Posts Tagged ‘Jerrod Niemann’

Hot 100 Roundup—8/13/11

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Kreayshawn—”Gucci Gucci”
#82
Normally I would applaud a catchy record that satirizes status seeking, and especially hip-hop’s fascination with high-fashion brands. The problem is that Kreayshawn’s targets aren’t rich rappers, they’re the poor who are taken in and taken advantage of by the rap world’s tireless product placement. In other words, she’s a snob whose putdown of “basic bitches” is as heartless as the comments on the poor you hear at Tea Party rallies. Maybe she should get a gig on Fox News.

Rascal Flatts featuring Natasha Bedingfield—”Easy”
#87
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/30/11

Rihanna—”Cheers (Drink To That)”
#91
It’s unfair to make career judgments about an artist based on the sixth single off an album that’s been out for nearly a year, but it’s hard not to wonder what’s going on. This isn’t Rihanna’s worst single; that would be her previous record, “Man Down”. It may even be better than the record before that, “California King Bed”. But it still makes three stinkers in a row. I’m glad she’s getting a break after an intense two years, but pumping out one sub-par record after another isn’t buying time, it’s killing her career. Better to disappear for a year and come back refreshed. Records like this just make things worse.

The Black Eyed Peas—”Don’t Stop the Party”
#93
Shifting into cruise control is one way to keep the party going, I suppose, but this is the sound of a band that’s learned all the tricks and can apply them in their sleep. It’s not terrible, though; it isn’t even embarrassing. Which is another way of saying it doesn’t show much energy or inspiration. And without energy and inspiration these guys barely exist. No wonder they’re going on hiatus.

Adele—”Rumour Has It”
#96
This is the first Adele record I’ve heard that comes close to justifying the praise she’s been receiving, but all it says to me is that she can be good, not that she’s the savior of “authentic” pop music. It helps that this is pure girl-group, and that she’s more interested in delivering a sonic wallop than in baring her soul. In fact, the soul-baring bit in the middle eight is the worst part of the song. Like most people, she’s better at putting on an act than being “authentic”. As she gets older maybe she’ll own up to it.

Craig Campbell—”Fish”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/30/11

Matt Nathanson—”Faster”
#99
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/9/11

Jerrod Nieman—”One More Drinkin’ Song”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/23/11

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Bubbling Under—7/23/11

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Thompson Square—”I Got You”
#108
Another sign that the most powerful outside influence on country is no longer the Eagles, or even Fleetwood Mac, but Tom Petty. The Hammond organ is the giveaway, along with the occasional elegiac sustained chord sequence. The lyrics, however, are pure cliché (unlike Petty, who’s only banal), and, as usual for modern country, the guitars are way too loud.

Pistol Annies—”Heel On Heels”
#110
The red dirt slide guitar intro is great, and on first hearing I couldn’t imagine any country artist who could rise to its promise. Even though this is far better than average, I still can’t. The lyrics are wonderful—the devil made them smart and they have your credit card to boot—and I like that Miranda Lambert makes no attempt to upstage her colleagues. But this is still a little stiff, and the clapping on the last chorus is a mistake: I think it’s intended to demonstrate feminine solidarity, even in the pursuit of evil, but all it does is soften the sound and atmosphere. They should have tried it with just that ghostly, menacing guitar.

Miguel—”Quickie”
#116
The Wailers-style harmonies leading into the chorus is one of the funniest moments to grace a pop record this year, and overall this pulls off a canny mixture of hip-hop and dub that I find fascinating. The lyrics are pleasantly silly throughout, but the association of true love with near-violent sex is bothersome, even if it’s just part of the joke.

Daddy Yankee featuring Prince Royce—”Ven Commigo”
#118
A Latin rap/dance record that really makes me wish I spoke, or at least understood, Spanish. There’s a stretch in the middle where the staccato rhymes, if the words are on a level to match, are something special, and the occasional moments of English are odd enough (“I’m so hood…like Tiger Woods”) that I wish I understood more. It gets repetitive near the end, but before that it changes up nicely, and has an excellent, scene-setting intro. Makes me wish someone would set up a Latin rap translation site (if there already is one, let me know).

