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:

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:

Usher - DJ Got Us Fallin In Love

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Damnit Usher, we talked about this...

Usher
DJ Got Us Fallin In Love
Club Anthem
#11 (High)
Nov 18, 2010
CurrentHiphop

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God damn it, Usher, I told you how I felt about this one-- back when it was crowding around the #3 spot (back when I was reviewing #3 as the "high" number Billboard entry), this was the first song I ever skipped. Now it's back, and I don't have a loophole that'll get me out of it this time. I'm blaming you for sticking me with this thing (after your redemptive turn last week).

And why are reviews of your songs directed to you personally? I don't do that for anyone else... not even Cee Lo, and I'm seriously considering buying his album.

The reason I didn't want to review this is not because it's bad, per se, but because it's so damned boring. I was already struggling for something worthy of comment the first time this song popped up... and that was before the last handful of stock techno club anthems. Seriously, what can I say about that ever present drum beat, the stock house chords, etcetera, etcetera? I'm getting bored just trying to list why this is boring. 

So remember the last time we talked? I admit that song wasn't brain-bendingly awful, and I have to say I like this song less than that... but, post-Taio Cruz, I know just how lousy these Club Anthems can get so I can't hate this song too much: this song is a standard house-based dance pop song, but in the first verse, when the filter sweeps down on the synth's rhythm chords, it's an indicator that someone did some work on the music. It's still hanging out with the cliché I always complain about, but at least it doesn't sound like you're singing over a royalty free backing track you downloaded on a whim.

Oh-- and you're not fooling anyone: the carpe diem (I suppose it's technically carpe noctem) lyrics about how we all live tonight like there's just right now, keep downin' drinks like there's no tomorrow, and hey... haven't we met before? Dude, she knows you're just trying to get her into bed. You're going to have to search out midwest farm girls if you want to find a lady who hasn't heard that one before, and you're not going to find many in metropolitan dance clubs.

The song actually has some energy and sounds danceable, which is a step up from the lifeless and boring “dance” songs I keep hearing. Pitbull's guest verse is raspy and crunky (he's not Lil Jon or anything, but he's a great change of pace), and, hey: I actually get the “boys get loose like Waka Flocka” reference. For as bored as I am with these songs, this is the best Club Anthem of the bunch so far... 

Seriously, though, I don't want to listen to any more dance pop based on decades-dusty house music. Can you please make them all go away?

Walk

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