Posts Tagged ‘Mac Miller’

Do They Dougie in Kentucky? Hot 100 Roundup—4/13/13

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

Ariana Grande featuring Mac Miller—“The Way”
#10

If I didn’t know that Grande came from Victorious I would have assumed she was a contestant in a Mariah Carey sound-alike contest where the runner-up gets stuck with a Mac Miller feature (the winner doesn’t have to use a feature at all). Not terrible, but Miller is always irritating, and the song is too derivative to be anything but a curiosity. At least Grande imitates the more recent Mariah Carey, and not the ballad and helium queen of the 90s.

Blake Shelton featuring Pistol Annies & Friends—“Boys ‘Round Here”
#67

“Boys ‘Round Here” is such a leap for Shelton, so obviously the best music of his career, that if I’d heard it unlabeled I probably wouldn’t have recognized it as him (though the presence of Pistol Annies might have tipped me off). After Miranda Lambert’s last album I was afraid that Shelton’s version of country was starting to creep into her music, but now it looks like the opposite is happening. Either that or Shelton’s been spending a lot of time listening to Roger Miller. It’s not perfect: the lyrics are limp at times and it could use some editing. Worse, nothing else I’ve heard from Shelton’s new album comes close to it, so maybe this was an inspired one-shot that will never be repeated. Unless, that is, it becomes such a smash that he’s forced to follow it up. Which makes me wish he didn’t say “shit” so prominently in the chorus, even though that’s one of the things that makes this record so wonderful. You still need radio play to be a country star, and Shelton is taking a real chance with this record. I just hope he keeps it up. (By the way, this is the second country single this month to reference “Teach Me How to Dougie”; kind of late, but for country something of a miracle. I wonder when “Gangnam Style” will pop up in a lyric?)

Fall Out Boy—“The Phoenix”
#80

The album is called Save Rock and Roll, and that would appear to be what this is about. Which means that Fall Out Boy have managed to maintain their pretensions over their hiatus, and maybe even added a few. It’s just possible, though, that this time they’ll live up to them. The hook here is amazing, and if the rest of the song doesn’t quite match its power it comes damn close. This sounds as over the top as they always have, but it’s also more controlled, less a shambolic rush and more of a structured explosion. They’ve always had hooks, but now they know how to make them stand out and signify.

Ed Sheeran—“Lego House”
#98

All the sensitive, breathy singing in the world couldn’t redeem this nonsense, in fact it makes it worse. When Sheeran says he’s going to paint her by numbers and put her on the wall, does that mean he’s placing her on a pedestal or claiming her as a possession (as if there’s a difference)? Does he even realize how insulting that metaphor is, that he’s making her out to be a blank canvas that can be filled in by formula to meet his desires? Or is that breathy voice the result of his head being filled with nothing but air?

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Good Records From Bad People
Hot 100 Roundup—5/5/12

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa—“Payphone”
#3
The sheer hackery of this record is revealed by the very elements that are designed to disguise it. That is, the subject matter itself—just mentioning payphones these days is guaranteed to get people’s attention: “Who uses those, anymore?”—and the expletives in the chorus, which in the era of “Fuck You” sound as false and clichéd as moon June spoon. And I hope never to hear Adam Levine’s falsetto again. The most irritating and possibly the worst record of the year; certainly the worst to make top ten.

Linkin Park—“Burn It Down”
#30
As long as they’re driven by decent hooks and can be taken as metaphors for personal drama, I can just stand Linkin Park’s apocalyptic scenarios. When the music drones loudly like this, however, and when their need to say something important overwhelms any sense of proportion they may possess, they’re unbearable. This is only half way to unbearable, but that’s far enough for me.

Mac Miller—“Loud”
#53
A mixtape cut, which means Miller’s turn from old-timey samples to electronics may not mean anything in the long run. Not that Miller’s records mean anything, anyway. He’s isn’t a terrible rapper, but he sure isn’t a great one, and he has nothing original to say. He does have diamonds on his chain, though. No, really, he has diamonds on his chain.

