Jaq and I are are visiting her family in Indy for the weekend, so Hot 100 and Top Ten updates won’t be posted until Monday. Since Michael Jackson’s records don’t qualify for inclusion in either, the charts this week won’t be an accurate reflection of sales and airplay, anyway. Maybe Billboard should have let the whole chart take the week off. See you on Monday.
Goin’ Back to Indiana
July 2nd, 2009A Perfect Storm
June 28th, 2009This piece by David Segal in the New York Times about the end of fame in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death is the kind of lazy editorializing that drives me crazy. The apparent disinterest in facts is bad enough (why, for instance, say that Thriller was number one for “more than 31 weeks” instead of looking up the actual number, 37, which is easily found through any number of sources?), but even more irritating is the kneejerk, conventional wisdom that fills the whole piece. Apparently, we’re too easily distracted now to appreciate an artist like Jackson. We’re overwhelmed by too much information, too many competing forms of media, too much viral cybercrap diverting our attention (ironically, the example Segal uses to cap his piece is decidedly old school: a scantily-clad woman being pulled through a crowd on a cart–at what time in all of human history would that not be a distraction?).
Segal ignores two things. First, that Jackson himself benefited from the the early ’80s own version of an information explosion: the proliferation of 24 hour cable TV channels that expanded the market for promotional videos and led to the creation of MTV, a media expansion which many at the time complained was flooding the country with meaningless information and novelty-driven entertainment (a complaint that had already been leveled at television in the ’50s and radio in the ’20s).
Second, and most important, Michael Jackson was a multi-talented genius who would have become a major star in any generation or in any period of cultural or, as people seem to prefer to think of it now, media history. Talent will out, and the fact that the viral successes that clog up the current media stream are short lived novelties is meaningless. Viral media isn’t preventing talent from appearing, it’s unconsciously sifting the talent pool in search of an artist who will justify it’s existence, turning it from just another media stream into the media stream, in the same way Jackson justified the existence of MTV.
The tired argument that the media controls the culture, instead of the other way around, has been disproved time and time again for anyone who would take the trouble to look, but it still gets dredged up by people on both sides of the media power divide: the have nots think an expansion of media will create an explosion of repressed and under-appreciated talent, while the haves are afraid that new media will cause them to lose control of a culture over which, in reality, they have no actual power.
The idea that culture, even popular culture (if, that is, it can even be separated from human culture as a whole), can be controlled in any real way for any appreciable length of time, is laughable. Popular culture is, literally, a force of nature, and Jackson became a kind of perfect storm. It’s meaningless to say there will never be another Michael Jackson–of course there won’t. There will never be another Beatles either, or another Elvis or Sinatra or Jolson or Caruso (there will never be another you or I, for that matter).
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be others whose achievements will be just as great, whose fame will be just as phenomenal, whose presence will seem as irreplaceable once they’re gone. Every generation has at least one of those, usually more. In the end, Jackson’s death is only one man’s death, no matter how sad it may be or whatever meaning or symbolism you want to hang on it (and I fully admit to having done some of that myself). But the end of fame? Some people just aren’t paying attention.
New this week
June 27th, 2009New Boyz–”You’re A Jerk”
#33
If you haven’t been prepped by Soulja Boy to love minimalist nonsense like this, then there must be something the matter with you. Sure it’s a novelty record, but it’s also part of a growing trend of suburban teenagers building beats on their laptops that’s as much a form of folk music as guys with guitars singing the blues or DJs spinning discs in the rec halls and playgrounds of Brooklyn and the Bronx. In a few years they may very well take over the world. Write them off at your peril. You could end up an even bigger jerk than they are.
Pitbull–”Hotel Room Service”
#63
“I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” is dumb and catchy. This is just dumb.
All Time Low–”Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)”
#67
A canny mixture of hair metal, Cheap Trick, and Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”, this is my kind of punk-pop pastiche: unoriginal but energetic, without the overloaded sense of importance and lack of hooks that ruins the Jonas Brothers records. Totally unimportant, and they’ll probably never have another hit, but fun all the same.
