Posts Tagged ‘Radiohead’

Hot 100 Roundup—11/14/10

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Tim McGraw—”Felt Good On My Lips”
#26
This sounds sexier than most country, and I like the way McGraw changes up the meaning of the title line as he goes along; all very professional. Like a lot of country, though, the lines that are supposed to provide detail and a bit of humor tend to sound forced and out of place; he devotes so much time and energy to describing a mixed drink it’s impossible not to snort. Then it all ends with nothing more than a goodnight kiss. It might make a good joke song if McGraw upped the tempo, or a good romance song if you got the feeling there was the least possibility of romance. As it is, it’s nothing.

Ke$ha—”Sleazy”
#51
The chorus, with its echoes of both classic girl groups and post-punk girl bands, is enough to carry the rest of the song, which is hedonistic without being greedy, a smart move. Is she trying to reclaim “sleazy” the same way the riot grrrls tried to reclaim “slut”? It didn’t work the first time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying again.

Nicki Minaj featuring Eminem—”Roman’s Revenge”
#56
Oddly enough, this otherwise awful record appears to mark the return of Eminem’s sense of humor. Needless to say, it’s a highly offensive sense of humor, and the laughs aren’t boffo, but he sounds even more on top of things here than he did on Recovery. Minaj, meanwhile, is completely out of her league (Lil Wayne must have been taking it easy on her), and the only good thing about her fake British accent is that it comes after all of Eminem’s bits so you can turn the damn thing off without feeling you’re going to miss something. The less said about Minaj’s choosen name for her alter ego, Roman Zolanski, the better. Slim Shady she ain’t.

Pitbull—“Bon Bon”
#61
“We No Speak Americano” hasn’t come close to finishing its chart run, but that doesn’t stop Pitbull from jumping aboard, and good for him. His perfect timing and sense of humor make the song both more bearable and may even give it some meaning, though since yo no hablo español, I couldn’t say what that would be. Chances are he’s just trying to pick up a girl.

Kenny Chesney—”Somewhere With You”
#67
There are hints of something deep and dark in the lyrics, maybe even a dose of reality, but Chesney delivers it all with his usual well-oiled aplomb, and by the end the record has turned into another one of his lady-pleasing “I wanna sleep with you tonight” songs. Even when he’s trying to be thoughtful the guy can’t resist shameless pandering.

T.I. (featuring Chris Brown)—”Get Back Up”
#70
It’s a surprise that not only is T.I.’s latest apology (or would this be his first?) is so light-hearted, it’s also so lightweight in terms of sound. You’d never know he had a care in the world, a feeling Chris Brown, even with his own history, only enlarges (I’ve never cared for him as a lead, but he’s a great background singer). T.I. is still harping on the haters, but at least he’s picking out the right haters, and not throwing insults out scattershot. I suspect the softness of the sound is an attempt to make him look like a nicer and more thoughtful guy than he may actually be, but at least he seems to be thinking about it.

Ricky Martin featuring Joss Stone—”The Best Thing About Me Is You”
#74
I bet this sounds better in Spanish. And I bet if I spoke Spanish I would think it sounds better in English. I’m glad Ricky Martin came out, but that doesn’t mean I want him to come back.

New Hollow—”Sick”
#86
Wannabe teen sensations steal their song structure from “Creep”, their riffs from The Who, their lyrical ideas from Mudhoney, and their overall vibe from, uh, The Records? Not The Records of “Starry Eyes”, unfortunately. More The Records of “Teenarama”, which isn’t bad, but isn’t great, either. I could do without the hurling sound effect at the end, but this is growing on me. They may not have enough sense to know how tasteless the idea of this song is, but I bet they wouldn’t care if they did. Who says power pop is dead?

Chris Young—”Voices”
#89
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/7/10

Jason Aldean with Kelly Clarkson—”Don’t You Wanna Stay”
#93
Good singer hooks up with great singer, and together they sing a terrible song and let the arrangement drown out their voices. I couldn’t care less about what Aldean does, but Clarkson deserves better, and there’s no reason to believe she’ll ever go out and get it or even realizes it exists. Her weakness for power ballads appears to be authentic, just like her voice. What a depressing combination.

Toby Keith—”Bullets in the Gun”
#97
This is overwrought and too reliant on cliches, but it’s nice to know that there’s at least one guy in Nashville who’s willing to keep some sort of edge in his songs and doesn’t make pretty in the face of all the women who want to bash in his headlights and gun him down with a shotgun. Despite his jingoistic sins in the past, he make no apologies, knows his own strengths, and refuses to retreat from the masculine turf he’s been plowing his whole career. Hell, he may be the only real man left in town.

Rock Mafia—”The Big Bang”
#98
A weird one. Forget their Disney pedigree for a moment and just listen to this thing: the vocals, Tim James electrically modified so that in some moments he sounds like Amy Winehouse and in others as if he were computer-generated, are odd enough, but the overall sound is an even stranger throwback to sixties movie music, albeit a little funkier. It could be a rejected James Bond theme from 30 years ago. The lyrics, which compare the jolt of lust to the creation of the universe, are out there, too. Then there’s the whistling. Maybe Disney provided them with the one thing many artists don’t realize they need: a leash.

Blake Shelton—”Who Are You When I’m Not Looking”
#99
First line, over gentle acoustic guitar and light brushes on the drums: “My oh my, you’re so good lookin’/Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends”. After an opening like that the song has no choice but to get better, and it does, but not much better. I think I’ve asked this before but I’ll ask it again: what does Miranda Lambert see in this guy, anyway?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, Hot 100 Roundup, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Could streaming services be the new record labels?

Monday, October 18th, 2010

They aren’t now, obviously, and I don’t know if anyone is even considering it, but after reading the most recent study about streaming services and mobile networks, I think there’s a (pardon the word) synergy that can’t be denied. There are already a number of established and fairly successful streaming services, each with it’s own demographic, and their impact is growing by the day. Once iTunes, Google, and eMusic join the streaming throng, the sheer weight of the movement will carry itself along.

Most streaming services already have some sort of licensing agreement with the major labels, so in terms of what’s available there isn’t much difference between them. The only real distinctions are ease of use, opportunities for the audience to discover new music (even though that’s not always what the audience wants), social network capabilities, and price (though there’s not much difference there, either). The only real opportunity for distinction in the future (besides, in the case of iTunes and Google, sheer size and brand recognition), will be exclusivity. Since profit margins for streaming are so small, though, it’s doubtful that the major labels would be willing to give an exclusive deal to a service, unless there were a guarantee that the services would find exorbitant. At the moment, it makes more financial sense for the major labels to spread their product through as many different services as possible.

Imagine, though, if an already successful, independent band, such as Radiohead (which would have little to lose in such an experiment), were to sign an exclusive deal with a streaming service, even if it’s for only one album. Physical product would still be available, of course, but perhaps not until after a delay of a month or two, much the way In Rainbows was released online or many albums are now released digitally before appearing in stores. Something like this has already been going on at Rhapsody, where they will occasionally have exclusive rights to stream an album the week prior to its release. Although there will always be other ways of getting a hold of music once it’s been made available in any form, it’s hard to imagine that such a scenario wouldn’t result in a boost in the subscriber base of whatever company was lucky enough to make the deal.

From there it might be only a matter of time before services started signing bands directly, both established groups who have untangled themselves from the majors or new bands willing to work for a pittance in order to get the exposure that a service with a few million subscribers might give them. It would mean lower profits for everybody at first, but it would also mean lower expenditures, and might ultimately turn into a steady revenue stream for everyone involved (it might even make theoretical nonsense like the long tail seem feasible).

Because the established labels would undoubtedly be resistant to such a plan (possibly even to the point of killing their agreements with certain services), and also because the services themselves aren’t set up, for now, with all the things necessary to be a record label, the majority of the acts on streaming services, at least at first, would be those independent bands who are unencumbered with contracts but also self-sufficient enough to put their own material together and do their own publicity. No doubt in the early days, the services would be willing to give these bands far more freedom than they could get from the majors, or even from some independent labels. In other words, while having almost complete artistic freedom, they would also be immediately connected to a distribution network that would give them instant access, plus essentially free promotion, to a potential audience of millions.

It’s possible—and excuse me if this sounds like either wishful thinking or sheer fantasy—that the result would be, for a brief time, a kind of golden age, where bands would find themselves given both a freedom and access to audiences they’ve never enjoyed before, and that even the audience would tune in in ways they haven’t for years. It will all fall apart in the end, of course. Once real money is being made, corporate conglomeration will set in, the audience will fragment (since it often seems that the more monolithic the source of access is, the more fragmented the audience becomes), and the whole thing will fall apart again, only to be reformed as something else altogether. I’m not making predictions, just suggesting one possible scenario. Stranger things have happened.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in The Biz, media, pop culture | Comments Off

New this week—11/22/09

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Shakira featuring Lil Wayne—”Give It Up To Me”
#58
With Timbaland producing, this starts off sounding like a Nelly Furtado record, but after Lil Wayne’s short, sweet rap, Shakira takes over, and actually manages to reduce both Wayne and Timbaland to the status of sidemen. She’s a force of nature, but with Timbaland repeating his old production tricks in the background, this doesn’t rise anywhere near the giddy heights of “She Wolf”. It’s also depressingly submissive: “…put me in a cage and lock me away and I’ll play the games that you want me to play.” That may be a reference to her record company forcing her to make this after the relative commercial disappointment of “She Wolf”, but that’s not the Shakira anybody wants, and I can’t see this doing any better.

OneRepublic—”Good Life”
#69
Is this what Radiohead would sound like if they were a self-satisfied, self-serious, American pop band? Is that something we even want to think about?

Yo Gotti—”5 Star Chick”
#79
The old-school gangstas’ love of women who have actual jobs—aside from stripping—continues. This one, when she isn’t servicing Gotti sexually or drinking his champagne, is going to real estate school. Or is she a teacher? Or a nurse? Oh, I get it, Gotti’s got a whole harem of women with day jobs. Except he doesn’t, because he says he still has to meet this woman. Or maybe he just means yours. Whatever the case, he certainly covers the theme from all the angles. Gotti having wrapped up this subject (no pun intended), old school gangstas may have to start searching for another type of woman completely. I know, how about ones they legally support? Uh, no, I guess not.

Trey Songz—”Say Aah”
#81
Pleasant enough, but too long, and Trey Songz, for all his obvious skills, always reminds of somebody better. He’s the living definition of a mid-level talent, and this is a mid-level song.

Adam Lambert—”For Your Entertainment”
#84
Straight out of the box, Lambert is easily the oddest of the American Idol alumni to hit the charts, but this record, for all it’s forthright sado-masochistic references, is still pretty tame. It’s like a TV arranger’s idea of the Scissor Sisters, with all the musical brashness smoothed over, and more reminiscent of hair metal than disco. The lyrics are crude, as well, even if they’re intended as a metaphor for Lambert’s coming out after playing nicey-nice on Idol. He sounds like a gigolo for pampered, masochistic housewives.

Anya Marina—”Whatever You Like”
#88
Formula: Sarcastic indie-cover of hip-hop hit, sung in breathy little-girl’s voice, with original gender references retained to achieve maximum irony/kinky suggestiveness. Intended Result: Satiric send-up of rap sexism and self-satisfaction. Actual Result: Pop-porn for pedophiles. Conclusion: Yuck.

Josh Turner—”Why Don’t We Just Dance”
#99
The syrup in Turner’s voice is so thick it almost overwhelms the song, which is clever, charming, just sexy enough, and determinedly lightweight. If this had been released ten years ago it would be just another piece of formulaic country, but coming amidst today’s overwrought barn-burners it’s a pleasant diversion. Turner may not have the easy—sometimes too easy—command of George Strait, but his heart’s in the right place, and he tries harder.

Timbaland featuring The Fray and Esthero—”Undertow”
#100
This is promising for the first two minutes. The song isn’t that strong, but Timbaland’s subdued, pained vocal on the first verse, and the gorgeous warmth of Esthero’s on the second, suggest that maybe it will turn into something worthwhile. In the second half, though, it becomes just another Fray record, albeit one with classier and more restrained production—which only serves to underscore how weak the song is. At least “Apologize”, as awful as it was, had hooks.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Hot 100, new this week, singles | Comments Off

Wouldn’t a fake Radiohead torrent have been more appropriate?

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

The founders of The Pirate Bay are sent a court summons via Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: ,
Posted in media | Comments Off