Rapper ternt actor ternt rapper again…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.00]

Matt Cibula: Mos Def has been amping it up lately on the Internet PR front, talking about how he’ll beat anyone in a battle and such. But all the YouTube beeves in the world can’t cover up the fact that as a rapper he is more of a slam poet, and as a slam poet he’s more of a rapper, and he’s probably better as an actor than either one. This is less of a song than it is a series of rootsier-than-thou signifiers, not my fave equation for ass-kickery.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Magnetic kinetic athletic aesthetic opening has some vim and vigor to it. Jazz-horn parts are somewhat digable. Whole thing is probably really nutritious. I lose interest about a minute in.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: Forty seconds in and this isn’t any more interesting than anything he’s released post-Black on Both Sides. The static breakbeat funk groove feels more like a symbol than a living, breathing thing, fuzzed out enough to signal as gritty, but not so much as to run the risk of disturbing the paintings on the walls or interrupting conversation. Mos Def runs through the same old list of favorite words, hoping he’ll find something more exciting than “athletic” to slide between “magnetic” and “kinetic” if he looks hard enough. This is wack. And then this ridiculous jazz-fusion run smashes the monotony with a wrecking ball. From then on, the track expands and unfolds like a complex piece of origami being taken apart, eventually turning into a sort of cosmic afro-beat. Mos, while never able to subsume his Rawkus-school roots, finds it in himself to at least step beyond the cliched pairings of his opening rap. When the song finally finds that opening groove again, Mos can’t help dissolving it into a solute of organ puffs and careful piano chords. This is how you do corny rap-fusion. Q-Tip can sit the fuck down.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Like Q-Tip’s “Gettin’ Up,” this is a track designed to remind us of the artist’s mastery, even if we never doubted it in the first place. (“Magnetically flows the aesthetic,” he tell us. Of course!). Flow intact, intelligence upfront, Mos Def is still a comer. The track is a bit redundant, though, even colorless, which “Gettin’ Up” wasn’t; it sounds like an album track optimistically released as a single.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I don’t know enough about hip hop, but it definitely has a swaggering 70s funk undertone, and his flow is sticky, with sharp edges and an autonomy for the self, that alludes to Sun Ra or late Trane.
[9]

Martin Kavka: This would be easy to dismiss as Mos Def’s climbing aboard the nu-jazz bandwagon only a decade too late. And he’s trying too hard to be creatively self-aggrandizing here; once the song ends, I’m more impressed by his intelligence than I am by his skills. But I’m a sucker for anything that would sample Edú Lobo’s “Casa Forte,” even Banda Black Rio’s spacey funk/fusion version from 1977.
[7]

Frank Kogan: There’s one point where I hear “A black knife fight in the darkness, gorgeous”, but I’m sure that’s wrong. This is as heavy-limbed as a track based on jazz ‘n’ funk samples can get, his voice doggedly trying to roll with the beats.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: I like the old fashioned funky backing on this – yes, rather jazz-funky, but not so much that it stops being lively and entertaining, though it does have an everyone-will-fade-this-early ending. The trouble is, Mos Def sounds like a laid-back slow rapper trying to hurry it all up. He’s never going to work on a club record, I don’t think: when he advises us not to stop rocking, he seems more likely to be talking about a rocking chair than rocking out.
[7]

Renato Pagnani: At least he sounds like he gives half a shit on this one, although he continues to lapse into his recent habit of simply rattling off adjectives describing his dopeness, a standard fallback for rappers who have forgotten how to rap. Otherwise it’s syllable stockpiling, feel-good metaphysics and lukewarm braggadocio. And to be fair to the guy, the samba jam session he raps over has a lot of abrupt direction changes and detours to deal with, and Mos is probably one of the few rappers who could ride this beat without being bucked off within seconds. But it’s telling that my favourite part is when the Final Fantasy pianos emerge from the din and dance like sunbeams on the ocean as the track fades out.
[5]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [5]
Michaelangelo Matos: [7]
Doug Robertson: [6]

Return of the pastel poobah…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.55]

Doug Robertson: The last time I heard someone do the lyric “Milk/Milk/Lemonade/Round the corner fudge is made”, it was The Krankies, and even though it was being said by a sixty year old woman dressed as a schoolboy, it still seemed less wrong than it does in this context. I need a shower, and not the kind that’s being alluded to here.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Maybe the first song in history to work in the immortal grade-school grossout chant, and notable for that alone. Less notable for the Soulja Boy “youuuu” stuff, and way less notable for “I’ll have you squirtin’ for certain” — I’m already boycotting by principle every song where a circle-jerking rap or r&b nincompoop promises to “make it rain” (started with “skeet,” right?); hard to imagine anything more clinical and unsexy to brag about. Still, “Cookies-N-Apple Juice” feels spirited, if rather blurry. And the (apparently just leaked) “Silky (No Homo)” track it segues into in the video is real fun — a way-bouncy rip of Steppenwolf (“Sookie Sookie”) via Fern Kinney (“Groove Me”) that comes across like a funked-up toga party. I’d give that song an 8; this one just gets a…
[6]

