TS: Leona Lewis vs Arctic Monkeys

Oh I give this three posts before someone mentions race, sex or class.

oh wait

Didn't all the poptimists leave here six months ago

No threads for Craig David return either.

It's not even a "pop" thing though is it? "Bleeding Love" was written by that dude from OneRepublic

Lex gave the Craig David album a kicking in the Grauniad.

Racist

Attempt at a semi-serious answer to Dom's initial questions: pop acts have to "prove" themselves over 12 - 24 months before reactionary broadsheet journos feel safe to unironically big them up.

why/how is Leona Lewis breaking records with such apparent ease? good pop voice and good pop songs for both mothers and daughters whatever. but she's totally unremarkable. how does this, factoring in 11 month gap between debut single and follow up and what could only be a standard marketing push in terms of ruthlessness, convert into THIS massive a level of success? what makes her that much more appealing to people than say Joss Stone?

Because Joss Stone is batshit in a bad way?

xfactor factor surely. Plucky wannabe from out of nowhere. Likeable and modest to boot. And the only winner with anything like the talent required to actually make it.

Leona's more easily recognisable as "classically" talented? I mean her whole schtick is basically hitting Mariah-notes, right?

xp

Maybe a lot o' Goths are buying "Bleeding Love" on the title alone

xxpost

Yes. I was saying to Mrs V on Sunday night that Cowell or whoever's responsible has vastly improved their schtick over the last 5 years. The Leona tracks I've heard sound contemporary but Radio 2 enough to cross over. It's a much better album than the shit they used to lumber the likes of Gareth Gates with.

best thing about 'Bleeding Love' = beat reminds me of 'Adnans'

And who is she competing with right now? Most current female pop singers are doing Electroclash-isn't-dead numbers or RnB or shit acoustic guitar shite.

"Bleeding Love" is better than "Mr Rock And Roll", for sure.

Against every better instinct in my body I don't hate that new Remi Nicole single tho.

Is it because Leona is, as a person and as a pop star, pleasant in a really really fucking dull way? Most broadsheet interviews with Girls Aloud are like "yeah amazing production team great records but come on, footballers, race rows, falling out of cabs vomiting on paparazzi lets go". It's kind of difficult to find an interesting angle on Leona.

Her best friend was killed in hoody gun violence!

By one of this year's contestants?

Actually, her people put out a statement that Leona had never even met the victim. I think the papers went with the fact that Leona and the victim were from the same town, and therefore were bff.

I'd kind of assumed you'd just made that up until I Googled and... blimey! Prior to that she was a bit dull though.

I bet she'll be in every broadsheet over the next month or so anyway, but part of the difference is that Leona's people evidently need to rely on getting her into, say, the Graun far less than the Arctic Monkeys do. What matters is getting her into as many Bizarre or 3am pages as possible and I presume that's where all the PR energy is directed.

(xpost)

Do you think the broadsheet celebration of Girls Aloud has actually helped them at all, though? Or is it just an ego trip for B Higgins et al?

To reverse the point, what interesting angle has anybody ever found on the Arctic Monkeys?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1704703,00.html

^^^remember this?

Don't ask me, I've never bothered to read anything about them.

To reverse it again....

Is there any TV show that could potentially have a guest artist singing their latest single, that *Hasn't* has LLewis on w/ Bleeding Love?

GMTV, Paul OGrady, XFactor, etc, etc...

xpost

Well that's my point guys, in terms of public persona they are every bit as anodyne as Leona, but that didn't stop all those newspaper screeds happening.

.. the lottery, Children in need, children not in need, Dragons den, the lunar eclipse, and Parkinson?

This is why punters are turning to the real sounds of Nickelback and Runrig.

NV - yeah but if that's true then the Arctic Monkeys' PR team have done fantastically well in crafting the impression of them NOT being anodyne. Or to put it another way, why do newspapers write lengthy hyperbolic overexcitable screeds about the cultural significance of the Arctic Monkeys in the way they don't about, say, The Killers or the Kaiser Chiefs?

I guess we've thrashed this one out on all those other Arctic Monkeys threads but I still think a big part of the reason is lol authenticity.

Why does Leona have to be interesting? Was Whitney Houston interesting? (Before she met Bobby Brown.) Was Kylie interesting? (Before she met Nick Cave.) Just give her time. (And the chance to meet some shady character.)

if Leona releases a dancey song as good as one of Whitney's then cool.

