Little Boots - "Stuck on Repeat"

if this album was a computer game i'd give it 66%

Can't believe that the Tenori costs £700. I thought it was like a cheap kiddie toy.

Also, all computer games should be scored 7/10. Thought everybody knew that.

tenori-on(s) are closer to £900 these days according to the yamaha website, they blame the exchange rate.

http://tenori-on.yamaha-europe.com/uk/shop/ (£919)

talk about style over substance

album went from #5 to #40 in the charts in the space of one week - seems like a crazy drop, but is this normal in the charts these days?

No. 679 seem such a fuck up of a label.

Amongst its many charms, "Remedy" is turning out to be an industrial-strength earworm. Of the three remixes that I've heard, the astute re-jig by Buffetlibre vs Sidechains is my clear winner.

I have been pleasantly surprised to have had this banging about in my head the past couple of days, too. I'd initially thought it could have benefited from being given to a Bengtzing-esque hoofer, but with time it's really grown on me.

Buffetlibre vs Sidechains remix of "Remedy" + the new Friendly Fires single = the return of BIG DRUMS, hurrah!

'Love Kills' = Moroder/Freddie Mercury cover, no?

The very same. And there's a Buffetlibre/Sidechains remix of that one as well: http://www.buffetlibredjs.net/remixesbl.html

er, just ditto re that remedy remix. love it, love the original. if it gets within sniffing distance of #1 i will expire in a heap

well it went in at #33 and seeing as 'New In Town' didn't climb i doubt this one will (despite performances on breakfast sodding TV)

it's not actually released yet tho!?

Post Field Day, I've decided I have defected to the "YAY!" side over the Little Boots issue.

i didn't notice it charted at the weekend. woah kids, yr so modern with your downloads and that. release dates pffft

it's not actually released yet tho!?

New In Town didn't enter pre-release tho so why would the follow up (not sure if it's had more plugging - maybe) xp

nice video just for ref

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

Post Field Day, I've decided I have defected to the "YAY!" side over the Little Boots issue.

― seni seviyorum / senden nefret ediyorum (Masonic Boom), Wednesday, 5 August 2009 17:10

i don't know what to make of this.

oh wait. she's a girl. i get it now.

WTF are you trying to say, Chuck?

Think the marketing campaign blew it a bit with Little Boots by selling her as Glamorous New Pop Star when they might have had more luck selling her as what she is - geeky, techy, mates-with-Hot-Chip, slightly awkward indie/rave girl gone pop.

A few years ago that would have been commercial suicide but now I'm not so sure. Like VV Brown it's never really felt like there was enough ground-up enthusiasm for her - the marketing success of La Roux lay in leading people to believe they'd discovered them for themselves, even though there was a massive promotional budget. Little Boots was trailered as This Year's Big Thing from the start and the public didn't quite buy it.

FWIW I'm still playing this album and its by miles my favourite of the 2009 All Female Hype Crew.

Think the marketing campaign blew it a bit with Little Boots by selling her as Glamorous New Pop Star when they might have had more luck selling her as what she is - geeky, techy, mates-with-Hot-Chip, slightly awkward indie/rave girl gone pop.

Exactly.

I did't "get" her when people were trying to compare her to Kylie or whatever - I have NEVER seen Kylie play a theremin onstage. I was converted. Wanted more of the geekgurl, TBH.

Will probably get this album now.

Oh wait. I like her. She's doomed. :-(

anyone else think the love kills cover is a deliberate St Etienne impersonation?

ok, i'm not a huge StEt fan, but i don't mean just vocally (just seen Matt mentioning sarah-cracknell up thread)

actually a lot of them sound like 'look i can sounds like X'. i guess i mean like lex said ^^ 'like a demo that a talented songwriter would hawk around for other artists to sing'. but to about half the tracks, not just new in town.

She is one of those artists I have not heard but am somewhat interested in. Sometimes I think, though, that she is too much of a glamour girl to be any good musically.

But I see up thread this is maybe more to do with how she has been marketed. And anyway, she is not a "put it away love" type of glamour girl.

Little Boots was trailered as This Year's Big Thing from the start and the public didn't quite buy it.

i think this is mainly down to her 'weakness' as a singer/performer compared to Duffy or Adele (previous Big Things but totally different acts but sold on a 'real music' ticket that compels a wider audience) really. and yeah she's too "niche" ('Coronation Street in space' is still my favourite description, altho that suggests a more humourous and culturally/regionally stereotypical approach which isn't really there)

I'm only going to accept that criticism from the Lex if he also renounces all the other vocally-limited personality-free ciphers he has repped for over the years - from Rachel Stevens through to Ciara and Cassie.

