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New this week—4/25/10

Monday, April 26th, 2010

B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams—”Airplanes”
#12
The airplanes as shooting stars image is old, but it’s a good one, conjuring up a specifically urban sensibility, and as a somewhat self-pitying description of the travails of the rap life, B.o.B’s verses aren’t bad (I especially like the image of him holding his cell phone in his lap, hoping it doesn’t ring). But make no mistake: Hayley Williams owns this record, elevating both the imagery and the rap far above any level they could reach on their own. To have a voice with the strength to stand up to punk/metal and still have that vulnerable ache in it is a gift, and Williams knows exactly what to do with it. The official artist credit, by the way, reads “B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams of Paramore“, in case anybody should get the ridiculous idea that this is her first move toward a solo career. Uh-huh.

Christina Aguilera—”Not Myself Tonight”
#23
Reportedly a lot of people think Aguilera is pulling a GaGa on this generally excellent but frustrating record, but that’s nonsense—she started down this road long before GaGa appeared on the scene. The more obvious influence is Britney Spears’s Blackout, which “Not Myself Tonight” copies in overall sound and feel, even if its rhythm track is more straightforward. That doesn’t mean GaGa isn’t an influence, though, or, for that matter, Beyonce. Which leaves Aguilera with the same problem she’s always had, that of a talented and intelligent performer who tries too hard and has yet to establish any definite personality on her records. The title begs the question: when was she ever herself?

Glee Cast
“Gives You Hell”, #32
“Hello”, #35
“Hello Goodbye”, #49
“Hello, I Love You”, #66
At their best the Glee Cast records are a mix of overmiked Broadway and sober karaoke, fun sometimes but negligible, and that’s all they’ll ever be. At their worst, which is most of the time—this week they turn The Beatles’s lamest single into something indescribably awful—they’re the absolute worst; I can’t think of a single record to appear on the Hot 100 last year that wasn’t better than all 26 of the Glee tracks that made the chart. But that’s not why I hate these records. I hate these records because they clog up the Hot 100 with tracks everybody knows are nothing but souvenirs, and keep more worthwhile records from making an impact. As Glee proves, this is the latest era of instant hits, and a week or two difference may well destroy the chances of a much better record getting on the charts. On TV it’s fine, and if they want to release a soundtrack album at the end of each season, like Hannah Montana, that would be OK, too. But putting this crap out every week and preventing worthier artists from gaining exposure isn’t just crass commercial exploitation, it’s a kind of decadence.

Jason Aldean—”Crazy Town”
#92
Though it’s nice to hear a fun country rocker that isn’t just about how great it is to be A: country, and B: a rocker, this is too loud and shrill to be C: fun. I don’t buy the idea that Nashville is Hollywood with twang, either. Vegas is more likely, if only because it’s where a lot of these good ol’ boys are probably going to end up. The big names, anyway—the rest will grind out their days on the smaller casino circuit. I mean, you don’t expect to find anything like this in Branson, do you?

Brad Paisley—”Water”
#100
This isn’t Paisley at his best, but it isn’t his worst, either, which means that it’s better than most of the country singles out right now, even if it isn’t anything new. As usual, there are both brilliant touches—the opening line about his father inflating the wading pool is perfect—and tasteless ones (a wet t-shirt contest? C’mon, Brad). Plus tons of guitar, of course, which I could listen to for hours, even if he is just showing off.

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Thinking big

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Gold records (500,000 sold)? Platinum (1,000,000)? Diamond (10,000,000)? Who cares anymore? As of today the industry will need to think in much bigger terms. How about one billion? That’s how many times, and more, people have watched Lady GaGa’s videos online. That’s not all: there have been nearly three quarters of a billion views of Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” alone, and half a billion views of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (not to mention the nearly 200 million views of Dramatic Gopher). This has nothing to do with sales—artists don’t make a dime when people watch their videos—but it should only be a matter of time before somebody comes up with some official, mineral-based designation for the number of views a video receives. With numbers as astronomical as this, how could the industry resist the urge to congratulate itself?