I don't think being interesting matters at all, because I don't read interviews. But journalists have to find an angle, is what people were saying.

Re: authenticity - that still doesn't quite hold with me. Personally I think that you give the script to next week's Eastenders to any jobbing indie band who can thrash around a bit and people would hail the result as a dazzling insight into urban life. Lyrics with a narrative are comparatively rare these days so people eagerly latch onto any old shite.

Was Kylie interesting? (Before she met Nick Cave.)

More interesting than Nick Cave's been since he met her

xpost

Well there might be something in that but the other bands you mentioned have narrative lyrics too. But not sung in a "gritty" "working class" accent by a teenager.

Grinderman buzz suggests otherwise (xp)

Hey I like a lot of Nick Cave records but he's never been interesting.

A temporary upward blip (xp)

Kylie was never LESS interesting to the UK press than that period right around the time she met Nick Cave.

True, plus duetting with Cave was hardly a career highlight, no matter what way you look at it - for him maybe

S'up with that then? Why haven't we got lots of shitty Guardian thinkpieces about how Leona encapsulates the mood of a generation? Huh?

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 3:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

it's called racism, son.

To reverse it again....

Is there any TV show that could potentially have a guest artist singing their latest single, that *Hasn't* has LLewis on w/ Bleeding Love?

GMTV, Paul OGrady, XFactor, etc, etc...

And I'm certain Simon will have her on American Idol when it starts up.

she hasn't been on The Culture Show, Transmission of Newsnight Review.

Or Later With Jools Holland

Do you think the broadsheet celebration of Girls Aloud has actually helped them at all, though? Or is it just an ego trip for B Higgins et al?

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:51 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

doubt its sold them any records. it's only with 'tangled up' that the broadsheets have really gone to town with the 'why it's okay to like girls aloud' articles. 'survivor' syndrome.

But _why_? Is it just middle aged Rilo Kiley stans going "Hey, I can like the pop as well"?

Most broadsheet interviews with Girls Aloud are like "yeah amazing production team great records but come on, footballers, race rows, falling out of cabs vomiting on paparazzi lets go".
-- Matt DC, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

this, basically. balding, doritos-fingered music hacks getting to spend '48 hours with britain's hottest wags' kind of thing.

And then using this 48 hours to construct one elaborate dig at "Do you really want to be" Marcello Carlin.

ah come on the man petridis showed real heart there. that london lite guy couldn't have pulled that off.

Rupert Pupkin: I'm gonna work 50 times harder, and I'm gonna be 50 times more famous than you.
Jerry Langford: Then you're gonna have idiots like you plaguing your life!

Guys, i know i'm the last person on earth to notice this, but i was blaring "Bleeding Love" in the car, and i realized that, in the beginning of the song, the drum pattern resembles a heartbeat, but then the heartbeat fades away when she gets to the line "but something happened for the very first time with you, my heart melted to the ground"

Awesome!

I like at least one song by both of these people.

i really love the arctics

also "bleeding love"

"Better In Time" is, uh, better.

not really, no

Bleeding love seemed okay at first, mainly because the lyrics were so bonkers, but then it just got really really boring.

"Bleeding Love" is pretty great, but I think Leona does a much better job of selling the melodrama in "Better in Time."

still major lols at "you cut me open"

still a great song

haaa the gauze montages in "better in time" video

Okay, her cover version of "Run" is pretty much astonishing isn't it?

Thought it showed up the deficiencies in the song i.e. the verses have about 2 notes in them.

Well yeah a bit because Snow Patrol are boring but the bigger problem with "Run", far bigger than the melodic dearth is the flat, grounded, earthen singing that's so at odds with the lyrics. Leona makes it sound MASSIVE. It's just a much more flattering arrangement. Number One clearly. Gary Lightbody doesn't need or deserve the extra money, mind you.

Keep on bleeding?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/14/leona.lewis.attack/index.html

Oh man that footage was on the TV in the pub last night but the sound was down and we couldn't work out what it was about.

I am totally loving "Bleeding Love". Is the rest of the album worth hearing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7sG2Ebnn6A&ob=av2n

if Leona releases a dancey song as good as one of Whitney's then cool.

― blueski, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 17:08 (3 years ago) Bookmark