Posts Tagged ‘Bruno Mars’

« Older Entries

The Highway Don’t Care, But My Songs Do: Hot 100 Roundup—2/23/13

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Fall Out Boy—“My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up)”
#26

I’ve never been a fan of Fall Out Boy. Their songs, their playing, and their ideas always seemed muddled to me, and when you combined those with their obvious ambition and self-absorption you got a lot of pretentious mess. I was glad when they decided to go on hiatus (from which I assumed they wouldn’t return), because I could only see them getting worse if they carried on. But now they’re back, and the time off has obviously been good for them, because their comeback single is focused, imaginative, and even comes close to making sense (at least to me; I’m sure it makes perfect sense to them). Naturally enough, the song is at least partially about their time off. At least, I assume that’s what the “dark” of the title partly refers to (these guys love puns and multiple meanings). The best stroke is in the title itself, the idea of a songwriter being informed of mysterious goings on (by who or in what context we’re never told) by the songs he writes. It reveals songwriting as a kind of self-telepathy along the lines of Norman Mailer’s famous statement “I don’t know what I think until I write it down” (and yes, I had no idea what the song was about until I started writing this). These guys have obviously stored up enough anger to drive their songs without a lot of fancy ideas, but it’s good to hear them thinking. It’s even better to hear that thought making it’s way into the music instead of confusing it.

Lady Antebellum—“Downtown”
#45

After the run of mediocre singles that followed the wonderful “Need You Now” (there were seven of them, in case you’re counting), I figured Lady Antebellum for one of those groups who have one great song in them, and then repeat the formula for as long as it takes for the magic to wear off and they disappear from view. But “Downtown” is a surprise in every way, a slice of stripped-down country funk that’s the polar opposite of “Need You Now” and just about everything else in mainstream country. It does have one predecessor: “Pontoon”, and I would be surprised if Little Big Town’s hit wasn’t a strong influence on this one. “Downtown” isn’t as sultry, but it’s funkier, and if the song and arrangement aren’t enough of a surprise, the guitar break sure is. The first great country single of the year, and it’s going to be a hard one to top.

Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko—“Stay”
#57

Adele having opened the door with “Someone Like You”, we’re starting to see a rise in piano-only (or near-piano-only in this case) ballads. Bruno Mars has one (and a good one, too) in the top ten, and now there’s “Stay”. I was impressed at first: the song moves nicely and shifts in ways that keep your attention, and Rihanna’s voice is looser and comes closer to real emotion than she ever has before. But then you have to deal with Mikky Ekko (ugh, what a name), and his “Ed Sheeran wasn’t available so they sent me” vocal. Ekko gets the entire second verse to himself and sinks the record. At at her most mechanistic, at least Rihanna has a voice that keeps your attention. Ekko couldn’t get you to notice him even if he was singing to you in an elevator—you’d mistake him for muzak. There are a lot of guest vocals and raps on Unapologetic, along with dance tracks with not much in the way of lyrics. This is Rihanna’s way, I suppose, of giving herself a break while making sure she doesn’t drop out of public view for more than 25 minutes. I don’t blame her, but if she’s going to do that she needs to find better singers.

Tim McGraw & Taylor Swift—“Highway Don’t Care”
#59

Tim McGraw may be the most overrated country star of the last fifteen years. He’s got a voice, but he uses it for nothing but the usual country sentiment. He’s willing to experiment with sounds and styles, but he always lands in roughly the same place, and those experiments never extend to the ideas or the themes of the songs themselves. He generates a lot of buzz at times, but no heat. On “Highway Don’t Care” he teams up with Taylor Swift, who has already done her part to canonize him, and though neither one of them had a hand in writing the song, it may as well have both their fingerprints on it. Which means it leads nowhere new. Even worse, it takes its sweet time not getting there. The only revelation comes when Swift takes the part of the generic love song playing on the radio: if ever there was proof that it’s her voice as well as her songwriting talents that have made her such a star, this is it. She makes those banal words come alive. Too bad McGraw can’t do the same.

Drake—“Started From the Bottom”
#63

“Started From the Bottom” is more a teaser for the new album than a legitimate single, but I’m impressed by the beat, and by Drake’s switching up of voices. Whatever you may think of him overall, there’s no doubt that he’s improved as a rapper. As for the lyrics, I assume that he means that he and his crew started out from the bottom of the rap game, not life itself. I’m willing to concede that point; how many people would take any teen actor—especially a Canadian one—seriously if he suddenly announced he intended to become a serious rapper? But that doesn’t mean he needs to devote every track to complaining about it.

Kenney Chesney—“Pirate Flag”
#68

Chesney is coming off a string of above-average singles, but this is the fourth single off Welcome To the Fishbowl, and the inspiration doesn’t run quite as deep this time around. Certainly not deep enough to float his pirate ship.

Young Jeezy featuring 2 Chainz—“R.I.P.”
#69

Is he talking about his career? Not yet, I guess.

Chris Young—“I Can Take It From There”
#97

For assembly-line made country slap and tickle, not bad. But I’d have less doubt about his lust if Young didn’t use so many pre-formed parts to put it across.

Wale featuring Tiara Thomas—“Bad”
#99

This is the first time a Wale record has gotten my attention since he teamed up with Lady Gaga on “Chillin’” nearly four years ago. Once again it’s the woman who makes the track worth hearing. When Tiara Thomas announces that she’s never made love but she sure knows how to fuck, the record is essentially over, at least as far as Wale is concerned. Who pays attention to anything else after that? Thomas also outs herself as a cheater who’s guaranteed to break Wale’s heart, which I guess makes her whatever definition of the recently controversial term “bad bitch” you care to apply. The word “bad” applies to Wale, too, but in only one way that I can think of.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Random Notes: Bringing the Dirty Back

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

I figured Bruno Mars had the goods ever since I saw him performing Barrett Strong’s “Money” on video a couple of years ago. But his earlier records, even the best of them, didn’t prepare me for how intense and beautifully crafted Unorthodox Jukebox is, and how far ranging Mars’s stylistic influences go. It’s not a perfect album—it’s stiff in places, shallow at times, and the production is too pristine for some of the ideas he’s trying to pull off—but it’s still one of the best pop albums of last year.