Rick Ross featuring Drake & French Montana—“Stay Schemin’”
#58
I find the slow motion chorus intriguing, and Drake is rapping better than ever, but this sounds exactly like what it is: a mixtape track that got enough attention from fans and bootleggers, largely because of Drake, that the label decided to issue it as a single. In other words, a rip-off. But hell, why shouldn’t an otherwise free track make you some money off of those who aren’t in on game while at the same time thwarting those pesky bootleggers who had the idea first? That’s what scheming’s all about, isn’t it?

Kanye West featuring DJ Khaled—“Way Too Cold”
#86
What may be most fascinating about Kanye West right now is how unpredictable he’s become. Most artists at this point in their career start to smooth things out: their music becomes more polished, which many often mistake for maturity, capitalizing on their strengths while limiting experimentation to those ideas that can easily be folded into an existing sound. West appears to be doing the opposite: his records are getting rougher and more outrageous every time out. He seems to be running on pure instinct. The result is throwaway tracks like this, a fast moving, unpolished rant that builds and builds and gives you the feeling that it could get even bigger. Until, that is, DJ Khaled steps up to the mike and starts reading the names of Chicago neighborhoods off a gazetteer. Without Khaled, this is a near perfect record. I would have been happy to hear that great beat bump along for the last minute and a half without any more raps at all. Did West owe the guy a favor or something?

Chris Brown—“Sweet Love”
#89
I go back and forth on this one. Brown’s vocal is as irritating as he’s ever been (is there anyone in pop who sounds more self-satisfied?), but the music is amazing: brash and energetic, with a lilt that adds a pleasant and unexpected romantic tinge to the whole. It’s messy, but it works. Couldn’t producer Polow Da Don have given this beat to somebody else? Anybody else?

Toby Keith—“Beers Ago”
#95
After demonstrating, on “Red Solo Cup”, how a country beer-drinking song should go, Keith now focuses on the subject of country teen nostalgia, which once again features beer. It’s almost as if he’s presenting a masters class on how to rejuvenate tired country themes. Rule number 1: include as much realistic and humorous detail as possible. Rule number 2: don’t lose count of your beers.

Gotye—“Eyes Wide Open”
#96
It’s not fair to make a judgment after only two singles, but this record helps to confirm my belief that Gotye is the Gerry Rafferty of our era: a talented, intelligent, well-meaning guy who has his flashes of inspiration but isn’t a genius, and who will make a number of enjoyable but unimpressive records and one or two great ones. He’s already made a great one. If he’s lucky he’s got one more left. This isn’t it.

John Legend featuring Ludacris—“Tonight (Best You Ever Had)”
#97
If this had been released five years ago, I would say that Legend was talented but a couple of years behind the times. Now I’m not sure what to say, except that Ludacris is even further behind.

Future—“Same Damn Time”
#100
A lot of this is fairly standard Atlanta rap, and Future, though he has something of a gift for words, doesn’t have that much different to say from everybody else (two girls at once? amazing!). The vocals, however, are something else. He goes from straight shouting to a flow obviously based on T.I. to electronically stretching his voice to the breaking point. If you’re not listening closely, it sounds like he has lousy breath control, and maybe the idea was to recreate the sound of someone trying to speak while their lungs are full of smoke. Which isn’t all that meaningful of an idea, either, and though I’m willing to give him credit for possibly trying to get at something more important, I have no clue as to what that would be.

Listen on Spotify

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Hot 100 Roundup—1/7/12

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Taylor Swift featuring The Civil Wars—“Safe and Sound”
#30
It’s time, I suppose, for Taylor Swift to tweak her sound, but working with T-Bone Burnett—the man who has ruined more good performers than just about any producer I can think of—wasn’t the direction I was hoping for. This isn’t bad, but it’s just an average alt-folk ballad, a genre placement that should scare anyone who cares about Swift’s career. This is a soundtrack cut, so it may not mean much in terms of Swift’s future direction, but it’s worrying all the same. Even at her worst she’s never sounded so ordinary.

