Posts Tagged ‘Blake Shelton’

Hot 100 Roundup—11/26/11

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Taylor Swift
“If This Was a Movie”, #10
“Ours”, #13
“Superman”, #26
Swift’s detractors are no doubt salivating over the idea of her releasing a live album, but in the meantime they have to deal with these three new studio recordings, which overall are as good as anything she’s ever done. Her fans, though, have gotten it backwards, debuting these records in reverse order of quality. “If This Was a Movie” is an above average piece of professional pop (if there’s anything country about Swift anymore, I’m having a harder and harder time hearing it), but has nothing special to recommend it. “Ours” is as bright and cheerful as anything Swift has done, and nobody does bright and cheerful better, but it also flirts with coyness. She giggles, not once, but twice. Her giggle is cute and charming, but it’s a dangerous precedent. Finally there’s “Superman”, which is one of the best records she’s made (she knows it, too, that’s why it goes on for nearly five minutes). Superman’s mix of love, frustration, hope, and despair, each illustrated with sudden, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle changes in vocal register and key, isn’t unlike records she’s made before, it’s just better: more confident, more polished, and more emotional. And though the title suggests she’s still mining fantasy worlds, this is more down to earth than some of her previous fairy-tale-like songs. After all, she used fairy tales as a model not because she believed in them, but because fairy tales are so hopeful and optimistic. We could all use a lot more of that right now.

Update: I mistakenly thought these were new tracks, but they were actually released on a bonus disk that came with the Target Exclusive version of Speak Now when it was released last year, and have just been made available for download. That doesn’t change my opinion of them, but I thought it was a good idea to clear that up.

Matt Nathanson featuring Sugarland—”Run”
#53
As a one-hit adult-contemporary wonder Nathanson was irritating but bearable, but now he’s got Sugarland backing him up, which got him a prime spot on the CMAs, so here he is again, emoting cliches with the worst of them. You can tell how much of a hack he is by the insertion of the line “I know that it’s wrong” into the chorus. There’s nothing else in the song that suggests there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing, unless they’re using good sex as an excuse for guilt. As a culture, I thought we were over that. Or is that supposed to make the sex hotter?

Mac Miller—”Smile Back”
#55
Once again, the music is good but the lyrics ordinary. It’s not that Miller’s a terrible rapper, it’s that he has little to say and no original way of saying it. When he sayss that he’s a mixture of Lennon and UGK, all he’s telling us is that he doesn’t really understand either one.

Blake Shelton—”Footloose”
#63
At least the original was light on its feet; this galumphs in the worst mainstream country rock manner. Come to think of it, that’s what’s wrong with most mainstream country rock: they play it too heavy and too slow. I should thank Shelton for making that so obvious.

Glee Cast—”Uptown Girl”
#68

Dierks Bentley—”Home”
#70
Bentley recently performed at the White House, and I assume this was written for the occasion (country cash-ins can be so cheesy). It’s nice to have a piece of country patriotism that isn’t also jingoistic and xenophobic, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

Rihanna—”You Da One”
#73
Does this record actually exist? It’s nice enough when you’re listening to it (and it sounds very familiar), but it has no real peaks or valleys, or anything else to recommend it. When it’s over it’s really over, as if it were never there at all.

Faith Hill—”Come Home”
#82
Weird. This starts like a message to a loved one far away, but it turns out that the opening line, “Hello World” (never a good sign), is meant literally, and the song turns out to be about divisiveness and ideology (“a war between the vanities”), and Hill is urging everyone to get together and smile on your brother. That explains the otherwise inexplicable minute-long, psychedelic coda (if Tommy James & the Shondells is your idea of psychedelic) and the ominous fade. It’s like a countrypolitan flashback to 1969. It would be nice to blame everything on songwriter Ryan Tedder, since he’s responsible for so much bad music these days, but Hill co-produced this without Tedder, and she appears to have taken the song very seriously. I’m sure she meant well.

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Hot 100 Roundup—11/19/11

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Mac Miller—”Party On Fifth Ave.”
#64
I like the music, but Miller is a competent rapper at best, and his verses are full of filler. Even musically, though, this is stiffer than a party song should be.

Glee Cast—”Last Friday Night”
#72

Wale featuring Meek Mill & Rick Ross—”Ambition”
#81
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a rap song that was this serious, or went into any detail about the rappers pre-success life on the streets. The verses here are so heartfelt that even Ross sounds like he’s telling the truth, especially when he talks about his mom praying while she waits for the results. Still, Wale wins the honesty stakes when he admits he never worked the streets himself. That may be one of the bravest things I’ve heard a rapper say in a long time.

Justin Bieber
“All I Want for Christmas is You (SuperFestive!)” (with Mariah Carey), #86
“Drummer Boy” (featuring Busta Rhymes), #99
With Carey and Rhymes on these tracks you expect some craziness, but the insanity is all Bieber’s, and good for him. Forgetting for a moment that neither of these are very good, you have to applaud Beiber for trying. He could easily have cranked out an album of hoary seasonal chestnuts and let his tween fans eat it up. Instead, every track from his Christmas album that’s made the charts has been in a widely different style from the one before it. The Phil Spectorish arrangement on “All I Want for Christmas” is mixed too far below the vocals, and Bieber can’t really rap (or, rather, he doesn’t have a voice that’s suited for it), but I appreciate the effort.

Breathe Carolina—”Blackout”
#92
You can only dance so long in the face of recession and social fragmentation, and it’s beginning to look as if the party’s over. Even Taio Cruz has a hangover, and these guys, determined as they are, are on the brink of collapse. Their defiance is almost tragic: not only do they swear, in what may be the hook of the year, that they won’t blackout, but they’re only getting started and, most ominously, “This won’t stop until I say so.” If they don’t collapse of dehydration I figure they’re heading for an OD or alcohol poisoning, and they want to take you with them. One of the scariest, most depressing party records I’ve ever heard. I wonder if that’s intentional.

Miranda Lambert—”Over You”
#93
I’m still making up my mind about 4 the Record—the songwriting is weaker than on Lambert’s first three albums, though in many ways the music is stronger—but I have no doubt as to the two worst songs, both of which involve Lambert’s husband, Blake Shelton. This is the one they wrote together, and though I bet the basic idea and melody were his, I also bet the best line, “How dare you?” to a lover who has died, is Lambert’s. Whatever the case, this is slow and tedious, and though Lambert does her best to wring the simplistic sentimentality out of it, she doesn’t succeed. Whoever wrote the line “Mid-February/Shouldn’t be so scary” (sure hope it wasn’t Lambert) should be sent to remedial songwriters school immediately.

Kenny Chesney—”Reality”
#97
Funny, the only reality I want to escape is the one that allows Chesney to keep making bad rock records and calling them country. Did Sammy Hagar ghostwrite this for him while they were hanging at Cabo with Jimmy Buffett?

Skrillex—”First of the Year (Equinox)”
#100
OK, shoot me if you want, but I love this. Too soft in the soft parts, too loud in the loud ones, with unmusical screams and lots of grinding and distortion, this is dubstep as pop metal, and it’s just about perfect. In some ways, Skrillex plays it safe: he never steps off the beat, and he keeps something resembling a melody drifting through the entire track (though it does get kicked in the ass and jerked out of place a few times). For all the noise he never drifts far from the pop basics, which, as far as I’m concerned, is exactly how it should be.

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Hot 100 Roundup—7/30/11

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Demi Lovato—”Skyscraper”
#10
Lovato has one great and dangerous gift: a voice that can make even the most sentimental, over-reaching metaphors sound like felt emotion. It’s not something that can be learned—it either comes naturally or it doesn’t—but it can be developed, which is where the danger lies. Put too much emphasis on that quality, rely on it too much, and Lovato could end up the Connie Francis of her era, pumping out one godawful piece of dreck after another. So it’s good to see that she’s moving away from the affectations that filled her first few singles. This may be hard to believe if you’re not familiar with her earlier material, but trust me, compared to “Don’t Forget” this is a model of vocal restraint. “Skyscraper” doesn’t have much of a melody, and I have my doubts about the extended metaphor, if only because it conjures up images of 9/11, but it’s still a good record.

T-Pain featuring Joey Galaxy—”Booty Wurk (One Cheek At a Time)”
#44
Forget about The Lonely Island, T-Pain is the best musical comedian around, and he’s even funnier when people, most famously Jay-Z, don’t get the joke. This is one of his best, a ridiculous grind that reminds me of Bo Diddley in it’s refusal to take itself seriously even while being striking musically. As always, the joke revolves around sex, and I wish the guy would go someplace besides strip clubs for his inspiration, but this is great all the same.

Blake Shelton—”God Gave Me You”
#65
This is Shelton at his worst, a shovelful of sentimental horseshit that may or may not have been released to capitalize on his recent marriage to Miranda Lambert. Lambert, meanwhile, has two new singles out, one with Pistol Annies and the other solo. The first is about women who prey on rich, gullible men; the second dumping the excess baggage of a failed relationship. If I were Shelton, I’d consider myself on notice. All the lovey-dovey glop in the world won’t make any difference if he screws up.

Cobra Starship featuring Sabi—”You Make Me Feel…”
#76
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 5/28/11

Colbie Caillat—”What If”
#77
Caillat is starting to show off. Her songs are getting longer and more complicated, while the sentiments remain as simple, if not simpler, as before. She’s also trying to stretch herself musically, which only takes her, unsurprisingly, deeper into Fleetwood Mac territory. This even ends with a Lindsey Buckingham-style guitar solo. Wake me up when she makes her Tusk.

Blink-182—”Up All Night”
#85
Not as horrible as you might expect, but nothing special, either, and you can still hear the elements that would make this band insufferable if they were emphasized. Maybe age has taught them something, though they seem to deny it (aging, that is; they’ve always thought they were geniuses).

Keith Urban—”Long Hot Summer”
#89
Urban is capable of making decent music, but this isn’t it. The song jumps around all over the place, its only reason for existing to show off as many sides of Urban’s talent as possible. Not that there are all that many.

Alexandra Stan—”Mr. Saxobeat”
#92
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/2/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—7/16/11

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Javier Colon—”Stitch By Stitch”, #17
Dia Frampton—”Inventing Shadows”, #20
Adam Levine & Javier Colon—”Man In the Mirror”, #45
Blake Shelton & Dia Frampton—”I Won’t Back Down”, #57
Christina Aguilera & Beverly McClellan—”Beautiful”, #74
Vicci Martinez—”Afraid To Sleep”, #78

George Strait—”Here For a Good Time”
#65
Strait has been coasting over his last few singles, but when you’ve absorbed as much craft as he has even coasting sounds more energetic, and certainly more intelligent, than most other country output. This isn’t a masterpiece—too much of it seems automatic—but it has moments, such as the opening line of the second verse, that seem like minor miracles. Strait may be coasting, but he’s coasting in style.

David Guetta featuring Taio Cruz & Ludacris—”Little Bad Girl”
#70
For Guetta, not bad, but Cruz has done better, and Ludacris has done much better. I like the breakdown a lot, but have just about had it with Cruz’s phrasing. I only hope he doesn’t succeed in making pronouncing “air” as “ur” a trend.

Coldplay
“Moving To Mars”, #90
“Major Minus”, #92
Two obvious throwaways filling in the “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall” EP, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the best Coldplay I’ve heard: rough, grounded in real emotion, sonically striking (I even like Chris Martin’s croaky croon). Thematically, though, they’re old hat: spaceflight as a symbol of alienation and paranoid anti-establishment tropes, respectively. “Moving to Mars” may very well be intended as a tribute to Bowie and/or Elton John, and good for Coldplay if it is. If Martin managed to become as good a lyricist as Bernie Taupin, they might be worth listening to more often.

Iyaz featuring Travie McCoy—”Pretty Girls”
#94
Iyaz is as forgettable as they come, and McCoy, usually a black mark on every record that bears his name, is less painful than usual, and therefore also forgettable. As for the song…uh, what was it called again?

Big Sean featuring Wiz Khalifa & Chiddy Bang—”High”
#98
I have nothing against people getting stoned, honest I don’t. But when all they can talk about is weed, especially in a childish, aren’t-I-clever manner like this, I consider investing in paraquat.

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Hot 100 Roundup—4/23/11

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Blake Shelton—”Honey Bee”
#13
As the rock end of country slowly progresses through the past, it makes the small step from The Eagles to Tom Petty. Shelton makes the transition obvious by cutting what’s essentially a re-write of “Don’t Do Me Like That.” This is an improvement overall, but only slightly. There are too many great country, and country-rock, artists still being ignored by Nashville to take much pleasure in yet another turn toward lazy L.A.

Jason Aldean—”Dirt Road Anthem”
#68
There’s been country-rap before this, of course, but it always felt imitative and obvious. This is the real thing, meaning it intentionally doesn’t sound anything like hip-hop, and defiantly thumbs its nose at urban life. But then, almost all country does that nowadays, and reciting the same old clichés with a slight rhythmic bounce but no melody doesn’t exactly make this record intriguing, even if it does make it a curiosity. What so many outsiders forget about rap is that the vocal rhythms mean something, often something far more important and profound than the words themselves. For Aldean, rapping is just another gimmick; it doesn’t signify anything except clueless resentment.

Ace Hood—”Hustle Hard”
#87
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/2/11

Martin Solveig & Dragonette—”Hello”
#91
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/2/11

Brad Paisley featuring Alabama—”Old Alabama”
#95
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/9/11

Toby Keith—”Somewhere Else”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/16/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—11/14/10

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Tim McGraw—”Felt Good On My Lips”
#26
This sounds sexier than most country, and I like the way McGraw changes up the meaning of the title line as he goes along; all very professional. Like a lot of country, though, the lines that are supposed to provide detail and a bit of humor tend to sound forced and out of place; he devotes so much time and energy to describing a mixed drink it’s impossible not to snort. Then it all ends with nothing more than a goodnight kiss. It might make a good joke song if McGraw upped the tempo, or a good romance song if you got the feeling there was the least possibility of romance. As it is, it’s nothing.

Ke$ha—”Sleazy”
#51
The chorus, with its echoes of both classic girl groups and post-punk girl bands, is enough to carry the rest of the song, which is hedonistic without being greedy, a smart move. Is she trying to reclaim “sleazy” the same way the riot grrrls tried to reclaim “slut”? It didn’t work the first time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying again.

Nicki Minaj featuring Eminem—”Roman’s Revenge”
#56
Oddly enough, this otherwise awful record appears to mark the return of Eminem’s sense of humor. Needless to say, it’s a highly offensive sense of humor, and the laughs aren’t boffo, but he sounds even more on top of things here than he did on Recovery. Minaj, meanwhile, is completely out of her league (Lil Wayne must have been taking it easy on her), and the only good thing about her fake British accent is that it comes after all of Eminem’s bits so you can turn the damn thing off without feeling you’re going to miss something. The less said about Minaj’s choosen name for her alter ego, Roman Zolanski, the better. Slim Shady she ain’t.

Pitbull—“Bon Bon”
#61
“We No Speak Americano” hasn’t come close to finishing its chart run, but that doesn’t stop Pitbull from jumping aboard, and good for him. His perfect timing and sense of humor make the song both more bearable and may even give it some meaning, though since yo no hablo español, I couldn’t say what that would be. Chances are he’s just trying to pick up a girl.

Kenny Chesney—”Somewhere With You”
#67
There are hints of something deep and dark in the lyrics, maybe even a dose of reality, but Chesney delivers it all with his usual well-oiled aplomb, and by the end the record has turned into another one of his lady-pleasing “I wanna sleep with you tonight” songs. Even when he’s trying to be thoughtful the guy can’t resist shameless pandering.

T.I. (featuring Chris Brown)—”Get Back Up”
#70
It’s a surprise that not only is T.I.’s latest apology (or would this be his first?) is so light-hearted, it’s also so lightweight in terms of sound. You’d never know he had a care in the world, a feeling Chris Brown, even with his own history, only enlarges (I’ve never cared for him as a lead, but he’s a great background singer). T.I. is still harping on the haters, but at least he’s picking out the right haters, and not throwing insults out scattershot. I suspect the softness of the sound is an attempt to make him look like a nicer and more thoughtful guy than he may actually be, but at least he seems to be thinking about it.

Ricky Martin featuring Joss Stone—”The Best Thing About Me Is You”
#74
I bet this sounds better in Spanish. And I bet if I spoke Spanish I would think it sounds better in English. I’m glad Ricky Martin came out, but that doesn’t mean I want him to come back.

New Hollow—”Sick”
#86
Wannabe teen sensations steal their song structure from “Creep”, their riffs from The Who, their lyrical ideas from Mudhoney, and their overall vibe from, uh, The Records? Not The Records of “Starry Eyes”, unfortunately. More The Records of “Teenarama”, which isn’t bad, but isn’t great, either. I could do without the hurling sound effect at the end, but this is growing on me. They may not have enough sense to know how tasteless the idea of this song is, but I bet they wouldn’t care if they did. Who says power pop is dead?

Chris Young—”Voices”
#89
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/7/10

Jason Aldean with Kelly Clarkson—”Don’t You Wanna Stay”
#93
Good singer hooks up with great singer, and together they sing a terrible song and let the arrangement drown out their voices. I couldn’t care less about what Aldean does, but Clarkson deserves better, and there’s no reason to believe she’ll ever go out and get it or even realizes it exists. Her weakness for power ballads appears to be authentic, just like her voice. What a depressing combination.

Toby Keith—”Bullets in the Gun”
#97
This is overwrought and too reliant on cliches, but it’s nice to know that there’s at least one guy in Nashville who’s willing to keep some sort of edge in his songs and doesn’t make pretty in the face of all the women who want to bash in his headlights and gun him down with a shotgun. Despite his jingoistic sins in the past, he make no apologies, knows his own strengths, and refuses to retreat from the masculine turf he’s been plowing his whole career. Hell, he may be the only real man left in town.

Rock Mafia—”The Big Bang”
#98
A weird one. Forget their Disney pedigree for a moment and just listen to this thing: the vocals, Tim James electrically modified so that in some moments he sounds like Amy Winehouse and in others as if he were computer-generated, are odd enough, but the overall sound is an even stranger throwback to sixties movie music, albeit a little funkier. It could be a rejected James Bond theme from 30 years ago. The lyrics, which compare the jolt of lust to the creation of the universe, are out there, too. Then there’s the whistling. Maybe Disney provided them with the one thing many artists don’t realize they need: a leash.

Blake Shelton—”Who Are You When I’m Not Looking”
#99
First line, over gentle acoustic guitar and light brushes on the drums: “My oh my, you’re so good lookin’/Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends”. After an opening like that the song has no choice but to get better, and it does, but not much better. I think I’ve asked this before but I’ll ask it again: what does Miranda Lambert see in this guy, anyway?

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New this week—6/27/10

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Drake
“Up All Night” featuring Nicki Minaj, #49
“9 AM In Dallas”, #57
“Fireworks” featuring Alicia Keys, #71
“Fancy” featuring T.I. & Swiss Beatz, #99
Approached in bulk, Drake’s tracks achieve a definite if subliminal groove that is, at first, both attractive and of a certain clinical interest. The same can be said of his raps, which are straightforward and plainspoken. But if you’re going to be this plainspoken you’d better make sure you have something to say and have some poetry hidden in there somewhere. Drake has neither, and after a few plays his minimal grooves become boring. When Drake says he wants to be a real artist, I believe him, but I believe him even more when he expresses doubts about his talent. His honesty may get him somewhere eventually, but it hasn’t yet.

Disturbed—”Another Way To Die”
#81
Environmental metal: it’s not quite an oxymoron, but it sure doesn’t make much sense.

3Oh!3—”Double Vision”
#89
When you limit your musical palette as much as these guys do—they don’t write new melodies or rhythms for each record, they just switch rhyme schemes—the smallest change or addition can come as a surprise. Here, they add a few pleasant harmonies and suddenly sound almost as upbeat and friendly as The Beach Boys. They should be careful, though: too many cracks in their obnoxious facade and they’ll start to get boring.

Soulja Boy Tell’em—”Pretty Boy Swag”
#90
Not so much a change in style as a change in speed, and a smart move. The slow, deliberate, teasing pace makes Soulja Boy sound more mature without diminishing the feeling that’s he’s still just a teenager having a great time with something he loves. That’s almost enough to make him important, even if all he raps about is how cool he is.

Bobby Brackins featuring Ray J—”143″
#91
Ray J seems to make his living now attaching himself to young rappers, where he applies his seductive crooning, reminds everybody of his biggest hit, and smooths out any rough spots that would make these records interesting. Though I’m not sure Brackins would be interesting even without him.

The Dirty Heads featuring Rome—”Lay Me Down”
#93
Unbelievable. A Jack Johnsonish acoustic reggae ballad with a plot that is basically a rehash of The Getaway—the movie version, that is, where the beautiful young couple get away with robbery and murder to spend the rest of their lives having sex on the beach, as opposed to Jim Thompson’s original novel, which had an ending so depressing, ironic, and horrifying that even Sam Peckinpah didn’t have the nerve to serve it up on screen. You should read it, if only to understand me when I wish The Dirty Heads a less final but somewhat similar fate.

Jaheim—”Finding My Way Back”
#93
If this was 1973, this would probably be a big regional R&B hit in Baltimore or Chicago, like The Whatnauts or some of the lesser Chi-Lites singles. It’s 2010, though, and what would have been second-tier in the ’70s is just an oddity now. If Jaheim is going to mine the past, he should go all the way, like Raphael Saadiq. Or he should at least get better songs.

Rodney Atkins—”Farmer’s Daughter”
#96
Notable only for the way Atkins sings, especially the first verse. His backwoods accent is so heavily played and calculated—not a single drawl out of place—that it becomes a kind of minstrelsy; good ol’ boy whiteface, if you will.

Craig Morgan—”This Ain’t Nothin’”,
#97
You need to walk a pretty fine line to pull off country sentimentality. Do it right, the way Miranda Lambert does on “The House That Built Me” and you can produce a powerful record despite the required cliches and homilies. One bad line, though, can tip you over into bathetic camp. This song has three or four bad lines, one of them in the chorus, so it gets repeated over and over again, and another in the second verse that wouldn’t be out of place in a South Park parody.

Blake Shelton—”All About Tonight”
#98
There are two things I find interesting about Blake Shelton. One is his release schedule, where he’s experimenting with putting out half an album every few months (this is the lead single from his second “six-pack”); and the other is that he’s engaged to Miranda Lambert, who outclasses him in every way I can think of. His music doesn’t interest me at all.

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New this week—1/3/10

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Selena Gomez & The Scene—”Naturally”
#39
The title is wonderfully ironic for such an obviously manufactured chunk of music, but this is still the best piece of Disney pop since Miley Cyrus’ “See You Again”, or maybe even Aly & AJ’s “Potential Breakup Song”. Like both of those, “Naturally” was written and produced by Tim James and Antonina Armato, who really should be given some sort of prize for keeping Disney’s foray into pop music respectable. Because this is pop for tweener’s, James and Armato don’t get anywhere near the attention and respect they deserve, but I think they’re one of the best songwriting teams around right now. Once the tweeners take over the world (about five years from now) maybe someone else will notice it.

Young Money featuring Gucci Mane—”Steady Mobbin’”
#48
Young Money, my ass—this is a Lil Wayne record with a brief cameo by Gucci Mane (think of them as the Jailhouse Boys). It isn’t particularly better than any of the other Young Money tracks I’ve heard, nor particularly worse. It does present a nastier Lil Wayne than we’ve heard recently—maybe he’s feeling the need to reassert himself after a year of (often brilliant) goofs. He repeats a lot of his old schtick, though, and for the most part this sounds like a mixtape cut Wayne decided sounded just good enough to go onto the album.

Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins—”Hillbilly Bone”
#65
This is as heavyhanded in sound as any other country/rock hybrid, but its rustic chauvinism is lighter and friendlier than most, and it has a great opening line: “I’ve got a friend from New York City/He’s never heard of Conway Twitty”. After that it goes downhill, but not too far. How much you like it may depend on how much you can stand Adkins’ baritone schtick—I can just barely abide it.

Eminem—”Music Box”
#82
This is more stylish than most of Eminem’s splatter movie fantasies—more Dario Argento than Wes Craven, if you will—but that only makes it seem more garish and stupid. You’ve got to fill up these deluxe reissues somehow, I guess.

Lady Antebellum—”American Honey”
#97
Their Fleetwood Mac obsession continues, and in some ways I like this more than “Need You Now”. It’s both intelligent and tasteful without being stiff and mechanical, and the upcoming album may well be some sort of easy-listening landmark, if only because it will undoubtedly make smoother their inevitable crossover from the Country chart to Adult Contemporary. Which may be a more important achievement than you think.

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New this week

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Colbie Caillat–”Falling For You”
#12
Less like “Bubbly” and more like Sheryl Crow, which is both a surprise and an improvement. In fact, this is so catchy, pleasant, and unpretentious it’s actually better than Crow. Lot’s of help from her father, I bet, though he’ll never turn her into Christine McVie.

Boys Like Girls–”Love Drunk”
#46
What is there to say about punk pop like this besides “Here’s another one”? They’re less misogynistic than the All-American Rejects, less wholesome than the Jonas Brothers, less interesting than either and slicker than both. Louder, too, which is not an improvement.

Sean Paul–”So Fine”
#61
Keeping pace with the minimalist trend, Sean Paul trims down his usually overbearing sound, which has the interesting effect of moving him closer to the dancehall scene he originally came from. He has nothing to say but how good you look when you dance, but at least he does it over beats that actually make you want to get out on the floor.

Jay Sean featuring Lil Wayne–”Down”
#72
In which Lil Wayne expands his already enormous empire by guesting on a record that sounds like Flo Rida run through some kind of teen pop converter, the whole bouncing along as if it were lighter than air. Not only does Wayne turn on the charm for his guest rap, he highlights his generosity by not taking a writing credit. Does he do these things for a flat fee now?

Selena Gomez & Demi Lovato–”One and the Same”
#82
The theme song to a new Disney series–apparently a very loud and unoriginal Disney series. Is there any other kind?

Mary Mary featuring Kierra “KiKi” Sheard–God In Me
#91
You don’t need to be conversant in the growing controversy regarding “Prosperity Gospel” to be concerned by the, er, theological underpinnings of this record. The lady here is fly, rich, beautiful, well-dressed, and spends her evenings on her knees, and with it’s borrowed hip-hop arrangement you’d be excused for thinking, as I did on first hearing, that she’s a high-classed call girl excessively devoted to her pimp. Since the vocals are in roughly the same range as T-Pain, with a lot of autotuning, it’s easy to hear this as being sung from the pimp’s point of view. On closer listening, you realize that the song isn’t about a prostitute at all, but a woman who has been amply rewarded by God for her religious devotion. Those who, unlike me, already knew who Mary Mary were wouldn’t make the same mistake, and I doubt that the ambiguity is intentional. It’s still there, though, a result of flying a little too close to contemporary pop, not to mention embracing a gospel whose ultimate appeal doesn’t seem that much different from, say, drug dealing.

Blake Shelton–”I’ll Just Hold On”
#98
The obvious ’70s soul influence (especially the Chi-Lites-like guitar) sets this slightly apart from the usual country love ballad, but only slightly. Like a lot of modern country it’s syrupy, overproduced, and way too loud. Nice hook, but that and the guitar aren’t enough to save it.

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