rolling pop 2013 thread

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/arts/music/benny-blanco-hit-maker-for-rihanna-and-maroon-5.html?ref=music&_r=0

Interesting guy and article even if I don't like Rihanna's "Diamonds" that he co-wrote

Mikkel S. Eriksen, part of the songwriting team Stargate, said that Mr. Blanco, as a producer, always reaches for unexpected sounds. On “Diamonds,” the Rihanna hit he wrote with Stargate, he took a snippet of Mr. Eriksen’s singing, altered the sound electronically to make it dirtier, then used that timbre, manipulated with audio software, to create ghostly accompaniment lines. “His technique is somewhat unorthodox,” Mr. Eriksen said, “as he almost never plays the keyboards but throws in weird samples and alters them to the right pitch to go with the song.”

― curmudgeon, Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:23 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some Dude, you should start the Pop 2013 thread

― curmudgeon, Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:24 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's busy with Maroon 5 now. Guessing they won't be listening to those Sting and Police records that Bruno Mars is addicted to, but who knows.

still the most telling benny blanco anecdote: http://web.archive.org/web/20100807001855/http://alexkazemi.com/2010/07/listensingle-review-teenage-dream-katy-perry/

(because this guy is the most reliable predictor of a song being not-great. which comes off awfully like a vendetta I realize but his discography is this rogues gallery of stuff that is _not good_. or if it is, he's either not the lead producer or being heavily, recognizably influenced by someone like rico love or [as much as it pains me to say it] fucking poser.)

...POSNER. although there are more inaccurate typos

Mr. Blanco, whose real surname is Levin, never expected to become a pop tunesmith. Growing up in Reston, Va., he fell in love with hip-hop, he said, when he bought a Nas cassette at the age of 5.

what kinda bullshit is this, dude was 6 when Illmatic came out and even that's still pretty implausible

You're right Katherine.

Luke always makes us “Benny Proof” everything. He says that if Benny doesn’t get it, America won’t get it.

Ha. That's from that alexkazemi.com interview you posted.

i don't know whether i like this but there's def something compelling about it - i do love the grain of her voice

http://soundcloud.com/katdahlia/gangsta

ABC's Happy Endings tries to jump into the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oqFFrBdjqc&feature=player_embedded

it's a pretty serviceable song, doesn't really announce itself too loudly as satire. about as good as half the songs on that carly rae LP people were flipping for.

ha that's basically what I was thinking, only I was framing it as "this is a bearable version of 'See You Again' by Miley Cyrus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZhDGmMvC4

Are you sure you didn't mean to post this here?

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/04/jewish-girl-band-haim-sisters-set-for-a-big-year-in-2013/

girl-group pop from Los Angeles

they have a thread too: HAIM

Bruno Mars' Police imitation "Locked out of Heaven" still #1

third Stingcore #1 of the past year after Gotye and Maroon 5

hey mugger, what's on your iPod?

Amelia Lily - "Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You've Got)"

Never cared much for Tegan and Sara, but The Line Of Best Fit's plug of the new single, deeming it "an epic Taylor Swift covering Kate Bush pop ballad", worked like a charm for me (even if I don't agree with the KB-part of that statement). Lovely song:

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/new-music/blog/listen-tegan-and-sara-i-was-a-fool-116066

The sound reminds me of the Young Galaxy production from Lissvik (who are also coming with a new albums soon!)

Great video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bek1y2uiQGA

I like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM_nx7cbEtg

Loreen double whammy:

title track from the album Heal now a single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6SNuPflIrE

and her collaboration with Kleerup, "Requiem Solution":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFag7L9SsAc

(it's actually Kleerup featuring Loreen, not the other way around)

the one with kleerup is gorgeous

I kept waiting for Requiem Solution to get overtly "Kleerup-y" and it never did. Nice enough, but disappointing considering the collaborative partners involved.

apparently that's not the studio version. maybe it gets more kleerup-y but sadly i can't find out because it is blocked in the usa on youtube :(

oops, that isn't the studio version, no. can't find it on YouTube either.
here's the Spotify link.

bah, it just tells me it can't be played in the united states :\ oh well, i will just enjoy this version for now

that's loreen as in eurovision '12 winner right?
i loved euphoria, so will check them out.

what's people's views on the new demi lovato track?
i think i prefer it to skyscraper, even if it feels slightly more cluttered
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40cxXdKxE5M

BATTLEFIELD

lol yeah, my first rxn was "why does love always feel like heart attack"

but on the other hand i thought "battlefield" was very derivative while this actually sounds distinctive for the most part. and i definitely prefer this to "skyscraper", which was just kinda ok.

