What really distinguishes those songs is their pacing.
I've been working on this post for a decade.
Blind Third Melon Mouse Candy
I think you mean Vertical Smashmouth.
The blue lyrca swimsuit thing with shoulder pads in Lady GaGa's video (who, for the longest time, based on the name alone, I assumed was a drag queen who had managed to hit it big) is sort of amazingly awesome in the I can't believe she's wearing it sort of way.
Way to spoil my complete lack of awareness of what is popular these days.
My taste in music must be messed up. I think I like Lady Gaga's songs. What happened to me!?!?!??!
7: I do too! I really do sing "puh-puh-puh-poker-face-puh-puh-poker-face" all the time.
do too! I really do sing "puh-puh-puh-poker-face-puh-puh-poker-face" all the time.
I double-dog dare you to do it in the LD room on video!
Was that blue thing lycra or rubber? Does it count as a swimsuit? It looked more sci-fi new wave to me. Either way, it is the best thing I've seen today.
I liked the video for the Blind Third Melon Mouse Candy song because it imposed a better, more interesting, narrative on the song.
The first video is unavailable in my country. Does it criticize the People's Action Party or something?
Neil, when did you get your own country?
Oh, this December I staged a successful coup around my wacky political web sites.
For realz, the message YouTube gave me was "This video is not available in your country." Which, at present, is Singapore.
What about Band-With-Wolf-(or-Tiger)-In-The-Name pop? Is it not really pop?
16: One of my roommates has recently started a side project band called Drunk Tigers. I told him the "Tiger/Wolf" thing has jumped the shark but, if he insisted, it really should be Drunken Tigers, which rolls of the tongue more smoothly.
But did he listen in earnest and bow in reverence to my wisdom in the ways of band names? He did not.
15: It's All American Rejects "Gives you hell".
17: The fool!
They should call themselves "Drunken Sharks." I don't think Shark names have been used much yet.
Usher, Love in This Club sounds extremely '80s R&B to me, at least in the beginning.
On pop music generally: I was pop-shameful for awhile, but at this point I've just resigned myself. I like a lot of pop music.
That Akon song that was "hitting" a while back? Fucking catchy, notwithstanding the singing digital chipmunk.
One Republic? Loved it.
Boys Like Girls? Sure!
I also really like Shostakovich and Eric Dolphy.
I think my position on music is similar to LB's position on books, as expressed in the current mouseover ("People who read, almost absentmindedly, the most unutterable shit").
It's a subjective preference, after all.
20: obligatory link involving the Showbiz Pizza band of my youth.
Boys Like Girls? Sure!
I prefer Girls Against Boys, myself.
23: I like that, too! Aren't you the one who named Bad Religion on a previous music thread? They were my intro into punk rock (admittedly I haven't followed since 2000 or so). I adore Bad Religion. Recipe for Hate is probably my favorite.
Their music makes me think the distinction between "worthwhile" and "not worthwhile" pop music has a lot to do with lyrics, and that I'm a bit too willing to overlook the issue of lyrics.
Pop music can have shitty lyrics. And I'm okay with that. (Sorry, lyricists!)
I'm on board with you, Stanley. A good pop song can be quite fun to listen to. The problem I find is that even a good pop song tends to have some major flaws (lyrics, as you point out, tend to be the common issue), and hearing such songs as repetitively as top most radio stations want you to hear them reveals all the flaws and leads to pure hatred with enough listenings.
(Personally, my dirty secret pop crush tends to be Pink).
25: Oh, man. There was this Pink music video on at a place last night. The song was brilliantly fetching. All I remember was her around a bed (yeah, typical) and a great pop hook. Help?
Hm. Pink and a bed? Perhaps U + UR Hand?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowvJ6h1WnM
(At least, I thought there was a bed in there).
That wasn't the one, but I think there's a lot going on in that song that gets written off by music snobs. In fact, the lyrics there are on about something.
Hm. So, that's not the one. Do you remember anything else about it?
I am not familiar with music videos, really. Nor am I actually all that familiar with all her songs. I'll just keep linking songs with a bed in them that I'm finding on YouTube: Sober.
And yes, I enjoy U + UR Hand, probably a little too much. I think Sashs Frere-Jones reviewed her latest album in the New Yorker, but I'm never a huge fan of his take on things, so I didn't read it.
24: Yeah, I'm a big Bad Religion fan, even though I think someone needs to separate Greg Graffin from his thesaurus. And I'm right there with you on the pop.
30: It was probably "Sober". It was a background thing going on at the bar, but both eekbeat and I noticed the song as good.
I'm coming around to a position that Pink makes good music, and the snobs can fuck off.
The music industry problem is a structural-type of problem. (You know, go pound sand, whoever her record label is.) But Pink's cool.
Woo, I'm glad I came up with it - I hate it when you only sort of slightly remember a song and then want to talk about it but don't remember enough of it to actually be sure that the song you think is it is actually it.
And I think part of the "problem" with Pink is that she also turns out some total crap; like many people her internal editor is not really the best. But when it comes to girl pop, I have to say I'm fan of her and Rihanna. And I also like Beyonce's "Single Ladies," but I still mostly refuse to admit that.
By the way, that whole "oh I heard a song and couldn't quite place it and it was so good" thing? Shazam is like so life-changing.
34: I want an Iphone solely for that purpose. Except I don't really want something that nice and that breakable as my phone - I constantly drop it.
They're surprisingly durable. I drop mine fairly regularly, and it's fine so far.
Have you flung it from the top of a car onto asphalt yet? Because I do that little maneuver far more often than I'm sure is good for the phone.
I don't usually ride on top of the car.
So you ride on the bottom then?
No, I run along behind it, of course. Can't push a car from below.
Oh! Well I deal with that problem by only going places that are downhill of where I start.
Mrs. TJ shut hers in a car door. A good way to damage a cell phone, if you ever run out of ideas.
I also really like Shostakovich and Eric Dolphy.
Good man.
So what's that song that has the line "there's that [something] again"? Sounds like it could be sung by recent-vintage (ie, not no-wave) Arto Lindsay?
I mean in terms of the singer's voice, not anything else.
[This is the part of the thread where I tell ben to go blow a straw up his nostril or learn to play an instrument. I'm equally okay with either option.]
I don't see how those are remotely equivalent.
[This is the part of the thread where I am pwned, but in a weird way.]
They're surprisingly durable. I drop mine fairly regularly, and it's fine so far.
And yet, there appears to be a limit, as I recently discovered. "Luckily," Apple will sell you a new 2G iPhone for the price of a new 3G iPhone.
(Personally, my dirty secret pop crush tends to be Pink).
I'm not even sure it needs to be secret. I think at least half of the songs from I'm Not Dead are genuinely good.
I don't know about any of here other albums. M!ssundaztood is relatively week, and I haven't listened to any others.
Have you heard the Shirley Bassey cover of "Get The Party Started" that I posted a while ago.
Mrs. TJ shut hers in a car door. A good way to damage a cell phone, if you ever run out of ideas.
You might also try seawater. It does amazing things to electronics.
I listened to a fair amount of Pink when Roberta went on a big Pink kick last year. I don't mind it, but I don't find it interesting either. After a couple of tracks, it all starts to run together and sound the same.
51: No need to go to the beach when a clothes washer is close at hand. Or a toilet, for that matter, but unlike the washer, I don't have experience with that.
You don't have experience with toilets?
Have you heard the Shirley Bassey cover of "Get The Party Started" that I posted a while ago.
I have - I think you linked to it from here at some point or another? Or did you possibly include it in a mix? Regardless, great post!
I had to make a new car CD for my wife and kids because my 3 year old keeps repeatedly asking for Katy Perry - Hot N Cold while my 5 year old complains bitterly whenever it is played. The new cd is Katy Perry free.
while my 5 year old complains bitterly whenever it is played
5-year-olds "complain bitterly" at certain songs these days? Man, kids are growing up fast these days. I didn't start complaining bitterly about music until I was in my early teens and my father insisted on playing Perry Como in the car during road trips.
I think you linked to it from here at some point or another?
I did. But I thought it was worth linking again.
The video thing is interesting. The One Republic video is gorgeous and not like any other I can think of, but the song makes me want to claw my ears out. Whereas as the Boys Like Girls song if pleasing enough, in a disposable generic mall-ponk way, but the video makes me hate young people. I don't think this was the original intent.