POP-EYE 17/2/02
Due to circumstances beyond our control (mainly including lots of drink and Enrique Iglesias still being number one) there was no Pop-Eye last week. Now I don’t intend to pull double shift this week, but I do understand that without a considered Pop-Eye opinion on the new entries a degree of completeness will be missing. Therefore I intend to – when I come across them in this weeks charts – at least give a two word soundbite about last weeks new entries. For instance last weeks highest new entry was No Doubt’s Hey Baby (now fallen to number 7). So I would say No Doubt’s Hey Baby = Crap.
Well why use two words when one will do.
Luckily it was all new entries or old warhorses except for No Doubt in the top ten last week. There weren’t many new releases last week. Question is has anyone managed to topple tedious old Enrique. We sent in the big guns as well – the good ship S Club 7 with a solid summer breeze of a metaphorical torpedo. Unfortunately – and unlike Mark Goodier – I cannot put off the bad news forever. The SClub failed – perhaps You is too lightweight. I predicted number one for this one on flute power alone. But it does have a poor video and the name of the song is actually rather forgettable. As much as I hate parenthesis in titles, maybe they would have been better off calling it You (Are All I Need To Get Me Through).
New number three too, with the first really good video of the year. Its a video which – if you want to be trite – makes you consider the song from another point of view. Yes db Boulevard are your usual bunch of no mark Italian studio monkeys, but in a bit of craft paper they have concocted a sassy diva for the new century. At least until someone drops her in a puddle of water and she goes all soggy. The first thirty seconds of Another Point Of View are rather promising, the rest turns into a standard dancefloor filler with dull, hippy lyrics. ‘Salright I s’pose.
I am not the greatest dancer in the world but even I can work out that there is only one possible dance you can do to What About Us by Brandy. I call it the The Lurch, which is luckily one of the few dances I can do. It is probably apt because that is where it sounds like Brandy has been left in the song. Originally the tricky time signature and piercing electronic beat really annoyed me. Now I can just about put up with it, and I admire the ambition behind the single. But if I never had to hear it again it would be no great loss.
Apparently Victoria Beckham’s Heart has got a mind of its own. There are all sorts of cruel and nasty jokes which can be made about the title of this record suggesting that Vic or her husband are a bit thick. I will not stoop to that, merely to say that a number six entry suggests that if her heart did have a mind of its own it might well be packing its little ventricular bags and trying to get a career of its own too. The song isn’t a bad ballad, but it starts with Vic trying an ill advised rap. Strictly Radio Two fodder.
I had not heard Alizez’s Moi Lolita before yesterday, and had been expecting a Europop nugget of gold. After all songs in French rarely crack the top ten and the French are not known for an excess of pop genius. I can only assume the ‘French Britney Spears’ (TM her PR company) shares more than youth with Britney, because this song is tosh. Pro-paedophillic tosh too if my very poor french is anything to go by. Surely every French pop song sounds like this? What is special about this number, except some highly produced strings? Hmm. All those Hit Me Baby One More Time arguments are coming back to haunt us.
Ja Rule — Always On Time = Naggingly silky.
A1 — Caught In The Middle = Career Suicide.
Alien Ant Farm — Movies = Surprisingly Fun.
Puddle Of Mudd, Tanya had the definitive word on ver Mudd, but I can’t find it in the archives. Suffice to say they sound like Soundgarden and Conflict is a psychobabble teenage rebellion song which puts you firmly in the parents camp. Its a crap name for a band too. Timo Maas on the other hand have not been eviscerated by the first lady of music hatred, so I’ll help her out. This sounds like the Stereo MC’s. To me that is not a particularly bad thing. To Tanya – well.
What else has popped up lower down the charts. Leann Rimes has the misfortune not to have a film with which to tie ‘But I do Love You’ in with. This lack of over-familiarity therefore has assisted its nu-country ways not rocketing up the charts. Ian Brown and Spiritualized are booked in to the retirement home for old respected Indie troupers (the thirties). The much playlisted Dilated Peoples also manage a somewhat disappointing 29 – but then that is what happens to so called conscious rap. Now if they were swearing and shooting people then maybe they would be higher up, or maybe its just that the backing sounds equally as worthy as the lyrics. Edge peoples, we know you are clever but we want stupid edge. Stupid edge which is nicely provided by The Hives. Possibly known as The Swedish Strokes or something equally as dumb this track reminds me much, much more of The Pixies. It goes nowhere, is probably too long, is shouty and stupid and is the first great indie dance track of the year. Which is certainly an improvement on – say – 2000.
So to next week and if the S Club battleship can’t do it, we have been left with only one option for next week. I feel like Dr Oppenheimer letting a pop nuclear holocaust out of its bottle, but we must get rid of the MOR balladeer son of a MOR balladeer. There will always be collateral damage, but we have no choice. Release he SS Westlife.