(All of the above are great BTW but they're still personality free blank canvases)

Think the marketing campaign blew it a bit with Little Boots by selling her as Glamorous New Pop Star when they might have had more luck selling her as what she is - geeky, techy, mates-with-Hot-Chip, slightly awkward indie/rave girl gone pop.

^^^this

i love the album, although the lyrics to New In Town make me want to throw my stereo out the window every time i hear it (the song is ace).

ha, only just seen it was meant as a criticism. it isn't. and I didn't mean it as such!

It occurs to me that there are only two basic ways to market a pop star in the 00s (indie bands like Florence and the Machine don't count here). You either sell them as absolute top of the pedestal gods and goddesses (Justin, Beyonce, Rihanna) or you sell them as recognisable human beings who their fanbase might enjoy going down the pub with (Lily Allen, Winehouse once upon a time, Duffy, maybe even Lady Gaga).

They should have gone for the latter with Little Boots but went for the former and missed. It's no coincidence that the biggest UK pop names of the decade - Sugababes, Leona, some of Girls Aloud, started in one camp and grew into the other over time.

note too that justin/beyoncé/rihanna all spent a substantial amount of time paying their dues before going completely stratospheric - and all first emerged in what seems like a v difft pop era (one where record labels had money, for starters). lady gaga seems to be a special case in that she realises exactly what to project to

you're right about lil boots (tho), the POP STAR marketing seemed off from the start given what we already knew her as (dead disco).

I'm only going to accept that criticism from the Lex if he also renounces all the other vocally-limited personality-free ciphers he has repped for over the years - from Rachel Stevens through to Ciara and Cassie.

ngghhh there is such a difference between being "technically limited vocally" and "personality-free cipher", you're totally missing what i love about ciara and cassie! both have a ton of personality - pretty specific and non-malleable personalities in fact, which is why a) only 10 people care about them b) those 10 people REALLY care about them.

stevens, yeah. her voice is technically fine but NO charisma at all, i haven't listened to come & get it in years. would probably argue that her songs are better than lil boots' (tho).

literally no one i know can figure out how or why la cunt is popular - she is 100% atrocious on every level - while lil boots and fat machine get middling chart positions, and vv brown and mpho flop. oh lol i've just noticed what the two flops have in common and it's not just a semblance of talent :(

oh i didn't finish the lady gaga sentence, osrry am a bit tipsy from the mariah playback. sth abt ostentatiously pretending to be pretentious, image-wise, this ducking the criticism of actual pretentiousness, while secretly being really bog standard substance-wise.

*thus

i miss j-lo btw

Okay if Ciara has a personality it isn't a very interesting one then and it certainly doesn't translate to the music.

It's rather early to say Mpho's flopped, isn't it? One single getting to #48 with not that much bumping, aside from R1 playlist and PopJustice - we're hardly talking the Titanic here.

Actually think Mpho has the potential to put out a better record than all of them, but given that her only single to date was 90% Echo Beach anyway it's a bit early to make any kind of call.

she is 100% atrocious on every level

La Roux really is a huge pile of WHY?! to me. Aside from the perma-sneer, there's the problem of being "influenced" by (ie, blatantly cribbing from) early 80's synth pop. Why not just listen to "Upstairs at Eric's" instead?

The weird thing with Boots is that I kind of much prefer her on piano, like the bonus track or the Youtube version of "Stuck on Repeat", cos you can hear more of her voice, and I do rather like her voice. There's a certain kind of keening to it, a bit of cut on the edges. And I do think she's got personality, too, it's just a bit... dunno if quiet's quite the right word, but something kind of not-fit-in-ny. Winning Sound of 2009 rather than just placing hasn't helped her, though, I'd agree with that - the album doesn't seem quite ready for that level of attention, it sounds more like a starting point for greater things than a fresh-out-the-box poll-slayer (then again, previous Sound Of... winners include The Bravery and Corrinne Bailey-Rae, so, erm). It's created a big, not-especially-defined cloud of hype around her - the expectation being that "SHE WILL BE HUGE"/"SHE WILL BE GREAT" without really explaining it. So the worry is that the stories left to tell about her are that she's failed to BE HUGE, and so therefore she's failed, and so that'll be that, then. Which is a shame, because she's almost certainly got some grand records in her, and I'd rather like her to sing them.

