Sick Puppies - Maybe

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Wholesomeness from a band called Sick Puppies, sounding like banal 80's rock.  Que?

Sick Puppies
Maybe
Carpe Diem
#66 (LoMid)
Dec 23, 2010
Shimon Moore
Antonina Armato
Tim James

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When the song starts, everyone join me with your best Bono impression:

I have climbed
highest mountain...

Well, that was fun. Maybe we should chip in and buy the Sick Puppies' guitarist an echo pedal. It's christmas, after all: the time for picking on U2. Oh, and free stuff.

This one shifts away from the point where you can make U2 jokes pretty quickly, though-- the verses sink into Richard Marx territory almost immediately, with a kind of Warrant/Poison/Bon Jovi power ballad chorus, a break that was swept off Use Your Illusion's cutting room floor, and just a touch of nasal pop-punk in the lead vocal. If that doesn't sound like an appetizing stew, take it up with the manufacturers.

“Maybe” belies its manufactured origins in its sound: mathematically designed in CAD, played by machines, and then crushed as far as possible into its package. The design of the song is built around the most reliable rock cliches (you remember the turned down half-chorus I mentioned in “The Breath You Take?” Here it is again,) making the first listen come off like a song you've already heard. The inhuman sound, like the layered voices in the chorus and the mechanical, never-varying instruments, were “cleaned up” or “enhanced” in the computer used to record them. As for the crushing*: a song shouldn't be this distorted (not the guitars or one specific sound-- the whole song has been distorted), and it sounds like someone fed it into a piece of gear called “louder for the radio” and turned all its knobs to 11... 

A final note on the sound of this thing: in mixing terminology, you call an instrument without any effects “dry” and one with an effect (like reverb) “wet;” well, this snare drum is soggy. The 80's hairspray bands were lousy with this kind of snare, but this song is absolutely the worst I've ever heard. Apparently, the reason the guitarist can't get his Edge on is because, though he already has a delay pedal, they're using it on the snare drum.

And maybe it's time to change
And leave it all behind
I've never been one to walk alone
I've always been scared to try

So why does it feel so wrong
To reach for something more
To wanna live a better life
What am I waiting for

'Cause nothing stays the same
Maybe it's time to change

Maybe I'm a dreamer
Maybe I'm misunderstood
Maybe you're not seeing
The side of me you should

Lyrically, “Maybe” is the first Carpe Diem song of the project: full of seizing the moment, doing your best, and taking advantage of a brand new day... which I wouldn't mind so much, if it a) wasn't so corny, and b) keeps switching back and forth between “I'm good enough” and “but what if I fail?” When the chorus is so “Yay, I can do it!” it's hard to listen to the whiny verses... well, that, and it's hard to listen to a song that begins with “Maybe I'm just a dreamer.”

Maybe it's hopeless
Maybe I should just give up
And what if I can't trust myself
What if I just need some help

If you don't think it can get sillier than the first verse, verse two opens with a line that has me picturing the guy sulking down the street in the rain, bangs in his face, kicking rocks down the street: “Maybe it's hopeless, maybe I should just give up.” Golly, I'll bet another peppy chorus will have him walking on sunshine again... it keeps cropping up like a Stuart Smalley sketch: whenever you start with stinkin' thinkin', you turn to the mirror and say “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonnit, people like me!”

Not to digress, but when the band name is Sick Puppies, how is this the song I get?  It's like firing up a band called "The Wholesome Family" and getting a song about animal necrophiliacs overthrowing the government.  How does the band name like "Sick Puppies" evoke a message of Hey, everybody!  Reach for the stars! 

Even if the lyrics are pretty silly, it's the wild over-production that makes this one unbearable. I'm sure if it was just a guy with a guitar, this song would... well, it'd sound better, at least. As it is, the song already sounds dated, a stale blend of radio rock clichés that have very little to do with chords or lyrics... this sounds the way it does because someone decided to make it into an overblown facsimile of LA rock at its biggest and most inane.

It's the audio equivalent of a geeky kid with huge glasses squeezing into tight, vinyl pants.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

*We could follow an aside about Mastering (a process that, among other things, is often used to make songs sound louder on the radio) down a long and winding rabbit hole, but I'm not going to bore you with that. Generally, when a whole song is crushed to death and distorted in the process, someone did a shitty mastering job... this song is a fine example of a really shitty mastering job. For a quick overview, here is an NPR feature on the issue.

Genre: Carpe Diem

In the world of pop music, this is a spiritual cousin of Stand Up-- come on, audience, be your best!

You know, day seizing...  and, as music goes, this is generally a pretty good place to start: even at its most poorly written, the Carpe Diem song is at least a positive thought.  That can be undone, of course, by insincerity on the songwriter's or performer's part, and pop stars can sound awfully condescending preaching from On High.

