Posts Tagged ‘Miley Cyrus’

New this week—2/28/10

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Christopher Wilde
“Hero”, #57
“StarStruck” #77
“Something About the Sunshine” (with Anna Margaret), #81
Christopher Wilde, in case you’re not a connoiseur of the Disney Channel, is the name of the fictional teen heart-throb in Disney’s latest made-for-TV tweener extravaganza, StarStruck. The actor who does the singing here is Sterling Knight, who the folks at Disney are no doubt hoping will become a real heart-throb. As Disney soundtracks go, these three songs are above average, less cutesy than the Hannah Montana or High School Musical numbers, without all the cloying lyrical uplift. They’re also more mature. “StarStruck” includes a line about girls who want to take Christopher out on a date and make him holler, which in the Disney universe is as close as you can get to an NC-17 rating. Disney is obviously beginning to realize that the audience for its teen fantasies is older than it was when High School Musical debuted four years ago. Those tweeners are into their mid- to late-teens now, and they want a little romance, and even a suggestion of sex, with their song and dance. But even though these are more adult than the standard Disney fare, they’re also not up to the best of the non-soundtrack material that Disney artists like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Aly & AJ have put out the last couple of years. “Starstruck” moves along nicely, but it has nothing new to say about fame (Lady GaGa would seem to have a lock on that theme at the moment), and though I like the bouncy/stretchy sound effects on “Something About the Sunshine”, it’s obvious they’re there to hide its other weaknesses. So I’ll give Disney an A for effort and for upping their game, but only a B for the results.

k.d. lang—”Hallelujah (Vancouver Winter 2010 Version)”
#61
A few weeks ago I was complaining about Justin Timberlake’s attempt to recontextualize this song after the earthquake in Haiti. But this, performed by Lang at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics (and what a celebratory piece of work it is!) is even worse. Verse by verse, Lang drains every ounce of meaning out of the song, and then bathes the final chorus in one of the most banal string arrangements I’ve ever heard. Even at the peak of her popularity I thought Lang was overrated, but I never thought she’d get as bad this.

DJ Khaled featuring T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg & Rick Ross—”All I Do Is Win”
#64
The frustrating thing about DJ Khaled (aside from his fuzzy, overloaded, melodramatic beats) is that he’s a one-idea man. That doesn’t need to be a detriment—a lot of DJs have made great records with less than an idea—but Khaled’s depends entirely on the guests he finagles into rapping on his productions. The result is an often irritating variation in quality, not just from record to record, but within each record itself. In this case, he gets a mediocre but passable hook from T-Pain, a slightly above-average rap from Ludacris, and an unintelligible, below-average rap from Rick Ross. Then, just as you’re getting ready for the wind-down of another tepid Khaled production, Snoop Dogg steps up to the mike, and in four lines blows a hole in the middle of the record. I’m not familiar enough with Snoop’s stuff to know whether he’s used these lines before—all I know is they’re better than anything else I’ve heard Snoop come up with, and just about any other rapper I can think of, as well. It’s not just a matter of the shock of Snoop’s laid-back style compared to the others’, either, because every time I listen to this record that verse seems even more powerful, more portentous, more menacing. The only thing I can compare it to is Lil Wayne’s rap on Khaled’s “We’re Takin’ Over” a couple of years ago. Exactly why Khaled’s productions should be so inspirational to these guys I have no idea. Maybe there’s more to those beats than I’m picking up on.

Usher—”There Goes My Baby”
#71
The best thing Usher has done in years (he appears to have been listening to a lot of Ne-Yo and Maxwell), but still far short of whatever mark he’s aiming for. Whoever or whatever made him decide to cut short the middle-eight, which would have brought the song to a higher level, should be booted out of his entourage, or his head, as quickly as possible.

3Oh!3 featuring Neon Hitch—”Follow Me Down”
#89
You knew once they stopped being offensive they’d be boring, right?

Mariah Carey featuring Nicki Minaj—”Up Out My Face”
#100
Over the last few years Carey has been making the best music of her career (not a great leap, I know)—just in time for her audience to dry up and everyone under the age of 25 to start ignoring her. Judging by this record, which is only slightly above average but which she obviously had a great time making, and by reports of her recent concert appearances, she doesn’t really care. Good for her. That’s the sort of attitude that could make her even better.