Among critics, the favorite track appears to be “Treasure”, a stunning Prince-style piece of pop funk that could have been released in the mid-eighties, or maybe even the seventies. For me, though, the most surprising track is “Gorilla”.

What makes “Gorilla” stand out is simple, yet rare: it’s dirty. That may not seem like anything special, but not many people make truly dirty records anymore. Not even Prince. Even at his most pornographic, Prince always layers his lustful fantasies with a sophisticated eroticism, the musical equivalent of soft focus and satin backdrops. Most of the time he kept a certain distance, hyping sex as a mystical and spiritual experience as much as a physical one.

But even records that avoid that sophisticated, lover-man vibe rarely dig deep into the idea of raunch. Rap records are noted for their pornographic attention to detail, but the sexual world of rap too often revolves around ideas of power and dominance, a defensive need to provide proof of masculinity, and, its worst, disgust. When it doesn’t, it works the loverman vibe as well, taking its cues from Marvin Gaye, Al Green, and, again, Prince.

But “Gorilla” is different. There’s no sense of domination or of a power struggle; the partners are equal in their gorilla-like lust and sexual energy (Mars brags about his prowess and pulls on her hair, but in the context of the song it sounds like part of their sexual back-and-forth, not an attempt to dominate). At the same time, even with its lack of graphic pornographic description, there are no romantic asides or sensual scene-setting in “Gorilla”. Mars and his partner meet, fuck, and as far as can be told from the song, don’t waste their time thinking about their past, their future, their relationship to each other, or anything else.

Aside from the music, which builds to successive waves of orgasm throughout the song, what’s most striking is Mars’s use of obscenity. The word “fuck” appears twice, and each time Mars sets it for maximum impact. At the end of the second verse he promises the woman she’ll be screaming “Give it to me motherfucker!”, and in one line in the final chorus changes “Making love like gorillas” to “fucking like gorillas.” Each moment comes as a shock, both in the context of the song and in terms of Mars’s persona.

It’s not that Mars hasn’t used obscenities before in his songs (think of the hook he wrote for Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire”), and there are plenty on his Twitter feed, but it’s always been in a lighthearted, throwaway manner. At the same time, Mars’s voice, which at times echoes Smokey Robinson, at others Sam Cooke (and occasionally both at once), seems custom made for romance and sensuality. But Mars doesn’t show much interest in either one. If he is intentionally echoing those singers, it’s the Robinson of “Going to A Go-Go” or the Sam Cooke of Live at the Harlem Square Club that he’s trying to capture, not “”The Tracks of My Tears” or Live at the Copa.

The only apt comparison I can think of would be to the raunchy blues and r&b of the thirties through the fifties, even though “Gorilla” sounds nothing like them. Since Mars started his career as a very young Elvis impersonator, and as his cover of “Money” attests, he may be particularly attuned to that style of music and that era. Not just the music, though, but also the attitudes, the atmosphere, the smell.

Sex that is simply sex, as raunchy and dirty as it can be, is something that barely exists in the pop world anymore (Ke$ha may be the one exception, but she doesn’t seem as interested as she used to be). In its heyday it was hidden and shrouded in innuendo, in our more liberal era it’s a curiosity, overwhelmed by fetishizing and the boring everydayness of the explicit. When Mars says fuck he means it, and he wants you to feel it. Forget the sexy; he wants to bring the dirty back.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Random Notes, singles, video | Comments Off

Winding Down
Hot 100 Roundup—12/22/12

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

Now that the Bruno Mars and Wiz Khalifa albums are out (and Big Boi, too, though his chart presence is not exactly commanding at this point), we can say that the year is truly at an end. There’s still one record I’m hoping will make the chart, though, Kacey Musgraves’s “Merry Go Round”. It’s been number one on Bubbling Under for two weeks, and if it wasn’t for The Voice might have made the leap by now. Here’s hoping. It would make a good finish to the year.

Tamar Braxton—“Love And War”
#57

The production is so weird that it almost makes “Love and War” worth listening to more than once. Huge drums here, lush strings there, a lot of heavy dynamic shifts and soul flourishes. Braxton sings well, too. Not much of a song, though (the mixed metaphors in the lyrics don’t help), and I expect Braxton’s career as a reality star has more to do with it’s appearance than anything else.

Bruno Mars—“When I Was Your Man”
#69

There are a lot of good songs and great moments on Mars’s new album, Unorthodox Jukebox, and “When I Was Your Man” is one of them. The pleasures are largely technical, though. Mars’s command of different styles is impressive, but there’s an airlessness to the music—it’s too perfect, too carefully constructed. There’s isn’t a false moment on “When I Was Your Man”—the lyrics are surprisingly sharp and honest (no one writes enough about Mars’s lyrical skills; he’s one of the best around right now), and Mars sings it beautifully, with phrasing that nods toward both Smokey Robinson and Sam Cooke. But somehow it doesn’t connect as strongly as it should. Mars knows his stuff back to front, but he hasn’t learned how to make it sound natural. He’s too much of a pro. Give him time, though. He’s just getting started.

Maroon 5—“Daylight”
#77

Each successive single from Overexposed has been more tolerable than the last, but that only means Maroon 5 been moving towards mediocrity, not that they’re any better. The only thing about “Daylight” that stands out is Adam Levine’s stilted delivery on the first verse. He sounds like he’s doing an Owl City impersonation. I doubt that was his intention, but whatever the case it does draw you into the record. Too bad there’s nothing to keep you there.

