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Lift Up, Put Down: Hot 100 Roundup—3/16/13

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Demi Lovato—“Heart Attack”
#12

The best way I can find to describe Lovato’s style of vocal attack is to quote something Robert Christgau once wrote about the late Replacements guitarist, Bob Stinson: “…Stinson’s guitar was a loud, unkempt match for Paul Westerberg’s vocal, only he’d juice the notes with a little something extra, and probably wrong…”. This is exactly how Lovato sings (listen to the second verse of “Give Your Heart a Break” for an example of her making all the wrong choices but adding to the emotional power of the song in the process). The difference is Stinson was working with Westerberg, one of the best songwriters of his time, while Lovato depends on industry pros who focus on formula more than inspiration. When she finds a good song like “Give Your Heart a Break” or the earlier “Don’t Forget” she can make something fascinating, if often frustrating, out of it. But on a generic song like “Heart Attack” she overcompensates. The verses are all right, but she screeches the chorus, making a mediocre song an unbearable one. It doesn’t help that the production is even louder. I hope Lovato finds another good song soon, but I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of stuff like this in her career. I also worry that she doesn’t know the difference.

Britt Nicole—“Gold”
#90

The rise of teen pop has opened a window for contemporary Christian music, which trades in the same themes of uplift and aspiration. This allows Nicole, who’s been recording since 2004, to partially remake herself as a Cher Lloyd sound-alike and push her spiritual ideas without once having to mention God or Jesus. Nicole—27, married, and pregnant—doesn’t exactly match the teen pop demographic. But then, neither does Carly Rae Jepsen, which may be what Nicole’s new label, Capitol, is betting on. But “Call Me Maybe” was a masterpiece, while “Gold” is generic teen pop, too basic to be particularly meaningful (a common problem with Christian pop), and too sugar-coated to get the attention of anyone but candy freaks.

Michael Buble—“It’s A Beautiful Day”
#94

For someone who’s been stereotyped as an easy-listening crooner, Buble is an interesting guy. He made millions off his Christmas record, and on his regular albums, which consist mostly of covers, he plays the smooth, sophisticated balladeer to the hilt. His singles, however, tell a different story. 2009′s “Hollywood” was a nasty swipe at celebrity culture, and “It’s a Beautiful Day” is yet more sarcastic, and even vicious. It’s a beautiful day, you see, because the girlfriend he was planning on dumping anyway saved him the trouble by dumping him first. Both “Hollywood” and “Beautiful” cover their bitterness in upbeat, bouncy arrangements with catchy choruses. The only part of the music that reinforces the lyric is the horn charts—nothing sounds more sarcastic than a drunkenly sliding trombone, though the trumpet solo at the end of “Beautiful” comes close. It’s enough to make you wonder if Buble isn’t toying with his audience, seeing how far he can go, at least symbolically, in telling them off. It may also be a way of stretching the envelop a little to make his cage of a career more bearable.

There’s also a third, darker, possibility: that Buble is a closet misogynist. The way he addresses the women in “Hollywood” and “Beautiful” is, at its best, condescending and patronizing. At its worst it’s hateful (listen to the way he clips off the words “It’s a beautiful day”, skipping away as he flips her off). The coupling of catchy music with bitter sarcasm only makes that impression greater. He’s sugaring the pill, partly because he believes it’s the only way the women in his audience will take it, and partly because he enjoys the idea of watching their reaction when they realize what they’ve swallowed (not that he risks losing them; if the career of Chris Brown has proved nothing else, it’s that some fans will take, or ignore, anything). Buble is either a true artist yearning for more and striking out at his audience in frustration, or a sadistic misogynist getting his kicks in as cruel a way as possible. Like I said, an interesting guy.

Brantley Gilbert—“More Than Miles”
#98

Merely mediocre, which for Gilbert is a step up. The lyrics, at times, are both laughable and touching—”I’ve been changing lanes without my mirrors/Cause every time I look behind me I see her”—though you’d never know it by the way Gilbert sings them.