Flo Rida featuring Sia—“Wild Ones”
#57
Why did I never notice that Flo Rida has a lisp? No wonder he raps so fast. As for Sia, she seems willing to degrade herself in any way—first David Guetta, now this—if it means becoming the third-rate Robyn she’s always been destined to be.

Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z & Andre 3000—“I Do”
#61
Not a great track; no one is in top form, but the difference in approach is interesting. Jeezy holds out the promise of marriage, but it’s just a ploy, because all he really wants is to get laid. Jay-Z, needless to say, takes the subject more seriously, maybe too seriously; he sounds as if he were holding himself back, trying to fictionalize his own situation to make it seem more gangsta. Andre 3000, meanwhile, is semi-serious but sounds like he’s still having fun, even while planning yet more headaches for poor Ms. Jackson.

Skrillex—“Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites”
#69
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 8/20/11

Adam Lambert—“Better Than I Know Myself”
#76
Lambert has real talent, but this is a mess. Not only is the arrangement ridiculous, but when he isn’t hitting impressive high notes Lambert’s voice sounds thin and out of place. He loves flash, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself when he’s closer to the ground. And songs that are all flash are hard to come by.

Nicki Minaj—“Stupid Hoe”
#81
A dis track designed to allow Minaj to show off as many of her voices as possible. It’s impressive, if not quite enjoyable, or even coherent. One question: if this is directed at Lil Kim, why does Minaj do a Rihanna impersonation (which finishes with a horrible flat note) near the end? Is there a separate target for each voice? That would be impressive.

Mac Miller—“Knock Knock”
#88
Miller is an average rapper at best—when he talks about being deeper than the water Michael Phelps is in, he does realize that’s only about eight feet, right? But he has the one gift that all party rappers need: he knows how to put a hook together, and to make it unusual enough to get people’s attention in the first place. In other words, he’s an earworm menace. If he ever managed to get on the radio—for now his records are too quirky and filled with obscenities to qualify—he could be dangerous.

V.I.C.—“Wobble”
#94
This is the sort of bubbly pop-rap I’m a sucker for, but it’s so mechanical it wears quickly, and instead of emphasizing the rhythms as it goes on it seems to downplay them, a mistake on any record that has nothing much to say lyrically. I enjoy its lack of pretension, but it’s still a miss.

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Hot 100 Roundup—11/26/11

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Taylor Swift
“If This Was a Movie”, #10
“Ours”, #13
“Superman”, #26
Swift’s detractors are no doubt salivating over the idea of her releasing a live album, but in the meantime they have to deal with these three new studio recordings, which overall are as good as anything she’s ever done. Her fans, though, have gotten it backwards, debuting these records in reverse order of quality. “If This Was a Movie” is an above average piece of professional pop (if there’s anything country about Swift anymore, I’m having a harder and harder time hearing it), but has nothing special to recommend it. “Ours” is as bright and cheerful as anything Swift has done, and nobody does bright and cheerful better, but it also flirts with coyness. She giggles, not once, but twice. Her giggle is cute and charming, but it’s a dangerous precedent. Finally there’s “Superman”, which is one of the best records she’s made (she knows it, too, that’s why it goes on for nearly five minutes). Superman’s mix of love, frustration, hope, and despair, each illustrated with sudden, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle changes in vocal register and key, isn’t unlike records she’s made before, it’s just better: more confident, more polished, and more emotional. And though the title suggests she’s still mining fantasy worlds, this is more down to earth than some of her previous fairy-tale-like songs. After all, she used fairy tales as a model not because she believed in them, but because fairy tales are so hopeful and optimistic. We could all use a lot more of that right now.

Update: I mistakenly thought these were new tracks, but they were actually released on a bonus disk that came with the Target Exclusive version of Speak Now when it was released last year, and have just been made available for download. That doesn’t change my opinion of them, but I thought it was a good idea to clear that up.

