#nowpop40 — Public Fediverse posts

The #DuaLipa hit factory has been operating at full pelt for almost a full decade.

"IDGAF" is my pick for #NowPop40; in part because one of my outright faves, also because it's the standout song in a very varied year.

Dua leads her army into battle against a useless ex, perhaps against her own feelings for useless ex. Sharp and punchy and strident: makes its point, leaves, done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgfe5tIwOj0

The #Haim sisters wrote a pleasant jazz groove, musing about how to be a support to troubled friends. Our heroes stroll around Los Angeles in the video.

Any resemblance to "Walk on the wild side" is coincidental, Lou Reed's estate gets some of the royalty.

More like this next month: it's the vibe I'm targetting for #Popiversary2, after #NowPop40 ends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjuA_o6Jzyo

The greatest show tune of the last decade - perhaps of the whole #NowPop40 era - came from #Frozen

#IdinaMenzel has been in all the cool theatre shows - Rent, Wicked, Chess - and has some pop albums under her belt.

"Let it go" was originally plotted as "Elsa's badass song", and draws from emotions as dispirate as Carole King and Avril Lavigne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVJZ_LVDIw

The greatest pop star of the current generation, #TaylorSwift broke through with 2012's "Red" album.

By being a huge global megastar, she doesn't really need to feature on Now! compilations, so my #NowPop40 choice is limited.

This song? Perhaps the thrill's been dulled by ten years on constant repeat, and Max Martin's never improved his songwriting. Taylor's Version encourages us to listen again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8hWueHBzL8

The breakthrough single for Lisa and Jess was a thumping, pumping electro-disco song with more than a bit of punk sass.

#TheVeronicas rode the coat-tails of Avril Lavigne and Pink into the top ten, stayed there because the song is better than we dared expect.

(PS: don't bother with that Billy Corgan, he will leave a trail of broken hearts.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdUwbpKTYg
#NowPop40

The #NowPop40 interval act continues with #Mika, "Grace Kelly" was one of the songs he performed in Turin 2022.

Originally a hit in 2007, it's a song about fitting in, being true to yourself, and as utterly fabulous as the original actor-turned-royal. Still sounds fresh all these years later.

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

It's #NowPop40 interval act time! #JustinTimberlake stole the show in Stockholm with the song of summer 2016.

"Can't stop the feeling" is joyful, inclusive, a complete earworm, a song I don't tire of hearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAgPJE6-8iU

120bpm is the metronome of pop: fast enough to be an excited heart, slow enough to be sustainable for hours. "Call me maybe", 120bpm in G major throughout.

Absolutely ubiquitous in early 2012, the tale of #CarlyRaeJepsen being whooshed off her feet has a glorious internal dissonance - non-rhyming couplets to end the verses? Clever!

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic

It's June 22nd.

Five years ago today, young Roza's heart was broken. The guy she thought was forever turned out to be just another guy. You know.

Through hard work, inspiration, perspiration, and a well-timed promo campaign, a song about that emotional wave became a massive hit.

Five nights ago, young Rosa sung about that heartbreak to thousands of fans in Toronto's famous Blue Jays Stadium.

#RosaLinn: still on the way up. Yay!

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UbwQ8yYQ3s

"I live my day as if it was the last, live my day as if there was no past"

Bright and breezy, handclaps and fun. #ZaraLarsson leaves her loser ex behind and goes off on her own terms.

Zara won Got Talent in 2012, "Uncover" was the international breakthrough, but ignored on these shores because .gb tastemakers are useless.
#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9q0ktbQEn4

Two of Swindon's finest on #NowPop40.

Drawn to the nightclub to gawk, to gape, to see her ex and their new beau eating each others' faces off.

#Robyn is in her element - 2005's "Be mine" went "You had your arm around whatsername, she had on that scarf I gave you". Here, the mope is endless, there is no optimism, only crushing grind.

2010 in a nutshell, then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcNo07Xp8aQ

In another place, @nonoxcol notes that a lot of #NowPop40 people have nominated Tears For Fears from Now! 16.

This thread stands by my pick of Belinda Carlisle's "Leave a light on". Wistful hope appeals a lot more than overblown nostalgia.

A trip to the Hard Rock Café in Glasgow was not my choice. The dining room's full of memorabilia from rock stars - Annie Lennox's outfit, shorts worn by Angus Young from AC/DC, #AmyMacDonald's guitar.

"Who?" asked my cow-orker, who doesn't listen to enough modern troubadours singing about her drunken nights on the town.

Curious, because said cow-orker ended up so drunk he couldn't get into a taxi at midnight.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puZAGRkf6xc

The piano! The choir! The gentle melancholia in F-minor!

