Similar Interests

Yes, yes, I know-- I haven't been doing this work for a while. Occasionally, I look at the Billboard charts, listen to a few songs, and groan... which is not to say I'll never tackle this stuff again, but right now I'm not loving the bad, bad music.

On the other hand, I found this:

...which does a fantastic job of crystallizing my feelings on one of the worst contributors to this site: Chris Brown.

It is also worth noting that the content provider, Todd in the Shadows, has been doing the job I've been neglecting for as long as I've been neglecting it (and still am.  Ha!) and, unbeknownst to me at the time, started a few months before I did.

T-Pain - Best Love Song

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

A Tune By Two Guys Who Think the Best Love Song Ever Should Be "The Crunkest"
(Luckily, neither of them know what that means)

T-Pain
Best Love Song
Prom Song
#33 (HiMid)
Faheem Najm
Chris Brown
Young Fyre

Artist:
Play:
Style:
Billboard:
Writer(s):

Producer(s):

There's a little bit of ironic fun to be had with T-Pain. I hate autotune as much as the next snarky critic, but there's something about the egregious, inhuman, completely over-the-top way that T-Pain does it. If all the R&B vocals on the radio have been autotuned into an almost comical stereotype, T-Pain usually sounds like he's recording a caricature of everyone else. If Homer Simpson were to set up his own recording studio, his output would sound like T-Pain.

That said, I'm starting to feel self-conscious about logging this many Run!s in a row-- seriously? Another awful, awful song? I knew it was going to be bad as soon as I saw Chris Brown's name attached (why can't I shake that guy?), but this continuous flow of thuddingly bad is making me nostalgic for Ke$ha...

“Best Love Song” isn't lacking in self-awareness as much as it's lacking in awareness altogether. I was focused on the self-aware part initially: lines like “And if I'm gonna take her home, it's got to be better than what they play on the radio” while the song isn't just like what they play on the radio, it actually is what they play on the radio... that kind of writing is so ignorant of itself, of what the song is, that it probably ought to appear in the next Tommy Wiseau picture.

Similarly, if the song is to work, “It's gotta be the crunkest, gotta be the loudest. It's gotta be the best love song she ever heard in her life.” Again, the song doesn't seem to understand that not only is it not the crunkest, it's not crunky in the least (there is a significant lack of crunk here. It is crunkless), and it won't be the loudest because stereo systems and club PAs have volume knobs which can make any one song louder than another. Finally, the song doesn't seem to realize that it's not the best love song anyone's ever heard.

Blinded by how the song isn't aware of what it is in the first place, I almost missed the fact that these guys just don't get it. If they're trying to write the best love song anyone's ever heard, why would they want it to be the crunkest? Even if their crunk-failure levels are epic, did they start writing with Crunchy Black in mind, assuming that was the key to the greatest love song ever? Or loudness? Did they believe that in order for their love song to be the best, it would have to be deafeningly loud, because nothing says romance like jet engine volume levels?

The more I think about it, the more I'm sure T-Pain and Chris Brown don't even know what these words mean. The lyrics could be “It's gotta be the most grindcore, gotta be the most klezmer” and they wouldn't make any less sense. It's not like loudness and crunk have anything to do with the junior prom slow dance number they're actually singing.

Turn on the lights (lights! lights!)
give me a mic (give me a mic)
I'm about to sing
and do it just as she likes (la-likes)
Jump off the stage
crowd surfin all the way (cowabunga)

T-Pain's lyrics are generally about the song he's singing, which doesn't seem to have much to do with a love song. Chris Brown, of course, spends his verse preening; it's annoying that he spends so much time reminding us he's god's gift to womankind when there's so much contrary evidence out there. Amidst all the autotuned non-singing, there's a computerized background chorus backing up everything Brown has to say (including “Cowabunga,” which stands alone as the stupidest lyric in a song filled with stupid lyrics). He does promise to sing to you just how you like, and provides some instructions as to what you have to do if you want to get with him. Such a wonderful guy-- you should do what he says.

Musicially, this is just a Prom song. It's too wimpy and lifeless for clubs, and I can't imagine it flourishing anywhere but teenage dances and pop radio... which wouldn't be the case if it were actually the crunkest (or most klezmer) song someone's ever heard.

For unintentional comedic value, the actual song is a cross between Tenacious D's "Tribute" (a song about the best song in the world that isn't actually the best song in the world) and "I Just Had Sex" (a slightly less subtle parody of Prom songs than "Best Love Song," but not by much).  On its own merits, this song is pretty ridiculous, but viewed through the lens of all the comedy that came before it, you could view a pathetic slow-dance prom song demanding it be The Loudest and The Crunkest as the height of satire.

If anyone has information about T-Pain being a comic genius instead of a happenstance pop star, please let me know.

RUN!

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

Chris Brown - Look at Me Now

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

Chris Brown tries to show skill, quits after three lines, hands it over to Busta Rhymes.

Chris Brown
Look at Me Now
Bragging
#11 (High)
Feb 10, 2011
None Listed
Diplo

Artist:
Play:
Style:
Billboard:
Week of:
Writer(s):
Producer(s):

After plenty of connection and hardware issues, I fire this thing up to...

Damnit! Chris Brown?  Thanks for nothing.

“I say, Miffy. Thadeus' trousers are
of last year's fashion. We shan't be
inviting him to the party.”

Everything that comes from this guy makes me like him less than the last time I dealt with him. Of course, he's not doing himself any favors by opening with “I don't see how you can hate from outside of the club. You can't even get in.” Add a laugh that successfully mixes a thirteen-year-old bully with a hyena and we've established the most smugly infuriating personality this side of Princess from the Powerpuff Girls. I know boasts are traditional in hip hop, but why does it sound like Chris Brown's boasts are mocking the nerdy pledges not cool enough to join his frat?

I suppose we have to give Brown the tiniest bit of credit, because I usually complain about the laziness of his tracks along with his toxic persona. This song, while still excruciatingly awful, is light years from Chris Brown's safe bet, manufactured plastic. Instead of cookie-cutter dance music, the sounds here come from early 60's science fiction worthy of Mystery Science Theater 3000; when the song started, I was immediately transported to a laboratory where a scientist in horn-rimmed glasses was using tape driven computers to combat giant, undersea creatures.

She accidentally fall
trip on my dick
Oops, I said
on my dick
I ain't really mean
to say on my dick
but since we talkin
bout my dick
all you haters
say hi to it.

Similarly, Brown's lazy, pop star singing (autotuned to death) has been replaced with rapping, which also comes off as lazy... until he double-times it. While that does hint at a little ambition (he's trying to do something that requires a skill! Duck!), he can barely pull it off, and after two lines, just ends up repeating the words “on my dick” because he simply can't go that fast. On his dick? On his dick.

Did Jason Mewes write this? Was Silent Bob dancing behind him in the studio for effect?

And then he just gives up and literally says “I'm done,” and lets Busta Rhymes come in and show him how make that trick work. Yup, that's right: this is the audio equivalent of watching a kid fall off his skateboard, followed an older kid taking his board and upstaging him in front of his friends.

I can't say things get measurably better after Brown decides his own song is too much for him.  Sure, Busta Rhymes has a handle on how to do a Brag track without sounding like a moron, thug, or child, but he's bookended by a useless Chris Brown and (here we go again) Lil Wayne, who doesn't seem to have a lot of love for bitches or faggots... which, again, doesn't offend me: I'm not too PC or blushing at someone being inappropriate, I just don't have time for grown men with the collective mental age of a junior high kid.

A junior high kid failing everything but Phys Ed.

RUN!

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

Chris Brown - Yeah 3x

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

Chris Brown
Yeah 3x
Club Anthem
#33 (HiMid)
Nov 4, 2010
DJBooth

Artist:
Song:
Style:
Billboard:
Week of:
Play:

Seeing Chris Brown return makes me think about how compromised my view of him is. Since I love The Onion and I read The Onion's AVClub (which cares little for celebrity gossip, but finds humor in hubris, spectacle, and larger than life ridiculousness), I can't help but know that Chris Brown plead guilty to domestic abuse, put a backhanded apology video on YouTube, and tends to whine narcissisticly when he catches flak for hitting girls. When I hear a Chris Brown song, it's not just the song: there's a lot of backstory attached.

Putting my distaste for this guy aside, my image of him is basically informed by violence-- blood and bruises. So now that I've listened to two of his songs... why does he sound like such a pussy? “Yeah 3x” is basically the same thing as “Raise Your Glass,” but even if I think Pink's attitude is a put-on, she still sounds like she'd kick this guy's ass in front of the club. So does Adam Lambert, guyliner and all, now that I think of it. Hell, Willow Smith sounds more intense than this guy.

And when I say this is the same thing as “Raise Your Glass,” I mean it-- the chorus is “Hold your glasses up, people everywhere, now everybody put your hands in the air. Say: Yeah Yeah Yeah.” I know... pure poetry. And I was starting to worry that put your hands in the air was fading from the limelight-- we've got to thank ole' Chris for keeping that torch burning,

Among other things: Chris Brown is also a revivalist for the Non-Threatening Rap Verse Towards The End Of A Non-Threatening Pop Song, the likes of which I haven't heard since Bobby Brown contributed to the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack. Chris Brown's entry (ending with “So DJ turn it loud, and watch me turn it up. Don't worry about it, we here to party, so Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!”) is so moronic I'm actually getting nostalgic for almost-rhymes about Vigo, the master of evil.

I'll be shocked if this guy writes any kind of music; this amazingly bland techno pop is the kind of prefabricated non-music I always complain about, and I'm sure it was handed to him by a producer. There's not a single note sung where his voice isn't autotuned, so, after two songs with Chris Brown, I'm pretty sure he can't sing (or he would have done it by now) and I'm not sure he's demonstrated any skills or talent.

I have been told that Chris Brown is an exceptionally beautiful man... I imagine that's how he got this job. He doesn't seem to do anything: he's a pop singer who can't (or at least doesn't) sing, so I figure he's there to model and pose. That starts to put the violence in perspective, too-- all the whining and egotism from Brown in the wake of his headlines hint that this is not a comfortable guy. I wonder how great the divide is between his self image and his public image.

It probably doesn't matter-- he's got his name on a song that is one of the worst so far. A lot of the songs I've disliked have been generic retreads of techno-pop, but this one is so wimpy and lifeless it even fails at being recycled dance music. I doubt the music took longer than ten minutes to assemble, the lyrics were written by a 3^rd grader, and it's sung by a computer.

RUN!

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

Chris Brown - Deuces

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

Chris Brown
Deuces
Trash Talk
#17 (HiMid)
Oct 14, 2010
YouTube
 

Artist:
Song:
Style:
Billboard:
Week of:
Play:

Ah... now there's the Autotune. I do remember a time when Autotune was a tool used to nudge a slightly flat note into place in an otherwise great vocal take-- you didn't want the singer to go back and do it again if the performance was really, really good... but you just needed to tweak that one sour note. When Cher turned all Autotune's knobs to 11 on Believe, the robotic, atrifacty sound was added to the book as a record selling effect, and it was already a cliché about three days later. And there it remains.

Now that everyone's adapted to hearing obvious Autotune effects on the radio, it's opened the floodgates for... well... people who can't sing. Not at all. They can basically just talk into a mic and have Autotune make a melody out of it later. I'm still sort of torn between thinking it's sort of cool from a composer's standpoint and thinking it's the nastiest sort of false prophet fakery, making stars out of singers who can't sing (and often don't write their own songs, either).

Basically, I have no idea if Chris Brown can sing. This is my very first time hearing him, and the only think I know about Chris Brown is that he beats up girls.

Okay-- that might be too flip. The only thing I know about Chris Brown plead guilty to physically assaulting Rihanna... another star I don't know. I do know photos of her bruised and beaten face are online, and I know that Oprah themed a show around this abuse, and Chris Brown called it “a slap in the face.” Oprah had the gall to call the beating “a problem,” so I can see why Brown would be offended. Poor guy.

This is a long and roundabout way of saying: I have no way of knowing if Chris Brown is good at anything. His voice is autotuned into oblivion, so there's no way to know if he's singing, or if he phoned in a scant three lines and had a computer write a song around it. And since I know only one thing about Brown (he hits women), a song about how he needs to shake off a no-good bitch who always made him feel small doesn't really make me want to like him or his song.

The song itself is so paper thin it feels like it might blow away-- Brown has a few lines in the beginning (she “ain't nothin but a vulture, always hoping for the worst, waiting for me to fuck up”), but he sings maybe eight bars total in the song. The rest is just a couple samples and loops of his voice in between the song's guest stars-- it's like a movie where the star hardly ever left his trailer, so it's mostly footage of the back of a stunt double's head.

And I think the guest stars sound clunky. I may not have a PhD. in flow, but I know what works and what feels off-rhythm and forced; both rapped verses by Tyga and Kevin McCall have a stunning lack of groove. Past that, the one and only thing I know about Chris Brown (back to the domestic abuse thing again) makes the guest rappers' lines like “like Tina did Ike in the limo, it finally hit me” rankle... not only are we evoking Ike & Tina, we're making Ike the victim. Classy.

Like I said, this is my first time hearing Chris Brown, but it's such a lazy song, one where he does very little, my immediate reaction is to consider him a hack. But... maybe I'm missing something.

Add the lyrical content and the context of a woman's bloodied face, and he's a hack with terrible taste.

RUN!

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