Matt Nathanson featuring Sugarland—”Run”
#53
As a one-hit adult-contemporary wonder Nathanson was irritating but bearable, but now he’s got Sugarland backing him up, which got him a prime spot on the CMAs, so here he is again, emoting cliches with the worst of them. You can tell how much of a hack he is by the insertion of the line “I know that it’s wrong” into the chorus. There’s nothing else in the song that suggests there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing, unless they’re using good sex as an excuse for guilt. As a culture, I thought we were over that. Or is that supposed to make the sex hotter?

Mac Miller—”Smile Back”
#55
Once again, the music is good but the lyrics ordinary. It’s not that Miller’s a terrible rapper, it’s that he has little to say and no original way of saying it. When he sayss that he’s a mixture of Lennon and UGK, all he’s telling us is that he doesn’t really understand either one.

Blake Shelton—”Footloose”
#63
At least the original was light on its feet; this galumphs in the worst mainstream country rock manner. Come to think of it, that’s what’s wrong with most mainstream country rock: they play it too heavy and too slow. I should thank Shelton for making that so obvious.

Glee Cast—”Uptown Girl”
#68

Dierks Bentley—”Home”
#70
Bentley recently performed at the White House, and I assume this was written for the occasion (country cash-ins can be so cheesy). It’s nice to have a piece of country patriotism that isn’t also jingoistic and xenophobic, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

Rihanna—”You Da One”
#73
Does this record actually exist? It’s nice enough when you’re listening to it (and it sounds very familiar), but it has no real peaks or valleys, or anything else to recommend it. When it’s over it’s really over, as if it were never there at all.

Faith Hill—”Come Home”
#82
Weird. This starts like a message to a loved one far away, but it turns out that the opening line, “Hello World” (never a good sign), is meant literally, and the song turns out to be about divisiveness and ideology (“a war between the vanities”), and Hill is urging everyone to get together and smile on your brother. That explains the otherwise inexplicable minute-long, psychedelic coda (if Tommy James & the Shondells is your idea of psychedelic) and the ominous fade. It’s like a countrypolitan flashback to 1969. It would be nice to blame everything on songwriter Ryan Tedder, since he’s responsible for so much bad music these days, but Hill co-produced this without Tedder, and she appears to have taken the song very seriously. I’m sure she meant well.

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Hot 100 Roundup—11/19/11

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Mac Miller—”Party On Fifth Ave.”
#64
I like the music, but Miller is a competent rapper at best, and his verses are full of filler. Even musically, though, this is stiffer than a party song should be.

Glee Cast—”Last Friday Night”
#72

Wale featuring Meek Mill & Rick Ross—”Ambition”
#81
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a rap song that was this serious, or went into any detail about the rappers pre-success life on the streets. The verses here are so heartfelt that even Ross sounds like he’s telling the truth, especially when he talks about his mom praying while she waits for the results. Still, Wale wins the honesty stakes when he admits he never worked the streets himself. That may be one of the bravest things I’ve heard a rapper say in a long time.

Justin Bieber
“All I Want for Christmas is You (SuperFestive!)” (with Mariah Carey), #86
“Drummer Boy” (featuring Busta Rhymes), #99
With Carey and Rhymes on these tracks you expect some craziness, but the insanity is all Bieber’s, and good for him. Forgetting for a moment that neither of these are very good, you have to applaud Beiber for trying. He could easily have cranked out an album of hoary seasonal chestnuts and let his tween fans eat it up. Instead, every track from his Christmas album that’s made the charts has been in a widely different style from the one before it. The Phil Spectorish arrangement on “All I Want for Christmas” is mixed too far below the vocals, and Bieber can’t really rap (or, rather, he doesn’t have a voice that’s suited for it), but I appreciate the effort.

