Posts Tagged ‘Little Big Town’

The Highway Don’t Care, But My Songs Do: Hot 100 Roundup—2/23/13

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Fall Out Boy—“My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up)”
#26

I’ve never been a fan of Fall Out Boy. Their songs, their playing, and their ideas always seemed muddled to me, and when you combined those with their obvious ambition and self-absorption you got a lot of pretentious mess. I was glad when they decided to go on hiatus (from which I assumed they wouldn’t return), because I could only see them getting worse if they carried on. But now they’re back, and the time off has obviously been good for them, because their comeback single is focused, imaginative, and even comes close to making sense (at least to me; I’m sure it makes perfect sense to them). Naturally enough, the song is at least partially about their time off. At least, I assume that’s what the “dark” of the title partly refers to (these guys love puns and multiple meanings). The best stroke is in the title itself, the idea of a songwriter being informed of mysterious goings on (by who or in what context we’re never told) by the songs he writes. It reveals songwriting as a kind of self-telepathy along the lines of Norman Mailer’s famous statement “I don’t know what I think until I write it down” (and yes, I had no idea what the song was about until I started writing this). These guys have obviously stored up enough anger to drive their songs without a lot of fancy ideas, but it’s good to hear them thinking. It’s even better to hear that thought making it’s way into the music instead of confusing it.

Lady Antebellum—“Downtown”
#45

After the run of mediocre singles that followed the wonderful “Need You Now” (there were seven of them, in case you’re counting), I figured Lady Antebellum for one of those groups who have one great song in them, and then repeat the formula for as long as it takes for the magic to wear off and they disappear from view. But “Downtown” is a surprise in every way, a slice of stripped-down country funk that’s the polar opposite of “Need You Now” and just about everything else in mainstream country. It does have one predecessor: “Pontoon”, and I would be surprised if Little Big Town’s hit wasn’t a strong influence on this one. “Downtown” isn’t as sultry, but it’s funkier, and if the song and arrangement aren’t enough of a surprise, the guitar break sure is. The first great country single of the year, and it’s going to be a hard one to top.

Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko—“Stay”
#57

Adele having opened the door with “Someone Like You”, we’re starting to see a rise in piano-only (or near-piano-only in this case) ballads. Bruno Mars has one (and a good one, too) in the top ten, and now there’s “Stay”. I was impressed at first: the song moves nicely and shifts in ways that keep your attention, and Rihanna’s voice is looser and comes closer to real emotion than she ever has before. But then you have to deal with Mikky Ekko (ugh, what a name), and his “Ed Sheeran wasn’t available so they sent me” vocal. Ekko gets the entire second verse to himself and sinks the record. At at her most mechanistic, at least Rihanna has a voice that keeps your attention. Ekko couldn’t get you to notice him even if he was singing to you in an elevator—you’d mistake him for muzak. There are a lot of guest vocals and raps on Unapologetic, along with dance tracks with not much in the way of lyrics. This is Rihanna’s way, I suppose, of giving herself a break while making sure she doesn’t drop out of public view for more than 25 minutes. I don’t blame her, but if she’s going to do that she needs to find better singers.

Tim McGraw & Taylor Swift—“Highway Don’t Care”
#59

Tim McGraw may be the most overrated country star of the last fifteen years. He’s got a voice, but he uses it for nothing but the usual country sentiment. He’s willing to experiment with sounds and styles, but he always lands in roughly the same place, and those experiments never extend to the ideas or the themes of the songs themselves. He generates a lot of buzz at times, but no heat. On “Highway Don’t Care” he teams up with Taylor Swift, who has already done her part to canonize him, and though neither one of them had a hand in writing the song, it may as well have both their fingerprints on it. Which means it leads nowhere new. Even worse, it takes its sweet time not getting there. The only revelation comes when Swift takes the part of the generic love song playing on the radio: if ever there was proof that it’s her voice as well as her songwriting talents that have made her such a star, this is it. She makes those banal words come alive. Too bad McGraw can’t do the same.

