Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit)

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Um... what's hot right now?  Do those wacky kids still like 80's retro?

Black Eyed Peas
The Time (Dirty Bit)
Club Anthem
#66 (LoMid)
William Adams
Allan Pineda
Damien LeRoy
Franke Previte
John DeNicola
Donald Markowitz
Will.i.am
DJ Ammo

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I've heard Black Eyed Peas used as a punchline more than I've heard their music: I know the names Fergie (from random publicity) and Will.i.am (from appearing in a godawful comic book adaptation).  No one talks about Black Eyed Peas without calling them out for being tin eared, cheesy, and possibly aiming for “so bad its good” guilty pleasure music and missing the mark.  From what I've read, they're regarded in the same way as Two & a Half Men: everyone knows it sucks, but it is wildly popular and profitable.

Comparatively, I actually kinda like the only Black Eyed Peas song I know-- “Let's Get It Started” isn't a great song or anything, but I think it's a fun Party Anthem, and it's good at what it does.  I never could marry the one song I know by them to the pervasive hate for the group.  From where I was standing, they were one for one.

And then I heard “The Time (Dirty Bit)” and every snippit of internet snark ever launched in the Black Eyed Peas' direction came flooding back into my brain.  Suddenly, it makes sense that there's a collective groan every time these guys drop a single, that each new song is treated like it deserves a human rights tribunal.  If “The Time (Dirty Bit)” is any indication of their other output, I'd rather not hear it.

While the production is sharp and shiny (the bass punches, the synths swirl), the music itself is the worst of amateur half-assedness.  My first instinct is to compare it to the songs made with the BuzzTracker freeware in the early 90s, but it would be too disrespectful to tracker musicians as a whole-- even the bedroom keyboard junkies aren't obsessed with sample retriggers and trance-gates to the point of butchering this song's last chorus into stuttery, choppy word salad.

The nonsensical and ill-timed cuts are predicted by the lead in to the first verse: after the intro, the word “you” is clipped and repeated in traditional rave-up form.  I have nothing against that (I've used it myself), but it's just so badly implemented here-- instead of building excitement and anticipation of the next beat dropping, it's overlong and annoying.  These are symptoms of somebody toying with their very first sampler... how does this kind of tin-eared obnoxiousness show up in the product of megastars and hit makers?

All of this reflects how annoying the song is without addressing the quality of the songwriting or the lyrics. We could end now, call this a Run!, and still wouldn't have addressed the fact that about a quarter of the run time of the song is actually a cover of The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing... but where's the fun in that?  Seriously, if you want to hear someone autotune their way through the chorus of a soundtrack tie-in hit from the mid 80's, this is your song.

(I just re-read that last paragraph.  It gets more ridiculous the longer I think about it.)

No one's going to be surprised to discover that the lyrics are pretty stupid.  I find it baffling that people tried to make a laughingstock of Rebecca Black for the awful lyrics in Friday, but somehow the Black Eyed Peas can toss out gems like “I was born to get wild, that's my style.  If you didn't know that, well, baby, now you know now” with impunity.  There's an implied rhyme between “style” and “now,” too-- if you want to mock idiots singing a bad song, leave the thirteen year old girl alone and turn your attention to the Black Eyed Peas: these are adults, and they weren't handed these words by some mercenary company. They actually wrote these lyrics.

RUN!

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

Fabolous - You Be Killin Em

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Don't you dummies ever understand anything?

Fabolous
You Be Killin Em
Ass Kissing
#66 (LoMid)
Feb 24, 2011
John Jackson
Ryan Leslie
Ryan Leslie

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Music like this makes me break out my Old Man Voice. “That stuff ain't a bit of good. Don't you dummies ever understand anything?” I feel like the outtakes on a DRI album.

Unlike the blast I just leveled at Jessie J for laziness and hypocrisy, Fabolous is just sort of bad. You know, in a general way. Maybe this song's going for a retro-feel, but every piece of this song feels like it has between 10 and 30 years of dust on it. Synth bass from the 80s, break loop from the 90s... it doesn't really inspire any kind of retro nostalgia in me (if that's even the point), it just sounds tired.