Terry McDermott—“I Want To Know What Love Is”
#84

The Lumineers—“Stubborn Love”
#85

What makes The Lumineers so terrible isn’t their jumping on the Mumford & Sons bandwagon; they would be terrible all on their own, without the support of a trend. The music is, indeed, Mumfordish: skeletal songs beefed up with lots of tempo and dynamic hocus-pocus. But the lyrics are the real kicker. “When we were young, oh oh, we did enough/When it got cold, ooh ooh, we bundled up”. What could those lines possibly mean, and what possible connection do they have to each other? Then there’s this: “The opposite of love’s indifference”. No it isn’t. Indifference is the absence of both love and hate. It means you don’t care about something either way (it originally meant you weren’t biased between two outcomes or sides, but the meaning has changed over the years, until it’s become roughly synonymous with “disinterested”). Example: “I am not indifferent to ‘Stubborn Love’. I hate it.”

Wiz Khalifa featuring Akon—“Let It Go”
#87

I’m not sure what’s most depressing about this record: Akon’s latest attempt at a comeback, or Khalifa’s willingness to provide him a boost. Khalifa’s own career is only two albums old, and he hasn’t had a huge hit since “Black and Yellow” (he hasn’t had a track as good, either). This starts with a banal string arrangement (I keep mistaking it for one of the tracks from The Voice on my playlist), a mediocre hook from Akon, and Khalifa making dumb jokes and laughing at them himself. It then progresses into a self-reliance rap you’ve heard many many many times before. This will do nothing to revive Akon’s career, and it may not help Khalifa’s either.

Nicholas David—“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
#96

Future—“Neva End”
#99

Is this the new rap sincerity? And if it is how much can we trust it when it’s lathered in electronic vocal effects? The beat is good, but I’m unsure about the effects, which make Future sound as if he’s sobbing, or on the edge of a nervous breakdown, throughout the track. Now that he appears to have found the perfect woman he was searching for on “Turn On the Lights”, why does he sound as broken down as he did before? Future is putting out a lot of interesting music, but it doesn’t always work. This time he’s overdoing it.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Does “Mid-turbo” Equal “Wimpy”?

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

There have been a couple of interesting pieces in Billboard recently by Sean Ross, who worries (I think) that pop radio is in danger of becoming “wimpy”. This would appear to be a bad thing. It’s hard to tell, since Ross doesn’t define wimpy in any concrete terms. He bases his discussion on tempo, so I assume he’s worrying about too many ballads taking over the airwaves (don’t tell him about the new Bruno Mars single). He seems equally worried, though, about mid-tempo tracks that by being relatively busy in terms of production and arrangement are essentially disguised as up-tempo. He calls these records “mid-turbo”.

It’s all a matter of BPM translating into PPM, if you get my drift. If not, it basically means that the higher the beats per minute, the higher a station’s score is likely to be on Arbitron’s “Portable People Meter”, which is used to determine ratings. There are times I wonder if Ross is writing in code, one that only radio programmers can understand, but I think I get the general idea, which is that pop stations should essentially be party stations, providing an almost constant up. Until that is, the audience decides they want to be brought down.

At the moment, that seems to be exactly what they do want. As Ross mentions, we’re coming out of a period that some DJs described as “turbo” (hence “mid-turbo”), when party music ruled the radio, and the BPM soared. This period lasted about two years, from 2009 to 2011, and is now fading. One of the problems with mid-turbo for radio programmers, Ross suggests, is not only that the songs are slower, but the subject matter is more serious. It’s the morning after the turbo party, and as they nurse their hangovers, people are taking a minute or two to reflect.

I think much of what Ross says is true, especially from a programmer’s perspective (his observations about dubstep are spot on), but his choice of words, especially “wimpy”, suggests that he’s throwing too much of his personal taste into the argument. His description of James Taylor’s and Joni Mitchell’s music and their audience is wrong on any number of levels (just to mention one: most of Joni Mitchell’s radio hits—“You Turn Me On (I’m a Radio)”, “Free Man In Paris”, Raised On Robbery”—were mid- or up-tempo, not ballads). But maybe wimpy is code for something else. Whatever the case, it will all change in another year or so anyway. It always does.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in pop culture, The Biz | Comments Off

Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
Hot 100 Roundup—11/3/12

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

The autumn rush has gone by, or so it seems to me, much faster than usual, and with less effect than expected. Partly this is because it’s been dominated by two artists, Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons, but also because much of what’s been released hasn’t been that impressive. Swift’s pop experiments are interesting, but many of them have been disappointments, and other highly anticipated records from big names—Rihanna, Bruno Mars, P!nk, Ke$ha—have been passable and nothing more. Whether they’re the fading old guard or suffering a sophomore slump, nobody is making much of an impact. Except Psy, of course. Psy is killing it.

Taylor Swift—“State of Grace”
#13

Musically, “State of Grace” is impressive, and also unexpected. Working with her usual producer, Nathan Chapman, Swift has come up with something that’s so different from her previous forays into pop, including the rest of Red, that it throws her entire future up for grabs. That is, this isn’t country, but it isn’t teen pop, either, and it’s one of the best tracks on the album. It isn’t all that original, but at the same time the U2 connection everybody makes isn’t as direct they imply. The larger influence comes from near Swift’s birthplace, in the sound of Eastern Pennsylvania bands like The Ocean Blue and Riverside. Like too much of Red, however, the simplified lyrical style results in banality more often than not, and only occasionally does the music elevate the words into something more. I doubt this is a musical direction Swift will continue to pursue, but it’s good to know she’s capable of this sort of surprise.