Drake—“Started From the Bottom”
#63

“Started From the Bottom” is more a teaser for the new album than a legitimate single, but I’m impressed by the beat, and by Drake’s switching up of voices. Whatever you may think of him overall, there’s no doubt that he’s improved as a rapper. As for the lyrics, I assume that he means that he and his crew started out from the bottom of the rap game, not life itself. I’m willing to concede that point; how many people would take any teen actor—especially a Canadian one—seriously if he suddenly announced he intended to become a serious rapper? But that doesn’t mean he needs to devote every track to complaining about it.

Kenney Chesney—“Pirate Flag”
#68

Chesney is coming off a string of above-average singles, but this is the fourth single off Welcome To the Fishbowl, and the inspiration doesn’t run quite as deep this time around. Certainly not deep enough to float his pirate ship.

Young Jeezy featuring 2 Chainz—“R.I.P.”
#69

Is he talking about his career? Not yet, I guess.

Chris Young—“I Can Take It From There”
#97

For assembly-line made country slap and tickle, not bad. But I’d have less doubt about his lust if Young didn’t use so many pre-formed parts to put it across.

Wale featuring Tiara Thomas—“Bad”
#99

This is the first time a Wale record has gotten my attention since he teamed up with Lady Gaga on “Chillin’” nearly four years ago. Once again it’s the woman who makes the track worth hearing. When Tiara Thomas announces that she’s never made love but she sure knows how to fuck, the record is essentially over, at least as far as Wale is concerned. Who pays attention to anything else after that? Thomas also outs herself as a cheater who’s guaranteed to break Wale’s heart, which I guess makes her whatever definition of the recently controversial term “bad bitch” you care to apply. The word “bad” applies to Wale, too, but in only one way that I can think of.

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Bad Raps and Country Hacks
Hot 100 Roundup—11/24/12

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

A handful of biz professionals this week (yes, even The Wanted), trying to find a way to tinker with their sound enough to keep it either fresh or relevant (it doesn’t need to be both). Only The Wanted succeed, and their youth probably has a lot to do with it. It’s hard on old pros when the business, and the entire cohort of fans, changes in the matter of a few years—though since it happens every decade and a half you’d think they’d be ready. This doesn’t affect the country folks much—the market changes so gradually that most people don’t even notice it until years after the fact—but boy is it smacking the hip-hop guys upside the head. Ludacris has no idea what to do, and Usher is only going through the motions. Maybe they should take some tips from Kendrick Lamar, whose “Swimming Pools (Drank)” entered the top twenty this week. The success of Lamar—and to a lesser extent Frank Ocean and The Weeknd—may be the most important thing to happen in hip-hop this year. There may not be room for someone like Ludacris anymore. I even have my doubts about Usher.

Ludacris featuring Usher & David Guetta—“Rest Of My Life”
#72

This is worse than terrible—it’s unspeakable. It sounds as if it were made entirely of spare parts: a Guetta beat that goes nowhere, an Usher hook that’s laughable in its feigned intensity and ridiculous “meaningful” pauses, and a couple of Ludicris raps that appear to have been produced by a cliche generating algorithm, and may well have been performed by one (and I thought Lil Wayne had reached a creative standstill). Actually worse than Ludacris’s other current single, “Representin’”, which is saying something. Does this mean that the merger of hip-hop and EDM is already a dead issue? Or can Ne-Yo keep it going all by himself?

Jason Aldean with Luke Bryan & Eric Church—“The Only Way I Know”
#93

The problem with country rap isn’t that it can’t be done well (though it isn’t in this case), or that it represents some sort of cultural imperialism. The problem is that it’s nothing more than an affectation, just another stylistic element for performers to add to their tool kit. When hip-hop and rap took over R&B they changed it completely: the sound, the style, the attitude, the lyrical content, everything. Country rap changes nothing. It’s just the usual rural chauvinism delivered in a sing-songy rhythm, nothing that hasn’t been done by plenty of performers in the past (and much better, too—Johnny Cash, anyone?). So I would hardly call Aldean and his colleagues daring. Besides, Aldean is a terrible rapper, and Bryan, judging by this, can barely speak at all. Eric Church wisely avoids looking a fool by singing the middle eight instead of rapping it. It’s the only decent part of the record, and it isn’t much.

The Wanted—“I Found You”
#95

This is a surprise. After the relative failure of “Chasing the Sun” I expected a rehash of “Glad You Came”, and though this resembles that big hit in some ways, it’s better: less garish, with more variety and a lot more soul. It’s clumsy in spots, but the high points make up for it. The biggest surprise is that two of these guys can really sing. I have no idea which two, but I can wait until they start their solo careers to find out. Since this isn’t selling very well, that may be sooner than anyone expected.

Little Big Town—“Tornado”
#97

Little Big Town is perfect at lighthearted fare like “Pontoon”, but when things get serious and a storm is threatening they can be as heavy-handed and portentous as Carrie Underwood at her worst, even if they’ve learned to tone down the bombast. “Tornado” isn’t much of a song, so they pack it with gimmicks lifted from the T-Bone Burnett school of record production: sparse, hard-edged instrumentation drenched in reverb (there’s a false ending that’s nothing but reverb); lots of echo; off-mike vocals and whistling; and various odd sounds thrown in at seemingly random moments. None of it has anything to do with the song, but it sounds impressive if you’re easily impressed by that sort of thing. I’m not.

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Half Full
Hot 100 Roundup—6/23/12

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris—“All Around the World”
#22
You knew the Eurodisco was coming, right? But this is better than expected, with a great beat and all sorts of nice touches (love those live-sounding drum fills). Bieber’s singing continues to be a pleasant surprise, despite his occasional lapses into Chris Brown-style slurring. The inclusion of Ludacris, however, is a major stumble. When was the last time Ludacris contributed anything worthwhile to a track? I honestly can’t remember, and this is even worse than usual.

Lil Wayne featuring Big Sean—“My Homies Still”
#38
The beat isn’t as stunning as, say, “A Milli” or “Lollipop”, but at least it’s in the same ballpark, and suggests that Wayne is coming out of his post-prison funk. His raps aren’t brilliant, but he sounds like he has his energy back, even if he admits that he’s stepping aside from the game (at least the illegal parts of it). What I want to know is if he really spends his spare time skateboarding and listening to Rebirth?

Little Big Town—“Pontoon”
#51
It’s hard not to think of this as the country version of “Call Me Maybe”, a song so happy and infectious that attempting to resist it would cause a minor seizure. Though it never mentions the subject, it’s also about as sexy as country ever gets, with its deep, gently swelling groove and slide guitar creating a simmering heat. Like too many country records, there’s a certain smugness in its craftsmanship, and the sound could be looser to go with the light lyrical content, but otherwise it’s perfect.

Waka Flocka Flame featuring Nicki Minaj, Tyga & Flo Rida—“Get Low”
#72
This is built around one of the best hooks Flo Rida has come up with (which, whether you hate him or not, is saying something), but I have to admit that much of its appeal for me is based on what isn’t on it. No Flo Rida raps about rough sex and blow jobs, for one thing; Waka Flock Flame not yelling another. Nicki Minaj contributes nothing special, and the same goes for Tyga. But they probably felt that they didn’t need to; the hook carries the record along so well you barely notice the paltriness of everything else.

The Lumineers—“Ho Hey”
#90
Try to imagine a combination of .fun and Mumford and Sons. No, no, stop. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.

Imagine Dragons—“It’s Time”
#93
It would be unfair to label Imagine Dragons as merely fun. imitators. Most likely they were making this sort of record anyway, and are being seized on and promoted by the record company in an attempt to cash in. You can’t blame the band for that. But that doesn’t mean this is any good, or that if “We Are Young” didn’t exist anybody would pay attention to them. This sounds like fun. might if they were fans of Kings of Leon. The total lack of emotional confusion and/or subtlety in the lyric doesn’t help any, either.

The Black Keys—“Gold On the Ceiling”
#97
Boogie.

