Posts Tagged ‘Rihanna’

Shake It Up: Hot 100 Roundup—3/2/13

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

The big news this week, of course, is the addition of YouTube streams to the formula Billboard uses to create the Hot 100. The new system propels “Harlem Shake” to number one (the first time a previously unknown artist has debuted in the top spot), and causes a lot of movement in other areas of the chart as well. Rihanna’s “Stay”, for instance, thanks to an appearance on the Grammy awards and a video in which Rihanna is naked in a bath tub, leaps 60-some spots into the top ten, and songs like “Gangnam Style” get a a new lease on life just as they were about to drop off the chart.

Overall, I think it’s a good idea. YouTube is a far better gauge of popularity than radio, and though the system is ripe with opportunities for abuse, it’s no more ripe that the pre-Soundscan days. We can look forward to a few years of constant novelty hits until the culture adjusts (as it will), but that doesn’t seem too great a price to pay for more accuracy. Besides, some of those novelties will be great.

Baauer—“Harlem Shake”
#1

The most important thing to remember about “Harlem Shake”, the track, as opposed to the Harlem Shake phenomenon or the Harlem Shake controversy, is that it isn’t finished. This is a backing track, a beat designed for someone to rap over (Azealia Banks had her contribution rejected by Baauer, but the freestyle versions are starting to roll out). This is obvious from the huge open spaces in the record, and the way the track drops in volume in the places where the vocals would go. It’s not meant to be listened to on its own, and its sudden discovery and viral infestation of the culture has more to do with luck and the desire of people to be silly than anything else. Even considered only as a beat, though, it isn’t much, though it’s good enough that the right rapper could make something worthwhile out of it. Of course, it’s too late for that; we’re stuck with it the way it is.

Justin Timberlake—“Mirrors”
#24

“Suit & Tie” has its great moments, but it’s a mess. As a follow-up, “Mirrors” is less of a mess, but it doesn’t have any great moments. What it has, instead, are bits and pieces of 80s pop and soul loosely strung together and stretched out for over 8 minutes of head-scratching mediocrity. It’s meant to be a love song, but the lyrics, and the way Timberlake sings them, create an odd sense of distance from the subject. When Timberlake says he couldn’t have gotten “bigger” without her, what exactly is he referring to? His career? His soul? The length of this song? At the same time, while she’s reflecting him, and he’s reflecting her, they’re both being reflected by a third mirror, which Timberlake says he could watch all the time (I thought he was watching her). Who or what does this mirror represent? God? The press? Timberlake’s third eye? One final question: if your lover reflects you back so perfectly, are you actually seeing her at all?

One Direction—“One Way Or Another (Teenage Kicks)”
#45

I’ve mentioned One Direction’s rock tendencies in the past, and on this charity single they live up to them more wonderfully than I would have dared hope. They smartly play both songs for maximum aural impact, i.e. fast, hard, and loud, and don’t make any attempts to modernize or decorate them. I’m sure it’s something they dashed off in a couple of hours, but that’s a large part of its charm. Also, though this wouldn’t be as big a deal in the U.K. or Ireland, where “Teenage Kicks” was a big hit, it’s nice to know that somebody still remembers the Undertones.

Ace Hood featuring Future & Rick Ross—“Bugatti”
#77

This is fairly ordinary, as might be expected, but I find myself fascinated by the title line, “I woke up in a new Bugatti”, if only because of the mystery it creates. Hood never explains where that Bugatti came from. Since he woke up in it, I assume it’s his, either through purchase or purloinment (most likely purchase, because who would bother to brag about stealing a car anymore?). The question is whether he even remembers how he got it. If he fell asleep in the car, that suggests he was pretty much wasted when he got in. Did he buy it when he was stoned or during a blackout? If so, has Hood achieved what might be considered a higher level of boasting? If he has so much money he can buy a car that costs over a million dollars when he’s wasted and not worry about it, his bragging rights would be somewhere in the astronomical range. $6,000 shoes are nothing compared to this.

P!nk featuring Nate Reuss—“Just Give Me A Reason”
#84

P!nk’s permanently exasperated view of herself and her relationships mesh perfectly with Nate Reuss’s feigned confidence tinged with desperation, making “Just Give Me A Reason” an effective and affecting duet even if the lyrics don’t always connect. Still not sure whether the situation is resolved or left hanging, though that may be the point. Realest moment: when Reuss sings “My dear [addressing her this way, of course, is a sure sign that he has no idea what she’s talking about], we still have everything, and it’s all in your mind”, and P!nk replies in an undertone, “Yeah, but this is happening”.

J. Cole featuring Miguel—“Power Trip”
#91

I’ve never heard anything from Cole that wasn’t mediocre, and here’s another one. Even Miguel’s presence doesn’t help, though it doesn’t hurt.

Joe Budden featuring Lil Wayne & Tank—“She Don’t Put It Down”
#96

This has charted, I assume, on Lil Wayne’s presence, because Budden himself is so negligible I find it hard to imagine anyone would buy one of his records for him alone. Of course, Wayne hasn’t been that much better than Budden lately, and he doesn’t do anything to recover his standing here. He is easier to understand than Budden, but given what he’s saying, that’s not much of an improvement.

Krewella—“Alive”
#99

One disadvantage to the rapid embrace of EDM by just about everybody is that it has driven a lot of the minor artists who first brought the sound to the charts onto the sidelines (anybody else remember Cascada?). So it’s something of a pleasant surprise to see someone totally new make the charts on the formula. Not a great record, maybe not even a good one, but simpler and less aggressive than a lot of the big name EDM attempts, and hence a more enjoyable listen. I don’t expect to hear from Krewella ever again, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy them while they’re here.