Enrique Iglesias - I Like It

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Another thing Enrique likes: Not trying too hard

Enrique Iglasias
I Like It
Club Anthem
#33 (HiMid)
Dec 23, 2010
Enrique Iglesias
Nadir Khayat
Armando Pérez
Lionel Richie
RedOne

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The spots around #11 are still jammed up with songs I've already reviewed, so we groan and head into the next euro dance pop track... I'm not about to pretend that this song isn't all kinds of terrible, but it is pretty lively. Sure, “I Like It” is guilty of everything I hate about this stuff (stock house synths, autotuned vocals, uninventive beats, moronic lyrics, and a structure so dated and overused it might be template included in Apple's Garageband studio software), but it is slightly less guilty than a lot of songs in its weight class. That it has any lively bounce at all is pretty helpful; most songs like this are so lifeless and stale-sounding I can't imagine anyone dancing to them.

Past that, all of my previous complaints remain valid-- can we please, please, stop holding four chords on a trancegate-equipped keyboard and setting it to a house beat? I don't want to keep complaining about it, but it just keeps happening. Since it all happens in exactly the same way, the songs grouped together by this laziness are all pretty indistinguishable...

Lyrically... okay, let's just all admit that the words to this song don't matter. This song, written from a guy's perspective, implies: “You there, hot girl with whom I already have a sexual connection. We can hook up tonight, and though there's a little bit of flirting going on right now, we'll be fucking less than ten minutes after we leave the club.” It says: “Know the way you're sexy dancing implies we'll be fucking soon? I like that.”

Well, duh.

Next up, a song about how good food tastes when you're hungry.

Or about how being in love is better than being sad. (Oh hell, I just tripped over the delta between broad satire and actual songs.)

The bridge offers two concepts that smack of an overt 80'sness: shaking your love (which has been lying dormant since the era of Debbie Gibson), and not stopping until you get enough (who was that guy with the one glove? I seem to remember him being a really good dancer). This doesn't really bother me that much-- if a dance/club/party song is free of the kind of lyrical atrocities you'll find in Dynamite, I'll give it a pass.

This is the second Pitbull guest spot, and I think I like him in that role. Granted, “Bon Bon” was nails-on-a-chalkboard bad, but I kind of like him rapping the guest verse in these dance songs. Then again, I don't really like these dance songs, so by the time Pitbull shows up, he's usually a break in the drudgery that comes with generic-sounding tracks.

My most enduring complaint is that it's just another one of these songs... When track after track is just the same song over again, it's awfully hard to write anything about them. The lyrics aren't as stupid as Taio Cruz's and the beats aren't as limp as Rihanna's, but it's not really much different from those songs either.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Bruno Mars - Marry You

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I'm saying "No no no no no"

Bruno Mars
Marry You
Marriage Porn
#98 (Low)
Dec 16, 2010
Bruno Mars
Plilip Lawrence
Ari Levine
The Smeezingtons

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It just gets worse and worse! If this song had balls, it would be receiving quick, repeated kicks until it crawled, whimpering, back into whatever kind of hole spews this annoying junk forth. I know I usually wait until discussing the song a little bit before digging into lyrics, but when the refrain is “Don't say no no no no no, just say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, and we'll go go go go go, if you're ready,” you don't want to bury the lead: that's precisely how stupid this song is.

I'm sure proposals scored by this thing are conducted by people who would look down their nose at Rascal Flats, but “Marry You” is even more frustrating because it's so smug and cutesy. It's no less Marriage Porn for it, either, complete with churchbells (which I think are playing the bell melody from They Might Be Giants' “The Bells Are Ringing” in the chorus, and “I Melt with You” in the intro) in the arrangement.

It's a beautiful night
We're looking for something dumb to do
Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you
Is it the look in your eyes
or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares, baby
I think I wanna marry you

Since it contains the title, I'm going to assume the “Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you” part is the chorus, though the “just say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” stuff is repeated about as often (and was probably the hook that sold the single). Regardless, it sounds awfully condescending-- getting married is his idea of something dumb to do, just to pass the time, and he's not even certain if this whim is inspired by the girl or the drink.

Quick answer: if you're not sure if it's the booze or not, you're too drunk to be making a decision like this. Do us all a favor and sleep on it.

Also, for a song called “Marry You,” I don't think there's a single mention of love.  It is vocally in support of letting the choir bells sing "like ooooh," (which, by the way, is not the sound bells make), but it doesn't have anything to say about love.

The repetition of the two parts I've already quoted make up most of the running time of the song, but one of the few other lines is “Who cares if we're trash, got a pocket full of cash we can blow.” I'm sure it's meant to be quirky, but it's probably also an honest reflection of what the writers think of their audience.

I haven't mentioned it in a while because I don't want to repeat myself by continually harping on Autotune, but this is an example of the other way it can be misapplied... like Billy Joel singing the national anthem (okay, maybe it's not that bad), no one's trying for a stylish effect here; the voice is just being jerked into key every time he drifts a bit. He's probably not a bad singer, but forcing this vocal part into computer perfection sounds painfully imperfect.

On the other hand, we should be thankful when we hear the autotune engage on that howling, hound dog summoning “Just say 'I dooooooooooo.'” I'm betting autotune is the lesser of two evils in that case.