Jerrod Nieman—”One More Drinkin’ Song”
#119
Not to be picky, but shouldn’t the singer of a happy-go-lucky drinking song sound like he actually drinks every once in a while? It’s clever in spots, sometimes too clever, but there isn’t a single moment of spontaneity or recklessness in the entire song. It comes off as nothing more than a stiff genre experiment. Nieman’s a talent, but he may be too much of a perfectionist for his own good.

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Hot 100 Roundup—12/26/10

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

Lil Wayne Featuring Cory Gunz—”6 Foot 7 Foot”
#9
The background provided by Bangladesh is so stupid—and not in a good way—that it almost ruins the record for me. Wayne himself saves it. His gnomic notes to himself—you can almost see him obsessively scrawling them out in his cell—are so full of twists and turns and puns, words and phrases pulled inside out and examined to reveal newer if not always deeper meanings, that even if he isn’t saying much he seems to say it all. Writing down his raps has tightened and intensified his language, revealing more about his character than any of his free-form, off-the-cuff displays, brilliant as they were, ever did. Turns out he’s something of a grammarian, though that should have been obvious a long time ago.

Taio Cruz featuring Travie McCoy—”Higher”
#80
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 12/19/10

Nicki Minaj featuring Drake—”Moment 4 Life”
#82
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 12/5/10

P!nk—”Fuckin’ Perfect”
#86
“Fuck” being the word of the moment (word of the year, really), P!nk, with her usual commercial intuitiveness, tosses it into the title of a song in which the word itself doesn’t appear. I wish it did; it might liven up this otherwise bathetic self-empowerment ballad.

Jerrod Niemann—”What Do You Want”
#90
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 12/12/10

Thompson Square—”Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not”
#92
Sugarland as Bon Jovi, just what we’ve been waiting for.

R. Kelly—”When A Woman Loves”
#93
I loved the video for this when it came out a few months ago, but I guess this is just another example of a mediocre record being lifted by it’s accompanying visuals (this is why I don’t watch Glee; I don’t want its horrible music tainted by theatrical quality). What looks loving and soulful in the video turns out to be stiff and lifeless when heard on its own. Kelly isn’t that great a singer, and his soul inflections sound calculated and more often verge toward homage, and even parody, rather than actual emotion. His “Thank you” at the end, which works in the video, sounds like a dumb, knowing wink on the record, as if the whole thing was nothing but a stylistic game.

Fabolous—”You Be Killin’ ‘Em”
#94
Though this eventually turns into one of the most sexist pop songs I’ve heard in some time (“She looks like the best money I ever spent” Fabolous says of his latest acquisition), what really sums it up for me comes in the first 30 seconds. After a brief intro establishes the electric piano riff that drives the song, Fabolous steps up to the mike, and by way of introduction, says “Niiiice”. The first thought that came into my head: “Isn’t it a little late in the day for a Vanilla Ice parody?” Second thought: “This isn’t a parody.”

The Script—”For the First Time”
#97
At first I was willing to give them points for writing about something truly meaningful: the stress economic hard times places on relationships. A lot of songs have been written about that, though (I’m sure there are a couple of hundred songwriters in Nashville working on it right now), and The Script’s tin ear for detail and sentimental musicality guarantees that this is nothing but a sop to those who feel they need a good sorrowful wallow every once in a while to get by. Every human emotion has its exploiter; self-pity, meet The Script.

Mariah Carey—”Oh Santa!”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 12/19/10

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Hot 100 Roundup—12/12/10

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

Glee Cast
“Dog Days Are Over”, #22
“Hey, Soul Sister”, #29
“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, #38
“Valerie”, #54
“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, #97

Coldplay—”Christmas Lights”
#25
Even with Brian Eno producing, they’re still a bunch of pretentious boobs, and this sounds like what might have happened if Genesis had tried to rewrite The Pogues’s “Fairytale of New York”. Except this version focuses entirely on how sorry the guy is feeling for himself; it never dares to suggest that he might deserve his lonesome fate. Maybe that’s because it’s too busy trying to sort out its pseudo-poetic lyrics: “I took my feet down to Oxford street”. Really? Did you carry them in a sack?