Hadouken!—“Levitate”
#99

On “Don’t You Worry Child”, Swedish House Mafia paved the way for the final merger of EDM and pomp rock, and Hadouken! are happy to deliver the final product. Geeks to their bones (the band’s name comes from an attack move in the Street Fighter video game), they’ve embraced the sense of technological grandiosity that lies at the center of geek culture and made loud music out of it. It’s not terrible (there’s one great key change), but if Tom Scholz had grown up in the 00s instead of the 60s and 70s, this is what Boston would have sounded like.

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Best of the Hot 100, 2012

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

There seems to be general agreement that 2012 was not a good year for pop music—musically, commercially, or for those who cover it. I have my doubts about this (I have my doubts about the whole concept of good and bad years in general, but that’s another discussion), but there’s no doubting the negatives.

The commercial aspect is obvious: CD sales continue to drop, and digital sales aren’t rising fast enough to compensate. Individual track sales are booming, but LP sales are still far behind.

For critics, while the opportunities to publish, or at least self-publish, continue to expand (which may be part of the problem), the possibility of getting paid has dropped. The two most obvious signs of this decline—the firing of Maura Johnston at the Village Voice in favor of the snarky, listicle-based, and largely out of touch music coverage featured in the other Voice Media papers (disclaimer: by extension, I was one of the victims in Maura’s firing); and the failure of Uncool to find crowd-sourced financial backing (largely their own fault, but still)—suggest that support for decent music writing exists, for the most part, only among decent music writers, and stretches not much further than their families and friends.

As for the music, this has been a transitional year, though I wouldn’t call it a complete disaster. The collapse of hip-hop as the reigning genre, a process that started back in 2008, became a general part of the discussion this year, as the music all but disappeared from the top ten. Older stars like Usher (and Beyonce in 2011) found it almost impossible to scale the pop charts, even after they modernized their sound. Of the younger artists, only Nicki Minaj and Rihanna have managed to stay near the top of the charts, but both had established themselves in the years before, and there were no big breakout artists.

In rap, though a number of new artists in the older mold (Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Big Sean, and others) scored decent hits, none of them have made much of a mark on the pop charts. Far more successful, and claiming the most critical interest over the last year, have been artists like Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, and Future, who follow in the wake of the album that broke the old form’s dominance: Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreaks. 808s is not only one of the markers for the commercial collapse of hip-hop, but has become far more influential musically than anyone expected. West, not surprisingly, is also the only established rapper who continues to have major pop hits.

So far, though, even as hip-hop has faded, nothing has stepped up to take its place, at least not in in comparison to the total domination hip-hop enjoyed for over a decade. Instead, we have three different streams rising up and sharing the spotlight.

The one that has gotten the most attention, and certainly the most press, is the dance and party music that has been stuck with the name EDM. EDM made its first major appearance on the pop charts via The Black Eyed Peas in the late oughts, just as hip-hop was starting its swan dive. The electro-based minimalism of BEP has been largely replaced by various types of eurodisco (Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia), and dupstep (Skrillex, Diplo, Zedd, and many others).

Over the last year it was dubstep that got the most attention. Skrillex’s singles, though never large pop hits, stayed on the lower reaches of the Hot 100 through most of the year, and he sold out everywhere he played (which was pretty much anywhere, and almost every night). Then came Usher’s Diplo-produced “Climax”, one of the best singles of the year and a number one r&b record, but not a big pop hit, most likely because it was too subtle to come across on top forty radio.

After that, it was as if the floodgates had opened, and every wave contained another “drop”. By the end of the year, dubstep had found a place in almost every genre. Not just in r&b and hip-hop, but in sensitive singer-songwriter balladry (Alex Clare’s “Too Close”, produced by Diplo), teen-pop (Carly Rae Jepsen and Justin Bieber), and even, if you stretch the definition a bit, country, in the form of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” The most garish and obvious cash-in came on Pitbull’s “Back In Time” (produced by RedOne). Laying the wobble on Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange” created one of the most joyfully ridiculous pop moments this year, and it continues to mystify me that the record wasn’t a bigger hit.