 

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

George Strait - The Breath You Take

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I heard they put the dog to sleep in the extended version for added weepiness.

George Strait
The Breath You Take
Hallmark
#66 (LoMid)
Dec 16, 2010
Dean Dillon
Jessie Jo Dillon
Casey Beathard
Tony Brown
George Strait

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O cruel fate, is this my punishment for disparaging the trivial but unoffending “Aston Martin Music?” To feel the terrible sting of George Strait sappiness? Lo, the heartfelt drama, presaged as it was by the naming of Hallmark as a genre, the tumultuous forces use my own designs to wreak terrible revenge!

Seriously, though, “The Breath You Take” is even more overwrought and dramatic than any corny prologue I could type. It's picking some low hanging fruit, too: like Carrie Underwood bet song sales against mother/daughter wedding dances, Strait's going even wider... everyone's got a dad, right? (go ahead, be a jerk; start listing exceptions) Point is: this kind of thing has a massive, built-in market, especially in family values-friendly country music.

This song deserves some ire for its stunningly uninventive sappiness. Prefect Dad (a new superhero, it seems) comes to your baseball game even though he had a plane to catch and came to your daughter's birth even though he didn't have to. His theory: “Life's not the breath you take, the breathing in and out... but the moments that take your breath away.” That's all fine (though I could mention the importance of breathing in and out), but it seems baseball and a trip to the ER waiting room are the width and breath of Strait's image of Perfect Dad.

The implications of both events are “it was inconvenient for me to be here, but I came anyway,” but they're sung in such a way to evoke a kindly, country gentleman. Both are things a father simply ought to do (if you put your kid in an activity, attend the activity. Oh, and don't skip out on the birth of your grandkids), but they're given maximum schmaltz by making sure Perfect Dad has sacrificed something to do them... and if this isn't bald fiction composed by professional songwriters, I'll be shocked. These scenarios were invented for maximum Hallmark effect: you have to love Perfect Dad, because when Strait kills him in the third act, he wants you to feel it.

Sort of. George Strait didn't write this-- we can blame him for singing it, but he didn't add a single word to the Mortality of Perfect Dad tearjerker.  There's a team of three writers, raised on a steady diet of "Cat's in the Cradle" and loved-one-dies-of-cancer movies, to blame for that.

Musically, it's pretty rote... It's got the exact same structure as any Backstreet Boys song you'll find. Who would have guessed there's be a modulation into the bridge? Or that the following chorus would be stripped down when it returned? On one hand, these conventions have served plenty of good songs, and we should all be thankful Strait (producer and Pure Country icon) didn't squeeze in a drum machine for a dance pop bastardization.  On the other... who composed those strings?  Aaron Zigman?  It sounds like we're watching a Nicholas Sparks adaptation in here, these are the violins that score Mandy Moore's lukemia.

I guess I agree with one aspect of this song: we really should treasure the moments that make life worth living, but none of those moments involve listening to this phony and overwrought treacle.

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Rick Ross - Aston Martin Music

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Slightly less cool than 007's car.  Can we rename it "Toyota Corolla Music?"

Rick Ross
Aston Martin Music
Bragging
#33 (HiMid)
Dec 16, 2010
Rick Ross
Drake
Chrisette Michelle
JUSTICE League

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The top of the charts are looking like a parking lot right now, so, sorry... no High spot this week: tracks 8-14 are all songs I've already reviewed. Just as well, since it's taken me a long time to try and write about “Aston Martin Music,” and I'm not sure why. Either it's basically a dial-tone that just refuses to make any marks on my brain, or I've got a teflon coating for this kind of thing.

Shame, because the branding in the title works for me; I was looking forward to this song. I get why, like Scarface and the Corleones, Bond lives large in hip hop culture: he's unbeatable in a gunfight, irresistible to women, and lives the high life (tailored clothes, the finest food an drink, and a slick car). Even if most of the movies are lousy (out of over 20 movies, there's about a 1-5 quality ratio), the character himself is always an ideal: James Bond is SuperGangsta.

This song is desperately lacking in its Bondness: not smooth, fancy, or dangerous. The music doesn't evoke an Aston Martin... this is Honda Accord music. Honestly, if you stripped all the vocal parts away, it's a track Kenny G would have no trouble soloing over. Designed to be medium-tempo and non dynamic, it's one real flourish is a hard stop (“Ballin!”) that sounds so awkward it makes me feel bad for complaining about the lack of changes: if that's what you're doing for variety, we can probably do without. They sweep down some filters on the beats for the chorus... but I doubt that would throw Kenny G's game.

I kept listening to the song trying to focus on the lyrics, but the whole thing is... just... so... boring. I get that the verses are all Bond: guns, girls (who take orders from you, no less: she calls you “boss” while you “listen to the yeah yeah yeahs”), convertibles, and lots of money, but Rick Ross never seems to complete a thought. The verses switch from one idea to the next without any connective tissue, as if Ross is as bored as I am, tuning out after a line and a half and starting over. The chorus is just a constant repetition of the song title in robotic monotone: no melody or rhythm at all.

