The Singles Jukebox

NSFW video? Of course we’re on it.

[Video][Website]
[5.62]

Anthony Easton: A little wild (though not as wild as the video), and a bit liturgical (though not as loyal to his rep or tradition as the new Iggy Pop), with some fantastic guitar work, and production that is just claustrophobic enough to be interesting. This might be the best song on the album. 
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Barking with David Byrne-like cadence, Bowie’s making use of the way a voice changes with age, cracking with anger. When promo for his album was all over the Internet, the few seconds of this song’s “chorus” (if you can call it that) and guitar squall tantalised me so much more than anything I had heard from him in a long time, and my only complaint is that it doesn’t do more with it, or do more of them.
[7]

Cédric Le Merrer: A long awaited return, a “Heroes”-referencing cover, a retrospective exhibition at the V&A, a dramatic first single, all leading to… a meat & potatoes angry rock song. The guitar thankfully sounds more like Alomar than Gabrels, so I won’t compare this to Tin Machine, but it’s not that much more inspired. On one hand, this could get points for being the exact opposite of what everybody was waiting for (a new Eno collab? An American recordings style “old guy” record? A desperate brostep grab?). On the other hand, I’m a bit bored.
[4]

Ian Mathers: The best parts of this are the more relatively deranged ones, but it doesn’t sound as good (or as deranged) as his cover of the Pixies’ “Cactus” on Heathen. It feels pretty inconsequential, honestly, but at least it’s light on its feet and doesn’t stick around long enough to get tiresome.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: It’s tempting to ask who needs this, but the Internet reliably informs us that no one expected it. The fact that we don’t need this says more about our situation than Bowie’s, but the fact that he seems to is mildly disappointing and even more mildly interesting.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Franz Ferdinand was DOA for me, so maybe you can imagine how poorly I’m receiving this chorus. I suppose there’s a bit of Byrne in the phrasing, but Bowie lacks the ability to find dada in the lower ends. The arrangement accrues a trace amount of pomp by the end, but the guitar work still sounds like some kid learning ska.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I number among the cloth-eared and benighted who can hear nothing in post-80s Bowie but repetition and ungainliness. But something’s owed to anyone who can still manage to be as casually blasphemous as that video.
[6]

Alfred Soto: I don’t give a damn what Bowie’s babbling about; what matters is his clipped delivery, the unstoppable forward momentum, the embrace of sardonicism, the fulsome clatter of the guitar and drums. It deceives you into thinking his new album is good.
[7]

no blergs » 1 reader vote » Friday, May 24th, 2013 7:02 pm

DJ cliches, play them again.

[Video][Website]
[5.60]

Will Adams: That synth melody in the background – like a music box tune composed for Game Boy – is really pretty, adding sweetness to Becky’s request to the DJ. “Play It Again” has little else to offer, though; the verses couldn’t be less believable, and the highest praise I can give basically amounts to, “at least it’s not Karmin.”
[5]

Alfred Soto: A sucker for songs about the radio, I knew why I disliked this one: she sticks like glue to a perfunctory refrain when she’s better at slavishly imitating Nicki Minaj in “Super Bass” mode.
[4]

Mallory O’Donnell: Dear Becky: Thank you for having the courage to describe us all as “patients” and this song-type procedure as a “vaccination.” You’re quite correct — one stiff injection of this and no one should ever have need of it again.
[1]

Patrick St. Michel: Hiccuping beat, so-so rapping, huh why would this song deserve any att…oh man that chorus!
[8]

Brad Shoup: One Cher Lloyd feature and she’s talking like she’s got Ariana Grande’s street team. She hedges her bets with a yearning bridge, a radio shoutout and some Nicki jocking (better than the alternatives, I guess). But beyond that, the producers did not give a shit.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: Not sure I trust myself not to be intemperate here. Just: the fact that a sixteen-year-old Chicana — and specifically a sixteen-year-old Chicana from the L.A. suburbs, who refuses to whitewash herself or her surroundings — is making music at this level means a lot to me for reasons I don’t even quite fully understand.
[9]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Nicki Minaj has many haters, many of them still proclaiming that she’s nothing but a copycat. While she may have started her music career with mimicking the poses and styles of other lady rappers — and that’s fair enough, since that’s how most artists get their start — look at her now. She’s a bonafide force of her own. She’s opened the doors for all ladies to get in on this game, and they’re popping up everywhere. (Rap like a monster; sing bubblegum pop like a cyborg princess; do both on the same track. Put on outfits and silly voices; peek out and wink and remind us you’re still Onika; snarl, “or am I?”) Becky G is one of many flowers growing in this garden, and I’m thrilled. She’s young, she’s incorporating a lot of pieces of a lot of other acts, but I’ll bet she has a lot more in her. This song is fun, and yes, I will be playing it again. [Sidenote: this music video appears to me as sort of an antithesis to Gwen Stefani's "Luxurious"; instead of a blonde popstar acting the part, she is the part, so she can fully partake in the pop, with no pretense; a Dirty Margarita in a Santa Monica loft vs. licking Lucas candies before going clubbing.]
[8]

Crystal Xia: There is some sort of weird disconnect in tone between the verses and the chorus and bridge, so the this comes out sounding more cartoonish than I’d have hoped. Think Cher Lloyd or Ke$ha rather than Nicki Minaj. (Hell, she even says “animal” at a certain point in a pitch-perfect K$.) That’s fine; the former are good at the snotty faux-rap thing, but Becky G gets lost under the shuffle under this Dr. Luke production. She’s already proven to us that she has a personality of her own and the ability to let rap comprise a meaningful part of her repertoire rather than just be a sideshow. I just wish that her “breakout” single didn’t sound like every other Dr. Luke joint.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: The transition between verses and chorus are awkward at times, but on “Play It Again” (and the delightful “Becky from the Block“) Becky finally demonstrates charm similar to that of occasional collaborator Cher Lloyd, which neither of them displayed on their actual collaboration. Even over a Dr. Luke track, she remains rooted in geography, culture, family and place – the consistent centring of her family and neighbourhood in her videos thus far is almost as endearing as her music itself. A potential pop-rap force for good, especially if she can improve her punchlines and find a better ad-lib than “HA!”.
[7]

Anthony Easton: For something so obsessively about her own ego, you would figure it would fight louder to make a point  — in fact, the Don Ho for the 21st century tropical atmospherics in the middle of the track are more interesting than the rest of the worn out vocals. Could the DJ just play that? 
[6]

1 blerg » 4 reader votes » Friday, May 24th, 2013 4:07 pm

We are butthurt about Norway not winning, yes.

[Video][Website]
[4.62]

Mallory O’Donnell: All the main Eurovision trends of 2013 (well, bar a dodgy dubstep breakdown) in one neat little package–fake Celticism (Deirfiuracha Weren’t Doing It For Themselves), vague peace anthem qualities, answering a series of quantitative questions with “only teardrops.” “Little,” though, is key–there’s virtually nothing happening here apart from a chorus magnanimously extending and rephrasing itself across the length of an entire song. Sad, too, to see such a non-event in the vocal department take the dubious laurels when we had two freakish divas up for the role : the staggering contralto conceit of “It’s My Life” and the post-battlefield come-on of “I Feed You My Love,” both appearing on that same “stage tonight,” but with something that might have reference to or use in an actual, exterior world beyond the ESC. This? Not so much.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I first started watching Eurovision just after the Irish-domination period of the 90s went away, just as televoting came in to democratise the contest, just as the contest got occasionally fascinating and gorgeous. This entry, and its victory, is like a double-throwback that speaks in no way to why I love the contest. Each element feels perfunctory, the chorus doesn’t say anything or sing it in an interestingly melodic way and the main novelty element is that annoying whistle, a Celtic flourish I don’t even care for in its native environment. That one of the the hooks for the reportage was “zomg she performed barefoot” shows how little people must have thought when they watched or voted this. Heard of Sandie Shaw? This doesn’t even hit “Puppet on a String” heights of sophistication.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Neither a great song nor the total goofjunk I long assumed won Eurovision, “Only Teardrops” is totally adequate with its mix of “My Heart Will Go On” whistle and “Zombie” vocal inflection. Wait, were all the judges kids of the ’90s?
[5]

Ian Mathers: My sister-in-law is Danish Canadian, and spent part of her youth living in Denmark; I texted her this morning to see if she’d heard that they’d won Eurovision. She hadn’t, but she managed to text me “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard” just before I texted her the exact same thing.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: There were at least seven better songs in this year’s Eurovision final (Belgium, Belarus, The Netherlands, Sweden, Ukraine, Norway and Ireland, since you asked), and yet this one, with its self-congratulatory confetti and ready-printed celebratory banner came out top. Still, you can’t argue with democracy, and democracy has, in this instance, decided on competence. It’s a difficult job appealing to people from Bilbao to Baku, and although doing so doesn’t preclude greatness, it sometimes just draws out the joyless – viz. 2008, 2011 and, almost, “Only Teardrops”. The way the short, sharp hook is repeated as many times as three minutes will allow might translate to immediacy, but not so much repeat listens. The drums, the flute; everything down to the metareference to the stage feels calculated towards winning the contest, and that utilitarianism prevents it from standing up as any more than a good song when stripped of context.
[7]

Brad Shoup: The thematic development shudders to a halt in the way a casual observer (yo) expects with Eurovision: “How many times do we have to fight/How many times ’til we get it right between us/Only teardrops”. Ugh. The uncharitable takeaway is that when everyone’s lyrical currency is English (this makes six years in a row), it’s bound to get devalued. But hey, there’s making sense on the page (boo) or making sense between the ears, and “Only Teardrops” gets pretty close. The snatch of flute gains power for being underdeveloped; the structuring is ruthless; de Forest is invested without making me concerned for her geopolitical outlook. After all, this is a classic Schrödinger’s-cake exercise, teetering between the personal and the international. Ten years ago, we probably could have grasped at a reading that criticized Bush, but as always (and thankfully), we had other concerns.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I thought pennywhistles in pop songs were outlawed by international convention following the global disaster of 1998.
[3]

Will Adams: There’s no getting around that the superior song lost. Or that Emmelie is one outstretched arm away from being Leona Lewis. But “Only Teardrops” stays on the right side of safe, a state that can so easily slip into abhorrent. The panflute weaves in and out respectfully, the production is balanced, and Emmelie’s performance is earnest. This is a satisfactory winner; nothing more, nothing less.
[6]

9 blergs » 1 reader vote » Friday, May 24th, 2013 10:50 am

América! Fuck… yeah? Kind of?

[Video][Website]
[5.86]

Josh Langhoff: This is the theme song to an appealing telenovela of the same name, whose basic premise seems to be, “No matter how funny it is for a man to take a secretarial job and wear a pink shirt, he’ll do it for the love of his recently-discovered daughter.” They’ve milked this for an impressive 150+ episodes. The song moves with linear TV-theme simplicity (prelude, Sierra sings, synth solo, Sierra, synth) that, in its pop song context, gives it a gravitas far removed not just from Jesús García’s secretarial hijinks, but also from a maximalist pop zeitgeist where more = more: more guest stars, textural shifts, song parts, clatter, whatever you can throw onto a track. Often I love that stuff. But “Manda,” with its restraint and its clear-eyed awe at love’s power, could almost be a hymn.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The electrosalsa doesn’t quit: a collision between present and unexpected present that pays off on the dance floor. I wish I frequented clubs in which this thing played.
[7]

Iain Mew: The bouncy main synth riff is a barely retooled version of when we last encountered 3Ball MTY and Sierra with credits the other way round. I still love it and, as pleasing as her singing is, wish there was more of that riff and its energy here.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The 3Ball sound on autopilot is still pretty versatile. Still, this feels like an inexpert mashup; Sierra doesn’t get let into the really fun sections.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: América’s first venture being on the other side of the ft. from 3Ball sounds like the novela theme it is, with romantic melodic longueurs keeping the tribal-by-numbers rhythm from actually grabbing hold of the hips and forcing the issue. It’s better than the closing-credits version, I’ll give it that, but it’s still a cheesy, lamestream-media version of an exciting youth movement.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: This sounds like a slightly less energetic – but still plenty in motion – of the other song they did together I really liked. I’m OK with this.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Feels a bit like 3Ball might be a bit one note. For mine, the differences between this and the older yet fresher “Intentalo” are all points against “Porque El Amor Manda,” aside from Sierra’s perfectly fine vocal. The heavier, faster beat threatens to drown out an okay song (the opening seconds make it sound like a more than okay song, actually), but it makes what was a very distinct sound for 3Ball sound very generic, like it could have been thrown at J.Lo three weeks ago.
[4]

no blergs » no reader votes » Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 3:01 pm

In which Taylor Swift is a hook singer and Keith Urban is a session guitarist…

[Video][Website]
[5.29]

Patrick St. Michel: As a meeting between two of country music’s biggest stars — and a pair with an interesting history, given Swift’s first single — “Highway Don’t Care” comes off like a bit of a letdown. She’s in the “ft.” spot, sure, but I still expected Swift to get a little more of the spotlight (even if what she has here sounds nice). McGraw is fine if nothing special, and Keith Urban shows up to lay down a silly guitar solo. I do really like the chorus though, especially the urgent “I do, I do” parts.
[6]

Crystal Xia: Country musicians spend a lot of time singing about the open country roads. They are a symbol of freedom, a place of reflection and quiet for these brooding musicians and they’re often romanticized. Tim McGraw turns that idea onto its head by reminding you that while the country road is open and free, it can get awful lonely. Sometimes the warmest thing on the quiet country road is the sound of the voice on the radio, played perfectly by always present Taylor Swift. That voice reminds you that what makes the distance worth it is the person waiting on the other side, the person who inspires you to sing along to the sappy love songs.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Tim made a fine turn toward the adult-alternative format on Emotional Traffic, and Two Lanes of Freedom largely keeps both the L.A.-pro vibe and vehicular themes (“Truck Yeah” is one concession to modern country play, but “Mexicoma” is the country song Ben Folds forgot to write). “Highway Don’t Care” feels rushed; the handoff from Tim (whose verses are a stuffy combo of mansplaining and omniscient narration, spiced with pop lilt) to Taylor and back would make Yohan & Usain jealous. Two Schonesque solos from Urban pad the proceedings. Maybe this plays better on I-95, I dunno.
[3]

Anthony Easton: I am not sure why Keith Urban is on this, and Swift is capable of so much more than just singing the line, “I can’t live without you, baby.” The guitars are a little too manic for a song that might work better in rueful mode, but the slick gleam of professionalism here makes all of it just a bit better
[5]

Alfred Soto: I can believe that hearing Taylor Swift on the radio would bring McGraw up short, and McGraw is up to playing the Old Guy sharing wisdom about the limits of songcraft when we ask it to make sense of our lives, but Urbanized solo notwithstanding, the chorus plods and the arrangement reduces Swift to supporting, nurturing female without hope of an Oscar nod for supporting actress.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: It’s structured like an R&B song, heavy on repeating phrases and interlocked parts — it even has a hook singer in T. Swift — even if the content is pure country, anthropomorphizing the open road in order to make a nakedly emotional plea. More cross-pollination, less mulleted guitar heroics, please.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Maybe they are trying to take their mind off him, attempting to find solace in some romanticised notion of “hitting the road,” deep down aware that the road could never offer them the love that he so desperately wants to; maybe his presumptuousness does have grounds. Or maybe they’re quite happy alone, who can say. Either way, songs-within-songs are always welcome, and the actual one itself is pleasant, though does go on a bit.
[6]

1 blerg » 3 reader votes » Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 11:07 am

Bonus points for having a band name that at least offers a positive alternative to listening to their music…

[Video][Website]
[2.17]

Brad Shoup: Our modern rockers have forged some new Transatlantic accent. Marky Mumford and Dan Reynolds could switch hometowns and nothing would be amiss. If you only listened to modern rock, you’d be forgiven for thinking lyricism had long passed the peak-oil point. Garbled metaphors really are the worst. Cards fold themselves. Masquerades call you out. Blood runs stale. Keyboardists play Neil Diamond’s “America”. Bands whinge about scars. People clear their hard drives when they turn 35.
[1]

Anthony Easton: There is nothing beastly here, and even less that is demonic. The Christian obsessions are not well-closeted at all; there is potential for a work that combines a sinner’s self-loathing with a belief in the desire for saving — it begins by claiming to be a redemption song. The masochism of this reaches sublimated Catholic seminary levels, but it’s not really as interesting as work made in that context. It’s also kind of offensive, assuming the subject of the song (who I am assuming is a lover) can bring him out from the darkness. In a theological sense, he is replacing agape love with erotic love, which precludes the purpose of God. In a non-theological sense, he refuses his lover’s personhood. In a musical sense, sigh why bother. 
[2]

Patrick St. Michel: If Three Doors Down thought, “Yeah man, we DO have a lot of important things to say!”
[1]

Alfred Soto: I don’t want to hear a two-dollar Chris Martin rhyming “greed” and “need.” I just learned: “plod” and “dud” don’t rhyme unless you’re Emily Dickinson.
[1]

Scott Mildenhall: Not the best song called “Demons”, not even the best one this year, but at least it isn’t a complete racket. The “Jar Of Hearts”-esque melody is catchy, but that becomes a problem when it very much is the only one in the song. It just doesn’t go anywhere, other than towards “quite annoying now” before the end of only a second or third listen.
[5]

Crystal Xia: This is the most nondescript song I’ve ever heard.
[3]

no blergs » 2 reader votes » Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 7:01 am

More restrained Yasutaka Nakata fan-boy and fan-girlism!

[Video][Website]
[6.90]

Patrick St. Michel: “Perfume always sounds like innocent girls who fall in love with someone with pure heart.” That’s Kyary Pamyu Pamyu summing up Japan’s premier techno-pop trio better than anyone else ever has. The joke, though, is they (and especially producer Yasutaka Nakata) have made that romance factory efficient over the years. They’ve found time to explore interesting sonic terrain over the past few years, but “Magic Of Love” isn’t an example of that. Rather, it fits the mold of “proto-Perfume,” resembling singles like “Spring Of Life,” “VOICE,” “One Room Disco” and “Fushizen Na Girl.” This one does feature a few nifty details — the most immediate is how each member of the group gets a chance to sing free of Nakata’s electro filters, which is a nice change of pace from there last year of songs. Nakata himself give himself more space to experiment and have fun on those wordless bridges, another nice detour. But really, as long as Perfume keep making songs with choruses like this and release them just in time to appear on every summer mix I make, I’m going to keep the praise coming.
[8]

Iain Mew: The “Magic of Love” video emerging on the same day as that for “Invader Invader” by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu very nicely sets up narratives comparing the two Yautaka Nakata-produced acts. Although “Spending All My Time” and the Doraemon soundtracking “Mirai no Museum” took slight departures for different audiences, Perfume’s post-Kyary work seems quite focussed. It’s like Kyary is now the avenue for experiments in new genres and instruments, and Perfume’s songs are the result of poring over the same blueprints and finding tiny incremental improvements. “Magic of Love” is very close to “Spice,” the first time the Jukebox reviewed Perfume, built from cleanly intersecting synth lines with vocals poking through the filters. As such the song is not exciting, exactly, but it is gorgeous and the middle eight is a particular triumph of design.
[7]

Alfred Soto: We haven’t liked this act much, right? I needed to be reminded — their songs evaporate seconds after consumption. Here the vocals are as unctuous as the synth slime.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: The video’s cavalcade of Pop Art colors and geometric shapes strike me as a far better visual metaphor for Nakata’s productions than Kyary’s overstuffed grotesques. As busy as his work is, it’s (maybe paradoxically) also clean, efficient, and precise. Perfume, who get to trade off vocals — even with themselves — rather than having to be a single hyperfocused star, ride the machine as efficiently as ever.
[7]

Brad Shoup: When Perfume is on, I’m in a very specific place, a place that Patrick Adams puts me with “Making Love” and “Spaced Out.” His synths ooze and unzip, his singers work on phrase; it’s heaven for me, but I understand if you start to check your clock. Of course, Perfume and their producer work in such a way that the vocals and synths twin: a mainframe that daydreams. It’s all so effervescent, as tenuous as bubbles: one listener can let the repetition transport, the other is ready to pop. Generally with Perfume, I’m transported.
[8]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: When I call this anaemic filter-house it’s not really a put-down. I imagine everyone involved in the Perfume project would be rather disappointed with themselves if their songs had even half the muscle of, I dunno, Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You”. Lightness is everything: the bubbles, the treble, the thin-edged voices. Without the video’s brightness, its synchronised mock-plugsuits and happy wallpaper dresses, this song might even be too light for the brain to hold on to. As fluttering and untouchable as a butterfly or the breeze.
[7]

Will Adams: This is Perfume operating at 75%. Granted, that’s still pretty good. The chorus is ace (though that’s almost a given at this point), and Nakata’s trickery this time around involve snippets of grinding synth noise inserted at the ends of phrases. Still, there’s something missing that keeps it from leaping into the glorious highs they hit last year.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: Frothy, shimmering, strangely efficient – here, a compliment. “Magic of Love” maximizes joy without becoming overbearing or overstaying its welcome. It’s gone as quickly as it’s arrived, but that’s a virtue, too, in its own way.
[7]

David Lee: At one point during my solo three-hour drive between New York City and Boston the other day, the balmy cross breeze that resulted from my open windows began to weigh on my eyelids. Suddenly, “Magic of Love” started filtering out of my car’s speakers. This was the shot of energy I needed. I’m not sure I could say the same for a lot of contemporary music classified under the ever-elusive EDM label. Songs like Krewella’s “Alive” or Calvin Harris’s “I Need Your Love” offer up the equivalent of a sundae so overloaded with toppings – handclaps, pianos, basslines, reverb vocals – that they end up mounds of sheer sweetness. A prospect that I, despite my notorious sweet tooth, find boring. Sickening, even. And while some contend that Yasutaka Nakata has cemented the parameters of what constitutes a Perfume song, I experience “Love” as a complex journey through layers of aural flavor available to a dance producer. The song launches into airy synths from the get go and then bursts into an ecstatic chorus only to veer into a glittery beep-boop breakdown. If last summer’s stretches of sweltering weather serve as any kind of indicator for what to expect this year, I look forward to this blast of refreshment on those days when the air itself seems to sweat.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: If I didn’t know better, I’d say Perfume was going through its sophisti-pop phase based on this. It’s comforting as much as it is bright and carefree — J-pop has been mining these sounds to beautiful effect since the early 90s, what harm is a few extra years and a continent in the paradigm?
[7]

10 blergs » 5 reader votes » Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 10:04 pm

Look into my eyes, for I am about to teach you about rhombi…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]

Crystal Xia: Acid Rap made me into a Chance fan, but “Smoke Again” is probably one of my least favorite tracks on it. Chance’s voice is particularly grating here, and that quality is brought out even more by the one-two punch of his drag out the last woooord of each line flow and that annoying siren noise in the hook. Ab-Soul has never sounded so uninspired.
[5]

Anthony Easton: “Lean all on the square, that’s a fucking rhombus” is the most delightful and mathematically accurate drug reference I have heard in recent memory. That I cannot tell whether it’s “potty” or “party” skeeves me a bit. Also their Dukes reference seems a little inaccurate. 
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: “Smoke Again” doesn’t quite break into the top level of Acid Rap - that zone belongs to “Good Ass Intro,” “Pusha Man” and “Chain Smoker” – but comes in a very respectable fourth on the year’s best rap album so far. Those horn farts sound great, and are wisely never turned up loud enough to drown out Chance in all his near-raspy glory. He reminds me a little of Kendrick Lamar in his ability to bend his voice frequently, albeit Chance does it less for thematic reasons and more so because he seems to be getting a kick out of it. Ab-Soul’s bit is alright, but this one is all about showcasing Chance. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: The way he leans into his whine at the end of verses is the most irritating mannerism   since Ezra Koenig’s electro-chipmunk sample in “Ya Hey.” But as a De La Soul fan I’ve always got time for potty references, stupid rhymes and all.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: The falsetto whine Chance (or somebody) employs as part of the background is reminding me of something from the 90s, but I can’t tell what. Hippy revivalism? G-funk? Jock Jams? It’s all part of the DNA of this song anyway, driven overachievers playing at lazy underachievement and almost passing.
[6]

Brad Shoup: More good vocalizing here; it’s almost like click tracks for the highest horn player. The brass we have is so close to sour, slowed like everything else here. Were the drums recorded? If so, I bet the drummer made amazing faces while going tick-bum-tick.
[6]

Jer Fairall: His rhymes are witty without being revelatory, his flow is adroitly playful without completely dodging a certain air of frat-boy smarminess, and the production—well, this is just a mixtape track, right? In other words, I kinda get the hype, but I’m not yet willing to label him as anything greater than “promising” at this point.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Those slowed-down horn parps and the slow-decay of the drumbeat are trippy enough on their own, and an ideal backdrop for Chance’s woozy flow and focused dedication to a rhyming scheme. His use of voice has a childlike sense of experimentation and play to it, how he seems to produce a line here like he’s grinning, and another like he’s gurning. Ab-Soul, on the other hand is a little on the childish side. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that he seems a bit lucid for the track.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: Chance continues the trend (started by “Juice” and “NaNa“) of releasing tracks (that I love but are) unlikely to win over those seeking an entry point but who find his vocals slightly grating. The key to “Smoke Again” is the contrast between the screwed hook and woozy horns and his exaggeratedly nasal whine; this is some deliberate, thumb-in-your-eye, messing around for fun delivery. The palpable delight in the way he leans into the line about the rhombus speaks for itself. Still, when you have material as ingratiating and likeable as Acid Rap‘s opening or closing triads, or the central trio — which include a swoonworthy interlude and a track great enough to make me enjoy Childish Gambino — putting out a video for a great track that is the definition of a grower is confusing.
[7]

2 blergs » 1 reader vote » Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 7:09 pm

One out of two’s still good, Leo.

[Video][Website]
[5.18]

Patrick St. Michel: One complaint aimed at The Great Gatsby — the book, I have no idea about the movie — is that everything is a symbol, to the point of excess. A fair enough critique but I think it’s still better than the opposite – SparkNotes obviousness. “Young And Beautiful” features no subtlety, everything Lana Del Rey sings about being direct (“will you still love me/when I’m no longer beautiful?”). It’s a touch too straightforward, betraying the unsavory emotions that lurked beneath her best songs (“Video Games,” mostly). Still, like all her music, it earns some points for just sounding so grand, even if what’s sung over it isn’t at all.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The Gatsby soundtrack is brilliant, better than the movie at updating the tragic amorality of Gatsby’s relationship to both money and people. Lana Del Rey, with her languor, and her cleverness at persona-building, plus the updating of the jazz chanteuse persona would seem to be a perfect fit. But it might have been too perfect considering Luhrman’s skills mostly rest on the integration of contemporary modes into melodramatic histories and recasting that integration into an overly processed spectacle — a filmic reproduction of a music hall re-working of an operatic practice of a textual source — a matryoshka doll effect. Rey’s inability to go past the first second or level of that practice is a disappointment. However, there are things to recommend this: her tone is silvery, her ache of loss is earnest enough, I enjoyed how she delivered lines that should just collapse into absurdity (electric soul), and even the pleading to God is both exquisite and terribly placed. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: As those strings saw away, Del Rey is in her own Deanna Durbin vehicle, her cool nasality giving confessions (rhyming his “body” with “makes me wanna party”) genuine camp value.
[5]

Jer Fairall: Overstated, garish and tasteless, Lana Del Rey and Baz Luhrmann movies are practically made for each other. I can actually somewhat get on board with the particular melodramatic sweep of this one, at least as long as she’s wistfully evoking “hot summer days / rock and roll / the way you’d play for me at your show;” even if only the 1/3 of that equation makes sense in context, it’s a lovely little moment nonetheless. But any Lana Del Rey song is always going to leave her often cataclysmically awful lyrics to contend with (“will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul” isn’t even the biggest howler here) and the sad fact that, as a vocalist, I’m finding less and less to distinguish her from Christina Perri anymore.
[5]

Mallory O’Donnell: Myopic, self-obsessed plodding dirge masquerading as a paean to a killer guy, pretending (worse yet) to be modern (“makes me wanna party?“) despite the pre-Prohibition vocal drag. There’s nothing wrong with singing per se, why you wanna wear it out so bad?
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Lana Del Rey is perfect for Gatsby. She’s exactly the singer Gatsby would hire. And though the pace is stodgy and the bridge worse, she’s better on material that demands gravitas (earned or not) than when she’s just trolling everyone. Or maybe I’m just overrating the parts where her voice sounds like Helen Marnie.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The percussive strokes sound like shovels hitting dirt, or maybe buckets bailing water. The combination of orchestral support and mundane concerns have borne fruit for her; replacing the details with this tense little ball of text/subtext is kind of a downgrade. Most pop music has been made knowing (and ignoring) the answer to Del Rey’s question. I guess every once in a while, someone’s gotta say it.
[5]

Will Adams: It’s her way with melody, I think, that lets me forget that a song titled “Young and Beautiful” for an expensive Gatsby adaptation is the year’s biggest moment of self-parody. Well, that and the body/party rhyme. The lovely pre-chorus – when Lana crescendos as the strings swell – reminded me of her songwriting craft, the somber affect that so clearly separates empathy from sympathy. Yes, diminishing returns apply here, but for the moment I can still enjoy her.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: “All that grace, all that body, all that face makes me wanna party,” Lana intones, before declaring her faith that her man will love her past the horizon of youth and beauty, but “Body Party” — textually corporeal, visceral and lustful — effortlessly signifies devotion, spirituality and romance that all the orchestral grandeur in the world can’t muster here Lana signifies ennui and dissatisfaction, which works best undercutting her lyrics implicitly, à la “Video Games,” rather than underpinning explicit insecurities. If I remain unmoved, I also remain oddly transfixed.
[4]

Sabina Tang: These days, the furore around Lana Del Rey’s initial videos seems beside the point, first and foremost because her execution improved thereafter by leaps and bounds. Like Stefani Germanotta, Lizzie Grant spent her first two successful albums refining her songwriting and doubling down on her aesthetics. Like Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey is less a coherent alter ego than a concept-nexus, a brand. One is a Lana Del Rey Girl in the same sense that one might be a Valley Girl, an Uptown Girl, a Vargas Girl… The commonality of the Lana Del Rey Girl — “Video Games”‘s girlfriend, “Ride”‘s biker moll, “National Anthem”‘s First Lady, “Cola”‘s home-wrecker, the girl in “American” whose brown-skinned lover is only like an American — is that she is much seen (being beautiful) and little heard (being dim, or at any rate not a feminist). She imagines life as a movie, is assigned no lines, and ends her life in a meat freezer. She is a vessel for the hopes and dreams of men; no one wants to hear her talk, other women least of all. Lana Del Rey gives her a voice — always first person, never the observer’s third — but the crux of the project is that she doesn’t sugarcoat. The Lana Del Rey Girl opens her mouth to reveal that she is dim, venal, romanticizes destructive love and has an unhealthy need for male approval. She’s erotically drawn to older men and sweetly calls their wives “bitch” under her breath. She probably can’t spell feminist. In other words, she’s Daisy Buchanan’s original “beautiful little fool.” So who better than Lana to put words in Daisy’s mouth and do her narcissism justice? What other female singer-songwriter voice can ask and answer, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful — I know you will, I know you will”? Who else can sigh in all seriousness, “You make me shine — like diamonds”? This may be a bog-standard Paradise-era cut, but the Luhrmann Gatsby is Lana Del Rey’s Gatsby, through and through. 
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Daisy Buchanan’s theme, I take it. But Lana Del Rey’s voice still only sounds like a parody of money.
[5]

7 blergs » 8 reader votes » Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 3:00 pm

A sensation if we have our way (and we will!).

[Video][Website]
[7.57]

Iain Mew: The weighty chunks of synth bear a resemblance to Austra’s “Beat and the Pulse” and set “Cada Vez Mas Cerca” up like it’s going to be something similarly dark. In fact, the rest of the song skates over that darkness barely touching it, pirouetting and pausing occasionally to fire off some lasers and a fragment of “Radio Gaga.” Yeah, it’s silly, but why question moves that come off as joyfully as these?
[8]

Alfred Soto: The chilly sequencers melt the second Magdalena and a synthesizer squabble over which high notes they should harmonize with. Unlike many electronic anthems which emphasize the narrator’s physical and emotional distance, this one wants to wetly sing in your ear.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I’ve never met a “Fade to Grey” cousin I didn’t like, and Maria Magdalena sings this like she’s not sure if it’s symphonic disco or someone playing around with settings on a cheap electric piano. The mismatch works, though, with her voice high and ethereal and the bass earthy and warm.
[8]

Brad Shoup: There’s a carnivalesque melodic bent to the opening line, something Gwen Stefani might tend toward. MM is in the same range, but without the… let’s say individuation. There’s a max poignance beyond which repeating the title doesn’t add, but she’s going there anyway. It’s those chill synthsheets she hangs at the end that truly transport.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The intro, which is just nostalgic enough to remind one of the disco, and refute the cult of the new, transitions into a vocal that rides above it. It’s like a glittery dolphin on an ocean of molten cheddar. The use of disco lasers, perhaps the subtlest in history, suggests the dolphin is bringing sailors back to the land. 
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Even five years ago those percussive strikes would have dredged up the word “electroclash,” but if anything the newest Chilean indie-electro sensation is going back to mutant-disco roots, if not to the roots of all electronic pop; those high tones are unmistakably Summery.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: This is what I wish Kate Boy sounded like.
[8]

1 blerg » 4 reader votes » Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 3:05 pm