Just behind EDM was teen-pop, mostly in the form of the effervescent Jepsen and the somewhat beleaguered and bipolar (in a relationship sense) Swift. The Disney factory, which for all intents and purposes created teen-pop as a genre, was for the most part silent this year, with only the rehabbed Demi Lovato’s “Give Your Heart a Break” scoring big, although Bridgit Mendler continues to hover on the lower reaches of the Hot 100 with the readymade “Ready Or Not”.

The Disney gap was largely filled by Brits. Boy band One Direction turned the Disney blueprint into gold, pumping out one bright, snappy pop/rock track after another, while Cher Lloyd toughened the stance without losing the cheeky corniness of the genre (if anything she amplified it). “Want U Back” is too mature to fit the Disney mold well, but follow-up single “Oath” could have come off the soundtrack to any Disney Channel musical of the last five years (“Oath” wasn’t a big hit, but it was scooped up by a lot of teens with their iTunes gift cards after Christmas—enough to give the record it’s highest chart placement after it had fallen off the Hot 100 two weeks before; the next week it was gone again).

The third stream produced big hits but hasn’t, as far as I can see, gotten much publicity, or what it has gotten has been for a different reason. I call it the “new seriousness”, though that can hardly be considered a genre name. Most of these records came from what usually get called “indie bands”, though that label becomes more meaningless all the time (and it never meant much). The biggest hits, by Gotye and fun., (Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” started the ball rolling in late 2011), feature intense self-reflection and -doubt, with a heightened, though intellectualized, sense of musical melodrama.

These records aren’t to everyone’s taste, obviously, but the fact that lesser artists (Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, Ed Sheeran, even American Idol winner Phillip Phillips), have been able to make hits along the same basic lines suggests that there’s a growing sense of—dare I say it?—personal responsibility building in the pop audience. The real proof may come later this year, when the new Arcade Fire is released. If they get a hit single, I’d say the “new seriousness” is officially a trend. If not, it’s a blip. (Meanwhile, the record I thought would be the next big “serious” hit—Passion Pit’s “Take A Walk”—continues to hover in the lower reaches of the chart. It’s dropped off a couple of times over the last three months, but it always comes back).

But was 2012 a mediocre year? I don’t think any year that contained “Call Me Maybe”, “Climax”, and “Adorn” could be called bad, and these judgments are best made in retrospect anyway, so I’m only prepared to go as far as calling it average and transitional. The pop audience is still making up its mind as to what will follow hip-hop as the dominant paradigm, but I would assume it will be a mixture of all three streams, an idea already explored by artists like Robyn and on Jepsen’s critically praised but commercially disappointing album Kiss (again, Arcade Fire’s new album may work as a test case, though I doubt there’ll be much teen-pop influence).

At any rate, my picks for the best songs to make the Hot 100 in 2012 are below. Basically, anything that would deserve a B+ or better—if I bothered to grade records, that is—is included. The only track missing from the playlist is Swift’s “Begin Again”, which isn’t yet available on Spotify. These are not in order of quality, though a lot of my favorites ended up at the beginning and the end, with the slightly lower quality stuff tossed about in the middle. The mix is a mess, but then the year was a mess, and at least this gives a sense of how scattered it was stylistically.

My choices make up slightly less than ten percent of the records that made the chart this year, and as could be expected, some of the inclusions and omissions are questionable, not just by you, but by me as well. Still here it is. (Ten percent, by the way, is what I would consider average. If it were fifteen it would be a good year, twenty a great one. Anything much below ten, though? I don’t even want to think about it).

Enjoy.

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Honestly, What’s A Critic?

Monday, December 17th, 2012

Michele Catalano’s Tumblr post about being an “honest critic” and how she really isn’t a critic at all, despite having a regular music column on the Forbes website, isn’t worthy of much attention. She gets almost everything wrong, but there are lots of people who do that. At the same time, though, she’s wrong in a way that pushes a lot of my buttons.

