whether it felt "real" enough or whether it was too "generic" and some ppl were using evidence from her actual life and other people were using evidence such as that video

so um yeah no one ever said it was a bad song because look at her

it's a bad song because I don't belong with her! she's not my type at all!!

hahahah

yeah but you know what i mean

xposts

xpost cosign the lols.

I love "Fancy" but listening to it w/o leading right into "Right Side of my Brain" sounds like absolute torture. Those two are just inseparable to me.

― Moreno, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 4:35 PM (40 minutes ago)

i can see how someone might think this but nah. fancy is the heart of this album, yall are just blinded by the light

I think I just hit a wall of Taylor fatigue by the time "You Belong To Me" came out. If I look at it objectively, I can see a lot of the qualities that cause people to elevate it. However, by the time I heard it, I was already so tired of "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "Love Story" that my default reaction was "ugh not another mopey teenage love song" and that's never really gone away.

But really though, the problem with the song - or rather, A problem with the song - is a credibility gap between the story she's telling and the way the contents of the song and its presentation in video suggest no familiarity with the world the song is supposed to inhabit. The video compounds the lack of detail/color/verisimilitude which already hobbles the song. It *doesn't* feel convincingly high school to me, it *doesn't* feel like the life of an outcast or whatever. Or at least not *my* life as an outcast which is obviously a different thing, but still. Maybe she has in fact lived it, okay, well she's not very good at translating it into song then. Sorry Taylor.

i can see how someone might think this but nah. fancy is the heart of this album, yall are just blinded by the light

― plaxico (I know, right?), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 12:39 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it might be, but i can enjoy the album without particularly liking its heart. let me see the booty!

kind of lolling btw at Ke$ha's blatant "Just Dance" imitation "Tik Tok"

― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:54 AM (31 minutes ago)

gotta adress teh rongness here:

"just dance" firstly is in no way relevatory or original in any way/shape/form and secondly "just dance" feels straight up euro (spanish/dutch) dance with the obligatory "do-do-doo"s c/p'd straight out of "Blue" or a Milky track matched with the finesse of '00s No Doubt OC disco flavor.

"tik tok"s beat feels more american dance (ie, rhythmic/synocopated, eh "funky" or "SLAMMIN")... although I admit that I like it because it reminds me of an updated take on the breakdown of "Music Sounds Better With You". "tik tok"'s vox on the verses are way more hip-hop inspired (almost crabcore-esque in content, which appeals to me a lil) whereas "just dance" is pure Stefani.

i don't want to get into the semantics of gaga vs. ke$ha's images/brands because frankly both girls are probably super annoying IRL and I get enough of that with Jersey Shore tbf.

Tik Tok and Just Dance sound alike? I am not hearing that at all.

xpost

Doctor Casino do you yell at the TV when She's All That comes on? were you disappointed that Revenge of the Nerds wasn't a documentary?

Fancy/RSOMB was the only case i came across last year where the smooth segue into the next track occurs. what are some other examples from 2009?

it does bug me a bit because why split the tracks up at all on the CD? i never really liked this practice on an album (different for actual mix comps). also the cash register intro...anyone ever get that coming up on itunes shuffle? lulz

I don't relate to YBWM at all, but I still think it's great.

Also that Doctor Casino argument is what I was getting at with all the video nonsense.

now why on earth would someone draw a connection between synth-heavy lead-off singles from blonde female pop singers about how they get totally blitzed and dance all night

man you guys can make music seem a whole lot less interesting than it actually is

(IOW I am talking thematic similarity, not musical similarity)

xp: then leave

your display name etc.

gaga is not a blonde!
http://cream-nyc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/i1cwsbe5xlptbe73vitr0f1ho1_400.jpg

lol

Doctor Casino do you yell at the TV when She's All That comes on? were you disappointed that Revenge of the Nerds wasn't a documentary?

― PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! (some dude), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 12:43 PM Bookmark

No, but...what's your argument here? The song must be convincing and identifiable-withable because its tropes are recycled from "She's All That"?

If you don't find the lyrics in the song relatable, and you feel that to be a problem, then fine. The video is designed to appeal to a mass audience using recycles genre tropes because that's what videos do.

recycled*

now why on earth would someone draw a connection between synth-heavy lead-off singles from blonde female pop singers about how they get totally blitzed and dance all night

― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:45 AM (4 minutes ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tGEYHKGWSE

I think everyone and their grandmother has already done the "Gaga is nu-Madonna" thing

hey dude, you brought up imitations (rongly imo), just trying to show "tik tok" some love round here cuz it's so hated.

I like Taylor Swift OK and I voted for "Love Story". Regardless of 'authenticity', or the video (which I haven't seen), though, YBWM just feels too ... obvious and cliched to me, like too much of a direct repetition of generic tropes from teen movies. (And I agree with Dr Casino here that some type of distinctive detail could help here.) Even "He was a punk/She did ballet" strikes me as a less obvious situation than "She wears short skirts/I wear T-shirts/She's cheer captain/ And I'm on the bleachers". (Also, it sounds kind of like a skipping rhyme or something.)

chords are what you make of them and are totally uninteresting until they've been coloured over with melody.

I totally disagree!

(I missed some posts so all these points may have been raised already.)

hey dude, you brought up imitations (rongly imo), just trying to show "tik tok" some love round here cuz it's so hated.

I love "Tik Tok", too!

Admittedly, I like "Love Story" mainly for its melody and delivery rather than its lyrics anyway. (The mandolin is a nice touch too.)

more love for tik tok here.
still somewhat undecided on the album; DINOSAUR is kinda mind boggling. bonus points for naming a song "party at a rich guy's house"

i was watching the video for tik tok on tv and my sister said "i bet that girl is always drunk" and ive liked it since

No, but...what's your argument here? The song must be convincing and identifiable-withable because its tropes are recycled from "She's All That"?

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 12:47 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It wasn't an argument of any kind, just an observation that you seem preoccupied with whether Swift's depiction of Nerd Life resonates with your real experiences as a Nerd American.

Well, I mean, we're an oppressed minority don'tcha know. Gotta call it out when we get co-opted.

it's actually you that seems preoccupied with it xpost

oh snap you blew my mind ;_;

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/8/21/youwillfindth128638461018746796.jpg

so it escaped my mind that I have to go to the office tomorrow...my best guess is albums will start Monday.

don't sweat it!

(phew i'm all deadlined up til monday then will be relatively FREEEE to er sit on the internet and argue about last year's albums)

Lex will you still argue if the metal mafia bloc got together and got 15 albums in the top 50? ;)

Could always do 60-51 on Friday... ?

we usually just do top 50 iirc

think i'd just be bored and do some work

xp

Another conclusion I've made from this poll is that a lot of people invest way too much in artists' singing abilities - their ability to sing "well" - almost to a Simon Cowell degree of fussiness. Like the Girls track or Joanna Newsom - sure they're not Mariah Carey, but whatever happened to allowing for idiosyncratic vocals that suit a particular kind of music? It's like moaning about Nirvana because Kurt Cobain doesn't sing like an angel. The Girls track wasn't a great song - it was flimsy, fairly formulaic, like a Lemonheads b-side or something. But complaining about the singing seems a bit redundant to me.

― dog latin, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:06 AM Bookmark

I think a lot of people here, myself included, are only using the rubric of "does this annoy the shit out of me or no?" and not some only-known-to-professionals-like-Dan-and-Simon argument about technique. You are really building some strawmen here.

i dunno i tend to agree with dog latin here, i mean i believe you that that's what you mean, but when you get all "wtf is this contrived squaking" it sounds like a lot of you are bringing stuff like this as if it were totally objective

we usually just do top 50 iirc

Yeah, I was digging for an extra ten...

I think it's kind of hilarious that both of his examples feature me either going "this entire thing is a bag of shit" (GIRLS) or "lol wtf lol lol lol" (Joanna Newsom); I think the only detailed vocal criticism someone I wrote was about Dirty Projectors and that was in response to someone asking me to explain my gripe about their tuning. (btw the rest of that song is proving to be catchy enough for me to ignore my tuning gripes)

xp: That's because you are projecting thought processes onto people. Instead of taking "I can't stand that voice" comments at face-value, or taking my comments about a person's inability to hit a note or sing in tune as the end-all/be-all metric by which I evaluate music as opposed to one segment of what I hear, you are essentially inventing a whole bunch of insulting bullshit about the people who are saying they don't like some of this stuff.

i dunno i tend to agree with dog latin here, i mean i believe you that that's what you mean, but when you get all "wtf is this contrived squaking" it sounds like a lot of you are bringing stuff like this as if it were totally objective

what

the

fuck?