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Hot 100 Roundup—12/5/10

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Enrique Iglesius featuring Ludacris & DJ Frank E—”Tonight (I’m Fucking You)”
#18
Thanks to Cee-Lo Green, “fuck” appears to be the word of the moment, and Iglesius has as much right to it as any, I suppose. But with his soft, sensitive, sometimes wispy loverman voice, he doesn’t sound all that convincing, and Ludacris is just cashing a check. DJ Frank E, however, engages in some serious fucking with the listeners’ ears. Those random-seeming synthesizer swoops and giggles are the sole reason to pay any real attention to this record. They start to sound calculated after a while, but they liven things up nonetheless.

Glee Cast
“Mary You”, #32
“Just the Way You Are”, #40

Kanye West
“Dark Fantasy” (featuring Teyana Taylor, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver), #60
“All Of the Lights”, #92
I’m still making up my mind about “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. There are great things on it, and West has created an interesting amalgam of his earlier style and the stuff he experimented with on his last two albums. There’s no doubt the result is challenging (which is why I still haven’t made up my mind), but I’m not sure it’s as great as people make it out to be. For one thing, it seems to relate the same basic idea over and over again, and then drag out the tracks in ways that don’t always expand the idea so much as minutely modify it. And sometimes it sounds as clunky as the title. I love the chorus on “Dark Fantasy” and how the choir is both beautiful and ragged at the same time, and “All Of the Lights” is so perfect in its structure and lyrical detail that I feel like a jerk for complaining of its obscure message. But for some reason these songs, and the album as a whole, aren’t coming together for me. Maybe they’re not intended to, but that doesn’t mean it’s a success, either.

Diddy – Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey—”Coming Home
#61
I know it would be more expensive, but if you’re going to cut a track that’s a straight stylistic rip-off of T.I. and Kanye West, shouldn’t you invite them to contribute a verse or two?

Christina Aguilera—”Show Me How You Burlesque”
#70
For me, the intro to this record epitomizes everything that’s wrong with Aguilera. She not only oversings, but overthinks her oversinging. What’s worse, the lyrics have no music or poetry to them, they’re lifeless hunks of words designed solely for Aguilera to belt. The rest is a little better, but not much. Whatever this is, though, it isn’t burlesque. Burlesque is all about the tease; this is the equivalent of some two-bit hot mama thrusting her cleavage into your face and shouting “Does that turn you on, baby?!”

Keri Hilson—”Pretty Girl Rock”
#72
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/28/10

David Guetta featuring Rihanna—”Who’s That Chick?”
#73
Bearable for Guetta, mid-level for Rihanna. I do like it’s classic disco vibe: it could be the theme song for some cheesy early-eighties romantic comedy. Though now that I think about it, that’s not much of a compliment, is it?

Nicki Minaj featuring Rihanna—”Fly”
#76
Did I compare Minaj to Cyndi Lauper? Maybe I meant Journey.

Bruno Mars—”Marry You”
#91
It’s irresistible records like this that make you think Mars’s career might amount to something after all. Not only is the music catchy and good-humored, but for the first time since “Nothin’ On You” the lyrics are a perfect match. That’s possibly because he’s not trying to say anything too romantic or serious, which only convinces you that he loves the girl even more. This is so good I don’t even mind that it only made the charts because it was featured on Glee. OK, I do mind, but what the hell.

Ke$ha—”Crazy Beautiful Life”
#93
More homilies and affirmations for drunk party girls. How much you wanna bet the next album includes a ballad?

Billy Currington—”Let Me Down Easy”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/28/10

Sick Puppies—”Maybe”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/21/10

Bubbling Under:

Nicki Minaj featuring Drake—”Moment 4 Life”
#101
Minaj is a talent, but all the evidence points to her having already betrayed it. I haven’t heard Pink Friday yet, but as I understand it half the album is made up of this kind of dreck (which Minaj would rhyme with Drake if she had any sense). Even if it was a better record, though, the simple fact is that this and “Fly” are only making the charts because of the names of the guests. What a depressing business.

Christina Aguilera—”Express”
#102
The mix of brass and electronic fuzz might be interesting if they were actually mixed instead of being consigned to different sections. But that wouldn’t make it a decent song, or prevent Aguilera from shouting to the rooftops.

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Hot 100 Roundup—10/17/10

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Taylor Swift—”Speak Now”
#8
Another cute fairy tale, a song form at which Swift has become an absolute master. Sassy, funny, and sharply observed as always, only this one is streaked with some real bitterness, including details and descriptions that would be considered, um, mean coming from anyone else. As the title cut from the new album, it obviously serves as justification for the deeper anger that permeates some of the other songs. Like most fairy tales, however, this ends at the point of victory, and says nothing about the aftermath. Which makes me wonder if Swift, both as a character in her songs and as a real person, is ready for the tempest she’s stirring up.