Such as her apparent unfamiliarity with any other music critics. She says that just once she’d like to see a critic put a popular artist on their year-end list. Has she bothered to look at any of this year’s? Did she notice how often Carly Rae Jepsen shows up? Or fun.? Or Rihanna? Or P!nk? Or Miguel? Or Usher? You don’t need to read other critics to make conclusions about the quality of a record, popular or not, but if you’re going to pass judgment on the critics themselves it’s essential. Catalano seems to have skipped that step.

And what the hell is this business about critics only liking Exile On Main Street because they scored with their favorite girl to it when they were fifteen or something? What sort of sexist bullshit is that? I’ve never made out to Exile On Main Street, and I think it’s a great album. Why? Because I listened to it, that’s why. That’s all it takes. I can think of a of lot albums I’ve made out to, some great, some awful, some mediocre. But there isn’t a single record that I think is great because the first time I listened to it I was wrapped up with a woman on the couch. I might get sentimental about it, but I wouldn’t base a critical judgment on that. No true critic would.

But Catalano doesn’t even know what a critic is. “…I didn’t want to be a critic, in the strict sense of the word. I wanted to write about music. I wanted to talk about music. I wanted to share every song I loved and discuss why I loved them.” Guess what? That’s what critics do, all the time, and in the strictest sense of the word. They write about music (or books or movies or whatever), and they get their greatest enjoyment out of writing about music they love. But to balance that, and to understand why they love what they do, they write about what they don’t love, as well, what they hate, or what they’re indifferent to.

What Catalano doesn’t want to be isn’t a critic, but a reviewer, someone who has to come up with an opinion of every record that comes down the pipeline, whether they’re interested in it or not. I don’t blame her. Reviewing is hard, and it can be tedious and frustrating and make you feel your soul is being ripped from your body every time you need to think up a word to describe a record that isn’t even worth a sigh and that no one will remember in three months anyway. But reviewing isn’t criticism. If a reviewer is good, and sneaky, a review can contain criticism, but it’s rare. Believe me, I know; I’ve been trying for years now, and could count on my fingers the number of times I think I’ve been successful.

So Catalano doesn’t want to be a reviewer. Fine. But she doesn’t want to be a critic, either, which is moot because she doesn’t know what a critic is. Which means she’s, um, a blogger, I guess, though one with a fairly decent, if not exactly high profile platform (I don’t think too many people turn to Forbes for music coverage). She only started at the magazine in November, so it’s too soon to see whether her adventure in non-reviewing, non-critical criticism will pan out. If it doesn’t, maybe she should consider carpentry.

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Here Comes the Stampede
Hot 100 Roundup—10/5/12

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

As we ease, or force, our way into October, the release schedule continues to ramp up, and probably won’t ease off until Thanksgiving. It would be easier to be happy about this if the music were better. This week is a mixed bag, not just between different tracks but on the records themselves (nothing has exhilarated and disappointed me at the same time as much as the new P!nk single). Next week is more promising. Maybe I’ll feel better about rap by then.

Christina Aguilera—“Your Body”
#34

Aguilera still oversings, and her love of meaningless bombast is undiminished, but “Your Body” is easily her best record since 2006. She sounds on top of things again, and her voice, which has deepened and toughened with the years, makes up for a lot of the oversinging. It’s also worth mentioning that she was onto EDM back in 2008, and though all the records she released in the style up until this one tanked, she was ahead of the curve. So far ahead, in fact, that now she’s behind. I have strong doubts about the message of this song, though. I have nothing against celebrations of sexual pleasure by women in the their mid-thirties, but the cougar-on-the-prowl idea has been overworked, the song lacks sensuality, and Aguilera’s sexual aggressiveness sounds forced and unpleasant.

P!nk—“Try”
#56

The verses on “Try” are so beautiful that there’s a palpable let down when the track devolves into yet another of P!nk’s motivational choruses. Up until then, this is almost a textbook example of how experimental influences can be folded into pop music to create something both stunning and comfortably familiar. It’s one of the things pop is best at, but P!nk makes the mistake of not trusting her instincts and falling back on old ideas. In commercial terms, it will probably work, because no one else is better at this sort of thing, but “Try” could have been much more.