Jonas Brothers–”Fly With Me”
#83
The bombast here may be testimony to their sense of self-importance, but it may also be testimony to their realization that this song has not much melody and zero hook. Or it could be both, since only someone who thought too highly of themselves would try to rescue a song that so obviously should have been scrapped.
Mario featuring Gucci Mane and Sean Garrett–”Break Up”
#98
This collage of what sounds like three or four different sessions has some gorgeous pieces, but they don’t quite fit together, and the record as a whole is a mess. Can someone explain to me why Gucci Mane has become as omnipresent a guest as Lil Wayne, when he possesses one tenth of the talent?
David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland–”When Love Takes Over”
#100
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the r&b/techno merges I’ve heard over the last few years, but this is too bland. Guetta’s music is all techno cliche, and as for Rowland, there’s a reason Beyonce was the breakout star from Destiny’s Child, and it wasn’t just because her father was the manager.
Tumbling Down
June 26th, 2009None of the post-mortems of Michael Jackson I’ve read so far have made what seems to me an obvious connection, that Jackson’s death symbolically marks the absolute end of what had been standard operating procedure for the record business ever since Thriller. Since he set the paradigm of the blockbuster, multi-single album, a concept that has been dead for three or four years now, that only seems fitting. Like Elvis’s death, Jackson’s passing marks a cultural and business turning point. The exhaustion of pop music the last few years, especially in hip-hop and r&b, has been an indicator that the massive influence Jackson had over pop music, and the creative energy he injected into it, has finally faded. The rot had settled in long before yesterday, of course, and one of the ironies of Jackson’s final days is that a great many people in the music industry were looking forward to the O2 shows as a way of revitalizing the industry, or at least reveling in it’s former glory. Now, instead, they will get a sudden burst of sales in Jackson’s albums–just in time for them to appear on eMusic–and then a whole lot of nothing. There will be tons of commemorative reissues, remixes, outtakes and God knows what else–a death industry that will rival Elvis’s. Neverland will become the new Graceland, being a Michael Jackson imitator will become a lucrative and lifelong career, and advertisements for commemorative plates will flood the airwaves. Then, in another four or five years, someone will either appear from nowhere like Elvis, or remake themselves into something totally unexpected in the same way Jackson did, and an entire generation will put MJ aside and move on to fresher glories.
MTV: Bad as it ever was
June 26th, 2009One of the things that keeps popping up in the news about Michael Jackson’s death is the fact that MTV is going back to it’s all video format in homage to the man who helped make them so much money. But I haven’t seen anyone actually mention how they’re doing it. Watching last night it was impossible not to be repulsed by how lame the whole thing was. When I turned it on they were showing the remix of “Smooth Criminal”. This was followed by about eight commercials in a row. Then a brief news spot about Jackson’s death. Then a bunch more commercials. Then another video (”Gone Too Soon”, a song I had forgotten about). Then another batch of commercials. Then the exact same news announcement. Then another batch of commercials. And so on. I think I saw that same news piece four times in the space of an hour, and maybe three videos in the same amount of time. This was a tribute? I know they don’t have VJs anymore, and they just announced another round of layoffs, but is MTV so gutted that they couldn’t put something together that didn’t feel like a late night infomercial? Or even show two videos in a row?
Wouldn’t a fake Radiohead torrent have been more appropriate?
June 25th, 2009The founders of The Pirate Bay are sent a court summons via Twitter and Facebook.
New This Week
June 21st, 2009The Black Eyed Peas–”I Gotta Feeling”
#2
For a band that claims to be “so three thousand and eight” this sounds awfully nineteen eight-ohs. Reminds me of Wang Chung somehow, even though it doesn’t sound anything like them. What it does sound like is three or four different hooks searching for a song that ran into each other in a dark dance club hallway and decided to slither out onto the floor together in a minimalist conga line, never noticing how much their styles clashed with each other. The one bright spot is that by declaring this the music of the future, the Peas have guaranteed that it won’t be. That’s a relief, anyway.