ciara's just a girl who loves to dance and believes in keeping it positive.

saw mpho live the other week & she was actually really quite impressive - not really that quirky unless an indie-girl bob counts, and like santogold she's quite understandably got a chip on her shoulder about being pigeonholed, but otherwise she just played it pretty straight w/her awesome voice. her cover of 'running up that hill' brought the house down.

the lil boots/keri hilson parallels continue in that the current story around boots is similar to the narrative when hilson's first few singles flopped and her album kept getting pushed back - really shows up the industry differences (tho), in that the hilson strategy of just throwing stuff at the radio until 'turnin me on' stuck, and THEN releasing the album, couldn't work here. or could it? why the need to hype boots as BESTEST BIGGEST POP! STAR! before anything was properly released? as desperate as hilson seemed last year, she's bona fide now - and over here too - and while i prefer her to boots b/c she's generically catchy in a genre i love, i can't see how boots brings any less to her particular table.

and history kinda shows that you can't throw someone like boots straight in at the top of the charts - goldfrapp, who are pretty much the template for this aesthetic, only had their commercial breakthrough with their third album.

maybe it's because little boots is such a fucking stupid name (tho), every time i typed "boots" in the above para i cringed inside.

she's still selling a hell of a lot more than poor róisín murphy :(

Worth pointing out though that her big hits over here are "Knock You Down" (ft. Kanye & Ne-Yo) and "Return The Favour" (ft. Timbaland). And the telly ads for her album have it prefaced with "TIMBALAND PRESENTS". And "Turnin' Me On" had Lil Wayne on it, and that feller has managed to propel Jay sodding Sean into the US top 40 (and hell, I quite liked "Ride It" back in the day).

Little Boots' guest appearances so far: Phil Oakey. This is Not Quite The Same Thing.

Also, I think the UK pop calendar is very... seasonal. Sort of. Cos December, traditionally, is WHO IS CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE month, albeit that's now become WHO IS X-FACTOR month. January is traditionally WHO IS NEW month - a 'quiet time' for releases, enabling things that wouldn't chart so high in the summer to go high, albeit that with the demise of the physical single this isn't such a big thing anymore. It's... I dunno, it's what happens, isn't it? The BBC, the NME, the this, the that, the other - January is when the music listener is told what shall be unleashed over the next 12 months, what has been quietly simmering on the back-burner for the past year to be brandished beneath their nostrils. It's become the nature of the beast, and it is sort of weird, yes. It's in keeping with the music scene in the UK, though - we're all very informed consumers, and we like to stay in the loop.

(the sentences about this are bouncing about in my head, but I can't put them into order - how very VV Brown...)

the seasonality of it all feels a bit...artificial now, though, doesn't it? maybe the industry should start moving away from it.

lil' wayne couldn't propel electrik red anywhere :(

point taken about hilson's cohorts, but still: including her songwriting rep, playing the long promo game worked for her, rather than trying to go with any "OMG NEW RIHANNA MEGASTAR" hype. with the best will in the world, you couldn't sell keri as that. she's a talented pro who'll be able to come up with good-to-great radio jams on a reliably regular basis but any attempt to label her as "the saviour of pop" or "the saviour of r&b" would've been laughable. and with the best will in the world, i can't quite see why anyone thought that line of marketing would have suited lil boots, whose talents, such as they are, are pretty similar.

ok who the fuck is mpho?

http://www.myspace.com/mphosounds

Piano cover of Running Up That Hill is seriously good.

comparing LB with anyone American is kinda pointless i think. for one thing there's a stronger lineage there of solo muse pop girls. UK hasn't actually been very good at developing these (commercially) with only a couple of exceptions (e.g. Ellis-Bextor, but she started in a group and still only moderate success really), and not strictly at a young audience.

success of La Roux is challenging most of my preconceptions about these issues tho (which would be great if she/they were actually good)

[small nervous voice] I *like* La Roux! [/small nervous voice]

(And so do a lot of people that I know offline, the broad consensus being "It *shouldn't* work... but it does.")

'90% Echo Beach anyway'

oh that was mpho. I like.

some laroux is ok. The person less so. No problem there