Posts Tagged ‘Demi Lovato’

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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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Teen-pop On the Radio—Finally

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

I have long been frustrated by the way Disney-pop and teen-pop in general have been ignored by terrestrial radio. Though I understand why programmers have avoided the more tween and pre-tween oriented music—that is, the real kid’s stuff—ignoring big-selling artists like Aly and AJ (“Potential Breakup Song” went platinum but never made the Hot 100 Airplay chart), the Jonas Brothers (17 million albums sold, yet they only made the Airplay chart twice, and never got higher than 55), or Demi Lovato, makes far less sense. Though Miley Cyrus managed to break through the barrier with “Party In the USA”, that may have been due more to radio’s love of anything produced by Dr. Luke. Selena Gomez is the only other Disney-associated artist to make any impression on the airplay charts, and she only managed it with her most recent single, “Love You Like A Love Song”, which peaked at 15 in February. Not only would it seem to be in radio’s interest to play records that are actually popular, catching on to these artists would have given them a head start on capturing the audience that will dominate pop culture over the next decade.

Maybe they’re starting to figure that out, even if the realization has come not through Disney (whose influence has faded, at least for the moment) but as the result of an invasion of foreigners. Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Wanted, and One Direction have made major inroads on the airplay chart in the last two months, and are popping up in all sorts of places you wouldn’t expect to find them. Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” finally broke top twenty on the chart this week after being in the top ten in digital sales for almost two months, following Bieber, whose “Boyfriend “ is his first top twenty airplay hit (his previous peak was “Baby”, which made it to 24). Meanwhile, The Wanted, who skirt the demographic edge between teen-pop and whatever comes after (there really isn’t a name for it—just “pop”, I guess), debuted this week on the slowest moving of all radio formats, Adult Contemporary. Even Demi Lovato, who, despite her celebrity, emotional crack-up, and selling several million records has never made Hot 100 Airplay, finally broke through, debuting this week at 72.

It’s possible, however, that this will be short-lived. Bieber’s record has already peaked. Jepsen is still climbing, but chances are the execrable “Payphone” will keep her from making number one, and the Curiosity EP doesn’t suggest any worthy follow-up, at least for a while. She may be destined for one-shot heaven. The same applies to The Wanted and One Direction. Disney is essentially dormant, and though Nickelodeon’s attempts to cash in on the teen market have at least been interesting, only Victoria Justice has made any decent records, and none of them have shown any traction on radio. Unless some other surprise pops up, this may be teen pop’s high water mark for the foreseeable future.

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Of Beez and Men
Hot 100 Roundup—4/21/12

Friday, April 20th, 2012

Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull—“Dance Again”
#27
The music on the chorus is too garish, and Pitbull is wasted, but the verses are great, and this record officially establishes Lopez’s comeback as more successful than Madonna’s. Of course, Lopez achieved this by ripping off the more easily copied bits of Madonna’s style, but she still has the advantage. Does MDNA have any tracks produced by RedOne? Sounds like it should have.

Kanye West featuring Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz—“Mercy”
#38
In just about every way, West’s rap doesn’t fit this song: it breaks the flow, simplifies the beat while complicating the record as a whole, and shows up everyone else’s ignorance by promoting his own intelligence. It’s as if he expects the whole world to come to a halt every time he opens his mouth. Gee, I wonder what that could be a metaphor for? But aside from the exotic main beat, his rap is the only thing that makes this record interesting. West is right: those other guys should shut up and go home.

Kenny Chesney & Tim McGraw—“Feel Like A Rock Star”
#40
My problem with this, besides how dull and cliched it is, is that I can’t get the image of Cheney and McGraw performing it on the ACM Awards out of my head. With Chesney in his sleeveless, fuchsia t-shirt and white cowboy hat, and McGraw in his black v-neck, leather pants, and black leather cowboy hat, they looked like country’s most prominent ambiguously gay couple. The lyrics, with turns of phrase that could easily be taken for gay slang, don’t help matters. Are they trying to tell us something? If they are, that would be the only interesting thing about this record.

Nicki Minaj
“Right By My Side” (featuring Chris Brown), #51
“Beez In the Trap” (featuring 2 Chainz), #78
“Va Va Voom”, #79
“Beez In the Trap” is a classic, “Va Va Voom” likable but nothing special, “Right By My Side” another of Minaj’s unfortunate forays into generic pop (on which, once again, she does an expert Rihanna impersonation). So goes another week in the life of the most promising and frustrating rapper of the last two years. And now she’s cut herself off from Twitter and is complaining about lackluster sales. I suspect if she had only released “Starships” and “Beez In the Trap” before the album came out, instead of all the Roman stuff, that wouldn’t have been a problem (just because you’re the female Weezy doesn’t mean you have to match his release schedule). Whatever the case, it sounds like she could use a vacation.