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New this week—1/24/10

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Sade—”Soldier of Love”
#58
Sonically this is stunning, especially the drums, which switch seamlessly in sound from a military tattoo to distant artillery to nearby gunfire—it’s enough to make you believe that they spent the entire eight years between albums getting the sound right. The lyrics are banal, though, no matter how gorgeously sung or perfectly set they may be. Their/her attention to musical detail is so complete that they seem to have completely missed the oxymoron in the title, or considered the possibility that they’ve never found real love because they think of it as a battlefield to begin with. That’s the trouble with perfectionism: once it latches onto an idea, it can’t abide contradictions.

Lady Antebellum–”Ready To Love Again”
#72
The ever-more-questionable single-a-week campaign continues, and sure enough, here comes the dreck. This sounds like the closing credits music for some Lifetime Channel original movie. Should you really issue four singles to preview your new LP if it’s only two singles deep?

Jay-Z + Swizz Beats—”On To the Next One”
#78
Jay-Z sounds fine (though a bit defensive—when has anyone actually accused him of being a virgin?), but the real star is Swizz Beats, who seems to have decided to take up where Timbaland left off (or gave up). His productions have always been fun, but this one has just enough added seriousness and menace to take it up another level.

Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright—”Set the Fire To the Third Bar”
#86
As far as I’m concerned, any guy who writes a line like “the laughter penetrates my silence” doesn’t deserve to be reunited with his girlfriend, no matter how many lonely bars he mutely wanders through. He certainly doesn’t deserve Martha Wainwright, who nonetheless almost succeeds in saving the song, if only because her sweet, simple harmonies distract you from the relentless downtrodden wallow of the lead vocal.

Miley Cyrus—”When I Look At You”
#88
Is this what we have to look forward to when Cyrus gives up pop and “matures”? Me, I prefer the Disney stuff, even the cutesy nonsense, to preening power ballads like this. And I’ll bet you whatever you like that the last Hannah Montana soundtrack album will be better than anything Cyrus releases after she leaves Disney.

Keith Urban—”‘Til Summer Comes Around”
#92
The music is so portentous and the images so dismal—wintry silence, deserted carnival rides, etc.—that this could almost be taken for one of Bruce Springsteen’s post-industrial wasteland songs. Except Springsteen’s songs are about the death of community, the decline of the nation’s principals and ideals, spiritual devastation at both a personal and societal level. Urban’s song is about missing a girl he made out with on a Ferris Wheel once. The imagery is so overwhelming compared to the subject that after awhile it becomes the subject, which—and I would hope that it’s needless to point this out—isn’t the way songs are supposed to work.

Zac Brown Band—”Highway 20 Ride”
#98
A standard country divorce weeper, with extra dollops of self-pity. Brown spends most of the song feeling so sorry for himself he barely addresses the son he’s supposedly talking to. Maybe he should stick to Jimmy Buffett rip-offs and leave the real emotions to people who have some.

Pearl Jam—”Just Breathe”
#99
Let’s face it, if it weren’t for the first Doors LP, Ten would probably be the worst “classic” album ever to grace the rock canon. Now, twenty years later, they’re still making the same mistakes: taking sentiment for real emotion, sincerity for real ideas, and vocal and instrumental texture for interesting music. They mean well, and they’ve gotten better, but too often that’s the only good thing that can be said about them. In this case, I wouldn’t even say they’ve gotten better.

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New this week—1/3/10

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Selena Gomez & The Scene—”Naturally”
#39
The title is wonderfully ironic for such an obviously manufactured chunk of music, but this is still the best piece of Disney pop since Miley Cyrus’ “See You Again”, or maybe even Aly & AJ’s “Potential Breakup Song”. Like both of those, “Naturally” was written and produced by Tim James and Antonina Armato, who really should be given some sort of prize for keeping Disney’s foray into pop music respectable. Because this is pop for tweener’s, James and Armato don’t get anywhere near the attention and respect they deserve, but I think they’re one of the best songwriting teams around right now. Once the tweeners take over the world (about five years from now) maybe someone else will notice it.