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New this week—12/6/09

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Lady GaGa
“Telephone” (featuring Beyonce), #30
“Speechless”, #94
Despite it’s honest origins—GaGa says it was inspired by her father’s initial refusal to seek medical treatment for a heart condition—or maybe because of them, “Speechless” is a terrible song. If she was going to pay homage to Elton John, couldn’t she have picked a better album than Blues Moves as a model? “Telephone”, however, is something else, an inspired comic character sketch that’s not only catchy as hell but a lot smarter and deeper than it first appears. Beyonce doesn’t add much—she sounds petulant rather than fed-up, which doesn’t quite fit the song—but she doesn’t hurt, either. And I have to admit I’m impressed by GaGa’s willingness to play the fool—though she does overstep a few times: that Grand Central Station line may be a little too dumb.

Young Money featuring Lloyd—”Bedrock”
#36
I like the chorus and Lloyd’s Mr. Flinstone line, and it’s nice to hear a crew with a female rapper, but that’s about it. Even Lil Wayne sounds less than inspired. It goes on forever, too—what was it The Beastie Boys said about too many rappers?

Susan Boyle
“I Dreamed A Dream”, #62
“Wild Horses”, #98
The story of Susan Boyle holds such fascination that it’s hard not to wonder if the million people who have bought her album so far actually care what it sounds like. Her voice is interesting if only because, for a woman in her forties, it’s surprisingly girlish. Physically she sounds strong and mature, but her phrasing is often that of an adolescent—she’d be perfect for a guest spot on Glee. Her song choices seem eccentric at first, as well—“Wild Horses”, “Daydream Believer”, Madonna, Patti Griffin’s “Up To the Mountain” (which I’m willing to bet she first heard when Kelly Clarkson performed it on American Idol two years ago; her phrasing echoes Clarkson’s almost exactly)—but she reduces the tempo on most of the songs so much that the melodies all but disappear; they all sound like they came from an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. I’m as touched by Boyle’s story as anyone, but she either doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or doesn’t really understand what most of these songs are about (especially “Wild Horses”, which is incomprehensible vocally—she slurs the lyrics even more than Jagger—and emotionally). The paradox is that if she understood what she was singing about, her story wouldn’t exist. Her well-documented emotional inexperience is at the root of her fairy tale, which would be impossible without it, but it doesn’t make for compelling music.

Beyonce faturing Lady GaGa—”Videophone”
#65
The spaghetti-western intro is a bit much, but for the most part this is Beyonce doing what Beyonce does best: luring young men to their doom. As a Siren no one can touch her, not even Lady Gaga, who shows up somewhere in the middle and contributes nothing but a touch of off-color kinkiness. If Beyonce ever put a whole album of this kind of stuff together, half the country’s male population would explode by the end of the fourth track. I’m surprised she hasn’t tried it.

Glee Cast
“True Colors”, #66
“Imagine”, #67
Awful as usual—to be honest I couldn’t get through a single listening of either one. What may be even worse for the show is that these song choices suggest the writers have already run out of ideas—and they haven’t even finished the first season yet.

Chris Brown—”Crawl”
#68
Brown’s first stage of his career rehabilitation, “I Can Transform Ya”, has stalled on the charts (it’s selling well enough but it’s dying on radio), so here he shifts gears with an attempt at an uplifting power ballad. Clever in it’s way, but nothing you haven’t heard before. Despite it’s universalist tone, however, it seems to be directed not towards the downtrodden of the earth but towards a certain former partner in a collapsed relationship: “We can crawl back to love”, he assures her. I understand his motivation, but you have to wonder just how long Brown’s audience will be willing to watch him squirm. Another single as lame as this and we’ll have our answer.

Timbaland featuring Nelly Furtado & SoShy—”Morning After Dark”
#76
This is a well-crafted piece of nonsense that doesn’t take off the way it should. It sounds like they had a lot of fun making it, but there’s too much going on and the track gets weighed down by trickery. I sure would like to know what “When the cats come out the bats come out to play” means, though.

Birdman featuring Drake & Lil Wayne—”4 My Town (Play Ball)”
#90
I don’t understand why Birdman isn’t a bigger star. He has Lil Wayne’s full support, and his records, though not revolutionary in any way, are inventive and and clever enough to get your full attention, at least as long as the song is playing. They do tend to fade from memory quickly when they’re over, though. This is his best since “Always Strapped”, but at this point I’m not sure that’s going to make much difference, even with Lil Wayne and Drake providing decent guest spots.

Francesca Battistelli—”It’s Your Life”
#95
More helpful homilies layered in pop cliches from a contemporary Christian singer. Not sure what kind of Christian she is, though: on her website she quotes E.M. Forster, who was not only a self-declared humanist, but gay. He also wasn’t Jesus, who isn’t quoted anywhere on the site. She does disrespect Forster somewhat by misspelling his name, but I don’t think that will cut her any slack with the fundamentalist crowd.

Trace Adkins—”All I Ask For Anymore”
#99
Extra-strength country sentimentality with added vocal syrup. I’m sure Adkins is sincere in his way, but the Sunday-school-like chorus is shameless, and when he lowers the baritone boom at the end all I can do is laugh.

Billy Currington—”That’s How Country Boys Roll”
#100
Did you know that country boys like pickup trucks, fishing, chewing tobacco, George Jones, and their mama? Me neither. Thanks for letting us know, Billy. You can go back to the holla now.

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New this week

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Britney Spears—”3″
#1
There’s no doubt now that Spears is back in full control of her career, and the playful tease of this record even suggests that she’s enjoying herself again. But compared to songs like “Gimme More” or “Piece of Me”, both released when her life seemed to be in freefall, this is remarkably tame, and the echoes of their sound here suggests a reliance on formula. The truth is she’s working ground that others—Lady Gaga, especially—have already laid claim to with more sense of daring and style than Spears is now willing, or capable, of putting out. She can still titillate her old fans, obviously, and there are still enough of them to debut this at number one, but you have to wonder how long she can work this particular plot and make it pay before she, or her fans, get bored with it.

Justin Bieber—”One Less Lonely Girl”
#16
I like the feel of this, which is surprisingly reminiscent of early Michael Jackson, but the song doesn’t go anywhere on it’s own, and Bieber lacks the chops to move it anyplace special. Still, this is a lot better than his first single, and makes me wonder if Bieber has more talent (or at least better handlers) than I first gave him credit for.

Glee Cast
“It’s My Life/Confessions Part II”, #30
“Halo/Walking On Sunshine”, #40
For the first time you can actually hear the joke, not only through the silliness of the mash-ups themselves, but in the performance—that last high note on “Halo” could kill small animals. The Bon Jovi/Usher mix is so seamless it reveals the essential meaninglessness of both (which is more to Usher’s detriment than Bon Jovi’s—at this point who expects a Bon Jovi song to mean anything?). The Beyonce/Katrina and the Waves mix is a little rougher, but speeding up “Halo” is an improvement over the original (or it would be if the performance were better), since it removes all the bombastic nonsense Ryan Tedder is so fond of and cuts down on the near-religious awe Beyonce’s original wallowed in. Neither of these is worth listening to more than twice, mind you, but they’re still a big improvement over what came before.

Chris Brown featuring Lil Wayne and Swizz Beats—”I Can Transform Ya”
#52
This may seem like an odd choice for a comeback single, but it’s probably a smart move commercially for Brown to toughen up his sound—no one at this moment in time is going to buy him as a romantic balladeer or pop crooner, so a strong dance record makes sense. Swizz Beats comes up with a distinctive sound for the record, too, machine-like but swinging at the same time. Trouble is, Brown’s voice isn’t really suited for this type of material (I’m not sure his voice is suited for any kind of material, actually), and Lil Wayne, who has been omnipresent for three years now, is starting to sound tired and bored, if not quite boring.