Swedish House Mafia featuring John Martin—“Don’t You Worry Child”
#68

Have you ever wondered what Coldplay would sound like if they went the EDM route? Wonder no more.

Kanye West, R. Kelly—“To the World”
#70

The beat is excellent, as always, and West politely gives R. Kelly the floor, limiting himself to a few of his usual boasts, allowing Kelly enough room to flip off the entire world. My only question: who gives a fuck? The level of willful self-delusion and fallacy on this record is unbelievable. Kelly talks like his inability to break a pop record anymore is all about his artistic principle and his determination to go his own way. But of course it isn’t. The quality of his music is as high as it ever was, and even flights of ridiculous fancy like the endless Trapped In the Closet wouldn’t put people off of him in large numbers if there weren’t other things to consider, like the fact that he videotaped himself peeing on a fourteen-year-old girl. Face it, Mr. Kelly, you are never going to live that down, and it has nothing to do with your talent or your artistic principle. Shut up. As for West, I await the day when he stops bragging about how rich he’s become and what a great artist he is and starts making some real art again. Besides, I don’t trust anyone who labels himself a tastemaker while foisting Big Sean on the world. That may be the greatest fuck you of them all.

Game featuring Chris Brown, Tyga, Wiz Khalifa & Lil Wayne—“Celebration”
#82

At a certain point the quality of the beats, the flow, even the words, no longer matters. Just like country singers and their pickup trucks, I don’t care if I hear another rapper bragging about the high life ever again. There are always exceptions, of course, but this isn’t one of them. In its own way, “Celebration” is as soft and self-satisfied as a Jimmy Buffett record, only nowhere near as smart, and without a hint of irony.

Carly Rae Jepsen featuring Justin Bieber—“Beautiful”
#87

Kiss is such a kaleidescope of pop styles that even an obvious Colbie Caillat/Jason Mraz imitation like “Beautiful” fits right in. It helps that it’s better than its influences in almost every way, and that Beiber sings as well as he ever has. The style is perfect for him (it should be, he wrote it), though I’m not sure it fits Jepsen as well as it might. Still, “Beautiful” is a good deal better than her pairing with Owl City.

Usher—“Numb”
#97

Usher deserves credit for absorbing modern dance music into his style, but I’m beginning to wonder if he’s been paying as much attention to modern R&B. After Frank Ocean’s “Novocane” it’s hard to believe anyone would use the term numb as a symbol of personal liberation or sexual exploration. As far as Usher is concerned, though, you can’t really feel until you can’t feel your face, or something like that. He may just mean letting yourself be taken over by the music, but even then numb is the wrong word, especially on a record that drives as hard as this one. There are times when I think Usher doesn’t even know, or care, what he’s singing about, a major flaw when you consider your vocals as important as your beats. In the clubs no one is going to care, and the Swedish House Mafia beat is better than just about any David Guetta or Calvin Harris track you care to name, but the disconnect is still puzzling.

Kip Moore—“Beer Money”
#99

Since country is embracing Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty these days, I suppose it makes sense to include John Mellencamp as well. But unless you’re imitating Mellencamp at his most inspired, all you’ll come up with is insipid pseudo-rock like this. The lyrics are clever in spots, and Moore’s last single, “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Truck” was far better, so I’m not giving up on him completely, but he might want to aim his sights a little higher.

Greg Bates—“Did It For the Girl”
#100

Love the intro, but it’s stolen from Smokey Robinson, and after that “I Did It For the Girl” turns ordinary fast. If you’re going to steal from the best, you may as well keep going. And a country version of “You Really Got A Hold On Me” could sound pretty good.

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Back to the Blog
Hot 100 Roundup—9/29/12

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

Once a Hot 100 powerhouse, putting four or five records on the chart with every episode, Glee has faded to the point where it can’t manage more than one from its season debut—and it’s not even “Call Me Maybe”. Otherwise, five bad records and one near great one from Ms. Jepsen herself, who will be around long after Glee disappears.