King Cudi featuring Kanye West & Common–”Make Her Say”
#51
With luck, and since radio programmers will probably be hesitant to add a song about a real gangbang to their playlists (as opposed to songs about gangbanging), this won’t be a hit. Though it could be. By isolating and highlighting the hook from Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” (and, before now, who even knew it had one?), Cudi creates a light, pleasant groove that sounds almost playful. Until you realize, of course, that this is bukkake rap’s first foray into the Hot 100, and you start to feel more than a little unclean. And for all of Kanye’s bullshit about college and exercising your medulla oblongata, it’s worth pointing out the the medulla is the most primitive part of the human brain, the so-called lizard brain that controls our most instinctive, animalistic actions. You know, like blowjob parties. Ugh.
Jason Aldean–”Big Green Tractor”
#85
There could be others I haven’t heard, but this is probably the worst double entendre ever to appear in a country song. A big tractor, sure, but “green”? What kind of disease does this guy have exactly? Will any known fungicide kill it? Is this something only the little country girls understand?
The Fray–”Never Say Never”
#90
After “Heartless” I was afraid this might be a Romeo Void cover, but thank God they only ruin their own material this time out. This is less pretentious than their previous hits, and the falsetto moves them closer to Maroon 5 territory, but the singer still slurs every word (I have this vision of him keeping a spittoon next to his piano), and the song is as dull as it gets.
George Strait–”Living For the Night”
#92
I enjoyed Strait’s last single, “River of Love”, at first, but the more I heard it the more it reminded me of The Doobie Brothers. This is an even deeper step into ’70s MOR. It’s a good song, and Strait sings it with all the class and technical polish he possesses, but his excessive good taste squeezes out every ounce of honest emotion. High class country muzak, and nothing more.
Matt & Kim–”Daylight”
#95
Courtesy of a Baccardi commercial, the Hot 100 is graced by a song that sounds like something you might have heard on They Might Be Giants’s Dial-A-Song (once just a regular call to Brooklyn, now a podcast). Only the TMBG version would be a minute shorter, have a less fuzzy arrangement, and contain lyrics that were both funny and coherent. And it wouldn’t be a Baccardi commercial.
New This Week
June 13th, 2009Mitchel Musso—“Hey”
#70
More Disney pop (cast member of Hannah Montana, brother in Metro Station): less punk than the Jonas Brothers, less pop than Miley Cyrus, more mature sounding and less interesting than both.
Beyonce—“Ego”
#77
This is the most honest song Beyonce has produced about her relationship with Jay-Z (a hell of a lot more honest than “Halo”, that’s for sure). It’s also the funniest, which is why I believe it. The more Beyonce talks about her dick being as big as Jay-Z’s, the more respect I have for both of them.
Justin Moore—“Small Town USA”
#88
As a lover of Miranda Lambert’s “Famous In a Small Town”, I’m not prepared to completely write off country music’s rural fetishism, but this is as generic as it gets. The lyrics never get any deeper than the title, even if Moore does namecheck David Allen Coe to prove how “outlaw” he is. In the ‘70s I might have believed him, but now?
Cage The Elephant—“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”
#92
This is a surprise, if only because this kind of white boy blues, though plenty of people still make it, doesn’t show up much on the charts these days. It’s a relief to hear young punks with a beef with the world who don’t sound like either Green Day or Linkin Park. The laid back sound only makes their message come across with that much more force. The message is nothing special, but at least it’s there; it has a populist tinge to it that reminds me of Todd Snider, only without Snider’s sense of detail. The same goes for the music—like a lot of young bands, they’ve got a lot to learn, but they seem to be starting in the right place.
Fabolous featuring The-Dream—“Throw It In the Bag”
#94
As glad as I am that strip club rap is fading, I’m not sure mall shopping rap is that much of an improvement. A decade ago, “throw it in the bag” would have been a drug dealing reference, now it’s about helping your woman accessorize. Call it the Beyonce effect: a reaction to all those women demanding ever deeper levels of respect. To guys like Ne-Yo and The-Dream (you know, those hyphenated guys), this is an emotional and intellectual challenge, an opportunity to sharpen their game. To Fabolous, it’s just another obstacle to throw money at.