T.I. featuring Lil Wayne—“Ball”
#50

“Ball” is easily T.I.’s best record since he got out of prison, but of course that isn’t saying much. The beat is wonderful—playful and energetic—and though T.I. doesn’t have anything new to say over it, he sounds more alive than he has in years. I wish I could say the same for Lil Wayne, who now appears to be pursuing mediocrity as if it were worthwhile career option. He doesn’t embarrass himself, but he adds nothing.

Kelly Clarkson—“Catch My Breath”
#54

I’ve complained about Clarkson’s mediocre material in the past, so I don’t see the point of doing it again, but why is she singing like Lady GaGa? The timbre and the phrasing are an almost perfect imitation; if the song showed any distinction at all you could easily mistake it for a track that got left off Born This Way. Except GaGa would have made sure the chorus had more punch to it, and would attack it with more intensity (which would be a mistake, but it would be the right kind of mistake). After over a decade, Clarkson has only rarely dared material that’s up to the standard of her vocals, and there’s no reason to think this will ever change. I’ll continue to enjoy her voice, and her personality, but she could be doing a lot more with both.

Jason Aldean—“Night Train”
#92

Aldean’s latest records sound less overdone than his previous singles, and this one ambles easily and inoffensively along . He still likes loud guitars too much, though. Shouldn’t a song called “Night Train” sound like a train, and not like a rolling eighteen-wheeler crushing the romanticism of the lyric like so much roadkill?

Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch—“Sweet Nothing”
#96

Florence Welch makes this bearable, even enjoyable in spots, but Harris’s inability to create interesting music continues. This is as flat melodically and harmonically as all his records. It may even be worse. The only way you can tell you’ve reached the chorus is a change in Welch’s timbre and the cue provided by the banal drum machine crescendo, along with the sound in general getting louder. But you’d never know it by the music.

Bridgit Mendler—“Ready Or Not”
#98

Like most Disney pop, “Ready Or Not” seems off at first, the sophistication of the melody and arrangement clashing with the goofiness of the lyric and the unpolished, naive quality of the vocals. Eventually it comes together, and though it still might not make complete sense, it does make for enjoyable music. The lack of polish is intentional, of course; the whole idea of Disney pop is to place its audience in a fantasy world where, even though they’re surrounded by surface glamour and the trappings of show business, at heart they’re still the same wide-eyed teenagers they’ve always been. They may be enmeshed, as Mendler is here, in a fantasy where the right guy equals both love and wealth, set to music that places them within calling distance of pop professionals like Bruno Mars or Natasha Bedingfield, but they’re still goofy, gangly teenagers. Their attempts at sophistication are always half tongue-in-cheek, and they’re determined not to lose their sense of innocence and discovery and the strength those things provide. “Ready Or Not” isn’t up to Disney at its best, but it’s another solid record in the same tradition.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

A Week of Near Misses
Hot 100 Roundup—10/19/12

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

One Direction—“Live While We’re Young”
#3

I have nothing against party music or teen lust, and I could even forgive the Clash rip-off of the intro, but this is crass and insulting. “Let’s get some” is not something you say to a sexual partner, even a one-night-stand, it’s something you say to your brain-dead buddies when you go out looking for sex. Since finding willing partners is no longer a problem for these guys, it may not seem to matter to them what they say, but in reality it matters more. Either they don’t understand that, or they don’t give a shit. Plus, they didn’t give The Clash credit for that intro, so fuck ‘em.

Taylor Swift—“Red”
#6

Taylor Swift loves words. She loves the way they flow and mesh and swerve and can double up meaning and emotion with the slightest change in emphasis. She loves them so much she overstocked “Red” with them and then felt she had to come up with an arrangement to match. Her willingness to experiment is appreciated, but this goes too far. And not all the words work: the Maserati reference is wrong for her, and some of the similes fall flat. Still, I wish half the songwriters in America tried this hard.

Adele—“Skyfall”
#8

Not only the best Bond theme since Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”, but the best thing Adele has ever done as well. The lushness of the string arrangement is perfect for her, allowing her voice to cut through like a knife, and a vast improvement on the harsh sound of her previous records. Not having to fight with the arrangement let’s her focus on the emotion of the song in a way she hasn’t in the past, and gives her a chance to be subtle instead of pounding the listener over the head with the power of her voice. The song itself is something of a pastiche, especially the arrangement, but it’s a great sound, and if it encourages Adele to sing like this I’m all for it.

Bruno Mars—“Locked Out of Heaven”
#34

I actively enjoy a lot of Mars’s music, and the fact that he has a working knowledge of the entire history of rock and roll only makes me like him more. That knowledge hasn’t yet synthesized into a personal style, though, so when he decides, as in this case, to base a song on the early days of The Police, all he comes up with is pastiche. It’s alright to wear your influences on your sleeve, but if you don’t rise above them you end up looking like a hack.

Brad Paisley—“Southern Comfort Zone”
#73

Paisley walks a very fine line on “Southern Comfort Zone”, which is easily his best single since “American Saturday Night”. Like that song, this is about expanding the horizon of country music, admitting, and even enjoying, the existence of a world outside the rural stereotypes that dominate the genre. The deepest moment comes at the end of the second verse, when Paisley says that he knows what it’s like to be in the minority. It’s a plea not just for a broadening of outlook beyond the south, but for greater tolerance at home as well. He’s careful, though, to soften the message as much as possible, layering spoken bits from The Andy Griffith Show, Nascar, and The Grand Old Opry over the intro and the outro, emphasizing that he always wants to come back home, and assuring his fans that a life outside the south doesn’t automatically lead to debauchery, since the only “west coast girl” he’s kissing is his wife. I have my doubts about the choir singing “Dixie”, though. It’s a musical triumph, especially when it’s paired with his guitar solo, and for Paisley it’s obviously the ultimate form of southern pride, but to a lot of people, including me, it’s also a symbol of the Confederacy and the antebellum south. Paisley has already declared his hatred of racism, and it may only be a sign of my own narrow point of view that I’m bothered by this, but I worry that Paisley thinks he’s living in a post-racist world where southern pride has been safely cleansed of the memory of slavery. I wish he was right, but he isn’t. Still, Nashville needs more songwriters who love the tradition but also question its flaws and weaknesses. I only hope that Paisley’s influence will be as powerful as his music.