Juicy J featuring Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz—“Bandz A Make Her Dance”
#71

Slow grind stripper rap like they used to make, and after one listen you’ll understand why they stopped. This is a hit because Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz are on it (neither contributes anything worth noting) and because the beat is somewhat better than expected. It’s still boring and stupid. I can’t even tell you what 2 Chainz says, because by then I’ve stopped listening.

Lifehouse featuring Natasha Bedingfield—“Between the Raindrops”
#79

Not to be sentimental about anything as nebulous as a pop career, but Natasha Bedingfield’s is as sad as they come. Her early singles held promise and were full of charm, but after daring to make a second album that her label didn’t know how to sell, she’s been delegated to limbo, where she finds herself doing guest spots for some of the world’s most mediocre bands. Every bit of sparkle and energy her voice once carried has disappeared. She sounds blank and anonymous. Which makes her a perfect fit for Lifehouse.

Carly Rae Jepsen—“This Kiss”
#86

Following up “Call Me Maybe” is an impossible task, not only because the record itself was so great, but because its creation was so obviously based on instinct rather than the application of a carefully conceived pop formula (Jepsen didn’t even think of it as a single). But that instinct was based on what now looks to be a finely honed pop intelligence, because even if “This Kiss” isn’t as good as “Call Me Maybe”, it’s still one of the smartest and most promising pieces of pop to appear this year. The sound, which I assume was largely RedFoo’s idea, is perhaps too retro, like the Madonna of True Blue fronting a-ha. But there are also stunning production touches, such as the chopping up of the middle eight to heighten the sense of ethical and sexual uncertainty. And I’d be the last to complain of Jepsen channeling the Diana Ross-influenced side of Madonna’s vocals.

What matter’s most, though, is the way Jepsen experiments with words. Almost every line contains a surprise, and the way Jepsen presents the facts of the case through indirect reference makes the situation explicit but the emotions less so (“She’s a real sweet girl” she says of the woman she’s betraying, a line that outlines Jepsen’s ethical dilemma while at the same time diminishing her rival). She intentionally keeps thing mysterious. You’re not even sure who the aggressor is: there are lines that suggest it’s the man, but others that suggest she’s the one who’s been doing the chasing. The most ambiguous moment comes when Jepsen sings “You know I’ve got a boy,” pauses, and then continues with a sigh, “somewhere”. Has he been ignoring her? Has she been avoiding him? Did she intentionally lose him in the crowd? You could argue over the sexual politics of this song forever. Jepsen has single-handedly moved teen pop into the wider realm of adulthood without losing it’s energy, humor, or sense of wonder. She, and it, are here to stay.

Enrique Iglesias featuring Sammy Adams—“Finally Found You”
#94

Can’t someone make Enrique Iglesias go away? His career has been one sodden sop to the current sound after another. On “Finally Found You” he toys with whimpy EDM and enlists the help of the callowest of all white rappers, Sammy Adams, to lend a few obscenities to the mix. In his own way Iglesias is even worse than his father, but for some reason radio continues to think he’s a star. He should long ago have been relegated to a lounge in Reno.

Glee Cast—“It’s Time”
#95

Olly Murs featuring Chiddy Bang—“Heart Skips A Beat”
#96

Yet another British X-Factor contestant trying to break in the states with the help of an American rapper willing to risk comparison to Travie McCoy. Because Murs is British his reggae is slightly more authentic than that of Bruno Mars, but everything else is factory issue. Which, love him or hate him, Mars never is.

Justin Moore—“Til My Last Day”
#98

Since he’s quieter and his sound is more traditional, Moore is easier to tolerate than loudmouths like Brantley Gilbert and Jason Aldean. But in his own way he’s just as bad, and “Til My Last Day” may be even worse than his previous records. It isn’t as self-righteous as “Bait A Hook”, but it’s a lot duller, and the cliche level is almost as high.

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Sometimes the Pop Gods are On Our Side

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

A couple of months ago I predicted that Maroon 5′s ghastly “Payphone” would keep “Call Me Maybe” from making number one. I was wrong, of course. The exact opposite happened. “Call Me Maybe” has now been number one for eight weeks, while “Payphone”, which has been number two almost all that time, has begun to drop, if only slightly. I’ve never been more pleased by a mistake.

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The Lyric Video Genre Reaches Its Nadir

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

At least there aren’t any kittens.

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WTF?
Hot 100 Roundup—7/14/12

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Owl City & Carly Ray Jepsen—“Good Time”
#18
Adam Young, better known as Owl City, should not try to be David Guetta (especially if he’s going to sing), and Carly Rae Jepsen, who, despite “Call Me Maybe”, still needs to establish herself as a career artist, shouldn’t be trying to help him. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a record that sounded like such an obvious cash-in on the part of everyone involved. From Young I don’t expect anything better, but “Call Me Maybe” is going to be in the top ten for the rest of the summer, and it’s way too soon to indulge in such an obvious ploy to keep Jepsen in the public eye. I also hear she’s working with Ryan Tedder. In a recent article in Billboard, Jepsen’s manager, Scooter Braun, was quoted as telling her that her life wasn’t going to be much fun for awhile. Doesn’t look like it’s going to be much fun for her audience, either.

Maroon 5—“Wipe Your Eyes”
#80
Despite, or perhaps because of his second career as judge/mentor on The Voice, Adam Levine has become the most irritating, if not the worst singer of our time. Here, with the assistance of producer J.R. Rotem, he emphasizes this fact by singing, via sample, with one of the best vocalists in the world, Mariam Doumbia of the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. Rotem and Levine compound the mistake by using one of the duo’s greatest songs, the ethereal and mysterious “Sabali” (co-written and produced by Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz; it may be the best piece of music he’s ever been connected with). The result is almost sad. Levine is so outclassed he doesn’t even try; his voice is hoarse and he sounds exhausted and depressed. If, by some chance, this results in “Sabali” getting the attention it deserves, then I guess this record’s existence will be good for something. But otherwise it’s not much more than a sour joke, one that even I can’t bring myself to laugh at. (Note: At least according to the Billboard listing, Doumbia, her writing partner Marc Antoine Moreau, and Albarn aren’t given a songwriting credit for this record; so maybe Levine’s vocal comeuppance is exactly what he deserves.)

Nero—“Promises”
#81
More pop than Skrillex (who has done a remix), but still identifiably dubstep (whatever that means by now), this is notable only for the fact that it’s a real song, and not just a beat with some vocals thrown on top of it. They may even have written the song before they came up with the beat, but judging by the way it stops and starts and stalls as it stumbles along, I assume not. It’s not a very good song, and if it wasn’t for the music (and the record’s placement in a TV commercial) no one in the U.S. would have noticed it. It did debut at number one in England, but it was a slow week.

Wale featuring Rick Ross, Meek Mill & T-Pain—“Bag of Money”
#93
What a generous guy Rick Ross is. Here, after giving Wale a brief guest spot on one of his many tracks, Ross turns around and allows Wale to release it under his own name, letting a little of that Rozay magic rub off on him as he struggles to establish a career (based on his rap here, he needs all the help he can get). Mind you, Ross knew this wasn’t a great track, and that it wouldn’t be a huge hit, even with T-Pain autotuning (or T-Paining I guess it’s now called—not to be confused with trepanning though the effect is often the same) in the background. Generosity has it’s limits.

Linkin Park—“Lost In the Echo”
#95
For Linkin Park, not bad. The lyrics lack their usual vague generalization and overbearing pretentiousness, and the music continues to modernize their sound without turning it into novelty dubstep. Not great, of course, but at least it isn’t laughable.

BTR—“Windows Down”
#97
Nickelodeon has tried every way to make Big Time Rush into real stars rather than just tween faves. They’ve given them top production and decent songs, got Snoop Dogg to do a guest spot, dressed them up in suits like Il Divo, everything. Here, they get modernized, their name shortened to BTR (already the name of one of their albums), and pointed roughly toward the same musical territory as The Wanted and One Direction. It doesn’t work, largely because the song is too busy and complicated (is anything on the radio simpler than the stuff The Wanted sing? They make nursery rhymes sound baroque), but also because, as singers, the members of BTR are undistinguished. You can’t create pop stars out of nothing, after all, or at least nothing but looks.

Zac Brown Band—“The Wind”
#99
This is better than most of Zac Brown’s stuff not only because it’s fast, but because it’s so loose. He lets the band show off in the best possible way, and the record not only zooms but swings (maybe Brown’s been listening to some Kentucky Colonels in between the Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor). And, for the first time I’ve heard, Brown sings like himself instead of one of his heroes. Turns out he doesn’t have much vocal personality of his own, which explains a lot.

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Sucker for Disney Pop

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

According to my iTunes, I’ve listened to this more than anything else this year. (“Call Me Maybe” is number two; “Climax” number three). I make no apologies.

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A Perfect Storm

Monday, June 11th, 2012

I like this Zach Kelly piece in the Village Voice about the spread of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” as an internet meme, but I also disagree with him almost completely about what the end result will be. He uses phrases like “mummified” and “frozen in amber” to describe the ultimate effect of the constant flow of tributes, covers, and parodies of the song (a flood that shows no sign of abating). His idea is that the song itself will be buried in the detritus that has built up around it, and will eventually be pulled under and disappear.

As I see it, the effect will be exactly the opposite. The tired old idea of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery is to the point here, and much the same can be said of parody. It’s important to remember that parody is directed more toward objects of affection than hatred, which is the case in satire. The object of parody is never forgotten or lost because it’s the things that are most loved about it that are the actual subject of the parody. All these tributes and covers and mashups aren’t diminishing “Call Me Maybe”; they are constantly reminding us of just how great it is, how influential it is, and how inspiring it is.

Part of Kelly’s mistake, I think, is that he’s viewing “Call Me Maybe” in isolation. It’s another “song of the summer” (an idea that irritates me more the more I think about it, though the commercial reality is undeniable), just like Nicki Minaj’s “Superbass” last year. Comparing the two songs is instructive, but Kelly misses the real difference. “Superbass” is, essentially, a hybrid of the music of two different pop generations: the hip-hop past, and the dance music/teen-pop influenced future. With one foot in each camp, it came across as something of a mess, despite its greatness. That messiness, of course, was part of its greatness, but it was also what prevented it from becoming the overwhelming force that “Call Me Maybe” has become.

But “Call Me Maybe” isn’t just a great pop song: it’s a pop explosion, the breakout moment of a movement and a generation that have been growing up and growing larger over the last five years, a generation that has only been waiting for the call that will bring them to the fore.

Over the weekend, after watching the new Blu-Ray of Yellow Submarine, Jaq and I were inspired to watch A Hard Day’s Night and Help! again, as well. Near the beginning of A Hard Day’s Night, it occurred to me that the Beatles were the perfect storm of pop (not an original idea, I know). That is, they contained all the elements, and found themselves in an atmosphere, to make them more than just pop stars, but a true cultural phenomenon. This was more than being in the right place at the right time; they also possessed all the right attributes: their music was not only catchy and exuberant, packed with earworms that have lost none of their effectiveness fifty years on, it was also very good, and often great, full of surprises as well as references to a pop history that stretched back at least three generations. On top of that, they were personally charming, intelligent, witty, and good-looking.

“Call Me Maybe”, in its own, smaller way, is another perfect storm: an excellent, catchy song, packed with the exuberance of youth, sung by a woman who, though I can’t vouch for her wit or intelligence, having never seen or read an interview, is both cute and charming as a performer. It’s also the right song for the time (if anything, not a moment too soon). It’s not just the song of the summer, it’s possibly the most important record of the year, or the last five, one that people in the future will look back on as a sign of things to come. Mummification isn’t the problem: if there is a problem, it’s going to be in controlling the forces that “Call Me Maybe” is helping to unleash. Not that they can be, at least for now.

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