Alabama Shakes—“Hold On”
#100

I wish this was better, I really do. I like to see people with legitimate musical sensibilities succeed, even if they can easily be lumped in with pretentious hacks like The Black Keys or Mumford & Sons. Brittany Howard has a voice, but she has a tendency to play up the worst sort of pseudo-blues phrasing. She often gets it just right, but too often she sounds like she’s either faking it or trying too hard. It would help if she had a more finished song to work with; this one sounds like a rough sketch. And though it’s no surprise that Howard’s vocals are sometimes reminiscent of Janis Joplin, the band’s application of the same earnest semi-competence as Big Brother may be carrying the idea of honoring your influences a little too far.

The Highway Don’t Care, But My Songs Do: Hot 100 Roundup—2/23/13

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Fall Out Boy—“My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up)”
#26

I’ve never been a fan of Fall Out Boy. Their songs, their playing, and their ideas always seemed muddled to me, and when you combined those with their obvious ambition and self-absorption you got a lot of pretentious mess. I was glad when they decided to go on hiatus (from which I assumed they wouldn’t return), because I could only see them getting worse if they carried on. But now they’re back, and the time off has obviously been good for them, because their comeback single is focused, imaginative, and even comes close to making sense (at least to me; I’m sure it makes perfect sense to them). Naturally enough, the song is at least partially about their time off. At least, I assume that’s what the “dark” of the title partly refers to (these guys love puns and multiple meanings). The best stroke is in the title itself, the idea of a songwriter being informed of mysterious goings on (by who or in what context we’re never told) by the songs he writes. It reveals songwriting as a kind of self-telepathy along the lines of Norman Mailer’s famous statement “I don’t know what I think until I write it down” (and yes, I had no idea what the song was about until I started writing this). These guys have obviously stored up enough anger to drive their songs without a lot of fancy ideas, but it’s good to hear them thinking. It’s even better to hear that thought making it’s way into the music instead of confusing it.

Lady Antebellum—“Downtown”
#45

After the run of mediocre singles that followed the wonderful “Need You Now” (there were seven of them, in case you’re counting), I figured Lady Antebellum for one of those groups who have one great song in them, and then repeat the formula for as long as it takes for the magic to wear off and they disappear from view. But “Downtown” is a surprise in every way, a slice of stripped-down country funk that’s the polar opposite of “Need You Now” and just about everything else in mainstream country. It does have one predecessor: “Pontoon”, and I would be surprised if Little Big Town’s hit wasn’t a strong influence on this one. “Downtown” isn’t as sultry, but it’s funkier, and if the song and arrangement aren’t enough of a surprise, the guitar break sure is. The first great country single of the year, and it’s going to be a hard one to top.

Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko—“Stay”
#57

Adele having opened the door with “Someone Like You”, we’re starting to see a rise in piano-only (or near-piano-only in this case) ballads. Bruno Mars has one (and a good one, too) in the top ten, and now there’s “Stay”. I was impressed at first: the song moves nicely and shifts in ways that keep your attention, and Rihanna’s voice is looser and comes closer to real emotion than she ever has before. But then you have to deal with Mikky Ekko (ugh, what a name), and his “Ed Sheeran wasn’t available so they sent me” vocal. Ekko gets the entire second verse to himself and sinks the record. At at her most mechanistic, at least Rihanna has a voice that keeps your attention. Ekko couldn’t get you to notice him even if he was singing to you in an elevator—you’d mistake him for muzak. There are a lot of guest vocals and raps on Unapologetic, along with dance tracks with not much in the way of lyrics. This is Rihanna’s way, I suppose, of giving herself a break while making sure she doesn’t drop out of public view for more than 25 minutes. I don’t blame her, but if she’s going to do that she needs to find better singers.

Tim McGraw & Taylor Swift—“Highway Don’t Care”
#59

Tim McGraw may be the most overrated country star of the last fifteen years. He’s got a voice, but he uses it for nothing but the usual country sentiment. He’s willing to experiment with sounds and styles, but he always lands in roughly the same place, and those experiments never extend to the ideas or the themes of the songs themselves. He generates a lot of buzz at times, but no heat. On “Highway Don’t Care” he teams up with Taylor Swift, who has already done her part to canonize him, and though neither one of them had a hand in writing the song, it may as well have both their fingerprints on it. Which means it leads nowhere new. Even worse, it takes its sweet time not getting there. The only revelation comes when Swift takes the part of the generic love song playing on the radio: if ever there was proof that it’s her voice as well as her songwriting talents that have made her such a star, this is it. She makes those banal words come alive. Too bad McGraw can’t do the same.

Drake—“Started From the Bottom”
#63

“Started From the Bottom” is more a teaser for the new album than a legitimate single, but I’m impressed by the beat, and by Drake’s switching up of voices. Whatever you may think of him overall, there’s no doubt that he’s improved as a rapper. As for the lyrics, I assume that he means that he and his crew started out from the bottom of the rap game, not life itself. I’m willing to concede that point; how many people would take any teen actor—especially a Canadian one—seriously if he suddenly announced he intended to become a serious rapper? But that doesn’t mean he needs to devote every track to complaining about it.

Kenney Chesney—“Pirate Flag”
#68

Chesney is coming off a string of above-average singles, but this is the fourth single off Welcome To the Fishbowl, and the inspiration doesn’t run quite as deep this time around. Certainly not deep enough to float his pirate ship.

Young Jeezy featuring 2 Chainz—“R.I.P.”
#69

Is he talking about his career? Not yet, I guess.

Chris Young—“I Can Take It From There”
#97

For assembly-line made country slap and tickle, not bad. But I’d have less doubt about his lust if Young didn’t use so many pre-formed parts to put it across.