Thompson Square—“Glass”
#100
The worst kind of country acoustic balladry, based on an extended metaphor that might have worked if they hadn’t tried to get too much out of it or if they hadn’t tried to change it up in the last verse: they’re not just glass, but oil and water and gasoline too. That inconsistency might not have mattered, though, if the arrangement and singing weren’t filled through and through with sap. Oddly enough, that makes it even easier to see through them.

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New this week—6/13/10

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Drake featuring Lil Wayne—”Miss Me”
#15
It’s hard to determine whether Drake is the real thing or not—or anything at all, for that matter. His inability to shake his influences and come forth as himself is a major problem—first time I listened to this I thought his rap was Wayne’s. His self-consciousness has it’s charms (though not when it’s converted into beats), but it could quickly turn into a detriment if he isn’t careful. Sounding unsure of what you’re getting yourself into isn’t exactly the best concept to build a career around. Neither is the pronouncement that “life isn’t a rehearsal” when you sound like you’re still doing warm-ups.

Taio Cruz
“Dynamite”, #26
“Dirty Picture” (featuring Ke$ha), #96
Just to ask the obvious question, shouldn’t a song called “Dynamite” sound explosive? This sure doesn’t. On the other hand, “Dirty Picture” does sound dirty. It also sounds unclean, though that may just be a matter of personal taste.

T.I.
“Got Your Back” (featuring Keri Hilson), #38
“Yeah Ya Know (Takers)”, #44
“Got Your Back” is surprisingly warm and affectionate, suggesting real love, something that T.I. has never managed, or for that matter ever really tried, before. He also seems to be breaking out of his tendency to overpack his arrangements (if there’s such a thing as baroque rap, T.I. makes it)—compared to his last few singles shows admirable restraint, it’s few lose threads tied up quite nicely by Keri Hilson. I just wish someone could have done the same for “Yah Ya Know”.

Nicki Minaj—”Your Love”
#51
With her day-glo wigs and cosplay fashion style, it’s no surprise that Minaj’s idea of romanticism comes out sounding like Sailor Moon in the hood. It’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t quite gel, and it gets confusing. One minute she’s talking about the guy’s stacks and the next she’s dreaming about samurai and geishas who speak Thai somewhere up in the sky, and then she tops it all by turning into Supergirl. She may be on to something, but this is both too obvious and too obscure to get over.

Glee Cast
“Good Vibrations”, #69
“Another One Bites the Dust”, #79
“Tell Me Something Good”, #87
“Loser”, #93
“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, #95
Two more white rap songs from the crew (three if you count “Loser”), and the joke, which worked on “Ice Ice Baby”, has paled considerably. The less said about “Tell Me Something Good” and “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” the better.

3Oh!3—”Deja Vu”
#75
This makes two songs from these guys I actually kind of like, but whether that means they’ve improved or my tastes have collapsed under the constant barrage of electro synths I can’t say. It’s worth noting, though, that this is the first of their songs to suggest that the party party world they inhabit is starting to bore them a little. Is that maturity or exhaustion? Who knows?

Billy Currington—”Pretty Good At Drinking Beer”
#83
Currington’s last single was an overwrought string of country cliches. This is cliche bound as well, but it’s also clever, and not overwrought at all. As an argument for being a lard-ass, it’s even charming.

Little Big Town—”Little White Church”
#94
They’ve learned enough from Miranda Lambert to be tough and honest, and enough from Sugarland to be cheerful and spunky even while laying down the law. Too bad they haven’t learned enough from either to write more than a passable lyric, though putting “not gonna have your baby” in the list of things she won’t do until he marries her is still a jolt.

VV Brown—”Shark In the Water”
#97
I’ve already expressed my admiration for Brown, who appeals to me not only for her upbeat sound but for the range of her musical references and influences. Here she steals from both Paul McCartney and Lou Reed, while making explicit the thread of near hysterical paranoia that runs through many of her songs. It’s also nice to see that, unlike most of her UK peers, she’s managed her US chart debut without depending on an American rapper to give her a commercial leg up. Here’s hoping she gets the attention she deserves.

Neon Trees—”Animal”
#100
What decade is this again?

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