There's no way to work up any real hatred for a song so bland you can barely remember it as soon as it's done playing, but I have to give this one a Run because it's a lousy song without any redeeming qualities (at least Wiz Khalifa and Blake Shleton were so bad they were funny). Does “Aston Martin Music” have an excellent video? I must be missing something, because I have no idea why this song is popular.

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Far East Movement - Like a G6

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An uptempo dance track about a downtempo chill scene.
Scanning for self-aware irony: None detected.

Far East Movement
Like a G6
Club Anthem
#11 (High)
Dec 9, 2010
Jae Choung

Virman Coquia

Niles Holowell-Dhar

Kevin Nishimura

James Roh

David Singer-Vine
The Cataracs

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Well there it is: the dreaded G6 song. This was the song that sat at Billboard's #1 when I started looking into how to tackle this project, it was #1 when I began writing, and stayed #1 even after that. “Like a G6” is absolutely the reason I didn't pick the number one song of any week as a review, a song would get there and just sit for weeks at a time... and still, I wondered about the song itself.

I wasn't so curious as to go out and listen to it until it landed on my review list-- let's not go nuts (I'm pretty much at capacity for pop hits. I'm not seeking out extras.) Camping at the top spot could could mean anything (iTunes sales to kids obsessed with sizzurp? Label payola?) Maybe the song's success is a result of the song itself being really good.

Stranger things have happened... but I'm glad I didn't have my hopes up.

Truth be told, this thing isn't that bad-- it's a total club song, even if the lyrics are the polar opposite of the music, this is a classic 303-style squelchy bassline with a retro drum machine beat (the lyrics call out the 808). It's probably done with emulators or soundalikes, because no one can afford a real TB-303 or TR-808 these days, but it's okay by me. High art it's not, and it can't compete with something that has great beats and music (I was listening to “Chonkyfire” off Aquemini today), but it is better than the limp beats I've heard from Will.i.am and so many others. “Like a G6” sounds like it belongs in a club; it actually sounds like people would dance to it. This beat is bangin' in exactly the way "Check It Out"s is not.

Poppin bottles in the ice
like a blizzard
When we drink we do it right
gettin slizzer'd
Sippin sizzurp in my ride
like Three 6
Now I'm feelin so fly
like a G6

and that's a bit of the problem: lyrically, this is not supposed to be a banging club track. The lyrics are all about getting slizzer'd on sizzurp (there's a wikipedia entry for it under Purple Drank; the wiki doesn't use the actual word, but that's sizzurp: codeine based cough syrup and soda), the flagship drink of chopped & screwed remixes. The chorus even calls out the Three 6 Mafia, formative in the style, but chopped & screwed tracks are slooooooow, sedated even, and not really built for dance clubs.

I probably have to explain: Michelle, our singer, showed us all Lil Jon, and his chopped & screwed remixes were the first I ever heard. Personally, I think it's pretty cool... and I have some love for Lil Jon, too. Whatever you think of him, Lil Jon's got a unique sound and infuses everything he does with his own distinct personality (and, if you can find it, track down the deleted-from-YouTube Lil Jon/Lazytown mashup. That thing rules). Regardless, this is one area where I'm slightly less of a hermit... I'm no authority, sure, but it doesn't take much to figure a sizzurp sippin, Three Six bumpin night doesn't end up at the dance clubs that play “Like a G6.”

Also, what the hell's a G6? Everyone seems to think it's a jet... but I can't find it. Claims made after the song became popular say it's slang for a Gulfstream G650, but I can't dig up anyone calling that plane a “G6” anywhere but in a reference to this song. If someone can offer up any information that Far East Movement isn't picking random syllables so they can rhyme with a call-out to the Three 6 Mafia, let me know. Right now, I'm unconvinced, and I'm going to dictate that any episodes of Fringe that are boring be called “Boringe” so we can finally have a word that rhymes with “orange.” It's no less arbitrary than what's going on here.

Generally, that's where I am with the song: it's not a bad dance track, but it's got antithetical lyrics and strangely Electroclash vocals in the chorus (now there's a fad whose 15 minutes couldn't end quickly enough.) I don't hate it, but it would definitely get on my nerves if I had to listen to it more than I just have.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Lil Wayne - Right Above It

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Cue up your training montage

Lil Wayne
Right Above It
Bragging
#32 (HiMid)
Dec 9, 2010
Dwayne Carter, Jr.
Aubrey D. Graham
Daniel Johnson
Andrew Canton
Kane Beatz

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Wow... that's really heroic. If Rocky was going to train to a hip hop tune, this song would score the montage. The synth horns that open the song could probably make the argument all by themselves: they're pretty obviously coming out of someone's Korg Triton (Lil Wayne, I have two words for you: Miroslav Orchestra. I know you have the hard drive space), but they're endearingly cheesy. This song would probably sound amazing with real horns... but no use crying over spilled samples.

Though the horns are the first thing I noticed, the beats are the best thing about this song. Some work went into the programming on this one. The kick skitters around on the bottom of the track, and there's a lot of complexity in the hats and cymbals, all kept in check by a steady handclap. Somebody was having a lot of fun with the drums when they put this one together.

