Alienation Index (So This Is What I Do When I Could Be Reviewing Songs For Jukebox Instead)

[koganbot]

Had the vague impression that The Singles Jukebox was giving higher scores to songs I dislike than to songs I like, so I decided to run a crude check. I broke this into three groups: those I'm thumbs down on (generally a score of 6 or under), categorized as NO; those I'm borderline on (hovering right around 6), categorized as BORDERLINE; and those I like (probably better than 6), categorized as YES. "Borderline" is a weasel category, since in Year In Pop and Year In America I TICK or NOT TICK; my main reason for keeping "Borderline" here was to ensure I didn't kill Calle 13 and keep Beirut just to raise my Alienation Index. But probably I am going to kill Calle 13 and keep Beirut (and keep Mondo Diao and Ciara).* In any event, adding up the numbers, it turns out my impression is wrong, though not wildly so. (I'll point out that relative high scorers "Lions, Tigers and Bears" and "Zero" are not that far from my borderline; I much prefer other tracks on the Jazmine and YYY albs.)

(The number after each song is the average Jukebox score.)

NO (15) (Avg. 5.04)

Flo Rida f. Keisha "Right Round" 5.60
The Saturdays "Just Can't Get Enough" 5.60
Jenkins, West, et al. "Barry Islands In The Stream" 2.20
A.R. Rahman/Nicole Scherzinger "Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny)" 3.86
Stefanie Heinzmann "The Unforgiven" 5.67
Darkwood Dub "Robot" 6.25
Soulja Boy f. Sammie "Kiss Me Thru The Phone" 4.75
La Roux "In For The Kill" 4.00
Carrie Underwood "Home Sweet Home" 3.30
Calvin Harris "I'm Not Alone" 5.25
Basic Element "Touch You Right Now" 5.33
Olivia Ruiz "Elle Panique" 7.14
Franz Ferdinand "No You Girls" 5.00
Camera Obscura "French Navy" 6.50
Rick Ross f. John Legend "Magnificent" 5.11

BORDERLINE (4) (Avg. 5.84)

Calle 13 f. Cuci Amador "Electro Movimiento" 7.60
Mondo Diao "Dance With Somebody" 6.14
Beirut "La Llorona" 3.50
Ciara f. Justin Timberlake "Love Sex Magic" 6.10

YES (15) (Avg. 5.79)

Chipmunk "Chip Diddy Chip" 5.67
Asher Roth "I Love College" 2.18
Jamie Foxx f. T-Pain "Blame It" 5.13
The-Dream "Rockin That Shit" 6.14
Keri Hilson f. Lil Wayne "Turnin' Me On" 6.80
Pet Shop Boys "Love, Etc" 7.22
Jazmine Sullivan "Lions, Tigers And Bears" 6.70
Miley Cyrus "The Climb" 4.44
Black Eyed Peas "Boom Pow Pow" 5.36
Britney Spears "If You Seek Amy" 5.58
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Zero" 8.36
Lily Allen "Not Fair" 5.20
Peter Fox "Schwarz Zu Blau" 5.71
K.I.G "Head, Shoulders, Kneez N Toez" 5.00
Ms. Dynamite "Bad Gyal" 7.29

*If I kill Calle 13 and place Beirut, Ciara, and Mondo Diao into YES, my NO score rises to 5.20 and my YES falls slightly to 5.70. (The Calle 13 and Beirut both have instrumental sounds I like and vocals that irritate me, Beirut's thick bad vocals fitting the horn sound pretty well whereas with Calle 13 I'm going, "If only they hadn't wrecked the flow there.") I'll point out that "Turnin' Me On" and "Rockin That Shit" were originally NO TICK when they came through Another Year In America. While I've reversed drastically on "Turnin' Me On," I still waver on "Rockin That Shit," which is something of a blah start to an ultimately powerful album; sort of fits the story arc, though: sexmush --> rage 'n' recrimination --> better sexmush.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

This is a good monthly exercise in keeping up to date with what I've listened to. I was rereading some Jukebox blurbs from 2006 and I only barely remembered many of them, but it was nice to remember at all.

Did this over on my LJ, and my results were similar but a little more Jukebox-friendly. More interesting is the top ten breakdown, which I'm sure will diverge more as the year goes on.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not paying a great deal of attention to the average scores, more to the individual ones - as in Jukeboxes past, the average will always cluster around the centre due to the variations in taste. It's a good way to focus attention on the individual judgements, actually.

[koganbot]

I wish Will would take Martin's advice and institute a Controversy Index or something. (I invented one for Radio On back in 1992 so that we could track which songs were the most controversial, Boyz II Men turning out to be as controversial as Madonna and Nirvana. The basic idea was to take the mean score a song got and see how much scores tended to deviate from it.)

In Jukebox I tend to get riled up by the comments and forget what the scores are, actually.

[koganbot]

...see how FAR scores tended to deviate from the mean, that is.

[koganbot]

Well, back in Radio On and Why Music Sucks we just did "average deviation" (standard takes the average and then does something to it that makes it comparable to any other list, no matter what the scale, whereas taking the average deviation just tells us where we are given our own scale). The idea wouldn't be to factor the controversy scores into the total scores, but just to have it as a separate number that would tell us a tad bit more precisely how far the votes spread on each song.

(Chuck actually came up with a Line Controversy Score where he took the controversy scores and factored in the number of lines people had written about each song. As you can imagine, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" dominated this one.)

[koganbot]

Ah, so Fight Like Apes got a bunch of 9.0s and 10.0s, did they?

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I gave it a "7" along with a (probably unpublishable) rant about how it says a lot about me that I don't like that it says, but still recognize: not a guilty pleasure, but something of a pleasure that part of me is fighting (not like an ape) against.

Top 10

[koganbot]

Dave added a Top 10 comparison to his, so here's mine. I'd think with only fifteen yes's, the pickens would have been pretty thin here, but actually I'm fine with these ten and wouldn't have minded adding Ms. Dynamite at number 11 (and would have definitely added Maino, if he'd reached the board on time):

CONSENSUS:

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2. Calle 13
3. Ms Dynamite
4. Pet Shop Boys
5. Olivia Ruiz
6. Keri Hilson
7. Jazmine Sullivan
8. Camera Obscura
9. Darkwood Dub
10. Mando Diao

MINE

1. Black Eyed Peas "Boom Pow Pow" 5.36
2. Asher Roth "I Love College" 2.18
3. Britney Spears "If You Seek Amy" 5.58
4. Keri Hilson f. Lil Wayne "Turnin' Me On" 6.80
5. Peter Fox "Schwarz Zu Blau" 5.71
6. Chipmunk "Chip Diddy Chip" 5.67
7. Lily Allen "Not Fair" 5.20
8. K.I.G "Head, Shoulders, Kneez N Toez" 5.00
9. Pet Shop Boys "Love, Etc" 7.22
10. Jamie Foxx f. T-Pain "Blame It" 5.13

my top 10

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

1. Ms Dynamite - Bad Gyal
2. Jazmine Sullivan - Lions, Tigers & Bears
3. KIG - Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes
4. Keri Hilson ft. Lil' Wayne - Turnin' Me On
5. The-Dream - Rockin' That Shit
6. Ciara ft. Justin Timberlake - Love Sex Magic
7. Jamie Foxx ft. T-Pain - Blame It
8. Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
9. Maino ft. T-Pain - All The Above
10. Britney Spears - If U Seek Amy

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Forgot to include "All of the Above"...a GOOD, but close to 10 in my top 10, if it were to knock off Soulja Boy. I don't think it would, though, too forgettable (if really solid).

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I'll be impressed if I dislike anything this month more than the Noisettes, though. IT IS THE SOUND OF ANTI-FUN MASQUERADING AS FUN. It must be destroyed.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

My top ten so far:
1. JAZMINE SULLIVAN - Lions, Tigers and Bears
2. YEAH YEAH YEAHS - Zero
3. KERI HILSON ft. NE-YO & KANYE WEST - Knock You Down
4. CIARA ft. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE - Love, Sex & Magic
5. The-Dream - Rockin' That Shit
6. GIRLS ALOUD - Untouchable
7. LILY ALLEN - Not Fair
8. THE-DREAM ft. MARIAH CAREY - My Love
9. BRICK & LACE - Bad To Di Bone
10. MS DYNAMITE - Bad Gyal

(Couldn't be bothered retyping from how they get sent.) There are at least half a dozen more that I gave at least 7 to (Ms D got 8 from me) and will keep. I'm really enjoying it, though last week was rather meh.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

I haven't written for Jukebox in a while, but my recollection is that my ratings were pretty close to consensus, except that I rated teenpop higher.