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)

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?

we usually just do top 50 iirc

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

There's definitely enough albums to do more, and it would mean some albums that slipped under the radar would get noticed BUT, speaking as someone who just ran a Metal Poll Top 100, IT IS A FUCKLOAD OF WORK, and Musically posts the rundown from her work and I don't think even an extra ten would be possible.

xp: ppl should stop having opinions, especially if they could hurt someone's feelings, amirite

she posts all of the runners up after anyway.

btw hi dere u r being a total psycho to me

i know this is going to make me even less popular than i already am on this board, but i really can't kid myself into thinking that i'd rather hear someone who sounds "like a goose being put through a garlic press" (granted, that had me rofling), than someone whose pitch-perfected melodyne-melismated vocal-stylings have me falling asleep with their genericness. i guess i'll never fully understand poppism...

most of the people reacting negatively to girls/animal collective/newsom/whoever like a ton of "unconventional" vocalists, so accusing people of needing someone to sound like mariah carey (as if her voice isn't shot to rags these days) or indeed pitch-perfect in any way just seems incredibly dumb.

do you guys wanna show me again where dan suggested that he was listening to singers "the right way" and the rest of us were doing it wrong?

yeah i think its weird that the response to me misreading u is to completely strawman me tho

Lex playing the "I like Tom Waits" card once again... ;-)

does "card" = valid point now?

as not the biggest fan of x's and o's style criticism myself i nevertheless think we can stop making this thread about what dan did or didnt say

it's worth noting that the reigning singing style -- american idol, post-whitney, studio-mariah, r&b machine, whatever you want to call it -- is its own kind of historical peculiarity. it's "weird" the way any given singing style is weird, it's just really really popular.

also i think its okay to have a conversation where you bring certain points into play by misreading somebody's position, just bc i didnt get what u were saying right doesnt mean you have to shoot me down and be like mean abt it, like it would have been interesting to me if you had tried to be more nuanced but like i suppose i am just imposing on ur time

Maybe I'm just a bit sick and tired of the anti-indie reflex that has always been put about on ILX. Often it feels like if it has indie-vocals or a non-pop strategem, everyone's all "LOL, this sucks I hate it", which I could also say about maybe 70% of major-studio pop .

I'll shut up about it now cos it's going to get me nowhere. I've learnt a great deal from this thread, but I'm looking forward to seeing some stuff I actually did listen to in 09 on the albums list.