I don’t want to kick a guy when he’s down, and in musical terms I don’t much care where Gucci Mane is or isn’t at any particular time, but this story about his latest incarceration caught my attention with the quote in the sub-head: “I am remaining positive.” Dude, you skipped out on court-ordered community service, court-ordered anger management, and court-ordered classes on drug and alcohol abuse. This is the second time in little more than a year you’ve gone to jail for this. Remaining positive ain’t gonna cut it. Maybe you should stop doing so many guest spots and listen to the judge. He’s trying to help you. Honest.
Archive for 2009
The not so much power of positive thinking
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009No news is no news department
Sunday, November 15th, 2009Bruce Springsteen, veteran of 40 years of touring, calls Michigan Ohio. Somehow this is worthy of the top spot at Yahoo News. Another hero bites the dust.
New this week–11/15/09
Sunday, November 15th, 2009Justin Bieber—”Favorite Girl”
#26
The new tactic of releasing a song a week in the leadup to an album makes sense if 1) you’re trying to build anticipation for the new work of a major star (as in Carrie Underwood); or 2) the songs become progressively more interesting or of higher quality. I find it hard to believe that you can build curiosity and anticipation in an audience when each record is even more bland than the one before it. Bieber has his appeal, and the publicity push behind him is massive, but he was thin gruel to begin with and gets thinner every time out. You can only dilute this stuff for so long before it becomes nothing at all.
Jay Sean Featuring Sean Paul & Lil Jon—”Do You Remember”
#27
Bouncy, catchy, and totally forgettable, this three-for-one deal’s only purpose is as a commercial for the participants’ careers: it capitalizes on Jay Sean’s recent number one by repeating its sound almost exactly; it provides Sean Paul with actual hit potential, something his own records can’t seem to manage anymore (his last single tanked so quickly most people didn’t even notice it was there); and, finally, it reminds everybody that Lil Jon still exists. This last is achieved by Lil Jon yelling in the background every time there’s a gap in the main vocal, like the runt of a litter trying to get the attention of the big dogs—apparently the producer’s weren’t prepared to give him room for a verse of his own.
Jason Aldean—”The Truth”
#91
Country singers are always trying to act sincere, but it’s rare to hear one come across this vulnerable. The guy really does sound lost, and somehow Aldean pulls this off without easy sentimentality or overplaying his hand. It helps that he maintains a certain ambiguity—we never do discover the whole truth. Instead of drawing us in with cheap emotional tricks, he creates a mystery. The music is a little on the bland side, but this is a very smart, moving record.
Rob Thomas—”Someday”
#93
“Hell, maybe someday, we’ll figure all this out,” Rob opines. Not with bland cliches and woozy philosophizing, you won’t. Besides, don’t all those hired angels in the background make it hard to concentrate?
Jake Owen—”Eight Second Ride”
#95
This is a decent song ruined by the sort of homey, down to earth detail that’s supposed to make country music special. The chorus opens wth a good double entendre (“I ain’t never seen a country boy with tires on his truck this high”), and then follows with an image so disgusting that the last thing you want to hear is a description of how the rest of the evening goes. Owen seems to think the alliteration of “Climb on up but watch the cup that I spit my dip inside” is erotic as well as clever. No doubt there are women who feel the same way. They deserve each other.
Glee Cast—”Defying Gravity”
#99
I’m beginning to think the real joke of Glee is that these high school kids take the awful songs they sing so badly so seriously. Bringing Broadway showtunes to prime-time television is a worthwhile endeavor, but not if you’re going to pick songs as bland as this and sing them as if amateurishness was a sign of personal honesty and emotional sincerity. With a song as dumb as this, sincerity is the last thing you want to convey—it makes you sound like an idiot.
CDs down, digital and vinyl up
Friday, November 13th, 2009This report on digital and vinyl sales, despite it’s own slightly wondering tone, doesn’t surprise me in the least. The key, which the article mentions but doesn’t make much of, is the growing trend of including download codes with vinyl releases, giving consumers the best of both worlds: a solid, permanent, fetishistic object (CDs just never made it in that respect) which also provides great sound when you’re at home, plus the ease of portability—all without having to spend two hours burning the music from vinyl. It’s a win-win, and I can’t understand why more labels aren’t taking advantage of it. Personally, I would also like to see them include download codes for the music from live DVDs. If the music by itself wasn’t available anywhere else (at least legally), a lot of fans would eat them up. I’d have bought Leonard Cohen’s Live in London DVD if it had included one.
Sit down children, it’s time to meet your benevolent masters
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009The new staff writers of Idolator have finally taken the time to introduce themselves in what may be one of the most condescending, childish, self-superior, we-know-what’s-good-for-you-better-than-you- do posts I’ve ever read. There’s nothing I can add to what’s already been said in the comments section, and ILX has been having a field day with this, as well, but I do want to say that, as one of the few sites that looked at all forms of pop music with intelligence, maturity, humor, and a world-wearied-but-never-nihilistic cynicism, I will miss the old Idolator tremendously. So good luck to Maura, Chris, Christopher, Dan, Lucas, Jess, and everyone else who has ever sailed with them. And if I had a million dollars…
P.S. If whoever is editing the Best Music Writing comp for DaCapo this year doesn’t include Jess Harvell’s piece on The Misfits, I’m going to be really pissed.
Worth watching
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009This may not make any immediate difference, but Nielsen Business Media is reportedly selling Billboard, and a host of other entertainment trade magazines, to News Communications Inc., which also owns Who’s Who and the insiderish political magazine The Hill. I wouldn’t expect any immediate changes, but I would love to see the equivalent of The Hill’s all-encompassing reporting applied to the music industry.
