The Freaky Trigger Readers’ Poll 2011: #50-#41
Without further ado, let’s plunge headfirst into your top 50! more »
katstevens in FT • 8 Comments
6 January 2012
The Freaky Trigger Readers’ Poll 2011: #97-#51
“Hi! We’re amusing pop scamps Rizzle Kicks and we’d like to thank everyone who sent in their votes for this year’s poll! We had a great response in the end (485 songs nominated!) and have very much enjoyed sifting through your ballots on Kat’s behalf, though we’re kind of narked that our track only got to number… well, see for yourself.”
As per last year, here is a big list of lower reaches stuff (tracks that got more than one vote) to get you started – #50-#41 coming up later today!
more »
katstevens in FT • 12 Comments
2000 ARCHIVE Pika! Pika! Chu! Chu!
The Pokemon Phenomenon
This piece was going to be an unabashed paean to Pokemania, explaining what a cracking game it was and how the mass tweener hysteria which greets every fresh Pokegame, cardset, pillow-case, or doily was a good thing inasmuch as ten-year-olds are natural obsessives and it wasn’t like they were wasting their time on trash like pop music or something. And yeah, I do think Pokemon on the Game Boy encourages a certain amount of co-operation and strategic thinking and (really really basic) problem-solving and – massive stretch – respect for the environment. But the problem is this respect is won by obliterating the real environment from your mind entirely, because Pokemon also encourages you to spend a beautiful Mediterranean evening hunched over a transparent box, blithely ignoring the play of light on water in favour of the play of Geodude’s Mega Punch on Zubat’s ugly fanged face. more »
Tom • FT • No Comments
2004 ARCHIVE ALLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUMS!!!!!
ALLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUMS!!!!! Independence Day. Isn’t it marvellous? Hurrah hurrah let’s kill the stripper and those hippies! That’s the kind of morals I WANT from my films! Until the aliens bugger up by deciding just to kill EVERYBODY. Where’s the subtlety, the art, the je ne sais quoi indeed about that? Who cares when we have plucky heroes like Will Smith! He wears a vest! Jeff Goldbum! He wears glasses and is nerdy for Hollywood! And Bill Pullman as Mister President himself. Unfortunately I keep reading “Hitler” for “Hiller”, but I’m sure that’s not what the film intended. Is it? Surely not.
EITHER WAY biff kapow “oh no they have shields”! Well duh, they’re space aliens with 15 mile long ships, do you think they might have shields? We’ve grown up on Star Trek whether we like it or not and we KNOW how these things work. Implausibility in the ranks also rears it’s gooey head (why are all evil aliens gungey? ans: they are in league with Dick and Dom in da Bungalow who WE ALL KNOW are extra-terrestials) when J. Goldbum and W. Smith fly into the Alien’s Big House. more »
2009 ARCHIVE Rage vs X-Factor: Winners and Losers
Well, that’s that: the machine has been given a good beating and we can look forward to “Bulls On Parade” on the festive Argos ad next year. I will admit I didn’t think the RATM crew could do it: I was wrong. But as the dust settles on this most fractious and increasingly entertaining Christmas No.1 race, who has actually benefited? Here’s my round-up of winners and losers.
Joe McElderry: He’ll be Number 1 next week most likely, but while the ‘battle’ was never about him this puts him firmly in the “Leon Jackson” box, not the “Will Young” one. On the other hand, the constant refrain from the judges during the series was that he had a musical theatre kind of a voice, and this might nudge him in that direction and away from the fickle world of pop. Before dabbing your eyes over Joe’s lost dreams, it’s worth noting that if he’d sold as many as Alexandra did with “Hallelujah” last year, he’d have been #1, Rage or no Rage.
Rage Against The Machine: It’s good profile-raising stuff for them and their other material will do well from it, though unless MP3s come with reading lists in their IP3 tags the ‘educational’ element of RATM may be a little missing. The downsizing of their song’s target from “institutional racism” to “Simon Cowell” is probably a fairer reflection of their listeners’ concerns anyway but it’s left them looking a little… cuddlier… than once they did (and their participation in a classic British radio brouhaha has only helped). They themselves have joined in with gusto, of course: “RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE THANKS ‘EVERY FAN AND FREEDOM FIGHTER’ FOR THE ‘ANARCHY CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF 2009′” blared their press release. more »
Tom • FT • 59 Comments
2009 ARCHIVE MICHAEL JACKSON – “Billie Jean”
Michael Jackson came to the title “King of Pop” in the style of a medieval ruler, carving out his realm piece by piece across a hard year of campaigning. He won some of his new subjects when he performed this song as part of a Motown anniversary special: others when he formed common cause with Eddie Van Halen or Paul McCartney. His fiefdom suddenly extended across my school playground with the release of the “Thriller” video and its body popping zombies. Through it all the album and its spin-offs sold, and sold, and sold. “Billie Jean”, its Wikipedia page claims, has now topped 800,000 sales as a digital download, a format invented close to 20 years after its release. more »
Tom • FT/Popular • 137 Comments
2003 ARCHIVE THE GREEK ALPHABET OF PISS-POOR POP: Introduction
THE GREEK ALPHABET OF PISS-POOR POP
I notice elsewhere, in my absence, some young scamp over on NYLPM has started a concept piece, some say think piece entitled the Alphabet Of Pop. Now no-one knows more than myself the beauty of lists, as my Week Of Wank and Breakfast Of Banality proves. Its cheap easy journalism and also gives one a built in deadline which battles stronger than the average slagging of Pavement with the Bombay Sapphire. So I have decided to counter such nonsense more »
2 January 2012
The FT Top 100 Songs of All Time #7: Little Fluffy Clouds – The Orb
“What were the skies like when you were young?”
