The Ninth Freaky Trigger Pop Music Focus Group

Nos. 15-11

I quite like it, but that fact leaves me feeling a bit uncomfortable in about the same way I feel after watching and enjoying an episode of COPS or something: shame about gaining entertainment based on the misery of others, no matter which perspective it’s coming from. 7 (SeC)

I like the mood – sort of reminds me of classic Wu material. The MC has a nice voice, too, tho the chorus seems a bit bland. Overall though I feel like I can’t really comment on this too much, because it feels so much like it’s supposed to be one of those Important Songs, like ‘Stan’ was for Eminem, and I got into the UK Urban scene a little too late to witness the whole uproar about the group in the first place, so I can’t really judge whether this succeeds or fails as the Big Cultural Moment that it sounds like it’s meant to be. So, as just another ‘timez is hard’ slow jam, I’ll give it a 6 (DR)

OK beat, but I can really do without the chorus and pretty much all of the singing. In fact, if I had my way, there would never be another melodramatic I’m-really-feeling-it-emotion-al-ly hook on a hip hop song ever again. 5 (DL)

Enh, that flute sample is a little too wiffly for me. This really isn’t
anything. 4.5 (MP)

SSC’s ‘proper rap’ move isn’t miles away from some current UK hip-hop styles – serious rhyming plus folky instruments – just several degrees worse. The chorus singer is horribly flat and droney. 4 (TE)

Poor So Solid Crew – the whole world is against them. And quite right too. 3 (MA)

Miserable fuckers. 3 (RT)

Suspect you have to be from London to like this. 3 (EO)

I think this is supposed to show the more sensitive side of SSC. Bit boring really. 2 (KG)

I am pro-flute. But I am anti So Solid Crew feeling sorry for themselves. On this evidence it is clear all the decent songwriters are in prison. Megaman was always worse than Superman. 1 (PB)

14. NELLY P DIDDY MURPHY LEE – “Shake Ya Tailfeather”
Score: 3.57 / Controversy: 2.64

P Diddy, you are my enemy, but you will not turn me against this song, no matter how hard you try. 7 (SeC)

Perfectly decent hip-hop tune becomes byword for generic evil head-scratcher. Yes it’s a three-minute advert but it’s an advert for dancing as well as for a dodgy film. 6 (TE)

Not making me want to shake anything much. 5 (IE)

Goes on a bit, doesn’t it? 5 (RT)

Even though both Nelly and P Diddy have made some music that I enjoy, I still really wish that this really was the nadir of Playa Rap that some say it is, because I hate both of these guys with ardent passion and seeing them produce something truly hateful together would be sweet vindication. Alas, this isn’t it – it’s just a slice of inoffensive nothingness instead. 5 (DR)

Plus points for telling us who is singing and why, very helpful. 3 (SH)

I will never understand how songs like this become big hits. Brand recognition? People really like the Atlanta Braves? Nothing interesting to hear, and so I can’t think of much to say. 3 (DL)

Really if you have already bought ‘Hot In Herre’ you have no need for this. Nelly should apply for Life Laundry and throw out all his old beats. 3 (KG)

Oh look, it’s Nelly and P Diddy in the same room. That’s sure to be good. 3 (WS)

Bad Boys II is one of this year’s most pointless – oh is it over? 0 (PB)

Ruined a perfectly mindless action movie and most of my summer. The only thing interesting about this turd is that the sample doesn’t come from a top 40 hit. I’m hoping video games will be the next territory to be mined (though preferably NOT by P. Diddy). 0 (VP)

13. ELTON JOHN – “Are You Ready For Love?”
Score: 3.57 / Controversy: 2.63

I quite like this. Good proper music at the risk of sounding rockist. 7 (SH)

Terrific Philly Disco tune somewhat damaged by Elton’s wheezing, straining singing. 7 (TE)

Longer and slower than you’d think. 5 (EH)

Elton you sellout. 5 (MA)

YES I AM etc. This isn’t that bad. Then again it isn’t that good either. 5 (KG)

If Elton John could piss songs like this out in the 70s then maybe he should go back there. Elton John for the new Dr Who! 4 (PB)

