The Singles Jukebox

And yet another track scores more than 7 – are we getting soft or what?…

[Video][Myspace]
[7.40]

Matt Cibula: I am not very smart about dance music. I admit this right upfront; there are a lot of tracks where people I trust and respect are all like “HOW CAN PEOPLE NOT FEEL THIS” and I feel bad because I can’t feel it, just don’t have the vocabulary. But I feel this. I feel it like Kevin G feeling Janis Ian’s Lebanese ancestry in “Mean Girls.”
[8]

Martin Skidmore: I don’t feel we get enough pure dance music to review here. The vocal sounds a bit like a much more limited Nicolette – I like it a lot as she gets fierier – over a sparse, bleepy deep house backing, building with real energy and increasingly punchy beats. It feels big and uplifting and exciting, one of my favourite house tracks in a while.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: The affect on this is pretty flat–the percussion, the backing vocals, even the hook itself are all fairly rote. It gets the job done in the club, I’m sure: Ferrer is well-loved by Billboard dance-chart followers, and not wrongly so. But he’s done better than this and, let’s hope, will do so again in the future.
[5]

Alex Macpherson: The instantaneous thrill of a crush mirrored in classic house crescendos and stretched over seven masterfully crafted minutes. Ferrer sets up a tight, irresistibly focused groove and sets about bombarding it with laser-gunfire beats, synths looming ominously from the shadows and ecstatic chanting. Meanwhile, Vivien Goldman abets the tension between control and frenzy with relish as her vocal spirals into wildness, the punky grit of her timbre busting through to the forefront and landing her in a place of blissfully carefree ad-lib scatting – a section of the track which could go on forever, as far as I’m concerned. The first time I heard “Hey Hey” on a dancefloor was pretty much the greatest clubbing moment of the past few months.
[9]

Edward Okulicz: All sinuous and erotic, but stomps like a mammoth.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Better hey-heys than most hey-heys lately. Better Crystal Waters-style scat diddybops than I’ve heard in a while, even if they don’t last long. A cute sound effect break, and the story’s fairly coherent. But still, somehow, way more cautious and normal than house music should be. It’s hard for me to think of another genre that peaked so early and so decisively. If anything since has come near mid ’80s Chicago, I’ve never heard it.
[7]

Martin Kavka: Part of why I love this as much as I do is because it reminds me of dance music when divas had [normadesmond]voices[/normadesmond]; this one here takes up the tradition with ease and skill. But there are very au courant production touches here too, and no one element is over-utilized. This is dance music for all ages, and for the ages.
[9]

Frank Kogan: What I’d usually think of as one of those annoyingly sassy and cultured quirk-girl voices sounds fresh when forced into isolation in an oppressively dark and cavernous warehouse.
[7]

Alfred Soto: This updated version of Robin S’ “Show Me Love” lives and dies on its 808 bleeps and unhinged diva exclamations, which get steadily more obsessive. Minimalist and very sexy.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: Though sadly not a gender non-discriminative cover of Ken Laszlo’s “Hey Hey Guy,” this is a fine enough slice of forward-leaning US garage. Stuck between a moody deep house track and a surefire floor-filler the messy, wet-FX drums and chant-like vocal would make for some lovely tension building, but outside of that context there’s very little here to sway the casual dance fan. Solid, then, but hardly the track I would have picked from amongst the hundreds of dance releases this month to trickle all the way down to the Jukebox.
[5]

8 blergs » Monday, February 8th, 2010 4:00 pm

Prediction – there will never be a more interesting photo of this lot than this one…

[Website]
[5.56]

Edward Okulicz: Glorious and romantic, like a sepia-toned shot over the top of some cornfields, but while the arrangement and singing are fond, they don’t grab the listener and make them feel the longing for lost youth that the lyrics are striving for – its nostalgia is wistful but empty. You get the feeling someone like Natalie Maines would have nailed its affectionate weariness, but Hillary Scott comes up a little short. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty melody, it just doesn’t have the same emotional hit that made “Need You Now” my favourite single of 2009.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: I say the same things every time about them: Hillary Scott’s voice is likeable, and suited to this regretful song, but I could do without the rest of the band. The male vocals are fine as harmonies, but I wanted a more country ambience rather than a ’70s soft rock one. Go solo, Hillary!
[6]

Anthony Easton: The first Lady Antebellum song that convinced me of the potential other critics saw. The fiddles are subtle, the drums are steady but do not overwhelm, and her voice, bourbon soaked and tobacco smoked, not nearly as sweet as the lyrics suggest it could be. It is also nice to have a song that could be a hit for Brad Paisley or (especially) Kenny Chesney be taken by a woman. Reminds me of “Strawberry Wine”.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Beyond its perfect drunk-dialing title track, I’d been thinking the same thing about Need You Now that I’ve been thinking about Vampire Weekend’s new album: Too many snoozarama ballads plus not enough energetic hooks adds up to a sophomore slump. But now I’m starting to notice some beautifully atmospheric and architectural production touches. And shameful as it is to admit, I didn’t get “Need You Now” at first, thus proving great Lady Antebellum ballads don’t always have an immediate impact on me. Still, I’m fairly confident “American Honey” is not a great one, opening ’90s-alt-rock-as-bluegrass chord progression or no. But it does have some wide-open bittersweet summertime cornfield stretch to its melody, and seemingly its words too, so who knows? Also, these folks outsing Vampire Weekend.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The acoustic instruments and mandolins summon Every Picture Tells a Story for a few seconds, which is fortunate; the rest summons little else. “Gotta get back to her somehow,” Hillary Scott sings, and for another few excited seconds I imagine she’s referring to a girl she crushed on. Ill-formed nostalgia may work when the arrangements aren’t. Alas, Lady Antebellum acknowledge the possibility of releasing another “Need You Now” by nodding to the future (or the present) with a drum machine, but the rest of this innocuous number looks towards the past without figuring out why.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: The tune’s decent enough, but this is so thoroughgoing professional it’s dispiriting, like an ad for its title metaphor-that-isn’t: since when does honey “grow up strong”?
[5]

Pete Baran: What is needed instead of this blanding of country is a hard hitting track about the disappearance of the bees and its effects on the American Honey stocks. Perhaps its sweetness will be down to its scarcity.
[4]

Martin Kavka: “American Honey” is just as nostalgic as “American Pie,” but far more soporific and without a smidge of the complexity of the latter song’s lyric. A little “American Woman” or “American Idiot” or even good ol’ American song-writing knowhow would go a long way.
[3]

Hillary Brown: Okay, it’s pabulum, but it’s kind of well-made pabulum. Sometimes we don’t want challenging; we just want pretty. I’m sure a robot wrote this song, but that robot knew how to push some buttons in the listener’s brain.
[6]

no blergs » Monday, February 8th, 2010 3:00 pm

Plod on, baby…

[Video][Website]
[4.62]

Martin Skidmore: Our editor predicted that I wouldn’t like this number from these veteran Australian AOR rockers. I hate to be predictable, but clearly I am. It’s all skillfully done, the playing and harmonies and construction and so on, but I can find nothing in it to excite me or to enjoy at all.
[2]

John Seroff: Powderfinger are apparently Australia’s answer to Coldplay. “Burn Your Name” is not unlike listening to U2 cover “What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding”. Neither of these statements fills me with joy. Neither does the song.
[4]

Martin Kavka: This is completely formulaic. But if the U2 plagiarists of yore could release some pretty awesome songs (e.g., The Alarm’s “Rain In The Summertime”), and if U2 themselves are pretty sucky these days, do I really have to apologize for liking this as much as I do?
[7]

Matt Cibula: You know what really pisses me off? When a group names themselves for an iconic song or album by another performer, especially when their music has absolutely nothing to do with the act being referenced. I also get pissed off when songs are boring and overinflated.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Guitarist displays an impressive ability to make “Frére Jacques” jangle, I’ll give them that; opening’s almost pretty enough to be from New Zealand!
[6]

Hillary Brown: You know, there’s nothing fancy going on here, although it’s possible that it’s delivered with some air kicks live. This song could totally be performed at Superbowl half-time, and yet it was written last year, from what I understand. It’s not too aggressively rocking, and while it would fit fine in a commercial, it’s also not so obviously made for one. Why is this so hard to do? It’s a completely pleasant track with strong melody, nice cymbal crashes, and plenty of vocal harmonies. Way to go, Australia.
[7]

Doug Robertson: If you want to know how they came up with this, just go into Word and start typing in the lyrics. Within seconds, that annoying paperclip will pop up and say “It looks like you’re trying to write a radio friendly driving anthem. Would you like some help?” before offering you a range of templates you might like to use. This is number 5: Open Road Acceleration.
[4]

Alfred Soto: They sound bells, burn her name, and steal guitar licks from Neil Young’s Zuma – anything to tell us Who She Is. So what is she? Show, don’t tell.
[5]

3 blergs » Monday, February 8th, 2010 9:00 am

A quick one while we’re away…

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Mallory O’Donnell: I like that Tinie seems to have deliberately chosen rhymes that emphasize his accent. It’s taken a long time, but UK rap finally seems to be finding some real swagger without losing its native oddness and charm. What would really push this over the top would be to make it even less US-friendly: accentuate the drum & bass elements and drop that tired autotune. As it is, it’s transitional, but I’m sure there’s a really hot track just around the corner…
[6]

Chuck Eddy: “I live a very very very wild lifestyle” — yeah, sure you do. (Show, don’t tell.) “[Somebody I never heard of] and [somebody else I never heard of] eat your heart out.” — I’m sure they will! Plus a shoutout to Uncle Fester. Thing is, I’m liking the cluelessness of British rap like this. Feels innocent despite itself — hence endearing, just like the part where his Wiki bio says “he was born to Nigerian parents Rose and Pat on a Monday morning.” And though compromise with snoozy American R&B conventions make it drag some, drum’n'bass (or whatever they’re called now) skitters keep the song kinetic regardless.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I always liked the rough, lo-fi sounds of grime, and kind of miss it amongst the recent trend towards bouncy house sounds for its MCs. Tinie is a bit sing-song in his delivery for my tastes, and I could do without the all-autotuned hook. I like the production much more than the vocal, basically.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: The rattling snares that nose in every so often are a cute nod to the jungle that the track erupts into in the last 45 seconds or so, and the time-keeping keyboard bass line is nice and fuzzy. I like his robo-flow pretty well, too. I suspect it’s too pleasant to truly love, but it slots into a few sweet spots well enough.
[7]

Alex Macpherson: Après Dizzee, le déluge: the mainstream record deals for former grime MCs just keep on coming. But Tinie Tempah, appropriately for a man who made his name on beats as diverse as the “Wifey Riddim” (the first notable riddim by Flukes, now half of Crazy Cousinz) and the blazing, M.I.A.-sampling “I’m Hot”, offers us a very different crossover style, both in terms of beats and persona. Neither as eager to please as Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk, nor as rowdily laddish as Dizzee, Tinie carries himself with a laconic, effortless swagger. It’s fairly irresistible, especially when he has sparky, quotable lines to back it up: rhyming “armshouse” with “aunt’s house”, Scunthorpe with Jean-Claude, referencing Heidi and Audrina, the punchline of “if your son doesn’t – I bet your daughter knows”. Also irresistible is the beat, which casually mixes dancehall skank, electro synth riff and drum’n'bass break – not to mention cavernous Hoover noises and a killer bassline – to superb effect. “Pass Out” gets better with each listen.
[8]

Matt Cibula: Proud to add my name to the phalanx of Singles Jukeboxers who will note that his flow is about 90% bitten from “Roxanne Roxanne.” Also it is an actual song with awesome noises and I like it.
[7]

1 blerg » Friday, February 5th, 2010 12:00 pm

HENRY ROLLINS, HENRY ROLLINS…

[Video][Website]
[5.40]

Hillary Brown: For all the interest Rihanna as a person and a persona has provoked over the past couple of years, it would be nice to see her making the same kind of adventurous choices with her music as with her hair or accessories.
[5]

Alfred Soto: It isn’t hard at all to repeat your favorite tics. Singles released subsequent to “Umbrella,” “Livin’ a Lie,” and “Don’t Stop the Music” have shown her essential boringness. Even with Jeezy’s encouragement, her bravado doesn’t convince.
[3]

Kat Stevens: There’s hardly anything that stands out here except RiRi’s snarl and the plinky piano, but they twist around each other and create a compelling atmosphere: any remaining image of Rihanna as the cute young lovebird offering up her parasol is long gone; all that’s left is a steely Terminatrix striding through the rain. With a sword where her left arm should be.
[8]

Martin Kavka: One of the most important things that I learned from Tremble Clef during its run was that the repetition of a phrase in a pop song is best understood as a symptom of a narrator’s trying and failing to bring about a certain state of affairs. In this case, by the twentieth time Rihanna declares her hardness, I’ve completely ceased to believe her. Her claim, like her need for “the money the fame the cars the clothes,” is just covering for her inability to get past whatever pain it is that hasn’t yet receded. Usually, this kind of reading would bring out the complexity in a pop song. However, Rihanna is so over the top in her insistence that I’m sadly unable to see her as anything other than That Girl Who Just Needs To STFU Already.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: She does indeed sound arrogant and uncaring, and this makes it admirable rather than likeable, meaning it needs a pretty irresistible hook or something like that to make you fall for it. It comes pretty close, and I really like the staccato piano and the background yelling. Young Jeezy provides a hoarse, muscular guest verse, which does no harm either.
[8]

John Seroff: It’s great to finally hear a new, quality Rihanna single; after the hyperdramatic nihilism of “Russian Roulette”, the dreck that was “Run This Town” and her well-meaning but bumbling cover of “Redemption Song”, I was starting to wonder what was left in the tank. “Hard” is classic Terius and Tricky: inventive, repetitive, catchy and doggedly melodic. Ri-Ri’s contribution is primarily inoffensive play-acting; the blend of snide, pride and bitters reads equally meta as the Jeremy Scott Mickey Mouse helmet and pink tank from the video. After a sad year of post-Brown ugliness, it’s nice to have our girl back in an inoffensive, unapologetic, less deadly-serious mode. Jeezy’s verse is moribund but brief and you’ve already gotten everything the song has to offer by the time he shows up, so you can hit rewind with impunity.
[7]

Al Shipley: Instead of going for another pop megahit, it sounds like Rihanna and the The-Dream team are auditioning to helm the next shrill, tunelessly triumphant DJ Khaled single — all this needs is a Rick Ross verse and a few “we the best” ad libs. I get kind of angry when I think about how maybe the highest paid lyricist in pop music right now routinely writes couplets as bad as “never lyin’, truth tella/ that Rihanna reign just won’t let up.”
[1]

Pete Baran: There is an appealing looseness about “Hard”, but not enough to make it more than just three good notes covered with Rihanna posing.
[4]

David Cooper Moore: For all the thug posturing, I still hear the chorus as “ah, so hard” (as in “my life is”) and the song as covertly confessional (pain! Crying! Rain that won’t let up!). Young Jeezy does a standard recap of his origin story, which in this context brings it down to earth a bit — Jeezy’s up in his bedroom staring at those four walls again, hoping that tomorrow his life will be a little better. (There just happens to be a fuck-ton of coke in there.) Rihanna kind of wants to have it both ways here — it’s hard (so hard) to do “my life is a mess” and “I pulled through and look at me now” simultaneously, so the tone here is muddled. But I kind of like that the song is repressed, that she wants it so badly to sound like a boast but starts it as a diary entry: “No pain is forever — yup, you know this.” One day at a time.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: This was such a relief on its slog of an album that I figured it would be an easy 8 out of context, but how do you like that: on its own the music is pretty thin and one-note, and so is the concept that, wow, Rihanna really is a star and deserves whatever hauteur she has, however off-putting. Still like the piano and “Brilliant, resilient, fan mail from 27 million,” though.
[6]

28 blergs » Friday, February 5th, 2010 9:00 am

But you’re not a man, you’re a chicken, Boo…

[Video][Website]
[4.00]

David Cooper Moore: Nick in Nashville, mothers hide yer daughters! So I guess the rationale here was that Nick was sick of everyone superficially comparing him and his brothers to Hanson, so he went off on his own to make sure he actually sounded like Hanson this time out. He’d just love for me to mention Bruce, but I refuuuuuuuuuse. Where do you even play this music? Whatever, I’ve given up trying to figure these Disney kids out.
[5]

Pete Baran: I have it on good authority that Nick is the coolest of the Jonas Brothers (an episode of author/cop procedural Castle). Apparently Kevin is the talented one and they couldn’t think of anything good to say about Joe. And Nick needs to be cool to front this solid “don’t love me cos I’m a superstar” country rocker, because there really isn’t anything else happening in the song.
[3]

Hillary Brown: I keep thinking that I’ll find the sweet spot where dead-eyed robot child meets capable pop in the music of the Jonas Brothers (a la the Osmonds), but this certainly isn’t it, all heaving breath and uninteresting sentiment.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: Of course he’s trying too hard while saying basically nothing; he’s a Jonas. What fascinates me are the parallels with the dregs of the late ’80s, and not just because so many of them fudged their cues from the old boss of Nick’s new charges. Not that this song has much at all to do with Prince, unless you’re talking about the Prince who gave songs to Jonny Lang in the ’90s, maybe because Lang used to call himself “Kid” too. Jonas, from this evidence, can keep right on doing so.
[4]

Al Shipley: Youngest Jonas has a slightly less annoying voice than Middle Jonas, so right off the bat he’s got an advantage on the group’s stuff. And with the unlikely backing of some New Power Generation alumni, he’s come up with a pretty enjoyable track, at least if “early John Mayer” isn’t the kind of thing that would make you run screaming from a room.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: For a teenybopper getting his grown-man on with a Mayer/Maroon 5 move, kinda boppy. Pleasant gentle swing to the percussion (could actually afford to be way more prominent), plus a pinch of powerpop push. Still adds up to mush, Stuart Smalley sentiments and all. But almost bearable mush.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: Nick’s attempts to growl sound too young and therefore unconvincing, and the song is weak and without any lift in the chorus. The lyric also sounds like the words of someone frustrated by years of unhappy romances, which is a bit much for a 17 year old.
[3]

John Seroff: THIS is what all the “edgy new direction” Jonas talk is about? Sub-mediocre Joe Cocker delivery over Dave Matthews Band orchestration does not the next level make, no matter how many Elvis Costello references you drop. Give me “Burnin’ Up” any day.
[4]

Alfred Soto: When Cutie Jonas sings “Nothin’ makes SENSE!” he sounds as convincing as Rick Springfield simulating rage in “Don’t Talk To Strangers”. The rest depends on a rhythm guitar part that borrows liberally from Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and the script handed to every child star. You know — stardom causes them to lose touch with who they are, and so on. Jonas’ clumsy enthusiasm is endearing, though, which makes me think he’s got a “Jesse’s Girl” and “Love Somebody” in him.
[5]

Mallory O’Donnell: Less a symptom of startling musical growth, more a handy reminder that the line between earnest teeny-popper and earnest white blues-rocker is thin and oft-crossed (cf. Mayer, Frampton). The fact that both genres seemed to have stopped developing any new musical ideas about 30 years ago only makes the transition that much easier.
[3]

Additional Scores

Andrew Casillas: [4]
Anthony Easton: [4]
Doug Robertson: [2]

no blergs » Friday, February 5th, 2010 6:00 am

Peckham grump unleashes sub-two minute glitchfest – somehow, we’re quite impressed…

[Video][Myspace]
[7.44]

Doug Robertson: Anything that can even vaguely be described as “glitchy” tends to get the thumbs up in my book, but this is something else entirely. If “Wow!” wasn’t already pronounced “Wow!” then it would probably sound like this.
[10]

Alfred Soto: Vampire Weekend and M.I.A.: add sociopolitical lyrics. Stir to a rich golden brown.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: This is bizarre: heavy, juddering quotes from Indian ragas, rumbling bass and frequent glitchy moments. It’s short, very intense and completely compelling and fascinating.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: A whopping 1:57: is this the shortest Jukebox single ever? It’s cute, too, with its glitches, sitar, and odd little vocal hook all evidence of the laptop-indie production that sounds more normal all the time.
[7]

Pete Baran: Like the time flashes in Lost taking place in an Indian Restaurant during the popadom course, even down to the 1970s style restaurant trappings. The video should be one of those neverending waterfall pictures running upwards. Deadly nosebleeds notwithstanding, a pleasant experience.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Clink and clank and fuzz and blur and static, with incidental Far Asian melodies and voices weaving in and out. Cute enough, for two minutes. Could maybe see using it to fill space at the end of a C-90 mixtape, but even then I’d definitely prefer chopping it off in the middle.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Tight, quick, and so well constructed, an elegant example of almost pure concision, with that collapse somewhere around the one minute mark–like that myth of the one flaw in an otherwise perfect killing.
[8]

John Seroff: I’m still stumbling toward a clearer definition of “dubstep”, so correct me if I’m wrong for stuffing “Quitters Raga” into that pigeonhole. Whatever else it is, the song is perfectly lovely; an awkwardly, inexplicably wistful, glitchy Bollywood dance number with a near-Four Tet air. I only wish “Quitters” were longer; I’d love to see the theme develop further. Still, compulsively loopable and a tremendous introduction to a new artist I hope to hear more from soon.
[8]

David Cooper Moore: Chopped and screwy Bollywood chorus is mechanically reined in to militant eighths, then blasted into space with heavy-handed vocal fuckery and lasers. But despite all the tics there’s a kind of serenity in it: a guitar part that could have been ripped from Kings of Convenience, a nice sitar line. In fact I could do with a little less chopping and a little more of letting the beauty play for its own sake. The excessive futzing feels like a nervous wishing away of the song’s plainer prettiness.
[7]

7 blergs » Thursday, February 4th, 2010 4:00 pm

Southend kids unleash seven-and-a-half-minute leviathan – somehow, we’re not impressed…

[Video][Website]
[4.50]

Alfred Soto: An army of vocal samples, an incessant hi-hat, and it’s 1983 again, when Trevor Horn ruled Britannia.
[5]

Pete Baran: I don’t know whether to mark up songs which seem to make effective use of my high end stereo set-up, or see them as the triumph of a blank consumer focused lifestyle. The full seven minutes twenty-three of “We Want War” does seem to want to consider its topic thoughtfully, potentially seeing the modern view of war as an almost cosy state of affairs that we have become resigned to. Fear of change may well equal fear of no war. Considered as an ambient through-thought, that almost works, though as a track it does seem unlovable.
[5]

Doug Robertson: I think they’ve confused “challenging” with “dull”.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: Spaced-out tribal-goth gurgle taking its time getting the proceedings started: Can imagine that in a sci-fi war movie, maybe one after the end of civilization where we’re back living in caves and battling each other with sticks and stones again. But the more the drumbeats get sublimated as the vocals assert their utter vagueness, the more amorphous and less compelling this gets.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: I’ve rarely cared for any rock that takes the adjective ‘art’, and this is no exception. Awkwardly jagged and edgy, with weak and tuneless vocals on top, it has plenty to invite analysis, but I can’t spot anything to cause fun or excitement or emotion, and it is twice the length it should be. If you wanted less tune and energy and more pretension from Sonic Youth, I guess they might be for you, but they aren’t for me.
[2]

Michaelangelo Matos: Isn’t the point of a single that you’ll want to return to it again and again? Not that it’s an endurance to make it through?
[3]

John Seroff: “We Want War” is an enjoyable lark of a military march for the XBox nation. There’s a pleasing lack of pretension; stomp-round-the-campfire clatter percussion and Poledouris-esque sweeping instrumentation with vocal choir offer a vision of a goofy and engaging prog landscape that wouldn’t be out of place in either Brütal Legend or the films of Jan Svankmajer. Based on this single, These New Puritans seem to be aiming for a less dire, less bazonkers stab at the combined aesthetics of The Knife and 3 Inches of Blood. Arty, cryptic, electrorchestral battle epics are hardly what I’d predict as the breakout genre niche for 2010 (”warcore”?), but I’ll happily carry the standard if this catches on.
[7]

Kat Stevens: Three minutes too long, but the mournful colliery brass band at the end is a fitting armistice to the grinding trench warfare. I’m crossing my fingers that the new Massive Attack album will sound like this, but with better vocals. Though it’ll probably still just be a big old stoned “oooo-eeee-ooo” mess, won’t it?
[7]

1 blerg » Thursday, February 4th, 2010 1:00 pm

And so, obviously, the thing with Katy Perry on is the actual single…

[Website]
[4.46]

Matt Cibula: Too many people hate on Tim and Justin has won me over with SNL heroics, so I was fully prepared to like this. Then I heard it.
[4]

Jessica Popper: It is a constant source of confusion as to why Justin Timberlake has released no new solo material in the last three years, yet has appeared on 36 (yes, 36!) songs by other artists. He can hardly say he’s not had time to get in the studio – he must have hardly left! This is one of the better collaborations he has been involved in, and actually the only song I’ve heard so far from Timbaland’s new album which I actually like.
[7]

Hillary Brown: I hate for the first blurb I submit in the new year to be so blasé, but it’s not my fault. It’s Timbo’s. This really isn’t terrible, but I’m someone who tends to appreciate what he has to offer, and I find this lacking in the kind of chaos he trades in. Usually, there’s at least something to prick up my ears, but this is just kind of smoothly clangy until it ends.
[5]

Al Shipley: I never thought these two had much creative chemistry — I know I’m in the minority on this, but for me Timbaland’s contributions were the weak link on Justified, and most of FutureSex/LoveSounds was a wash. But now it’s clear to anyone that they can’t do anything together that isn’t rote and predictable, and really need to start seeing other people. People whose names don’t start with Timb-.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: I suppose you might as well autotune Tim to death: he’s as uninteresting a rapper as has ever become famous. Fortunately they don’t treat Justin’s far more likeable vocal the same way, and there is more of his voice than Tim’s. The production is disappointingly dull and restrained – there’s a decent chorus on offer, but it could do with more energy and punch.
[5]

David Cooper Moore: It’s a little sad that this is the only thing that even comes close to being a good song on Shock Value 2, but credit where credit’s due. Light clang groove buoys a mercifully brief Timbo verse and barely passable Timberlake performance, but they would have had the same impact with an instrumental. The most to recommend it is that the beat doesn’t get swallowed in all the groan-inducing 1.5 entendres (who are these guys, Young Money?). Oh, and I’m a sucker for an IHOP joke, even a really bad one.
[6]

Martin Kavka: If anyone’s going to take the orders of these two doofuses, they should demand better wordplay than “now is I full of myself to want you full of me?” Even the central conceit seems forced. If I’m going to spend time with the woman behind the counter at the fast-food place, why would I be ordering carryout? Wouldn’t I want to eat there?
[3]

Anthony Easton: “Errors” does not rhyme with “areas”, but robotic attempts to make it so are almost as sexy as Timberlake betraying McDonald’s.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Someone tell him that BK neither cooks burgers well done nor appreciates it when you talk to their cashiers in a vocodered chirp.
[3]

Alex Ostroff: Bland, mass-produced and disposable — even more so than “I’m Lovin’ It.”
[3]

Ian Mathers: I’ve come around to “Morning After Dark” since we reviewed it last year and that’s mainly due to just how goofy Timbaland is throughout. But “take my order ’cause your body like a carry out” isn’t the kind of goofiness that endears, and the production isn’t distinctive enough to make four minutes of Timbaland and Timberlake’s wolf whistling anything but boring. The backing track vainly struggles to turn into something interesting during the last minutes, but Timberlake just won’t shut up.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: The song gets by on groove, but whether Timba-lake are phoning it in or if the vocal filters just make it sound that way, it’s hard to get much of a kick out of the extended metaphor – it’s like they didn’t even look at the menu, mindlessly reciting their order out of habit.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: Vulgarity can be a wonderful thing, but in our present sleazy environment it’s a dish best served cold. “Carry Out” is a dish best not served at all.
[2]

2 blergs » Thursday, February 4th, 2010 12:30 pm

The screengrab doesn’t really capture how good the video is, but hey ho…

[Video][Website]
[6.11]

Mallory O’Donnell: You haven’t.
[2]

Martin Kavka: About a year ago, Lauren Flax released “You’ve Changed” as a genrebender for the dancefloor: a heavy chugging beat, a trumpet solo from the airy-fairy Ibiza heyday, and Sia moaning in happiness as her lover left his tomcatting ways behind. This version, produced by Greg Kurstin, is still a mishmash — after a twee toy-piano opening, it’s heavy on new-new-wave flavors with acid and girl-group accents — but it’s more deliciously ecstatic. I miss the single entendre of the moans, but this record makes me wonder whether pop aficionados might have better orgasms than dancefloor habitués.
[9]

Dan MacRae: I like Alphabeat. This sounds like not-very-good Alphabeat. I do not like this.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Sia is usually such a sad sack that it’s both pleasant and a novelty to hear her voice over something so carefree and blippy. Compact too — just over three minutes, and if it sounds like there’s a bit missing between the verse and the chorus, then so much the better.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: Strong, soulful singing over sharp indie-funk backing. I don’t think she is quite tuneful enough to carry this off with complete success, but there is a decent enough song, and some real life in the bouncy music. A vocal less straining for effect would have suited it better, but it’s still enjoyable.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The last thirty seconds or so, with something that sounds sort of like a clavichord and something like bells, is so pretty, so gorgeous that it makes the general vaguness of the rest of the text crystal clear – it’s a nice trick.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Bright, bubbly disco with a creditable lead vocal whose ululations and melisma sound caught up in the groove rather than like mere showing off. That’s the swooping bass line’s job.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: The synths sounds fairly sweet and bouncy, almost in an ’80s Italodisco way. The singer sounds like she has a headcold, and should shut the hell up.
[5]

John Seroff: The song is great, the video is great and I wish I were able to isolate just what I’m enjoying so much here but I can’t seem to.
[9]

no blergs » Thursday, February 4th, 2010 9:30 am