Posts Tagged ‘Rihanna’

New this week—8/8/10

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Sugarland—”Stuck Like Glue”
#20
When I heard that Sugarland was claiming steampunk influences on their new album, I expected the worst: something both cutesy and overwrought, pretentious and bland. Instead, we get a charming, though not brilliant, love song, driven by a human beatbox who sounds something like a small industrial sewing machine and a bass line that drives like a piston. It sounds like no country record you’ve ever heard, and yet it’s still recognizably country, a neat balance of the modern (postmodern?), and the traditional. In other words, they seem to have gotten the idea of steampunk just right. If it were a bit shorter (when you depend this much on catchiness you need to be careful not to overstay your welcome), and if Jennifer Nettles didn’t feel the need to do a Christina Aguilera impersonation in the middle, it would be almost perfect.

Asher Roth—”G.R.I.N.D.”
#79
I could do without the preachy spoken bit at the end, and Roth’s feigned off-handedness bugs the hell out of me, but this is surprisingly mature and tougher than I would have expected. “The American Dream is a pyramid scheme” is not the sort of comment you anticipate coming from a guy who has been as lucky in his career as Roth (it doesn’t quite fit with the optimism of the rest of the record, either). He may be smarter than I thought—which doesn’t mean he’s as smart as he thinks he is.

Kenny Chesney—”The Boys of Fall”
#96
Surprisingly elegiac for a song about a game as violent and chaotic as football, but then Chesney isn’t Hank Williams, Jr. It’s so perfectly crafted that he almost gets away with it, and this is pleasant and easy to listen to. But the match of subject matter and approach still jars, and all the craft in the world wouldn’t justify its six and half minute running time. Chesney isn’t Brad Paisley, either.

Shinedown—”The Crow and the Butterfly”
#97
They get the emotional tone of this heavy metal weepy just right, but they do it by the book, so the tone doesn’t carry much emotional weight, and like too many metal bands they think they’re creating meaningful ambiguity by leaving important information out of the lyric. If you’re going to hook a song around the idea of being “a little too late”, you need to let people in on what you’re too late for. I also have my doubts about whether crows actually chase butterflies.

Rihanna featuring Slash—”Rockstar 101″
#99
I like the fact that Slash’s guitar is used for atmosphere rather than flash, and the ominous tone is impressive. But there are better ways for Rihanna to show how tough she is, and the middle eight is all wrong; I’m not sure what type of song it might fit in, but it isn’t this one.

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The year so far, ctd.

Monday, July 26th, 2010

When I was doing my half-year summation last week, an idea struck me that I didn’t have time to include. As I said there, the apparent greatness of the year overall hasn’t made much of an impression on the pop charts, at least not in terms of individual records. As the old saying goes, though, a rising tide lifts all boats, and though I think it’s fair to say that there have been few great records on the Hot 100 this year, the quality, overall, has risen.

Quality, however, may not be the right word; freshness may be closer to the truth. Since the crash and burn of the summer of 2008, there has been a slow but steady revitalization. Pop music sounds different than it did three years ago. On the top forty charts, the touchstones are obvious. With Lady GaGa and the revamped Blacked Eyed Peas leading the way, followed by 3Oh!3, Ke$ha, and quickly adapting older artists like Rihanna and Jay-Z, electronica in one form or another has become a staple on the pop charts, to the point where even Disney stars like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are jumping on the bandwagon (to be fair to Disney, Aly & AJ were actually ahead of the curve on this). At the same time, the pop embrace of electronica has forced those in the electronic music scene itself to up their game and look for new ideas to separate them from the mainstream (a process aided by the cross-pollination provided by DJ podcasts like those found at Resident Advisor, XLR8R, and Fact Magazine—check out Michaelangelo’s piece in the Guardian for an overview). At the same time, thanks to its exposure on the charts, electronica is garnering an ever-expanding fan base of more adventurous pop listeners.

Hip-hop and rap have also been reflecting the inspiration provided by electronic music. Unlike pop, however, the major changes are coming from smaller scenes outside the mainstream. While stars like T.I. and DJ Khaled fill their records with ever more baroque permutations of fuzzy synths, the whole of hip-hop is being remade from underneath by teenagers with lap tops. From Soulja Boy Tell’em in Mississippi to the jerkin’ movement in LA to Cali Swag District’s “Teach Me How To Dougie”, which puts an LA spin on a dance movement originating in Dallas, the movement in one form or another has gone nationwide. All that laptop rap needs now is an independently-minded genius to blow it wide open (Soulja Boy and New Boyz, unfortunately, have already been absorbed by the old guard).

Beyond the influence of electronica (and yes, I know that phrase is out of date, but find me another that covers the whole spectrum), other genres are being revamped as well, especially country. Up until a couple of years ago, country was ruled by good ol’ boys like Toby Keith and Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, who sang, for the most part, about only one thing: how good it is to be a good ol’ boy. In the last two years, though, women have come back strong: Gretchen Wilson started the ball rolling, with Miranda Lambert following closely behind, then Carrie Underwood (whose “Before He Cheats” provided the ultimate kiss off to the good ol’ boy genre), with Kellie Pickler, Sugarland, Lady Antebellum, Rory and Joey, and a host of others quickly occupying the landscape. In a category all their own are Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley, who have brought an intelligent, charming, good-humored sensibility back to country that it’s been missing for over a decade. The good ol’ boys are still around, but their voices are muted. Many of them are trying to meet the women half way, and the result has been a batch of pleasant, if not always brilliant records that feel far more down to earth and human.

Interesting changes have taken place on the indie and alternative scenes as well, but for the moment none of those have been turning up in the pop charts. Not that that isn’t a possibility. As far as I can tell, the only major difference in sound between Ke$ha and Sleigh Bells is the mix: Ke$ha mixes her distorted electronic explosions down and her voice up; Sleigh Bells does the opposite. They may be on different paths, but they’re heading in the same direction. Everybody is. And somewhere down the road is a convergence point that’s going to blow everybody away.

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New this week—7/4/10

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Eminem
“Love the Way You Lie” (featuring Rihanna), #2
” No Love” (featuring Lil Wayne), #23
“Won’t Back Down” (featuring P!nk), #62
“Cold Wind Blows”, #71
“Talkin’ 2 Myself” (featuring Kobe), #88
“25 To Life”, #92
I have no doubt that Recovery is a better album than Relapse 2 would have been, and it probably is Eminem’s best since The Eminem Show, but that isn’t saying much. His skills remain amazing: his rap on “No Lie” is a marvel of technique, so much so that Lil Wayne is left with little more to do than stand back and cheer. But his sense of humor has all but disappeared, he repeats himself endlessly (the lyrics read like daily affirmations for victims of Tourettes), his vocals are overloud and overbearing, and he ends up both boring and a boor. I realize he has a lot of crap to work out, and there are occasional flashes of the old Eminem in these songs, but if he keeps up at this rate he’ll need to call his next album Redundant. And after that, dare I say it, Retirement?

Selena Gomez and the Scene—”Round & Round”
#24
While Miley Cyrus makes a big to-do and madly flaps her CGI wings to break out of the Disney mold, Gomez does it effortlessly. My hesitations about anything Kevin Rudolf is involved in disappeared after a couple of plays, and I now think this may be an even better record than “Naturally”. It’s modern dance pop without the controversial bits, more Cascada than Lady GaGa or Ke$ha. I still don’t know what The Scene do, other than appear in her videos, but Gomez, once she shakes off her teen vocal phrasing, looks to have a great career as a disco diva in store for her.

Maroon 5—”Misery”
#44
The groove is tight, I admit, so tight you can barely breathe. But that’s not the same as being too funky, and, based on their previous records, it may be the only groove they have. If it weren’t for Adam Levine, I might mistake them for INXS. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t a great thing, either.

Sara Barielles—”King of Anything”
#59
Catchy and sarcastic is a great pop combo, but catchy is all the music gets, the lyrics are a rehash of “Love Song”, and when Bareilles isn’t being sarcastic she sounds bored, a feeling she passes on to the listener.

Miley Cyrus—”Stay”
#75
Can’t be tamed, maybe. But domesticated? Sure, why not?

Adam Lambert—”If I Had You”
#94
Lambert makes interesting records, but I’m not sure a mix of modern dance music and hair metal is a good idea, even if the results were more appealing than this. Do we really need an updated version of Journey? Isn’t Glee bad enough?

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New this week—2/21/10

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Artists for Haiti—”We Are the World 25: For Haiti”
#2
Whatever else might be said, good or bad, about the original “We Are the World”, at least it was of its time. This new version, despite the urgency of the cause, or perhaps because of it, isn’t. Even more than the original it sounds self-serving and self-congratulatory, and though some have made a big deal of the addition of rappers to the mix, after 25 years their presence is neither surprising nor significant—if anything they make the record sound more dated. What is surprising is the anonymity of it all. On first listen the only voice I recognized was Justin Bieber’s, and after a few more go-rounds I’ve only been able to pick up on a few of the others. It’s not that the singers aren’t trying to be distinctive—if there’s such a thing as a melisma overdose this record could induce it—but they’ve all switched into sincere balladry mode and are trying their best to appear humble (in the most self-aggrandizing way), which tends to make them all sound alike. Let’s face it, ego is one of the driving forces of pop music, and successfully feeding it is as close as most pop stars get to emotional and intellectual achievement; without it they’re nothing.

Iyaz—”Solo”
#43
Second single, and he now sounds even more like Sean Kingston than the first time out. Which doesn’t make this bad, it just means that you’ve heard it before, and better.

General Larry Platt—”Pants On the Ground”
#46
A not very funny—not to mention years out of date—soundbite repeated obsessively for three and a half-minutes. I’m sure the General is a lovable old coot, and I hope he enjoys his five minutes of fame, but the best that can be said for this is that it’s better than William Hung.

Rihanna—”Rude Boy”
#64
Better than “Hard”, but only just. Considering Rihanna’s well-publicized personal history, the “treat me rough” message, though consensual and reciprocal, leaves a sour taste. I don’t want to go so far as to accuse her of capitalizing on her misfortunes, but I’m beginning to think the entirety of Rated R was a mistake.

Lloyd Banks featuring Juelz Santana—”Beamer, Benz, or Bentley”
#76
Banks is more than a second-rate 50 Cent, but not that much more, and he’s a lot cruder. He’s also a little behind the times: this sounds like a nostalgic flashback to 2004, back when cars and stacks could still impress all on their own.

Monica—”Everything To Me”
#82
An old-fashioned, unambitious soul number that never rises above its nostalgic impetus. Which is just a fancy way of saying it’s dull.

Waka Flacka Flame—”O Let’s Do It”
#95
There’s a part of me that’s glad somebody’s still making drug-dealer rap—the life exists, after all, and someone besides Ghostface Killah should be documenting it (though I doubt anyone else could be as good at it). So I appreciate the lyrical content. I just wish the music were better, or more connected to its subject matter, instead of this off-the-rack beat.

Kellie Pickler—”Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”
#99
Sweet and charming she may be, but Pickler’s talent is in the medium range, and ballads like this are beyond her. Of course, no one with above-average talent would choose material as generic as this to begin with.

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New this week—1/31/10

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Taylor Swift—”Today Was a Fairytale”
#2
As songwriting, this is rehash; Swift has gone over the same ground many times before, though this pares the idea down to its basics in an appealing way. The real appeal, though, lies in the fact that, even more than the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of Fearless, this clears away the production clutter that was that album’s greatest weakness. With every record Swift seems to have a clearer idea of what she’s aiming at and how best to attain it. She may be not just the biggest pop star of the moment, but also the smartest.

Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris—”Baby”
#5
Catchy and sweet, and even Ludacris keeps it clean (though it’s impossible for him to sound as innocent as Bieber does). Bieber is still doing a young Michael Jackson imitation and little else, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially with hooks as catchy as this.

Jay-Z, Bono, The Edge & Rihanna—”Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)”
#16
Despite Jay-Z’s confused attempt at making sense of tragedy and Bono’s meaningless plea for volunteers (who would only confuse things by this point) this is better than anyone had a right to expect. Jay keeps the song at groundlevel by emphasizing specific realities and personal loss, while Bono and Rihanna soar on the chorus. Jay-Z’s and Bono’s egos are incapable of not pushing their own agendas, but the overall effect manages to cancel both out. One of the few benefit records I’ve heard that may be worth listening to after the fact.

Justin Timberlake & Matt Morris featuring Charlie Sexton—”Hallelujah”
#48
This performance has a lot to recommend it, but I still find it irritating that “Hallelujah” has become the go-to song for anyone who wants to sound seriously spiritual and sincere, the same role previously played by “Amazing Grace” and “People Get Ready”. The problem is that “Hallelujah” isn’t really about spirituality so much as it uses spiritual imagery and Biblical references—David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah—as metaphors for the irresistible, baffling powers of love and lust. Cohen was singing about love and lust and music as acts of God, but not the kind of acts, like Haiti, to which that phrase normally refers. He wasn’t channeling the Book of Job, he was channeling The Song of Solomon. Timberlake and Morris sing beautifully—I especially like the way their voices seem to break and strain as they reach for the final notes, as if singing “hallelujah” in these circumstance was both the hardest and most important thing one could do—but the song doesn’t mean what they try to make it mean, and in this context it’s confusing more than anything else.

Lady Antebellum—”Our Kind of Love”
#80
Better than the last two singles-of-the-week, not as good as the first two, which adds up to mediocre.

Rihanna—”Redemption Song”
#81
Rihanna has a voice, and she wisely keeps this rough and tries her best to focus on the emotion, but she isn’t much of a singer, and the song is beyond her. It would be unfair to compare her to Marley, and this is a hard song to sing under any circumstances, much less under the time constraints she was working with here, but this sounds unsure and amateurish. And the background, except for the guitar part lifted largely from Marley’s original, is pure mush.

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New this week—11/29/09

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

John Mayer
“Half of My Heart” (featuring Taylor Swift), #25
“Heartbreak Warfare”, #100
What bothers me about these records, both above average in execution, emotion, and intelligence—especially “Heartbreak Warfare”—is Mayer’s apparent inability not to wear his influences on his sleeve. “Half Of My Heart” not only borrows the easy heartbeat groove of Fleetwood Mac, but is layered with an almost embarrassingly accurate imitation of Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar, while “Heartbreak Warfare” is a barely disguised rewrite of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Considering the subject matter of both songs, the borrowing makes sense, but it also makes me wonder if Mayer has any musical identity that he truly feels is his own. Maybe “Half Of My Heart” is a reference to his music as well as his love life.

Glee Cast
“Lean On Me”, #50
“Don’t Stand So Close To Me/Young Girl”, #64
“I’ll Stand By You”, #73
“Endless Love”, #78
Welcome, to paraphrase Dylan, to the old folks home in the high school. For anyone who didn’t already believe that boomer culture is a dead issue, Glee is the ultimate proof—or the final nail. These kids aren’t singing their parent’s music, after all, they’re singing their grandparent’s music. There’s a certain amount of wit, I suppose, in pairing The Police with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (though it’s unfair—not even Sting deserves to be chained to such deathless smarm), but the joke is lost in the blank earnestness of the performance. This might as well be Sing Along with Mitch or The Lawrence Welk Show for a new generation—once meaningful standards reduced to a level even lower than muzak. As glad as I am that Bill Withers and Chrissie Hynde will never have to work again unless they want to, they deserve better. We all deserve better. Even the people who actually buy this crap deserve better.

Alicia Keys—”Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart”
#58
Even at her best, and this is close, Alicia Keys makes what might be called R&B for home schoolers. She gets all the details right, down to the smallest nuance, but her music lacks the give and take, the rough and tumble of actual human contact, and it’s full of a self-importance bred of isolation. It’s as if she were building a museum of her emotions, displayed on pedestals behind glass, with dark velvet curtains and perfect lighting and little explanatory plaques for our edification.

Justin Bieber
“Down To Earth”, #79
“Bigger”, #94
“First Dance” (featuring Usher). #99
Four of the songs from his eight-track EP already having charted as singles, it only makes sense that the three others that are available as individual downloads (the eighth is technically an “album only” bonus cut) should chart as well. The first two are even blander than the singles, but “First Dance”, at least lyrically, is something else again. It’s the prom, you see, and there’s no one else on the dance floor, and their are no chaperones, and… “I promise I’ll be gentle, I know we gotta do it slowly” Bieber croons in his most seductive 15-year-old tones. “I couldn’t ask for more, we’re rockin’ back and fourth,” he says later, and then assures the young thing that “our parents will never know”. If both consenting partners are under age, is it still considered statuatory rape? And people think Adam Lambert is controversial.

Rihanna featuring Jeezy—”Hard”
#80
It is hard, and it gets even harder with Jeezy’s rap, which, unlike so many guest spots, lifts the song to a higher level, and is immediately followed by Rihanna’s best-ever vocal performance. She sounds so enraged she’s incoherent. Better this than the self-pity and mixed messages of “Russian Roulette”, not to mention the rest of Rated R.

Melanie Fiona—”It Kills Me”
#88
Like Jazmine Sullivan, Fiona sounds as if she’s immersed in early ’70s soul, specifically of the Chi-Lites variety. She’s more emotionally restrained than Sullivan, though, her music less zaftig, so to speak. Which makes her a little less interesting and more generic, at least in ’70s terms. Today, the sound of this record stands out, but back in ‘73 it would have been lucky to make top 30 on the R&B chart.

50 Cent—”The Invitation”
#97
The good news is that 50 Cent sounds interested again—this is as tough and angry as it ought to be. The bad news is that he’s still 50 Cent, and apparently the only way he could revive his interest was by going over the same ground he and thousands of others have worn down already. Not bad for retro-gangsta, but it doesn’t go anywhere, largely because it never had anywhere to go in the first place.

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Is it just me, or is it spiky in here?

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

I’m not a big fashion guy, but when these three photos turned up in my RSS feed, I couldn’t help but notice. I guess everyone’s feeling a little defensive these days.

Spikey

Spikey

Spikier

Spikier

Spikiest

Spikiest

And just as a side note, I’ve finally figured out what Adam Lambert reminds me of: a demented game show host.

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New this week

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Glee Cast
“Sweet Caroline”, #34
“Bust A Move”, #93

The cover of Neil Diamond’s hoary old chestnut does a pretty good job of puncturing Diamond’s self-importance, if only because the singer is incapable of the sort chest thumping fullness of voice that Diamond was born to. But as to whether the joke was intentional or not, I have no idea. As for “Bust A Move”, it’s their most surprising cover yet, but it’s also easy, and stinks of demographic as opposed to satiric or comic intentions. I mean, if they really wanted to play against their white bread atmosphere, why not “Mama Said Knock You Out” or “Fight The Power”?

Adam Lambert—”Time for Miracles”
#50
As ghastly as every other movie soundtrack ballad, only, as befits a movie about the end of the world, even more over-the-top. I would love to know who’s responsible for the string arrangement, which hovers between mindless overkill and stunning self-parody.

Snoop Dogg featuring The-Dream—”Gangsta Luv”
#57
I was expecting this to be another of Snoop’s biennial greats like “Drop It Like It’s Hot” or “Sensual Seduction”. Instead it’s a very ordinary jam from The-Dream (who’s become almost as bereft of ideas as Jermaine Dupri), with Snoop sounding even sleepier than usual. He really doesn’t care, anymore, does he?

Tim McGraw—”Southern Voice”
#61
Another country list song, distinguished only by the weirdness of its choices: the first verse starts naturally enough with Hank Williams, and then moves through Hank’s grandson to Chuck Berry, William Faulkner, Aretha (not from the south, but what the hell), Dolly, and Rosa Parks before ending with Scarlet O’Hara. Although he namechecks “Hickory Wind” he doesn’t mention Graham Parsons by name, and he makes sure to keep his Christian audience on board by mentioning his gold cross and ending the list with Billy Graham. He manages to sneak Pocahantas on there, as well. This may set some sort of record for how many demographics can be genuflected to in a single song.

T-Pain—”Take Your Shirt Off”
#80
I was put off by this at first—I generally prefer my T-Pain more subtle (as subtle as he gets, anyway), and this struck me as a mindless Lil Jon knock-off. Except Lil Jon never managed tracks as frenetic or musically complicated as this, and though he can get ruder he’s isn’t any funnier. Where crunk jumped up and down in place, this motivates forward at high speed, stops and jumps up and down, and then motivates again. As party music it’s just about perfect, and party music seems to be all that anyone wants these days.

Trey Songz featuring Drake—”I Invented Sex”
#90
In overall tone, this follows along in the tradition of “Bed” and “Birthday Sex”, only this is more sophisticated and less funny, and also, to my ears at least, a lot sexier. This version, featuring Drake, tops Drake’s version, featuring Trey Songz. Songz voice has just the right vulnerable, self-effacing quality to get over, whereas Drake sounds a little full of himself, a bit crass. Even on a song as excellent as this, I like him less everytime I hear him.

Carrie Underwood—”Temporary Home”
#92
This is why a lot of people hate country music—sticky and sentimental, with a religious message tacked onto the end that, instead of adding a level of hope, cheapens the suffering of the characters in the song. Come to think of it, this is why a lot of people hate religion, too.

Owl City—”Vanilla Twilight”
#95
If this isn’t the vanishing point that indie infantilism has been moving toward these last few years then I’m Winnie the Pooh and his jar of honey too. “Pour me a cup of atmosphere”, the singer (who’s also the band) whimpers in a voice that would make any intelligent five year old squeamish, and you’ll excuse me for wishing he’d choke on it. And from what I’ve heard, all the indie crowd, when faced with such damning evidence of the hole they’ve been digging themselves the last few years, can come up with in way of defense is “He’s just ripping off The Postal Service.” Exactly.

Darius Rucker—”History In the Making”
#99
I appreciate Rucker because unlike most male country singers he doesn’t waste a lot of time whooping it up and overplaying his love of God and country or treat his voice like some sort of icon whose every shift of timbre and craggy intonation is designed to make women quake in their Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots. He’s just an ordinary guy singing about ordinary things in an at times very ordinary way. He’s nothing to get excited about, but he isn’t an irritant, either. If that sometimes makes him dull, as it does here, then so be it.

Rihanna—”Russian Roulette”
#100
I’m unsure what to make of this record. Even if you assume it’s meant as a metaphor for abusive relationships, on first listen the song is as terrifying as it was no doubt intended to be, metaphor or no. But on repeated listening the effect not only lessens, which is to be expected, but drains away almost completely. The problem, as always, is Rihanna’s voice, which conveys no real feeling or emotion—she barely sounds as if she has a life to lose. That could be part of the point, I suppose, but it creates a distance in the song that becomes impossible to breach and ultimately deprives it of any meaningful impact. And impact, I think, was exactly what she was looking for.

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New this week

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Glee Cast—”Take A Bow”
#46
This is so bland I feel like I should apologize to Rihanna for saying her vocals lack personality. I can excuse actors for not being singers, but shouldn’t they at least know how to emote on the spoken bits? I’ve heard Glee is a pretty good show, but if it’s going to put records like this on the chart every week I may need to file a complaint with the FCC.

Jay-Z + Alicia Keys—”Empire State of Mind”
#50
The chorus is as hoakey as most “I Love My Hometown” songs, but it’s catchy, too, and it sticks in your head (somehow Jay-Z has convinced Keys to phrase just like he probably would if he could sing, which is both weird and fascinating somehow). The record as a whole, however, like everything else I’ve heard from The Blueprint III, is seriously off-kilter. This isn’t a song about how great New York is, it’s a song about how great Jay-Z was to rise from its mean streets to become a star. By name-checking Sinatra and paraphrasing Billy Joel for the title, he makes it obvious that he intends to supersede them as the King of New York; he then proceeds to paint a picture of the city that’s so dark, especially in the final verse, and takes such obvious enjoyment in putting down the suckers who aren’t as successful as he is, that you wonder why anybody would want to live there at all. Especially if they had to share the streets with this self-satisfied jerk.

Jay-Z + Mr. Hudson—”Young Forever”
#75
Immortality through fame isn’t a new idea, but Jay-Z raps like it is, and the first verse, where he parodies just about every rap video ever made, is great. The rest is just bragging, with unnecessarily dark overtones (he sounds like it’s only just occurred to him that he’s going to die someday—and who knows, maybe it did). As for Mr. Hudson, his voice is a garbled mixture of Sting and Chris Martin, and his phrasing is as cliched and obvious as that combination would suggest.

Three Days Grace—”Break”
#91
The lyrics say something about breaking through to a higher level, but the music breaks through nothing, not even the banality barrier, and I keep thinking that what they really mean is that everybody could use a nice vacation once in a while. If they promise to make theirs permanent I’d be happy to lend them some luggage.

Boys Like Girls featuring Taylor Swift—”Two Is Better Than One”
#92
A terrible song, and a darkly portentous one, since it suggests that Taylor Swift’s apparent weakness for guys in noisy pop-punk bands is badly affecting her judgment. Singing with Def Leppard on an awards show or dressing up like Kiss is harmless nostalgic fun, but aiding and abetting a band as awful as Boys Like Girls suggests a major lapse in judgment. She’ll regret this some day; if she doesn’t, we will.

Ester Dean featuring Chris Brown—”Drop It Low”
#94
I like the sound of this, which in it’s minimalism and dirty talk reminds me of some of the jerkin’ records coming out of L.A., and I like it even more near the end when the hooks pile up on each other in a mixture that isn’t minimalist at all. But Chris Brown’s presence is a conundrum. Was this recorded before he beat up Rihanna? Even if it was, why release it now? At this point, would any woman in her right mind climb into his Bugatti with him? Whatever the case, chances are this will go nowhere on radio, which is a shame. Couldn’t they get Drake or somebody for a remix?

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New this week

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

T.I. featuring Mary J. Blige—”Remember Me”
#29
The verse about his woman cheating on him while he’s in the joint sounds real enough, but it doesn’t matter, because T.I. loses me on the very first line, where he compares himself to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. Is it even necessary to point out to anyone but right wing gun nuts the difference between being arrested fighting for your civil rights and a federal weapons violation (for that matter, did Malcolm X do jail time for anything but being a pimp?)? Of course, the line goes perfectly with the over-the-top production and Blige’s prayerful chorus. Did I really believe that T.I. had changed? I may have to take it all back.

Toby Keith—”American Ride”
#54
Despite it’s jingoistic tone, this is really about tolerance and loving this crazy country of ours, liberal or conservative, black or white, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor, right or left. Too bad all his examples seem to come off The O’Reilly Factor.

David Guetta featuring Akon—”Sexy Bitch”
#56
I like the conceit of the hook line, “I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful”, but the music is like Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Night” badly welded onto Sean Kingston’s “Fire Burning”, and Akon’s vocals lack whatever distinctiveness they once had. He also sounds uncertain—that hook line may as well have his fingerprints on it, but it sounds like Guetta is singing it. After the relative failure of Akon’s loverman album, this half-hearted return to his player ways suggests confusion about how to recover from all that bad publicity a couple of years ago. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It has all the marks of a hit, but I think Akon’s blown whatever goodwill he had going for him. And I don’t think anybody’s going to turn this into a wedding video.

Tim McGraw—”It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You”
#73
No kidding. Except this is so plodding there isn’t even any pleasure involved. Co-written by Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, which figures.

Jay-Z, Rihanna, & Kanye West–”Run This Town”
#88
Jay-Z’s career is becoming confusing. On American Gangster he was on top of his game, cool and confident. Without Denzel Washington’s example, however, he seems a little more insecure. “D.O.A.” was just dumb, and this negates a not bad black pride rap by ending with West belittling a woman for having less fashion sense than he does. And why would anyone who hates autotune feature Rihanaa, who sounds like a machine even without the help of special effects? If these guys are the new Rat Pack, then this is the original Oceans 11: lazy, self-absorbed, and self-satisfied.

Michelle Branch—”Sooner Or Later”
#93
Second-rate Taylor Swift, just the thing to revive a rapidly dwindling career.

Uncle Kracker–”Smile”
#95
Kid Rock cohort turns into Daniel Powter knock-off. He’s still trailer trash, but now his trailer’s on the beach.

Martina McBride—”I Just Call You Mine”
#97
Before the country banality and the usual Nashville overarranging take over, McBride confirms what a sharp and intelligent singer she can be. By the end of the first chorus, though, she’s just another country diva singing what’s been handed to her. I don’t know if McBride deserves better or not (she co-produced this, so she takes a greater share of the blame than usual), but her voice sure does.

Parachute—”She Is Love”
#98
This sounds like the intro to what could be a really nice love song. Too bad nobody wrote the rest of it.

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