OK, OK, I believe
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009Maybe Lady GaGa is the new queen of pop:
Michael Jackson continues to fiddle with the music business
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009Billboard has announced changes in some of their album charts for the coming year. Aside from a rearrangement of how the R&B album chart is counted and the addition of a Folk Music chart (how that will be defined seems open to question), the biggest change is in the Top 200 Albums chart, which will now be based solely on sales, regardless of release date. Since 1991, Billboard has taken albums that were over two years old (later amended to 18 months) off the chart. In the last year, however, especially after the death of Michael Jackson (now the biggest selling artist of the year) and the release of the Beatles Remasters, that formula has been called into question (the change only affects the Top 200; all the other album charts will still drop LPs over 18 months old).
It’s not a surprise decision. People have been murmuring about the chart not being an honest reflection of popularity for a while now, and since the record labels are probably making more money off of re-issues these days than new releases, it will provide a more accurate reflection of commercial realities, as well. We’ll be seeing a lot more MJ and Beatles (not to mention Bob Marley, Creedence, and The Eagles), which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but we’ll also be seeing a lot fewer albums that have barely scraped 20,000 sold in the top ten.
It may not be what the record labels want (they were the biggest supporters of the exclusionary rule, since it put more focus on new releases), but at least it will give everyone a better idea of what the public wants, and it also seems to play into Billboard’s own business development plan. I can’t help but wonder if Billboard’s decision isn’t partly driven by the fact that they now make the entire Top 200 available on their website, with links to purchase charted albums. Not only will it be less confusing to the layman audience that comes by their site, but it also ensures that only the most popular records are available for sale. I’m sure the editorial/commercial divide at Billboard is fairly strict, but the company has been slowly moving toward becoming not just an information provider, but a player in the music business itself (a move that’s even more direct outside the US, where Billboard stages awards shows and owns concert venues). I still trust their numbers, but more and more I’m beginning to doubt their motives.
The avant-garde/pop relationship
Monday, November 9th, 2009Via Gertrude Stein (in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas), Pablo Picasso explains exactly how the connection between the two works:
…when you make a thing, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly, but those who do it after you they don’t have to worry about making it and they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when the others make it.
It would be impossible to say how much this explains.
New this week—11/8/09
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Lady GaGa—”Bad Romance”
#9
Though I still have a lot of doubts about Lady GaGa, there’s no arguing with a chunk of nonsense as entertaining as this. She makes up for a dearth of hooks on her previous singles by putting five or six here, most of them stolen, the whole driven by constant shifts in vocal timbre that serve as hooks of their own. Better yet, the Madonna influence is now aural as well as conceptual. I don’t buy her love-as-disease schtick, but her flirtation with decadence sounds more convincing, and less misogynistic, than it did before. She might just be as smart as she says she is.
Taylor Swift
“Jump Then Fall”, #10
“Untouchable”, #19
“The Other Side of the Door”, #23
“Superstar”, #26
“Come In With the Rain”, #30
It’s a sign of Swift’s growing confidence and skill that her leftovers, though none are as good as the best cuts on the original Fearless, are all of above-average quality. It’s also good to see her willingness to trim back the arrangements; for the most part these are simpler, less involved, and less cluttered than the album tracks. Her gift for hooks and for melody lines that perfectly mirror the onrush of emotional energy that typifies adolescent romance remains remarkable, and if she sometimes repeats herself (no doubt some of these were left off Fearless originally because they were superseded by better realizations of the same basic idea), she has a right—she’s perfected a vision of teenage romantic yearning that is both personal and universal, and no one could blame her for running with it. And for those who doubt the taste of the mass audience, it’s worth noting that these are charting roughly in order of quality. I would rate “The Other Side of the Door” higher than “Untouchable”, but otherwise it looks like her fans got it exactly right.
50 Cent featuring Ne-Yo—”Baby By Me”
#31
Great Ne-Yo hook, above-average beats, and 50 Cent wisely keeps his softcore porn flow in line with the music and never forces his hand. So, overall, not bad. He should be careful what he says, though. How long before some deranged fan comes calling, claiming that 50 Cent knocked her up and demanding the million bucks he promised her?
Justin Bieber—”Love Me”
#37
This is brainless fluff, even more brainless than the Flo Rida and Sean Kingston tracks it’s patterned on. I still appreciate the fact that Bieber is a fifteen year-old who actually sounds like a fifteen year-old, but this copycat nonsense isn’t going to get him anywhere.
Carrie Underwood—”Undo It”
#87
Underwood likes to claim that she’s pushing the envelope in country pop, and if plugging hip-hop styled vocals over bouncy Neil Young derived rhythms with lyrics that roughly echo Lucinda Williams is pushing the envelope, I suppose she’s right. It’s a lot more pop than country, though, and it would be a lot better if it wasn’t so shrill. Doesn’t anyone in Nashville know how to produce records anymore?
Shinedown—”If You Only Knew”
#92
This has a nice chorus, but like all bands of this ilk, they overplay and overemphasize and kill any grace or lyricism their songs might contain. They particularly like to do this when they realize they’ve written a nice chorus, just to show how proud of themselves they are.
Gucci Mane featuring Usher—”Spotlight”
#93
Usher’s hook is a throwaway, and, beside letting us know that he favors ladies who don’t wear panties, Gucci Mane has nothing to say. It must be a relief to know they can still make the charts on name recognition.
Omarion featuring Gucci Mane—I Get It In
#99
Former loverboy Omarion now has a voice as rough as Gucci Mane’s (what has he been doing with himself, you wonder), and apparently a mind to match. Gucci himself, meanwhile, would like to reiterate that he favors ladies who don’t wear panties. Are you listening, ladies? He’s only going to tell you twice.