DJ Khaled feturing Chris Brown, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Lil Wayne—“Take It To the Head”
#63
Sub-par performances all around on the latest, less boomy than usual, Khaled extravaganza. Only Brown sounds like he’s interested. Bet he ends up wishing he hadn’t wasted that hook.

Demi Lovato—“Give Your Heart A Break”
#70
Interesting. This is from Lovato’s LP Unbroken, which came out last September. It’s only the second official single from the album, and releasing something bright and bouncy after the ballad, “Skyscraper”, makes perfect sense, but it’s impossible not to wonder if its release doesn’t have something to do with the success of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. Aside from the lyrics, the first few bars are almost identical. So is this a cash-in? Lovato establishing a prior claim? It’s easy to imagine that Jepsen and her producers drew on this for inspiration, so is this release Lovato’s way of calling them on it? Whatever the case, it’s a great record, if not as great as Jepsen’s. It’s good to hear Lovato doing something upbeat that doesn’t focus on vulnerability or depend on her usual vocal tics.

T.I.—“Love This Life”
#81
It’s an interesting stylistic change-up, but the lyrics are the same-old “the way to a woman’s heart is through your credit card” nonsense. Even when he gets around to mentioning love and affection in the second verse he still ends up talking about all the stuff he’s bought her. Which finally makes me realize why I’ve always had a problem with T.I.: under all the beats and the great flow, he’s as shallow as they come.

Fat Joe featuring Chris Brown—“Another Round”
#83
I congratulate Joe on his weight loss. It’s a hard thing to do. But all I can say about this record is that the adjective in his name still applies to his head. And that goes double for Chris Brown.

Andy Grammer—“Fine By Me”
#87
Not by me, you smarmy twit.

Of Monsters and Men—“Little Talks”
#92
I knew there would be Mumford and Son imitators, and I knew they would be terrible, but I didn’t know they’d be quite as bad as this. I’m reminded of the ghastly folk-pop groups of the mid-sixties, The We Five, maybe, or even The Seekers. This is faster and rougher, because that’s the style, but the result is pretty much the same: pseudo-folk for pseudo-folkies, only this time with blaring, witless horn charts. Some things just never die.

Gloriana—“(Kissed You) Good Night”
#97
As followers in the footsteps of Lady Antebellum, these guys are almost as good, which means they’re almost as bad, too. I appreciate the romanticism, but there’s something unsettling about the line “I should have pushed you up against the wall”, especially when the woman sings it. I’m sure it’s meant in all innocence, but the possessive, domineering tone of it (after he’s admitted to being scared to kiss her in the first place), followed by the woman’s submissive tone when she repeats it, grates and sets off alarms. It’s kind of creepy. Takes all the romanticism right out of it, at least for me.

K’Naan featuring Nelly Furtado—“Is Anybody Out There?”
#99
Two years ago K’Naan was making great records about racism and the horrors of living in Somalia; now he’s singing It Gets Better songs over Smeezingtons-wannabe beats. Furtado sounds so anonymous that every time I hear this I need to strain to remember who it is. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Listen on Spotify

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Hot 100 Roundup—10/8/11

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris—”We Found Love”
#16
It’s not as great, but this may be Rihanna’s most enjoyable single since “Umbrella”. That said, I do worry, though it’s not surprising, that she’s still using her relationship with Chris Brown to fuel her inspiration. This is obvious not just from the recently released video, but also from her choice of collaborator. Harris, who had one of his beats copied wholesale without credit by Brown last year, must have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of putting this together. I bet Rihanna called him as soon as the story broke. It also explains the icy feel of the track: it’s a dish served cold.

Glee Cast
“It’s Not Unusual”, #65
“You Can’t Stop the Beat”, #67
“We Got the Beat”, #83

Birdman featuring Nicki Minaj & Lil Wayne—”Y.U. Mad”
#68
Good beat, the usual goodness from Minaj (hell, I’d listen to an entire Nickelback album if she were featured on every cut), and Birdman, though he spouts nothing but cliches, is at least in good form. As for Wayne, his rap is nothing special (for him), but for the first time since he got out of prison he sounds awake. Maybe he needs to toss out a few dozen guest spots to get back to form. Or maybe Minaj pricked his conscious with her “female Weezy” schtick.