T.I.—”Hell of a Life”
#54
Surprisingly upbeat, and even funny in spots, with an arrangement that, with it’s keyboard filigree and horns, literally approaches the baroque. As wrong-headed as he obviously sometimes is, it’s hard not to like T.I., even on records as overdone as this. Can you really blame a guy who’s heading off for jail for pulling out all the stops?

OneRepublic—”All the Right Moves”
#58
Having cornered the power ballad market, Ryan Tedder and his cohorts now set their sights on Coldplay via this pseudo-revolutionary blather. Written before they were stinking rich, I assume. I like the drum sound, though.

Ke$ha—”TiK ToK”
#79
The latest in what is now an undeniable trend: mindless party records about getting blotto (hey, times are hard out there). This is Lady Gaga without the artistic pretension, or 3Oh!3 without the sexism, or Katy Perry without the burlesque, or Cobra Starship without the male perspective or…well, you name ‘em. She seems to be more in control than most. She also sounds like she’s having a lot of fun. But does she really want all her men to look like Mick Jagger? In which decade would you be talking about, sweetie?

Creed—”Rain”
#91
Just to prove how sensitive they are they bring out the acoustic guitars, slow the tempo, and shelve the dramatic shifts in rhythm and dynamics. They still persist in fantasizing about destroying the world, though, a catastrophe which only they, like Noah, would survive. This is the problem with religious rock ‘n’ roll: it emphasizes the worst apocalyptic instincts of both.

Brooks & Dunn featuring Billy Gibbons—”Honky Tonk Stomp”
#97
To celebrate their upcoming professional divorce, B&D bring in a guy from ZZ Top to croak out the title hook and to add some very loud, very non-country guitar behind their good-old boy, wild man boasting. Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to miss them very much?

LMFAO featuring Lil John—”Shots”
#98
The butt end, so to speak, of the “let’s all get wasted” wedge that has forced itself into pop culture the last year or so. Like the Lil John of crunk legend, this is so blatant and so honest in it’s expression of drunken lust that it’s almost charming. Well, until you get to this, that is: “The ladies love us/when we pour shots/They need an excuse/to suck our cocks.” FYI, these guys, who are signed to will.i.am’s label, now have three records in the Hot 100. Is everybody in the music business drunk?

Birdman featuring Drake & Lil Wayne—”Money To Blow”
#100
“We goin be alright if we put Drake on every hook,” says Lil Wayne. Yeah, but first you’ve got to have a hook.

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New this week

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

It feels like old home week on the Hot 100, with 11 debuts, four coming from performers who have been around for well over a decade, and two of them getting ready to enter their third. The best debuts, appropriately enough, come from one of the oldest acts, Weezer, and the newest, Wale. Wale tries to tip the balance by lifting a 40 year-old hook that’s appeared twice on the Hot 100 this year already, but I give the prize to Weezer—their stolen hooks are even older, and a lot better to dance to.

Pearl Jam—”The Fixer”
#56
I imagine this rocks out pretty hard live, but whether it’s the song itself or the production, the record comes across as well-crafted but laid back in a way I don’t think they intended. They don’t sound like a fixer determined to save the world so much as Mr. Fixit, or an affable plumber in Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood, come to repair a leaky faucet and share a good story or two. The latter may actually be more effective in the long run, but somehow I don’t think that’s what they meant.

Love and Theft—”Runaway”
#65
Keep running guys, we can still hear you.

Creed—”Overcome”
#73
The teenage sense of entitlement that seems to fill this record would make sense if these guys were still teenagers, but they’re not. They’re Christians in their mid-thirties looking to keep their name alive in the culture, and their entitlement has more to do with a rock star’s, and an evangelical’s, sense of superiority than anything else. What’s worse, they don’t use the word “overcome” in the civil rights or personal travail sense of overcoming obstacles and injustice, they use it in the sense of the Book of Revelations. It’s the devil and his minions they’re overcoming, which is to say that they’re looking to wipe out anybody who doesn’t believe the same things they do—hence the apocalyptic overkill of their music. When they’re not indulging their sadistic religious revenge fantasies, though, I’m sure they’re just wonderful guys.

Lady Gaga—”Paparazzi”
#74
To go with the repulsive images in the video—dead women dressed up and posed like the figures in Helmut Newton’s photographs—GaGa swipes the melody line from Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” to provide herself with a hook and add that final mid-eighties touch. I understand the appeal of true decadence, but this is just dumb dressing up as smart and calling itself elegant. She should just join Duran Duran and get it over with.

Weezer—”(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”
#82
At first, the hook line seems nothing but a piece of sophomoric cleverness, but that’s the point: it’s a pick-up line that slowly turns into a pledge of lifelong commitment, from first summer fling to marriage to the moment you find yourself trying to stare down a future that promises nothing but decline. By the end of the song they barely have anything to say to each other, but they both still want to, and that’s all that matters. Say what you want about Weezer—and just about everything has been said—but it takes real brains to pull off a song like this without sounding either overly sentimental or flippant. The music, with its echoes of “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Walking On Sunshine”, provides the perfect background: patience and fortitude sparked with moments of spontaneous joy. You’d be hard pressed to find a better example of a riff deployed as metaphor.

Three Six Mafia featuring Kalenna—”Shake My”
#85
Three Six Mafia: the Halle Berry of rap.

Pleasure P—”Under”
#87
Still number 2, and if his next record is as dull as this, he won’t rank even that high. At least when he was in Pretty Ricky he had crassness going for him.

Selena Gomez & The Scene—Falling Down
#93
Disney’s methods are so hit and miss that you never know where a good record is going to come from. Nothing that Selena Gomez has been involved with so far has been worthy of notice, but suddenly here’s a perfect pop confection, and with it comes the realization that she’s been as much a victim of her material as everyone else on the channel. No music factory is perfect, of course, but give me a couple of more records like this and I could put together a Disney compilation that could stand with just about any pop album of the last decade. It would be absolutely meaningless, but it would be entertaining as hell.

R. Kelly featuring Keri Hilson—”Number One”
#96
The title may be a pleasing fantasy or fond remembrance, but even with Hilson doing her best Beyonce imitation I don’t see any way this makes it onto pop radio. I suppose there could be something to admire in the daring of putting out a record about how great you are in bed after being barely acquitted of pissing on a 14-year-old girl, but it’s more likely a symptom of sheer cluelessness and ego than anything else. The music isn’t bad, but Kelly has become a sideshow, and he (and maybe Hilson) seems to be the only one who hasn’t realized it.

Wale featuring Lady GaGa—”Chillin’”
#99
Despite the recycling of Steam’s hoary old hit (apparently hearing it at every athletic event in the world over the last forty years just isn’t enough for some people), and the presence of the dreaded GaGa, I find myself liking this record a lot. More than any of the thousand freestyles over “Paper Planes”, this is where M.I.A.’s influence jumps hip-hop. It’s simplified for sure, but that only emphasizes the catchiest parts, which is what good pop is supposed to do. GaGa does a pretty good impersonation, and there are moments when she seems to be channeling some piece of classic post-punk, The Slits maybe, or even The Raincoats. That might be going too far, but that’s what I hear, and this is still a lot better than I expected it would be.

Skillet—”Awake and Alive”
#100
Since I hold them responsible for the existence of bands like this, maybe Pearl Jam could add these guys to their fixit list. Or at least convince the vocalist to stop dropping his cast iron namesake on his toes every ten seconds.

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New this week

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Mary J Blige featuring Drake—”The One”
#63
As good as it was to know that Blige had found marital happiness, her odes to her man and their relationship didn’t sell very well, so here she toughens up, brings in a ringer, and delivers a rip off of “A Milli” that, if nowhere as good as the original, is still a lot better than Beyonce’s. Drake, whose part seems to have been stuck in as an afterthought, adds nothing but sales power.

Michael Franti & Spearhead—”Say Hey (I Love You)”
#82
Despite the lyrical references to dancehall and production by reggae legends Sly and Robbie, this sounds more New Orleans than Jamaica to me, not that that ‘s a bad thing. It also sounds more Jack Johnson than Franti, which is. There’s something frustratingly automatic about this record in it’s sunny brightness, something a little too perfect, as if everybody were being careful to only color within the lines.

Demi Lovato—”Catch Me”
#89
Lovato’s vocal affectations—the short sharp breaths at the end of phrases, the cracking teen falsetto that at times makes her sound like a 12-year-old—can be so irritating that it’s easy to forget how well they fit the song’s subject: romantic confusion and barely tempered longing. Needless to say, that irritant also acts as a hook, and Lovato oozes innocent charm even as she’s overtaken by lust (though she would never call it that).  She’s no Taylor Swift, but she’s not quite your run of the mill Disney pop princess, either. Of course, that might just be a part of the Mouse’s marketing plan.

Beastie Boys featuring Nas—”Too Many Rappers”
#93
“Grandpa been rapping since ’83.” They’ve lost a few steps over the years, of course, and the clever rhymes and disses don’t flow as freely as they used to, but the beats still thunder, and they’re still smarter and wiser than most. But aging rappers are no less of a conundrum than aging rock stars, and I’m not sure they should waste their time dissing the Black Eyed Peas, no matter how cleverly they manage it. Once they start yelling at kids to get off their lawn, it’s over.

Zac Brown Band—”Toes”
#95
This is the first Jimmy Buffet rip-off (or homage I guess you could call it) I’ve heard that captures Buffet’s laid-back smarts at their best, catchy tunes, silly rhymes, and all. Unfortunately, the silliest rhyme (“care-o” and “dinero”) draws on a feeling of good ol’ boy privilege in a foreign land that comes across as just short of racism.  Perhaps I’m being too sensitive, but this sense of rural superiority (rural meaning good old American values, of course, whatever they are), even, or especially, when drunk or stoned, is one of the things that’s most irritating about current country music, and this song, despite all its charms, strikes me as stepping over the line.

Jeremih—”Imma Star (Everywhere We Are)”
#96
I’m still not sold on “Birthday Sex” except as camp, but building a cut as artful as this one based on nothing but variations on the hook from Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” demonstrates real talent on the make. His phrasing and timing are near-perfect, and there are lyrical moments that suggest he may have more brains than “Birthday Sex” let on. But on only his second single he’s already rapping about how famous he is. Not a good sign.

Beyonce—“Sweet Dreams”
#97
Not bad, but underneath the drums and the low warbling synth is one hell of a corny song. Whenever I hear the male backup singers going “Ho!” in the background I have visions of a dream sequence from some big Hollywood musical from the fifties, full of garish Technicolor and energetic dancers seen only in silhouette, a no-expenses-spared mixture of conspicuous class and pure hokum. That’s entertainment, I guess.

Mat Kearney—“Closer To Love”
#100
I usually try to avoid the “Artist 1 + Artist 2 = Artist 3” formulation when I’m reviewing records, but “Closer To Love” is so lacking in any distinguishing characteristics of its own that it’s unavoidable. So, The Fray + Leona Lewis = Mat Kearney. Sometimes pop really is just formula.

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New this week

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

New 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.

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New This Week

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Mitchel 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.

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Top Ten Update

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

This year has been too slow to do any real trend spotting (four and a half months in, and only 17 new records have appeared in the top ten), but based on this week’s new entry I think it’s fair to say that it hasn’t been a very good year for women–women with any self-respect, that is. First came the All-American Rejects, urging their fans to sing along as they kissed off their ex; then Lady GaGa’s poker-faced heroine, targeting men for bouts of unemotional rough sex; then came Flo Rida with his paean to strippers and/or oral sex; then Beyonce, nominating her lover/husband for sainthood; and now, this week, 3OH!3, whose tastelessness far exceeds their musical grasp. Even in a slow year, when you’re talking about nearly a third of the records to make the top ten, I think that qualifies as a trend.

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