Now That's What I Call A Music Poll! Vol. 43(U.S.)

lol m83

m83!

people love that song

this edition is pretty bad -- voted CRJ slightly over bieber

that song has just been on alt-rock radio constantly for a year now. i always hear it and think 'can you guys just play a real depeche mode song please, this is boring.'

"Want U Back" has really grown on me big time the last few weeks, like it better than "Call Me Maybe" tbh

cher lloyd having an american hit is still weird to me -- that song's aight

M83's career is basically just the sound of side-chain compression innit

I liked M83 better when he reminded me of that suspended ballet scene in The Company.

I haven't heard most of these

I kinda dig this Ellie Goulding song

God help me, I just voted David Guetta.

"Drunk On You" because my university campus life has "adapted" "Call Me Maybe" for its back to school theme song.

i think i actually like the m83 track best here

yeah that song is good

cher lloyd having an american hit is still weird to me -- that song's aight

i kept telling you all you'd need to pay attention to her at some point!

wow, actually quite tough, this one. "call me maybe" is the single of the year but i feel like it'll sweep the poll and so i should give "want u back" or "boyfriend" some love.

when i first heard the cher lloyd album "want u back" didn't even strike me as the obvious hit

(they still haven't released "superhero" as a single wtf)

I first heard Want U Back about a month and a half ago in the patio of a Mexican restaurant and just sort of froze mid-chip realizing I'd found my song of the summer, soaking it in... and then didn't hear it again for weeks! Glad it's making heavier rotation now, it totally cheers me up.

This looks like the best edition in a long time? I like all of these:

1. "Call Me Maybe" Carly Rae Jepsen 3:12
2. "Part of Me" Katy Perry 3:32
4. "Titanium" David Guetta featuring Sia 3:30
5. "Lights" Ellie Goulding 3:29
6. "Boyfriend" Justin Bieber 2:50
7. "Scream" Usher 3:54
8. "Let's Go" Calvin Harris featuring Ne-Yo 3:44
10. "Want U Back" Cher Lloyd 3:32
13. "Too Close" Alex Clare 4:11
14. "Midnight City" M83 4:00

voting for Cher Lloyd cause I've overloaded on CRJ and it's the only other one that produced the same immediate "wow this is great pop" response

heh i just defended dance Ne-Yo to you the other day but "Let's Go" is terrible

can't believe people have begun to accept Mike Posner, and because of Bieber no less

only two songs here that I both know and actively dislike (Maroons, Pitbull - that one's shameless even for him) is some kind of benchmark.

did Posner write "Boyfriend"? I had no idea.

It's neither here nor there tho if he did.

WANT U BACK

The Ellie Goulding song is at least two years old, right?

i am voting for "give your heart a break" even tho i am not sure if i actually like it better than "call me maybe"

Cher Lloyd.

Bieber and Usher both have Boucher better singles off of their new albums than the ones they're represented with here.

Pretty good batch. Cher Lloyd grew on me unexpectedly (hated it on first listen, though the "UNGH!" was just comically lame, etc), the M83 is pretty groovy... CRJ will win this handily so I'm gonna throw a vote to "Payphone" which is kinda annoying but for me personally the most earwormy thing on here - - - seriously woke up with that in my head every day for seemingly weeks at one point. Not to say that makes "Even the sun sets in paradise" forgivable, but it's a pretty decent piece of work.

yeah the goofy little Avril grunt in "Want U Back" cracks me up, should turn me against the song but totally doesn't. i actually decided to count how many there are in the song and came up with 18, at the end of every 4th bar except during the bridge.

i think "Payphone" has a little kernel of a good song tucked away in all the bad ideas.

that grunt is the hook

her enunciation of "res-tau-raaaant" <3

Oh Jesus, this is what Cher Lloyd is? Katy Perry's over-acting little sister? This song is like a JC Penny back to school commercial that refuses to end

i know, it's great

This version seems really good to me. Gonna go with either Bieber or CRJ. Not sure which one yet.

Bieber's only real contribution to the pop canon so far is his A&R work with Jepsen imo

Nah, "Boyfriend" is real good.

The whole album is. Bieber's album > Usher's

i'm glad someone else thinks that!

not that i'd rep for the whole bieber album but i go back to its high points far more than i go back to usher's

whoa i actually know 4 of these and i enjoy all 4 of them...

also if "Call Me Maybe" ends up in pitchfork's year-end tracks, there is no hope for humanity

there is no hope for humanity

but thank god for "Call M Maybe"

M? Me!

cher lloyd sounds like katy perry covering dmx so THAT

lol

Call Me Maybe is now lodged in my brain because my youngest son did a dance workshop at a festival, and they kept playing it over and over. Can anyone make it stop?

No one can make it stop.

cher lloyd sounds like katy perry covering dmx

stroke of genius!

ha, when I first heard it I was just like.....this is *sooooooo* british

you all know that her debut in the public consciousness was doing "turn my swag on" in her x factor audition?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JglWZ-wC3Vk

couple of highlights from her x factor run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xw9qVTl_Nw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKR6DED4_Oc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9YQ5-Ffx-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xqIdFU0TRg

yes, we know. you and 5 other britishers posted about it literally a billion times.

lol

audition clip is like seeing an irl andy kaufman foreign guy/elvis routine. such a self-conscious little fidget and then boom! for real as if there's a switch that literally turns her swag on.

also love that you can pinpoint the exact moment simon gets dollar sign (pound note) eyes like a tex avery cartoon character.

although she and her original material are obviously better, let's be real Cher Lloyd's path to fame is at most half a rung up from Karmin's

^ yes yes yes

But at least the Karmin singer has the good sense to roll with her dumb little songs. She doesn't, like, grunt and stuff

no Karmin lady definitely makes more embarrassing noises than CL's grunt. she also has a more prominent British accent, despite being American.

hahaha

At work yesterday, where the interminable speaker system has both Want U Back and Brokenhearted on frequent rotation, I was trying to make a case to my coworkers in favor of the former and anti the latter (my coworkers: "they both suck"). Turns out "but i think Cher's UGHs and BOO HOO HOOs are cute and Karmin's CHEERIOs are annoying" isn't very convincing.

haha i just did a "cheerio" count to match the CL grunt count, 6 times in that one song

One of my coworkers had his last day this week and claimed that Cher Lloyd's grunts are high among the things he will miss the least about the job.

They're obviously both stagey and annoying, but I guess I give Karmin a pass for the "I'm just trying to entertain" lightness of it all. Cher Lloyd grunts in a way more overbearing, post-Katy Perry "ARG, GIVE ME YOUR ATTENTION" sort of way that just feels desperate

I really like "Want U Back" but I don't know we got this far without a single Jessie J comparison in this thread.

well i was focusing on the white girl raps for lols aspect, if i was talking about the overly mannered vocals i might've brought her up, but maybe not because basically nobody in the US has given Jessie J a second thought since her song scraped the top 10 for a few weeks and then plummeted 6 months ago.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Domino" was kind of quietly a big hit and I still hear it a lot on top 40 radio tho?

the grunts are one of the best things about "Want U Back", obv.

the grunts are one of the best things about "Want U Back", obv.

otm

yeah "Domino" was a hit, i'm sure some stations still play it, it just seems like in a larger sense nobody in the US has a vested interest in her or cares if she has a follow-up hit (and virtually every UK act has some kind of fervent, visible anglophile following here)

Only because she's awful.

i suspect a lot of people really do care that she DOESN'T have another hit

well yeah, obviously

I really have no problem with "Domino" tbh. It always takes me half a minute to figure out that it isn't just some half-decent Katy Perry twelfth single or something. Obv this doesn't make up for the pain inflicted by "Price Tag".

Actually, come to think of it she totally has Katy Perry syndrome, where she's completely capable of making ok songs, but she's still worthy of our collective hatred because here bad songs are just the fucking worst.

(and virtually every UK act has some kind of fervent, visible anglophile following here)

i've learned via my high school acting friends that her following is made up of musical theatre geeks who apparently care more about her technical singing ability than her propensity to sabotage it at every turn

i was surprised how strokesy that neon trees hit is

i've learned via my high school acting friends that her following is made up of musical theatre geeks who apparently care more about her technical singing ability than her propensity to sabotage it at every turn

i've always wondered who actually likes jessie j: i know a wide variety of pop fans who'll rep for anything across the spectrum but not one feels remotely kindly towards her. i can't think of any other nominally pop artist as despised by self-declared pop fans.

"Price Tag" feels like a real casual radio fan tune to me, a contemporary equivalent of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" perhaps.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.