Or, more accurately, this song sounds like a C lister from years back-- this song could have been a minor hit when I was a kid (when that crazy rap music on the mTv was still kind of novel). I remember those videos well-- the companies didn't know their new find was a bad rapper, they just thought he had a look they could sell, and so this goofily awful song is shoehorned into a video. This is the kind of song that sounds like it was pulled out of a cut out bin. On a cassingle.

Just watching my cutiepie get beautified
Make me want better jewels, a newer ride
Louis Vuitton shoes, she got too much pride
Her feet are killing her, I call it shoe-icide

I can handle repetitive or uninteresting music if the vocal is awesome... but, as you can guess by the spelling of his name, Fabolous is not a great wordsmith. His flow is kind of sluggish and lags behind the beat (I hate that) and he “sings” the chorus (there is a kind of melody there) so painfully flat I can't believe he thought it was a good idea. Then again, he just coined the term “shoe-icide,” so what Fabolous considers a good idea will always be a mystery.

He might be a foot fetishist, too, because his worship of the shoes as backed up by a mention of “well trimmed toes,” which must mean the girl's pedicure... otherwise... well... is amputation becoming fashionable? Trimming a toe or two for sandal season?

Singing the chorus is almost as annoying as the words in the chorus themselves. I know colloquialism and slang are the norm in hiphop, but there is no way to make the phrase “you be killin em” not sound moronic... and saying it over and over (and over and over) just draws attention to the fact that your average 8-year-old can communicate more intelligently than this guy.

RUN!

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

Ke$ha - Blow

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Ke$ha might not be too bright, but her handlers, trainers, and writers probably are.

Ke$ha
Blow
Club Anthem
#66 (LoMid)
Feb 10, 2011
Kesha Sebert
Klas Åhlund
Lukasz Gottwald
Allan Grigg
Benjamin Levin
Max Martin
Dr. Luke
Max Martin
Benny Blanco
Kool Kojak

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Actually, I'm a little familiar with Ke$ha: she's the blonde pop star that looks like she came from the factory that manufactures porn stars. I saw her playing a ridiculous laser-synth on Saturday Night Live, trying her best to look like she was having fun (you'd think PornBot Industries would have better “pretending to enjoy what you're doing” software by now)-- to me, Ke$ha usually seems like she's trying to remember complex instructions beyond her understanding, but she's always struggling to look like she's not frightened and confused.

Back door cracked
We don't need a key
We get in for free
No VIP sleaze
Drink that Kool-Aid
Follow my lead
Now you're one of us
You're coming with me

Which is fine, I suppose, because this isn't a half bad club track. Ke$ha's only got a few lines in the verses (which are moronic, sure, but from what I can tell, that's sort of her trademark), but the whole thing hinges on the chorus, which is nothing more than the word “Blow” with a robotic “This place about to” pasted on top of it. The song basically makes a synth lead out of her voice: autotuned to inhumanity, harmonized into a rave chord, and sliced up with a trance gate to give it some rhythm. It stops being Ke$ha and is a mostly inoffensive dance song.

I know, I know... I'm just trying to
drive home my "Interchangeable
Porn Bot" theory.

Until she gets her “rap” verse. I do really hate the valley girl “nya!” sound that skinny pop stars use to hint at their wild bad-assery. If the lyric is “make it rain,” why does it have to be said “make it rayn?” She didn't sound like that for any of the song up til now, and all of the sudden she just manifested a Paris Hilton whine. This song is at its best when it leaves Ke$ha's “personality” out of it.

This is the second song in a row that begins with a fake laugh, too, and while Chris Brown sounds like he's being a dick, Ke$ha sounds more like an actress in over her head-- she just can't convey mirth. I can't quite figure out why they left it in... that laugh goes a long way to support my theory that she's a mannequin they put up on stage while dance music plays.

Honestly, if the pop star doesn't need to write any of the words or music and the voice can be manipulated by a computer so that singing skills are a non-issue, why wouldn't a record company order a new robot from the porn actress factory and use it for videos and album covers? Make sure it's young and pretty, get a new one every few years, and use it to sell their product.

It doesn't make for great music, but it's been a successful business strategy for years.

Walk

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

Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano

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and the award for Song No One Has Any Reason To Listen To When Not Dancing goes to...

