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Paperhouse posted:I think he means people have mistaken James Arthur for a serious artist, when he is in fact just a dull one. I think he'll do a bit better than Matt Cardle but I don't really see him being all that popular for very long. He fancies himself a songwriter as well but I bet his songs are terrible This is more or less what I mean. My opinion is rather difficult to sum up in words; I suspect I'm probably biased, to some extent, because I tend to hold their vaguely alternative sort-of rock-ish genre in fairly low esteem. I'll have to think about it and see if I can explain myself more eloquently.
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Apr 18, 2013 19:35
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Well, I suppose with JLS splitting at the end of their next tour there's space for a new one.
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Apr 27, 2013 13:23
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Benne posted:It may have been mentioned in the thread earlier, but Macklemore's "Can't Hold Us" is loving incredible and a huge improvement over "Thrift Shop". It certainly took off pretty quickly. Certainly a lot faster than "Some Nights" did for fun. after "We Are Young" was a hit.
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May 2, 2013 16:36
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I remember seeing her on an episode of Later... With Jools Holland three, maybe four years ago. I was a bit surprised that she seemed to have just vanished after that.
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May 7, 2013 20:33
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gandlethorpe posted:Is "Same Love" charting? That would be awesome, and also a Lady Gaga-esque achievement of getting a popular song that explicitly addresses gay rights. I haven't heard "Can't Hold Us" much, since it only plays on the the top 40s station that I don't tune to much. "Thrift Shop" and "Same Love" play on the alternative rock station, of all things. It's presently at #83 on the Hot 100, which is its peak so far, but it's only being promoted to alternative radio. It could be a contender for the Top 40 if its sales pick up but it's not going to take off without serious support from CHR.
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May 8, 2013 22:23
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HJB posted:I'm veering dangerously close to being 'that guy', but can someone explain the appeal of Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke to me? It's topped the charts, and practically everyone I know (young and old alike) loves it, but I really don't get it. And yes, they like the song itself, not the video, though the top rated Youtube comment by Aj MacConville is rather amusing. I first heard this song on Sunday when the Official Charts announced that it had retained the number one spot. I don't dislike it but I don't really see the fuss. It seems like it's following Justin Timberlake's most recent singles, to be honest. Actually, it puts in mind of what the Art Of Noise version of "Kiss" might have sounded like if they'd had both Tom Jones and Prince on lead vocals.
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Jun 11, 2013 23:29
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Yoshifan823 posted:The two singles they've released so far are way poppier than their last album, which was (IMO) one of the best break-up albums ever, but edged a lot more on the rock side, while their new stuff sounds like Owl City (which isn't surprising as the two bands have collaborated a lot) or a slightly less sweeping/epic Fun. I think they just wanted to write a really pop-oriented album, and it sounds like they've done a good job. I've been a huge fan of them for a long time, so every new album is something to look forward to. No reason a rock band can't be pop as well. In theory, anyway.
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Jun 21, 2013 11:46
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Yoshifan823 posted:Maybe "heavier" is the word I'm looking for. There's a lot less of the pop-punk guitar sound (though it's not gone by any means). I might have phrased my post poorly. Check this out; why can't we describe this as a pop song? I'd say it's basically a pop song, if you get what I mean.
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Jun 21, 2013 17:28
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I think the Lady Gaga song is a bit better (though it's still not as good as the best she's done) but the Katy Perry one will probably crush it on the charts.
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Aug 14, 2013 11:33
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I think Miley Cyrus comes off as a bit of a try-hard. At the same time, you've got Demi Lovato, who's a much better singer but isn't as successful.
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Sep 11, 2013 12:00
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squeee posted:Yep, Demi's infinitely more talented vocally, but unfortunately doesn't have the joy of having an already-famous Dad which clearly shoe-inned Miley to the top. I hope she thanks her Dad everyday for Achy Breaky Heart. It's kind of like how Carrie Underwood is an inestimably superior singer to Taylor Swift but never seems to get the same sort of attention. Now, obviously that's partly because she's positioned herself pretty firmly in the country genre but listening to some of the stuff off Blown Away it's weird that it wasn't able to cross over more significantly; if a song like "Good Girl" (which is dead fun to listen to) had been released around 2000 or so it could've been as big as any song Shania Twain ever did.
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Sep 11, 2013 22:45
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Yoshifan823 posted:I actually really like a lot of Katy Perry's music. Both One of the Boys and Teenage Dream have songs that I really enjoy on them, but something about Roar just really puts me off. It seems to be aiming for the whole "You look Adele? Well, look how authentic I am!" angle. Maybe that's not entirely fair, but it's the impression I get. I wouldn't call myself a Katy Perry fan so much as I like some of her songs (I heard this, which is far below the standard of performance you'd expect from most professional musicians, and since I heard it I've never quite been able to give her a fair shake otherwise; it's not particularly fair, I know, but Queen is my favourite band so I admit I'm a little biased).
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Sep 12, 2013 19:15
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nyquil hangover posted:If you haven't heard Janelle Monae's new CD, listen to it right now. Goddamn how is she not more popular? She's got catchy fun music and she's a great performer. In a just world, she'd have Katy Perry's success. I don't think she's on a major label, so there's only so many resources they can commit to promoting her music. That being said, I've heard that a lot of Top 40 programme directors are notorious for being pretty reluctant to take chances on uncertain or less well-known acts. My impression is that many of the biggest hits of the past couple of years gained their earliest attention through different media ("We Are Young" had a Superbowl advert, "Somebody That I Used To Know" and "Gangnam Style" had memetic music videos, "Call Me Maybe" didn't start to get attention until Justin Bieber promoted it and parody videos began to emerge, even Adele had the "Rolling In the Deep" video and the BRIT Awards "Someone Like You" performance) and the radio picks them up when they get too big to ignore. Even then, there's attempts to compromise; I'm pretty sure I heard about an attempt to push a "Top 40 remix" of "Somebody That I Used To Know" which added a fairly generic dance beat underneath the rest of the song, until the original became popular in its own right. I don't think there should really be any kind of "pop paradigm" though, because one of the most appealing features of pop music is that it's a format with almost unlimited potential diversity.
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Sep 20, 2013 21:12
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:We will be hearing hopefully a lot of new Katy Perry today when she performs at iTunes festival What's the quality of her live vocals like these days? Ever since I first saw this video, I don't think I've ever quite been able to give her a completely fair shake (I guess it was a little out of her range). Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 02:53
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Sprat Sandwich posted:Not very good sadly, and if she has some choreo it goes to hell. She has always been the 'worst' of the big pop girls live, IMO. How would you rank them? As far as the big ones go, I think Lady Gaga and Adele are probably the most consistently good. Rihanna often seems to be somewhere in the middle but maybe I've not heard enough of her live performances to reach a fair conclusion. I've heard that Britney Spears is quite good when she's actually singing, and obviously Christina Aguilera used to be ranked at the very top, though she's not really as highly regarded of late (ignoring lazy fat jokes, can she even be called a "big" pop girl any more?). Not sure about Taylor Swift. She seems pretty divisive in this regard; I've seen some incredibly poor live vocal performances from her but at the same time I've seen others that were very good. She seems much better when she's performing songs she's written herself (not an indictment on the quality of songs she's recorded that she didn't write, keep in mind).
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Oct 1, 2013 10:49
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Sprat Sandwich posted:Oh and Beyonce is somewhere in there too, but I kinda forgot. There's two big omissions I can't believe I forgot. As you mentioned, Beyoncé is one of them, and the other is Kelly Clarkson, both of whom regularly sing well in a live setting. I might mention Carrie Underwood as well. As an aside, I think the worst vocalist I've ever actually seen live was probably Meat Loaf in 2010. It's kind of hard to explain what it sounded like; sort of like he was trying to mumble and bellow at the same time. Huge let down, because I was a big fan of Meat Loaf at the time (and I still am a fan of most of his music, as my username might attest) and his band were absolutely phenomenal (especially Patti Russo, his current duets partner). Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Oct 1, 2013 |
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Oct 1, 2013 13:15
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Sprat Sandwich posted:OK maybe they have a sore throat or are drunk as hell or their technique just isn't that good, but is it selfish to watch/go to a concert to see/hear my favourite songs/singer and expect them to pull it off? That's a good question and I'm not really sure what the answer would be. I suppose if someone holds themself out as a professional singer you should be able to reasonably expect a certain degree of ability, but at the same time I wouldn't expect a singer to sound exactly like they do on record; I think there's certain allowances you can make for live performance.