Young Money featuring Gucci Mane—”Steady Mobbin’”
#48
Young Money, my ass—this is a Lil Wayne record with a brief cameo by Gucci Mane (think of them as the Jailhouse Boys). It isn’t particularly better than any of the other Young Money tracks I’ve heard, nor particularly worse. It does present a nastier Lil Wayne than we’ve heard recently—maybe he’s feeling the need to reassert himself after a year of (often brilliant) goofs. He repeats a lot of his old schtick, though, and for the most part this sounds like a mixtape cut Wayne decided sounded just good enough to go onto the album.

Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins—”Hillbilly Bone”
#65
This is as heavyhanded in sound as any other country/rock hybrid, but its rustic chauvinism is lighter and friendlier than most, and it has a great opening line: “I’ve got a friend from New York City/He’s never heard of Conway Twitty”. After that it goes downhill, but not too far. How much you like it may depend on how much you can stand Adkins’ baritone schtick—I can just barely abide it.

Eminem—”Music Box”
#82
This is more stylish than most of Eminem’s splatter movie fantasies—more Dario Argento than Wes Craven, if you will—but that only makes it seem more garish and stupid. You’ve got to fill up these deluxe reissues somehow, I guess.

Lady Antebellum—”American Honey”
#97
Their Fleetwood Mac obsession continues, and in some ways I like this more than “Need You Now”. It’s both intelligent and tasteful without being stiff and mechanical, and the upcoming album may well be some sort of easy-listening landmark, if only because it will undoubtedly make smoother their inevitable crossover from the Country chart to Adult Contemporary. Which may be a more important achievement than you think.

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Here they come

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Is it just my imagination, or is pop music starting to become important again? Not important important, you understand. Not aesthetically important, maybe not even culturally important, but important enough that people are starting to pay attention again, get riled up again, get upset again. In the last week, Adam Lambert has stirred up enough controversy to make the national news, Justin Bieber’s tweener fans nearly rioted in Long Island, and everybody who had an award to give gave it to Taylor Swift. On top of this, the CMA awards got their best ratings in four years, and the AMAs their best in seven.

Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus, who struggled to get out of the Disney Ghetto for years, has now been in the top ten for over three months—if it wasn’t for the Black Eyed Peas she’d have been number one for at least a third of that time. BEP’s own album, The E.N.D., with it’s stripped-down, electronic, minimalist sound, was something totally new, at least for them and most of their audience, and yet the singles still managed to hold the number one spot for half the year. And since their reign has ended, we’ve had a different number one every week (some of those were repeaters, but no record has managed to stay on top for more than one week at a time). The audience is itchy. They still want records that are recognizably pop, but they want new pop—and often, decidedly eccentric pop.

In the summer of 2008, I began to wonder if the bottom hadn’t fallen out of pop music. I still think I was right. But now we’re starting to see the next generation crawl up from the ruins, charting their own path onward and upward. For the moment, the torchbearer appears to be Lady GaGa, who has been all over television the last week or so (if they could have found some way to sneak her onto the CMAs, I’m sure they would have). “Bad Romance” is the pop record and video of the year, if only because it marks the point at which the old guard is replaced with the new. You can almost hear the collective sigh from the record labels.

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New this week

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Miley Cyrus—”Party In the U.S.A.”
#2
Despite its bouncy, universalist tone, the lyrics of this song reveal it to be nothing more than the usual declaration of egotistical, posturing self-importance. This isn’t a party in the U.S.A., it’s a party in one small part of the U.S.A., namely whatever part of Hollywood Miley Cyrus is currently occupying. Her only gesture to the outside world is inviting everyone else to watch her have fun. It makes sense that she namechecks Jay-Z, since this song shares an attitude with any number of self-aggrandizing rap records, including Jay-Z’s latest. I know it’s too easy to criticize Cyrus as a spoiled celebrity princess, but in this case it’s true.

Disney’s Friends for Change—”Send It On”
#20
The latest emetic power ballad for charity. I advise you to save your money for the compilation album, Now That’s What I Call Philanthropy!

Jason DeRulo—”Watcha Say”
#54
I like the chorus, which serves the double duty of being catchy and telling DeRulo where to stuff his apology for infidelity. You can tell he doesn’t mean it by the way he sings his own name at the beginning of the track. Self-love like that is never satisfied with only one admirer.

Cobra Starship—”Hot Mess”
#64
Twice as many writers and producers as “Good Girls Go Bad”, half the hooks. Since “Good Girls Go Bad” has a lot of hooks, only managing half isn’t a total disaster, though it does expose their overkill for the overcompensation it really is.

Cascada—Evacuate the Dancefloor
#80
Lack of originality can be a blessing, especially in commercial terms. Already a number one across Europe, this is essentially a Lady GaGa track without all that arty baggage and sexual ambiguity attached. It’s overloaded with hooks, too, something GaGa is rarely accused of. Trouble is, it still sounds like GaGa, garish and overwrought. Which is fine if you feel like being pummeled to deaf on the dancefloor. Me, I’ve always preferred more subtle ways of losing my hearing.

Lady Antebellum—”Need You Now”
#85
It never occurred to me until someone at another blog brought it up, but aside from the Eagles, the biggest non-country influence on modern country music is Fleetwood Mac. The rhythm track here is a dead ringer (session guys are good at that sort of thing), but the singers are no match for Christine McVie, and neither are all four of the songwriters. McVie could make seeming truisms and banalities ring with passion and intensity—all these guys can do is make you think, “Oh, that’s nice. Where have I heard this before?”

Britney Spears—”Radar”
#90
This record is more interesting for it’s release history than for itself. Originally on Blackout, for some reason it was included on the bonus version of Circus, and now, for even more intangible reasons, it’s being promoted as a single. It isn’t very good, and it goes on too long, but obviously somebody thinks it can be a hit. And right now somebody else is scouring the song for clues to Britney’s current state of mind. Not me, though, I can’t even pay attention to it all the way through.

Chris Young—”Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song)”
#91
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a good old county wedded lust song; I was starting to think that all male country singers were bachelors chasing badonkadonk. This isn’t great—the second verse, where Young sings from his wife’s point of view, doesn’t quite work—but it’s sufficiently steamy to get the point across, and old-fashioned enough to sound fresh. It ain’t Charlie Rich, but it ain’t bad.

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What it’s all about

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Just as an addendum to my last post, one thing I didn’t take into consideration regarding the Hannah Montana stuff is the demographic factor. Since Cyrus is sixteen, it’s easy to imagine her demographic coming in that fairly narrow range of girls 12 to 18, and maybe a little older. But Disney doesn’t think in those terms–the lower range is more important to them than the upper–and the demo for Hannah Montana starts at about eight years old or even less. When you think about it in that way, songs like “Hoedown Throwdown” or “Ice Cream Freeze”, which are essentially updated versions of the Hokey Pokey (or, in the case of “Ice Cream”, the hand jive), make perfect sense. I still think it’s low to rewrite the same song for different markets in the space of a few months, but at least their existence is easier to understand. Viewed through the eyes of an eight year old, they become almost tolerable.

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New this week

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

Hannah Montana
“He Could Be the One” #10
“I Wanna Know You” (featuring David Archuleta) #74
“Ice Cream Freeze (Let’s Chill)” #87
Miley Cyrus, either as Hannah Montana or as herself, is the living definition of bubblegum: pretty and pink and shiny on the outside, nothing but air on the inside. The difference this time out is that at least one of these songs is bubblegum of a very high quality. “He Could Be the One” is instantly catchy, though it’s appeal fades just as fast, and “Ice Cream Freeze” is a needless remake of “Hoedown Throwdown”, coming less than two months after it’s predecessor left the charts. “I Wanna Know You”, however, is simply a great pop song (I recommend the solo version over this one; Archuleta’s voice doesn’t blend well with Cyrus’s, and his American Idol-style overkill almost ruins the song). Compared to most Disney pop it’s surprisingly subdued, without the tinny, forced brightness of so many of their records, and Cyrus never once plays it cute. Besides, how many pop records feature a tuba?

Mariah Carey–”Obsessed”
#11
With The-Dream and Tricky Stewart handling the production, this is a good record, though derivative of a lot of what they’ve done before. I like the way Carey uses her voice these days (she saves the churchy stuff for the end), and her relaxed, kiss my ass attitude. But there’s still something slightly stiff and inhuman about her, a feeling that’s emphasized by her belief that being a corporation is better than being a mom and pop and that holding a press conference is better than having a conversation. She thinks big, and there’s an unbridgeable distance between her and the real world that infects every note she sings.

Paramore–”Ignorance”
#67
Less catchy than “Misery Business” or “That’s What You Get”, less dumb pop-metal than “Decode”, this comes close to striking the balance I hope they’re looking for. Sometimes the music is too automatic, but Hayley Williams’ matter-of-fact, take no bullshit lyrics get better all the time. If only their riffs were as sharp and to the point.

Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos–”Shining Down”
#93
All of Fiasco’s stuff is a little off kilter–which is part of his appeal–but this one is especially weird. Not so much for Fiasco’s rap, though it does take self-admiration a little further than most, but for Santos, who can’t seem to decide which ego-driven rock singer he wants to imitate most: Bono? Chris Martin? Axl? Michael Hutchence? And while he’s making up his mind, I’m still waiting for that guitar arpeggio to turn into “Hotel California”.

Justin Bieber–”One Time”
#95
An Usher-approved 13 year-old white Canadian, Bieber got his start doing Chris Brown covers on YouTube. But except for the occasional patch of teenage warble his voice is so technically worked over here that you’d never guess his age. Not bad, but when he talks to his shorty you do wonder just how old she might be.

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New This Week

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Mitchel Musso—“Hey”
#70
More Disney pop (cast member of Hannah Montana, brother in Metro Station): less punk than the Jonas Brothers, less pop than Miley Cyrus, more mature sounding and less interesting than both.

Beyonce—“Ego”
#77
This is the most honest song Beyonce has produced about her relationship with Jay-Z (a hell of a lot more honest than “Halo”, that’s for sure). It’s also the funniest, which is why I believe it. The more Beyonce talks about her dick being as big as Jay-Z’s, the more respect I have for both of them.

Justin Moore—“Small Town USA”
#88
As a lover of Miranda Lambert’s “Famous In a Small Town”, I’m not prepared to completely write off country music’s rural fetishism, but this is as generic as it gets. The lyrics never get any deeper than the title, even if Moore does namecheck David Allen Coe to prove how “outlaw” he is. In the ‘70s I might have believed him, but now?

Cage The Elephant—“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”
#92
This is a surprise, if only because this kind of white boy blues, though plenty of people still make it, doesn’t show up much on the charts these days. It’s a relief to hear young punks with a beef with the world who don’t sound like either Green Day or Linkin Park. The laid back sound only makes their message come across with that much more force. The message is nothing special, but at least it’s there; it has a populist tinge to it that reminds me of Todd Snider, only without Snider’s sense of detail. The same goes for the music—like a lot of young bands, they’ve got a lot to learn, but they seem to be starting in the right place.

Fabolous featuring The-Dream—“Throw It In the Bag”
#94
As glad as I am that strip club rap is fading, I’m not sure mall shopping rap is that much of an improvement. A decade ago, “throw it in the bag” would have been a drug dealing reference, now it’s about helping your woman accessorize. Call it the Beyonce effect: a reaction to all those women demanding ever deeper levels of respect. To guys like Ne-Yo and The-Dream (you know, those hyphenated guys), this is an emotional and intellectual challenge, an opportunity to sharpen their game. To Fabolous, it’s just another obstacle to throw money at.

Ginuwine—“Last Chance”
#95
A generic love rap noticeable only for the fact that Ginuwine tries so hard to sell it. The intro and outro have nothing to do with the song itself, they’re just advertisements: “If this your favorite song, turn your radio on/Play it for your man or your lady all day long”. He sounds more passionate about this than anything else. It’s like watching a TV show where the commercials are more interesting than the actual program.

K’Jon—“On the Ocean”
#98
Already a smash on the Adult R&B chart, and no wonder—after a near perfect lover man intro, K’Jon settles into a Marvin Gaye-like groove you haven’t heard since, well, since Gaye himself. Very nice.

The Veronicas—“Take Me On the Floor”
#99
Unlike other “let’s get wasted and do it right here in the club” anthems, The Veronicas maintain a certain amount of self-control—and self-respect. Unfortunately, that extends to the music, which is hooky enough in an automatic, pre-packaged sort of way, but also stiff. However you might feel about the likes of Katy Perry or Lady GaGa, they’re doing something different, and they don’t hold anything back, which makes them both fascinating and terrifying. The Veronica’s are just catchy.

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