Saturday, June 24, 2006

Listening - pop edition

It's very late and for some reason I have not collapsed asleep yet. Seems like a perfect time to post the list of pop songs I've been semi-obsessed with lately:

  1. Beyoncé - "Naughty Girl"
  2. Robyn - "Be Mine"
  3. Feist - "Inside and Out"
  4. Annie - "Heartbeat"
  5. Kelly Clarkson - "Since You've Been Gone"
  6. Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
  7. Nina Sky - "Move Ya Body"
  8. Rihanna - "Pon de Replay"
  9. Usher w/Lil Jon & Ludacris - "Yeah!"
  10. Amerie - "1 Thing"
  11. Missy Elliott - "Lose Control"
  12. Basement Jaxx - "Oh My Gosh"
  13. R. Kelly - "In the Kitchen (remix)"
  14. Brooke Valentine - "Girlfight"
  15. Ciara w/Ludacris - "Oh (remix)"
  16. Mariah Carey - "We Belong Together"
  17. Britney Spears - "Toxic"
  18. Snoop Dogg w/Justin Timberlake & xxxx - "Sign"
  19. Beyoncé - "Crazy in Love"
  20. R. Kelly - "Ignition (remix)
Most of this is from the last two years and is stuff that I've downloaded. "Toxic" is the only Britney song I could identify if forced to. And I'd never heard a single song by R. Kelly before December, not even the remix to "Ignition", which people assured me I had to have heard before. Nope, I really did have my head in the sand. I don't know what I'll think about the man's larger body of work, but these two songs make me incredibly happy each time I hear them; I break out in a huge smile when they come on. The sheer goofiness is infectious. Would you believe that some of us tried to start an "Ignition" singalong around the campfire at Assateague last week? It didn't get very far. I listen to plenty of Missy Elliott anyway and have been loving my recent rediscovery of Basement Jaxx. Chart pop is not going to become a major musical focus for me, if only because there's only so much time and you can't be into everything and I still firmly believe that my time is, in general, better spent listening elsewhere (I came home tonight with 9 new cds, and the closest to pop was Three 6 Mafia; Jesu and Six Organs of Admittance and the Red Krayola are not going to be racing up the charts anytime soon), but when I listen to these songs, I want to sing along to them and I want to dance and it's good. Plus, it's a nice change of pace having some idea what's been going on up there in chartland. (Incidentally, I only realized the other week that Feist has some connection to Broken Social Scene, so her song is probably the most "indie" on this list--but, you know, it's a Bee Gees song--followed, I guess, by Annie, for what little it's worth....)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As guilty pop pleasures go, I'm a sucker for Britney's "Stronger" and Kylie Minogue's "Love at First Sight." A buddy tells me I should absolutely check out Kelly Clarkson.

I heartily endorse Six Organs of Admittance.

And as for Broken Social Scene, are you familiar with "Anthems of a Seventeen Year Old Girl"? I've been thinking lately that it ranks up there among the most transcendentally beautiful songs I've ever heard, in line with Four Tet's remix of Bloc Party's "So Here We Are".

jwer said...

Oh come on, you could totally identify "Oops I Did It Again" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time".

Also: I feel like I don't even KNOW you. Oh hi.

Richard said...

jwer: No way man.

m: I had to grudgingly admit to my wife that Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Mind" is a pretty good pop song; haven't heard "Love at first Sight" as far as I know.

And, yes, I am familiar with "Anthems of a Seventeen Year Old Girl", but somehow it doesn't quite do it for me. I kept hearing how it was this transcendentally beautiful song or something, yet it ended up being the most skipped song on that album for me. I think it's because of the way in which the vocals are processed.

jwer said...

Sure you could, they're the ones that go "Oops I Did It Again" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time"...