Demi Lovato
“Fix a Heart”, #69
“Unbroken”, #98
It’s a credit to Lovato’s talents as a vocalist that she can glide over lines like “I just ran out of band aids” and ridiculous rhymes like “you can bandage the damage” and still make them sound musical. And it’s a credit to her strength as a human being that she can write a song like “Unbroken”, where she reclaims and swears by the emotional openness that got her into trouble in the first place. So maybe she won’t turn into Connie Francis. She still oversings, though, and she still has to find better material and put it together with more care: the techno backing on “Unbroken” doesn’t fit her voice at all.

Jason Aldean—”Tattoos On This Town”
#81
For Aldean, this cliched nostalgia bomb is actually a step up—better this than another overloud power ballad. He’s still terrible, though. And I really wish he’d found another way to approach the verse about swinging out on a rope over the swimming hole; the way he does it now I always expect him to describe a lynching.

Eric Church—”Drink In My Hand”
#96
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 8/13/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—7/30/11

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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Do the Disney Dance

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Despite it’s obvious popularity and impressive sales record, Disney-pop has been a non-starter on the radio. With the exception of Miley Cyrus, no Disney-associated act, including the Jonas Brothers, has been able to make much of an impression. So unless you’re listening to the cable-only Radio Disney (a doubtful prospect if you don’t have children of a certain age), you’re not going to hear the likes of Aly & AJ, Demi Lovato, or Selena Gomez. There is one other place you can find them, however, or at least one of them: dance clubs. Gomez’s “Naturally” (which has almost surpassed Aly & AJ’s “Potential Breakup Song” as my favorite piece of Disney-pop) has been on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play chart for ten weeks, six of those in the top ten, and last week at number one. This isn’t a surprise—”Naturally” is a near perfect piece of dance pop that would fit seamlessly with the records currently topping the charts (its basic structure owes a lot to Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance”), if it could ever get some mainstream airplay.

The only reason this record isn’t all over the radio is the Disney connection: radio programmers see it as kids music, and are afraid of turning off their more “mature” listeners (despite the fact that “Naturally” is, in almost every way, a far more mature record than, say, Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”, or any number of other “adult” pop records). Club listeners, thank God, just want to dance; they don’t care who makes the music. If only radio programmers were as open-minded.

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New this week—3/28/10

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Justin Bieber—“U Smile”
#27
Musically, this is the most pleasant thing Bieber has done since “One Less Lonely Girl”, but it’s still bland, and also a bit creepy. Bieber’s genuflection to his fan base is about as abject as can be, and the lack of emotional edge in his voice makes him sound more like a willing robot than a real live boy. For now, his tweener fans will remain steadfast, but sooner or later they’re going to want an idol of actual flesh and blood. If Bieber’s lucky, his handlers will eventually provide material that has some. If not, by this time next year we may have forgotten all about him.

T.I.—“I’m Back”
#44
I can understand T.I.’s desire to announce his freedom as loudly as possible, but this is over busy and confused, the bragging lost in a blare of baroque synths and vocal overkill. It’s impressive in its way, but it’s too much, and it gets wearing.

Spose—“I’m Awesome”
#54
Not the next Weird Al by a long shot. The lyrics are grade school level, and the only thing I find funny is the intentionally incompetent scratching—and even that feels forced and obvious.

Usher—“More”
#76
So intent on being on top of the trends that he renders himself unrecognizable, this is where Usher jumps the commercial shark. Combine this with his stint as a mentor on American Idol next week and you have the epitome of an imploding career. Good thing he’s got Justin Bieber as a back-up.

Disney’s Friends for Change (featuring Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato)—“Make a Wave”
#84
Since this sort of “I’m going to save the world by changing myself” rhetoric is Disney’s musical stock and trade, it makes sense that this would be less self-congratulatory and insipid than “We Are the World”. Only slightly, though. I’m also willing to bet that, unlike “We Are the World”, participation was not voluntary. Because nobody’s as self-congratulatory as the mouse.

The-Dream—“Love King”
#92
Though his talent is obvious, I’ve had my doubts about The-Dream’s (self-proclaimed) genius. This goes a long way toward dispelling them. “Love King” is so full of subtle, almost subliminal twists and turns in melody, rhythm, and harmony that every time I listen some new, wonderful touch reveals itself. The neatest trick, both artistically and commercially, comes at the end, when the volume for the last minute of the song drops by nearly half. It doesn’t fade, it just drops. What better way to get radio to play a five minute track than provide DJs with a full minute designed for them to talk over?