Flo Rida featuring Akon—”Who Dat Girl”
#55
Flo Rida’s presence is so minimal in relation to everything that makes this record worthwhile you’d barely know he was on it if you didn’t read the credits. If you did, you’d realize how much this record owes not only to Akon, who sings the hook, but also the omnipresent Bruno Mars, who co-wrote it, and Dr. Luke, who produced it. Makes you wonder what Mr. Rida’s actual contribution is. How about being the guy who knows what sells? That’s always enough to make you look like a supreme talent.

Victorious Cast featuring Victoria Justice—”Freak the Freak Out”
#78
This is the first of the Nickelodeon singles that comes close to the level of the Disney-pop they hope to cash in on, and it arrives just as Disney-pop itself is beginning to fade into memory. There will always be a market for clean-as-a-whistle, bouncy pop, and maybe Nickelodeon can cash in on the next generation (these things being counted, as they are, in five year intervals). This record, which is more Selena Gomez than Miley Cyrus, though nowhere near the best of either, sounds like a good place to start.

The Killers—”Boots”
#79
Did I say Coldplay were pretentious? They are, but only if you don’t compare them to The Killers. Lyrics that shift through time and space, suffused with regret and nostalgia; churchbells and thundering martial drums; a clip of Jimmy Stewart praying in It’s a Wonderful Life layered over opera and someone singing in Spanish; melodies swiped from Neil Young and cover art referencing Citizen Kane—this is their idea of a Christmas record. It’s as if they came from a planet where confusion is considered the highest possible art form (oh, I forgot, they’re from Vegas). Still, I like these guys a lot more than Coldplay because they at least partially justify their pretension. This is a mess, but the hooks soar the way they’re supposed to, the emotions, though difficult to sort out, are palpable, and Brandon Flowers sings like a human being. A confused one, I grant you, and one with delusions of grandeur, but human nonetheless. How many of those do you usually find on the pop charts?

Birdman featuring Lil Wayne—”Fire Flame”
#84
Wayne sounds like his old self, if not at his highest level (judging by the sound of “6’7″”, this was just a warm-up). Birdman sounds like his old self, as well, at a level that’s a little easier to reach. The result is perfectly fine, but nothing special.

Far*East Movement featuring Ryan Tedder—”Rocketeer”
#93
At this moment in time, it may look as if no one can lose with a Bruno Mars hook on their record, but that only applies if Mars is singing it. Tedder does a pretty good imitation, and no doubt this is a worthwhile break from writing “Halo” yet again, but this lacks both Mars’s sense of humor and his sense of reality. The rest is even worse, an indicator that Far*East Movement may be another one of those groups whose guests are better than they are. Maybe it’s time to check out that Dev & The Cataracs record.

Bubbling Under:

Fantasia—”I’m Doing Me”
#101
This is right up with Monica’s “Love All Over Me” in the “do they really know what they’re singing about?” sweepstakes. I get the feeling, though, that Fantasia has a better sense of what’s going on than Monica does. Which doesn’t save this from being ordinary in almost every other respect. Fantasia’s last couple of singles had a good neo-soul vibe to them, but this is tepid. You don’t suppose they pegged it as a single just because of the title, do you?

Chris Brown—”No BS”
#102
In which Brown promises a night of perfect sex (the condoms are in the dresser, darling) over a rhythm track that sounds like giant insects are trying to break into the room. The whole thing makes me feel itchy, and not in a good way.

Charlie Wilson—”You Are”
#103
After “There Goes My Baby”, I was hoping that Wilson would be able to mount a real comeback, but this is retro in the worst possible way. That is, it really does sound old, and it makes Wilson sound old, too.

Jamie Foxx featuring Drake—”Fall For Your Type”
#104
Jamie Foxx is a smart, talented guy, but he thinks he’s a lot smarter and talented than he actually is, and he overreaches and fails over and over again. This record is a complete conceptual disaster, its tempo too slow for its subject, its subject too light for its pretentious heaviness, its flashes of ego unleavened by humor or sense. Drake is more bearable than usual, but that’s all that can be said for it.

Jerrod Niemann—”What Do You Want”
#105
Niemann is good at what he does, but too much of what he does seems to be focused on nothing more than demonstrating how good he is. He’s a country classicist, and though there’s nothing wrong with that—it’s something of a relief, actually—it isn’t enough. This is perfectly crafted and absolutely empty.

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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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