Posts Tagged ‘Paramore’

Controversy: Hot 100 Roundup—4/27/13

Friday, April 26th, 2013

As the weather warms up, so do the charts, and the result is weeks like this, with twelve debuts, and without even the excuse of a big album release or a TV singing competition (the pop-chart equivalent of steroids; they bulk you up, then they drive you insane). There is, however, controversy, which puts no less than three records on the chart this week. Add a YouTube phenom, a non-LP country (!) single, and a batch of new tracks from artists who have been away for awhile, and you almost have a case study in how records make the charts these days. All we need is a track from a commercial, one from a TV show, and somebody who died.

Psy—“Gentleman”
#12

The real secret of Psy’s success isn’t his goofiness in both looks and approach, or his so-called satire (he’s more an ironist than a satirist), but his masterful command of pop structure. “Gangnam Style” was probably the best structured pop record to hit the chart since Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, and “Gentleman”, though simpler, is even tighter. It also helps that he knows how to write captivating melodies over his austere beats, and comes up with lyrics that, even if you don’t know what they mean, fit perfectly in terms of sound with the beats and the music. In other words, Psy’s success isn’t just a freak happening; he really knows what he’s doing.

Luke Bryan—“Crash My Party”
#80

This is a surprise, at least in business terms: a non-LP single released at the same time as the album, which already had a lead-in single, “Buzzkill” released a month ago. But then, “Buzzkill” hasn’t done that well (it’s been sitting at 38 on the Hot Country Songs chart for three weeks now and isn’t on the airplay chart at all), and with the increasing power of digital in the country market an experiment like this makes a lot of sense. It also sets up a possible deluxe edition of Spring Break…Here To Party sometime in the near future. But even though I have a soft spot for non-LP singles and think there should be more of them, the mediocrity of this record leaves me cold. For a guy who’s supposedly making party records, Bryan sure does have a fondness for sluggish tempos.

Hunter Hayes—“I Want Crazy”
#43

Remove Hayes’s vocals and what you have is a Nashville session group’s version of Mumford & Sons, or rather what Nashville session groups think M&S would sound like if they were country boys who could actually play. This is interesting. Put Hayes’s vocals back in, though, and all the interest goes away.

Selena Gomez—“Come & Get It”
#45

I’m all for Gomez becoming a dance music diva, but if she’s going to succeed she needs to find better material than this, and she especially needs to find something that suits her voice. She’s trying too hard on the chorus, and the strain shows. The best part of this record is the bridge, where her voice matches perfectly with the music and you can hear the promise in it. Working with Esther Dean and StarGate isn’t going to fulfill that promise, though. I hope there are some RockMafia cuts on the album. They know how to set her voice better than anyone else ever has.

Ray J featuring Bobby Brackins—“I Hit It First”
#51

There are, of course, examples of rap sexism more despicable than this, but not by much. Whatever you think about Kim Kardashian and her version of celebrity for celebrity’s sake (I don’t think about her at all, myself), no woman—no human being—deserves to be talked about the way Ray J talks about her here. That is, as an object (not even an object, but an amorphous thing, an “it”, desired for nothing but sexual pleasure) to be passed around, with the first person to temporarily enjoy its services claiming permanent ownership, even though they’ve long ago moved on to other “its”. In terms of maturity, this song is roughly the equivalent of blog commenters shouting “First!” I just hope Kanye West doesn’t make an answer record: anything he could do would only be stepping down to Ray J’s level, and suggest that his feelings for Kardashian aren’t on a much higher plane.

Avril Lavigne—“Here’s To Never Growing Up”
#52

Written by Lavigne, her producer, her boyfriend, and a couple of song doctors, this is product at it’s purest. I bet her boyfriend wrote the chorus, since he’s shown a talent for that sort of thing in the past, and the rest was filled in from various Ke$ha records. I wonder which of the five came up with the Radiohead line, the only hint of life in the entire track? Does anyone actually shout along to Radiohead, though?

