Posts Tagged ‘David Guetta’

The year so far

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

According to almost everyone, 2010 has been a great year in just about every genre: alternative, country, hip-hop, techno—great records have been popping up everywhere, from both new and old artists, with a full schedule of promising releases to come.

But if that’s true, and for the most part I think it is, not much of that greatness has been showing up on the pop chart, or if it has it’s come and gone so fast it’s barely been noticed. At least four of my favorite records this year, “Super High”, “Love King”, “I’m Single”, and “Reverse Cowgirl”, disappeared from the chart after a week or two. Others, such as Jay-Z’s “On To the Next One” struggled to climb into the top 30, and then dropped quickly once they reached their peak.

Mind you, if what you’re looking for is party music, you can’t do much better than most of the records that made the top ten this year. Straight ahead rhythms uncomplicated by any sense of hesitancy or messy emotion have dominated the market, with only top drawer sellers like Rihanna and Eminem daring anything that requires much thought on the part of the audience. I like a lot of the records that have made the top ten so far this year, but I can think of only one or two that will have any long lasting effect. Party music is designed to be ephemeral, so that’s hardly a criticism, just a recognition of the way things are, and are likely to remain for some time.

Most of what I consider the best of the year so far comes from a little further down the charts, though of course that’s no guarantee of durability. Even I was surprised, though, that my number one would turn out to be the darkest record to make the charts this year, a record so full of bad feeling that it dropped off the charts after a single week and has been ignored by just about everybody. Who’d have thought I could feel alone in praising a Lil Wayne single?

As for the worst, it should be pointed out that this list does not include any of the Glee Cast singles, which are not only terrible but should never have been released in the first place. If I had included them, they would have occupied all ten places and then some. At one point, I considered making “Ice Ice Baby” both the worst and best single of the year, but that was just cynicism. I feel better now, honest.

The Best So Far (in approximate order of preference)

1. Lil Wayne – I’m Single
2. The-Dream – Love King
3. Cali Swag District – Teach Me How To Dougie
4. The Black Eyed Peas – Rock That Body
5. Rick Ross featuring Ne-Yo – Super High
6. Selena Gomez and the Scene – Naturally
7. Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beats – On To the Next One
8. Miranda Lambert – The House That Built Me
9. Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
10. T-Pain – Reverse Cowgirl

The Worst (in alphabetical order)

1. Alpha Rev – New Morning
2. Artists for Haiti – We Are the World 25
3. Justin Bieber featuring Jaden Smith – Never Say Never
4. Dirty Heads featuring Rome of Subllime with Rome – Lay Me Down
5. David Guetta featuring Fergie and LMFAO – Gettin’ Over You
6. Avril Lavigne – Alice
7. Muse – Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)
8. Christina Perri – Jar of Hearts
9. Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me
10. Shiny Toy Guns – Major Tom

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New this week—7/11/10

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Kanye West featuring Dwele—”Power”
#22
Listening to West in comparison to most other rap artists is something like listening to Ray Charles in comparison to most other R&B artists of the ’50s; his sophistication, both musically and lyrically, his intelligence, his sensibility, are so far above his peers that essentially there is no comparison, he functions in a universe all his own. Which doesn’t mean that everything he touches is golden. “Power” is as lyrically ambiguous as you might expect: he loves power, he hates power, it elevates him, it destroys him, it makes him love his life, it makes him want to kill himself, etc.—he’s obviously been thinking about the issue, hard. But all that doubt makes the record itself sound confused, and musically it’s a move backward. I don’t blame him for stepping away from the despair he plumbed on 808s and Heartbreak and his subsequent public implosion, but I didn’t expect him to go all the way back to College Dropout. That reliance on music he knows by heart is the surest sign of how uncertain he is. Journeyman work, but hardly groundbreaking.

Christina Perri—”Jar of Hearts”
#63
We have So You Think You Can Dance to thank for this sentimental grab bag making the Hot 100, though how anyone could dance to such meandering nonsense is beyond me. Perri starts off sounding like Colbie Caillat, ends up like she’s on Broadway, and tries on a half dozen other vocal styles, including Glee, in between. Unfortunately, all the stylistic confusion only puts a greater emphasis on her lyrics: “You’re gonna catch a cold/From the ice inside your soul”. Yeah, yeah. Pass me the tissues.

Flo Rida featuring David Guetta—”Club Can’t Handle Me”
#65
Whatever else you might say about him, there’s no denying that Flo Rida is a master of the hook. Anybody who can make David Guetta sound bearable must be doing something right. But hook is all this is, and even compared to Flo Rida’s other singles it’s so brainless it defies any attempt at actual concentration (I imagine it’s a different story on the dance floor, though). Worst of all, those anonymous background vocals remind me of something you might hear on Glee, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this showed up on an episode next season. If that’s not an ominous portent for the future of pop, I don’t know what is.

Lil Jon featuring LMFAO—”Outta Your Mind”
#84
This is more like it. LMFAO are insignificant enough that they don’t get in the way of Lil Jon’s crunk barrage (and even provide a not bad hockey pun, the second this week—there’s one on “Power”, too), and without having to worry about stupid concepts like melody and musicality, he’s free to be his crazy drunk self. Actual title (based on lyrical repetition): “I Don’t Give a Fuck”.

Chris Brown featuring Tyga & Kevin McCall—”Deuces”
#87
Brown is either intent on destroying his career or he’s the dumbest guy in pop music. It’s one thing to put out yet another track about what a bitch your ex is, another to add to your wrongs by featuring 1) a bad Drake impersonation (is it too soon to ask for a ban on raps that start “Uh…”?), and 2) a guy who makes dumb oral sex jokes and tasteless references to Ike and Tina Turner. This is technically a mixtape cut, so I suppose Brown can always backtrack and say he didn’t really mean it, but since he made a video to go with the damn thing, I can’t imagine anyone will be convinced. He’ll always have his apologists, but his career is essentially over. Or if it isn’t it should be.

WE the Kings featuring Demi Lovato—”We’ll Be A Dream”
#95
You go right ahead. I’ll be asleep.

Josh Turner—”All Over Me”
#97
As funky as country gets—the New Orleans breakdown piano on the intro is great—but lyrically it’s just another making love out in the sticks song, no better or worse than dozens of others. And country, needless to say, never gets all that funky.

Enrique Iglesias featuring Juan Luis Guerra—”Cuando Me Enamoro”
#99
I might feel different if I could understand the Spanish, but Iglesias sounds a lot less smarmy in this context than when he sings in English. Once again, though, he comes across as less talented than his guest, and though this is pleasant, with a nice groove and interesting Beatlesish touches, it’s nothing special.

3OH!3—”I Can Do Anything”
#100
This will probably work great live, with thousand of drunken beach partiers chanting along, but on record it’s sluggish and plodding, especially for what might be called a statement of purpose. That’s what they get for thinking.

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New this week—5/9/10

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Glee Cast
“One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not a Home” (featuring Kristin Chenoweth), #53
“Beautiful”, #61
“Fire”, #64
“A House Is Not a Home”, #70
“Home” (featuring Kristin Chenoweth), #90
Though the rest of this week’s crop is made up of the usual sub-par versions of overly-familiar pop songs, I need to be fair and admit that Kristin Chenoweth’s take on “One Less Bell To Answer” (at least the first three minutes of it) is easily the best thing Glee has produced yet. But I also need to point out that in keeping with the show’s growth as a marketing tool, the song is a cross-promotion for the Broadway revival of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David/Neil Simon musical Promises Promises, in which Chenoweth stars. “One Less Bell” wasn’t part of the original show, but has been added to the new production. In other words, it isn’t technically a Glee song at all (by the sound of it, the arrangement was taken straight from the musical), thereby keeping the show’s unbroken record of awfulness intact.

The Black Eyed Peas—”Rock That Body”
#62
It’s too late to convince the haters, of course, but this is my favorite track from The E.N.D. It rocks, it discos, it punks, it calypsos, and it turns Fergie into the pure special effect she was born to be.

Shakira—”Gypsy”
#65
Not as profoundly silly as “She Wolf”, but it has its moments. “I might steal your clothes and wear them if they fit me” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think of gypsies, but that only makes the line jump out even more. Sexy and silly at the same time—a pretty neat trick.

B.o.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo—”Magic”
#83
As bizarre as this pairing may seem, I have to admit that there’s something both wonderful and ridiculous about Cuomo bragging about his flow, especially on a chorus that’s livelier than anything Weezer themselves have done in years. As for B.o.B., once again he gets lost somewhere in the background. Maybe that’s where he belongs. I respect him more for his realizing it.

Mike Posner featuring Big Sean—”Cooler Than Me”
#85
I liked the chorus the first time I heard it, but by the time Posner had rambled through it in his self-satisfied sing-song for the fourth time, with nothing but a mediocre rap to break the pattern, I was already bored with it. Now I don’t care if I ever hear it again.

Jerrod Neimann—”Lover, Lover”
#89
Country has been weird lately, and I mean that in the best possible way. Though loud, good ol’ boy country hair metal hasn’t gone away, there are a whole bunch of sort-of newcomers on the scene who seem to take a more traditional, slightly laid-back approach (they all tend to cite George Strait as their biggest influence). Neimann has been hanging around in Nashville for almost fifteen years, put out a couple of albums on independent labels, wrote a few songs that found a place on big name LPs (Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux), and now here he is with his first major label single. Lyrically it’s nothing special, but the music, which mixes both soul and country-gospel influences, is wonderful. It isn’t perfect—it gets too soft at the end and starts to drift into early Doobie Brothers territory—but it’s another pleasant surprise in a genre that two years ago was as predictable as they come.

Big Time Rush—”Halfway There”
#93
Another attempt by Nickelodeon to seize some of the tween-pop landscape that Disney has already conquered. They don’t seem to be making the same investment in songwriting, though; even the worst songs on the High School Musical soundtracks were better than this. Maybe someone should tip these kids off to Zeno’s Paradox so they can get out while they have the chance.

David Guetta & Chris Willis featuring Fergie and LMFAO—”Gettin’ Over You”
#95
Up until now, I’ve never been sure what, aside from the occasional rap, Apl.De.Ap and Taboo actually contributed to The Black Eyed Peas. Now, after hearing this garish mess and Usher’s will.i.am-produced “OMG”, I finally have an answer: they tell will.i.am and Fergie when to stop. If only somebody else would.

Alpha Rev—”New Morning”
#100
A couple of weeks ago I suggested that there wasn’t a single song on the Hot 100 that was worse than anything by the Glee Cast. That is no longer true.

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New this week

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

T.I. featuring Mary J. Blige—”Remember Me”
#29
The verse about his woman cheating on him while he’s in the joint sounds real enough, but it doesn’t matter, because T.I. loses me on the very first line, where he compares himself to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. Is it even necessary to point out to anyone but right wing gun nuts the difference between being arrested fighting for your civil rights and a federal weapons violation (for that matter, did Malcolm X do jail time for anything but being a pimp?)? Of course, the line goes perfectly with the over-the-top production and Blige’s prayerful chorus. Did I really believe that T.I. had changed? I may have to take it all back.

Toby Keith—”American Ride”
#54
Despite it’s jingoistic tone, this is really about tolerance and loving this crazy country of ours, liberal or conservative, black or white, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, right or left. Too bad all his examples seem to come off The O’Reilly Factor.

David Guetta featuring Akon—”Sexy Bitch”
#56
I like the conceit of the hook line, “I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful”, but the music is like Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Night” badly welded onto Sean Kingston’s “Fire Burning”, and Akon’s vocals lack whatever distinctiveness they once had. He also sounds uncertain—that hook line may as well have his fingerprints on it, but it sounds like Guetta is singing it. After the relative failure of Akon’s loverman album, this half-hearted return to his player ways suggests confusion about how to recover from all that bad publicity a couple of years ago. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It has all the marks of a hit, but I think Akon’s blown whatever goodwill he had going for him. And I don’t think anybody’s going to turn this into a wedding video.

Tim McGraw—”It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You”
#73
No kidding. Except this is so plodding there isn’t even any pleasure involved. Co-written by Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, which figures.

Jay-Z, Rihanna, & Kanye West–”Run This Town”
#88
Jay-Z’s career is becoming confusing. On American Gangster he was on top of his game, cool and confident. Without Denzel Washington’s example, however, he seems a little more insecure. “D.O.A.” was just dumb, and this negates a not bad black pride rap by ending with West belittling a woman for having less fashion sense than he does. And why would anyone who hates autotune feature Rihanaa, who sounds like a machine even without the help of special effects? If these guys are the new Rat Pack, then this is the original Oceans 11: lazy, self-absorbed, and self-satisfied.

Michelle Branch—”Sooner Or Later”
#93
Second-rate Taylor Swift, just the thing to revive a rapidly dwindling career.

Uncle Kracker–”Smile”
#95
Kid Rock cohort turns into Daniel Powter knock-off. He’s still trailer trash, but now his trailer’s on the beach.

Martina McBride—”I Just Call You Mine”
#97
Before the country banality and the usual Nashville overarranging take over, McBride confirms what a sharp and intelligent singer she can be. By the end of the first chorus, though, she’s just another country diva singing what’s been handed to her. I don’t know if McBride deserves better or not (she co-produced this, so she takes a greater share of the blame than usual), but her voice sure does.

Parachute—”She Is Love”
#98
This sounds like the intro to what could be a really nice love song. Too bad nobody wrote the rest of it.

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New this week

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

New Boyz–”You’re A Jerk”
#33
If you haven’t been prepped by Soulja Boy to love minimalist nonsense like this, then there must be something the matter with you. Sure it’s a novelty record, but it’s also part of a growing trend of suburban teenagers building beats on their laptops that’s as much a form of folk music as guys with guitars singing the blues or DJs spinning discs in the rec halls and playgrounds of Brooklyn and the Bronx. In a few years they may very well take over the world. Write them off at your peril. You could end up an even bigger jerk than they are.

Pitbull–”Hotel Room Service”
#63
“I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” is dumb and catchy. This is just dumb.

All Time Low–”Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)”
#67
A canny mixture of hair metal, Cheap Trick, and Weezer’s “Buddy Holly”, this is my kind of punk-pop pastiche: unoriginal but energetic, without the overloaded sense of importance and lack of hooks that ruins the Jonas Brothers records. Totally unimportant, and they’ll probably never have another hit, but fun all the same.

Jonas Brothers–”Fly With Me”
#83
The bombast here may be testimony to their sense of self-importance, but it may also be testimony to their realization that this song has not much melody and zero hook. Or it could be both, since only someone who thought too highly of themselves would try to rescue a song that so obviously should have been scrapped.

Mario featuring Gucci Mane and Sean Garrett–”Break Up”
#98
This collage of what sounds like three or four different sessions has some gorgeous pieces, but they don’t quite fit together, and the record as a whole is a mess. Can someone explain to me why Gucci Mane has become as omnipresent a guest as Lil Wayne, when he possesses one tenth of the talent?

David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland–”When Love Takes Over”
#100
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the r&b/techno merges I’ve heard over the last few years, but this is too bland. Guetta’s music is all techno cliche, and as for Rowland, there’s a reason Beyonce was the breakout star from Destiny’s Child, and it wasn’t just because her father was the manager.

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