Yolanda Be Cool
We No Speak Americano
Club Anthem
#66 (LoMid)
Jan 13, 2011
Johnson Peterson

Sylvester Martinez

Duncan Maclennan

Renato Carosone

Nicola Salerno

Johnson Peterson

Sylvester Martinez

Duncan Maclennan

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The last time I reviewed this song, I wondered if I could get away with a one line review... and now I'm spilling more (virtual) ink on the awful thing; it is slightly less awful without Pitbull chanting “Bon Bon Bon Bon” every couple seconds. It's still a Run, no question, but it benefits, as most songs do, from the lack of bon bon bonning.

Aside from that, there's almost nothing to say; it's an old standard that's been chopped up and had a dance beat added to it. At least when Rednex decided to make a dance-floor anthem out of “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” they actually recorded a cover version of the folk standard-- adding a simple beat to a1950s novelty tune barely even counts as a remix, no matter how many times they loop the instrumental sections.

Counting my blessings, the most annoying repetition in the Pitbull version is lessened here: the bleeping lead line made from a single horn sample is there, but it's not a constant irritant, quacking away through the entire song.  It also eventually changes (gasp!)

I'm not sure this song is anything but a kick drum thump meant to keep people dancing. It's barely a song, and there's hardly anything to say about it, other than I never want to hear it again.

RUN!

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

3OH!3 - Hit It Again

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Okay everybody: Keytar dance party!  Whee!

3OH!3
Hit It Again
Sleaze
#33 (LoMid)
Dec 30, 2010
Sean Foreman
Nathaniel Motte

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If a song ever conjured the image of guys trying to look cool playing keytars, this is it.

This group seems like they're trying to create Motley Crue-style promiscuity rock out of hilariously chaste and wimpy synth pop. Everything about this song sounds like a middle-school boy bragging about nonexistent sexual exploits. From the tragically autotuned “I'll make you say Ooh!” intro to the “Woah oh!” chorus, this song is using its dad's shaving cream and razor even though it doesn't even have peachfuzz to shave: it wants to show you how grown up it is, but using “fuck” in the chorus can't undo the fact that the little kids named their band 3OH!3.

(note the exclamation point)

This is now, that was then
You broke my heart
I let you in
This is now, that was then
I fucked around
with all your friends
Woah oh, woah oh
Woah oh oh oh
Woah oh, woah oh
Woah oh oh oh
This is now, that was then
Forget all about the past
and let's hit it again

Near as I can make out, the narrative thrust of this song is: our singer is a wanton ass who fucked his way through all of his ex's girlfriends, and the girl in question broke his heart after he “let her in,” so she obviously deserves that kind of thing. Time has passed, however, and the sleazy manchild is up for another tumble because, hey, heartbreaker on not, he'd like to hit it again.

Can't imagine why she'd need so much convincing. Especially since she's definitely real. You just haven't met her because she lives in Canada. This guy's totally had sex before.

I figure that's the gist... but for the life of me I can't decipher how the opening verse fits in. What the hell does “I got the dirty ol' hands of a drummer in a band but I never really hit the sticks. I got the sunburn tan of every working man who spent a minute in a ditch” have to do with the It he devotes the song to hitting again? Is he trying to tell us how tough he is (even though he's neither a drummer nor a day laborer)? More importantly, how does it relate to the Woah Ohs?

That kind of incoherent posturing makes me wonder about our narrator... he's obviously a total badass, and we know he fucked around with all this girl's friends, but I wonder how she broke his heart. Maybe she told him his hair looked silly... that'd be hard on this guy, but it's the kind of heartbreak you have to survive if you want to grow up to be My Darkest Days.

Musically, I suppose I have to give it some credit for doing a little something with rhythm; especially in the verses, someone put some effort into the synths and the beats. When the chorus hits, though... that's when I imagine the keytars coming out: Keytar dance party! Eurodisco bounce, everybody! Wheee!

er... I mean... “Woah oh!” I don't think the guy with the sunburn tan of every working man wants to acknowledge that his chorus is “Wheee!” and sounds like it's meant to be embraced by the mustache and short-shorts crowd.

The first time that chorus broke, it made me laugh pretty hard... but I'm not giving this one a pass for unintentional hilarity. This song's multi-layered bad-- it makes me want to strangle the singer, and musical shift in the chorus only made me laugh because it's so glaringly awful.

RUN!

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

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.

