No comments on the polls this week (due to pollit.com intransigence) so it's more important THAN EVER that you get yours in here. Wheatus! Papa Roach! Toploader unstoppable! Joe! Starsailor! Fun Lovin' Criminals! Lots to bitch about, so let's go. And Atomic Kitten No.1 again, who'd have thought?
― Tom, Tuesday, 13 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Poor Greg, he got to write about the worst week yet. Joe will get a
lifetime lock on top of the Pop-Eye Hall of Fame... you heard it here
first.
― Ian White, Wednesday, 14 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Yeah, we rigged it as part of a grisly initiation ceremony.
Actually I think it's quite an interesting week - Starsailor debuting
so high is interesting (although the single is COMPLETE SHIT) cause
it's a flicker of the music press' old ability to push bands into the
charts (the music press now extending beyond the NME to the likes of
music365 etc etc).
And the top 3 is very interesting - 2 American alternative bands
(different genres, but I'll bet fans of each single have a grudging
respect at least for the other one) going in bloody high in the UK
Top 10, two weeks after Limp B's No.1? It looks like an invasion to
me, since the last time this sort of thing happened was 1991-92.
As I said on NYLPM, nobody ever said Next Big Things had to be *good*.
― Tom, Wednesday, 14 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Hmmm, I don't know if I would batten down the hatches for the US alt-
rock invasion just yet.
When we're talking UK pop charts, part of the nature of the beast is
a certain flukiness, yes? With much dependent on record-company
release schedules? Without more evidence I'm not convinced that it's
not much more than that flukiness.
See, the problem with analogizing to 1991-92 is that after Nirvana
happened, alternative ruled the charts in the United States. A flurry
of singles, a few of them great, most of them rather less so, came
out and were all over the US charts. MTV switched to an all-alt-rock
all-the-time format. The cultural impact was everywhere. The stage
was set for some UK crossover. Everybody knows the story, why am I
repeating it?
Because today the nu-metal phenomenon simply isn't spawning that
level of dominance -- just look at the charts and the hits and the
TRL playlists, hip-hop and pop are doing much better than this stuff.
The recent UK hits were among the biggest US alternative singles
released in the past year (and that Papa Roach record came out
practically a year ago here!), and they all happened to get released
within two weeks of each other, probably drawing the same record
buyers to the stores to reinforce each other.
Furthermore, as I recall "Arms Wide Open," probably the biggest US
alt-rock hit of the past year, was solidly rejected by the UK,
although admittedly that plodder is in a different vein than the
whine-rock of Wheatus and the mosh-metal of Papa Roach.
Has "Kryptonite" come out over there yet? How'd it do?
But you know, I could be dead wrong. My perception of the nu-metal
underestimates its strength because everybody I know hates it. Even
my little brother and his friends hate it. But there are lots of kids
out there to whom Limp Bizkit is as important as Nirvana was to my
crop, so I dunno.
― Ian White, Wednesday, 14 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
The reason that that Shaggy record is only in at 31 is becuase it's
not officially released in the UK yet, it's all import sales. I must
say I quite like the tune. At least it doesn't sound anything at all
like Oh Carolina...
― Joris Gillet, Wednesday, 14 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
OK, I officially apologise for that Shaggy mistake, especially as one
of my friends told me that was import sales on Monday night. No wonder
I couldn't find it in the shops... Oops.
― Greg, Wednesday, 14 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Mark "how many weeks before I go the way of Mayo?" Goodier said on
Sunday that Outkast's "Ms. Jackson" was just outside the Top 40 on
European import sales alone (it's already been #1 in Germany and
Holland, at least).
Oh, and FWIW the Papa Roach song was a big hit in Germany last year,
and possibly some other places. I neither know nor care.
― R.C., Thursday, 15 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link