Ginuwine—“Last Chance”
#95
A generic love rap noticeable only for the fact that Ginuwine tries so hard to sell it. The intro and outro have nothing to do with the song itself, they’re just advertisements: “If this your favorite song, turn your radio on/Play it for your man or your lady all day long”. He sounds more passionate about this than anything else. It’s like watching a TV show where the commercials are more interesting than the actual program.
K’Jon—“On the Ocean”
#98
Already a smash on the Adult R&B chart, and no wonder—after a near perfect lover man intro, K’Jon settles into a Marvin Gaye-like groove you haven’t heard since, well, since Gaye himself. Very nice.
The Veronicas—“Take Me On the Floor”
#99
Unlike other “let’s get wasted and do it right here in the club” anthems, The Veronicas maintain a certain amount of self-control—and self-respect. Unfortunately, that extends to the music, which is hooky enough in an automatic, pre-packaged sort of way, but also stiff. However you might feel about the likes of Katy Perry or Lady GaGa, they’re doing something different, and they don’t hold anything back, which makes them both fascinating and terrifying. The Veronica’s are just catchy.
best news of the day
June 9th, 2009This could end up being a disaster, I suppose, but Nellie McKay writing songs in the voice of Tracy Flick? I am so there. Just think what her campaign jingle will sound like.
new this week
June 7th, 2009American Idol week having faded as rapidly as ever (half the records that debuted last week are off the chart, and “No Boundaries” has already dropped out of the top 20), the Hot 100 gets back to normal with a week of largely mediocre country and rap records (none of which are by Eminem). Welcome back to the status quo, folks.
Rascall Flatts—“Summer Nights”
#80
Just by not being a ballad this seems a step up from most Rascal Flatts records, but it’s not. The lyrics and music are pure cliché, the arrangement is designed to load as many pre-packaged audience-pleasing moments in as possible, and the sound is so harsh it’s no fun at all. And whoever sings (you think I’d waste my time looking up these guy’s names?) has just about the worst voice for rock and roll you’ve ever heard. No wonder they cut so many ballads.
Gloriana—“Wild At Heart”
#82
Country stalwarts love to go on about tradition, but the truth is country is as trend driven as any other popular music, and here comes yet another copy of Sugarland to prove the point. They rock a little more emphatically, perhaps too much so, and the song goes nowhere, but the influence is obvious. The lyrical cliches about wild nights and wild love, though, are about as traditional as you can get.
Randy Houser—“Boots On”
#83
Generic country about how wearing dirty boots and having tobacco can rings on your pockets drives those honky tonkin’ chicks wild. Dottie West was right: it wasn’t God who made honky tonk angels—apparently it was Copenhagen.
Twista—“Wetter”
#87
The female supplicant Twista has hired to sing his praises pronounces “Daddy” in such a childish, mewling fashion that at first I thought she was saying “Diddy”. Diddy’s sexism, however, is more insidious and less overt than Twista’s. Oddly enough, that gives Twista the advantage; at least you know where he’s coming from, even if it’s a place you’d never want to go yourself. Doesn’t make this record feel any less unclean, though.
Reba—“Strange”
#91
Not strange enough. Not Reba enough, either.
Dorrough—“Ice Cream Paint Job”
#92
Considering the level of crudity to which rap metaphor often descends, I was afraid there was some sexual meaning in that title, but it turns out Dorrough’s just talking about his car. His ride may be designed to impress the ladies, but except for a background vocal repeating “Hey girl” on the chorus, there isn’t a single reference to women on the entire record; it’s just a lengthy description of how tricked out his car is over what might be described as slightly more refined Soulja Boy beats. Not counting Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” and some country singles, I don’t think I’ve heard a song so vehicularly obsessed since the glory days of The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. What decade is this again?
The-Dream featuring Kanye West—“Walkin’ On the Moon”
#100
I feel about the The-Dream much the way I feel about Ne-Yo: I appreciate what they’re doing, and often admire the results, but only rarely do they come across for me. West’s rap moves into Andre 3000 territory in terms of its sense of play, and the record overall is pleasantly eccentric, but it feels like album filler, or a b-side. I like it better each time I hear it, though, so maybe it will grow on me.