I thought it was odd that the vocals were so low in the mix-- the music sort of overwhelms the voices in most of the song. I can still make out the lyrics, but the music is way up front... odd for this type of music, but it sort of makes sense when I try to write about the lyrics and keep coming up dry. The music is punched up because the words are kinda boring.

Putting up music this epic to back a brag track begs for some audacity, but the bravado in this just seems commonplace (“I've been fly so long I fell asleep on the fucking plane”). There's money, crews, cars, and girls (“Don't like my women single, I like my chicks in twos”), but no more than anyone else's bragging...  maybe even a little less. Writing this dull makes me wonder why the song needs to exist at all, since it shares space with “Monster.”

Lackluster, but not awful... and it could be worse. The numbers got shuffled this week because #33 was being consumed by, you guessed it, Glee. That puts things in perspective.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Michael Jackson & Akon - Hold My Hand

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Suddenly, the songs not good enough for a Michael Jackson record are being exhumed and sold.  Maybe the quality of the music improved over time.

Michael Jackson
Akon
Hold My Hand
Hallmark
#66 (LoMid)
Dec 9, 2010
Aliaune Thiam
Claude Kelly
Giorgio Tuinfort
Akon
Giorgio Tuinfort
Michael Jackson

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My pop music hermit status informs most of my writing, but no one (not even me) is so much a hermit as to escape the looming shadow of Michael Jackson's legacy. Hell, Off The Wall was the first cassette I ever owned... it was a Christmas present and I was a kid, but still... The problem with reviewing MJ is: his death made him a sudden saint, which is supposed to overshadow many years of his public controversies blotting out his fairly uncelebrated, late-career, musical output. There's no way to win this one.

Me, I've recently spent time with friends watching old videos of Jackson; that guy was an amazing performer, and it's still a little stunning to watch him dance. On the other hand, he was mostly a performer-- he sang the songs and put on a hell of a show, but the songs were mostly written by hitmakers and producers (shades of Quincey); he didn't write “Thriller,” and he didn't write “Hold My Hand.” I tend to respect songwriters more than stars, but I know that the Jacksons come from Motown, where there wasn't much crossover between the talent in front of the mic and the talent composing the music.

It's almost impossible to deal with “Hold My Hand” in any serious way: no matter which part of Jackson's recent story makes you cringe, this song hits it. There's the creepy, breathy sound of Michael whispering “Hold my hand” at the end of the song that had to contribute to the song's suppression (pulled from albums a few years back) when he was alive and making headlines for all kinds of unpleasant allegations. On the other hand, releasing a song that opens with “this life don't last forever” as a posthumous track is tacky, bordering on tasteless. If a reviewer just can't win, this song is born to lose; how can anyone listen to this and not wince?

Then figure in the schmaltzy sentimentality of the song itself: this is a personal taste issue, but the sappy songs are just not my style. I'm not declaring war on love songs-- “Hold My Hand” is less interested la amour than an quick and dirty Hallmark card, and it's the mass-market, universal appeal that smacks of insincerity. The “platonic-or-no?” cheeseball vibe of hand-holding for friendship and warmth isn't helped any by the alleged friendly sleepovers and public, child-at-heart protests; I'm not trying to pick a fight, but couldn't someone dredge up something with more of the dancy, kick-ass funk that people loved about Michael Jackson... and avoid pleading sentiment and weird associations?  If all the writing credits are to be believed, Michael wrote "Smooth Criminal;" why aren't we hearing something like that (or "Billy Jean") instead of this schmaltzy crap?  And Isn't that what Michael Jackson's fans really want to hear?

Here's to the far side of dancing on this line: I don't want to defame or worship this guy: let's post some more Jon LaJoie in here (this blog is only strengthened by increased Jon LaJoie content)-- it's like backing the Patriot Act in 2001 and screaming about freedom in 2010.  You can do both, but one negates the other... no one will believe you on either point once they've seen you endorse two opposite positions.

Even if I shut off the part of my brain that keeps finding tacky ways to associate this song with Entertainment Weekly headlines (hey, I go to grocery stores, too), it's not a very good song: it's cheesy in the extreme, and it sounds like one of those awful late 80s ballads destined for junior high Winter Formal dances.

Even without all the lyrical ways this one seems wrong to me, I still hate it; the release a cash-in tune for people to make money on a star who's more profitable now that he's dead, and the music comes off like an audio greeting card (all synth strings and sap). I thought about naming this genre “Sap,” but Hallmark is more appropriate. Some products are built for The Land of Emotional Make-Believe: they claim operatic heights, provide a Disneyland ride, and are designed for those who don't care to discern between the two.

Aside from all the other problems with this song, there's no way to stream it at the moment, so there's no Play link for this one.  It's one thing to make the tacky decision to cash in on a celebrity's death (it's shitty, but it's smart marketing)... but why make it so difficult for people to hear it?

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Genre: Hallmark

My first instinct was to call this genre "Sap & Sentimentality" to give it a little Jane Austen flare, but-- like all transparent tape is Scotch and all tissues are Kleenex-- all cheesy sentiment is Hallmark.  My definition of this genre is the transparent tugging of heartstrings: these are not songs that inspire any emotion in me, they're corny greeting cards.

Kanye West & Jay Z - Monster

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Nicki Minaj is one for three, but this is the one

Kanye West
Jay-Z
Monster
Bragging
#99 (Low)
Dec 9, 2010
Kanye West
Shawn Carter
William Roberts
Onika Maraj
Justin Vernon
Kanye West

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I never laid out the rule that a week would be reviewed top-down, so this week I'll start with the Low position, simply because it's the song that's having the most impact on the blog. Exactly like changing to a Stay, Walk, Run strategy, Kanye's “Monster” made me recursively add featured and guest stars into my listings for one reason: Nicki Minaj.

There's been a bit of recurrence in the featured slot before, but Nicki made me reconsider the whole system because, though she hasn't been the main name of any song I've reviewed so far, she keeps popping up and always gets some mention. She was autotuned and blank in the awful “Check It Out,” so much so that you'd never really notice it was her; she was my least favorite part of “Bottom's Up,” but I detected some interesting turns in her voice, changing characters from her normal tone to a dainty little girl to a growling beast.

The neat little turns I noticed in “Bottoms Up” live large in “Monster;” three MCs each get a verse, and they get some time to do what they do (the song runs longer than six minutes), but Nicki Minaj is the real monster of the track, a force of nature and a goddamned rockstar. Her verse starts slow, but she's already playing with character in the song; she employs Rastafarian accent at her convenience, sometimes for a line, sometimes just to hit a word. She writes her verse with smaller crescendos, ramping up with the music, digging in and raising intensity as the builds, and switching to her little girl voice when the beat backs off a bit, and then dropping into her growl to cap off a line. Her part has lots of little arcs that follow the music, but eventually builds to a scream and roaring “I'm a motherfuckin Monster!” I didn't really dig her in the last two songs; I love her in this.

The first two verses pale in comparison. Rick Ross in the first verse is solid and serviceable... since this is a brag track and everyone's declaring their monstrousness, you know someone had to pull out and show us his dick (it was bound to happen), but “Have you ever had sex with a Pharaoh? I put the pussy in a sarcophagus. Now she's claiming that I bruised her esophagus” is sort of amazing: even if it makes absolutely no sense*, that dude just rhymed sarcophagus with esophagus. Jay-Z's verse is done in that style where the rapper just can't seem to keep up with the beat-- he never hits the one, always seems to be lagging, and you can hear him struggling for breath in the gaps; I've heard other rappers use this style, so maybe my palette just isn't developed enough to appreciate it, but I don't like it. Regardless, neither of these guys make as much with the music as the lady who follows them.

Musically, this one's pretty good-- I'm not sure how much we're all supposed to be praising Kanye these days (and again: I'm a hermit, and  outside of Garfunkel & Oates, I have no idea where Kanye West falls on the current cultural barometer), but the beats are well written and dramatic, rising and falling within the song to keep its length from flatlining the whole thing. Bon Iver opens the song with an octave-synthesized voice that could just as easily be introducing Dr. Funkenstein and closes with a coda that might have appeared on an early 80's Prince record; neither of these things occur within the body of the song, but “Monster” begins and ends with stylized vocal melodies, both of which are pretty cool.

I have to admit, I'm sort of on the fence with this one... there are parts of “Monster” so good they're outstanding, but it's only bits and pieces, and I'm not sure how often I'd listen to a six-and-a-half minute song simply because I like the third verse. It's compelling, though; this is as close to Stay as a song I'm not actually keeping can get.
 

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

* the sarcophagus part, I mean-- I'm not so dim as to misunderstand the bruised esophagus.  [back]

Pitbull - Bon Bon

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It's my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job!

Pitbull
Bon Bon
Club Anthem
#99 (Low)
Dec 2, 2010
Matthew Handley
Nicola Salerno
Armando C. Perez
Andrew Stanley
Duncan Maclennan
Renato Carosone
Yolanda Be Cool & D Cup
Nicola Fasano

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You're kidding, right? No, seriously.

Okay, if they're calling this a complete song, can I just write “Bon bon bon bon” as my review and call it done?

No fair! Double standard!

The problem here is that I have nothing to write about. There's one synth line, which sounds like it ought to back Sonic the Hedgehog racing across the screen... except simpler (would have been too much to ask for three notes, guys? Is the two note line as much work as you're willing to put in?). The beat actually has some nice layers but, like the synth line, it never changes. If you've heard 30 seconds of this song, you've heard the whole thing; unfortunately, you keep hearing it for 3:30.

Somehow, it took six people to write this... sort of.  Looking up the writer/producer credits, I discovered this was an immediate remix/cover of another song still on the charts; I don't know how the "writing" credits break down between Pitbull's track and the original composition.  Nevertheless, nothing this simple should have that many names attached.

Another difficulty I'm having is a lack of Spanish; I don't speak a word, so all I get from this song is the neverending chant of “Bon bon bon bon,” which, much like every other aspect of this song, is repeated too often and for too long. It. Just. Won't. Stop! Please make it stop!

Google Translate seems to imply that this is a Club track, and I can't imagine this song working in any other way: dance to the beat. You have three and a half minutes of uninterrupted kick drum, and even the bon bon bons are more percussion than lyrics, so the only thing I can imagine anyone getting from this track is a beat by which to dance.

Beyond that, it's likely to get stuck in your head the way repetitive children's music will lodge itself in the lizard center of your brain. “Bon Bon” is the “I Love You” of dance music; Pitbull is Barney.

One more note before I flee from this song forever: the lyrical highlight from Google Translate is “Lady Gaga tell I'm putting together a scandalous manner.”

 

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Will.i.am - Check It Out

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Will.i.am explores new levels of annoying

Will.i.am
Check It Out
Bragging
#66 (LoMid)
Dec 2, 2010
Onika Maraj
William Adams
Geoff Downes
Trevor Horn
Bruce Woolley
Will.i.am

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Before I listened to this song, I knew two things about Will.i.am: 1) he was in Black Eyed Peas, and is therefore at least partially responsible for the indescribably awful “My Humps” song, and 2) he was in the also indescribably awful X-Men spin-off movie. With “Check It Out,” the facts are hinting not so subtly at 3) Will.i.am sucks.

Further research would be required to prove point #3, but it's not research I'm willing to do. I feel this guy's already wasted enough of my time.

I remember a music teacher, back in the mid 80's, who responded to a kid's question “Will we learn any rap music?” by drawing one bar of music, three notes, on the blackboard and said “Play that for three minutes.” Sure, he was being an intolerant old bastard who had no respect for the new stuff (just like his parents had no respect for The Beatles), but he wasn't exactly wrong either: a lot of of early hip hop tracks were built from one loop and didn't offer much variation through the song.

As an Outkast fan that just bought Big Boi's new album, I'm well aware that hip hop's evolved quite a bit since then-- it's a shame no one told Will.i.am. “Check It Out” is based around a Buggles loop (did they have more than one song? This is the only one I've ever heard) that seems to have been scientifically selected for maximum annoyance: not only will you be listening to these three chords for the next 4:00, the punishingly squeaky “oh oh” will keep resurfacing to clap you in the eardrum.

A talented wordsmith could make a playground of this, no matter how repetitive and annoying the music was... but Will.i.am is not that man. The refrain, for example, is “Check it out, check it out, check it out, check it out,” and the verses have less rhythmic complexity than Joaquin Phoenix's bumbling hip-hop career relaunch (played for sad laughs). If Phoenix had been autotuned as much as Will.i.am is here, they'd fit well together on a split EP.

Step up in the party like my name was "that bitch"
all these haters mad because I'm so established
they know I`m a beast yeah I'm a fucking savage
haters you can kill yourself
In my space shuttle and I'm not coming down
I'm a stereo and she's just so monotone
sometimes it's just me and all my bottles all alone
I ain't coming back this time

Lyrically, the song is very simple. It says: Will.i.am and Nicki Minaj both have a lot of detractors, but fuck the haters, because Will & Nicki are awesome and so is this song. It doesn't take much to debunk this hypothesis; hell, I wasn't even a hater until I had to listen to this awful thing. The first verse alone (this week's second Nicki Minaj appearance- the song is actually co-credited between the two of them, but Will.i.am has the producer and main writer credits) comes off more like the paranoid ramblings of a tinfoil hat enthusiast than a real rapper firing up a Brag track.

Oh, we just had to kill it
we on the radio hotter than a skillet
we in the club making party people holler
money in the bank means we getting top dollar
I'm a big baller, you a little smaller
step up to my level you need to grow a little taller
I'm a shot caller, get up off my collar
you a chiuaua, I`m a rottweiler

The pre-chorus keeps insisting “I can't believe it, it's so amazing. I can't believe it, this beat is bangin,” almost as if the song keeps telling you how rockin the song is, we're going to give in and eventually agree. Unfortunately, the reason he can't believe the beat is bangin is because it just isn't. I'm glad it's not the House Beat of Creative Bankruptcy, but the beat is just a kick pattern (clocking in somewhere between bland and serviceable) and a neverending hand clap on the 2 and 4. What are we supposed to be checking out again?

And the writing... oh, the writing... “check out” the pains he takes to make Chihuahua rhyme with Rottweiler. Yup, you are a “rot-wallah.” I honestly haven't heard a rapper this bad in a long time: the lyrics are moronic, the rhymes are the worst kind of forced nonsense, the rhythm is like listening to a guy counting out the beat, and the melody has been autotuned up from nothing. The lyrics could easily have been “One and two and three and four and five and six and seven,” take a breath on the eighth beat, “One and two and three and four and five and six and seven,” and run it through autotune, and, alright-- track done.
 

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell:

Rebuilding

We're one-for-everything on the keep/delete measure, so I'm thinking that my categories are far too broad.  From now on, instead of a binary system, I'm splitting music into three categories.  Retconned immediately:

Initially, I really wanted to make a cultural reference, but I just couldn't find a way to make a magnificent trio into something that split into something I loved, was okay with, and hated.  Seriously, if you were a great trio (like Groucho, Chico, and Harpo), I loved all of you... the best I could do was Butters, Kyle, and Cartman, and even that was a poor measure.

Over a time, I went back to square one: run, walk, or stay.  This should be pretty easy to understand, but let's clarify:

	Stay	I want to stay with this song; this is a cozy tune I will listen to in my normal life, like any song I'd listen to as a normal guy listening to music I love.  This is the highest praise I can give.
	Walk	I can walk away. It's not bad... it may even be good, but it's not good enough for me to stay.  Even if I appreciate this song, it's not good enough to hang in my headphones for weeks; even if I'm not keen on this tune, it's not so bad as the music that inspires RUN!
	RUN!	Oh please, make it stop.  It's hard to believe anyone can listen to music this empty and soulless without being sucked into a terrible void.  Your best bet is to run like hell and hope the zombie apocalypse doesn't catch up to you.

I kept trying to make it more fun, but I like Blossom, Bubbles. and Butterercup equally.... and I tried Zim, Dib, and Gaz... Michael, Buster, and GOB...  even Team Venture, Sphinx, and The Guild... but I can't actually find a trio where I love one member, am ambivalent about another, and hate the third.

For right now, you're stuck with my arbitrary rating system

Eminem - Love the Way You Lie

Fairly important: the formatting on this post goes to hell in most feeds, and it will be best read at ericonthecharts.blogspot.com

I didn't figure Eminem would have the first Sad Bastard song on the list

Eminem
Love the Way You Lie
Sad Bastard
#33 (HiMid)
Dec 2, 2010
Marshall Mathers
Alexander Grant
Holly Hafferman
Makeba Riddick
Alex da Kid
Makeba Riddick

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While I've never been even a casual fan, I'm not going to deny that Eminem's got talent. As a matter of fact, as the weeks progress and I listen to a wide and random selection of rappers, I'm more impressed with his particular skill than I would have been if someone had played me this track before I heard Wiz Khalifa and Tyga. In the pack of Billboard stars, Emimem's absolutely an A-lister.

Regardless of the rapper's skill, “Love the Way You Lie” isn't a very good song. It comes off fairly one-note, with verses in Eminem's signature throaty yell, separated by a sad and balladic chorus sung by an un-autotuned Rihanna (hey, looks like she can sing). Lyrically, it plays like a celebrity explaining away his own headlines and presence in the national hype machine... an okay narrative, I suppose, but I'm not really drawn in by it.

For the record, I respect Eminem's honesty. No matter what you think of his oft-reported behavior or his records, you have to admit he's not a celebrity handled by PR men-- his lyrics truly represent who he is and what he feels. It may be hateful or misogynist, it may be a bad career move, it may illuminate our image of a childish idiot (an image he's too stubborn to stop perpetuating), but he meant what he said when he said it. Since I spend a lot of time complaining about pre-processed product being passed off as music, this kind of honesty counts for something. If Eminem's reprehensible, at least he's genuinely reprehensible, and he's not going to bullshit anyone about it.

You know I know how
To make em stop and stare as I zone out
The club can't even handle me right now
Watchin you I'm watchin you we go all out
The club can't even handle me right now

This song, then, is the story of the violent relationship told by the violent man: they were desperately in love once, no one wants to have that kind of thing turn sour, emotions run high during the screaming matches and things get out of control. Most anyone who's been in a serious relationship or two has been in the fight this song can evoke... he never physically hurts the girl, but punches the wall and the guy she's out with (general, violent, jealous guy behavior). It feels pretty selfish coming from a guy who made headlines and earned probation time for the first verse.

There will be no next time
I apologize
Even though I know it's lies
I'm tired of the games
I just want her back
I know I'm a liar
If she ever tries to fucking leave again
I'mma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire

Again, I believe Eminem-- this song feels like a public apology, sure, and probably a sincere one-- but it also feels like Sad Bastard self pity. There are a lot of promises to never do this sort of thing again, but he's self aware enough to know he's full of shit and honest enough to tell us. The gestalt of the piece is that love can go bad, fights can get intense, he doesn't mean for things to get out of hand... but they do, they always will, and he's going to get violent, so what can you do? At least he's sad about it.

Having a famous domestic abuse victim sing the choruses is kind of an odd choice, too-- if you're going to have an “I'm sorry I've been such a violent guy” song and yet have it end with immolating the person you're apologizing to, why have the sad, soul singer chorus containing “I love the way it hurts” sung by Rihanna of all people?

Even though I'm still impressed with Eminem's rhythm and gift for internal rhyme, the song itself is pretty generic: alternating verses and choruses over (admittedly interesting and well composed) beats laced with mopey acoustics. None of the cleverness displayed in the details from line to line make it into the structure of the song: nothing ever changes, it just keeps sulking sadly along.

Walk

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell: