Posts Tagged ‘Selena Gomez & The Scene’

Hot 100 Roundup—7/9/11

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera—”Moves Like Jagger”, #8
Javier Colon—”Fix You”, #52
Dia Frampton, “Losing My Religion”, #54
Vicci Martinez—”Dog Days Are Over”, #68
Xenia—”The Man Who Can’t Be Moved”, #92

Pitbull featuring T-Pain & Sean Paul—”Shake Senora”
#69
This record doesn’t sound like a good fit for anyone involved—too brazen and obvious for T-Pain, but, if anything, too subtle for Pitbull, who’s better at leering and lustful growling than the lightness of touch that would be required to make this work. As for Sean Paul, only his biggest fans would notice that he’s here. It doesn’t even work as parody. All they’ve done is overemphasize what the song is already about, and not in a way that points out anything interesting. I do like Pitbull comparing booty, which reminds me of “My Gal Is Red Hot”, but the rest is a disaster.

Selena Gomez & the Scene—”Love You Like a Love Song”
#72
One of the things I love about the production team Rockmafia is their belief in traditional pop form and structure. They’re well aware of the possibilities of emotional tension and release inherent in verse-chorus-verse form, and they do their best to take advantage of it while keeping the music itself as simple and catchy as possible. Sometimes the results sound too simple and automatic, as they do on the chorus here. But it also helps them to create classic pop moments like the first verse, as perfect a melding of music, mood, lyric, and performance as you’ll ever hear. If the rest of the song came close to it, this would be a great record. As it is, it’s only a very good one. Not that that isn’t achievement enough.

Bella Thorne & Zendaya—”Watch Me”
#95
What’s most fascinating about this Disney-pop variation on Ke$ha is how well it works. It isn’t as brash as Ke$ha—the music is more bass heavy, and of course the “sleazy” is removed—but otherwise it would be difficult to tell the two apart. It isn’t that Ke$ha’s music is easy to imitate, but that it’s tapped into a generation’s universal mood of directionless, hyped-up energy and restlessness that, oddly enough, Disney has helped to promote and capitalize on, and maybe even helped to create. The Disney tweens of five years ago are the Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and GaGa and Glee fans of today, and it’s a sign of Disney’s marketing savvy that they’re trying to keep up with them. I don’t think they are, quite, since it’s all out of their control now, but this is a good record nonetheless, and they deserve credit for trying.

Jill Scott featuring Anthony Hamilton—”So in Love”
#97
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 5/14/11

Train—”Save Me, San Francisco”
#98
The Loggins and Messina of their era, and if they’re not as irritating as, say, Rascal Flatts, it’s only because their tunes are catchier and clever self-deprecation is a part of their act. They’re just as clueless, though. They can’t even get a song about their hometown right. Except for a few obvious lyrical references, nothing about this record sounds like San Francisco. What it sounds like, instead, is an above average Rolling Stones cover band, and considering the Stone’s history in the bay area, is that really the vibe you want to go for?

Brantley Gilbert—”Country Must Be Country Wide”
#100
True enough, but does that mean it has to be heavy metal, too?

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Hot 100 Roundup—6/25/11

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hot 100 Roundup—4/2/11

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Glee Cast
“Loser Like Me”, #6
“Get It Right”, #16
“Raise Your Glass”, #36
“Blackbird”, #37
“Misery”, #52
“Hell To the No”, #53
“Candles”, #71
Of the three original songs, “Loser Like Me” is bearable, “Get It Right” isn’t, and “Hell To the No” is cute but empty. The covers run the usual gamut from competent karaoke to barely listenable. I’m only mentioning these at all because of the “original” songs, but in essence nothing has changed.

Selena Gomez & The Scene—”Who Says”
#24
Stuck in the midst of all the Glee songs on my playlist, I kept mistaking this for more of the same uplifting nonsense the show trades in. Gomez sings better, and uses more subtle arrangements, but if Glee should do this in a few weeks (and why shouldn’t they?), will anyone be able to tell the difference?

Rebecca Black—”Friday”
#72
With a sharper mix than the video version, and the rap removed, the only thing that separates this from any other piece of modern teen pop is the flat plainness of Black’s vocal and the stupefying banality of the lyrics. Both of which are actually a relief from the fine-tooled sameness of most teen pop. And notice I said banality, not cliche: name me another song that’s so plain spoken and honest about what thirteen-year-olds really think about. I mean, where you sit in the car, and who you sit next to, is important. It’s about time somebody sang about it.

Travis Porter—”Bring It Back”
#88
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 3/12/11

Marsha Ambrosius—”Far Away”
#92
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 3/19/11

Waka Flocka Flame featuring Kebo Gotti—Grove St. Party
#93
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 3/19/11

Christina Perri—”Arms”
#94
As irritating in its way as “Jar of Hearts”, but a lot more interesting, if only for the arrangement, which builds into an impressive piece of Arcade Fire-influenced melodrama. Indie has always had it’s sentimental streak, but this may be the first time that someone’s managed to turn it into pure schlock. Could this be what the Grammy voters were really hearing?

Miranda Cosgrove—”Dancing Crazy”
#100
Reviewed in Bubbling Under, 3/19/11

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Hot 100 Roundup—9/19/10

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Selena Gomez & the Scene—”A Year Without Rain”
#35
I’m rooting for Gomez, but this doesn’t work. The song is too ordinary, the techno background doesn’t swell and highlight the melody the way it should (possibly because there is no melody), and Gomez’s teenage voice can’t quite negotiate the song’s not-that-subtle sexual metaphors. Her Disney material had more oomph to it, and nothing can disguise the fact that this is an ordinary power ballad dressed up as a dance track.

Waka Flocka Flame featuring Roscoe Dash and Wale—”No Hands”
#45
Essentially a remake of Dash’s “All the Way Turnt Up” with more, and less interesting, rapping. Even if I could take Flame seriously (I can’t type his full name more than once; it gives me the giggles), recycling one of your guest’s hits barely two months after it left the chart doesn’t seems like the best way to launch a career. A real career, at least.

Michael Buble—”Hollywood”
#55
I didn’t think much of Buble’s last record, “Haven’t Met You Yet”, but I may need to give it another listen, because this is catchy, intelligent, subtly sarcastic, and only occasionally sentimental. It’s full of wonderful musical jokes: the intro’s echoes of Glee; Buble’s phrasing, which somehow reminds me of Billy Crystal’s old Fernando character; a guitar part lifted straight from “The Bitch Is Back”; the background vocals on the third verse. The “find the truth in yourself” advice at the end is a bit of a downer, but otherwise this is almost perfect.

Rihanna—”Only Girl (In the World)”
#75
Rihanna has said that her next album will be more straightforward dance music as opposed to the gloomy half-rock of Rated R, but if this single is any indication, all that means is that the beats will be straighter. In its way, this is even darker and more forbidding than her last few singles, possibly because the beat is so straightforward and machine-like. It’s sex as a battlefield, where power means more than passion, and a proposition sounds more like a dare. This dramatic change in direction is fascinating to watch, and this isn’t a bad record, but it isn’t a great one, either. After what happened I can understand her stance, but she’s either overplaying her reaction or her loss of innocence has thrown her for an even greater loop than people realize.

will.i.am & Nicki Minaj—”Check It Out”
#78
I’m sure a lot of people will hate this on principal, so it’s probably useless to point out that this is the best thing will.i.am has done since The E.N.D. Whether Minaj convinced him to hold back or he’s finally figuring it out for himself, this is less overdone than most of his other records, and he’s perfected the art of isolating his hooks for maximum effectiveness (he also finds/steals great hooks). As for Minaj, she may or may not have anything interesting to say, but her vocals, and the way she shifts timbre and rhythm with pinpoint accuracy, are truly amazing.

Sean Kingston—”Dumb Love”
#84
Having spent a couple of years fiddling with brash electro, straight reggae, dancehall, and even a duet with Justin Bieber, Kingston makes the second best record of his career by going back to his “Beautiful Girls” roots and finding an ancient but undeniable hook—courtesy of The Del Vikings’s “Come Go With Me”—to build his adolescent fantasies around. He also makes the smart move of having the Smeezingtons (aka Bruno Mars and friends) put it together for him—or at least asking them if they had any spare hooks lying around. This could never be as much of a surprise as “Beautiful Girls”, but it’s a pleasant little jolt all the same. And here everybody thought he was a one-hit wonder.

Nick Jonas—”Introducing Me”
#92
From Camp Rock 2, where Nick is apparently learning how to be a member of Plain White T’s. I like the jokey tempo shifts and the grammar lesson, but this is essentially a vaudeville turn for sincere singer-songwriter types, and if you’re trying to impress by spitting out a million words at a breakneck tempo, those words need to be witty. 90% of these aren’t

Florence + The Machine—”Dog Days Are Over”
#93
Her voice is impressive (even more impressive live), but I have no idea what this arty loud-soft, loud-soft is about, and I don’t want to know. Of course, since she doesn’t enunciate much—she’s like a mixture of Annie Lennox and Natalie Merchant—I needn’t worry about it.

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The year so far

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

According to almost everyone, 2010 has been a great year in just about every genre: alternative, country, hip-hop, techno—great records have been popping up everywhere, from both new and old artists, with a full schedule of promising releases to come.

But if that’s true, and for the most part I think it is, not much of that greatness has been showing up on the pop chart, or if it has it’s come and gone so fast it’s barely been noticed. At least four of my favorite records this year, “Super High”, “Love King”, “I’m Single”, and “Reverse Cowgirl”, disappeared from the chart after a week or two. Others, such as Jay-Z’s “On To the Next One” struggled to climb into the top 30, and then dropped quickly once they reached their peak.

Mind you, if what you’re looking for is party music, you can’t do much better than most of the records that made the top ten this year. Straight ahead rhythms uncomplicated by any sense of hesitancy or messy emotion have dominated the market, with only top drawer sellers like Rihanna and Eminem daring anything that requires much thought on the part of the audience. I like a lot of the records that have made the top ten so far this year, but I can think of only one or two that will have any long lasting effect. Party music is designed to be ephemeral, so that’s hardly a criticism, just a recognition of the way things are, and are likely to remain for some time.

Most of what I consider the best of the year so far comes from a little further down the charts, though of course that’s no guarantee of durability. Even I was surprised, though, that my number one would turn out to be the darkest record to make the charts this year, a record so full of bad feeling that it dropped off the charts after a single week and has been ignored by just about everybody. Who’d have thought I could feel alone in praising a Lil Wayne single?

As for the worst, it should be pointed out that this list does not include any of the Glee Cast singles, which are not only terrible but should never have been released in the first place. If I had included them, they would have occupied all ten places and then some. At one point, I considered making “Ice Ice Baby” both the worst and best single of the year, but that was just cynicism. I feel better now, honest.

The Best So Far (in approximate order of preference)

1. Lil Wayne – I’m Single
2. The-Dream – Love King
3. Cali Swag District – Teach Me How To Dougie
4. The Black Eyed Peas – Rock That Body
5. Rick Ross featuring Ne-Yo – Super High
6. Selena Gomez and the Scene – Naturally
7. Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beats – On To the Next One
8. Miranda Lambert – The House That Built Me
9. Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
10. T-Pain – Reverse Cowgirl

The Worst (in alphabetical order)

1. Alpha Rev – New Morning
2. Artists for Haiti – We Are the World 25
3. Justin Bieber featuring Jaden Smith – Never Say Never
4. Dirty Heads featuring Rome of Subllime with Rome – Lay Me Down
5. David Guetta featuring Fergie and LMFAO – Gettin’ Over You
6. Avril Lavigne – Alice
7. Muse – Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)
8. Christina Perri – Jar of Hearts
9. Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me
10. Shiny Toy Guns – Major Tom

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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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The Disney/Cash Money nexus starts now

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

“Round and Round”, the latest single from Selena Gomez, star of Disney’s The Wizards of Waverly Place, is co-written and co-produced by Lil Wayne’s favorite rocker, Kevin Rudolf. The success of Gomez’s previous single, “Naturally”, on the dance charts was surprising enough, but this is even more interesting. Like it or not, the Disney audience is the majority pop audience of the near future, and the crashing together of disparate pop artists and styles is going to be a large part of the culture they create. This isn’t a great record, but it’s one of the few Disney pop records that sound current and up-to-date—as opposed to the Jonas Brothers’s or Miley Cyrus’s dated punk/pop–and it’s an interesting step toward that future.

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New this week—1/3/10

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Selena Gomez & The Scene—”Naturally”
#39
The title is wonderfully ironic for such an obviously manufactured chunk of music, but this is still the best piece of Disney pop since Miley Cyrus’ “See You Again”, or maybe even Aly & AJ’s “Potential Breakup Song”. Like both of those, “Naturally” was written and produced by Tim James and Antonina Armato, who really should be given some sort of prize for keeping Disney’s foray into pop music respectable. Because this is pop for tweener’s, James and Armato don’t get anywhere near the attention and respect they deserve, but I think they’re one of the best songwriting teams around right now. Once the tweeners take over the world (about five years from now) maybe someone else will notice it.

Young Money featuring Gucci Mane—”Steady Mobbin’”
#48
Young Money, my ass—this is a Lil Wayne record with a brief cameo by Gucci Mane (think of them as the Jailhouse Boys). It isn’t particularly better than any of the other Young Money tracks I’ve heard, nor particularly worse. It does present a nastier Lil Wayne than we’ve heard recently—maybe he’s feeling the need to reassert himself after a year of (often brilliant) goofs. He repeats a lot of his old schtick, though, and for the most part this sounds like a mixtape cut Wayne decided sounded just good enough to go onto the album.

Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins—”Hillbilly Bone”
#65
This is as heavyhanded in sound as any other country/rock hybrid, but its rustic chauvinism is lighter and friendlier than most, and it has a great opening line: “I’ve got a friend from New York City/He’s never heard of Conway Twitty”. After that it goes downhill, but not too far. How much you like it may depend on how much you can stand Adkins’ baritone schtick—I can just barely abide it.

Eminem—”Music Box”
#82
This is more stylish than most of Eminem’s splatter movie fantasies—more Dario Argento than Wes Craven, if you will—but that only makes it seem more garish and stupid. You’ve got to fill up these deluxe reissues somehow, I guess.

Lady Antebellum—”American Honey”
#97
Their Fleetwood Mac obsession continues, and in some ways I like this more than “Need You Now”. It’s both intelligent and tasteful without being stiff and mechanical, and the upcoming album may well be some sort of easy-listening landmark, if only because it will undoubtedly make smoother their inevitable crossover from the Country chart to Adult Contemporary. Which may be a more important achievement than you think.

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