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Oct 1, 2013 15:20
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Spiteski posted:Yea youngest to do so since Tiffany back in the yesteryears The all-time youngest is Stevie Wonder, isn't it? Nobody's touching that any time soon, so it's still an impressive achievement. I like the song a lot but I haven't heard anything else from Lorde yet.
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Oct 4, 2013 13:01
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They were playing an old Maroon 5 song ("This Love", I think) on the radio when I was out in the car this morning, which got me thinking about that band and their lead singer in particular. Adam Levine has earned acclaim for his vocal ability. I haven't heard very many recordings of his live performances, but one that I did hear actually achieved the impossible and made "One More Night" a listenable song, enough so that I think the recognition might be merited. He sounds significantly better without Auto-Tune so I have to wonder why he used it to such an extent on "Moves Like Jagger" and their subsequent singles (though it's not a new thing, of course, since there's very noticeable use of the software in "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved", both of which are almost ten years old). I'd assume he's using it to achieve an effect (for example, like Kanye West did on 808s and Heartbreak), but I notice that since he's started bringing it front and centre, the band's had something of a renaissance after a few years in the adult contemporary wilderness. Are excessively Auto-Tuned vocals what people want to hear? I'm also put in mind of Michael Bublé, of all people. He can sing fine without Auto-Tune and, as far as I can tell, he doesn't use it when he covers standards. However, his pop singles ("Haven't Met You Yet", the lead single from his most recent album, the song he did with Bryan Adams and so on) all feature more noticeable use of the technology, which might suggest that he (or maybe the producers) felt it was necessary to make the songs into hits.
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Oct 7, 2013 13:16
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nyquil hangover posted:Honestly I think Miley's image is hurting her career, rather than helping it. There are some great songs on Bangerz but her image seems very forced/contrived, plus it really alienates some people who might otherwise enjoy her music. Going back to this for a moment, does anybody have any thoughts on the childish feud going on (or perhaps it's blown over; I haven't paid a lot of attention) between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor?
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Oct 10, 2013 13:50
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Mermaid Autopsy posted:Also, Lana absolutely owns live; I don't know how many years it is going to take for the American press to admit they were wrong about her. She still hasn't lived down the SNL performance? I mean, it was an absolutely dreadful performance, there's no denying that, but you'd think it'd be water under the bridge by now.
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Oct 17, 2013 00:55
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:I don't even LIKE most pop music the way most of you do, but I end up listening to a lot of it in my car anyway. I'm strangely fascinated by the songwriting/producing machine like Max Martin, Dr. Luke, and Bonnie McKee, who keep churning out these catchy but completely interchangeable hits for mostly interchangeable artists. Behind-the-scenes songwriting teams have been around forever. You have Holland-Dozier-Holland, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Stock-Aitken-Waterman and a whole host of others.
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Oct 18, 2013 10:25
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Over the years they've adapted their approach to changing trends; I suppose one could say he's following trends, but he was setting them more often than not. Actually, I remember being surprised to hear that Max Martin has been in the music business in one way or another for more than twenty years, though I guess I shouldn't have been, since he's only about forty himself (fun fact: he was the singer in a hair metal/funk rock band in the late 1980s). Check out stuff he wrote and produced in the late 1990s/early 2000s for the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears ("I Want It That Way", "Larger Than Life", "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Stronger") then compare it with his work with Kelly Clarkson and P!nk in the middle of the last decade ("Since U Been Gone", "So What" - this was probably the "I used to be in a rock band, didn't I?" stage of his career) and the songs he's written for Katy Perry (most of her output, I think) and Taylor Swift ("We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "I Knew You Were Trouble"). You can see how it's changed with the times.
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Oct 19, 2013 14:05
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Mermaid Autopsy posted:Every one in a while, Katy does these (somewhat) stripped-down performances where she tries to prove that she can actually sing: Oo-er, didn't exactly pull it off, did she? I mean, she sounded a little better there than she has in other videos I've seen, but even so...
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Oct 23, 2013 11:55
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nyquil hangover posted:So I actually made it home early tonight and caught both of her performances. The acoustics sucked but her stage presence more than made up for it. I've yet to hear a Janelle Monaé song I don't like, and it's stil more than a little disappointing that she was so massively wasted on "We Are Young" last year.
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Oct 27, 2013 23:17
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Here is a song called "Year Round Summer of Love", which I've been hearing on the radio lately. I like it well enough.
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Nov 7, 2013 02:24
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nyquil hangover posted:Lorde is a false prophet Might as well mention, there's something curiously entertaining about seeing people whinge about how Lorde is "ruining" pop music. She's had one song out, for goodness' sake. I remember people were complaining about Gotye and fun. ruining pop music last year, and how Adele was ruining pop music the year before that. Pop music can never die even if it does change its face from time to time. Why is this difficult to understand?
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Nov 11, 2013 11:51
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nyquil hangover posted:I keep hearing it the other way around - people are talking about how great and original Lorde's song is, and why can't every singer be like her, blah blah blah. I guess one reinforces the other.
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Nov 12, 2013 22:09
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I like the new Lily Allen song; pop music has moved forward since she did "Smile" and "The Fear" and she's acknowledging that progression while putting her distinctive spin on it. Does anybody think her lyrical approach is influenced by Ian Dury? I've seen the comparison before.
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Nov 13, 2013 22:32
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Wildeyes posted:Someone please tell me what part of that ratface is in any way sexy I'd wager it's that sexy, sexy Auto-Tune screech. Anyway... In other news, it looks like Artpop has had a somewhat sluggish start. It sold about 260, 000 copies, which is good, but well below what Gaga shifted last time (Born This Way debuted with sales of 1, 000, 000; even if you factor in that about 400, 000 were sold for $0.99 as part of an Amazon one-day discount, that's still about three times what Artpop managed in its first week). I've seen this soft landing attributed to the failure of "Applause" to go straight to number one, but that hardly seems fair, because it's stayed in the Top 10 since it was released.
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Nov 21, 2013 00:07
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Lord Krangdar posted:It's not doing badly in worldwide sales. It's doing well enough, but I think there's this perception that it's doing as well as a Lady Gaga album should, apparently (which strikes me as a bit unfair, but it seems inevitable these days; it'll show up when Adele's next album comes out and doesn't sell a bazillion copies on its first day of release). I suppose the most relevant question you need to ask is how well it's doing in comparison to the Katy Perry album.
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Nov 25, 2013 00:03
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Fairly safe choices on the whole, but that's par for course with the Grammys.
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Dec 7, 2013 14:12
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I thought Ed Sheeran had been nominated already? Or can you only not be elgible for BNA if you were nominated and won?
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Dec 8, 2013 00:23
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Sprat Sandwich posted:Ahem, Rihanna is the Black Madonna. I thought that was Janet Jackson?
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Dec 9, 2013 15:38
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Funniest moment of the night was a fleeting glimpse of Taylor Swift getting her "surprised face" ready just before RAM was announced as AOTY.
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Jan 27, 2014 12:03
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Sprat Sandwich posted:… is R Well, hey, at least we know what she looks like when she's actually surprised now!
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Jan 27, 2014 16:53
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AM!
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I remember being convinced that "Next To Me" and "Read All About It" would be as big in 2012 as "Rolling In the Deep" and "Someone Like You" were in 2011; I guess Adele dominated for too long for anyone similar-sounding to get a proper look in.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:20
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PUGGERNAUT posted:I think he's going to put on a great performance as always, but he's going to get absolutely eviscerated by sports fans. He's not an aging dadrock icon so of course they're going to be unhappy. I thought Beyoncé and Madonna were well received?
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Feb 3, 2014 14:21
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I guess "Radioactive" is okay. Not really so keen on "Sail". I'm not really into indie rock or whatever category those songs are sorted into, though (those kinds of bands tend to remind me of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, who I find rather dull and not really especially talented as musicians), so I'm probably not the audience they're aiming at.
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Feb 5, 2014 02:46
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PUGGERNAUT posted:Sam Smith, the dude who won the BBC Sound of 2014, is gonna be on SNL. I guess he's trying to break through in the US. I think he's awesome but I fear his performance will be reviled like the Lana Del Rey performance He'll be fine if he performs well. The Lana Del Rey performance was reviled because it wasn't very good. Sure, a lot of the backlash was exaggerated, but that doesn't change the fact that she did not give a good performance.
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Mar 20, 2014 03:18
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