The Singles Jukebox

This, on the other hand, is universal enough.

[Video][Website]
[4.62]

Anthony Easton: There’s a little piano bit above which he just sighs that he can’t burn the whole place down. It’s not angry, and Hilary Scott’s voice,  introduced just after that, agrees with him. For some reason the exhaustion and desolation make everything worse. 
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Goodbye Town” sounds like a continuation to the sunny stalled-relationship at the centre of “Downtown.” Where the latter had Hilary Scott digging her heels into the ground and rolling her eyes at her other half’s selfishness, “Goodbye” finds Charles Kelly dealing with the aftermath of the relationship. The good girl left for good and now home is a foreign place, the streets of town littered with memories of mistakes and (worse still) triumphs. He leaves, but not before taking in the sights one last time and understanding he can’t “burn the whole place down,” an offer that the minor-key sweetness could never allow. The actual goodbye of the outro is a wispy, lovely thing — a blurry-eyed declaration of moving on with life, Charles Kelly ignoring a heavy heart with a hearty voice and the sound of a running engine.
[7]

Alfred Soto: It starts briskly: “Right there is the high school where we met.” Thanks to distant organ and Hillary Scott, this portrait of Nowheresville, U.S.A. has genuine pathos. Just when the power chord bludgeon of a chorus pounds like bad memories, Charles Kelley returns for more rue. A decent flipside to “Downtown.”
[6]

Brad Shoup: Sometimes it’s not anthemic. Sometimes it’s just dudes chirping “oh oh whoa,” you know? The bass is particularly well-recorded: delicate and yawing, like an endless fingertapping tic. On the commentary track, Lady A mention Sting and U2 (and then Bono) and yammer about all the “feelings” “emoted,” sounding for all the world like an industrial designer in rapture. My go-to overproduced country song about absence remains Collin Raye’s “I Can Still Feel You”.
[3]

Iain Mew: There’s constructing songs with earnest emotion, there’s amping up the musical gestures to the point where the song starts to lose connection in reality and blurs into the bluster, and then there’s going even further and coming right out the other side where they become overwhelming and affecting again. The second half of “Goodbye Town” goes through each of those in turn.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Two possibilities: he’s a freshman moping about being turkey dropped, or he’s a grown man who hangs out in high school parking lots. Neither offers the pathos this song ploddingly wants.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Charles Kelly doesn’t wear the aimless attempts at vocalising angst over the last 90 seconds of this song as he does a pair skinny jeans. There’s outros, and there’s overstaying your welcome.
[4]

Will Adams: This is one of the worst production jobs I’ve heard this year. The first ten seconds are indication enough – that synthetic soprano is flat as can be – but things get worse. The drums overcompensate, barging in with overlong drum fills and leaden eighth-note kicks. Paul Worley piles on several unnecessary layers, one of which might actually be an Apple loop called “U2 Guitar Riff 03.” The result is a dense mix that slogs rather than soars. But “Goodbye Town” crosses over to total failure with its false ending. What could have been a respectfully short song stretches out for another minute and a half of what actually sounds like a section that forgot to be cut. The music plods along as Charles Kelley tosses out first-draft lyrics like he doesn’t give a shit, like the check is already stuffed in his back pocket.
[1]

no blergs » no reader votes » Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 3:03 pm

I don’t know, you’re all smart enough to do your own Google translating.

[Video][Website]
[6.88]

Iain Mew: The intro, with its resemblance to starry-eyed trance records and “Clocks” (and so, yes, “When Clocks Takes Over”) had me really worried. Then the synths with the same amazing vacuum popping effect as on “Vospominanie” come in, the melody and production quickly take on new depths and it turns out that there was nothing to worry about. The way that the warm beauty of the chorus is both supported and given a slightly more complicated edge by everything else reminds me of Kylie’s “I Believe in You,” which I love too. A full album, please?
[9]

Scott Mildenhall: Ask Moby and he’ll confirm it: juxtaposing Sad Piano with Digital Noises is a sure route to gold (or a gold disc at least, depending on your inclination). If you do like that sort of thing, like his perfunctory, unnecessary yet good remix of OMD’s “Souvenir,” this may be for you. In fact were OMD born 30 years later than they were, from Russia and a woman, this is a song they would make.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I like how this mirrors itself, contracts and expands, rises and falls, like a precise abstraction — crystalline and shimmery, and just on the right side of excess. 
[5]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: As well-executed as this slice of propulsive, bitty electropop is, I’m pretty certain there’s supposed to be a song happening somewhere within it.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The chorus percolates and syncopates with electrofied precision, the vocals and production boast the thin anonymity of prime Kylie.
[6]

Brad Shoup: A lot of times, I talk about what I’d rather have heard. Hey, maybe boosting the bassline and making this a pop banger was contrary to Nyusha and her team’s wishes. Maybe they had images of headphones ‘n’ high-speed rail instead of car speakers. This has the feel of Junior Boys’ subliminal funk, and would stand out on one of those chill-leaning EDM compilations that dots the Spotify landscape.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: As derivative and disposable as our last entry, but it’s easier to float over icy, windswept dance music than it is to be heard above the din of second-hand Minaj. The tinkling keys are very 90s, like if Robert Miles went a bit more bosh and got a more-than-competent Russian Kylie to warble sweetly on top. I won’t call it a throwback; this stuff’s never really left the charts in Eastern Europe, and I’ll say it again, it’s time for the Anglosphere to start importing some of it given our disinterest in creating our own top-shelf models.
[8]

David Lee: Congratulations to Sergey Percev and Nyusha on locating the overlap in the “Soundtrack for BBC Arctic Nature Porn” and “Lasers Pinging Off A Disco Ball” venn diagram. Fuck a sunny Summer Jam: this makes me want to dance under the aurora borealis forever.
[8]

2 blergs » 2 reader votes » Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 11:04 am

The genericisation of promising female pop stars continues unabated…

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[5.20]

Katherine St Asaph: Former UK house omnivore signs with Epic, is assigned to Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub, recreates “Starships,” aspires to be Sabi. Sometimes labels really are evil.
[3]

Alfred Soto: I love synth string stabs when they support a singer who isn’t so heartless.
[3]

Iain Mew: I haven’t enjoyed A*M*E’s own songs that much to date, but I was impressed by the personality she brought to Duke Dumont’s “Need U (100%).” “Heartless” once again has her make the best of limited opportunity, being as it is a bit of derivative assembly line pop that could have gone to almost anyone. Its chief template seems to be a combination of “Only Girl in the World” and the boring bits of “Turn Me On,” with a teasing snatch of “Aerodynamic” at the end, and it could easily have been forgettable. Between “you got my heart running like Usain” and the giddy rapping, though, A*M*E brings enough life to save it.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: The voice making “Need U (100%)” one of the year’s best is here, and flashes of the charisma that made last year’s “Play The Game Boy” so immediate come through here. But the majority of “Heartless” is just a lukewarm stab at EDM-pop, the whole thing constructed to sound good wedged in the middle of a loud DJ set but without the charm A*M*E has shown. Saving grace – that late bridge where the electro thump-thumping goes away and a military march takes it place reminds us she’s capable of far more interesting music.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Aside from a rap interlude befitting of the Wee Papa Girl Rappers, this could be literally anybody riding the standard issue neon rise’n'fall programming. On one hand, it’s a sign of the artist showing her versatility, moving over from synthpop (“Play the Game Boy“) to housepop (“Need U 100%“) and now to Guettapop in an attempt to cover as many bases of popular dance music as possible. On the other hand, tripe is tripe.
[3]

Brad Shoup: I wanna pay tribute to one of my favorite pop production tricks, one that’s well-represented here. I love when a staccato synth chord rapidly decays, catches itself, then transforms into another chord. It’s a cheap bit of drama that hasn’t lost its fun for me. Of course, that I noticed it here probably means I wasn’t pulling much from A*M*E’s performance, which splits predictable time between dead-serious and hands-in-the-air-isn’t-this-great modes. I actually prefer the bosh.
[5]

Crystal Xia: It’s a little lazy to automatically compare anything by a female pop artist that contains some form of rapping to Nicki Minaj, but “Heartless” sounds like it could be at home on the second half of Roman Reloaded or The Re-Up. The bits of the songs are cut and pasted together and blended together instead of necessarily sounding like they were created all at once. In particular, the two rap bits are set over slow downs or beat change-ups much like “Whip It” or “The Boys” (and wow, I love the rapping over the snares). A*M*E lacks the rapping ability of Nicki Minaj, but she certainly doesn’t lack personality or singing ability to pull off a pop tune. This is just so much fun, even for a song about a heartless boy! The only gripe I have is how the song ends. It just ends, with no ad-libs or indication that we’re on the last set of the chorus. It just lacks the bite of the rest of the song, helps it go out with an abrupt whimper rather than the bang that it deserves.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: This doesn’t feel like the transformation of the voice of one of the biggest records of the year so far into the charismatic, fully-fledged popstar that she could be; it feels like the announcement of Nicki Minaj’s overflow service. There are a few sparks – the Bolt reference in particular – but it runs short of ideas after little over a minute in, and by the time it remembers it had one more with the middle 8, it’s too late. Even the last-gasp guitar flourish is disappointingly not elaborated on; barely audible. Given she knocked out the aforementioned smash hit almost literally in her sleep, she’s clearly capable of so much more. Hopefully this won’t prove to be a waste of momentum, and hopefully won’t be her last chance
[6]

Will Adams: A*M*E is charming enough to sell garish, but she is far more interesting in the just-left-of-center pop of “Play the Game Boy” than shooting for radio house.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Could have been easily, if cruelly retitled “Play the Game, Girl” because she sure can. As an entry into an already crowded market, “Heartless” is certainly above average in the big female-fronted club-dance-pop stakes yet you get the feeling more could be done with the song and the singer, it’s more half-remembered and somewhat-enjoyed track 15 on Club Hits Compilation CD than hit single. I say this because the rapping over the broken-down drums is the best part by a mile; you can hear her, rather than an idea of how to sell her by some label bozos.
[6]

3 blergs » no reader votes » Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 7:05 am

So that’s enough of 2012, then.

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[7.00]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: For all that’s been written in the wake of last year’s good kid, m.A.A.d city (my personal favourite: Houstonian writer Matthew Ramirez’s tumblr essay), “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” has retained an element of mystique despite the level of attention paid to its host album. It floats along calmly despite being based around a withering put-down, stands alone on an album entirely concerned with thematic cohesion and showcases craft over savvy marketing (Lady Gaga was supposed to be singing the hook once upon a time). It’s a curious song – curious meaning that it feels singular, but also that it shows Lamar trying to understand the world around him as he tilts his head at finding something new. And the word “bitch” hits like a brick, a spiky detour from the rest of the song’s measured atmosphere. For the single version, it’s been changed to “trick,” turning the chorus into something lighter and more accessible. But oh lord does the “bitch” belong, if only to give the song its bite and keep it from wafting away on air.
[8]

Al Shipley: It’s interesting to listen to the solo album version given how much it’s been framed and defined that the superstars that have touched it in other incarnations: Lady Gaga on that increasingly laughable, thankfully discarded early draft, Jay-Z on the event remix. What actually matters, though, is Kendrick — his verses are so insanely good on the remix that they won me over to a song I was initially cold on, but when I go back to those original verses, I remember that they really weren’t anything special. 
[6]

Anthony Easton: The music is lush, seamless, and gorgeous…like a slightly cryptic luxury product you didn’t know existed five minutes ago, that you will dispose of in two or three days, but you need now! It’s too bad so much effort is put on the cliched lyrics and tired flow of the hyped-to-death Kendrick. 
[4]

Brad Shoup: Lamar’s exceptionalism grates against his declarations of fallibility. The vibe doesn’t really seem endangered: he says he’s shouting but we can’t hear it. Sounwave digs up some Danish downtempo fluff and strikes smoke; if only Kendrick could show the same curiosity about the actions of others.
[5]

Alfred Soto: One of my least favorite good Kid, m.A.A.d city tracks gets a sonic spritz, although this incarnation lacks the desperation of the other diva-addled editions. Well-observed, still too damn garrulous, and Lamar’s dork impersonation still sounds misconceived.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: This is the Kendrick Lamar song I’ve listened to the most since last fall, on long train rides and walks to work and times spent preparing dinner. It’s probably one of my most played tracks period of the last year. Yet I find it difficult to put into words why this song sticks with me. It’s partly in the way those strings give way to the beat, the two eventually synthesizing into one fly-as-hell production. It’s also in the way Lamar zig-zags through it, managing to be awe struck by where he’s ended up (“put me on stages/to me that’s amazing”) while also throwing out a bunch of disses. Maybe it’s something about the very first words here — “I am a sinner/whose probably going to sin again/Lord forgive me/Lord forgive me thing’s I don’t understand” — that’s achingly human. Whatever the reason, this one’s still going to be monopolizing my iPod whenever I end up passing by the “k’s.” So maybe I should take Lamar’s advice and cut out all the talk.
[9]

Jonathan Bradley: Hip-hop isn’t usually this internal in its focus; it can get personal or spiritual or contemplative, but “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” notably turns away from an outside world with which rap is inerrantly to engage. “Look inside of my soul” are Lamar’s opening words and he maintains this introspection even while expanding his thoughts to encompass the city that puts him on stages and we fiends waiting on his records “like the first and the fifteenth.” It has a delicacy defined by its precariousness; Kendrick is a sinner certain to sin again, but there’s hope too: in the change he feels coming and the new life approaching. The song’s gold-hued beauty is infused with contradiction: its a languid meditation on trying to elongate a transitory moment. Even in the midst of an effort to “stop all pollution,” Lamar is yelling the titular protest.
[9]

Andy Hutchins: Kendrick’s hop from the Internet to his current comet has a lot to do with how sincere he seems; if he’s acting, he seems mostly to be acting like the person he wants to be. And so his most anthemic feel-good song is the one with him telling the story of getting to this point, telling the soulless off, telling everyone just who he is and what he needs to do. He does it with a languid grace (matched by a exquisitely restrained Sounwave beat and Anna Wise’s floaty hook) no other rapper anywhere near his lane has — the economy of words on “My New Year’s resolution is to stop all the pollution/Talk too motherfucking much, I got my drink, I got my music” is deliberate, and perfect, and more like Curren$y than anyone who gets radio spins — and with the wisdom of a guy who sees everything happening to him at any one moment. “I can feel the changes” is the message on my iPhone alarm, has been for months. I wish I could feel them, or go through them, as well as Kendrick does — the differences between the glorious album version of “Bitch” and the brasher, more triumphal radio remix featuring Jay-Z lying about being high at the White House or something is proof that he’s gonna keep growing gracefully.
[10]

2 blergs » 6 reader votes » Tuesday, June 18th, 2013 5:10 pm

Fear the wrath of Isabel in the comments…

[Video][Website]
[4.78]

Alfred Soto: I heard plucked acoustic guitars and feared for my sanity. Once this phase passed, I heard the feeling in the right place, the notes held just so, the ways in which she registers as a human worthy of being ravished by the latest boy band scions. But I prefer being irresistible to their lips, touch and fingertips when five of these young men dance around me with ridiculous hand gestures, not in ballad form. Call it bias.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Bedroom cooings, and perfect harmonies — an almost adult ballad from a band who is at the end of their shelf life for the fickle teenage audience, the harmonics on “Irresistible” are pretty much perfect, and the rising scales in how they sing “your eyes” swoon in just the right way. I’m just not sure if I am interested. 
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: One Direction lend themselves amazingly to karaoke. Not the sort where you sing in front of a bar full of strangers — that’s just opening up yourself to more trouble than it’s worth — but rather for a crowded private room full of friends and smuggled-in drinks. These are scream-a-longs of the highest order. Which is why I’m always cold near their slower material — drained of their youth-octane, One Direction just become saps. “Irresistible” does very little to sway me from this stance overall, though it does do enough to be tolerable. The way they sing “lips” come the chorus is a nice surprise, and when the track finally bursts late, it feels well earned. Still reads like unexciting teenage lit, and it won’t be coming close to any Friday night outings, but it has moments where it shines. 
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Every One Direction song, even the ballads, ultimately builds to a point where the kids race out sychronized and giddy into the audience, as if from a moptop clown car. I’m bored with those by now, but whether it’s because the boys have writing credits or because Savan Kotecha doesn’t, the verses at least approach actual emotional complexity: “don’t make me stay the night or ask if I’m all right — I don’t have the answer,” “I’m falling down, down, down, [and] that’s why I find your lips so kissable….” It makes the cloying fanservice of the chorus seem rather fucked-up in context; the boys are growing up into dudes. For some reason, that’s a compliment this time.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The chorus is powerful, and the bridge even more so: they sound great, and they’re using the arrangement as an enhancement for some grown-up harmonies. It’s all a bit Take That, but regular rhythmic punch does wonders for a ballad.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: How can you sing about heartache while lacking any sign of a pulse? No hyperbole: this must be the limpest song ever released; the talk in Louis Tomlinson’s sleep after he’s had his cup of evidently weak tea. It really puts the “ack” into “region-specific bonus track”, whatever “ack” means, and yet it’s a McFly co-write! Something has gone badly wrong here. It is one of capitalism’s greatest ills that One Direction’s music has ended up this boring.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The first few seconds of guitar on this keep confusing me — I expect the song to turn into Boom Crash Opera’s “Dancing in the Storm.” A One Direction cover of that might get a pretty decent score from me. This, no, it sounds like a dodgy (not Dodgy) fourth-single-ballad from a 90s Britpop artist. You know how the chorus goes halfway into it, which for a big crowd-pleasing pop stomper would be a plus, but for a dreary ballad it’s not. One nice melodic part (the “falling down-down” bit) shouldn’t have to do all the lifting.
[3]

Will Adams: Any douchebag in high school could play this on guitar when he asks his girlfriend to prom, but few could dress it up in such gorgeous choral harmonies and strings. The lead vocals are still a problem, but the good ekes out a victory this time.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: For some reason there are One Direction singles not devoted to five boys battling to be brighter and peppier than the guitar chords accompanying them. Harry and pals sound appropriately sincere — at least until the arrangement fills out — but their harmonies lack the sense of gnawing emptiness required to make contemporary pop-rock balladry work as successfully as exemplars of the form like Plain White T’s’ “Hey There Delilah” or Howie Day’s “Collide.”
[4]

2 blergs » 3 reader votes » Tuesday, June 18th, 2013 11:08 am

It’s “One single too many Tuesday!”

[Video][Website]
[4.36]

Anthony Easton: I was in Toronto the other night, and on the electronic billboards on the TTC there was a note that Edward Sheeran had moved to Nashville, like it was somewhere between a trend and news. But Brits have been invading Nashville for decades, and the pop-country turn in some English folk circles would suggest no better place for him. Sheeran isn’t exactly Frank Turner, who might even have a place in the Hank 3/Isbell circles. The great thing about this is how Nashville this sounds — like they are meeting in the middle, Swift working away from her pop skills to a country bombast in her last track and something resembling a kind of sweet intimacy here. It’s quiet, well-written, kind of hot, and very current. As a piece of genre work, as a breakthrough single for Sheeran, as a love song that works as a kind of palate cleanser, as a showcase that reminds us of Swift’s talent for the telling detail, as a work (as a love song) and as a meta-work (as a text about the current state of Nashville), iit works on every level.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The drum part matches Swift’s insistence, but Ed Sheeran plays the object of desire like a snail does a golden retriever. 
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: There are only two guest appearances on Red, and Ed Sheeran got out-shined by the dude from Snow Patrol. That’s reason enough this is the album’s one flat-out stinker, but Taylor Swift isn’t exactly adding much to this either. Total filler inexplicably made a single — just release “Holy Ground” already so I can gush again.
[2]

Iain Mew: For a song called “Everything Has Changed”, it doesn’t offer much in the way of change throughout. For a duet, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran barely seem to have any contact, him just lurking in the background. Even on his solo lines. And for a single to promote Red, it’s the least exciting possible choice, and Swift is already at least as popular as Sheeran even in the UK, so it’s not like his presence can be that much of a draw
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Maybe you had to be there last year, where every hour brought a new PR missive trying to make Ed Sheeran happen in the States, and you’d hear things like “it’s a shame + is horrible SEO.” (One wonders how Damien Rice would ever get launched today.) But while Taylor Swift’s always been a marketing conduit for drippy, boring singer-songwriters — Boys Like Girls, Snow Patrol, John Mayer — seldom have her duets seemed so obvious as career maneuvers; Taylor sings “I just wanna know you better” and appends, implied, “by downloading ‘The A Team’ on iTunes.” Everything is just that pat. Suppose Taylor wakes up at 7 on the dot, because both persona and frazzled celeb would; that places “eighteen hours ago” around the lunch bell, ideal for teenagers relating and the consciences of anyone who’d quail at the implications of, oh, “seven hours ago.” Producer Butch Walker leaves in the “realness,” the rehearsed studio chatter and guitar scratches. Ed Sheeran gets the good (or at least good-ish) lyrics, Taylor gets the scrapbook lyrics about feeling butterflies and pouring rain and sudden grace. Nobody was trouble when they walk in — in fact, trouble doesn’t even exist in this musical universe; if everything has truly changed, it’s from placid to a lighter shade of placid. It’s valedictorian pop. Which is fine for what it is, but it still baffles me how people hear more in Taylor Swift than that.
[5]

Crystal Xia: This is the only song that I consistently skip on Red. It’s just so boring. Sorry.
[3]

Brad Shoup: A fumbling meet-cute with a chorus that aims for consumption and ends up with obsession. Swift’s discovery of her whispered register is the only bright spot in this sodden tale.
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: Thing is it’s too late Taylor; school was quite a while ago now and you’d already started drifting apart by the end of that and even in the unlikely scenario that he ever did feel or could have felt the same it’d be even more unlikely that, or it, could be said now. Though maybe that’s not you, actually. Anyway, well done on pinpointing a really quite specific sentiment with such great accuracy, and on getting the best out of Ed Sheeran. But the song is still quite boring.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: As it was on Red, it’s functional and intermittently sweet — it contains enough of Taylor’s good points that Sheeran has room to do nothing but be precisely nondescript. Their voices go well blended together, but it being a duet with traded lines in the second verse adds nothing to the proceedings. It’s not special as a composition, and you can hear Swift working overtime to tease out emotional resonance while Sheeran sounds half-asleep. Releasing this as a single is probably a nice gift to a section of her European fanbase who also likes Sheeran, a waste of time if it’s to try to increase his visibility in America, annoying to me because it isn’t “Starlight,” and harmless to everyone else.
[5]

Will Adams: I’ve always thought of Ed Sheeran as kind of a wet blanket, someone whose treacle overpowers any ginger solidarity. “Everything Has Changed” changes nothing; Swift towers over him in the mix to the point where they sound worlds apart (which makes the authenticity-baiting “you good to go?” fail harder). By the song’s end, itself endless, he’s swallowed by the freaking vocoders. Swift, meanwhile, continues to be an imprecise vocalist, mistaking fragility for being pitchy and a good duet for a sing-off.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: The collaborative process is made tangible in the worst way: all of Taylor’s most effective songwriting techniques undermined by Sheeran’s interminable blandness. So we have a characteristically Swiftian mantra in “I just want to know you better,” which she delivers with a delicacy measured enough to suggest determination as well as trepidation, but none of the depth hinted at by the similarly themed “Enchanted” and its “please don’t be in love with someone else” refrain. (Note that “Enchanted” takes place immediately after a bracing romantic encounter while “Everything Has Changed” takes place 18 hours later, which would explain why, as an effective sequel, this is so much more staid, except that, narratively and emotionally, it subtracts without expanding.) Then we have Sheeran himself singing some of the most forgettable lyrics ever contributed to a Swift tune — Tim McGraw sounded like he had a better rapport with Taylor in “Highway Don’t Care” and “Tim McGraw.” And as final confirmation of the proper distribution of fault, there’s the coda: Swift layering melody on melody, story on story, while Sheeran moans away in the background.
[6]

6 blergs » 11 reader votes » Tuesday, June 18th, 2013 7:02 am

Guy on the right: starting to feel a little abused, like a coffee machine in an office…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Alfred Soto: This dubstep, eighties boom boom bap and lupine mating call hybrid kicks up an awful, glorious racket. The apotheosis of K-pop.
[7]

Sonya Nicholson: SM Entertainment have always pushed the envelope with their science fiction concepts and international-language-of-nonsense hooks (Ring Ding Dong, right?) but “That’s right wolf — I’m a wolf! Awhooo!” might be a new high for them, or a new low, depending on your perspective. FUN FACT: This song was released on the same day as the third season premiere of MTV’s Teen Wolf. Clearly EXO, with their werewolf concept, and SHINee, with their zombie concept, and VIXX, with their devil concept, are going for the same audience. And why not? With domestic demand for idol groups in free fall in Korea, the companies have to recoup their investment from somewhere, and the overseas K-pop audience definitely draws from the same well as the casual SFF crowd. And everyone loves a good supernatural love story. Moving beyond the concept — which is more than fine — this song, while audacious, lacks something. I’m going to say that it lacks a sense of fun. It’s both aggressive and declawed, experimental and joyless. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the terrifying methamphetamine weirdness of the original version. If you’re going to challenge your audience, challenge them all the way. The choreography is a 10, however.
[5]

Iain Mew: Even more than previous Exo singles, there’s a suspicion that the over-the-top production and vocal choices are there to hide that there’s barely a song to hold together. That doesn’t make the cascading synth stalactites or wolf impressions any less enjoyable.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: “She Wolf” howls over harsh electro and the Wario Land soundtrack are promising. Brostep, shouting guys, retching guys and screeching guys are not.
[1]

Brad Shoup: Begins aggressively off-putting, then settles for aggressive, which means hair-metal choruses, gonzo harmonies, meter-breaking drum clatter. I don’t know if this is camp, or just ornately weird. Very impressively rendered, in either case.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Korea’s pop industry adapted to brostep so early that, in 2013, wubs feel like a natural sonic element from the big labels. What’s remarkable about “Wolf” is how unremarkable the EDM-ish bits sound. They make up the spine of the song, a good backdrop for Exo to howl against and make everything not drop-like sound incredible. See the way Exo break into sing-song falsetto in the first verse, or how they make the plinky bridge sound all the more dramatic. The wolf thing wears thin — did they really need the growls? — but there are enough great moments to make up for it.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I am on record as in favour of any song that features wolf howls, and I am even more in favour of a song whose symbols are so literal. It’s just on the edge of being camp cheese, which makes me love it even more. 
[7]

7 blergs » 5 reader votes » Monday, June 17th, 2013 3:07 pm

“Hang With Me” by Tom Waits, Richard X producing Jessie J…

[Video][Website]
[3.71]

Katherine St Asaph: Adam Levine Singing At Mach 5, featuring Postulant Etienne.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Adam Levine over sequencers is like Michael Bolton over a Scott Walker track. Points for not covering the Rick Springfield classic, though.
[3]

Scott Mildenhall: Fortunately not a cover of the apocalyptic Robbie Williams ten-week number one that never was, but instead an exercise in proving that a fairly pretty, crystalline/anaemic electro production won’t feel completely right for Adam Levine’s digitised honk; imagine Heather Small covering “With Every Heartbeat”. The lyrics are confused, too — one minute he’s nervous of falling for you and your completely incidental hollow insides (you should see a doctor about that), then he’s thinking about you every day, and yet you’re a hard act for him to follow, even though nothing has happened yet, apart from you being halfway there, from where he’s going to ask you to stay with him tonight, despite wanting you to love him today and not leave him tomorrow. Basically it’s a load of malformed gibberish that’s just about pleasant, based on a similar theme to which Snow Patrol more successfully riffed on a few years ago with a lightness of touch all too sadly lacking here.
[5]

Will Adams: There was promise in the synth arpeggio, but it was soon dashed by the cardboard drums and me filling in the wrong synonym for “I really wanna touch somebody.”
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: The way this song gently builds, and its general litheness, works in a way very little of Maroon 5′s material has. But Adam Levine’s voice is totally out of place. The way he rhymes words in the verses just sounds so awkward.
[5]

Anthony Easton: When can we stop pretending that this is anything more than an Adam Levine joint?The “Moves Like Jagger” assumption of his own sexual skills and talents is much more convincing than this pathos. Not that either are that charming or worthwhile.
[4]

Brad Shoup: So blatantly a functional product, it comes with packing peanuts. You can hear the echoes of pistons and the whir of jigs. There’s the light skitter of EDM in the background, the flattened disco backbeat, the faded howls: this is the softest music in the world.
[2]

1 blerg » no reader votes » Monday, June 17th, 2013 11:01 am

Not one Karmin mention, so congratulations to our memory…

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Scott Mildenhall: Icona Pop Watch: this week’s UK chart features two covers of “I Love It”; one from everybody’s favourite interplanetary Italian Venus Palermo (number 71), and Glee Cast’s (number 90. Poor, persevering Glee Cast.) There’s another in the iTunes top 20 by Remix Junkies, and until the original is actually released there are only going to be more. So if Megan and Liz really wanted to go down the “vaguely resembles that Icona Pop song” route, they should have gone the whole hog and credited this to “You’re From The 70s” and titled it “I Don’t Care I Love It”.
[5]

Iain Mew: The beginning promises to have learned some shouty duo tricks from Icona Pop, but that dries up fast. The charm probably couldn’t have saved a song so dull anyway.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Aino and Caroline? More like Daphne and Celeste, or Aly & AJ, or M2M or — look, this tween-harmony sugar-shout stuff has more than a year’s history, OK? If the incarnation with YouTube cover kids and 2013 Max Martin cobbles is slightly less enthusing, blame the times.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: These one-note Max Martin/Shellback productions require a deceptive level of talent that, thus far, eludes Megan and Liz, even it they do try to make up for it with personality. (The puzzlement in the “your what?” interjection is a cute meta-commentary on self-censorship that grows less cute when it’s recycled a verse later.) But the energetic call-and-response vocal isn’t powerful enough to resist the watery instrumental.
[4]

Will Adams: Take the irreverence of “I Love It,” then sand it down until all those rough synths are gone. The kiss-off sounds as nice as possible, and the song’s as flimsy as Styrofoam. It’ll be radio-friendly, but you’ll find it impossible to give a shhhhhhh.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Firstly, that’s a great chorus. The stepping on “release” gets doubled on synth and sprinkled throughout the song, like an action constantly recalled. The verses are a bit of a step down, with Swift-y goofing off that sits uneasily with the ambiguous declarations of moving on. But dang, what a chorus.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The ooh-oohs are textbook, the quiet bit in the middle is delightful relief, and the coda is just unrelenting then ends on a cliff hanger. This might be perfect summer dumbness. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: The timing of the high notes and the woo-woos suggests the Taylor Swift before she thought collaborating with Max Martin would stretch her craft in ways she couldn’t do herself already. Swift evinced smarts, tunecraft, and a voice; I hear little beyond wannabes’ effort. On the other hand, I’ve disliked every recent Swift single. This proxy will do.
[6]

1 blerg » 1 reader vote » Monday, June 17th, 2013 7:03 am

Don’t worry. We’re almost certainly not going to turn into VH1…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Alfred Soto: Encouraged by a weeklong bask in his old records — the warm ventilator exhaust fumes of Angels With Dirty Faces finally smelled great after fifteen years — I dove into his latest collaboration with a rapping and singing muse. The discreet bits of chinoiserie, the effortlessness electrogroove — he lays them out like a surgeon does his instruments after being coaxed from retirement. But Martina Topley-Bird was superficially superficial. Nneka reads her script with the intensity of an actress told to project intensity.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I was talking to a Jukeboxer the other day, about the new Beyoncé, and how all the crit dropped Fela, and I just didn’t hear him at all in this, and confusion reigned. He said, wisely, that Fela has become a metonym for Africa, or if they were at least a little bit smart, Nigeria. Nigeria is in the middle of a major and exciting musical revival, one that abstracts Afrobeat’s recolonizing African American music for the motherland and making it cross-cultural, in ways Fanon wouldn’t imagine, so we have P-Square making Gbedu for Akon’s label in ways that remind us of Fela’s infamous Detroit gigs in the ’80s, but smoother, smarter, and (perhaps slightly less political) or you have something like this. Nneka, the Nigerian-German singer, who has done really fascinating work on her own, plays with, and refutes Tricky’s tired aesthetic, and also refuses the expectation of what Nigerian music needs to sound like. There is power to how she says “introduce me to your industry,” in its refusal of being a subject. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: Right at the part where the brass knocks twice, I thought I knew what I had: a mirror-universe Rudimental track. The bass, a two-pronged attack here, has a similar surge. But the horns are discarded in favor of melodica on the refrain. Nneka’s squinched vocal approach was giving me flashbacks, but there’s an urgency that is matter-of-fact, not stylized.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: It’s stark and ear-catching, and technically without a fault, but unlike the earthquake the song wants to be, I don’t feel any aftershock.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: At the start of the second verse to “Nothing Matters”, guest vocalist Nneka lets her voice unfurl, occupying the role of a jazzy chanteuse done wrong by stupid men: “In my mind, I have killed you long ago.” Smokey speakeasy piano follows her as she lets the syllables in “ago” hang in the air then waft away. It’s an evocative moment, a good idea in a song that dabbles with plenty ideas — Igbo language raps, ostinato bass, spacious xx-style guitar — but lacks the imagination and guts to follow through on any of them.
[4]

Jer Fairall: At its best when Nneka’s intense, thoughtful rap bobs along with the brooding, sumptuous twitch of the music, itself shaded with an ominous piano and anxious horn blasts. The chorus seems designed to reference Madonna’s very similar “Nothing Really Matters” for no apparent purpose though, and the result is a track that hangs off of a generic lyrical sentiment rather than becoming the truly stimulating thing that it is oh so close to being.
[6]

no blergs » 1 reader vote » Friday, June 14th, 2013 3:07 pm