Maxwell—“Fistful of Tears”
#96
Maxwell’s material is so subtle that if you’re in the wrong mood, or unless, as on “Pretty Wings”, he hits everything just right, he has a tendency to fade into the background. Here, the line about nearly being driven insane trying to keep his girl from going crazy gets your attention, but the rest drifts a little too far into the ether. Maxwell’s musical and emotional obsessiveness is fascinating, but I’m not sure it’s enough to make him consistently compelling.

George Strait—“Gotta Get to You”
#100
It’s impossible not to admire Strait’s craftsmanship and taste—there’s not a single false step on this record—but as he ages each record seems to be another half-step toward muzak, and this one is a full step. With music this bland his self-assurance takes on a feeling of condescension, as if the success of his seductive moves is a forgone conclusion. Maybe it is, but being so obvious about it suggests that on some level he’s just as crude as any other good ol’ boy.

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New this week

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Mary J Blige featuring Drake—”The One”
#63
As good as it was to know that Blige had found marital happiness, her odes to her man and their relationship didn’t sell very well, so here she toughens up, brings in a ringer, and delivers a rip off of “A Milli” that, if nowhere as good as the original, is still a lot better than Beyonce’s. Drake, whose part seems to have been stuck in as an afterthought, adds nothing but sales power.

Michael Franti & Spearhead—”Say Hey (I Love You)”
#82
Despite the lyrical references to dancehall and production by reggae legends Sly and Robbie, this sounds more New Orleans than Jamaica to me, not that that ‘s a bad thing. It also sounds more Jack Johnson than Franti, which is. There’s something frustratingly automatic about this record in it’s sunny brightness, something a little too perfect, as if everybody were being careful to only color within the lines.

Demi Lovato—”Catch Me”
#89
Lovato’s vocal affectations—the short sharp breaths at the end of phrases, the cracking teen falsetto that at times makes her sound like a 12-year-old—can be so irritating that it’s easy to forget how well they fit the song’s subject: romantic confusion and barely tempered longing. Needless to say, that irritant also acts as a hook, and Lovato oozes innocent charm even as she’s overtaken by lust (though she would never call it that).  She’s no Taylor Swift, but she’s not quite your run of the mill Disney pop princess, either. Of course, that might just be a part of the Mouse’s marketing plan.

Beastie Boys featuring Nas—”Too Many Rappers”
#93
“Grandpa been rapping since ’83.” They’ve lost a few steps over the years, of course, and the clever rhymes and disses don’t flow as freely as they used to, but the beats still thunder, and they’re still smarter and wiser than most. But aging rappers are no less of a conundrum than aging rock stars, and I’m not sure they should waste their time dissing the Black Eyed Peas, no matter how cleverly they manage it. Once they start yelling at kids to get off their lawn, it’s over.

Zac Brown Band—”Toes”
#95
This is the first Jimmy Buffet rip-off (or homage I guess you could call it) I’ve heard that captures Buffet’s laid-back smarts at their best, catchy tunes, silly rhymes, and all. Unfortunately, the silliest rhyme (“care-o” and “dinero”) draws on a feeling of good ol’ boy privilege in a foreign land that comes across as just short of racism.  Perhaps I’m being too sensitive, but this sense of rural superiority (rural meaning good old American values, of course, whatever they are), even, or especially, when drunk or stoned, is one of the things that’s most irritating about current country music, and this song, despite all its charms, strikes me as stepping over the line.

Jeremih—”Imma Star (Everywhere We Are)”
#96
I’m still not sold on “Birthday Sex” except as camp, but building a cut as artful as this one based on nothing but variations on the hook from Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” demonstrates real talent on the make. His phrasing and timing are near-perfect, and there are lyrical moments that suggest he may have more brains than “Birthday Sex” let on. But on only his second single he’s already rapping about how famous he is. Not a good sign.

Beyonce—“Sweet Dreams”
#97
Not bad, but underneath the drums and the low warbling synth is one hell of a corny song. Whenever I hear the male backup singers going “Ho!” in the background I have visions of a dream sequence from some big Hollywood musical from the fifties, full of garish Technicolor and energetic dancers seen only in silhouette, a no-expenses-spared mixture of conspicuous class and pure hokum. That’s entertainment, I guess.

Mat Kearney—“Closer To Love”
#100
I usually try to avoid the “Artist 1 + Artist 2 = Artist 3” formulation when I’m reviewing records, but “Closer To Love” is so lacking in any distinguishing characteristics of its own that it’s unavoidable. So, The Fray + Leona Lewis = Mat Kearney. Sometimes pop really is just formula.

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