I think everyone hears a record in their youth which suddenly reveals a whole new world of possibilities. It could be a three minute punk song, where simplicity and lyrical fervour suddenly make the business of writing your own songs seem possible. Maybe hearing the Aphex Twin opened a world of atonal computer music, bedroom techno that saw no instuments at all. Or think of the kid coming home from yet another tedious trumpet lesson hearing the joyous release of Two Tone and looking in a whole new way at his instrument. more »
Pete Baran in FT • 9 Comments
28 December 2011
The Freaky Trigger Readers’ Poll 2011
Unlike the rest of the internet, here at FT Towers we like to make our end-of-year list at the Actual End Of The Year! And we need YOUR help to do it!
Send your top 20 tracks of 2011 to poptimistspoll2010@gmail.com* by 1am GMT on 30th December and we will post the results during the first week of January.
- ‘Tracks of 2011′ can mean something released as a single or on an album this year, or a track that emerged this year on the internet or a young person’s trendy mixtape, or singles taken from a 2010 album released this year. To be honest I will be pretty lenient about the whole business so put whatever you like.
- The order of your top 20 is important! Your #1 will be allocated more points than #20.
- If you can’t think of 20 songs then 10 or 14 or 2 is just fine.
- As per last year we are running this poll in conjunction with the Poptimists LJ community, so if you’ve already sent me your 2011 list over there, there’s no need to do so again.
That’s it! Get voting!
*Yes yes I know it’s last year’s email address. A big ‘whatevs’ to you too :)
katstevens in FT • 7 Comments
24 December 2011
Seasonal slatternry: the festive bacon sandwich
An online shop only describable as ‘prepared for a nuclear winter’ has left us with a severe surplus of meat products. Rather fuzzy headed this morning, it seemed to me an excellent time for a bacon sandwich. Other Half didn’t get downstairs in time to intervene in my more experimental cooking tendencies, however, leading to me deciding that just yr regular meat and bread wasn’t sufficient for this level of fine dining.
Fortunately it turned out to be an excellent breakfast, so if you’re feeling the worse for the season tomorrow and the mere idea of what follows doesn’t make you boak perhaps it is a thing you would like to put in your mouth.
Hazel in FT • 7 Comments
Eight FT Nights: “The Hanukkah Story”, The Nanny
(Soz for the late posting, yr correspondent has completed a GRUELLING 25-HOUR JOURNEY across many time zones including correspondent’s British spouse being detained by US Homeland Security for 2.5 hours of fun! But all HOME SAFE now albeit in an awkward timezone for posting.)
Again the mother of the household is frying latkes in the first scene (we’re 3 for 4 here), again there is an interfaith family (4 for 4), again there is a stilted explanatory “What is the story of Hanukkah?” scene (3 for 4) and holy crap is that Ray Charles? Holy fuck what is Ray Charles doing in this! Oh man! This is already the best Hanukkah ever!
22 December 2011
Eight FT Nights: “Heck of a Hanukkah”, Even Stevens
Hey, it’s tiny Shia LaBeouf! It’s the day before Hanukkah, and he is searching the house for hidden presents, a materialistic narrative all children, Jewish or goyish, can relate to.
Downstairs, Mama LaBeouf is frying too-perfect latkes while the rest of the family hovers hungrily (but not actually helpfully). “You know what Mom, you haven’t told us the Hanukkah story since we were little kids,” a brunette teenager prompts.
“Well,” she begins. “Your ancestors – from my side of the family,” and it’s INTERFAITHSPOSITION AWAY as we find this is yet another Hanukkah being celebrated by a mixed family. I have nothing against interfaith familes – indeed, I’m part of one – but SERIOUSLY do no Jews marry Jews in TV land? more »
Kerry in FT • No Comments
21 December 2011
Eight FT Nights: “The Best Christmukkah Ever”, The OC
Is it though? IS IT?!
NB I have never seen an episode of The OC before and watched this while (a) drunk and (b) packing. So I may have missed some subtleties, but actually looking back I don’t think so.
Kerry in FT • No Comments
The Annual Tween Christmas and New Year Pub Crawl 2011: The City Road FTSE Index (THURSDAY 29TH DECEMBER)
I am not in the business of wishing Christmas away already, but there is one festive highlight which is still not done to death by the BBC, namely the annual festive pub crawl. Between Christmas and New Year the thoughts go to drinking, and what is now the Eleventh Annual Between Christmas and New Year Pub Crawl. And after last years frankly tiny journey around the City, we thought we would have a bit more of a challenge. So the longest physical walk of any of our pub crawls Stretching from Angel to Shoreditch, up and down the City Road, and yes, in and out of the Eagle. And this is what it looks like (click through for a bigger version).
You can see the shape up there and it almost completely mirrors the movements of the FTSE share index this year.
more »
20 December 2011
Eight FT Nights: “Chanukah”, Rugrats
Chag sameach! And so long to advent calendars and welcome to EIGHT FT NIGHTS of Hanukkah TV specials. Although your correspondent doubted eight Hanukkah-related TV episodes or specials existed in the whole of pop culture, having dredged the depths of 1980s cartoons and 1990s sitcoms it turns out there are at least TEN! But we’re not going to do ten.
Nickelodeon classic cartoon Rugrats features an interfaith Jewish-Christian family and more holiday specials than you can shake a baby at. The episode titled “Chanukah” features adventure, drama, triumph, grown-up Hebrew jokes and two bad puns around “Maccabee”:
The other one, for the record, is “To be or Maccabee”.
Kerry in FT • 6 Comments