Brad Paisley featuring LL Cool J—“Accidental Racist”
#77

If this record stopped before LL Cool J comes in, you’d have a sincere, if often mistaken, attempt to make sense of the disconnections of southern life, history, and myth. It wouldn’t be a great record, and it would still, especially in the country market, be a controversial one, but it wouldn’t be the laughing stock LL Cool J’s ignorant presence turns it into. I can forgive the clumsiness of his rap (it’s not like Paisley gave him much a of a beat to work with), but not the stupidity of it, which is half ignorance and half the entertainer’s desire to play along and reinforce his host’s point of view no matter what that might be. If there’s a demonstration of anyone’s moral corruption on this record, it isn’t Paisley’s. Not that Paisley is right. Any form of southern pride that embraces the myth of the confederacy as opposed to the reality (face it, folks, your ancestors fucked up, and for all the wrong reasons), should be rejected by anyone with half a brain. Maybe Paisley realizes that, but if so it doesn’t come across here.

Paramore—“Still Into You”
#83

Cutting down to a three piece has worked wonders for this band. First off, it allows them to concentrate on playing up to the strengths of Haley Williams’s songs instead of rolling over them and squeezing the life out. Second, and even better, Williams rises to the opportunity by broadening her approach, widening her emotional palette, and refusing to back down from her view of reality. The end result, Paramore, is the artistic breakthrough of the year, the equivalent, say, of what Soundgarden did on Superunknown, or Lil Wayne did on Tha Carter III. There are a couple of ordinary songs, and a couple of less than successful experiments, but there are no bad tracks, and the best of them are more than great, they’re revelatory. Even when Paramore utilize pop cliches (pomp-rock synthesizers, gospel choirs, ukelele), they make them signify by putting them in service to William’s sarcastic, angry, never bitter, and ultimately optimistic point of view (the gospel choir goes “Don’t go crying to your mama/’Cause you’re on your own in the real world”).

“Still Into You” is a love song, of sorts, but one dedicated not to new love but to a long standing relationship. Williams removes any chance of sentimentality by singing it in a slilghtly sneering but still emotional voice, as if she felt the need to cover up her gooier feelings for fear of making a fool of herself. It’s a perfect match for the music, which rocks up and remakes what would otherwise be a hackneyed set of changes. Williams means every word, though, and the verse about meeting her boyfriend’s mother and then telling him for the first time that she loves him is perfect, even in its ambiguity (was meeting mom wonderful? terrible? The sentiment works either way, and we don’t really need to know). Here’s hoping they can continue in this vein for a long while to come.

WE the Kings—“Just Keep Breathing”
#92

I knew there’d be fun. imitators, I just didn’t think they’d be this bad. But how could they not be, when fun. itself skirts the edge of self-parody? Maybe I was lying to myself.

Scotty McCreery—“See You Tonight”
#94

I wish his material was better, but McCreery is turning into one hell of a singer. It’s not just his voice, which has always been a wonder, but the way he handles it. He knows he sounds best when he’s smooth and controlled, so he makes a point of never overstepping, even on the chorus (he also wisely downplays his lower register, which was beginning to sound like a gimmick). As his voice matures, that control is going to sound even better. Now he just needs to find more mature songs. He’s only nineteen, so it makes sense for him to still be singing material pointed at a teen market, and this is smarter than it appears at first. But in another year he’ll be beyond this sort of corn-fed, safe romanticism. Here’s hoping he’s smart enough to make something out of it.

Fabolous featuring Chris Brown—“Ready”
#97

Brown’s hook is bland and the beat is nothing, but even if they were better I would find it impossible to listen after Fabolous says “get your shit wetty/Oops I mean your shit ready, can’t believe I said that”. I can. Fabolous may not be the dumbest rapper in the world, but he’s certainly the dumbest on the charts.

Rocko featuring Future & Rick Ross—“U.O.E.N.O.”
#99

Decent beat, good hook from Future, a competent rap from Rocko, and then in steps Rick Ross and his big mouth to mess everything up. And I don’t just mean the molly-rape lyric. Ross has become so full of himself that almost every word he utters drips with self-love, so much so that he’s lost the ability to distinguish between what’s “street” and what’s stupid. If he says it, it must be right, right? His product-placing of Reebok (right before the rape line; no wonder they dropped his ass) is on a much lower level of offensiveness, but it’s still offensive, and the rest is nonsense. What’s even more depressing is that even without the controversy this would probably still have made the chart on name recognition alone. That’s how rap works these days, and this is what you get.

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Hot 100 Roundup—8/27/11

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Drake—”Headlines”
#13
Is this guy capable of doing anything but feel sorry for himself? Fame didn’t turn out to be as much fun as he thought it would be; no one understands him or how hard he works; and there are all these women! Makes you wonder what he got into the business for. It sure wasn’t the music.

Jason DeRulo—”It Girl”
#39
I have mixed feelings about this record, largely because I find myself liking it more than I think I should. Most of DeRulo’s records have been terrible, but this time around he switches up his style, dumping his usual dense, sample based hip-hop for a lighter, more straight-ahead sound. Some say he’s trying to be Bruno Mars, but what I hear is a less desperate, more relaxed version of Chris Brown. In other words, a pleasant, minor talent who doesn’t carry a lot of excess baggage around with him. I doubt he’ll ever do anything great, but at least he isn’t an embarrassment.

Jay-Z & Kanye West
“Who Gon’ Stop Me”, #44
“Niggas In Paris”, #75
I have real difficulties with Watch the Throne. The music is often brilliant, but the lyrics are intentionally paradoxical, full of contradictions and ego-based hyperbole that are hard to work around or excuse. The opening line of “Who Gon Stop Me” is a perfect example: “This is something like the Holocaust/Millions of our people lost”. It’s a powerful statement, and like much of Watch the Throne, it places current events in a deeper historical context. Whether or not that context is fully justified in relation to what most of the tracks are about, however—that is, being rich and living high—is open to question. The overall stance of the album is that the suffering African-Americans have gone through is justification for those who are successful exalting themselves, living as high as they can, and bragging about it as much as possible. It’s hardly a new idea, as they well know; just the title “Niggas in Paris” alone conjures up images of black men and women who were in a position to take advantage of financial independence and the relative racial freedom of Europe and did so to excess: Joe Jackson, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, James Baldwin, and many others. What gets left out of the story are the great majority who don’t have anything to brag about; not just African Americans, but Africans, whites, Latinos, Asians, and the Europeans who make their living serving people like Jay-Z and West and satisfying their needs. Like Jay-Z said in “Empire State of Mind”, “Pity half of y’all won’t make it”, with the unuttered followup, “sucker”, implied in his phrasing. It’s a drug dealer’s mentality, and even if they’re aware of it, and unsure of it, and emphasize the irony of it, it still stinks.

David Guetta featuring Sia—”Titanium”
#66
Guetta wisely lightens up his sound before the bombast takes over completely, and though this is nothing special at least it isn’t openly hostile to anyone with sensitive ears or a working brain. If he had found a singer other than Sia, whose lack of enunciation I find even more irritating here than on her own records, it might have been even better.

Miranda Lambert—”Baggage Claim”
#67
After Revolution I was afraid that Lambert was softening up, and that the woman who had made Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was gone for good. Going by this and the Pistol Annies album, though, that judgement was premature. “Baggage Claim” isn’t a great record: rhythmically it’s a little stiff, and the metaphor gets stretched almost to the breaking point, but it brings back the take-no-prisoners stance that made Lambert famous, with only the slightest lessening of intensity. She may not be as brash as she used to be, but she makes up for it with a sense of confidence that may be even more impressive. She knows what she wants, she knows how to get it, and she knows that she can. My only worry is that she’ll try so hard to make a perfect record that she’ll mistrust her best instincts and stiffen up. That’s was Revolution’s greatest weakness, and you can hear some of that on this record. Still, this sounds like a step in the right direction.

Evanescence—”What You Want”
#68
Keeping up with the times, Amy Lee and her new band mates toss a little Paramore-style melody into their mix, along with an easy to chant along with hook. I like this more than any Evanescence I’ve heard before, and for metal-edged pop (or is that pop-edged metal) this is high caliber. If the whole album sounds like this it could be another Superunknown (which should give you an idea of how much metal I listen to).

T.I. featuring B.o.B.—”We Don’t Get Down Like Y’all”
#78
The change in style—less fuzzy synths, more hard beats—is appreciated, but it’s also a step backwards towards a style he moved beyond years ago. What is new, at least to me, is the blatant homophobia. If people have a problem with Odd Future, what are they going to think of “Listen up, fag bait/them hot pants bad for your prostate.” Maybe he is just a jerk.

Luke Bryan—”Drunk On Love”
#79
Yet another song about a country girl shakin’ it for her man. In rap, women work the pole; in country, the tailgate. Bryan even steals an image from the blues: “Honey drips on the moneymaker”. Country radio programmers must know what that means, but I bet they’ll play it anyway. Pretty slow for yet another version of “Whole Lot of Shakin’”, though. I imagine Bryan intended this as a sexy grind, but since he doesn’t know sexy from a rusty pickup truck, all he gets is the grind.

The Script—”Nothing”
#89
You said it.

Mindless Behavior featuring Diggy—”Mrs. Right”
#97
There have been a lot of good teen rap groups the last couple of years, but this record is so insane, with both the vocals and the beats run through an autotune turned up to 11, that the damn thing never touches the ground. By the end of the first verse you’ve lost your bearings: just where did they expect this to end up? Good for a laugh, but that’s about it.

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Hot 100 Roundup—6/25/11

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Paramore—”Monster”
#36
As their craft improves their energy, though still strong, becomes more streamlined and automatic, and less interesting. This is above-average pop-metal, but if the song weren’t so obviously about the band’s fractious split last year, would anybody care?

Brad Paisley with Carrie Underwood—”Remind Me”
#59
Frustrating. It’s a good idea for a song, the chorus is cute and catchy, and Paisley’s first guitar solo is as erotic as country ever gets. But Paisley loses control of this record somehow, which is rare for him. By the end, the arrangement seems designed to drown out the singers, and since we’re talking about Carrie Underwood, more drowning out is required than normal ears can stand; some of her high notes are so piercing they could be used in invisible fencing systems.

Pitbull—”Pause”
#73
A gimmicky confection based on what I assume is a Euro-disco sample, which, coming from Pitbull, is just about my favorite sub-genre right now. It gets a bit tiresome when you sit and listen, but I bet it kills on the dance floor. Pitbull isn’t a genius, but he knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. His single-mindedness may be his greatest virtue.

Dia Frampton—”Heartless”
#78
I’ve been debating whether I should refuse to comment on The Voice singles the same way I have Glee, and this record, horrible in every way, certainly makes me lean in that direction. I understand the power of television to make hits, but this, even more than Glee, is an unjustifiable waste of time and energy. It isn’t a waste of talent though, because no actual talent is involved.

Selena Gomez & the Scene—”Bang Bang Bang”
#94
What has always separated producers Tim James and Antonina Armato (otherwise known, unfortunately, as Rockmafia) from their Disney-pop colleagues is the undercurrent of smoldering eroticism that runs through their music. Even though they’re making straight pop records in a time of excess, they almost always keep their cool, and rarely overplay their hand. Gomez, it turns out, is the perfect delivery system for their brand of low-key sensuality: relaxed, knowing, and all-powerful without once raising her voice or engaging in meaningless melisma, she sounds more mature and experienced than not only her own 18 years, but than most 30-year-olds. The obvious double entendre of the title may make the message too clear, but even without it everyone would know exactly what this guy will be missing. And yet radio still treats Gomez like she’s kid’s stuff.

Toby Keith—”Made In America”
#95
In a way it’s a relief that Keith saved his jingoistic nonsense for the fourth or fifth single off his new album. He’s probably as tired of this stuff as most everyone else, and only does it because it’s expected of him. If the earlier tracks had been more successful he probably wouldn’t have released this as a single at all. But here it is all the same, another stolid piece of propaganda, country-style, all about the patriotic act of paying a little more for locally produced goods (maybe he should join the locavore movement). Odd exception: the King James bible. Keith must know that’s not really an American product, right?

Gavin DeGraw—”Not Over You”
#96
Ryan Tedder, as producer, continues his way down the pop music foodchain and finds a willing victim in DeGraw, who hasn’t had a decent hit since his debut six years ago and welcomes Tedder and his echoey drums with open arms. The result is old-school faux-soulful sincerity updated with new-school faux-soulful sincerity. Just what we’ve all been waiting for.

Romeo Santos—”You”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 5/28/11

Martina McBride—”Teenage Daughters”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/16/11

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What a business

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

For those who have been wondering when Paramore’s Hayley Williams would launch a solo career, it looks like she did it a long time ago—she just didn’t tell anybody. Not sure how much of this story can be trusted (the biblical quotes don’t make me feel any better about its veracity), but it has the ring of truth to it.

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New this week—6/6/10

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Lee DeWyze
“Beautiful Day”, #24
“Hallelujah”, #44h
“The Boxer”, #88
DeWyze won American Idol not because all the tweens voted for the cutest guy, but because the story he lived on the show was better than any backstory anyone else could have come up with. He started as an insecure dweeb and ended up a confident but still humble performer. He had to win; that’s the way these Cinderella stories are supposed to go. He has a decent voice, too, though none of the songs here demonstrate that very well. He obviously doesn’t care much for “Beautiful Day”, but he does seem to have some inkling as to what “Hallelujah” (in it’s third chart appearance this year) is about. “The Boxer”, however, is a disaster. You never mumble a Paul Simon lyric, no matter how bad it is.

Crystal Bowersox—”Up To the Mountain”
#57
Behind the dreads, behind the sunflower tattoo that covers her back and the stupid pushpin piercing under her lips, behind her mature but somehow innocent voice, Crystal Bowersox is one canny performer. I may be the only person in the world who thought her performance of this song on American Idol was terrible, obscuring the melody and losing the song in a maze of vocal flexing and filigree. But Bowersox knew what the Idol audience and judges wanted to hear, so she gave it to them. This studio recording is better, tamer and more to the point. Not as good as Kelly Clarkson’s version from a couple of years ago, but still worthwhile. And her voice is amazing.

Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox—”Falling Slowly”
#66
I hate this song. I don’t care who sings it, or how badly or how well they sing it. I hate this song.

Glee Cast—”Beth”
#72
Shoved off the charts by American Idol this week (an improvement, if a small one), the best Glee can manage is a soppy Kiss cover. Singing bad songs badly does not make them funny, it only makes them worse. Though I don’t expect anyone involved in Glee will ever realize it. I also suspect that they’re not trying to be funny.

Will Young—”Leave Right Now”
#81
What can you say about a guy who in comparison makes James Blunt sound like a great artist? That he should follow his own advice?

Paramore—”The Only Exception”
#90
Over Paramore’s usual thrashing, Hayley Williams sounds intelligent and cool, a slightly wistful cynic standing tall in the midst of emotional confusion. Over an acoustic backdrop, however, she sounds like any other female singer/songwriter with well-crafted lyrics whose sentimental rage turns into a sentimental crush when the right guy walks into the room.

Cali Swag District—”Teach Me How To Dougie”
#91
Not a form of jerkin’, according to them (their jeans aren’t skinny, for one thing), but the impetus is the same: turning hip-hop and rap back into party music. The crosstown rivalry, I suspect, will only be good for both. This is fresh and fun, and its appeal appears to be cross-generational—Jermaine Dupri, of all people, has done a remix. They already talk like the four marketeers, and have started a twitter campaign to get Soulja Boy on another remix. In other words, grab them now, before they’re spoiled. There will be a lot of one-hit wonders in this genre over the next couple of years. This is a good one.

J. Cole—”Who Dat?”
#93
Given time I might come up with an answer, except that all I can ever remember about this song is the question.

Ludacris featuring Trey Songz—”Sex Room”
#98
Ludacris has rarely been as funny as this without cracking an obvious joke, and the groove guarantees that even the porn-movie cliches carry an erotic charge. The groove is so good, in fact, that it allows Trey Songz to hold our attention to the very end without his actually having to come up with a lyric, uttering nothing but a few suggestive phrases and the title. Which only makes it sexier, of course.

Rick Ross featuring Ne-Yo—”Super High”
#100
I lot of people will write this off as a Ghostface rip, but I say, isn’t it time? If Ghostface’s tracks weren’t about pimps, whores, and drug dealers killing each other, and so laced with obscenity that a censored version would be half silence, his blaxsploitation-based grooves would be all over the charts, and probably the radio. As Kanye West might put it, he knows how to cook that crack music. Ross knows nothing but how to brag, and the music lacks the dense intensity of Ghostface, but the groove is so undeniable it would be meaningless to complain. As for Ne-Yo, he contributes his best hook since “So You Can Cry”, and raises the track up yet another level. A great one.

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New this week—4/25/10

Monday, April 26th, 2010

B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams—”Airplanes”
#12
The airplanes as shooting stars image is old, but it’s a good one, conjuring up a specifically urban sensibility, and as a somewhat self-pitying description of the travails of the rap life, B.o.B’s verses aren’t bad (I especially like the image of him holding his cell phone in his lap, hoping it doesn’t ring). But make no mistake: Hayley Williams owns this record, elevating both the imagery and the rap far above any level they could reach on their own. To have a voice with the strength to stand up to punk/metal and still have that vulnerable ache in it is a gift, and Williams knows exactly what to do with it. The official artist credit, by the way, reads “B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams of Paramore“, in case anybody should get the ridiculous idea that this is her first move toward a solo career. Uh-huh.

Christina Aguilera—”Not Myself Tonight”
#23
Reportedly a lot of people think Aguilera is pulling a GaGa on this generally excellent but frustrating record, but that’s nonsense—she started down this road long before GaGa appeared on the scene. The more obvious influence is Britney Spears’s Blackout, which “Not Myself Tonight” copies in overall sound and feel, even if its rhythm track is more straightforward. That doesn’t mean GaGa isn’t an influence, though, or, for that matter, Beyonce. Which leaves Aguilera with the same problem she’s always had, that of a talented and intelligent performer who tries too hard and has yet to establish any definite personality on her records. The title begs the question: when was she ever herself?

Glee Cast
“Gives You Hell”, #32
“Hello”, #35
“Hello Goodbye”, #49
“Hello, I Love You”, #66
At their best the Glee Cast records are a mix of overmiked Broadway and sober karaoke, fun sometimes but negligible, and that’s all they’ll ever be. At their worst, which is most of the time—this week they turn The Beatles’s lamest single into something indescribably awful—they’re the absolute worst; I can’t think of a single record to appear on the Hot 100 last year that wasn’t better than all 26 of the Glee tracks that made the chart. But that’s not why I hate these records. I hate these records because they clog up the Hot 100 with tracks everybody knows are nothing but souvenirs, and keep more worthwhile records from making an impact. As Glee proves, this is the latest era of instant hits, and a week or two difference may well destroy the chances of a much better record getting on the charts. On TV it’s fine, and if they want to release a soundtrack album at the end of each season, like Hannah Montana, that would be OK, too. But putting this crap out every week and preventing worthier artists from gaining exposure isn’t just crass commercial exploitation, it’s a kind of decadence.

Jason Aldean—”Crazy Town”
#92
Though it’s nice to hear a fun country rocker that isn’t just about how great it is to be A: country, and B: a rocker, this is too loud and shrill to be C: fun. I don’t buy the idea that Nashville is Hollywood with twang, either. Vegas is more likely, if only because it’s where a lot of these good ol’ boys are probably going to end up. The big names, anyway—the rest will grind out their days on the smaller casino circuit. I mean, you don’t expect to find anything like this in Branson, do you?

Brad Paisley—”Water”
#100
This isn’t Paisley at his best, but it isn’t his worst, either, which means that it’s better than most of the country singles out right now, even if it isn’t anything new. As usual, there are both brilliant touches—the opening line about his father inflating the wading pool is perfect—and tasteless ones (a wet t-shirt contest? C’mon, Brad). Plus tons of guitar, of course, which I could listen to for hours, even if he is just showing off.

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New this week—3/14/10

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Justin Bieber—”Never Let You Go”
#21
The most irritating thing about Justin Bieber may be something over which he has no real control: all his records sound the same. He may have talent, but he either possesses such a narrow emotional range that his handlers don’t dare let him express himself, or they have such a narrow idea of what a pop record should be that they can’t take advantage of whatever talent Bieber does possess. The first is a possibility, but I lean toward the second explanation: this is such an obvious retread of Chris Brown’s “Forever” that you wonder if anyone in Bieber’s camp has a single original idea.

Jason DeRulo—”Ridin’ Solo”
#33
Did anybody involved in this record notice how irritating DeRulo’s voice is on the chorus? Did they think it would serve as a kind of hook? Or make up for the fact that nothing else about this record is even vaguely interesting? If so, they were wrong.

Usher featuring Nicki Minaj—”Lil Freak”
#43
Somehow I don’t think Stevie Wonder ever imagined anyone using part of “Livin’ for the City” as background music for an orgy, but I guess we should give Usher a break—he’s got to get over the grief of his divorce somehow.

Avril Lavigne—”Alice”
#71
I long ago resigned myself to the use of Alice in Wonderland as a Rorschach blot for anyone low on ideas who needs a little creative boost, but that only excuses Tim Burton. This is straight cash-in and a terrible record by any standard. The only notable thing about it is that it definitively marks the moment when Lavigne gave up on doing anything new and decided to copy those who have followed in her wake—in this case, Paramore. Even another soppy ballad would be better than this.

Kenny Chesney—”Ain’t Back Yet”
#73
If you define country as music based on the nostalgia of people in their thirties to mid-forties for the pop music of their early teen years, then this is a country record. But even by those standards it isn’t a good country record, just a loud one (with horns, to boot). Gossip hounds, however, will eat up the apparent reference to Renee Zellweger in the last verse.

Godsmack—”Cryin’ Like A Bitch!!”
#74
The exclamation points in the title tell you everything you need to know about this record. Think of them as sudden bursts of guitar and you can pretend you’ve already heard the song without the painful experience of actually listening to it.

Three 6 Mafia Vs Tiesto with Sean Kingston and Flo Rida—”Feel It”
#78
If the artist lineup didn’t tip you off to how desperate these guys are for another hit, the music sure would. Most egregious moment: when Flo Rida comes on, the beat switches to an approximation of “Low”. Even worse, that’s the only part of the record that makes any sense. The rest is a confused mess.

Danny Gokey—”My Best Days Are Ahead of Me”
#78
I never saw Gokey on American Idol, but it’s easy to understand why he was voted off—the only thing thinner than his voice is his material.

La Roux—”Bulletproof”
#92
With all the Eurodisco influence on the charts it’s nice to see the real thing making some headway. Already a number one in the UK, though I doubt it will make it as far here—it’s not brash and straightforward enough for American tastes. I find it a trifle thin and stiff myself, but it’s still better than about 85% of anything else on the charts.

Chris Young—”The Man I Want to Be”
#98
As shameless as self-pitying country gets, this is essentially the male version of Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel”, only worse, because you can’t help suspecting that all Young really wants is his woman back. What he should really be praying for is better material.

Steel Magnolia—”Keep On Lovin’ You”
#99
Because Lady Antebellum just isn’t enough Sugarland for the country/pop market.

Eric Church—”Hell On the Heart”
#100
Church is the kind of guy who believes old-fashioned things like simple, catchy melodies, short songs (this one clocks in at 2:45, shorter than both his previous singles, only one of which is over three minutes), and strict stereo separation. He also gets better with each record. But he isn’t that good yet. Cliches keep popping up in his lyrics, and thematically there’s nothing that separates him from a few thousand other good ol’ boys. He also has a tendency to sprinkle his interviews with references to how much better he is than everybody else. I like this record, and I hope he gets better, but I’m not holding my breath.

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New this week

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Glee Cast featuring Kristin Chenoweth
“Alone”, #51
“Maybe This Time” #88
The addition of actual Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth might be expected to add a level of polish, maybe even personality, or perhaps give the songs some satirical edge, but these tracks are as bland as everything else that has come out of the show, with the added detriment—especially on “Maybe This Time”—of the most irritating kind of Broadway mugging and hokiness. I’m beginning to think the blandness may be part of the appeal. Why else would that awful Queen cover be outselling everything else from the show?

Foo Fighters—”Wheels”
#73
Dave Grohl is a sincere, intelligent guy who makes sincere, intelligent alt-rock, and who’s capable, at his best, of tweaking the usual alt-rock self-actualization cliches just enough that they sound felt and almost not cliches. This is not Grohl at his best. The problem is the tempo, which overplays the sincerity and heightens the cliches so they’re impossible to miss. I don’t say this about many people, but I prefer Grohl when he’s shouting.

Paramore—”Careful”
#78
All those rumors about Hayley Williams going solo weren’t just the result of cynical music-biz thinking, they were an obvious reaction to the reality of Paramore: that Williams is more than just the public focus of the band, but also it’s creative center. Her lyrics are realistic without being cynical, hopeful without being sentimental, honest without being cruel. The band adds nothing but precisely played, often overwrought bombast. Williams may not have outgrown them yet, but just wait.

Kris Allen—”Live Like We’re Dying”
#89
Allen has apparently decided that the best way to maintain his post-American Idol career is to choose his material and sing it as if he were still a contestant. Hell, it made him a winner once, right?

Dierks Bentley—”I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes”
#91
This is like a scene from a country-themed Harlequin romance. It follows all the rules, and it’s supposed to be slow and seductive, but mostly it’s just slow, and too carefully calculated to be sexy. Bentley sounds sincere, but then all guys sound sincere when they’re they’re trying to get laid.

Reba—”Consider Me Gone”
#96
It starts off well, but like too many country songs it’s shifted deep into cliche by the time it gets to the chorus and never recovers. Reba’s vocals are fascinating, though—who needs autotune when you can stretch vowels like silly putty the way she does here.

Train—”Hey, Soul Sister”
#98
One of those songs where the forced cleverness of the music and lyrics outweighs whatever point the song is trying to make, which wasn’t much to begin with. This is like Jason Mraz with hypertension—not a pleasant sound at all.

LeToya featuring Ludacris—”Regret”
#100
This is more a recitation over a stylized musical background than it is a song, and Ludacris, to put it bluntly, is terrible: self-satisfied, pompous, crude, and never funny. Needless to say, he dominates the record.

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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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