Kid Cudi featuring King Chip—“Just What I Am”
#74

A hymn to self-delusion, this may be as deep as a pro-marijuana song can ever get. While dope rappers like Wiz Khalifa are just having fun, Cudi is self-medicating, hoping to alleviate the mental issues that his therapists and prescription medication don’t. Whether that’s because they can’t work or Cudi lacks the patience to let them is open to question. His defiant tone suggests the latter. Whatever the case, Cudi sounds more focused and on top of things than in the past, as if his anger at his situation had cleared away some of his confusion. If he is self-medicating, though, I wouldn’t count on it to last.

Gary Allan—“Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)”
#78

If you’d written a song encouraging someone to start over again after a bad breakup, and filled it with images of storms lifting and new beginnings, would you base the arrangement on an earlier song that embraces death? Neither would I. Then again, after 35 years of being inured to it on oldies radio, most people have probably forgotten what “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is about, and those chord changes are a perfect fit with the Allan’s storm metaphors. So, hell, why not? Most people won’t even notice the disconnect, but whenever Allan sings about standing on the edge and setting yourself free over those doom-laden chord changes, all I hear is an invitation to suicide. And I can’t help but wonder if that message isn’t being conveyed even to those who aren’t familiar with Blue Oyster Cult. The music has it’s influence, after all, regardless of the lyrics. Not that I’m expecting a wave of suicides below the Mason-Dixon line if this becomes a hit, but a surge in depression statistics wouldn’t surprise me.

Glee Cast—“The Scientist”
#91

Mumford & Sons—“Lover Of the Light”
#97

Another muddle of personal relationship and religion, and though Mumford sounds like he knows what he’s singing about, I doubt if anybody else does. That includes the band, who go through their regular soft/loud, stop/start business regardless. The instrumental break may be the most vacant thing they’ve ever produced.

DJ Drama, 2 Chainz, Meek Mill, Jeremih—“My Moment”
#99

A better than average rap uplift song, but the arrangement is too busy and the meaning, such as there is, gets lost. I’m still trying to determine whether Drama’s shout at the end is intended as a parody of DJ Khaled or just a following along. I hope it’s the former; Drama’s too talented to waste on Khaled’s brand of nonsense.

Randy Houser—“How Country Feels”
#100

This is as ordinary as country-rock gets, but at least Houser has the good taste not to stress the double entendre of the title. Then again, maybe that’s why this is so ordinary.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

A Fistful of Mumfords
Hot 100 Roundup—10/12/12

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

A week of big names, with three new records debuting in the top 20. A great Taylor Swift (the third in a month, with more coming each week up to the release of the album on the 22nd, when I expect all the remaining tracks to appear on the chart—she’s done it before), disappointing Ke$ha, mediocre Rihanna, Flo Rida, Pitbull channeling Toots and the Maytals, and more Mumford’s than you can shake a banjo at. Next week promises more of the same: Swift again, Bruno Mars, One Direction, Kid Cudi, Brad Paisley, Gary Allan, and, oh yeah, Adele.

Taylor Swift—“Begin Again”
#7

For the first of the preview singles leading up to the release of Red (the second, the title song, is already out), Swift takes a conservative turn, falling back on the soaring romanticism she’s famous for, with carefully placed steel guitar to keep her country audience happy. But this commercial calculation doesn’t take anything away from “Begin Again” or keep it from being one the best records she’s made. If there’s another songwriter at the moment who’s capable of capturing small romantic moments with as much skill and grace as Swift, I haven’t heard them. The verses set the stage, and the middle-eight is a delight, but it’s the chorus, which may be the best thing Swift has yet written, that makes this a great record. I only have one question: when Swift wrote the song’s best line, “I’ve been spending the last eight months/thinking all love ever does/is break, and burn, and end” did she realize she was echoing the 18th century English poet John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV (“That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend/Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.”)? I wouldn’t put it past her.

Ke$ha—“Die Young”
#13

In pop music, professionalism is essential, but it’s also a curse. “Die Young” is intelligent and professionally crafted, but it contains the merest whiff of inspiration. There are a few good moments, but overall it’s the dullest record Ke$ha has ever made. Considering the stuff that Ke$ha put out since her last album–the Dylan cover (terrible, but never boring), the collaboration with The Flaming Lips–”Die Young” is a surprising disappointment. Sounds like she was trying too hard.

Rihanna—“Diamonds”
#16

Written by Sia, produced by Stargate, and with a weird, Robyn-inspired vocal on the intro that has been noted by many, so much so that I’m beginning to think of all the attention paid to the Scandinavian influence on “Diamonds” as cover for the mediocrity of the rest of the track. Structurally “Diamonds” sounds odd and disconnected, and yet the arrangement is ordinary and, compared to what Rihanna has been doing the last couple of years, conservative. Considering she had just released a remix of “Cockiness”, it seems strange to issue a new single so quickly. But then, “Cockiness” was received with a yawn, so maybe this was a rush job to save face.

Mumford & Sons
“Babel”, #60
“Lover’s Eyes”, #85
“Whispers In the Dark”, #86
“Holland Road”, #92
“Ghosts That We Knew”, #94

In musical terms Mumford & Sons have improved since their first album. The arrangements are straightforward and less cluttered, the lyrics more pointed and less confused. They’ve still got a long way to go, though. Since they don’t possess much of a melodic gift and lack rhythmic variety, they fall back on gimmicks to get their point across: sudden stops and starts, dynamic shifts, and lurches in tempo are the only real tools they possess. They tend to use the same tricks, to the same effect, over and over again, often within a single song. It’s tiresome, but their unerring precision keeps the tracks moving even when there’s not much else going on.