I still like that 2AM Club track. It's great, why can't you guys see it???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVtuluGSG7Y

Sounds like the track was made on Fruity Loops presets, but I like it anyway.

There is nothing about this that couldn't have come straight from 1986 but it's quite nice to hear new Italo-disco that borrows more from the Den Harrow end of the spectrum than some of the usual super-serious reference points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Ek8n0GV8g

Italove is great! "L'amour" is also very catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOrgWaEEG3E

is it just me or can anyone else feel something deep under the earth, an almost noiseless tectonic shift, that guetta-pop and harris-ified "decadent" club bangers are already more than halfway to naff and will soon be the stuff of nose-scrunching reminisces on late-night TV

i can feel it

i just realised that actually they've all just been hibernating, their minds busy plotting, planning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg2q6ZofewM

canny of will.i.am to make the chorus of his new single with bieber sound exactly like "beauty & the beat"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ENVZxfJdhE

The ubiquity of that awful swedish house mafia song makes me think predictions of the imminent demise of dance pop are largely wishful thinking

that song is everywhere

i like to pretend that the line in the chorus is "ciara's got a plan for you"

That's what I hear the line as, so it's easy to pretend, in the unlikely event I don't just turn the TV/radio off when it comes on.

I kept mishearing it as "St. Helen's got a plan for you"

#thatPOWER: excellent camelCase. will.i.am has an excellent future in programming. (as opposed to beat programming.)

This may be my favourite song of the year so far. The lyrics instantly reminded me of Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" (I wouldn't be surprised it it's an intentional reference), but once the chorus sets in it's clear this is about heartbreak, not fun. The whole think is incredibly sad and euphoric at the same time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fG-EIvEiSHs#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fG-EIvEiSHs#!

WTF! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fG-EIvEiSHs

OK it's clear I don't know how to embed videos.

hey guys Bonnie McKee what do we think

"i was raised by a television"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uh6VZF0R5U

does this out Tiqqun Tiqqun?

i think this kind of music is on its way out

i am seeing all these ads on youtube and other websites telling me to buy labrinth's ghastly single "beneath your beautiful" w/ emeli sandé on itunes. with all the piano ballads in the top 10 right now i am actually slightly afraid that it's going to end up being a hit here too

also unfortunately i think this song is finally happening here -- it got performed on some show and is now selling a ton :( :( :(

It just reminds me to go snooping through the credits of other recent pop albums to see if there's any other co-writers who might end up trying to start their own singing career in the next year or so.

i think this kind of music is on its way out

― dyl, Friday, July 26, 2013 3:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u mean pop?

wow that vid is awesome solid as a korean pop video. neat

dyl how cud u sae that. they're so sweet and sexy and neutral of politic.

it's only music :-) lop

oops forgot wat u sed...

i hope someday sexual politic of normal and calming, and feminism takes hold. i think it's a fine music for the now. sorry about last psot.

i suppose it's a neutrality of humour

or a mode of thinking that is not of any action or excitation.. duh. sorry ill shut up

do we have a pop thread luriqua?

It's not terrible, it's just completely generic.

The song and her performance display a complete lack of personality.

Bonnie McKee is apparently 29. Dressing like a kid in the video actually makes her look older than that, like it's some kind of MadTV sketch.

she looks like a Kristen Wiig character.

I definitely don't hate that song, though.

I looked at her list of co-written #1s and I'd take a hundred more of her songs over one more Ryan Tedder atrocity.

her track record is...okay. for every "Teenage Dream" there's 5 pieces of shit.

Yeah, I didn't look at her whole body of work. Just took a glance at her #1s.

There's a lot of movement in American Girl melodically, though. I'm so sick of verse and chorus melodies that do NOTHING. It's the Fruity Loops effect...when you write in blocks, the songs become so modular that you can take a verse out of one song and put it in another and no one will even notice.

I'm finding "american girl" more hilarious with each listen. the fact that she looks older in the video feels like part of the joke. its like halfway between spring breakers and josie and the pussycats and "born in the usa".

"I wanna buy a new heart out of a vending machine / Cause It's a free country so baby we can do anything"

yep all of pop is on its way out. was nice knowing u, pop.... :(

The all-star alternate video for American Girl is more entertaining.

Demi's new single is "Made In The USA," I'm just really sick of these bland similarly-themed songs, i guess they all want the next "Party In The USA."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRZtnnW-rPc

:-)

american girl is really pretty funny

no not at all everybody listen to the cody simpson tune instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkni5QYgcvE&list=PL3F4BDEA101E568B5

i like the selena gomez/cataracs single but i swear "mr tsa, i'm ready for my inspection" is the most inappropriate pop lyric of the year

idk so william beckett has an emo pedigree bc he was in the band the academy is but i've been feeling like his new single... belongs here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33fVpciX6qs

i love it

maybe i should make a "rolling emo bros get expansive and technicolor" thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW6M0sl_Bzs

Le Youth - "C O O L"

basically a cover version/remix of "Me & U"

i have listened to this 4 times in a row, and becoming more hooked with each play.

the drums. the twang. the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefRfu2UBes

love it.

Summer vibes from Brazil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPMVPs3BwCw

in case anyone's interested - here's a 2013 summer dance pop hits mix i made! other than a few choice remixes i tried to cram in as many big hits as i could (regardless of what i think of them) as a sorta snapshot of this summer in dance pop from a euro perspective, all in all 30 tracks/61 mins

http://www12.zippyshare.com/v/3126658/file.html

calvin harris feat. ellie goulding - i need your love
inna feat. daddy yankee - more than friends
david guetta feat. ne-yo & akon - play hard
martin garrix - animals
avicii feat. aloe blacc - wake me up
bastille - pompeii
capital cities - safe and sound
sebastian ingrosso & tommy trash feat. john martin - reload (tiedye remix)
daft punk feat. pharrell williams - get lucky
robin thicke feat. t.i. & pharrell - blurred lines
donkie punch & lorenzo - one day
tjr - ode to oi
bingo players feat. far east movement - get up (rattle)
avicii vs nicky romero - i could be the one (didrick remix)
carlprit - fiesta
justin timberlake - suit & tie (jump smokers remix)
icona pop feat. charli xcx - i love it
pitbull feat. tjr - don't stop the party
khaled - c'est la vie
jay santos - caliente
fergie, q-tip & goonrock - a little party never killed nobody (all we got)
ola - i'm in love
psy - gentleman
macklemore & ryan lewis feat. ray dalton - can't hold us (kaskade remix)
duke dumont feat. a*m*e - need u (100%)
naughty boy feat. sam smith - la la la (devolution remix)
swedish house mafia feat. john martin - don't you worry child
lana del rey - summertime sadness (cedric gervais remix)
armin van buuren feat. trevor guthrie - this is what it feels like (w&w remix)
klangkarussell - sonnentanz

Popjustice wrote an article last week saying how amazing the new V V Brown album is. I Just got round to checking it and whilst I'm not about to say it's the masterpiece they claimed it to be it is a bit of a shock, especially considering how completely average everything else she's done has been. I'd guess she's been listening to plenty of Grace Jones, iamamiwhoami and maybe that Barbara Panther album.

The lead single is quite brilliant, great production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1QnXK9XP9Q

"Paco Rabanne presents"??

In any case, I like that. (Sounds a little like HAIM too, actually?)

Anybody been listening to this by LOLO? (Also, when will this capitalization trend end?)

https://soundcloud.com/lolomusic/lolo-year-round-summer-of-love

Sort of... I dunno Raphael Saadiq by way of Winona Ryder?

I feel like this Selena Gomez "Birthday" would not do well on the radio since I actually like it. It's pretty huge sounding and disjointed to the point where it kinda rests on the line between fascinating and frustrating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrhqLGk8W0

I adore this

Just came here to post the Little Mix single. Best thing they've done by a long way. I really cannot stop listening to it right now.

ahem

the thread of little mix

yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmg811Vj3zU

ariana's right there is HUGE. her best track so far.

Who are these boy bands on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in NY?

Oh, now its Ariana Grande singing to Dora the explorer