Oh yeah, this is totally the inspirational track that runs over the closing credits of a movie where Jason Bateman loses a close friend to drug abuse, but learns the true meaning of friendship. It’s now available on a cassingle at a corner store near you, right next to the gummy bears. 2 (SeC)

Sometimes, when a record by a big artist flops the first time, there’s a reason. And that reason is often because it is shit. This is no exception. In the right-thinking world, assessments of when Elton lost it would be moved several years earlier to immediately precede the writing and performing of this song. 1 (EO)

12. GIRLS ALOUD – “Life Got Cold”
Score: 4.00 / Controversy: 2.37

The “it happened many years ago” bit is the hookiest-sung hook I’ve been
hooked on in a long time. So good that it makes up for the fact that the
song a) has no actual chorus to speak of and b) sounds an awful lot like
Wonderwall. 8.5 (MP)

I really do believe that if you’re over the age of 24 or 25 this song is probably impossible to like, even though there’s lots to like about it if you can get past the rather hackneyed allusions to ennui (summer slipping away indeed, now is the winter of Girls Aloud’s chart career?), it nicks the good bits of Wonderwall leaving out the rubbish, and it’s touching. Loses one point for preventing the release of “Some Kind Of Miracle” and for being a tiny bit of a letdown post the righteous glitter shower of their first two singles. 8 (EO)

If this is the sort of pop group the country picks up and throws away just as quickly, then I don’t mind at all. 8 (MA)

Awful, awful lyrics – ‘we skate as we date’ is surely Alan Partridge trying to write a pop song – but a good tune up until Wonderwall comes in. You wouldn’t take money out of a busker’s cap so why would you steal his tune? 4 (TE)

GA get progressively worse, they started all guns blazing, fists flying, full on attitude. This song is not them. 4 (JL)

Dull. 3 (AC)

It’s hard to imagine music any less engaging than this. Are pleasant sounds really enough for songs to become hits these days? 3 (SeC)

Bad grammar, bad song. 1 (SH)

Sounds like Wonderwall WTF??!!! Also what’s with the video? And what’s with ‘waiting for the freaks’? The lyrics alone make this a ONE. (KG)

11. S CLUB 8 – “Sundown”
Score: 4.33 / Controversy: 2.59

Note-perfect, almost symphonic blast of gorgeous Scando-pop. Lovely chirpy chorus and bit nasty verses – including a bit about blinding someone while coming in on a breeze. Utterly emotionless in that robotic way, all impulse and intent in the ‘Club is on the beat. Pulses like a heartbeat, appropriate given the chorus lyrics too. Nice. 9 (EO)

Closing down the MSN Chatrooms means that kids will have to find something else to do with their time – S Club 8 are all very well but aren’t there chimneys that need sweeping? Actually ‘Sundown’ is fine and doesn’t disgrace the S Club brand. Feel what vibrating, though? 6 (TE)

The biggest problem with ABBA’s Voulez Vous album is that it didn’t sound enough like Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘Let’s Groove’. S Club 8 has wisely rectified the situation for us. 6 (SeC)

They claim to be the legitimate successors to S Club? Who’d have thought there was electrofunk in that heritage? 6 (MA)

It’s okay, it kinda makes the demise of the original S-Club even sadder 5 (JL)

I bought the S Club 7 best-of, and it’s great, but it kind of feels like the time for this kind of stuff has passed. Will probably grow on me, but right now it loses marks because it’s not the ultra-twee friendz 4evah ballad that I had expected it to be, and because the continued disaster that is Michael Jackson’s life makes me feel ambivalent towards the thought of ever enjoying music made by children again. 4 (DR)

Sundown? Past their bedtime. 4 (EH)

Madonna ‘Music’ sample is distracting. However, it’s one of the more interesting things about this pretty typically Eurovision-powered tune. Vocals are good, and the chorus is actually decent (in the same way that Laura Branigan choruses are decent, which is to say, I’m not surprised to hear them in the dentist office sometimes, but I don’t really care about them). At best, not offensive. 4 (DL)

You are teenagers so you do teenypop best. Not this, whatever it is. 3 (IE)

Much too relentless. Also they look as though they should be modelling the kiddies’ range in the Argos catalogue. It’s disturbing in a way I don’t want to put my finger on – especially ‘Bring back the funk!’. 3 (KG)

‘Bring back the funk!’ renders this COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. 0 (RT)