What is going on, most of the time, is rage. I wish I could tell you what their anger is about or directed towards, but the lyrics are vague and fall too readily into cliche, making it difficult to get a clear picture. Biblical imagery suits them, but it doesn’t clarify their ideas. That may be a good thing, since many of these songs revolve around the perfidy of women, or one woman anyway. It’s possible the lyrics are about something else–society in general, or the church–and the feminine pronoun is a way of personalizing the imagery. But that only makes it worse. If Mumford is striking back against a real woman who did him wrong, his imagery would be acceptable, but not if it’s intended as allegory. The world has endured enough Bible-based misogyny. The last place we need it is in pop music, which has too much of its own misogyny already.

Flo Rida—“I Cry”
#81

The serious subject matter of “I Cry”–the mass murder in Norway, the death of a sister–explains the lack of a new hook from this hook machine, but it doesn’t explain the usual club-banging arrangement. Talking about tears falling into a champagne bucket doesn’t elicit much sympathy, either. In most cases, when a pop star who’s traded in party music releases a “serious” record, it’s a sign their days on top are coming to an end. Next stop: a greatest hits album with a couple of new tracks. Should be a good one.

Pitbull featuring TJR—“Don’t Stop the Party”
#89

Another insane track from Pitbull, and a perfect example of a sample chain. Having heard TJR’s funk/house track, “Funky Vodka”, Pitbull brought the producer into the studio, and re-edited and remixed the track with his vocals over the top. Like so many dance records, “Funky Vodka” itself was based on a sample: Toots and the Maytals’s “Funky Kingston”. So if you want, you can credit Toots Hibbert with writing the riff that makes the song move, though he no doubt borrowed it from someone else. Whatever the case, Pitbull’s version isn’t a desecration: all he does is up the party atmosphere and modernize the sound. He also delivers one of the best lines I’ve ever heard from him, mixing his usual bragging with a healthy dose of Latino pride: “Just cause you ain’t me, don’t hate me/As a matter fact you should thank me/Even if you don’t, you’re welcome, yankees”.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Small Miracles
Hot 100 Roundup—3/31/12

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Rascal Flatts—“Changed”
#73
What’s happened to these guys? Can a change in label—from the Disney-owned and now defunct Lyric Street to the Nashville giant of independents, Big Machine—make that much difference? Or is it that anyone, no matter what their history, can make good music once in a while? Odds are it’s the second, even if I’d like to think it’s the first, but whatever the case, I have to say it straight out: this is a great record. It’s as if Rascal Flatts had suddenly learned that all those country-pop clichés they’ve been trading in can be used to create truthful, emotional music if you twist them the right way, illuminate them from the inside, and are careful not to overplay your hand. This gets big, like all their records, and the middle eight is a disappointment—just when you hope they’ll dig a little deeper they come out with facile banalities—but overall this is as fine a piece of country gospel as you’ll ever hear. It will be interesting to see what they come up with next.

Neon Trees—“Everybody Talks”
#74
Starting off with a rip of “At the Hop”, the most mechanical of the great early rock records, this proceeds to become at least as mechanical, and even more of a pastiche. When Bruno Mars trades in fifties styles he does so because he lives and breathes them—it may not be original, but it’s organic. These guys, on the other hand, are dabblers playing at cut and paste. But just like “At the Hop”, sometimes being mechanical works; this moves fast and hard, and never lets up. It’s as shallow as they come, but it’s also exciting. Wonder if we’ll hear from them again?

One Direction—“One Thing”
#90
One Direction want to have it both ways: they want their pop to be simple enough to appeal to young girls, but they also want it to be hard and modern enough to appeal to girls who are a few years older. The instrumentation here sounds like it comes off a modern dance floor, but the song also uses pop tricks that are so old they probably seem fresh to anyone under the age of twenty (I haven’t heard the stutter beat they use in the chorus for over a decade, at least). The problem is the modern part of is so heavy-handed and leaden that it kills the older, poppier bits. If they want to last more than six months they (or their handlers) need to come up with better stuff than this.

Eli Young Band—“Even If It Breaks Your Heart”
#91
In the main, the shift in influence in country rock from The Eagles to Tom Petty is an improvement: the songs are faster, the grooves stronger, and the sense of self-satisfaction is more manageable. But even at his best Petty had his own pretensions, to say the least, and most of the bands that are influenced by him tend to lean on his trademark hits rather than his better, more eccentric numbers. They all want to be “The Hardest Part” instead of “American Girl”. Eli Young is no exception, and sings about his early days learning his rock and roll over a backing band that may as well be The Heartbreakers jamming the usual changes. It isn’t terrible, but streaming your personal perspective through clichés doesn’t break the clichés, it reinforces them. Which, come to think of it, is almost exactly what Petty did most of the time.

Young Jeezy featuring Ne-Yo—“Leave You Alone”
#95
Ne-Yo didn’t just write a hook for Jeezy— it sounds like he gave him a whole goddamned song, one that he had a chorus and a bridge for but no verses. This shouldn’t be a surprise; lyrics have always been Ne-Yo’s weakness; he’s melodically gifted, but he has a hard time making words both flow and mean something. What he should do, instead of handing songs to rappers like Jeezy, is find himself a decent lyricist and finish the songs himself. Easier said than done, I know, but this is just sad.