Martin Kavka: What am I supposed to make of “I’ll have you squirtin’ for certain / yeah, bring a diaper”? Am I supposed to be impressed by the rhyme structure? And also by the sexual prowess to which this refers? Am I supposed to laugh? Am I supposed to have my horizons for possible fetishes broadened? I have no idea. Still, the diaper move seems a bit rude. Hasn’t Cam’ron heard Kiss’s “Lick It Up”?
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Oooh — a chorus that’s a Soulja Boy dis. Maybe I shouldn’t find this even interesting, but it’s so funny I don’t care.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: You wouldn’t know it from this song, but Crime Pays is actually a satisfyingly coherent return to form. “Cookies-N-Apple Juice” is another story: Cam sounds more animated than he has for quite some years, but there is absolutely no way I can endorse a song with a hook like “Milk, milk, lemonade/Round the corner, fudge made.” Skip this and head straight to the Rust Belt murk of “Get It in Ohio” if you want to feel like Killa is back.
[3]

Jordan Sargent: As a kowtow to Southern rap this is way less embarrassing than things that Fat Joe has attempted to pull off, but ultimately it’s beyond unnecessary.
[5]

Hillary Brown: I wouldn’t say Cam’ron’s effort in the field raises the last successful minimalist rap single to the level of literature, but if “Cookies-N-Apple Juice” is the scrawlings of a Benjy-type illiterate, GS Boyz are up around the Tim LaHaye plateau.
[1]

Rodney J. Greene: Disappointingly not about giving blood. Cam tries the old ploy of counterbalancing his misogyny with a female rapper talking nasty right back at him, but it doesn’t work because her filth isn’t nearly as imaginative as his.
[6]

Erick Bieritz: Congratulations Rowdy Roddy Piper, you are now a verb. In the burgeoning genre of apple juice rap, the hook here compares unfavorably to Keri Hilson’s “Henny & Apple Juice.” Extract the 50 first seconds of Cam weirdness and trash the rest.
[5]

Additional Scores

Matt Cibula: [3]
Martin Skidmore: [6]

Yes, that’s Akon and T-Pain on the same song. Not in the same photo, though. That would just be silly…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.22]

Jordan Sargent: Ace Hood doesn’t necessarily deserve a career, but his perpetual flopping makes it harder to reconcile the careers of people like Plies and Shawty Lo. Last summer his debut single “Cash Flow” should’ve been a hit, so it’s pretty sad to hear him come back with something as limp and dire as “Overtime”, a song so phoned in by Akon and The Runners that it makes it seem like the inspirational-rapping Ace isn’t in on a joke. As for its commercial prospects — well, it would’ve gotten left off of the “Space Jam” soundtrack.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: Usually, Khaled Khrew releases earn their misplaced magnificence by featuring at least one or two dudes who are genuinely talented rappers. Being that Ace Hood can’t make up in enthusiasm what he lacks in charm and wit, he can’t sell the grandeur, either.
[4]

Al Shipley: Akon’s high lonesome croon on early hits like “Locked Up” and “Soul Survivor” sounded genuinely sad and refreshingly unique in the context of urban radio. But as his hit parade has trudged onward and his limited range has worn thin, his voice has become kind of unpleasantly pinched and froggy, to the point that I wince at the very sound of it.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: I guess this is supposed to be motivational-speaking pep-rally rap, like “Lose Yourself”, though I don’t know if I’d have ever figured out that highly inspirational theme if not for the video. On the radio, no way would I have even made it through the thing. Three or four brands of bombast thrown at you all at once for no good reason, as overloaded as it is oppressive.
[3]

Hillary Brown: You could cut out the verse entirely, and this would still get a 6 for the utterly repetitive but thoroughly melodic chorus that consists largely of the name of the song over and over. It’s the kind of summer song that handicaps itself through its inspirational content. Maybe it’s better if you’re training for something rather than lazing around?
[6]

Martin Kavka: This is one of those testament-to-effort songs that high-school principals will quote for years to come. Its doomed reception, however, doesn’t mean it’s crap. It even has quite a good T-Pain cameo, one in which emotion seeps through the AutoTune.
[5]

Alfred Soto: ‘Pac, Biggie, Jordan, Louis V tags – all the rote shout-outs galumph along to the metronome of T-Pain’s musty Auto-Tune gadgetry. I have no idea what this is about even after listening to it three times.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: I really like The Runners as producers, but why no slowed down repeats of the hook here? Still, they mix and layer the autotuned vocals very skillfully. I like Ace Hood’s tough tones too, fitting the expressed determination. His lyrics are pretty ordinary, though he sustains the metaphor pretty well here.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: “I’m going blind because I put in overtime”? Emphasis mine, of course–they bury the line because they know how fucking atrocious it is even in this sorry company, but you know, any way to make that cash money is a good one. Now for a long, hot shower.
[2]

Was gonna do the “not the snooker player” joke, but that’s a bit worn out now, plus no non-British people would get it. And, well, most of the British people would struggle, too…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Martin Skidmore: A slow and moody R&B number by someone who obviously wants to be an old-fashioned soul singer, an ambition I thoroughly endorse, but while his singing is affecting at times, it also sounds too weak on the high notes. The sparse backing is extremely well played, and I like the loud clicks, which give this smooth jam a bit of much-needed sinew.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: No personality (at least not here, though Hamilton has never grabbed me much before either), nothing especially interesting in the songwriting, not much in the way of hooks. Gets less palatable as it gets stormier. I hear a few current Southern soul singles on community radio in Austin almost every week that pull in me way more than this track does, and usually I have no idea who even sings them. (The disc jockeys tend not to back-announce, which drives me crazy.)
[5]

Alex Macpherson: One of the gentler, less demanding cuts from an album which is frequently mind-blowing. Nothing wrong with a comfort blanket as classy as this, though; the rhythm sways and lilts seductively, Hamilton’s piano wanders like fingers down your back and the ease with which his rich, creamy voice carries this standard romancing song should put several others to shame.
[8]

Al Shipley: Hamilton will probably never make another single as achingly lovely and endlessly listenable as “Charlene,” but this is probably the best attempt he’s made since then, putting a brighter melody and more uplifting sentiment to a similar tempo.
[6]

Matt Cibula: Love this so much, but had to take a point off because it’s only about the seventh best track off the album which I love more than candy or Rachel Weisz. Not just a singer, AH, but also a subtly brilliant wordsmith… except here where he just says “I love you” over and over. But he does it so beautifully!
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: I understand loving his timbre. I understand loving his basic sound. But his material is completely uncompelling, and isn’t the whole idea with guys this old-fashioned that the material is what matters?
[5]

Martin Kavka: If a man were to have this on the stereo during foreplay with me, there would be a serious risk that I’d fall asleep under him. It does get a bit better in the third minute, though, as more and more vocal lines get tracked together.
[4]

Alfred Soto: A marvel of engineering, both vocal and instrumental. Hamilton duets with finger snaps and a reverberant electric piano line. He’s not communicating much beyond an ability to summon a Bill Withers air of sexy devotion, but for once this is a set of old-school signifiers sexy and devoted enough for me to bask in.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Is anyone else faintly distracted by the abrasive clapping sound that sounds a bit like hitting a chain link fence? It’s a nice touch, the only element of warm, throwback production that feels less than comforting, but given Hamilton’s warm, throwback vocals and the predictable “I wuv you, girl” sentiments of the track it’s a bit out of place.
[6]

Doug Robertson: He thinks he’s being sexy. Bless.
[3]

Hillary Brown: The thing about Anthony Hamilton is that, despite his pretty voice, he comes off kind of neutered. This song lacks cojones.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: Patiently paced, with Hamilton melting like cream all over the top of it; will be danced to by brides and grooms.
[7]

Eight years away, and he’s back with a three-part concept album…

[Video][Website]
[7.00]

Matt Cibula: I am pretty sure it is illegal to have sex with birds but I am forgiving it in this case because of the elegance of Maxwell and the backing voxes and the horns and the effortless swing and the summery sexiness of it all. Welcome back, dude, you were missed.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The icky title augured terrible things, but listening to this reminded me how much I missed these humble demonstrations of virtuosity on the R&B charts. It also reminded me how much I’ve missed Maxwell. Interpret the title metaphor as an explanation for how he soars using soul horns, a falsetto, and a little gravel, even when at the three-minute mark I opened my eyes and saw him smiling down on top of me.
[7]

Martin Kavka: God, I’d forgotten how good Maxwell is. Four minutes, and I’m in a puddle of tears. How could a relationship of such love — and it must have been love, because otherwise Maxwell could not have wrung so much emotion out of a single breath — have ended so poorly? I’d write more, but I have to listen to this twenty more times now.
[10]

Chuck Eddy: So, as I often tend to wonder with Maxwell-type pretenders, who exactly are the classic soul singers he’s supposedly channeling who sounded this snoozeful way back when? I mean, he’s more emotive than Lenny Kravitz, sure, but not that much. This thing just wafts on and on aimlessly, more like one of those gooshy mid-career Prince ballads I never understood why anybody cared about than like any essential old soul 45 on my shelf. The music-boxy chime sounds are purty, though. And it’s kind of amusing how the horns that enter around the three-minute mark keep accidentally quoting “Smoke From A Distant Fire” by the Sanford/Townsend Band. Which was funkier.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: The opening chimes of Pretty Wings remind me of Signs by Bloc Party. Even as they morph into first synths, and then the warm tones of a guitar and horns, the eerie dissonance lends the song a bittersweet mood. Like Bloc Party, Maxwell’s greatest strength here is not his (impressive!) voice or writing, but atmosphere. In a song simultaneously spacious and layered, Maxwell remains the centre of attention, while shifting sonics float around him, fleetingly drawing focus and adding texture. R&B slow jams, no matter how accomplished, always risk sounding same-y and undistinguished to those unaccustomed to the genre; Pretty Wings soars.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: From the guy whose are-you-OK-dude? status updates inspired the funniest presentation I saw at this year’s EMP Pop Conference, when Jason King of NYU’s music school (among many hats) turned Maxwell’s weird commitment issues with his muse and their public display into a portrait of an artist you really hate not being able to quite give up on. King spoke for thousands in wondering aloud why this guy wouldn’t just write and record some fucking music already. So he has. Holy shit. I always liked him fine without going much further into it, and now I wonder what the fuck my problem was. The way this builds is a master class: I like how the opening toy loop evokes twee post-rave without drawing too much attention to itself, and the horns’ entrance at 2:18 is amazingly subtle and graceful. But it was all over for me near the end, after the breakdown and re-up, when he hits the Prince voice. Not the falsetto or tenor or swoops or timbre, all of which are Maxwell’s own. It’s the hard growl, a dead ringer for Prince when he gets bluesy and gravelly, one of my favorite of his voices, and as Maxwell does it he then just starts doing Prince–all of him, as if the form of “Slow Love” somehow contained “Adore.”
[10]

Ian Mathers: I don’t like Maxwell, but the distant windchimes/Chrono Trigger feel of the production here is great enough I was willing to ignore him – until he shuts down all the interesting parts of the production, sets the smarm to 10 and goes from “pretty wings” to “pre-tay wangs.” I’d really adore an instrumental version of the first half of this, though.
[3]

Hillary Brown: Smooth like a carob ice pop.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Old soul is my favourite music ever, so I am all for people trying to do that now, but it does seem that smooth ’80s styles are more popular. Maxwell has quite a sweet, high voice, and he writes serious romantic songs, but he never seems to quite grab me.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Maxwell has a gorgeous voice, and he allows it to do things other R&B singers refuse. This is a historically minded slow jam, smooth and well constructed, with just enough formal innovation that we can move away from the cliched lyrics and underwhelming instrumentation.
[6]

Rodney J. Greene: Even with its gamelan adornments and electronic textures that are interesting without calling great attentions to themselves, the instrumental template could almost border on schmaltzy, especially once the horn section adds just the right amount of moonbeams to the mix. This is Maxwell’s show, however, and he’s just too damn mature to allow this to dive off some melodramatic cliff. Crooning in a falsetto both wizened and wondrous, the vision of love Maxwell conjures is so simultaneously grounded in the realities of a relationship and fantastically romantic that it took me at least twenty plays to figure out that this is an “Another Star”-style, you-move-on-because-I-can’t breakup song, Stevie’s obstinate wounded pride replaced by a harder-earned yet more ultimately rewarding understanding.
[9]

Al Shipley:The first time I heard this, flipping around the radio dial as I headed home late the other night, it sounded so perfect, from the twinkling bells to the bassline hum, that I just sat there in the parking lot letting the car run until the song ended. If only every artist that took 8 years to make an album came back with something that actually sounded this beautifully detailed, like they spent all that time fussing over every little texture and moment and it came out crystal clear and fully realized.
[8]

Because hell, we liked them so much last time…

[Video][Website]
[6.60]

Matt Cibula: My high school self would have been perfectly happy to learn that this was the future of music: new wave but kind of insane, robotic but still poppy, buzzes of unknown origin, black-tressed ladies ranting madly, etc. His favorite drink was Mountain Dew, and now they have it again but it’s called Mountain Dew Throwback, and this song has something to do with that but I’m not sure what.
[8]

Doug Robertson: More fun than a barrel of Monkees.
[9]

Alex Macpherson: Placebo, if Brian Molko had actually been a girl.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: AMAZING! Sounds just like their last single with all the things I didn’t like removed, and made just a bit longer. And the lyrics are fantastic – “hooks are wimps and choruses for gays”, and boy do they know a big hook and a catchy chorus when they write one. Essentially, an endlessly quotable stream of chugging snarky bliss – perhaps less dynamically striking than “Tie Me Up With Jackets” but none the worse for that.
[9]

Martin Kavka: This isn’t quite as good as “Tie Me Up With Jackets,” but it has that same combination of vague lyrics and an energy that defeats all those who try to stop it. Bonus point for the equation of “real” with “something music kids might steal,” although I can’t decide whether linking value and unpaid labor through thievability is either the most brilliant or most stupid take on Marx’s account of surplus value.
[8]

Iain Mew: Shows off all the big shiny synth hooks, unpredictable vocal yelps and thrilling noise that make Fight Like Apes’ album such an exciting listen. Also features all the worst excesses of their lyrics in one irritating package – ironic offensiveness (“choruses for gays”), obstructive meta that tries to make you think about what they’re doing rather than just enjoying it, and lines that just clearly needed another redraft (“a look for all the boys to drool”?). Worst possible single choice.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Tuneful speedy nerd-rock with no audible rhythm section unless the stiff keyb doot-doots at the start counts. Plus lots and lots of words, some of which might even be worth paying attention to sometime. Not that there’s much in the singer’s delivery to assist that. But she sounds sassy anyway, and it’s sort of cute when she yelps. And yeah, I expect some boys do drool at her.
[6]

Dave Moore: Not as nostalgic as “Tie Me Up with Jackets,” just generic power-chord chug, and the lyrics are still awful — it’s like she just writes individual lines on index cards, shuffles them, and then sings what comes out. Also, if you’re going to condescend to sing “give me my hook” like you resent needing to write one at all, you should probably at least take the time to write a good one.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Fight Like Apes burst with an adolescent sentiment too often underconsidered by pop music; their conception of teenagehood is one of impassioned exuberance rather than overwrought angst. I’m never one to argue against angst — why ask pop musicians to abandon an emotion they’re so practiced at portraying? — but it’s nice for a band to realize that high school isn’t all tantrums and heartbreak. “Give me my hook!” is an excellent manifesto anyway, but when it’s shouted over buoyant power chords and buzzy keyboard riffs, it manages to collapse the thrilling vitality of living only in the present down to four gleeful minutes.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: It’s funny: I’m as big a proponent of pick-your-favorite-track as anyone, but when something is announced as a single, that’s what I want to hear, and the minute-or-so feedback overture to this 3:51 recording made me a little mad, even after a couple iterations of “Give me my hook!” alerted me that the intro was one of that line’s many payoffs. But when the payoff is as not-overwhelming as this one (in that iteration, for starters), I reserve the right to stay annoyed.
[5]

Ian Mathers: “Give me my hook” is a tremendously evocative phrase to use for a refrain, both for intent as a statement of intent (they don’t want to be indie they want to be, well, “something global”) and for the (unintended?) image it puts in my mind of the singer attacking someone with a big fuck-off hook. But maybe that’s just because Fight Likes Apes’ hardcore dude starts yelling it with her. But I don’t mind him, because unlike at least half of their album, here the band has found their hook and it’s glorious. Ambition is always more inspiring than capitulation.
[8]

Hillary Brown: What is it this band has? Subliminal messages hidden in the chaos? So far I start out not liking everything, then five or ten listens on it’s thoroughly wrapped up in my head and I’m humming it in the shower. This isn’t quite “Tie Me Up With Jackets,” but it’s comparable.
[6]

Additional Scores

Anthony Easton: [5]
Alex Ostroff: [8]
Martin Skidmore: [8]

If you thought the “We didn’t have no innuh-net” bit of “All Summer Long” was the worst technology reference in pop – think again…

[Video][Website]
[4.23]

John M. Cunningham: The effect of the computer on modern romance has been sung about at least since Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love,” which “Download” (possibly inadvertently) references. But this must be one of the first mainstream pop songs to take on the realities of hooking up in the digital age, rather than just alluding to the Internet in passing or using it as a larger metaphor. Maybe Kim had some first-hand experience while under house arrest? That’s not to say it’s a particularly good song, and in fact, some of the lyrics are still pretty silly — the constant crooning of “com-puuuu-ter” in the background, e.g., or the anachronistic mention of floppy disks in the service of some forced innuendo. But I dare say the sexting generation has found its anthem.
[4]

Alfred Soto: “He wanna explore me like the Internet” almost made me laugh out loud, and I actually did at the bassline and this most ideal context for T-Pain’s theoretical man-machinery. But any track advertising the vocal and sexual chops of Charlie Wilson damn well deserves more than a couple of his patented exclamations. Kim does no better; she sounds like a smuttier Mary J. Blige. It’s sexier than 50 Cent’s “Ayo Technology,” but no pox on Prince’s “My “Computer.”
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I guess autotuning is apt for a song about the internet, but I’d rather have heard Charlie (Gap Band) Wilson straight. T-Pain is looking at sexy pics of her over the internet. Kim tries to sing in parts, which is hopelessly weak, T-Pain does his usual job, and it’s all very predictable.
[5]

Al Shipley: Lil Kim demonstrated that she may be the most ill-suited rapper to ever tackle AutoTune with the pixellated barf she left all over remixes of “Sensual Seduction” and “Pop Champagne” last year, but she’s less offensive than boring and forgettable here.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Perfectly functional, but despite the fact that it’s a) about cybersex, and b) a Lil Kim song, it’s not even remotely raunchy. It’s possibly the least sexual thing I’ve ever heard.
[3]

Alex Macpherson: Oh no, Kim, oh no. Really, few people should be as suited to getting something original, or at least cheerfully and enjoyably smutty, out of the done-to-death cybersex theme than the woman who can pretty much claim to have kickstarted the whorification of pop culture, but this is just lazy. MySpace? Girl, it’s not 2004 any more. “He a thug, so I hit him on his Gmail” is probably the best line here, which tells the whole sad tale in itself.
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: With its T-Pain hook, it would be tempting to chide Lil’ Kim for trend-jumping. But remember “Lighters Up,” her great reggae hit from 2005 that unashamedly rode the coattails of Damien Marley’s “Welcome to Jamrock”? Kim can trend-jump far more enjoyably than she does here.
[3]

Michaelangelo Matos: T-Pain’s insidious, isn’t he? The title of this is like Smokey Robinson’s “Cruising”: gay code disguised as squeaky-clean bubblegum, or vice versa, or something. Anyway, the closeness of the title to “down-low” ought to be a hoot at select nightspots. Meanwhile Uncle Charlie’s still using the phrase “cybersurfing” half a decade after everyone else stopped, haw (and awww).
[6]

Ian Mathers: Charlie Wilson might as well not be here, and really the same goes for Lil’ Kim; this is a T-Pain song with her popping in occasionally, which is something T-Pain is usually able to avoid when he guests. I guess in this case he couldn’t because she’s so colourless and uninteresting, not to mention the way they all throw around “floppy disc” and “hard drive” as if they’re your parents trying to talk to you about the internet in 1999.
[2]

Doug Robertson: Who remembers Britney’s “E-Mail My Heart”? Exactly.
[2]

Additional Scores

Anthony Easton: [5]
Chuck Eddy: [6]
Martin Kavka: [4]

“Love, etc.” is still in our top 10, then…

[Video][Website]
[5.58]

Edward Okulicz: Ah, now this is much more like it. No messing around, straight into a killer chorus and nearly no let up from there. Sure, the lyrics are a bit naff, but in stark contrast to the limp but tricky “Love, etc.” this is a gorgeous cocktail disco stomp to rival some of Very‘s giddiest pinnacles. If your idea of a good song is one that would sound good just on an acoustic, this might simultaneously be their best since “Miracles” and their most joyous since “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing”.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: I’m a big fan of their first three albums — wrote about them all the time back then, even did a hilarious interview with Neil once while Chris just sat there — but they haven’t made me care about a solitary thing they’ve done since Behavior 19 (!) years ago…well, maybe that one Eminem song was cute. And no doubt I’ve missed a few things. But this track definitely supports my suspicion that they’ve been spinning the same tepid singer-songwriterly wheels ever since. It’s pretty, I guess. So what?
[6]

Alex Macpherson: Sadly, I did indeed see this clumsy cliché of a song coming, as well as the accompanying tossed-off synth limpness masquerading as a “beat” — as should anyone else who’s endured the last 15 years of the Pet Shop Boys’ descent into Being Boring.
[2]

Ian Mathers: Truly horrific titular double entendre aside (Neil, Neil, you’re wittier than this!) and with the caveat that the protagonist is clearly so smitten that he’s reduced to a series of “I wuv you” clichés, this is still a nicely smooth example of why the PSB circa 2009 are more than just elder statesmen, even if it’s occasionally only slightly more.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The Boys have become such master songwriters that few “real” bands can cobble together a sun-kissed guitar groove as buoyant as this, by far the catchiest song on the lackluster Yes. It’s a nice companion to “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing” — unfortunately, that was from 1993. Although the evolution of Neil Tennant into a well-adjusted man who’s not above ordering one drink too many and flashing some pink speaks well to the continued aesthetic health of fiftysomething pop stars, this feels rote, even unnecessary. Impossible to dislike, difficult to remember an hour later.
[7]

Andrew Brennan: I liked the Xenomania kick 8 seconds in, but that’s about it — the song rapidly becomes a languid, plodding, in-the-style-of-Copacabana mess.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: This is the kind of record I’d have given an indulgent 7 only a year ago, but I’ve gotten a lot less indulgent in the past half-year. In a lot of ways I’m still glad they’re around, and I won’t be that surprised if I find myself enjoying Yes more than I’d expected to after a few years, but right now this seems pretty damn same-old. Especially when you keep in mind that they’ve been doing sincere for many more calendar years than they spent doing ironic.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: The streamlined exuberance is agreeable, but, on a song so thin in inspiration, that seems to be a crutch more than a triumph of aesthetics. The lyrics are banal rather than deeply affecting, and by the time the vacant middle eight hits (“I’m not superstitious/or really religious/Just to thyself be true”) they have lost all ability to be involving. Besides, the bassline’s nagging similarity to Madonna’s “Sorry” reminds all too well that Jacques Lu Cont has done this sort of thing far better for a long time now.
[3]

Iain Mew: Talking about being pop as something worth aspiring to rather than reluctantly falling into is positive and all, and Pet Shop Boys have been particularly good at it this campaign. Acknowledging the high value of good pop is also to acknowledge that not just anyone can do it, though. PSBs were clearly once that not just anyone, but their best moments of recent years have all been at least one step removed and as such it’s no surprise that, in pushing for their pure pop ideal, “Did You See Me Coming?” feels needlesly hamstrung by its directness rather than strengthened by it. Kind of sweet, though.
[5]

Doug Robertson: Enjoyably slight, but still a step backwards from their last single. If “Love, etc.” — which did at least demonstrate a vision beyond their own back catalogue — struggled to convince the world that they’re still relevant today, “Did You See Me Coming?” will have the duo riding a tour bus round the nostalgia circuit before they know what’s happening to them. They deserve better.
[6]

Additional Scores

Martin Kavka: [6]
Martin Skidmore: [7]

The venerable institution keeps plugging along…

[Video][Website]
[6.90]

Dave Moore: In which Reba suggests what Miranda Lambert might sound like if she’d turned to Ben & Jerry’s instead of Gunpowder & Lead. I guess the point is that either way you get over it, but I imagine one of them is more satisfying.
[6]

Doug Robertson: Does Reba McEntire try to sound like every female country singer ever, or is every female country singer ever trying to sound like Reba McEntire? It does seem like Reba’s more than happy to try and sound ever more Reba-ish, enthusiastically giving the audience what they want without ever allowing the 21st century to even begin casting its influence over her work.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Reba’s the female version of Randy Travis or George Strait in that she peaked artistically as a “neotraditionalist” nigh on a quarter-century ago (“Whoever’s In New England,” 1986, to be exact) and she’s mostly rested on her laurels since. But listening to “Strange” now, I really do like its undulating Middle-Easternish psych chords (reminds me of the Yardbirds, or even more so “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”), and Reba rides the shakey stomp capably, OD-ing on chocolate after getting dumped and buying a sexy new dress to change her man’s mind like Lorrie Morgan in “Something In Red.” Her drawl is only slightly less polite than its by-the-book norm, and any number of current country women could have put over the lyrics more forcefully. But the music behind the diva has an undeniable churn, and it nearly carries the day.
[7]

Matt Cibula: I think I’m supposed to be upset by all the banging and clashing and thrashing going on in the background, or all the densely-packed wordifyin’ of the verses, but I’m choosing to instead just be thrilled by the toughness of Reba’s vocals and the song’s scenario.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Reba would like Carrie, Gretchen and Miranda to know that she’s been singing this passive-aggressive shit for twenty years, thank you very much. Something’s off, though: she tugs at the chorus too harshly for my taste; the arrangements are too loud, too busy. She wants you to notice the creative-writing details in the lyrics even when they’re decorating a dress we’ve seen too many times (the chocolates and the Kleenex are nice touches).
[5]

Martin Skidmore: I like the lyrics: she is telling us it’s strange she isn’t as heartbroken as she is supposed to be, and they are written with excellent scansion and wit, and she delivers them with confidence. I’d rather have heard Carrie Underwood do this, but this is fine.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Reba’s ability to know where country is going and historicise it should never be underestimated. This takes all of those young girls who keep trying rock and roll and puts them in their places — just as in her previous single, this needs to be sung by a woman, and an angry woman, to have the exact level of self control and desire for oblivion to work as a feedback loop of self-loathing and the Pyhrric potential of love gone wrong. Plus how she extends the vowels of the title into the upper register, how they sound strained but refuse the usual melodrama; the self-control of the whole thing has to be sung by a woman who knows what happens when that control is lost.
[10]

Martin Kavka: A woman finds herself oddly refreshed after being dumped. A listener finds himself oddly energized after three minutes, even though he knows that that energy is completely manufactured and therefore a lie. Who knows why these things happen? But they do.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: One of my favorite singles of 2008 — from an ’07 album — was Reba and Kenny Chesney’s “Every Other Weekend,” which loads of people who listen to country far more than I do assure me isn’t really that good. I dunno — it’s rare that a tearjerker actually works on me, and that one did. It’s kind of a relief to feel indifferent to this charger: nope, she can’t kill me with just any old lyric. Still, I think I need to dive into her catalog for real.
[6]

Ian Mathers:Note the rather mind-boggling fact that McEntire has been making albums since 1977. Rock acts that old that sound this vital and, frankly, fun, are few and far between (possibly because of the lack of bias in country against singing other’s songs, as it’s arguably easier to retain a good ear for songs over the course of decades than it is to retain songwriting ability), and it’s entirely due to the force and colour of her performance that I can get over the fact that I don’t think I actually like her voice. But in action, with those fiddles, singing a song about how she’s utterly unheartbroken by breaking up, it’s a sublimely perfect marriage of instrument and message. Songs of resilience are always better than songs of codependence.
[8]

And so we are now officially part of 2009…

[Video][Website]
[3.53]

Al Shipley: There’s always been some little fear in the back of my mind that GaGa might actually make a song I’d love in spite of myself at some point. It happened with Fergie, after all — several times, actually. I braced myself as I pressed play on this one, but the first couple seconds eased my mind: nope, still shit.
[1]

Anthony Easton: You are not avant garde. Wear some pants.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: She’s managed to fuse all the worst aspects of flawed but (sometimes) worthy pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Nicole Scherzinger, Fergie, Lil’ Kim to create a kind of Frankenstein’s monster of terribleness on this single, which has a dated beat and no hooks whatsoever. To say nothing of the horrible lyrics which aren’t flirty and sexy, but instead create the impression that while her voice causes cringing at its pure sexlessness, her crotch could probably transmit STIs at a range of 20 feet.
[1]

Martin Kavka: All right, I give. I finally find her interesting. Perhaps it’s because she says that she needs love at the same time that she only wants it for three seconds? Perhaps it’s because the electro production doesn’t strangle the life out of this song? Perhaps it’s because I know her character so well now (Alienated Performance Artist) that I can analyze the semiotics of her outfits in the video, as opposed to concluding that they’re simply shocking for the sake of shocking?
[7]

Dave Moore: I wish I didn’t like Lady GaGa less the more I got to know her (once upon a time I wouldn’t pause to enter that second uppercase “G” — even that seems overly pretentious), but at this point I know her far too well and like her…none. Given she’s someone who would love for her every gesture to count as performance art, being able to forget the music is kind of a relief.
[5]

Rodney J. Greene: Seems to be predicated entirely on the premise that homosexual men are idiots who will gladly eat up any pandering bullshit that mentions disco and dick in close proximity.
[1]

Martin Skidmore: Thanks, Wikipedia: “Gaga has explained that the word ‘discostick’ is a metaphor for the penis”. It’s good to have such subtleties illuminated for us.
[3]

Alex Macpherson: Lady Gaga has been so intently aggressive in forcing her obnoxious persona on to the world that it’s easy to forget that her actual recorded output is aggravating for entirely different reasons, viz., it is so incredibly dull. “LoveGame” is more of the same utterly unexceptional electropop, performed once again so flatly that you begin to suspect that Lady Gaga might not be all that interested in the whole “music” side of her “art project”. Shocking, I know. Oh, and when she puts on that stupid voice for that stupid “disco stick” line, it is definitely the most appalling pop moment since “PUH-PUH-PUH-PUHKER FACE”.
[2]

Jordan Sargent: GaGa’s talents as a hit writer are undeniable, but as a songwriter she’s never able to get out of her own way. On “Just Dance” she kills the song’s momentum with a needily complex bridge, on “Poker Face” she drowns the song with a plodding refrain and on “LoveGame” she uses the phrase “disco stick” in an attempt at subversion but instead she just renders the song laughable. Like her persona, the end result is just way too much, and all we can hope for is that by the time she starts writing her second album she’ll have realized that we “get” her.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: After my initial kneejerk scoffing at her silly post-electroclash Teutonic drag-queen transgression schtick, her album is now a front-runner for my favorite of the year. And partly because it took me until this spring to get into “Just Dance” (which at first hit me as too generic pop-r&b, which is partly how “LoveGame” hits me now) Gaga is the only artist who now has two of my 30 top 2009 singles. I’d give them both 8s or 9s; in terms of sheer unabashed zany hooks, they’re the only things on the radio this year that rank up against “Boom Boom Pow.” They’re also both excellent songs: “Poker Face” probably music’s cleverest extended gambling metaphor in years, and the only American chart-topper ever to remember both Boney M (“muh muh muh MAH Ma Baker”) and Aqua (“She has got to love nobody” = “Come on Barbie let’s go party” note for note); “Just Dance” wittily depicting a universal music-related social situation (scary dazed confusion in a bar after over-imbibing) in a way that might well be unprecedented. They’re also both packed with electrobeats, nonsense syllables, and phrasing turnarounds as funny as they are energetic; somebody on ILM said GaGa’s synths rip off early ’90s Belgian New Beat, which I don’t quite buy, but if it’s true, it’s cool. “LoveGame” isn’t as good, and I have to wonder whether its comparatively ungoofy radio-r&b averageness is why it’s now a single (as opposed to, say, The Fame‘s more disco or bubblegum or Blondie or Ace of Base tracks). The part everybody will hate is actually the catchiest hook in the song — and sorry, but I don’t see how the words “disco stick” are any more inane than “magic stick” or “lollipop” or “candy shop” or “birthday sex.” It’s not like the airwaves have exactly been loaded with mature lovemaking commentary the past few years.
[7]

Additional Scores

Chris Boeckmann: [2]
Iain Mew: [4]
Frank Kogan: [7]
Alfred Soto: [6]
Keane Tzong: [0]