Kanye West featuring Pusha T—”Runaway”
#12
Ever since 808s and Heartbreak, and even more so since his disastrous VMA fuck-up, the main focus of Kanye West’s audience, and certainly the press, has been not his music, but his state of mind. Is he falling apart? Does he regret what he’s done? Will he apologize? Will the new record present a more humble, subdued Yeezy? The answers so far (No. Yes. Sort of. Are you kidding me?) are fascinating in their way, but they distract from the main point, which is the music. In the last three months he’s released two excellent official singles, plus a boatload of good to great tracks as part of the G.O.O.D. Friday download series, and all I read on the blogs and in comment sections is analysis of his emotional ups and downs, as if every new piece of music were nothing more than the latest installment in a soap opera: Kanye West and the Price of Fame or As the Rapper Yearns. Part of this is West’s fault—his self-absorption is far beyond the call of duty of even the most egotistical rappers—but at the same time he’s one of the few whose work lives up to their own hype. And even if the latest records break little new ground—“Power” harks all the way back to The College Dropout, while “Runaway” sounds like an 808s track with some pop sweetening—the ideas he’s already dug up would be enough to fuel any number of lifelong careers. If, that is, he doesn’t drive his into the ground by making music about nothing but himself. It’s a narrowing of the palette that few artists survive, no matter how brilliant they are. I just hope this album gets it all out of his system and he can go on to something else.

Glee Cast
“I Want To Hold Your Hand”, #36
“One Of Us”, #37
“Only the Good Die Young”, #50
“Losing My Religion”, #60
“Papa Can You Hear Me?”, #65
“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, #73
“I Look To You”, #74

P!nk—”Raise Your Glass”
#51
For a Max Martin-produced party record this is surprisingly stiff, never more so than in the throwaway vocal interjections that are supposed to provide that loose, freaky atmosphere (and all the jokes). It’s all far too calculated and machine-tooled, without a single moment left to chance. I don’t know if this is Martin’s fault or P!nk’s, but it sure isn’t freaky.

Bruno Mars—”The Lazy Song”
#82
Dear Bruno Mars: You can be a pop guy with serious undertones, or you can be a serious guy with an instinctive pop sensibility, but you cannot be Jack Johnson with keyboards. Not if you want any respect, that is.

A Rocket To the Moon—”Like We Used To”
#91
One of those records that’s upended by the details guys like this learn to put into their songs in their Songwriting 101 class. Pleading with an ex-girlfriend you caught naked in a car with somebody else fourteen months ago does not make you sensitive or passionate—it makes you a wimp. As does the music and the vocals.

Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina—”Stereo Love”
#93
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 10/10/10

David Guetta featuring Kid Cudi—”Memories”
#94
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 10/3/10

Shakira featuring Dizzee Rascal—”Loca”
#98
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 10/10/10

Bubbling Under

Justin Moore—”How I Got To Be This Way”
#101
By being kicked in the head by a horse, apparently. This explains a lot.

Ne-Yo—”One In a Million”
#102
This is the catchiest and most pop-oriented of the preview singles off Ne-Yo’s new album, which also means it’s the most familiar sounding and the most ordinary. Ne-Yo’s style and class set him apart from almost everybody else on the chart, but they also hold him back somehow. It feels as if he’s not telling us everything he could because he’s afraid of stepping outside of the image he’s concocted for himself. Maybe it’s time for him to be a little less of a gentleman, or at least find an outlet for the tension that stance implies.

Trace Adkins—”This Ain’t No Love Song”
#103
In fact, it’s barely a song at all.

Luke Bryan—”Someone Else Calling You Baby”
#104
Bryan is a decent, mid-level country singer, and this is interesting for being essentially 70s country pop with a more soulful, modern rock setting, The Bellamy Brothers turned up to 11. Past 11, actually, which is the problem.

Willow—”Whip My Hair”
#105
This is far better than anyone had a right to suspect, and surprising, as well. Willow’s voice is literally unbelievable—it’s not just the strength, but the mature phrasing—if I hadn’t already known I never would have suspected her real age; I would have gone for thirty. The track is rougher than you’d think, as well, a poppified mix of electro and crunk that never lets up. Tougher than anything her dad ever did, that’s for sure.

My Darkest Days featuring Ludacris—”Porn Star Dancing”
#106
With Nickleback’s Chad Kroeger as co-writer and co-producer doing his best 3Oh!3 impersonation, the presence of Ludacris helps this record achieve a perfect storm of demographic triangulation. The sheer commercial shamelessness of it almost makes its stripper pole sleaze appealing. Kind of catchy, too.

Lifehouse—”All In”
#108
If it were anybody else turning to poker metaphors to describe their passion, I’d assume they were shooting for a country crossover, but these guys sound like the same old boring rockers they’ve always been. Only without hooks. It doesn’t mean much to go all in if all you’ve got left is a couple of bucks.

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Hot 100 Roundup—10/3/10

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

Glee Cast
“Empire State of Mind”, #21
“Telephone”, #23
“Billionaire”, #28
“Listen”, #38
“What I Did For Love”, #51

Akon—”Angel”
#62
Yet another “I Gotta Feeling” rip, only this time not from someone directly associated with the original record, which is a relief. Akon’s voice may have changed, but his gift for hooks remains, and here he strings enough together to make for a bearable dance record. My only question is whether this is intended as a tribute to Lady GaGa, who has guaranteed Akon a comfortable living even if he never has another hit. Maybe he should just go into promotion and forget this whole making records business. He wouldn’t be the first.

Update: Whoops, there I go forgetting to check the credits again. This was produced by David Guetta, so just ignore that first sentence.

Maroon 5—”Stutter”
#84
Catchier than their previous records off the new album, but in its own way just as stiff and claustrophobia inducing. Their clockwork groove is like a wall they build between the music and whatever emotion is supposedly generating it. Which means they’re either trying too hard or are too tasteful to get really funky. Working with a producer other than the tireless careerist Robert John Lange might help.

Jesse McCartney—”Shake”
#90
A few years ago, Jesse McCartney was the equivalent of Justin Bieber, only with a little more funk and without the hordes of screaming girls. Now he seems to be in limbo. His voice has matured, but his material still has a teenage quality to it (doesn’t everybody’s?) that doesn’t quite match with his voice. I like the telephone gimmick leading into the chorus, and this is catchy and almost funky enough to get by, but the song’s slightly Bieberish quality throws me off. He’s like a solo version of Maroon 5: his heart is in the right place, but his music is too stiff to catch up.

Diddy – Dirty Money featuring Drake—”Loving You No More”
#91
This goes down smooth and easy in the background, but like most muzak, once you get up close you notice how barren it is. And that’s even before Drake clears his throat and starts to rap.

Mike Posner—”Please Don’t Go”
#94
Pleasant but forgettable, which is a step up from his last record, which was brainless (often mistaken for pleasant) and irritating. I like the random electronics on the last verse, but the rest of it is sap. With guys like Posner and Owl City on the scene, the hipness quotient of electronic music is going to nosedive fast, if it hasn’t already.

Bubbling Under:

Zac Brown Band featuring Jimmy Buffett—”Knee Deep”
#101
When Zac Brown sings by himself, he sounds like James Taylor. When he sings with Alan Jackson, he sounds like Alan Jackson. Guess who he sounds like now? And no, despite the presence of the original inspiration, this is not as good as “Toes”.

Bon Jovi—”What Do You Got?”
#102
Ann Powers swears that Bon Jovi is a great arena band, and though I’ve never thought of that as a distinct genre, I’m willing to take her word on it. All the same, should I ever find myself in an arena with Bon Jovi, this song is when I would seize the opportunity to find a bathroom.

Maroon 5 with Lady Antebellum—”Out of Goodbyes”
#103
Apparently anyone who comes in contact with Lady Antebellum turns immediately into another version of Fleetwood Mac, and though the voices don’t blend as magically as Buckingham’s and McVie’s, this has its moments (the line about the “storm brewing in his eyes” is perfectly set). But moments is all it has, and though the playing is as precise as you’d expect, Fleetwood Mac was both precise and passionate, and that makes all the difference.

David Guetta featuring Kid Cudi—”Memories”
#104
Never, ever listen to a song called “Memories”. It’s guaranteed to be sentimental, even when it comes on with garish, hard-edged dance beats and features a vocalist who sounds like he’s coked himself hoarse. In fact, that might be even worse.

Bruno Mars featuring Damian Marley—”Liquor Store Blues”
#105
This doesn’t work, largely because Mars’s overdeveloped pop instinct undercuts whatever sense of “the blues” he may possess, but I’m fascinated by his attempts to show a serious side, or at least some sort of social conscious (this, “Billionaire”, maybe even “Fuck You”). It’s not the sort of thing you find in most masters of lighthearted melodic hooks, and it suggest that if he can ever manage to balance the two, he could become a major artist, instead of just a highly successful one.

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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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