Bella Thorne—“TTYLXOX”
#98
The lyrics would sound dated even if this song had come out two years ago, and the music it draws on is even older, but that could be said of just about every piece of Disney pop, and nothing could stop this from being a joy from start to finish. If that sounds corny, so be it. Real joy is always in short supply on the pop charts, viewed either as manipulative or childish. The only place you normally find it is in music made for tweens and pre-teens, where too often it sounds simplistic or condescending. This is neither. It will never make radio aside from the Disney Channel, and most likely will never hit any real dance floor, which is a greater loss than most people would think. Imagine an ecstasy that isn’t based on sex or chemicals. If you can’t I suppose you should move on to something else, but it’s your loss.

Listen on Spotify

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | 2 Comments »

The Great, the Bad, and the Vaguely
Hot 100 Roundup—3/10/12

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

B.o.B.—“So Good”
#11
One thing you can say about Bruno Mars, when he writes made-to-order hooks for other people’s records they at least have some emotional edge to them, which is more than Ryan Tedder, who’s responsible for this one, has ever managed. This is the worst sort of processed cheese, slimy and sticky and totally lacking in flavor. As for B.o.B., he’s obviously hoping to re-elevate himself to the pop plateau Mars placed him on two years ago. I assume Mars himself wasn’t available. I have a feeling Ryan Tedder is always available—for a price, that is.

Carrie Underwood—“Good Girl”
#24
I appreciate Underwood’s willingness, even desire, to rock out, but this jumble of clichés isn’t the best way to go about it. For one thing, she needs to settle on a single rock style; this jumps from Joan Jett to hair metal to glam without ever settling down long enough to plant its feet on the ground (or the stage). Plus, like too many of Underwood’s records, both the rockers and the ballads, it sounds mechanical—even when she gets loose everything seems to be carefully planned. It’s weird to think that right now the best country singer to come off American Idol is Kellie Pickler: any song you could choose from 100 Proof is better than this one.

Carly Rae Jepsen—“Call Me Maybe”
#38
Since Jepsen is twenty-six this isn’t technically tween pop, but it shares all the virtues of the genre and then some. It’s bright and bouncy, with a gorgeous and striking arrangement, but with enough of a self-possessed edge to make it hit home in ways you don’t expect. Not enough is made of how strong girls are in tween pop—even when they’re crushing over some boy they maintain their sense of dignity and self; in fact, one of the virtues they see in boys is the possibility of using them to increase their own strength and worth—not in the trophy sense, but in the sense of a real partnership. It’s a far more mature point of view than you find in most pop written for people in their twenties, which is why it has always seemed ironic that radio programmers think of tween pop as kiddie music. Jepsen may change that, because what she adds to the usual mix is sex. “Where you think you’re going, baby?” is one of the sultriest lines of the year, and the ambiguity as to who’s saying it, Jepsen or the boy she’s infatuated with, only makes it hotter. A great record.

Glee Cast
“Fly/I Believe I Can Fly”, #56
“Cough Syrup”, #65
“What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)”, #66
“Here’s To Us”, #73
“Glad You Came”, #90

fun.—“Some Nights”
#62
I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this record, but it’s growing on me. Stylistically it’s a jumble: country-folk harmonies on the intro, then Brazilian drums, with subtle touches of auto-tune and other electronics, and lyrics that are half chant and half Paul Simon-like confessional, covering a lot of uneven and difficult to navigate emotional ground. They do work one neat trick: the song starts as a generic complaint about a directionless life and then progressively adds more and more personal detail, as if the singer were realizing the roots and depths of his feelings as he goes along, and ends with what sounds like a breakup—whether from a lover, a city, or an entire life, is hard to tell. I suspect the jumble is intentional, and meant to lead somewhere, but they haven’t quite figured out how to do that, even if they do know where they’re going. Allowing the generic parts to overwhelm the personal stuff is a big mistake, and sometimes the connections they hope to make aren’t there. Promising, for sure, but I’ll withhold judgment for now.

Rihanna featuring Chris Brown—“Birthday Cake”
#63
Despite all the controversy over Chris Brown’s appearance on this record, the only real reason to listen to it is The-Dream, who creates a track that’s far dirtier than any of the lyrics and has more personality than either of the principals. One question, though: is that Robyn singing the bridge, or Rihanna imitating her? Uncanny, either way.

Tyga
“Muthafucka Up” (featuring Nicki Minaj), #74
“Make It Nasty”, #91
“Mothafucka Up” has a great beat, and Tyga makes the most of it, chopping up the rhythm on one line, riding it for all it’s worth on another. He may not have much to say, but he has the flow down. Minaj, meanwhile, plays it safe rhythmically and lyrically and contributes nothing special. Even with that let down it’s still far better than what Tyga delivers by himself on “Make It Nasty”, which is filler from beginning to end.

Usher—“Climax”
#81
I’ve never been much of an Usher fan, but thanks to Diplo this is as stunning as everybody says it is, a mix of lust, regret, self-realization and despair built on the most minimal of grooves. What’s most impressive is that even though the sound is open and spacious, the overall effect is one of claustrophobia, with electronic buzzes servings as symbols of the singer’s darkest and most despairing thoughts as they surround him. Best touch: the disembodied, wordless vocals that are sampled and dropped seemingly at random throughout the track, like some long-hidden pain suddenly rising to the surface.

Jason Aldean—“Fly Over States”
#92
As someone who has “drove through Indiana”, I can appreciate Aldean’s point of view, but once again the defensiveness of rural pride becomes a stumbling block. Or maybe I should say offensiveness, since the catalog of rural charms always seems to be used to attack shallow urbanites for their lack of appreciation of things like farmers (someone should write a study of how farming has become a self-sacrificing, patriotic act in the southern imagination while remaining a corporate monstrosity in reality), “water color” sunsets (which can be found anywhere) and girls from Amarillo (who can also be found anywhere, especially on the coasts, because they can’t wait to get out of Texas). Aldean doesn’t milk this as much as Montgomery Gentry and others, at least not lyrically, but since he’s a master of musical overkill the effect is much the same. It’s still chauvinism turning towards bigotry, no matter how you play it.

Young the Giant—“Cough Syrup”
#95
I suspect something “important” is being said here, but the lyrics and music are so generic and vague that it’s hard to get a bead on—something about the state of the world or generational apathy or personal ambivalence or something. The biggest problem is that I can’t tell whether the cough syrup reference is about needing a cure for the world’s ills or the desire to narcotize oneself into oblivion. The most confusing point is the line about “one more spoon of cough syrup now, oh whoa oh”. Do syrup addicts use spoons? I always thought they swigged straight from the bottle. And isn’t cough syrup designed to treat symptoms, not the actual illness? What good is that? Do these guys even know what their metaphors mean?

Listen on Spotify

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Everybody Dance Now
Hot 100 Roundup—3/3/12

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

Katy Perry—“Part Of Me”
#1
Straightforward dance music like this does Perry a favor. The more she strays from groove and traditional structure the more irritating she becomes (it does something weird to her voice, for one thing). She also tends to be at her best when she’s telling her man off. She likes fireworks metaphors too much, and this is more an example of craft than inspiration, but it’s still her best single since “Teenage Dream”.

Nicki Minaj—“Starships”
#9
Minaj’s chameleon voice is one of her greatest strengths; she can shift effortlessly from tough hood rat to ethereal angel and a range of roles in between. In some cases, like this record, that versatility is the only thing holding her music together, or that keeps it from falling into cliché. But it also emphasizes her greatest weakness: the lack of connecting tissue between her many ideas. I couldn’t begin to suggest why she starts singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, or why parts of this sound like a Rihanna impersonation, except as a distraction from the cliché lyrics and overworked strobe-light synth bursts. I like the line about not paying the rent, but that’s the only sign of personality on the record.

Chris Brown—“Turn Up the Music”
#10
Unless you’re disturbed by the very idea of Brown’s continued career, there’s nothing offensive about this record. Though I have my doubts about the way the music industry, not to mention Rihanna, have reacted to events, it would be foolish to deny that this is decent, journeyman work, uninspired as it may be. I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it; it’s just there. I just wish I could be sure he’ll simply fade away into the mediocre career he deserves.

One Direction—“What Makes You Beautiful”
#28
A boy band almost literally put together on TV (all the members had tried out and failed as solo singers for X Factor, when the producers suggested they work together), One Direction are, in sound and history, essentially the British version of Disney pop. As such I welcome them gladly to our shores. Let’s face it, Disney pop (aside from Miley Cyrus, whose breakthrough was the exception) should have been all over American radio between 2005 and 2010, and if it hadn’t been for radio programmers’ odd belief that the music wasn’t “mature” enough for top forty, it would have been. But immature Brit-kids are different from immature Americans: they have novelty value, and accents. That the music is the same catchy guitar pop that Disney put out only makes the landing of these clean-cut invaders easier. The pump has been primed, so to speak. It’s the same old story, the British selling our own ideas back to us after we’ve failed to appreciate them ourselves. Oh, and the record? Pretty good.

Bruno Mars—“Runaway Baby”
#50
Mars is always best on uptempo material—his excessive energy level makes his ballads overwrought, but it’s perfect for material like this throwaway, which made the chart only because he performed it on the Grammies. All the same, it’s more charming, and more fun, than his last few singles. Also, though this doesn’t seem to rate mention by anyone else, he’s an excellent lyricist: the second verse is hilarious.

Rascal Flatts—“Banjo”
#63
Not terrible, which is a surprise. Maybe even not bad, which could be a sign of upheaval in the natural order. One question, though: if they love banjo so much, why do they drown it out with electric guitars at the end of the song?

Glee Cast
“I Will Always Love You”, #87
“Stereo Hearts”, #92

David Guetta featuring Chris Brown & Lil Wayne—“I Can Only Imagine”
#90
Maybe I’m just feeling forgiving this week, but despite the presence of Chris Brown I think this may be the best thing Guetta’s done. It helps that there’s some variation in the sound—even some surprises—and that there’s a decent structure to the song rather than the usual flailing around. Repeating Lil Wayne’s verse at the end is a mistake, though; Wayne’s phrasing is so distinctive that it’s easy to tell that Guetta ran the same track with only a slightly different background. On a chorus that’s excusable, but on a verse it’s weird and unsettling. It sounds like cheating.

Skrillex featuring Sirah—“Bangarang”
#95
Autotune, pitch-shifting, skittering digital snares, massive explosions of distorted bass, these are all ideas that have come and gone and come again over the last few years, all having their moment in the sun, all eventually derided as overworked and clichéd (and they were). Not to mention dubstep. Skrillex uses them all, and then some, mixes them together, and doesn’t give a shit what you think about it. He’s having fun, and learning a craft, and making art all at the same time. Every single has more packed into it, is more strongly structured and thought out, and is better than the one before. He’s taken a bunch of stuff that the cognoscenti had discarded as played-out and breathed new life into it. Isn’t that the way art is supposed to work? We’re stepping into what promises to be one of the most inventive eras in the history of pop music, and right now, Skrillex is out front.

deadmau5 featuring Greta Svabo Bech—“Raise Your Weapon”
#100
While Skrillex is an artist with a capital F (as in Fun and Fuck you), deadmau5 would like to be known as an artist with a capital A. You can hear his desire to be taken seriously through all eight minutes of this record. It’s an interesting attitude for a guy who performs wearing a giant glowing mouse head. This isn’t a bad record, but its seriousness weighs it down, and the lyrics are more confusing than anything else. It’s pretentious, is what it is. No wonder Dave Grohl likes him.

Listen on Spotify

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries