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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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Pineapples and Swimming Pools
Hot 100 Roundup—8/18/12

Monday, August 13th, 2012

50 Cent featuring Dr. Dre & Alicia Keys—“New Day”
#79
Another uplifting chorus from Alicia Keys (“Empire State of Mind” it ain’t), a familiar-sounding snare drum beat from her hubby, and 50 Cent at his most mush-mouthed, lying to us: “Nothing matters but the music/Music my first love”. It’s already the clarion call of second-raters around the world, but just a few years ago 50 Cent was saying music was just one element in his diversified portfolio, a way of making quick cash so he could do some real business. Guess that didn’t work out. Oh yeah, also featuring Dr. Dre as himself.

Miguel—“Adorn”
#82
Listening to Miguel’s trilogy of brief mixtapes from earlier this year, Art Dealer Chic, the obvious comparison was to Prince, but this, a reworked version of the song that opened the series, is more Al Green, especially when Miguel is demonstrating his falsettos near the end (yes, he has more than one, and they’re all great). The song itself, and the arrangement, are too busy at times, but that’s because Miguel has more ideas, and feelings, than he knows what to do with, not because he’s covering up any defects. He’s still learning how to deploy his gifts, but this is the best R&B record since “Climax”, and he’s only going to get better.

Rick Ross featuring Wale & Drake—“Diced Pineapples”
#89
If the title, which is a metaphor for both diamonds and pussy, but mostly the latter, doesn’t give you the giggles, Wale’s Smoove B impersonation on the introduction will (“The better my effort, the wetter her treasure”). Rick Ross lowers the temperature a bit, if only by conjuring up images of Rick Ross having sex, while Drake deepens the chill by doing his sad-sack-who-feels-your-pain-and-gets-laid-in-the-process routine. Wale’s final verse is already forgotten. In other words, business as usual.

Imagine Dragons—“Radioactive”
#93
This is so heavy. Not only is it about the Apocalypse (it says so, right in the lyric: “This is it, the Apocalypse”), but it’s also about the coming of a new age (“Welcome to the new age”). The singer himself, it turns out, is the one who’s radioactive (“I’m radioactive! I’m radioactive!”), and it’s all so heavy he has to stop before the end of the first verse to catch his breath; his inhalation is mixed higher than even the lumbering drums and super-distorted pseudo-dubstep bass, so you know he’s really feeling it. Somebody must like these guys, because this is the second track off their EP to make the Hot 100 in the last month. Every generation has its Queensryche, I suppose.

Keyshia Cole featuring Lil Wayne—“Enough of No Love”
#94
I’ve always liked Keyshia Cole, even though most of her records have been mediocre. This is one of the better ones, a soulful lament with a good string arrangement, perfectly sung with just the right balance of strength, defiance, and bitterness. The song doesn’t build the way it should, though, and the chorus lacks musical punch and drama. Then there’s Lil Wayne’s feature. He plays it just right, at first, sacrificing enough of his usual charm to come on like the jerk the guy in the song is supposed to be, but he loses most of his energy along with it, and his rap tails out with a dumb play on Cole’s name that doesn’t fit at all. It’s a shame; a little more work and this could have been a great one.

Ne-Yo—“Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love Yourself)”
#99
This isn’t a complete failure, but it feels wrong. Ne-Yo’s attempt to fit his subtle lover man croon to a Euro-disco backdrop sounds strained, not just vocally, but in terms of melody as well. Cutting his usual long, smooth lines into staccato bits strikes me as a mistaken compromise, a failed attempt to maintain his old musical personality in the face of commercial necessity. It’s more interesting in its way than the usual Ibiza outpouring, but not by much. And the title is a disaster. He needs the parenthetical, because he’s already written a song called “Let Me Love You” (a number one for Mario in 2005), but it sure leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air. Is he going to dump her once she learns to love herself, or is he holding back the full force of his affection until then? Whatever the case, the title sounds as compromised as the song itself.

Kendrick Lamar—“Swimming Pools (Drank)”
#100
Despite putting out one of the best albums of last year (Section.80) and being officially anointed by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as the savior of LA rap, Lamar has been keeping a fairly low profile, at least compared to, say, Frank Ocean. But in his own way Lamar is as emotionally open as Ocean is, and in many ways he’s better. He lacks Ocean’s soulful voice and falsetto, but he’s a brilliant rapper, and his sense of humor cuts deeper. Here he deploys more funny voices than a Funkadelic album to shade a serious portrait of a binge drinking loser who just happens to be named Kendrick. The silliest voice, naturally, is the one that gives him the best advice, while the hippest one tells him to fill his pool with liquor and “diiiive in”. Easily the best rap record to hit the chart so far this year.

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Anybody Can Do This—Even Glee
Hot 100 Roundup—5/12/12

Monday, May 14th, 2012

Wiz Khalifa—“Work Hard, Play Hard”
#17
The most pop-oriented track from Khalifa since “Black and Yellow”, the first in over a year that doesn’t emphasize his dope smoking, and, no surprise, his best in a while. It’s very controlled for a rap brag track, almost stately, and ends with a little bit of self-help advice. Despite the repetition of “nigga” in the opening verse, it seems custom made for radio, and gives off the feeling that Khalifa is holding back more than he’s giving out. But then, the idea of self-control is the unspoken heart of the lyric, so maybe that’s the point. Not a great record, but a very smart one.

Flo Rida—“Whistle”
#64
Flo Rida has two things going for him: a mastery of hooks, and a gift for meaningless flow that never gets in the way of the hook or the beat. As pop rap intended purely for dancing it couldn’t be improved. Which means, of course, that it can only get worse, especially as the vagaries of pop taste lean toward lyrical clarity and force him to make his words more explicable. It’s not that he doesn’t have a gift for them—his flow wouldn’t work if he didn’t—it’s that he has no sense of taste when it comes to subject matter. Following the rough sex endorsement on “Wild Ones”, he comes up with yet another record, following “Down”, about oral sex. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, even if it does sound somewhat obsessive, but the sing-songy, teen-pop emphasis, combined, once again, with the sexual power-play aspect of his approach, makes it more than a little creepy. I’m not suggesting that Flo Rida actually is a leering, lisping sociopath, but that sure is what he sounds like.

Glee Cast
“How Will I Know”, #65
“It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”, #92
It’s been easy to ignore Glee this year: overall, the quality of the music has dropped below even their minimal standards, and I’ve found it difficult to listen to most of the tracks all the way through, much less more than once. Their a capella version of “How Will I Know”, though, is the exception that proves the rule, and can be taken as further evidence for one of the maxims of pop: anybody can make a good record. It’s too smooth, but if anyone else has come up with as good of a Whitney Houston tribute I haven’t heard it. It’s greatest strength is that it actually sounds like what Glee is supposed to be about: a bunch of kids who love music getting together and making it as best they can. This is polished and honed far beyond the abilities of most high-schoolers, but the concept holds, and it raises this far above anything else Glee has produced. If only everything they did was as graceful, dignified, and intelligent.

Usher—“Scream”
#70
No one expected Usher to top “Climax”, which may be the greatest thing he’ll ever do, but after all his talk about the new album and how different it would be, this is surprisingly ordinary. It’s not terrible, but it’s a standard Usher track with a slightly more electronic backing than usual. He’s trying to have it both ways—the old R&B Usher and the new, electronic Usher—and as should be expected the result is neither. I wouldn’t call it half-assed, exactly, but if he’s going to embrace a new style he should go at it full-force, not in baby steps like this.

Calvin Harris featuring Ne-Yo—“Let’s Go”
#89
I have a hard time understanding how Harris manages to get hits out of records that are so musically uninteresting, so lacking in the ebb and flow of melody and structure that create enjoyment and meaning in pop music. All he has is a beat and occasional shifts in dynamics and texture (most of which, in this case, are provided by Ne-Yo’s vocals, not the music). Which doesn’t mean he’s a minimalist: it just means that he’s dull. It’s sad to see Ne-Yo, who’s career has been in a stall for a couple of years now, being wasted on music that ignores his melodic and rhythmic gifts. He’s a better singer than Harris to be sure, but on records like this what difference does it make?

Hunter Hayes—“Wanted”
#99
When it comes to teenage country singers, I prefer Scott McCreery (not to mention Taylor Swift, though she isn’t a teenager anymore). McCreery has major flaws, but at least he doesn’t sound like he was made in a country-pop factory and delivered cellophane-wrapped and ready-to-serve.

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Braggin’ and Thinkin’
Hot 100 Roundup—4/28/12

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Glee Cast
“Somebody That I Used To Know”, #26
“Hungry Like the Wolf/Rio”, #98

Ca$h Out—“Cashin’ Out”
#81
This is so reminiscent of Soulja Boy that Soulja has already done a freestyle over it (it’s awful). It lacks its model’s brashness, though, and his wit. Good hook, but the rest is the same old blunted-out bragging about money and women. I’m glad he’s having a good time, but I don’t really care, either.

Juliet Simms—“Roxanne”
#86

Jennifer Hudson & Ne-Yo featuring Rick Ross—“Think Like A Man”
#90
The arrangement is so overblown that it takes a few listens to hear past it and notice the good parts, but give it time and you’ll find them. Hudson’s voice can be a bit much when she belts too hard, and Ross’s verse is ordinary, but Ne-Yo is the best he’s been for a while, and the arrangement has some good stuff going on. Underlying theme: thinking like a man means rationalizing your, or his, two-timing bullshit. Best touch: Ne-Yo, on the fade, driving the point home by singing “You gotta think like a woman.” For all its flaws, I bet this is better than the movie.

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Small Miracles
Hot 100 Roundup—3/31/12

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Rascal Flatts—“Changed”
#73
What’s happened to these guys? Can a change in label—from the Disney-owned and now defunct Lyric Street to the Nashville giant of independents, Big Machine—make that much difference? Or is it that anyone, no matter what their history, can make good music once in a while? Odds are it’s the second, even if I’d like to think it’s the first, but whatever the case, I have to say it straight out: this is a great record. It’s as if Rascal Flatts had suddenly learned that all those country-pop clichés they’ve been trading in can be used to create truthful, emotional music if you twist them the right way, illuminate them from the inside, and are careful not to overplay your hand. This gets big, like all their records, and the middle eight is a disappointment—just when you hope they’ll dig a little deeper they come out with facile banalities—but overall this is as fine a piece of country gospel as you’ll ever hear. It will be interesting to see what they come up with next.

Neon Trees—“Everybody Talks”
#74
Starting off with a rip of “At the Hop”, the most mechanical of the great early rock records, this proceeds to become at least as mechanical, and even more of a pastiche. When Bruno Mars trades in fifties styles he does so because he lives and breathes them—it may not be original, but it’s organic. These guys, on the other hand, are dabblers playing at cut and paste. But just like “At the Hop”, sometimes being mechanical works; this moves fast and hard, and never lets up. It’s as shallow as they come, but it’s also exciting. Wonder if we’ll hear from them again?

One Direction—“One Thing”
#90
One Direction want to have it both ways: they want their pop to be simple enough to appeal to young girls, but they also want it to be hard and modern enough to appeal to girls who are a few years older. The instrumentation here sounds like it comes off a modern dance floor, but the song also uses pop tricks that are so old they probably seem fresh to anyone under the age of twenty (I haven’t heard the stutter beat they use in the chorus for over a decade, at least). The problem is the modern part of is so heavy-handed and leaden that it kills the older, poppier bits. If they want to last more than six months they (or their handlers) need to come up with better stuff than this.

Eli Young Band—“Even If It Breaks Your Heart”
#91
In the main, the shift in influence in country rock from The Eagles to Tom Petty is an improvement: the songs are faster, the grooves stronger, and the sense of self-satisfaction is more manageable. But even at his best Petty had his own pretensions, to say the least, and most of the bands that are influenced by him tend to lean on his trademark hits rather than his better, more eccentric numbers. They all want to be “The Hardest Part” instead of “American Girl”. Eli Young is no exception, and sings about his early days learning his rock and roll over a backing band that may as well be The Heartbreakers jamming the usual changes. It isn’t terrible, but streaming your personal perspective through clichés doesn’t break the clichés, it reinforces them. Which, come to think of it, is almost exactly what Petty did most of the time.

Young Jeezy featuring Ne-Yo—“Leave You Alone”
#95
Ne-Yo didn’t just write a hook for Jeezy— it sounds like he gave him a whole goddamned song, one that he had a chorus and a bridge for but no verses. This shouldn’t be a surprise; lyrics have always been Ne-Yo’s weakness; he’s melodically gifted, but he has a hard time making words both flow and mean something. What he should do, instead of handing songs to rappers like Jeezy, is find himself a decent lyricist and finish the songs himself. Easier said than done, I know, but this is just sad.

Bella Thorne—“TTYLXOX”
#98
The lyrics would sound dated even if this song had come out two years ago, and the music it draws on is even older, but that could be said of just about every piece of Disney pop, and nothing could stop this from being a joy from start to finish. If that sounds corny, so be it. Real joy is always in short supply on the pop charts, viewed either as manipulative or childish. The only place you normally find it is in music made for tweens and pre-teens, where too often it sounds simplistic or condescending. This is neither. It will never make radio aside from the Disney Channel, and most likely will never hit any real dance floor, which is a greater loss than most people would think. Imagine an ecstasy that isn’t based on sex or chemicals. If you can’t I suppose you should move on to something else, but it’s your loss.

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Hot 100 Roundup—4/30/11

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

Lady Gaga—”Judas”
#10
I was preparing a long critique of this record, but after another listen and a more concentrated perusal of the lyrics I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. “Judas” is such a confused mess that whatever message Gaga is trying to get across is lost in the rehashed disco, rehashed Abba, and rehashed “Bad Romance”. Whether she seized upon the idea of Judas as symbol or allegory (of what?), or as justification (of whose sins?) is impossible to tell (I lean toward Judas representing fame, or maybe the record industry, but the song itself doesn’t provide any clues). She may well be talking to herself more than anybody else, and though her moral confusion is interesting up to a point, it isn’t what I would call fascinating. Gaga may be an instinctual genius, and at the artistic and intellectual level she’s achieved a sort of middlebrow perfection, but if she wants to go any higher—and she does—she’s going to need to think things out a little more, and I’m not sure she’s capable of that.

Kelly Rowland featuring Lil Wayne—”Motivation”
#55
Sex is an everyday feature on the pop charts, but true eroticism is rare. Soul crooners like Ne-yo and Lloyd come close, but you’d have to go much further back to find anything comparable to this, which is guaranteed to make you either melt into a puddle or stand up at attention, depending on your gender/preference. Lil Wayne is in top form, keeping his rap focused and throwing in some subtle cunnilingus references. For the most part, though, this record is all Rowland’s, and after various miscues and less than stellar guest appearances since the demise of Destiny’s Child, she deserves it.

Game featuring Lil Wayne—”Red Nation”
#62
So Lil Wayne gets to appear on both the best and the worst debuts of the week. Can’t say he’s hasn’t got all his bases covered.

Chris Brown—”She Ain’t You”
#90
With it’s sample from “Human Nature” this is being pegged as a Michael Jackson tribute, which makes me wonder why Brown sounds so much like Stevie Wonder on the first verse. Whatever the case, this is well below even Brown’s recent output, much less his models. Sounds a lot like the junk he put out as a teenager.

Hot Chelle Rae—”Tonight Tonight”
#93
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/16/11

Bridgit Mendler—”Determinate”
#94
Just when it looked like Disney was going to allow Nickelodeon to claim the tween-pop crown, they come roaring back with new singers, a relatively new production team (TWIN, a pair of Swedes who have worked together for nearly a decade without having any big hits), and a sound that is both more mature and overtly powerful than much of the Disney pop that preceded it. Even the rap is OK, or at least not embarrassing. And “determinate” itself seems such a perfect pop term I’m surprised it hasn’t been used before.

Jake Owen—”Barefoot Blue Jean Night”
#96
The production is a surprise, at least for a country record, but the song itself isn’t. No doubt the arrangement is intended to make up for that, though it may also be intended to cover up the relative weakness of Owen’s voice, which can be expressive but isn’t as rich as many of his contemporaries. It doesn’t quite work, but I appreciate the experimentation.

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Hot 100 Roundup—4/16/11

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Wiz Khalifa—”When I’m Gone”
#57
In which Khalifa proudly explains why he doesn’t really give a shit. It’s not “When I’m Gone” as in “I know you’ll miss me but you’ll get by”; it’s “By the time I die I’ll have spent all my money and you guys won’t get jack.” Why? Because he can, that’s why. You don’t honestly believe he thinks about this stuff, do you?

Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer—”Give Me Everything”
#60
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/9/11

Sara Ramirez—”The Story”
#69
Having pioneered the commercial endorsement of music in prime time, Grey’s Anatomy finds itself behind the curve and goes Glee on us and lets one of its cast members throw a record together over a weekend and release it for purchase. For all you Katy Perry haters who wonder what she’d sound like without the assistance of Dr. Luke and Max Martin, here’s your answer. I don’t think even Perry would be this off-key on the loud parts, though.

Britney Spears—”I Wanna Go”
#73
I suppose it’s healthy on a personal level that Spears is now making jokes on the same subject she sang so passionately about just a few years ago. It’s good she’s over it, but the loss in both intensity and musical value is obvious. Besides, whenever Spears tries to be funny it always sounds forced. “Lably, lably, lably”, indeed.

Victorious Cast featuring Victoria Justice—”Beggin’ On Your Knees”
#83
Nickelodeon’s campaign to wrest the teenpop crown away from the wounded Disney is so intense that it’s almost fascinating in its own right. It must be expensive, too, bringing in producers like Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and, in this case, Shellback, to boost your chosen teen idols. Too bad those first rate producers are only bringing their second rate material. I mean, did Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson already reject this, or did Shellback not even bother offering it to them?

YC featuring Future—”Racks”
#86
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/2/11

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Bubbling Under—4/9/11

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Owl City featuring Shawn Chrystopher—”Alligator Sky”
#105
Shawn’s Chrystopher’s B.o.B. impersonation does a good job of beefing up Owl City’s usual wimpiness, and the music sounds tougher and more strenuous. The lyrics are the same old fluffy nonsense, though—I can buy the title as a description of a certain kind of cloud-studded sky, but I have no idea what that image actually signifies—and Adam Young’s vocals simper even more than usual. He sounds like a text-to-speech sample, only with less humanity.

Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, AfroJack & Nayer—”Give Me Everything”
#7
Overwrought and underwritten, this record represents a low point for everyone involved, including AfroJack and Nayer, neither of whom I’ve ever heard of. Ne-Yo, who’s been having a lousy year, at least in commercial terms, provides the dullest hook I’ve ever heard from him. Pitbull, meanwhile, who’s been having an incredible year, sounds exhausted, almost burnt out, and the charming subtlety of his voice turns into a raspy, demanding car horn. Time for everybody to take a vacation.

Brad Paisley featuring Alabama—”Old Alabama”
#119
Leave it to Paisley to create a tribute track that far outstrips the people he’s supposedly paying tribute to. The worst moment of this record, in fact, the point where it turns from realistic country lust into sweet and sticky sentimentality, is when it’s namesakes make their appearance. Fortunately Paisley ignores them, turns up the tempo, and goes out on a high speed hoedown that outstrips not just Alabama, but everybody else in the business as well. It’s rude of Paisley to show up his elders like that, but since he only tolerates them so he can get laid, can you really blame him?

Reba—”If I Were a Boy”
#123
A terrible mistake, not because Reba can’t do justice to the song, but because it’s too young for her (it’s too young for Beyonce, as well, but not by so much that she can’t get away with it). You can hear the age and experience in Reba’s voice, and it’s impossible to believe that someone at that level of maturity would think about men in this way. She sounds like a cougar bemoaning the unfaithfulness of a younger man, which is an image too unwholesome to take pleasure in or evoke much in the way of sympathy. It is, in fact, kind of icky, especially with Reba attached to it. I never thought this was a particularly great song to begin with, but coming from Reba it seems bizarre.

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Hot 100 Roundup—2/6/11

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock—”Party Rock Anthem”
#78
I have no idea who GoonRock are or is, but I’ll assume they’re responsible for the beat, which isn’t bad—a somewhat derivative mix of Pitbull and The Black Eyed Peas with some decent hiccups and hooks of their own thrown in. I have no idea who Lauren Bennett is, either, and her vocals are so ineffectual I doubt I ever will. Not as ineffectual as the supposed leaders of this romp, however. LMFAO aren’t the worst rappers in the world, but their voices are so lacking in distinction and personality they may as well not be on the track at all.

Rise Against—”Help Is On the Way”
#89
Though it’s nice to hear music about the recent travails of New Orleans and the gulf coast, this is not the sort of music that is going to make anybody think much about it or make them angry enough to do anything. The band provides all the anger and leaves no room for anyone else’s. The speed-metal bombast is ritualistic and meaningless. They make no attempt to tell a story; the lyrics are nothing but a batch of obvious and cliched images. Worst of all, their egos get in the way. Instead of ending the song where they should, with the shouts of “It never came!”, they insist on yet another full chorus, just to demonstrate their chops and remind you of how angry they are. Help like this nobody needs.

New Hollow—”Boyfriend”
#98
Catchy, though not always in the right places, and too loud, this is what power pop—which was always as much about beauty and incisiveness as it was about speed and wit—has come to. It sounds like they decided to pack all their good ideas (most of them stolen) into a single record, and I seriously doubt if they have more. Not horrible, but shapeless and lacking any kind of charm.