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:

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:

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:

Plain White T's - Rhythm of Love

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Maybe I'm coming down with something... Plain White T's are sounding okay to me, too (or at least giving me very little to complain about)

Plain White T's
Rhythm of Love
Indie
#66 (LoMid)
Nov 25, 2010
Tim Lopez
Ian Kirkpatrick

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*sniff* It's got an indie pop body, but I'm getting notes of Beatles and Beach Boys, with maybe a The Mamas and the Papas finish. It's got a very 60s nose. I'm not one for the desert whites (I'm usually a shiraz man myself) but for a sweeter wine, this'll do.

I'm certainly learning a lot about perspective through this project. Compared to my record collection, the albums and songs that I truly love, “Rhythm of Love” barely charts: I'd never buy it, and if it were dumped as an MP3 into my hard drive, I'd probably press skip if it popped up in a shuffle. However, compared to a lot of the toxic waste that clutters the Billboard charts, this is a pleasant little tune. If I gave Taylor Swift a pass, I'm duty bound to let Plain White T's through, too.

Again, I'm not keeping this one-- this is on the Delete side of the Keep/Delete scales-- but it easily strides past all of the land mines that blow songs from okay to bad to oh my fucking god. No autotune is a good start, and sounding like a song that was actually written is another; no one will mistake the music for karaoke backing tracks... because... is that a ukulele? It's got some personality, even if it is a little... er... “cute,” I'm willing to say that it's rising above the risible pack for more than just simple competence (and, seriously, competence is enough to outpace most of the songs I've reviewed). It's actually pretty good.

This is a nice singing voice, for starters, with some decent range, and I like the harmonies quite a bit... they sound like they've been sung by a singer, as opposed to plugging someone into the Harmony-O-Matic 2000 and setting it for “Major Chord.” I appreciate the human touch.

I can occasionally go overboard about bad rhymes (I'll let the shock wear off before continuing), but I'm really not that rhyme obsessed. Some of my favorite songs have very rhythmic lyrics that have little to no interest in rhyme... no, but I hate writers who pretzel-bend lyrics to try and force a rhyme, even if there isn't one there, and completely wreck any kind of flow the song might have had. This song opens with “clouds” and “down” not rhyming, but my attention is focused on the charming head-in-the-clouds picture being painted. I find the couplet “I love the view from up here / Warm sun and wind in my ear” more annoying; yes, “ear” and “here” are a stronger rhyme, but I think “wind in my ear” is kind of a clunky lyric that got dropped in for the sake of the rhyme.

That's the exception, though-- the norm is fairly clever, as the song is pretty gracefully executed. The drums come in at the word “drum” in the “my heart beats like a drum” lyric; this is a nice example of prosody, especially given that the drums don't come in on the one. The word is at the end of the line, so prosody demands that the drums enter on the fourth beat of the line. It's not as iconic as “Stop! In the name of love,” but it's well applied and shows some imagination. Ditto dragging out the “slo-mo,” which rhymes with the previous line's “low,” but complete the word “motion” into the next chord. These are all marks of songwriters putting some thought and creativity into their craft, and if it seems like I'm overselling this, go back and listen to the Blake Shelton song. Book ends, folks. Book ends.

I can't really explain the difference between “Rhythm of Love” and a song I would keep-- it's an intangible element within music, and it's part of an incalculable personal taste. I am pretty pleased with my week so far: Taylor Swift was better than I expected, this song was pretty good, and I got to skip out on Glee (yay! I got to skip out on Glee!)

Not a lot to complain about.

Walk

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

Drake - Fancy

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Would it be petty to start conjugating his doing verbs for him?

Drake
Fancy
Ass Kissing
#99 (LoMid)
Nov 18, 2010
MusicRemedy

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My first time hearing this song, I thought I was in for an interesting, down-tempo bridge at the 2:45 mark... but the song never returns to its starting point. Like Hitchcock's Vertigo (or Mulholand Dr, or Full Metal Jacket), “Fancy” shifts gears at it's half-way point and never looks back. The music shifts to more ambient beats and synths that would sound at home on the Richard D. James Album.

Halfway through, this song gets pretty good. 

It's a relief, too, because the first half is almost unbearably annoying. I know hip hop's origins lie in loops (and later, samples), but the synth loop sounds like a kid's failed attempt with My First Sampler™-- it's unpleasant rhythmically, timbrally, and harmonically, and it never... fucking... stops.

Combine that with the chorus that goes on about four times as long as it should: the endless repetition of “Oh, you fancy, huh?” is the least catchy refrain to cross my path in a while, and though there's a brief reprieve when it changes, it's not enough, because they're going to repeat the whole thing over again.

While the Ass Kissing category was for anyone getting sycophantic for any group, every example so far has been guys sucking up to womankind... but “Fancy” is actually the most respectful and complimentary of the bunch: it's all about successful women with brains as well as beauty, the women who don't need you to buy drinks for them, drive nicer cars than the boys, and college graduates with good jobs that might be able to loan a little money to their loser boyfriends. Ironically, the huh of the “Oh, you Fancy, huh?” sounds arrogant and dismissive to me.

I can't say I really dislike this song... I just think it starts badly. It opens with a refrain that bugs me and lousy music, but I think the second half is pretty decent and the song as a whole seems to genuinely respect women. A mixed bag, I guess. Since it splits in the middle, with separate call-outs to Los Angeles and New York girls at the half way point, I wonder if this isn't some exquisite corpse project between east and west coast artists... but I don't see myself spending a lot of time figuring out who, and with what allegiances, worked on which verse.

Last, the “she was fine, like a ticket on the dash” is the silliest pun I've hit so far. I'm not sure if I hate it or love it.
 

Walk

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

Carrie Underwood - Mama's Song

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I didn't know Jenna Maroney had a mother/daughter song for weddings. Must be a 30 Rock tie-in.

Carrie Underwood
Mama's Song
Marriage Porn
#66 (LoMid)
Nov 11, 2010
Myspace

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Hey-- isn't this the drum beat from that little keyboard everyone had when we were kids? I keep looking for the button that will switch this song off and play a Hungarian Dance in a tone that has only the tiniest resemblance to a flute, saxophone, or clarinet. That'd be fitting, I guess, for a song that bears only a tiny resemblance to country music.

This is going to be a theme for the pop country stuff, isn't it? These things sound like they're coming through a wormhole, tapped into a radio station playing “adult contemporary” programming 25 years ago. I wonder if they still leave spaces for Aaron Neville's guest verse.

“Mama's Song” is actually pretty funny if you think of it as a comedy bit on 30 Rock, sung by Jenna Maroney as a desperate plea for attention and pandering to audience sympathy. Actually, I'm having a hard time shaking that image: the song's so hokey and ridiculous that it was obviously written by either a genius satirist or an inelegant sap. I guess it's not Values Porn; lyrics about marriage, prayers, babies, good men, and good mamas could qualify, but I think we have to call it Marriage Porn for accuracy.

Some songs are grown in a lab, genetically engineered to serve a single purpose in a particular environment. In the way AC/DC's “Thunderstruck” exists solely for sporting events and Aerosmith's “Amazing” was designed for proms, “Mama's Song” was born to be played at weddings, where it will be serving time forever.

Since I don't have much personal stake in mother/daughter crying, and really can't be sold on weddings, babies, or Sandra Bullock, I have no starting point to begin engaging this song. To me, it sounds like a string of cheesy clichés, strung together over the blandest music imaginable, to earn it a spot in the widest variety of wedding receptions possible.

Maybe we can admire it from a marketing standpoint.  (If you're into that kind of thing)

RUN!

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

Rascal Flatts - Why Wait?

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Rascal Flatts
Why Wait
Values Porn
#66 (LoMid)
Nov 4, 2010
MusicInfo

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And I thought anything would sound good after Chris Brown...

I actually didn't realize this was supposed to be country until the fiddle snuck in under the music-- with the guitar sound and the big, reverby 80's drums I thought an “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” kind of song had somehow ended up on the charts. Have Tears for Fears or INXS come back into vogue? Oh, wait: violin and a southern accent. This must be what gets played on the country stations.

Trying not to be a hypocrite, I'll admit right now that I have exactly two Johnny Cash albums, one Willie Nelson record, and two out of the three were released after 1990, so I am not a massive authority on country music. I will claim some bluegrass acumen; I've seen John Prine and love Gillian Welch's stuff with David Rawlings (one of my all-time favorite guitarists), but I fully admit: I am not a country boy.

That really shouldn't even figure in, because this is just a pop song. I will give it points for featuring a band (hey! musicians!) and a singer who hasn't been digitized into oblivion, but... somehow that makes it worse for me. I know, I know: I'm a fickle bastard, but it's almost depressing thinking about a group of players physically churning out product. This song isn't better than Nelly's in any measurable way.

From a certain angle, it's worse, because of its Values Porn implications. This fits a niche I've heard in the genre before: it's usually aimed at a very Christian Coalition, Morning in America sort of listener-- church going “old fashioned” folk who believe everything was simpler way back when, and don't believe in pre-marital sex or divorce. Personally, I think it's funny to advertise nostalgia for the Reagan 80's, whose defining feature was nostalgia for the Eisenhower 50's.  This song isn't as overt as some, but it's definitely preaching to a choir... and I've had my fill of this preacher and this choir, and I really want them to go away.  

So “Why Wait” is basically a marriage proposal, most likely an anthem to many highschool sweethearts who are finding themselves in a family way this year, but it manages to work in not just church, but even the fact that he loves your mamma (how can you not marry this guy?) It's as impersonal a song as any other generic pop tune I've found so far: this isn't a song written by a guy in love, it's a commercial for marriage written by an ad agency.

RUN!

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

Wiz Khalifa - Black and Yellow

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Wiz Khalifa
Black and Yellow
Bragging
#51 (LoMid)
Oct 28, 2010
DJBooth

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As soon as I ask “where have all the rappers gone?” I find myself engulfed by them... so before I get into Wiz Khalifa, I'm going to ask: where have all the bands gone? I'm not just curious-- I'm praying I can evoke them the way I've evoked rappers. Here's hoping.

As for “Black and Yellow,” I'm discovering that my measure of these songs' worth fall into two very easy categories: separating the wheat from the chaff is as easy as determining “does this song have any personality?” That may just be my particular relationship with music, but I'm usually going to value a song that has the stamp of effort and humanity above a song that sounds perfectly engineered to end up on the charts regardless of who sings it.

And now we break from pop music to explore the dominant themes in the writings of George Orwell...

Just imagine the car...

Just kidding. (but not really)

There are so many hilarious mistakes in the brag track “Black and Yellow” that it sort of demands respect for being such an individual's song. From the weirdly Christmas carol opening to the main theme (apparently, his car is black and yellow: “the niggas' scared of it, but the ho's ain't”), there isn't actually anything good about this song, but it's so humorously, badly written that it's a hell of a lot more endearing than a lot of the bad songs I've heard so far. There's no way a pop producer or media guru made this song happen.

The goofy “Jingle Bells” chorus (which also opens the song) is part of it: where Waka Flocka Flame's song was dramatically epic, Wiz Khalifa's sounds like a Christmastime commercial for bargain kitchenware. This is music that invites Dick Van Dyke down the chimney... it's even funnier in a song that is mostly one guy bragging about how sexy and dangerous he is.

MCs and rappers, more than anyone else in music (except maybe the black metal guys... but I doubt they're going to be popping up here anytime soon), represent their image in words; Wiz Khalifa doesn't come across as a particularly bright guy. For one, even if his car impresses guys and attracts women, talking endlessly about his car does nothing but make him sound like a huge douche, and his delivery doesn't exactly make him sound clever.

My favorite part of this affair is that the ridiculous Christmas chorus is, verbatim “Yeah! Ah-ah, you know what it is. Black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow,” and... while I figure that we all get the point of the song... by the end he calls us all out: “You already know what it is. If you don't, you should by now.” The constant harping on what it is keeps bringing Grandpa Simpson into my head.

Moving on, lyrics like “not a lesbian, she a freak, though” remind me of the parallels between the current hip hop and R&B scene and 80's party rock hair metal-- these are dim guys who relate to the whole world through the prism of a giant ego. Big houses and shiny cars... now bring me the women. For this song, that isn't even symbolic; the car really is the whole point, and Khalifa thinks it makes women want him and men want to be him.

Embracing the fact that this is not the way a hip with the ladies, admired by the fellas, suave, cool guy talks (I have a really nice car! You should see it!), I'll take the funny-bad music over the bland-bad any day... but outside of a good laugh, I'm not needing to hear this one again.

Please tell me this guy's not a superstar.
 

Walk

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