1001 Greatest Pop Songs Of All Time - #33 - Sweet Temptation by Lillix

Claire: One thing we haven't neccesarily talked about in these entries is what makes a great popstar, rather than what makes a great pop song. The singer of the song is vitally important. In lesser hands, great songs don't sound so mighty. Looks are obviously important, but Lulu was a great popstar while rocking a dodgy mid 60s Glaswegian housewifer perm, and ultimately, it's the attitude that maketh the true pop star,. The best pop songs in the post Avril era seem to involve a snarling defiance and a distinct lack of simpering. It's important that even on this list, we recognise many a song can be enhanced by a guitar or a drumbeat, but we're talking in a different way. There can be no solo frettery wanking solos in pop, the guitars can, if you wish, be loud and crunchy, but they must embed into the song, rather than be the be all and end all. And perhaps most of all, the chorus has to soar. In pop, most things come down to the chorus, that's where the producer and the band will earn their money. A pop song with a limp chorus can barely qualify as a Pop song. A producer will mess around with the chorus at risk to their own risk.

All this and the mysterious X Factor will decide the fate of the great pop song.

Canadian girlband Lillix, of course, had so many of these qualities - looks, attitudes, fuck off choruses, attitude, instruments that didn't get in the way of the tunes - that it's immensely frustrating that a rotating line up (from the Sweet Temptation release in 2006, already they have turned over 4 members in the struggle to keep the band going) and god awful label distribution on Maverick Records (in it's dying days) that saw the album "Inside The Hollow" fail to see the light of day anywhere other than Japan and bits of Canada. They emphatically muscled up their sound (in a good way) from their still excellent debut album "Falling Uphill", which was more teen pop. They should have ruled the world, but it was not to be. People though bought James Blunt, HE didn't have label problems...sigh...

Sweet Temptation is the greatest single you never heard. Above all else, it has the greatest chorus of it's year, a swelling, chanting be yourself and stuff the world chorus, magificently bouncing off the more gently building verses. The guitars and drums in the song enhance the song, rather than overwhelm it. It's brilliantly post Avril pop, loud and proud, with a heart stopping bit where the song stops and re-builds to the finish (complete with counting bits, one of the best things a pop song can have). It tips it's hat to the Go Go-s and The Bangles, and it's perfect radio pop, tuneful enough to get on a playlist, but lyrically subversive enough to stand out as a piece of brilliance amid the fluff and "meaning" of modern pop. This is absolute genius of the highest order, and it gets better the louder you play it. Which is ALWAYS a good sign.

It should have been #1 all over the world, but that's pop for you. No justice....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alyson: It's only quite recently I've got into this song, I don't know why I missed it at the time, I liked it, but it's only recently crossed onto a full blown "must play". It was certainly loud enough for me to enjoy. Maybe the problem was that I was a bit disappointed they changed the original chorus of "fuck no" to "follow", and held it against them. More fool me. It still sounds a lot like "fuck no", so you can just pretend...

I must admit, I find the track used to best effect on a loud and packed dancefloor, if we can ever get it played. It's sheer volume alone could knock over a field of cows if it gets played properly. And they scream attitude, pouting and glaring their way through the simple but effective video clip. This is, as we have said, perfect Avril generation pop. Maybe Ms Lavigne, if she is struggling for inspiration next album....