Trey Songz—”Love Faces”
#100
The problem with Trey Songz is that while he’s sometimes very good, he’s never great, and often his records are serviceable and nothing more. This is fine as background music, but it lacks anything that would make you want to listen closely—the smooth gentlemanliness of Ne-Yo, the musical originality of The-Dream, the batshit craziness of R. Kelly. It’s safe music for safe sex, and though there’s nothing wrong with that, in the end it gets dull.

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Hot 100 Roundup—11/7/10

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Ke$ha—“We R Who We R”
#1
Far too reminiscent of “Tik Tok”, only with half the jokes, half the hooks, and a lot less appeal, which leaves you with almost nothing at all. A sop to her fans, and an obvious one, at that.

Taylor Swift
“Sparks Fly”, #17
“Innocent”, #27
“The Story Of Us”, #41
“Dear John”, #54
“Better Than Revenge”, #56
“Haunted”, #63
“Last Kiss”, #71
“Enchanted”, #75
“Never Grow Up”, #84
“Live Long”, #85
What I’m about to say may sound petty, as if I’m just looking for something to criticize in the face of the almost universal adoration of Swift and Speak Now. But it needs to be said. These are all good songs, some of them excellent (though none as good as the preview singles that have come out over the last month), and Swift performs them with an intelligence and emotion that few can match. All the same, this is one of the worst produced pop albums I’ve ever heard. Whether it’s the production itself, the arrangements, or the fact that they’ve been mastered at too high a volume, most of these tracks sound over-loud and shrill, lacking dynamics and bottom, and I find it impossible to listen to more than three or four at a time. This may not be Swift’s fault. Even though she’s credited as co-producer she may not have had a lot of control over the final mastering process, which is 90% of the problem. My worry is that it’s all intentional, that the shiny sound is meant to be a match for Swift’s shiny dresses and golden hair and the whole fairytale aura she surrounds herself—or at least her career—in. She may be more of a Stevie Nicks imitator than most of those who champion her would care to admit. She writes wonderful songs, and the fairytale imagery and plot-lines are disappearing from her lyrics, which is a good sign, but you have to listen past the production in order to hear them. Time for a new producer, if not a re-think of her entire musical approach.

Chris Brown—“Yeah XXX”
#33
This is, admittedly, Brown’s best record since “Forever”, but of course that’s not saying much. Once you’ve made a record like “Douches” “Deuces”, there’s no way to go but up. The only interesting thing about this record is the fact that, considering Brown was once a hip-hop star, it isn’t hip-hop at all. It’s more like a heavily edited early ’90s hardcore dance track, and when I say heavily edited I mean one with all the hooks removed.

Rascal Flatts—“I Won’t Let Go”
#72
It’s hard not to be impressed by an act that’s been as successful as this one has been at rewriting other people’s hits. Last time it was Loggins and Messina’s “Your Mama Don’t Dance”; this time, for a change of pace, it’s The Pretenders’s “I’ll Stand By You”. They barely even bother changing the chorus, just the title. It’s like a karaoke contest where you get to make up your own lyrics as you go along.

Kid Cudi—“Mr. Rager”
#77
Easily Cudi’s best record since “Day ‘n’ Night”, and about roughly the same thing—getting wasted—only from a different perspective. The lonely stoner of the earlier song got wasted to get away from his problems; “Mr. Rager” suggests getting wasted is the problem, though it wisely doesn’t say so straight out. Cudi may be too subtle, though. The record lacks any real tension or sense of emotion, as if the guy were already wiped out and not just considering the possibility. If Mr. Rager is intended to be some sort of Pied Piper, it doesn’t work. There’s no suggestion that anything is being risked, that anything can be lost. I understand what Cudi is getting at, but somehow it doesn’t work.

Ne-Yo—“One In A Million”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbliing Under, 10/17/10

Luke Bryan—“Someone Else Calling You Baby”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbliing Under, 10/17/10

Bubbling Under:

Chris Young—“Voices”
#101
This and the earlier “The Man I Want To Be” paint Young as a concerned, spiritual soul, yearning to live up to an image of manhood taken straight from the Bible, age-old rural wisdom, and whatever his management and record label say will make him a star. All artists pander to their audience to some extent, but Young jumps in with both feet, and he’s a master at it. Either that or this steaming pile of crap is proof that the voices in his head don’t give him a single original idea, or even tell him to choose decent songs.

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