Wale featuring Tiara Thomas—“Bad”
#99

This is the first time a Wale record has gotten my attention since he teamed up with Lady Gaga on “Chillin’” nearly four years ago. Once again it’s the woman who makes the track worth hearing. When Tiara Thomas announces that she’s never made love but she sure knows how to fuck, the record is essentially over, at least as far as Wale is concerned. Who pays attention to anything else after that? Thomas also outs herself as a cheater who’s guaranteed to break Wale’s heart, which I guess makes her whatever definition of the recently controversial term “bad bitch” you care to apply. The word “bad” applies to Wale, too, but in only one way that I can think of.

The Year Starts Here: Hot 100 Roundup—2/16/13

Friday, February 15th, 2013

At last, a great record makes an appearance, and I’ll try not to let the fact that’s it’s almost a year old bias me against 2013 (besides, there’s more great, newer stuff coming up next week). “I Love It” may be a freak as far as current pop is concerned, but it’s the kind of freak that could mean something down the line. Here’s hoping it hangs on for a while.

Justin Bieber
“Nothing Like Us”, #59
“As Long As You Love Me ( Acoustic)”, #98

Just as some critics (meaning me) we’re starting to accord Bieber a level of respect he at least partly deserves, he delivers a blatant cash-in in the form of an acoustic version of Believe and blows up any possibility of taking him seriously. I have no doubt this is exactly what Bieber’s core fan base was looking for, and I don’t entirely blame him for taking advantage of them by giving them what they want. The problem is that an acoustic setting, especially one designed to genuflect to his audience, emphasizes Bieber’s worst instincts. His singing is all sentiment and sham emotion, and his careful phrasing, which was becoming one of his greatest strengths, is thrown out along with the original arrangements. The lowest point is the track that’s the most popular. “Nothing Like Us”, the one new song on the album, seems designed to do nothing more than feed speculation about Bieber’s relationship with Selena Gomez. Bieber throws every bad lesson he’s learned about singing at it, and the result is worse than terrible, it’s disgusting.

The Lonely Island featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar—“YOLO”
#60

As an idea, and an old one at that, “you only live once” is no more worthy of attention than any other variation on carpe diem. As a hashtag, though, as justification for any and all levels of entitlement and stupidity, it’s a menace, and deserves all the satire and derision that comes its way. The problem with “Yolo” is that by stressing the opposite extreme it tacitly endorses the worst possible definition of the meme. It’s a parody of entitlement for the entitled. Also, it isn’t funny. Hearing Kendrick Lamar give financial advice is good for a brief chuckle, but the effect has faded away by the time he finishes his bars (it’s the only time he’s ever bored me). The song does reveal one important truth, however, if only by association: Adam Levine is the Michael Bolton of his era (i.e. uptempo and with an r&b beat). Why didn’t I realize this before?

Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX—“I Love It”
#69

One of the best singles of 2012 becomes the first great record to make the Hot 100 in 2013, and I could care less if the nation had to be exposed to the sight of Lena Dunham bouncing up and down and singing along to make it happen. “I Love It” touches on a level of anger that Girls (at least the episodes I’ve seen) has never approached. It blows a hole through the rest of the charts in a way few records ever have, not just in terms of attitude but of sound as well. It won’t last, because unless this bump in sales continues (it’s already dropped fourteen places since its debut) radio won’t touch it. My only hope is that it opens the door for Charli XCX, whose “You’re the One” was my favorite single of last year. Whatever the case, I haven’t been so happy and surprised about a record making the chart since M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”.

Glee Cast—“Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)”
#91

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
“Can’t Hold Us” (featuring Ray Dalton), #97
“Same Love” (featuring Mary Lambert), #99

At last, rap music that guilty white liberals can love. Academics, too. An entire career could be built sorting out the psychology of a rapper/producer duo that works from an exclusively white perspective but feels the need to bring in black singers to deliver the hooks. Are they simply recognizing their own limitations, or is that their idea of authenticity? Or could it be an acknowledgment of the debt they owe black music? Or a spreading of the wealth to assuage their own sense of guilt? Whatever the case, at its best its an obvious ploy, at its worst condescending as hell. Macklemore and Lewis do perform one public service, though: they render the existence of Asher Roth and Mac Miller superfluous. I wonder who’ll do the same for them next year.

Rihanna featuring Future—“Loveeeeeee Song”
#100

Rihanna’s name comes first, but “Loveeeeeee Song” is Future’s record. He not only guests on it but produced, and whether he wrote it with Rihanna in mind or just gave her something he was working on, it was a wise decision. Rihanna has been loosening up as a vocalist but retains a mechanical quality that makes her a perfect foil for Future’s auto-tuned, over the top emotionalism. At the same time, giving “Loveeeeeee Song” to Rihanna allows Future to drop the street rapper facade that generates the most clichéd moments on his own records and indulge his romantic instincts. In the end, the credits don’t matter: this is a high point for both of them.

Bending the Cliché: Hot 100 Roundup—1/19/13

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

Another slow week, with yet more tracks from Les Miserables and Pitch Perfect, neither worth bothering with unless you have a liking for bland ballads and clunky medleys. But the three non-souvenirs are each fascinating in their way, reworking familiar clichés and calling up more questions than they answer. None of them are brilliant, and they’re all, technically, from last year, but they point in some interesting ways toward the future. It’s going to be a weird year.

Rihanna—“Pour It Up”
#90

Aside from the music, which is stunning, what stands out about this record is the gender bending. “Pour It Up” could easily be sung by a man without changing a single word of the lyric. The message—”look guys, I can parade my stacks and my grill and watch strippers just like you”—is partly parody, partly whatever in Rihanna’s mind passes for feminism. Money makes her equal, even if she never has to spend any of it. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the remaining problem is one that male rapper’s have been trying to solve for years with little success: once you’ve reached this exalted position, then what? Kanye West and Jay-Z answer the question with art and business, respectively, but I don’t think Rihanna is thinking that far ahead yet. It’s a puzzle, no matter what your gender, but I suspect it’s more complicated for women. I hope she figures it out.

Lee Brice—“I Drive Your Truck”
#91

Over the last few years, southern truck culture has become so swamped in cliché, sentimentality, and jingoism that’s it’s difficult for those who live outside of it to take it seriously, to understand that it’s rooted in something other than macho arrogance, redneck pride, or right-wing paranoia. That an object that, in rural communities, is seen as a necessity should become an object of veneration shouldn’t be considered unusual. At least, no more unusual than urbanites’ veneration of, say, Apple products, or their favorite coffeeshop. If your brother died, wouldn’t you have the same feelings about his favorite hangout or his laptop, or even his car that Lee Brice has about his brother’s truck in “I Drive Your Truck”? The clichés are firmly in place—driving with the windows down, cranking up the radio, tearing up fallow fields, raising a lot of dust—but Brice makes them register, connects them with emotions and communities and lives. It’s not a great record—the music is stolid, the arrangement unimaginative and much too loud—but Brice sings very well, especially on the first verse, and the heart of the message gets across. I don’t think he totally succeeds in breaking the bounds of cliché, but he comes close.

The Barden Bellas—“Riff Off: Mickey/Like A Virgin/Hit Me With Your Best Shot/S&M/Let’s Talk About Sex/I’ll Make Love To You/Feels Like The First Time/No Diggity”
#93

Samantha Barks—“On My Own”
#97

fun.—“Carry On”
#100

Whenever anyone writes this sort of brainless uplift marching song they’re always in danger of appearing ridiculous, so I can’t totally fault fun. for coming up with one of the dumbest lines I’ve ever heard: “But my legs are fine/After all, they are mine”. The problem is the form, not the execution. “Carry On” is as skillful and enjoyable as this sort of song can be, and catchier than most, but after the more personal and idiosyncratic, if uneven, pleasures of “We Are Young” and “Some Nights”, it comes across as too easy in its uplift, almost cheap. Like those records, though, it has its oddly endearing moments of confusion (he says he never said that we are all shining stars, and then says exactly that over and over again in the chorus). These moments are intended, I think, to suggest self-doubt and maybe even deep thought, or maybe to reflect the realities of conversation amongst people who aren’t sure what anything they say means. All I hear this time around, though, is a guy who contradicts himself because he can’t remember what he said thirty seconds ago.

Best of the Hot 100, 2012

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

There seems to be general agreement that 2012 was not a good year for pop music—musically, commercially, or for those who cover it. I have my doubts about this (I have my doubts about the whole concept of good and bad years in general, but that’s another discussion), but there’s no doubting the negatives.

The commercial aspect is obvious: CD sales continue to drop, and digital sales aren’t rising fast enough to compensate. Individual track sales are booming, but LP sales are still far behind.

For critics, while the opportunities to publish, or at least self-publish, continue to expand (which may be part of the problem), the possibility of getting paid has dropped. The two most obvious signs of this decline—the firing of Maura Johnston at the Village Voice in favor of the snarky, listicle-based, and largely out of touch music coverage featured in the other Voice Media papers (disclaimer: by extension, I was one of the victims in Maura’s firing); and the failure of Uncool to find crowd-sourced financial backing (largely their own fault, but still)—suggest that support for decent music writing exists, for the most part, only among decent music writers, and stretches not much further than their families and friends.

As for the music, this has been a transitional year, though I wouldn’t call it a complete disaster. The collapse of hip-hop as the reigning genre, a process that started back in 2008, became a general part of the discussion this year, as the music all but disappeared from the top ten. Older stars like Usher (and Beyonce in 2011) found it almost impossible to scale the pop charts, even after they modernized their sound. Of the younger artists, only Nicki Minaj and Rihanna have managed to stay near the top of the charts, but both had established themselves in the years before, and there were no big breakout artists.

In rap, though a number of new artists in the older mold (Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Big Sean, and others) scored decent hits, none of them have made much of a mark on the pop charts. Far more successful, and claiming the most critical interest over the last year, have been artists like Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, and Future, who follow in the wake of the album that broke the old form’s dominance: Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreaks. 808s is not only one of the markers for the commercial collapse of hip-hop, but has become far more influential musically than anyone expected. West, not surprisingly, is also the only established rapper who continues to have major pop hits.

So far, though, even as hip-hop has faded, nothing has stepped up to take its place, at least not in in comparison to the total domination hip-hop enjoyed for over a decade. Instead, we have three different streams rising up and sharing the spotlight.

The one that has gotten the most attention, and certainly the most press, is the dance and party music that has been stuck with the name EDM. EDM made its first major appearance on the pop charts via The Black Eyed Peas in the late oughts, just as hip-hop was starting its swan dive. The electro-based minimalism of BEP has been largely replaced by various types of eurodisco (Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia), and dupstep (Skrillex, Diplo, Zedd, and many others).

Over the last year it was dubstep that got the most attention. Skrillex’s singles, though never large pop hits, stayed on the lower reaches of the Hot 100 through most of the year, and he sold out everywhere he played (which was pretty much anywhere, and almost every night). Then came Usher’s Diplo-produced “Climax”, one of the best singles of the year and a number one r&b record, but not a big pop hit, most likely because it was too subtle to come across on top forty radio.

After that, it was as if the floodgates had opened, and every wave contained another “drop”. By the end of the year, dubstep had found a place in almost every genre. Not just in r&b and hip-hop, but in sensitive singer-songwriter balladry (Alex Clare’s “Too Close”, produced by Diplo), teen-pop (Carly Rae Jepsen and Justin Bieber), and even, if you stretch the definition a bit, country, in the form of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” The most garish and obvious cash-in came on Pitbull’s “Back In Time” (produced by RedOne). Laying the wobble on Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange” created one of the most joyfully ridiculous pop moments this year, and it continues to mystify me that the record wasn’t a bigger hit.

Just behind EDM was teen-pop, mostly in the form of the effervescent Jepsen and the somewhat beleaguered and bipolar (in a relationship sense) Swift. The Disney factory, which for all intents and purposes created teen-pop as a genre, was for the most part silent this year, with only the rehabbed Demi Lovato’s “Give Your Heart a Break” scoring big, although Bridgit Mendler continues to hover on the lower reaches of the Hot 100 with the readymade “Ready Or Not”.

The Disney gap was largely filled by Brits. Boy band One Direction turned the Disney blueprint into gold, pumping out one bright, snappy pop/rock track after another, while Cher Lloyd toughened the stance without losing the cheeky corniness of the genre (if anything she amplified it). “Want U Back” is too mature to fit the Disney mold well, but follow-up single “Oath” could have come off the soundtrack to any Disney Channel musical of the last five years (“Oath” wasn’t a big hit, but it was scooped up by a lot of teens with their iTunes gift cards after Christmas—enough to give the record it’s highest chart placement after it had fallen off the Hot 100 two weeks before; the next week it was gone again).

The third stream produced big hits but hasn’t, as far as I can see, gotten much publicity, or what it has gotten has been for a different reason. I call it the “new seriousness”, though that can hardly be considered a genre name. Most of these records came from what usually get called “indie bands”, though that label becomes more meaningless all the time (and it never meant much). The biggest hits, by Gotye and fun., (Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” started the ball rolling in late 2011), feature intense self-reflection and -doubt, with a heightened, though intellectualized, sense of musical melodrama.

These records aren’t to everyone’s taste, obviously, but the fact that lesser artists (Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, Ed Sheeran, even American Idol winner Phillip Phillips), have been able to make hits along the same basic lines suggests that there’s a growing sense of—dare I say it?—personal responsibility building in the pop audience. The real proof may come later this year, when the new Arcade Fire is released. If they get a hit single, I’d say the “new seriousness” is officially a trend. If not, it’s a blip. (Meanwhile, the record I thought would be the next big “serious” hit—Passion Pit’s “Take A Walk”—continues to hover in the lower reaches of the chart. It’s dropped off a couple of times over the last three months, but it always comes back).

But was 2012 a mediocre year? I don’t think any year that contained “Call Me Maybe”, “Climax”, and “Adorn” could be called bad, and these judgments are best made in retrospect anyway, so I’m only prepared to go as far as calling it average and transitional. The pop audience is still making up its mind as to what will follow hip-hop as the dominant paradigm, but I would assume it will be a mixture of all three streams, an idea already explored by artists like Robyn and on Jepsen’s critically praised but commercially disappointing album Kiss (again, Arcade Fire’s new album may work as a test case, though I doubt there’ll be much teen-pop influence).

At any rate, my picks for the best songs to make the Hot 100 in 2012 are below. Basically, anything that would deserve a B+ or better—if I bothered to grade records, that is—is included. The only track missing from the playlist is Swift’s “Begin Again”, which isn’t yet available on Spotify. These are not in order of quality, though a lot of my favorites ended up at the beginning and the end, with the slightly lower quality stuff tossed about in the middle. The mix is a mess, but then the year was a mess, and at least this gives a sense of how scattered it was stylistically.

My choices make up slightly less than ten percent of the records that made the chart this year, and as could be expected, some of the inclusions and omissions are questionable, not just by you, but by me as well. Still here it is. (Ten percent, by the way, is what I would consider average. If it were fifteen it would be a good year, twenty a great one. Anything much below ten, though? I don’t even want to think about it).

Enjoy.

Honestly, What’s A Critic?

Monday, December 17th, 2012

Michele Catalano’s Tumblr post about being an “honest critic” and how she really isn’t a critic at all, despite having a regular music column on the Forbes website, isn’t worthy of much attention. She gets almost everything wrong, but there are lots of people who do that. At the same time, though, she’s wrong in a way that pushes a lot of my buttons.

Such as her apparent unfamiliarity with any other music critics. She says that just once she’d like to see a critic put a popular artist on their year-end list. Has she bothered to look at any of this year’s? Did she notice how often Carly Rae Jepsen shows up? Or fun.? Or Rihanna? Or P!nk? Or Miguel? Or Usher? You don’t need to read other critics to make conclusions about the quality of a record, popular or not, but if you’re going to pass judgment on the critics themselves it’s essential. Catalano seems to have skipped that step.

And what the hell is this business about critics only liking Exile On Main Street because they scored with their favorite girl to it when they were fifteen or something? What sort of sexist bullshit is that? I’ve never made out to Exile On Main Street, and I think it’s a great album. Why? Because I listened to it, that’s why. That’s all it takes. I can think of a of lot albums I’ve made out to, some great, some awful, some mediocre. But there isn’t a single record that I think is great because the first time I listened to it I was wrapped up with a woman on the couch. I might get sentimental about it, but I wouldn’t base a critical judgment on that. No true critic would.

But Catalano doesn’t even know what a critic is. “…I didn’t want to be a critic, in the strict sense of the word. I wanted to write about music. I wanted to talk about music. I wanted to share every song I loved and discuss why I loved them.” Guess what? That’s what critics do, all the time, and in the strictest sense of the word. They write about music (or books or movies or whatever), and they get their greatest enjoyment out of writing about music they love. But to balance that, and to understand why they love what they do, they write about what they don’t love, as well, what they hate, or what they’re indifferent to.

What Catalano doesn’t want to be isn’t a critic, but a reviewer, someone who has to come up with an opinion of every record that comes down the pipeline, whether they’re interested in it or not. I don’t blame her. Reviewing is hard, and it can be tedious and frustrating and make you feel your soul is being ripped from your body every time you need to think up a word to describe a record that isn’t even worth a sigh and that no one will remember in three months anyway. But reviewing isn’t criticism. If a reviewer is good, and sneaky, a review can contain criticism, but it’s rare. Believe me, I know; I’ve been trying for years now, and could count on my fingers the number of times I think I’ve been successful.

So Catalano doesn’t want to be a reviewer. Fine. But she doesn’t want to be a critic, either, which is moot because she doesn’t know what a critic is. Which means she’s, um, a blogger, I guess, though one with a fairly decent, if not exactly high profile platform (I don’t think too many people turn to Forbes for music coverage). She only started at the magazine in November, so it’s too soon to see whether her adventure in non-reviewing, non-critical criticism will pan out. If it doesn’t, maybe she should consider carpentry.

Chart Notes—12/8/12

Friday, November 30th, 2012

There’s not much new to say about features; they increase star power, they give the primary artist a rest (and sometimes a challenge), they give new artists a chance to make a name for themselves, etc. But it’s worth mentioning that there are five debuts on the charts this week that most likely wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the features. Three from Rihanna, two from Nicki Minaj, one from Pitbull. All are from new albums, and all are being picked up from curiosity (especially Rihanna’s “Nobody’s Business”, with Chris Brown) as much as anything else.

This is especially true when you consider that the power of a new album to load the charts with individual tracks in it’s first week of release seems to be fading. At one point or another, every song from Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now”, including nine debuts on the week of release, made the Hot 100. But Red only managed to put five tracks there, despite the album selling over a million copies its opening week. The same is true of Mumford & Sons. One Direction, the only other performers to sell over half a million their debut week, and who are singles band if anybody is, only got two new tracks into the Hot 100 (thought there were a bunch more on the Bubbling Under chart). Neither Rihanna nor Minaj managed to get a Hot 100 record from their new albums (not counting official singles like the number one “Diamonds”, of course. Pitbull meanwhile, whose star appears to be fading (though “Don’t Stop the Party” is turning into a hit), barely squeaks into the bubbling under chart, thanks largely to Christina Aguilera and the a-ha sample the track is built around.

I’ll talk more about The Voice when I do the Hot 100 Roundup, but for now I just want to mention that Cher Lloyd, Rihanna, will.i.am and Britney Spears, and Ke$ha have all been prevented from entering the Hot 100 this week by the competition show’s souvenir singles. But then, how much fire power can these guys still have if they would have debuted so low anyway?

Finally, we have the year’s first new Christmas record, a remake of “Holly Jolly Christmas” courtesy of Lady Antebellum. It’s pretty bad, though the horn section is good. The worst part is Hillary Scott’s misguided attempt to sound sultry. When was Burl Ives ever sultry?

Here are the debuts from the charts I’m following at the moment. This list may expand as time goes on.

Bubbling Under
Loveeeeeee Song – Rihanna (featuring Future) #2
Scream & Shout – will.i.am (featuring Britney Spears) #3
C’mon – Kesha #4
Lean On Me – Nicholas David #7
Gone Gone Gone – Phillip Phillips #12
Who Booty – John Heart (featuring iamSU) #14
Trust and Believe – Keyshia Cole #17
Love Sosa – Chief Keef #21
Feel This Moment – Pitbull (featuring Christina Aguilera) #24

Hot R&B Songs
Loveeeeeee Song – Rihanna (featuring Future) #31
Love Sosa – Chief Keef #38
Nobody’s Business – Rihanna (featuring Chris Brown) #39
I’m Legit – Nicki Minaj (featuring Ciara) #40
Numb – Rihanna (featuring Eminem) #42
High School – Nicki Minaj (featuring Lil Wayne) #44
Neva End – Future #49

Hot Country Songs
Over You – Cassadee Pope #3
Give It All We Got Tonight – George Strait #25
A Holly Jolly Christmas – Lady Antebellum #48

Sex & Death
Hot 100 Roundup—11/17/12

Thursday, November 8th, 2012

The Band Perry—“Better Dig Two”
#53

In which the group who jump-started their career with “If I Die Young” goes full bore into country gothic. The woman in “Better Dig Two” not only vows to follow her husband in death, but appears to threaten a murder-suicide if he ever dares to leave her. It’s Miranda Lambert’s “Crazy-Ex Girlfriend” taken to the emotional limit. I wish I could say it was great, but somehow it doesn’t work. The music is menacing, but their pop roots show, and the tone is off in places. They’re trying too hard.

A$AP Rocky featuring Drake, 2 Chainz & Kendrick Lamar—“Fuckin’ Problems”
#73

Normally I could care less about rappers bragging about how often they get laid, but this one works, largely because everybody here, even Drake, is at the top of their form. Drake, in fact, walks away with the record; bragging about his dick must inspire him. I’ll admit Kendrick Lamar sounds a little out of place—this isn’t really his zone—but he makes the best of it anyway.

Chris Brown—“Don’t Judge Me”
#95

With titles like this, you have to wonder why Brown complains so much when anyone brings up Rihanna in interviews. Uh, because you keep bringing her up in your music? Not that this is technically about Rihanna, of course; I’m sure it’s a complete fiction. Besides, it’s about womanizing, not battery. But didn’t the fight with Rihanna start because she was calling Brown on his womanizing? Maybe he should write a song called “The Ballad of Chris and Ri Ri” and get it over with. Whatever. It’s a boring record, anyway.

The Weeknd—“Wicked Games”
#96

The sound is impressive, and so is the voice, but every time I listen to The Weeknd I find myself faced with a supposed soul man who devotes himself to the same misogynistic crap as the hardest rappers, and I suspect that has a lot to do with his appeal. I admit that this time out he confesses his sins, but it’s the sort of manipulative candor that’s designed to make him look deep; even as he admits to taking advantage of you he still expects you to do whatever he wants. He’s soulful, but he’s a con man, and I don’t trust him.

Kelly Clarkson featuring Vince Gill—“Don’t Rush”
#97

Finally a decent song, and better yet, Clarkson takes another step toward fulfilling my dream of her becoming this generation’s Dusty Springfield. Her vocals are stunning: alluring, sexy, self-possessed, and smart. The ’70s easy-listening soul feel is a perfect fit for her. All the ironic yacht rockers should either give up or ask Clarkson to give them lessons—this is what you can do with the style when you put all your heart and soul and brains into it.

Thompson Square—“If I Didn’t Have You”
#98

Of all the mixed pairs in country music, Thompson Square is probably the least interesting: there’s no tension between them, and no sign of passion, either. This isn’t the worst record you’ll ever hear, but it is one of the blandest.

Dierks Bentley—“Tip It On Back”
#99

For a beer drinking song, “Tip It On Back” is surprisingly slow, almost mournful. That makes sense on the opening verse, which is about the travails of life that make you want to get good and drunk on the weekends, but the chorus, oddly, is the same. It doesn’t get any faster or more joyful, just louder. Makes you wonder why he drinks at all.

Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
Hot 100 Roundup—11/3/12

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

The autumn rush has gone by, or so it seems to me, much faster than usual, and with less effect than expected. Partly this is because it’s been dominated by two artists, Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons, but also because much of what’s been released hasn’t been that impressive. Swift’s pop experiments are interesting, but many of them have been disappointments, and other highly anticipated records from big names—Rihanna, Bruno Mars, P!nk, Ke$ha—have been passable and nothing more. Whether they’re the fading old guard or suffering a sophomore slump, nobody is making much of an impact. Except Psy, of course. Psy is killing it.

Taylor Swift—“State of Grace”
#13

Musically, “State of Grace” is impressive, and also unexpected. Working with her usual producer, Nathan Chapman, Swift has come up with something that’s so different from her previous forays into pop, including the rest of Red, that it throws her entire future up for grabs. That is, this isn’t country, but it isn’t teen pop, either, and it’s one of the best tracks on the album. It isn’t all that original, but at the same time the U2 connection everybody makes isn’t as direct they imply. The larger influence comes from near Swift’s birthplace, in the sound of Eastern Pennsylvania bands like The Ocean Blue and Riverside. Like too much of Red, however, the simplified lyrical style results in banality more often than not, and only occasionally does the music elevate the words into something more. I doubt this is a musical direction Swift will continue to pursue, but it’s good to know she’s capable of this sort of surprise.

T.I. featuring Lil Wayne—“Ball”
#50

“Ball” is easily T.I.’s best record since he got out of prison, but of course that isn’t saying much. The beat is wonderful—playful and energetic—and though T.I. doesn’t have anything new to say over it, he sounds more alive than he has in years. I wish I could say the same for Lil Wayne, who now appears to be pursuing mediocrity as if it were worthwhile career option. He doesn’t embarrass himself, but he adds nothing.

Kelly Clarkson—“Catch My Breath”
#54

I’ve complained about Clarkson’s mediocre material in the past, so I don’t see the point of doing it again, but why is she singing like Lady GaGa? The timbre and the phrasing are an almost perfect imitation; if the song showed any distinction at all you could easily mistake it for a track that got left off Born This Way. Except GaGa would have made sure the chorus had more punch to it, and would attack it with more intensity (which would be a mistake, but it would be the right kind of mistake). After over a decade, Clarkson has only rarely dared material that’s up to the standard of her vocals, and there’s no reason to think this will ever change. I’ll continue to enjoy her voice, and her personality, but she could be doing a lot more with both.

Jason Aldean—“Night Train”
#92

Aldean’s latest records sound less overdone than his previous singles, and this one ambles easily and inoffensively along . He still likes loud guitars too much, though. Shouldn’t a song called “Night Train” sound like a train, and not like a rolling eighteen-wheeler crushing the romanticism of the lyric like so much roadkill?

Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch—“Sweet Nothing”
#96

Florence Welch makes this bearable, even enjoyable in spots, but Harris’s inability to create interesting music continues. This is as flat melodically and harmonically as all his records. It may even be worse. The only way you can tell you’ve reached the chorus is a change in Welch’s timbre and the cue provided by the banal drum machine crescendo, along with the sound in general getting louder. But you’d never know it by the music.

Bridgit Mendler—“Ready Or Not”
#98

Like most Disney pop, “Ready Or Not” seems off at first, the sophistication of the melody and arrangement clashing with the goofiness of the lyric and the unpolished, naive quality of the vocals. Eventually it comes together, and though it still might not make complete sense, it does make for enjoyable music. The lack of polish is intentional, of course; the whole idea of Disney pop is to place its audience in a fantasy world where, even though they’re surrounded by surface glamour and the trappings of show business, at heart they’re still the same wide-eyed teenagers they’ve always been. They may be enmeshed, as Mendler is here, in a fantasy where the right guy equals both love and wealth, set to music that places them within calling distance of pop professionals like Bruno Mars or Natasha Bedingfield, but they’re still goofy, gangly teenagers. Their attempts at sophistication are always half tongue-in-cheek, and they’re determined not to lose their sense of innocence and discovery and the strength those things provide. “Ready Or Not” isn’t up to Disney at its best, but it’s another solid record in the same tradition.

A Fistful of Mumfords
Hot 100 Roundup—10/12/12

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

A week of big names, with three new records debuting in the top 20. A great Taylor Swift (the third in a month, with more coming each week up to the release of the album on the 22nd, when I expect all the remaining tracks to appear on the chart—she’s done it before), disappointing Ke$ha, mediocre Rihanna, Flo Rida, Pitbull channeling Toots and the Maytals, and more Mumford’s than you can shake a banjo at. Next week promises more of the same: Swift again, Bruno Mars, One Direction, Kid Cudi, Brad Paisley, Gary Allan, and, oh yeah, Adele.

Taylor Swift—“Begin Again”
#7

For the first of the preview singles leading up to the release of Red (the second, the title song, is already out), Swift takes a conservative turn, falling back on the soaring romanticism she’s famous for, with carefully placed steel guitar to keep her country audience happy. But this commercial calculation doesn’t take anything away from “Begin Again” or keep it from being one the best records she’s made. If there’s another songwriter at the moment who’s capable of capturing small romantic moments with as much skill and grace as Swift, I haven’t heard them. The verses set the stage, and the middle-eight is a delight, but it’s the chorus, which may be the best thing Swift has yet written, that makes this a great record. I only have one question: when Swift wrote the song’s best line, “I’ve been spending the last eight months/thinking all love ever does/is break, and burn, and end” did she realize she was echoing the 18th century English poet John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV (“That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend/Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.”)? I wouldn’t put it past her.

Ke$ha—“Die Young”
#13

In pop music, professionalism is essential, but it’s also a curse. “Die Young” is intelligent and professionally crafted, but it contains the merest whiff of inspiration. There are a few good moments, but overall it’s the dullest record Ke$ha has ever made. Considering the stuff that Ke$ha put out since her last album–the Dylan cover (terrible, but never boring), the collaboration with The Flaming Lips–”Die Young” is a surprising disappointment. Sounds like she was trying too hard.

Rihanna—“Diamonds”
#16

Written by Sia, produced by Stargate, and with a weird, Robyn-inspired vocal on the intro that has been noted by many, so much so that I’m beginning to think of all the attention paid to the Scandinavian influence on “Diamonds” as cover for the mediocrity of the rest of the track. Structurally “Diamonds” sounds odd and disconnected, and yet the arrangement is ordinary and, compared to what Rihanna has been doing the last couple of years, conservative. Considering she had just released a remix of “Cockiness”, it seems strange to issue a new single so quickly. But then, “Cockiness” was received with a yawn, so maybe this was a rush job to save face.

Mumford & Sons
“Babel”, #60
“Lover’s Eyes”, #85
“Whispers In the Dark”, #86
“Holland Road”, #92
“Ghosts That We Knew”, #94

In musical terms Mumford & Sons have improved since their first album. The arrangements are straightforward and less cluttered, the lyrics more pointed and less confused. They’ve still got a long way to go, though. Since they don’t possess much of a melodic gift and lack rhythmic variety, they fall back on gimmicks to get their point across: sudden stops and starts, dynamic shifts, and lurches in tempo are the only real tools they possess. They tend to use the same tricks, to the same effect, over and over again, often within a single song. It’s tiresome, but their unerring precision keeps the tracks moving even when there’s not much else going on.

What is going on, most of the time, is rage. I wish I could tell you what their anger is about or directed towards, but the lyrics are vague and fall too readily into cliche, making it difficult to get a clear picture. Biblical imagery suits them, but it doesn’t clarify their ideas. That may be a good thing, since many of these songs revolve around the perfidy of women, or one woman anyway. It’s possible the lyrics are about something else–society in general, or the church–and the feminine pronoun is a way of personalizing the imagery. But that only makes it worse. If Mumford is striking back against a real woman who did him wrong, his imagery would be acceptable, but not if it’s intended as allegory. The world has endured enough Bible-based misogyny. The last place we need it is in pop music, which has too much of its own misogyny already.

Flo Rida—“I Cry”
#81

The serious subject matter of “I Cry”–the mass murder in Norway, the death of a sister–explains the lack of a new hook from this hook machine, but it doesn’t explain the usual club-banging arrangement. Talking about tears falling into a champagne bucket doesn’t elicit much sympathy, either. In most cases, when a pop star who’s traded in party music releases a “serious” record, it’s a sign their days on top are coming to an end. Next stop: a greatest hits album with a couple of new tracks. Should be a good one.

Pitbull featuring TJR—“Don’t Stop the Party”
#89

Another insane track from Pitbull, and a perfect example of a sample chain. Having heard TJR’s funk/house track, “Funky Vodka”, Pitbull brought the producer into the studio, and re-edited and remixed the track with his vocals over the top. Like so many dance records, “Funky Vodka” itself was based on a sample: Toots and the Maytals’s “Funky Kingston”. So if you want, you can credit Toots Hibbert with writing the riff that makes the song move, though he no doubt borrowed it from someone else. Whatever the case, Pitbull’s version isn’t a desecration: all he does is up the party atmosphere and modernize the sound. He also delivers one of the best lines I’ve ever heard from him, mixing his usual bragging with a healthy dose of Latino pride: “Just cause you ain’t me, don’t hate me/As a matter fact you should thank me/Even if you don’t, you’re welcome, yankees”.