Breathe Carolina—”Blackout”
#92
You can only dance so long in the face of recession and social fragmentation, and it’s beginning to look as if the party’s over. Even Taio Cruz has a hangover, and these guys, determined as they are, are on the brink of collapse. Their defiance is almost tragic: not only do they swear, in what may be the hook of the year, that they won’t blackout, but they’re only getting started and, most ominously, “This won’t stop until I say so.” If they don’t collapse of dehydration I figure they’re heading for an OD or alcohol poisoning, and they want to take you with them. One of the scariest, most depressing party records I’ve ever heard. I wonder if that’s intentional.

Miranda Lambert—”Over You”
#93
I’m still making up my mind about 4 the Record—the songwriting is weaker than on Lambert’s first three albums, though in many ways the music is stronger—but I have no doubt as to the two worst songs, both of which involve Lambert’s husband, Blake Shelton. This is the one they wrote together, and though I bet the basic idea and melody were his, I also bet the best line, “How dare you?” to a lover who has died, is Lambert’s. Whatever the case, this is slow and tedious, and though Lambert does her best to wring the simplistic sentimentality out of it, she doesn’t succeed. Whoever wrote the line “Mid-February/Shouldn’t be so scary” (sure hope it wasn’t Lambert) should be sent to remedial songwriters school immediately.

Kenny Chesney—”Reality”
#97
Funny, the only reality I want to escape is the one that allows Chesney to keep making bad rock records and calling them country. Did Sammy Hagar ghostwrite this for him while they were hanging at Cabo with Jimmy Buffett?

Skrillex—”First of the Year (Equinox)”
#100
OK, shoot me if you want, but I love this. Too soft in the soft parts, too loud in the loud ones, with unmusical screams and lots of grinding and distortion, this is dubstep as pop metal, and it’s just about perfect. In some ways, Skrillex plays it safe: he never steps off the beat, and he keeps something resembling a melody drifting through the entire track (though it does get kicked in the ass and jerked out of place a few times). For all the noise he never drifts far from the pop basics, which, as far as I’m concerned, is exactly how it should be.

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Hot 100 Roundup—9/3/11

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Lil Wayne featuring Drake—”She Will”
#3
Not terrible, just boring. Wayne gets off a few good lines, and at least Drake isn’t wallowing in self-pity. But the whole thing is so torpid it’s almost beyond belief. There are pauses where you can almost see Wayne trying to find his place on the lyric sheet, and when he introduces the third go round of Drake’s chorus with a muttered “Ladies and gentlemen, Drizzy” he may as well be saying “Uh, play that bit of tape one more time.” Wake up, guys.

Lady Antebellum—”We Owned the Night”
#47
You can actually hear how confident they’ve become, but it’s confidence in the service of lyrical cliches and only slightly interesting music. One near-great song and they think everything they touch is golden.

Mac Miller—”Frick Park Market”
#60
A word of advice: don’t brag about your rhyming skills with a line where you match “hair” and “here”. Just don’t.

Nicole Scherzinger—”Don’t Hold Your Breath”
#86
I’m impressed that Scherzinger keeps trying, but her commercial ambitions are way beyond her talents, possibly because she seems to have no musical ambitions at all. This isn’t horrible, but it’s so blah you barely notice it playing.

AWOLNATION—”Sail”
#89
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 6/18/11

Colbie Caillat—”Brighter Than the Sun”
#90
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 6/11/11

Thompson Square—”I Got You”
#95
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/23/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—6/11/11

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Scotty McCreery—”I Love You This Big”
#11
Lauren Alaina—”Like My Mother Does”
#20
At first listen it seems as if the latest American Idol survivors have been granted better material than previous winners. But even though these songs are more specific in detail and less generic in overall tone, they’re still terrible, with lyrics that make you gasp in awe at their utter inanity. McCreery and Alaina make the best of it and deliver what they think is expected of them, but McCreery’s voice lacks seasoning—he needs experience: alcohol, sex, even more religion—while Alaina’s attempts to bend her song to her will result in a lot of growling and screaming and only make things worse. They’ll both do better. Whether either of them has the talent or brains to do much better is still an open question.

Glee Cast
“Light Up the World”, #33
“Pretending”, #40
“For Good”, #58
“I Love New York/New York, New York”, #81
“As Long As You’re There”, #93

Lady GaGa
“You and I”, #36
“Marry the Night”, #79
The pleasure I take in Born This Way is largely a matter of sonics and structure. That’s not a putdown. When you create something that for the most part is collage and pastiche, both musically and lyrically, sonics and structure are what make the difference between bland imitation and creating something new, and GaGa gets them right every single time. And then she boosts them. The drums and guitar on “You and I” may owe their inspiration to Queen, but they outstrip and outboom anything that band ever did, and the fact that they’re tied to a song that borrows from highway rock and roll and even country and western puts it in a league of its own. “Marry The Night”, meanwhile, is more Springsteen-inspired disco, with a coda beamed in from a mid-90s rave. I still have my doubts about her lyrics, which are often blander than they need to be, and I don’t think she’s making anything truly new out of her sources, but her merger of hard rock with disco diva anthems (which is what that ridiculous cover photo is all about, in case you were wondering) is wondrous, even if it ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere. Don’t think of it as something new, but as a well-earned celebration of a greatness we may have missed at the time.

Beyonce—”1+1″
#57
I have my doubts about Beyonce’s soul moves, especially her high notes and the dynamics that accompany them, but thematically this is a breakthrough, the first Beyonce song about a relationship I’ve heard in which she isn’t either asserting her iron-willed dominance or making like a supplicant to her godlike man. That see-sawing from one extreme to another was getting tiresome, and this is a welcome relief. I bet it’s a relief to Jay-Z, too.

Lil Wayne—”How To Love”
#69
I don’t think it’s the softness of sound that has caused so many people to write this song off. Sentimentality is as much a part of rap as any other kind of music, and if anyone has earned the right to a little mellow down time it’s Lil Wayne. What probably bothers hardcore rap fans more is the sense of empathy the song is based on. It isn’t really a love song, and it certainly isn’t a sex song. Instead, it’s a real attempt to understand where this woman is coming from and what she’s feeling, something more along the lines of Prince’s “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” (even though the situation appears to be completely different) than your standard lover man rap. In other words, thematically it’s as far from the mainstream of rap as Wayne’s phrasing and twisting trains of thought have always been. Like the pre-prison “I’m Single”, it’s a record by someone who’s trying to sort out the world in all it’s aspects, not just as it relates to his place, position, and pleasure. Musically, Wayne still isn’t sure what to make of these ideas, so he falls too readily into cliche, but if he should ever figure it out, or find a collaborator who has, then watch out: he may well remake rap yet again.

Reeve Carney featuring Bono & The Edge—”Rise Above 1″
#74
Not sure exactly what I expected a Broadway soundtrack written by Bono and The Edge to sound like, but I wasn’t expecting standard-issue U2, that’s for sure. Way to stretch your stylistic limits, guys. As for Reeve Carney, his Bono imitation is so exact I can only assume he thinks of Spiderman as a warm-up for that more lucrative U2 biopic that’s bound to appear sooner or later. Either that or he has a great future in tribute bands.

Mac Miller—”Donald Trump”
#80
The white version of Wiz Khalifa, or Waka Flocka Flame, or maybe even Big Sean. How did we stand the wait?

Kenny Chesney featuring Grace Potter—”You and Tequila”
#92
Strong, steady, and never overdone, this is as good as Chesney is ever going to get. With Grace Potter playing Emmylou Harris, he almost sounds human. There’s still something that doesn’t come across, though, and the stiff perfectionism of this record keeps it from classic territory. Damn close, though.

Rihanna—”Man Down”
#94
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 6/4/11

Lupe Fiasco featuring Trey Songz—”Out Of My Head”
#98
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 5/21/11

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