#Embrace had been around for a decade before this 2006 hit, which briefly threatened Coldplay-style ubiquity, but prefers to hide its brilliance in the shadows. Fashionable critics were sniffy, which is the usual mark of a good song.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o3uLrKduS0

#NowPop40 has pop-soul from 2008, dripping with irony and pretend solipsism. The duo were producer Adam Pallin and vocalist Imani Coppola, whose "Legend of a cowgirl" wasn't compiled onto Now!.

#LittleJackie sounded like Motown, had attitude and style -- and vanished as quickly as they'd arisen. Four albums, just this one big hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129pN3dobGM

A pair of one-hit wonders on today's #NowPop40.

Sinéad Quinn was the runner-up on Fame Academy series 1, beaten by David Sneddon. Her solo career was one-and-a-half hit singles in early 2003; this was the half.

What happened to #SinéadQuinn? Brief spin in musical theatre, plays rockabilly tunes, and works with learning disabled folks.

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

Andre 3000 and Big Boi had been around for ten years before their commercial high-point. Plenty to love in their deep catalogue.

This massive hit song was a commentary on relationships and the social pressures to be in one. All couched in an upbeat soul-funk groove.

The video features Mr. 3000 in all the lead roles, perhaps an homage to Diana Ross's "Chain reaction" clip.

#NowPop40 #Outkast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgvGjAhvIw

Into the #NowPop40 new century with a cocky look-at-me rap.

Eve gets respect because she's damned good at what she does, and is joined by superfan Gwen "solo career coming soon" Stefani.

The video is integral to the song's success, #Eve and #GwenStefani crash a high-society ball, get carted off to prison, and bailed out. All in a night's work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt88GMJmVk0

#NowPop40 hits early 1999, with the greatest pop video of the era. Britney has a dream, a little bit of innocence, a little bit of sass.

Came out of the radio like a rocket: a song to hum and sing and be heard again. Max Martin had the soundtrack for the next few years. #BritneySpears had our ears for three minutes, our hearts for much longer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4

#NowPop40 hits early 1999, with the greatest generational anthem of the era. The boomers are put in their cage, GenX and GenY run the roost now.

Gregg Alexander had made many records that nobody heard; #NewRadicals have the sound of a generation that wasn't being heard.

And still isn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE

#NowPop40 meets #Uncool50's Eleven Points.

Through all their incarnations, the Sugababes were pop gold. For me, this is their crowning moment of awesome, written by Cathy Dennis but Dr Luke.

For the video, the girl gang spend an evening on the South Bank, while some fit bloke makes a beeline for them.

For the song, it's fizz and crackle and buzz and tension and intensity, and it all resolves in the most glorious keychange of joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPo8XJgoqmE

The #NowPop40 #Uncool50 section begins with *the* greatest emo ballad of all time.

Ednaswap wrote the song, they were a post-grunge band who found a home in tired/regretful/annoyed songs from the heart. Basically, emo before anyone had invented emo.

In the video, #NatalieImbruglia holds it together while living the lyric, all while filming the video. It's all very meta-textual.

The song still sounds fresh and vital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZBIs0gs0E

The breakthrough single from "Be Not Nobody" is a plaintive piano tune, all about an unrequited crush from #VanessaCarlton's days at Juillard.

The song's turned into Vanessa's pension plan, ubiquitous and never stale. It's an emotion we can all relate to, and a tune we can all hum on first listen - yet still get something on the thousandth time through.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek

A mellow #NowPop40 pair for a hot lunchtime.

#RobertMiles' piano house is augmented by #MariaNaylor's soaring, ethereal vocals. It's a dreamy song, magic all around and in the video.

Wonder if it caught the ear of #Madonna, her '98 album "Frozen" had similar piano-dream-house moments almost as good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtyiRvB5vCo

Who dares sample Madonna? Dance producers The Tamperer took the hook from "Material girl" and made a tune all fa-fa-fa-fabulous, dahlings.

#NowPop40 #TheTemperer #Maya #Madonna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFNcBB3nZok

Guitarist Bernard Butler left Suede, gone home, and listened to lots of Dusty Springfield. Her spirit seeped into this uplifting song, sung by David McAlmont.

It's a massive eff-you to the negative folk in life, those who would drag us down. What could McAlmont and Butler be thinking of?

The song's since been adopted as a liberation tune by those changing their life.

#NowPop40 #McAlmontButler #PrideSongs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyrnjJ-sMEE

Every queer of a certain age has a copy of "Bat Out of Hell II" on their shelf. It's the theatrics, darlings.

Meat and Jim are pompous and grandiose and always with a twinkle in their eye. Here is a whole opera in twelve minutes, far more appealing than The Ring Cycle.

Every generation needs a larger-than-life cartoon hero, and in 1993 it was Mr. Loaf - or Mr. Blobby.

#NowPop40 #MeatLoaf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc