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Hot 100 Roundup—10/1/11

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Coldplay—”Paradise”
#16
Whenever these guys try to make a major statement they always fall back on arty cliches that mean a lot less than they think they do. Since this one is called “Paradise”, it opens with slightly distorted church organ and muzak strings, and throws some glockenspiel into the arrangement along the way. Since the lyrics make no mention of religion, they probably think they’re being subtle and ironic, when all they’re really being is pretentious and obvious. Speaking of pretension, it’s worth pointing out that this sounds more like the intro to a concept album than a single, but I prefer not to think about that if I can avoid it.

Darius Rucker—”I Got Nothin’”
#84
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 8/2/11

Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse—”Body and Soul”
#87
Bennett is still Bennett, and the craggier his voice gets the more emotion it reveals, but then, nobody is buying this for him, are they? Winehouse was in great voice, but there’s nothing daring or challenging about her vocal—it’s essentially a well done Dinah Washington impersonation, and she’s obviously trying, either out of fear or respect, not to show up her host. A worthy final performance, but hardly a memorial.

David Nail—”Let It Rain”
#95
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 8/2/11

Ace Hood featuring Chris Brown—”Body 2 Body”
#98
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 8/27/11

Sean Paul featuring Alexis Jordan—”Got 2 Love U”
#99
Sean Paul hasn’t had a major hit since he helped to turn Rihanna into a superstar (either that or she helped him to keep his top-ten career going a little longer). He sounds the same as ever, and Alexis Jordan isn’t bad, but this won’t do anything to revive his career.

Brantley Gilbert—”You Don’t Know Her Like I Do”
#100
I have to give Gilbert a certain amount of credit: he knows that most of this song is cliche, so he does his best to highlight the few non-cliche moments. There’s something off about putting melodramatic emphasis on a line like “She’s my best friend”, though, and tricking it up with a false ending and an extended coda only makes it worse. And all the rest of the song is still cliche.

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Hot 100 Roundup—9/17/11

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Lil Wayne
“Mirror” (featuring Bruno Mars), #16
“Blunt Blowin’”, #33
“MegaMan”, #50
“It’s Good” (featuring Drake & Jadakiss), #79
“How To Hate” (featuring T-Pain), #84
“Nightmares of the Bottom”, #90
“President Carter”, #94
“So Special” (featuring John Legend), #95
A mixture of the competent and the truly terrible (“Mirror” may be the most relentlessly self-pitying piece of gunk I have ever heard), the bright spots on these tracks are so few and far between that they feel like Wayne guest spots on his own album. The problem is not, as some have suggested, that Wayne isn’t trying. He obviously is, as the forced word play and over-stressed puns attest. The problem is that, in reaction to his jail stint, he seems to have changed his working methods, writing his raps instead of working ideas over in his head and spitting them out for the first time in front of a microphone. Putting ideas on paper, as any writer will tell you, allows for all sorts of self-doubt and second guessing, and may result in something being worked over until all signs of life have been drained out of it. The freedom and of-the-moment brilliance of Wayne’s raps has disappeared and been replaced by what I’m sure he considers meaningful and carefully considered but lifeless verbiage. Perhaps he’ll work it out, or maybe his inspiration is truly gone, drained by his pre-prison burst of creativity (there were signs of that even before he was sentenced) or killed by his time in jail. He’ll undoubtedly get a second wind, and maybe the genius will return combined with a growing maturity. But that’s going to take time, and there’s no sign that Wayne is doing anything to make that happen. His infinite sense of confidence may be his greatest weakness right now. I expect to hear great things from him in the future, but I don’t expect them anytime soon.

Beyonce—”Love On Top”
#20
The praise for 4 has been so universal I feel like a curmudgeon for not being more impressed by what I’ve heard, but I’m not. This is one of the better cuts, establishing an excellent late-80s soul groove (with synths that sound like they came off a Wings record), and then building into a joyful chorus that becomes ever more ecstatic through a series of ascending key changes. It’s masterful in almost every way, but somehow, for me at least, it lacks something. My problem is Beyonce’s voice, which is technically perfect but has always struck me as sharp and metallic and too obvious in it’s effects. Listening to her is somewhat like watching Jodie Foster or Meryl Streep act: I’m impressed by the skill and technique, but the way they use them is too transparent—it’s a great performance, and I admire the intelligence behind it, but I never forget for a moment that it is a performance. I appreciate a brilliant facade as much as the next person, but people talk about Beyonce as if she were giving us more than that, and from my perspective she rarely does. There’s no doubt that 4 is a step up from the misguided Sasha Fierce, so much so that people are overrating it—or maybe it’s why I’m underrating it; being better than Sasha Fierce doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to me.

David Guetta
“Turn Me On” (featuring Nicki Minaj), #37
“Without You” (featuring Usher), #39
“I just want you to father my young” is a great line, but it’s the only great line Minaj is allowed on “Turn Me On”, which sounds as if it might have been written for Rihanna instead. Meanwhile, “Without You” is an OK song with an oddly happy arrangement on the chorus, which also features one of Usher’s best-ever vocal performances. And so goes the hit-and-miss career of David Guetta, superstar DJ and all-around hack.

Chris Brown featuring Benny Benassi—”Beautiful People”
#43
The music is derivative but great, the lyrics derivative and awful, with Chris Brown lying through his teeth every beat of the way. Brown gets points for being the hip-hop performer who has been most willing to jump with both feet into the Euro-disco whirlpool, but he has done so in service of a personality that is so shallow and hypocritical that he makes world peace and the universality of beauty sound unclean. And when I say hypocritical, I’m not talking about Rihanna—it’s right there in the music and in his voice, in every beat and every breath. This guy cares about nothing but himself, and he’s willing to say or do anything to make you care about him too.

Lady Antebellum—”Dancin’ Away With My Heart”
#50
Another perfectly crafted, mediocre celebration of lost love, which once again focuses nostalgically on the singers’ teen years. Please don’t tell me it’s a concept album.

Young the Giant—”My Body”
#65
Further proof of the power of television, as if anybody needed it. Get a featured spot on the VMAs and you’re guaranteed to make the bottom half of the Hot 100 for a week or two. But even TV couldn’t turn this lame pastiche of Muse and The Killers into a real hit. For that you need something else: talent, novelty, tons of promotion money, anything.

LMFAO—”Sexy and I Know It”
#76
The obvious reference point is Right Said Fred, but I hear some Weird Al in here as well, which is welcome. Now that these guys have finally outed themselves as total comedians (and with a flair for electro at that), maybe some people will realize that their hedonistic shoutouts are at least partly satire and stop accusing them of corrupting our youth. Our youth are already corrupt, LMFAO are just making fun of them for profit. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. And don’t think the youth don’t get the joke; why do you think they’re buying the records?

Flo Rida—”Good Feeling”
#82
The Etta James hook is great, as is the overall sound, but that’s all there is: Rida has nothing to say even if you could understand him, and the hook is repeated so often you get sick of it (you might hold out a bit longer on the dance floor, though). A nice idea, but…

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Hot 100 Roundup—8/13/11

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Kreayshawn—”Gucci Gucci”
#82
Normally I would applaud a catchy record that satirizes status seeking, and especially hip-hop’s fascination with high-fashion brands. The problem is that Kreayshawn’s targets aren’t rich rappers, they’re the poor who are taken in and taken advantage of by the rap world’s tireless product placement. In other words, she’s a snob whose putdown of “basic bitches” is as heartless as the comments on the poor you hear at Tea Party rallies. Maybe she should get a gig on Fox News.

Rascal Flatts featuring Natasha Bedingfield—”Easy”
#87
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/30/11

Rihanna—”Cheers (Drink To That)”
#91
It’s unfair to make career judgments about an artist based on the sixth single off an album that’s been out for nearly a year, but it’s hard not to wonder what’s going on. This isn’t Rihanna’s worst single; that would be her previous record, “Man Down”. It may even be better than the record before that, “California King Bed”. But it still makes three stinkers in a row. I’m glad she’s getting a break after an intense two years, but pumping out one sub-par record after another isn’t buying time, it’s killing her career. Better to disappear for a year and come back refreshed. Records like this just make things worse.

The Black Eyed Peas—”Don’t Stop the Party”
#93
Shifting into cruise control is one way to keep the party going, I suppose, but this is the sound of a band that’s learned all the tricks and can apply them in their sleep. It’s not terrible, though; it isn’t even embarrassing. Which is another way of saying it doesn’t show much energy or inspiration. And without energy and inspiration these guys barely exist. No wonder they’re going on hiatus.

Adele—”Rumour Has It”
#96
This is the first Adele record I’ve heard that comes close to justifying the praise she’s been receiving, but all it says to me is that she can be good, not that she’s the savior of “authentic” pop music. It helps that this is pure girl-group, and that she’s more interested in delivering a sonic wallop than in baring her soul. In fact, the soul-baring bit in the middle eight is the worst part of the song. Like most people, she’s better at putting on an act than being “authentic”. As she gets older maybe she’ll own up to it.

Craig Campbell—”Fish”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/30/11

Matt Nathanson—”Faster”
#99
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/9/11

Jerrod Nieman—”One More Drinkin’ Song”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 7/23/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—6/11/11

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Scotty McCreery—”I Love You This Big”
#11
Lauren Alaina—”Like My Mother Does”
#20
At first listen it seems as if the latest American Idol survivors have been granted better material than previous winners. But even though these songs are more specific in detail and less generic in overall tone, they’re still terrible, with lyrics that make you gasp in awe at their utter inanity. McCreery and Alaina make the best of it and deliver what they think is expected of them, but McCreery’s voice lacks seasoning—he needs experience: alcohol, sex, even more religion—while Alaina’s attempts to bend her song to her will result in a lot of growling and screaming and only make things worse. They’ll both do better. Whether either of them has the talent or brains to do much better is still an open question.

Glee Cast
“Light Up the World”, #33
“Pretending”, #40
“For Good”, #58
“I Love New York/New York, New York”, #81
“As Long As You’re There”, #93

Lady GaGa
“You and I”, #36
“Marry the Night”, #79
The pleasure I take in Born This Way is largely a matter of sonics and structure. That’s not a putdown. When you create something that for the most part is collage and pastiche, both musically and lyrically, sonics and structure are what make the difference between bland imitation and creating something new, and GaGa gets them right every single time. And then she boosts them. The drums and guitar on “You and I” may owe their inspiration to Queen, but they outstrip and outboom anything that band ever did, and the fact that they’re tied to a song that borrows from highway rock and roll and even country and western puts it in a league of its own. “Marry The Night”, meanwhile, is more Springsteen-inspired disco, with a coda beamed in from a mid-90s rave. I still have my doubts about her lyrics, which are often blander than they need to be, and I don’t think she’s making anything truly new out of her sources, but her merger of hard rock with disco diva anthems (which is what that ridiculous cover photo is all about, in case you were wondering) is wondrous, even if it ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere. Don’t think of it as something new, but as a well-earned celebration of a greatness we may have missed at the time.

Beyonce—”1+1″
#57
I have my doubts about Beyonce’s soul moves, especially her high notes and the dynamics that accompany them, but thematically this is a breakthrough, the first Beyonce song about a relationship I’ve heard in which she isn’t either asserting her iron-willed dominance or making like a supplicant to her godlike man. That see-sawing from one extreme to another was getting tiresome, and this is a welcome relief. I bet it’s a relief to Jay-Z, too.

Lil Wayne—”How To Love”
#69
I don’t think it’s the softness of sound that has caused so many people to write this song off. Sentimentality is as much a part of rap as any other kind of music, and if anyone has earned the right to a little mellow down time it’s Lil Wayne. What probably bothers hardcore rap fans more is the sense of empathy the song is based on. It isn’t really a love song, and it certainly isn’t a sex song. Instead, it’s a real attempt to understand where this woman is coming from and what she’s feeling, something more along the lines of Prince’s “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” (even though the situation appears to be completely different) than your standard lover man rap. In other words, thematically it’s as far from the mainstream of rap as Wayne’s phrasing and twisting trains of thought have always been. Like the pre-prison “I’m Single”, it’s a record by someone who’s trying to sort out the world in all it’s aspects, not just as it relates to his place, position, and pleasure. Musically, Wayne still isn’t sure what to make of these ideas, so he falls too readily into cliche, but if he should ever figure it out, or find a collaborator who has, then watch out: he may well remake rap yet again.

Reeve Carney featuring Bono & The Edge—”Rise Above 1″
#74
Not sure exactly what I expected a Broadway soundtrack written by Bono and The Edge to sound like, but I wasn’t expecting standard-issue U2, that’s for sure. Way to stretch your stylistic limits, guys. As for Reeve Carney, his Bono imitation is so exact I can only assume he thinks of Spiderman as a warm-up for that more lucrative U2 biopic that’s bound to appear sooner or later. Either that or he has a great future in tribute bands.

Mac Miller—”Donald Trump”
#80
The white version of Wiz Khalifa, or Waka Flocka Flame, or maybe even Big Sean. How did we stand the wait?

Kenny Chesney featuring Grace Potter—”You and Tequila”
#92
Strong, steady, and never overdone, this is as good as Chesney is ever going to get. With Grace Potter playing Emmylou Harris, he almost sounds human. There’s still something that doesn’t come across, though, and the stiff perfectionism of this record keeps it from classic territory. Damn close, though.

Rihanna—”Man Down”
#94
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 6/4/11

Lupe Fiasco featuring Trey Songz—”Out Of My Head”
#98
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 5/21/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—6/4/11

Monday, June 13th, 2011

Lady GaGa—”Hair”
#12
An odd metaphor coming from a woman who is generally seen either in wigs or with hair coiffed and dyed to within an inch of it’s life; does anyone know what GaGa’s real hair even looks like? But despite the cognitive dissonance and the unfortunate echoes of David Crosby, this is a grand piece of Springsteen-influenced disco, the kind of music that sounds great not just on the dancefloor but out on the open road. I’m particularly fond of the bridge, where GaGa’s phrasing makes her sound appropriately callow and naive. It may be the most human moment she’s ever managed.

Young Jeezy featuring Lil Wayne—”Ballin’”
#57
Jeezy’s voice holds your attention, but he works in a style that was half-dead even when he started out five years ago, and has nothing to add to it. Neither does Lil Wayne.

Glee Cast
“Pure Imagination”, #59
“Back To Black”, #82
“My Man”, #94

Nicole Scherzinger featuring 50 Cent—”Right There”
#77
Not terrible, which is a surprise considering how lazy it sounds. The music isn’t bad, but the rhyme scheme consists of repeating the same word at the end of each line, an effect almost as flattening as 50 Cents’ rap. He long ago said he had no real interest in making music anymore, and this proves it. Scherzinger sounds as anonymous as ever, and you can’t help but wonder if this would even have been released if it wasn’t for her X Factor gig.

DJ Khaled featuring Drake, Rick Ross & Lil Wayne—”I’m On One”
#78
A stylistic changeup from Khaled, which would be interesting if he was capable of making good music, but he isn’t, so we’re left with the lineup. Rick Ross is his usual monotonous self, and Lil Wayne indulges in hit-and-miss word games: good and bad puns (“I’m a made nigga, I should dust something”) with the occasional meaningful line. As for Drake, he may be serious in his doubts about the rap game, and even in his self-criticism, but he lies so consistantly about how hard his life is I find it impossible to trust him even (especially) when he sounds sincere. His hypocrisy is fascinating, though, as is his resistance to flow. Being the snobbish cad that he is, he seems to consider it beneath him.

Rihanna—”California King Bed”
#80
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/30/11

Jason DeRulo—”Don’t Wanna Go Home”
#92
Yet another lift from “Day-O”, this one even more obvious than Lil Wayne’s. Otherwise, this is as anonymous as most of DeRulo’s previous records. If it weren’t for that borrowed hook, it would have no melody at all.

Ashton Shepard—”Look It Up”
#95
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 4/2/11

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Bubbling Under—5/14/11

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Jill Scott featuring Anthony Hamilton—”So In Love”
#105
As smooth, funky, and intelligent as this is, its seams show. When you start ticking off the influences as the song plays (“Marvin Gaye. Oh, Al Green. Hey, now it’s Bill Withers.”) you know the artists haven’t pulled off the synthesis they were going after. It also doesn’t help that the song proper ends about halfway through and the rest is just filler. Soulful filler, for sure, but still.

Don Omar—”Taboo”
#115
Don Omar made his reputation as a reggaeton singer, but the sped-up rhythms here are pure Brazil, and the lyrics reference Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Bahia. The result is an interesting hybrid, with Omar’s reggaeton phrasing and intonations generating a pleasant tension with the rhythm. It goes on too long, and if anything there’s too much variety for variety’s sake stuffed into the arrangement, but this is good all the same. Not sure which tradition the accordian comes from, but it fits right in.

AfroJack featuring Eva Simons—”Take Over Control”
#119
Yet another techno pastiche, this time with crudely obvious sexual references (“Plug it in and turn me on”). I was hoping Rihanna’s “S&M” wouldn’t start a trend of songs about women wanting to be sexually dominated, but with this and Jennifer Lopez’s “Papi”, it may already be too late.

Laura Story—”Blessings”
#122
The advantage Christian singer/songwriters have over their secular colleagues is that they tend to be less self-centered—it’s bad form, after all, to flash your ego when you’re singing about God. The disadvantage is that their material, as far as human experience goes, is limited, and they’re often too sentimental and reliant on catch-phrases that only fellow believers understand. This song solidly seizes the advantages and manages to avoid the worst of the disadvantages. It isn’t anything special in terms of arrangement or melody—it’s a standard piano-based ballad—but it isn’t cloying or sticky, either. Far from sentimental, Story even sounds embittered at times—a reference to praying for peace is uttered with a tinge of sarcasm—and her viewpoint is realistic enough for me to believe she’s a much better Christian than most of the people you see on TV on a Sunday morning. I don’t agree with her, but at least she doesn’t make it a chore or an embarrassment to hear her out.
#124

Sara Bareilles—”Uncharted”
#125
I have a fondness for Bareilles’ sarcastic sense of humor, which finds it’s greatest expression in her piano playing—that chunky, carnivalesque sound is a compelling hook all on its own—but I can’t stand the way she overloads and over-arranges her records. This one has so many change-ups that you stop trying to follow her and just hope she comes back to earth someday. In other words, she’s pretentious, pretentious enough that she would probably consider a straightforward pop record to be beneath her. Which is a shame, because she could probably make a great one.

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Bubbling Under 4/30/11

Monday, May 9th, 2011

Rihanna—”California King Bed”
#113
Ever wondered what Colbie Caillat would sound like if she sang for Guns ‘n Roses? Me neither.

The Ready Set—”Young Forever”
#115
Better than “Love Like Woe”, but what wouldn’t be? This is much tougher, and some of it is almost clever. But I have an inborn distrust of any song with a title that contains the words “young” and “forever”, no matter what order they’re in or whatever other words come along with them. And I certainly don’t trust a fallacious message of hope from anyone who doesn’t know the difference between “woe” and “whoa”. Young is one thing, ignorant is something else altogether.

Aubrey O’Day—”Automatic”
#108
A record that lives up to its title in every way.

Jessie J—”You Are You”
#112
Ever wondered what someone would sound like if they tried to sing like Rihanna, Katy Perry, and P!nk all at the same time? Me neither.

The Beastie Boys—”Make Some Noise”
#115
The great lyrical turn around—from “fight for your right to party” to “party for your right to fight”—isn’t just a clever word game, it’s a demonstration that not only hasn’t age dulled their wits, it’s sharpened them. This may be a party record, but the sound is dense and filled with a wary sensibility, full of confidence but also a sense of mortality. It’s party music laced with age and understanding. It’s fascinating to think that the brattiest of all the ’80′s rap groups should be the one to age the most gracefully and energetically.

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Um…

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

BDSM: now officially pop.

And what’s with the guy in blackface near the end?

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Into the woods, and out again

Friday, January 14th, 2011

This Guardian article by the usually flawless Tom Ewing is a perfect example of how looking at pop music almost solely as a rivalry between art and business can you lead you to the wrong conclusions. Trying to explain those moments when artists make records that seems beyond not just their own limitations, but everybody’s, and then retreat to safer ground the next time out, Ewing focuses on nothing but commercial pressures. He seems to ignore the personal and emotional forces that help to create such works, and often make it impossible to create another. The history of pop music is full of the stories of artists who created groundbreaking records of seemingly limitless musical and emotional depth, and then either retreated to safer pastures or collapsed completely: Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On; John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band; Neutral Milk Hotel’s The Aeroplane Over the Sea; My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless; Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks; Bob Dylan’s string of mid-sixties triumphs (three different albums, but released in the space of a year); Nirvana’s In Utero; Frank Sinatra’s Only The Lonely; Pet Shop Boys’s Very; and, of course, The Beach Boys’s Smile, which stood uncompleted for almost forty years because Brian Wilson crashed and burned in the middle of making it.

Britney Spear’s Blackout and Rihanna’s Rated R share little in terms of quality with these records (though that opinion is subject to change), but they do share comparable stories of creation, coming as the result either of traumatic events, intense personal pressures, or sudden changes in viewpoint (i.e., Brian Wilson’s discovery of LSD). Each represents an artist going farther into themselves and their music than they ever had before and would ever be able to do again. Some moved on to safer, more comfortable ideas, some collapsed and weren’t heard from again for years, or ever. Some died. But I think it’s fair to say not one of them changed course because of commercial pressure. These records were anomalies, not just in terms of pop music as a whole, but in terms of the artist’s careers. They’re the Bob Beamon’s of pop music, and I would no more expect these artists to continue on in the same fashion than I would have expected Beamon to be able to jump over 29 feet every time he lifted both feet off the ground. There’s only so far into yourself you can go, and once you have, if you get out in one piece, you would have to be the rarest kind of human being to dare and go back again.

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Hot 100 Roundup—12/5/10

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Enrique Iglesius featuring Ludacris & DJ Frank E—”Tonight (I’m Fucking You)”
#18
Thanks to Cee-Lo Green, “fuck” appears to be the word of the moment, and Iglesius has as much right to it as any, I suppose. But with his soft, sensitive, sometimes wispy loverman voice, he doesn’t sound all that convincing, and Ludacris is just cashing a check. DJ Frank E, however, engages in some serious fucking with the listeners’ ears. Those random-seeming synthesizer swoops and giggles are the sole reason to pay any real attention to this record. They start to sound calculated after a while, but they liven things up nonetheless.

Glee Cast
“Mary You”, #32
“Just the Way You Are”, #40

Kanye West
“Dark Fantasy” (featuring Teyana Taylor, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver), #60
“All Of the Lights”, #92
I’m still making up my mind about “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. There are great things on it, and West has created an interesting amalgam of his earlier style and the stuff he experimented with on his last two albums. There’s no doubt the result is challenging (which is why I still haven’t made up my mind), but I’m not sure it’s as great as people make it out to be. For one thing, it seems to relate the same basic idea over and over again, and then drag out the tracks in ways that don’t always expand the idea so much as minutely modify it. And sometimes it sounds as clunky as the title. I love the chorus on “Dark Fantasy” and how the choir is both beautiful and ragged at the same time, and “All Of the Lights” is so perfect in its structure and lyrical detail that I feel like a jerk for complaining of its obscure message. But for some reason these songs, and the album as a whole, aren’t coming together for me. Maybe they’re not intended to, but that doesn’t mean it’s a success, either.

Diddy – Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey—”Coming Home
#61
I know it would be more expensive, but if you’re going to cut a track that’s a straight stylistic rip-off of T.I. and Kanye West, shouldn’t you invite them to contribute a verse or two?

Christina Aguilera—”Show Me How You Burlesque”
#70
For me, the intro to this record epitomizes everything that’s wrong with Aguilera. She not only oversings, but overthinks her oversinging. What’s worse, the lyrics have no music or poetry to them, they’re lifeless hunks of words designed solely for Aguilera to belt. The rest is a little better, but not much. Whatever this is, though, it isn’t burlesque. Burlesque is all about the tease; this is the equivalent of some two-bit hot mama thrusting her cleavage into your face and shouting “Does that turn you on, baby?!”

Keri Hilson—”Pretty Girl Rock”
#72
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/28/10

David Guetta featuring Rihanna—”Who’s That Chick?”
#73
Bearable for Guetta, mid-level for Rihanna. I do like it’s classic disco vibe: it could be the theme song for some cheesy early-eighties romantic comedy. Though now that I think about it, that’s not much of a compliment, is it?

Nicki Minaj featuring Rihanna—”Fly”
#76
Did I compare Minaj to Cyndi Lauper? Maybe I meant Journey.

Bruno Mars—”Marry You”
#91
It’s irresistible records like this that make you think Mars’s career might amount to something after all. Not only is the music catchy and good-humored, but for the first time since “Nothin’ On You” the lyrics are a perfect match. That’s possibly because he’s not trying to say anything too romantic or serious, which only convinces you that he loves the girl even more. This is so good I don’t even mind that it only made the charts because it was featured on Glee. OK, I do mind, but what the hell.

Ke$ha—”Crazy Beautiful Life”
#93
More homilies and affirmations for drunk party girls. How much you wanna bet the next album includes a ballad?

Billy Currington—”Let Me Down Easy”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/28/10

Sick Puppies—”Maybe”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 11/21/10

Bubbling Under:

Nicki Minaj featuring Drake—”Moment 4 Life”
#101
Minaj is a talent, but all the evidence points to her having already betrayed it. I haven’t heard Pink Friday yet, but as I understand it half the album is made up of this kind of dreck (which Minaj would rhyme with Drake if she had any sense). Even if it was a better record, though, the simple fact is that this and “Fly” are only making the charts because of the names of the guests. What a depressing business.

Christina Aguilera—”Express”
#102
The mix of brass and electronic fuzz might be interesting if they were actually mixed instead of being consigned to different sections. But that wouldn’t make it a decent song, or prevent Aguilera from shouting to the rooftops.

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

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