Indie-house meltdown of indeterminate sexuality alert!

[Website]
[4.64]

Anthony Easton: I’m not even going to give you a chance to finish the song.
[3]

Martin Kavka: Hiding behind a piano-house beat from 1997, Kele Okereke proves that when he has nothing to say except hackneyed TrustMeICanChange-isms, a dumped queer man (bi, questioning, whatever) can be just as pitiful as a dumped straight one. I suppose that this is progress, but I don’t at all enjoy admitting it.
[4]

Kat Stevens: I’ve always been so disappointed with Bloc Party – while there’s nothing wrong with their production or attitude, their songs are just… not good enough. This is the best track of theirs I’ve heard so far, but it’s still sadly forgettable.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: These guys have always struck me as fundamentally boring, and this disco grind doesn’t convince me I was wrong. That said, the singing isn’t that much worse than lots of early-rave records I enjoy for sentimental reasons alone–but it’s blanker. I can’t tell if he’s too wary of exposing itself too much emotionally or a hair too passionately flailing for his own good, but either way it ain’t happening.
[5]

Alfred Soto: This catchy queer-disco hybrid PiL’s “Swan Lake” and a Fine Young Cannibals track from 1986 restores much of this fading act’s urgency. But it’s hard to accept that “this time it will be different” when Kele Okereke can’t summon half the urgency of, say, Antony Hegarty.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: The piano backing is occasionally appealing in an old Italian house sort of way, but the vocal is horrible – very flat and unusually posh (“chaunce” particularly raised my hackles, for some reason) – and the music very clumsy.
[1]

Iain Mew: Very much ‘intersting diversion en route to next album’ rather than ‘killer standalone’, but fun nonetheless. To some extent it’s the flipside of “Mercury”, taking its busy repetition and using it to set up a groove to play around with, rather than bludgeoning with the force of its chorus. Hits its height when floating up on the simple piano loop and making space for a dizzying array of stuttering vocals and effects take over, before the final chorus brings things slowly back to earth.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: As far as I can tell, they’ve totally lost their modicum of Gang Of Four-ish staccato bite since. Though as Brit bands who presumably play their own instruments go, they still seem moderately propulsive here.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: That house piano is actually a rather effective hook, even if it turns out to be a pretty lazy one; “One More Chance” lacks the depth of this band’s best tunes (“This Modern Love,” for instance, or “Banquet” and “I Still Remember”). Yet, though the band’s appropriation of dance music sounds is as tinged with the same balance of enthusiasm and awkwardness as previous efforts at the same (for instance, earlier non-album single, “Flux”), their earnest desire to step outside their comfort zone is laudable. Since they have a keen facility with rhythm, if not always a good grasp of how to use it, it makes sense. The largely graceless 2008 album Intimacy was an occasionally rewarding mess; “One More Chance” could be an indication that record was a transition rather than an endpoint.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: Like most recent Bloc Party tracks, this would be great if only Kele weren’t on it. On Silent Alarm, he filled the space between the riffs almost intuitively, but has since completely lost the ability to adapt his voice to the needs of an instrumental, dominating the song and awkwardly emoting all over. This is a shame, because underneath his wailing, the band has finally gone full-out house, with a lovely bouncing piano riff and pounding drums that deserve far better.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The piano is briefly lovely until you realise this sounds exactly like Audio Bullys’ first album, but not as good, and possibly with poorer singing – I’d never noticed how bad Kele Okereke’s voice was before.
[3]

South Australian wine is fantastic. South Australian rappers, though…..

[Video][Myspace]
[5.12]

Chuck Eddy: The backing is passably cinematic, and even vaguely reminds me alternately of Faithless and hip-house at points, but the rapper seems a bit shy and retiring. He could learn a thing or two by watching a few drunken Aussie rock bands.
[6]

Anthony Easton: It is really two or three songs, matched and overlapping, providing a counterpoint of soul singing to rapping, of speech acts that are different from musical acts–this makes a song that seems fairly conventional have a laid back elegance.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: American emo guys don’t have a lock on day-in-the-life-of-star-as-ordinary-bloke as a songwriting trope after all. “She’s ugly but I’m in love with her”; I’m sure she thanks you for it, mate.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: The dead-voiced rapping was already making me hate this when we got to this Stereophonics-class lyric: “It was hell cos the foreman was always harassing me/Like ‘How’s your little old music thing going?’/Now I’m like ‘How’s your bitter old loser shit going?’” Yeah, stick it to the (working) man! Worst lines of the year, for me.
[0]

Edward Okulicz: They’ve toned down most of the things that made me hate them in the past – their accents no longer molest the language in a novelty-song fashion and the production on this is actually quite lovely. But they say nothing, and don’t say it in a witty or interesting way.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: Between this and Paperboys, I’m beginning to suspect that Bubba Sparxxx’s Deliverance was far more popular abroad than in North America. Paperboys rode bluegrass riffs, while Hilltop Hoods tackle a blues loop with fiddles and a touch of jaunty melancholy piano. Strings and northern soul horns on the chorus are a deft touch. I imagine my reaction to hearing Australians rap is no different than that of non-Canadian Jukeboxers to Classified, so out of deference, I’ll leave well enough alone.
[6]

Martin Kavka: I have no knowledge of the history of Australian rap, or of whether this message single — chase feelings, but be disciplined enough to know what’s a good goal for you — is typical of anything else from Hilltop Hoods’ decade of work. But nothing in the rap compares to the sample; perhaps nothing could. It’s “Pass The Word (Love’s The Word)” from the minor Stax act The Mad Lads. They were at their most popular in the mid-1960s, but this is the opening track from their 1973 reunion album A New Beginning. The most extensive sample that Hilltop Hoods’ DJ Debris uses, besides the main piano riff, is a line from the second verse, set against an slowly ascending major-chord arpeggio, played by violins … that all of a sudden explodes into a shimmer of horns. It is gloriousness, courtesy of Dale Warren.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: This hook is smarter than that of your average Hilltop Hoods hit, but the beat is as tepid as ever; a respectably musical loop that seems composed with no understanding as to why we call rap instrumentals “beats.” But even this pub rock excuse for hip hop, which treats rhythm as an afterthought rather than the central point, could be excusable if the rappers had a bit of sparkle on the mic. But no, Suffa and Pressure are as plodding and earnest as ever, and whether through lack of talent or a misguided desire not to activate their audience’s tall poppy syndrome, they stamp out entirely any charisma or presence from their performance. These dullards lack not only the talent to be good rappers, they also, in their near complete eschewing of quotables, creative lyricism, versatile flow and that ineffable but prized quality of swag, are not even worthy of being compared to other nations’ mediocrities. That they are lionised as rap legends in their home country is a disgrace, and an apposite demonstration of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
[3]

He’s the British Ne-Yo, allegedly…

[Video][Website]
[6.25]

Michaelangelo Matos: It took a moment to realize who he reminded me of vocally: Adam Levine. Which is weird, because it took looking up his bio (Nigerian-Jamaican Londoner) and watching the video (party-on-a-boat flirting contest) to make me realize it, and neither of those things really matched up with what I was hearing, or hearing in his voice. Either way, he’s got such an easy way with the vocal, and the synths are so agreeably bouncy, that this could have been a summer jam if I’d only heard it a month earlier.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Ryan Tedder with Auto-Tune joins Haddaway.
[3]

Hillary Brown: Oh, my, this is a face full of adorable, spacey meringue. Light like a cloud or buoyant like an astronaut, whatever metaphor you choose probably doesn’t capture its fabulous charms.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Pleasant, forgettable, borderline beautiful in parts, with eh-eh-eh hiccups I could possibly grow to like and synths I already do. (Do those count as “two-step”? Or is that long extinct?)
[6]

Martin Skidmore: The backing synths are a bit busy for my liking, but the music has a full-bodied liveliness, and he’s a decent R&B singer, with a pleasing huskiness. The chorus is genuinely catchy too.
[8]

Martin Kavka: Never has assholishness been so charming. In part it’s because the beat moves along at such a crisp pace that there’s little time to reflect on what’s really at stake in the lyric, but it’s also because the lyric is honest and self-aware without being melodramatic, and the strength that exudes from that place is incredibly hot. This is why people fall for bad boys.
[9]

Alex Ostroff: An avowed heartbreaker warning us away should sound menacing or torn or…anything but blank, really.
[5]

Frank Kogan: Well-scrubbed international Celtic-or-something mish-mush music, instantly gleaming and pleasing, and then it worms its way into blandness and out of my heart even as it promises to break it.
[5]

So do this lot not use mirrors or what?…

[Myspace][Video]
[6.15]

Martin Kavka: Attention musicians: are you searching for more interesting ways to react to being dumped than the standard please-please-please-take-me-back routine? Here’s one option. Against a cookie-cutter Nashville template, passively-aggressively imply that your ex’s new boyfriend is gay by focusing on his mustache. (With a mustache like that, he must wear a speedo!) Of course, you can’t actually call him gay, because mustachioed Alan Jackson is a good red-blooded straight American man, just like you. But making a joke will succeed in steering the conversation away from your own pitiful singledom. Indeed, since you just keep harping on about how he looks like a porn star — so talented in bed! so well-endowed! — the conversation will probably turn to how you must be the gay one. God, she was so right to dump your lame ass.
[2]

Dave Moore: I like the part where he adds the diplomatic qualifier “on some guys they look great,” but on the whole it’s trying too hard for… y’know, mustache jokes.
[5]

Iain Mew: Sorry but, however you push it, the mere concept of someone having a mustache is just not that funny.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: Country hack bandleader wishes he had Jessie’s girl, crying “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” over his rival’s oh-so-dated mustache. Goatees are cool, though – how else could he cover his double chin? – and a thoughtful aside makes clear he’s not ripping on Alan Jackson. Guess he must be singing about Kix Brooks.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The details, the writing, the guitar, the sense of humour, the sing along chorus, the vocal work, all sort it out to a solid 7 or 8. I sung along, I laughed, I liked the throw away Alan Jackson reference.
[10]

Michaelangelo Matos: Wait — aren’t country guys allowed to have mustaches? Even ones “straight out of 1979”? (I know, “Alan Jackson he ain’t,” but still.) Either way — wow. This was already up there for me by the time it got to the bridge of “Jessie’s Girl” with the singer muttering “Un-frickin’-believable” over it, but I cannot WAIT to hear this in a bar.
[9]

Chuck Eddy: Guitar riff has some “Summer of 69” in it, most strikingly around the two-minute mark when the singer says “unfreakingbelievable” — possibly even as much 1985 Bryan Adams hard pop as Rascal Flatts’s excellent recent “Summer Nights” has. And it should be noted here that Rollie Fingers, primary protagonist of the song’s ad-hoc youtube video, originally grew his handlebar just to secure a $300 bonus from Charles Finley, and was traded from the A’s the Padres in 1977. But in the photo I saw, at least one guy in Heartland has a mustache, too, if not quite a ’79 one. I think they secretly miss 1979. So do I.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: A good country song can be like a drink of whiskey to soothe your problems; this one is like having a wise-cracking sidekick telling you the guy who stole your girl is ugly and has VD, which is, surprisingly, much, much better.
[9]

Hillary Brown: There needs to be more eccentric country like this, especially if it reaches back to the same era as its subject for its riffs. I need to go dig out my best of Thin Lizzy.
[7]

John Seroff: ProTip: If you want to make a novelty song, there should really be some element of your song that’s novel. No such luck with this sour grape screed that surreptitiously (and without much benefit) borrows hooks from MJ’s ‘Dirty Diana’ and DLR’s ‘Just Like Paradise’. The nudge-nudge-wink-wink lyrics would sound weaksauce at a UT coffeehouse poetry slam.
[3]

Alex Ostroff: Light, funny and tuneful. Any other one-note joke would wear out its welcome by the midway point, but it doubles as a vital PSA. If “Mustache” draws even one person’s attention to the fact that most men cannot pull off awkward lip-adorning facial hair, it will have earned its
[6]

Additional Scores

Martin Skidmore: [6]
Kat Stevens: [7]

God, he gets everywhere these days, innit?…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.89]

Chuck Eddy: Another apparent post-Peaches pottymouth meets Miami rapper who’s been positioning himself toward cheesedance land at least since sampling Debbie Deb in 2006. They seem compatible enough.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: A British-Bajan singer, clearly looking to be the new Rihanna. She might have a chance, too – she’s probably a better singer, with a similar nasal buzz, and this is bright, lively and strong, and Pitbull provides some extra exuberance. Maybe the tune isn’t quite memorable enough to be huge, but it’s very enjoyable.
[8]

Anthony Miccio: Fuming about a former crush, Livvi puts on her sluttiest outfit and hits the club, where the only person having fun is the hopeful horndog at the bar loudly cheering on her independent ways.
[5]

Hillary Brown: I don’t know if I need my pop songs to be novella-like in the amount of plot they contain, but I’m sure this is just right for certain situations.
[6]

Alfred Soto: My homeboy gets points for loving a chick whose contempt is inseparable from her affection. Livvi’s colorless voice rides the electrobeat almost as well as Debbie Deb and Jeanette Jurado did too.
[6]

Martin Kavka: Let me consult my Elements Of Sublime Female-Fronted Pop checklist. Is there good production, hitting the sweet spot between “US urban” and “European pop”? Check. Good vocal performance? Except for the middle eight, where Franc’s singing is overly labored, check. Wonderful video, preferably with both a chair dance *and* bondage elements? Oh yeah. Does the lyric give the singer agency, and refuse to position her as men’s sexual plaything? Check. If there must be a guest rap, is it at least non-disposable? Yup. I’m actually fascinated by the interplay between Franc and Pitbull, who tells her that if she were indeed no chonga and as strong as she says she is, she would lighten the fuck up. Indeed, the only thing more entertaining than this song at the moment is the opening series of definitions for “chonga” at urbandictionary.com.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: I love how blatantly, on the radio edit, she overdubs “chick” in place of “bitch”: truth in advertising still counts for something, doesn’t it? Unless we’re referring to Pitbull hocking up loogies along the lines of, “You’re the queen/Here’s your crown.”
[3]

Alex Ostroff:“Hi! My name is…you won’t remember. Wait ’til December.” Unless Livvi has some better tricks than yet another second-tier Rihanna track, December is being optimistic.
[4]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: There’s something rather sweet about this sweary little piece of electrohouse-y pop (but what doesn’t sound electrohouse-y, these days: how odd that 2009 should have developed such a definite sound on both sides of the pond, and that be the sound of 2005). You were too good to sleep with me before, she says, so now I’m too good to sleep with you. In terms of served-cold revenge it’s not exactly Titus Andronicus, is it? You expect more bite from her voice, which has that same metal tang that Rihanna made so wild and fantastical on records like “Unfaithful”, but this is a song intent on staying too classy for any embarrassing emotion.
[6]

The comeback starts here, I guess…

[Website]
[1.88]

Kat Stevens: Some people do deserve a second chance. But just because now they are now counting to ten under their breath and punching the kitchen wall instead doesn’t mean I have to listen to their whining excuse for an apology.
[0]

Edward Okulicz: An apology is necessary when wrong is done that cannot be amended, but that doesn’t make it sufficient. This is a hollow gesture as an apology and a complete misstep as a song that doesn’t even work if you try to work a more universal meaning into it. But even if it were possible to redeem yourself just by singing a song (it’s not), singing it in the same lobotomised and vocally-treated haze he used on “Forever” would ensure it falls a long way short. And the lyrics: “They can never understand”. Dude, you assaulted your girlfriend. There’s nothing to understand, you’re a fuckwit, and this is a neon sign on your back reminding us.
[1]

Alex Ostroff: This is nauseating on the conceptual level alone, so I’m oddly pleased that “Changed Man” is criminally boring. If it had been even an eighth as good as “Forever”, I might have felt the need to listen to the song more than twice.
[1]

Erika Villani: People in movies and music are always doing things that would make them seem creepy and abusive in real life — he stands outside your window playing Peter Gabriel on a boom box, she flies to Seattle because she heard your sad story on the radio, he begs you to take him back because he’s changed, he’s better, he’s gonna make it up to you. And because it’s a script, because it’s a song, you think, well, gosh, isn’t it romantic? Except this time you’ve seen pictures of the bruises on his girlfriend’s face, and you know the thing he’s apologizing for might be hitting her so hard her mouth filled with blood, and that kind of breaks the spell. The problem with this song isn’t that the lyrics are creepy, or that the relationship it describes is questionable. The problem with this song is that it’s plodding and ordinary, when, if I’m ever going to give a shit about Chris Brown again, it needs to be anything but.
[0]

Anthony Easton: I still listen to Ike Turner, though he beat the shit out of Tina. But Ike Turner is a genius, and he did not seek forgiveness and redemption via middling pop ballads, with self pity and no self loathing.
[0]

Chuck Eddy: What a smarmy fuck. This is a half-assed apology if one ever existed, not remotely credible, and his falsetto’s nothing to write home about, either. But on my shelves I have albums I love by Spade Cooley and Noir Desir and Phil Spector — none of whom, as far as I know, ever made an asinine record like this where they begged us to feel sorry for the way they abused women, but I still want to be objective here. So I have to admit, the Everybody Hates Chris line is a decent hook. And it caught me off guard the first time, seeing how we’ve been Netflixing Season Two this month. Some episodes are better than others. But they’re all better than this.
[4]

Anthony Miccio: As a somewhat ironic fan of “Heaven, I Need A Hug” and Chris Brown’s incoherent lyrical froth (highlight: earnestly wedging a Doublemint ad into the contradiction “we’ve only got one night to dance forever”), I couldn’t give this an instant zero on principle. But compared to Kelly’s sniveling epic this is thin and grooveless. Auto-tuned saccharine and Chrisisms like “my patience is driving me crazy” don’t keep “I don’t wanna be done” from sounding like “I don’t wanna beat down,” and “it ain’t over” comes off like a threat.
[6]

Hillary Brown: Ugh. The thing is, it’s a very, very effective song, full of exactly the kind of sweet nothings and pretty up and downs with which Chris Brown won your heart in the first place. You want to believe it, with its pretty vocals, stuttering and breathy thumps, and its background guitar plucks. If only it were in Swedish, and we didn’t have all this messy context. How can you condone the “I’m sorry I hit you song” that will soundtrack thousands of misguided reconciliations? I’m pretending I just emerged from a Rip van Winkle-esque sleep, in which case I see this as a fiction and acknowledge its supreme prettiness.
[7]

John Seroff: I’ll admit it; I’m rooting for Chris Brown. Not as a human being of course; by all accounts he appears to be something of a bust in that department thus far. No, I’m hoping Chris pulls out of his current public relation death spiral to recover his POP SENSATION status as the crowned jester of R&B; seems it wasn’t that long ago that Brown’s goofy physical and vocal mugging had him pegged as an nonthreatening and affable doofus. His fair-to-middling voice somehow consistently and perfectly alloys with contemporary overproduction in a way that better singers would envy, yielding odd, tremulous timbre and nonsensically beautiful playground raps like “Gimme That”, “Kiss Kiss”, “Freeze”, “Shawty Get Loose” and “Get Like Me”. That was then, this is now. Chris Brown’s decision to release a song that might as well have been court appointed is offensive on a lot of levels; one that will be less debated is the foolish missed opportunity of releasing this slightly warmed over Bad Boy Gone Good whinefest instead of a legitimate and sorely needed Summer dance hit. Instead, we get Brown without a solid hook and at his least appetizing: wounded, apologetic, but still snotty enough to break out “Everybody Hates Chris” lines less than a year after photos of his brutally beaten girlfriend appeared on the front page of every major tabloid in the country. There’s still a few bits of panache on Brown’s part; some well-placed falsetto, some nice delivery. None of it adds up to make this more than moderately listenable. In cultural context, “Changed Man” is appalling; out of it, it’s somewhat better than mediocre. My score reflects the latter perspective; factor in the former and it’s more like a 1.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: “My patience is driving me crazy” is almost too easy an opening, “And everybody hates Chris” an acknowledgment that’s neither welcome nor gratuitous, “Saying sorry doesn’t make it right” a home truth, “It ain’t over” repeated on end not remotely convincing. Graded harshly because he deserves it.
[0]

Dave Moore: No, fuck you, sympathy denied. “My patience is driving me crazy”? “I’m gonna make it up to you and show the world I’m a changed man”? Really, you’re gonna make it up to her? Well, you’ve already decided not to stay away from her before you hurt her again (“this ain’t over; it ain’t over”). So what, you’re going to go into therapy and go on television and do prominent spots on domestic abuse for the rest of your life to set an example for all those kids in your fanbase trying to figure out “what she did” to make you lose that “patience” of yours? Dude either has the biggest stones of all time or zero sense of self-awareness, not that the two are mutually exclusive — and not that it makes a difference either way. FUCK YOU, CHRIS BROWN. If it were physically possible, I would deduct an extra point for the “Everybody Hates Chris” joke.
[0]

Martin Kavka: Is this genuine Chris, or is he doing this against his will? One hint comes in the lyric “I believe we can make it if we try.” If WE try? For fuck’s sake, what does she need to try to do?
[1]

Andrew Brennan: I suppose if he hadn’t released an apology song I’d still be angry, but the man violently beat his girlfriend. There shouldn’t be any more singles.
[1]

Chris Boeckmann: Ryan Tedder’s only beat should file a restraining order against Chris Brown. And, perhaps even more disturbing, the melody of “Boyfriend #2” should, too.
[1]

Alfred Soto: He’s so changed that he hides his sincerity really well behind the Auto-Tune.
[3]

Al Shipley: My score is more symbolic than a reflection of the music, but don’t get me wrong: the song does suck.
[0]

2future4Aqua…

[Video][Website]
[4.73]

Jonathan Bradley: Pitbull’s recent conversion to trashy Euro-dance has been unexpectedly fruitful; it seems a shame he wasn’t given the opportunity to sell out earlier. Of course he needed rap’s flirtation with trance to facilitate his voyage into the strobe-lit unknown, but once he found himself there, he fit in with far more grace than those Flo Rida or Jim Jonsin interlopers. Maybe it’s because Pitbull’s hometown of Miami is practically a nightclub anyway, and a rapper as immersed in his neighborhood as this one knows intuitively to pick a beat that bangs without being overwhelming, and how to turn his rap into a congenial toast rather than an exercise in lewd banality.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: Pitbull makes me smile, especially when he departs from the beat for an adlibbish aside, but it’s all kind of mediocre, really.
[6]

Erick Bieritz: Jumbling his space references with reckless abandon, Pitbull is uncharacteristically a bit silly on this single (breaking stride for the “huge-alistic” joke more than once is pretty questionable). The loose approach isn’t terrible, but Pitbull’s better moments keep his considerable energy tightly wound. Fergie is surprisingly tolerable in “A Milli” form.
[6]

Martin Kavka: When did Fergie become worth sampling? Sheeee-it, when did she become worth *anything*?
[1]

Michaelangelo Matos: I’d almost allowed myself to succumb to Fergie’s instant-standard “I’m so 3008/You’re so 2000-and-late,” so I owe this conglomerate thanks for bringing me back from the brink. Now if only someone with even fewer ideas were to sample “I know it ain’t a word, but that’s some supercalifragilistic futuristic shit” into a track that worked despite everyone involved with it, we’d be all the way through the looking glass.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: The familiar samples, both timeless (Cybotron!) and timely (Fergie?), would be more effective in the blur of a mixtape. It’s a more pleasing backdrop than those on either of Pitbull’s recent chart smashes, but equally forgettable.
[6]

John Seroff: Knucklehead poplocking-by-numbers for fauxhawked Gen-Z’ers who think Cybotron is a robot drag queen. Everything about this follow-the-bouncing-bass club track has been done better; from Pitbull’s always enjoyable ADD hypercackle riffs (‘Shake’, of course) and the “featuring” single-bar sample from Fergie (‘Boom Boom Pow’, natch) to the aforementioned re-re-re-Cybotron sample (Missy, duh). This is a two day old chocolate doughnut: better fresher, disposable tomorrow, palatable tonight only as a late night snack.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Okay, LMFAO are Berry Gordy’s son and (great?) nephew, right? So does that mean Redfoo is the brother of Rockwell (of “Somebody’s Watching Me” fame and “Obscene Phone Caller” non-fame), or half-brother, or what? Anyway, I’m not exactly clear on what LMFAO do here. But they, Fergie, and Pitbull sure do seem proud to be shameless.
[7]

Matt Cibula: Crippity-crap like this makes me long for the good old days of 3Oh!3.
[2]

Anthony Easton: The desire for the future suggests that no one is paying attention to the times that we are living in.
[5]

Dave Moore: Fergie and LMFAO “featured” roles: strike one (both for sampling a decent Fergie line into wallpaper and allowing LMFAO anywhere near anything). Nondescript beat punctuated with videogame chromatic scales and third-rate horror synths: strike two. Half-assed and particularly dumb Pitbull spotlight turn in which he seems to amuse only himself: strike
[3]

Guetta’s second UK #1 this year, not counting “I Gotta Feeling” — in your face, Bob Sinclar!…

[Website]
[4.82]

Al Shipley: In which our frog-throated hook robot makes a noble attempt at injecting some small amount of sassy ‘personality’ into his typically wooden vocal performances, and comes up with the most cringe-inducing iteration of the already cringe-inducing phrase “damn, girl!” ever recorded.
[4]

Tom Ewing: In the rarefied world of dance music, the word “bitch” still has a frisson of naughtiness, so Akon makes great play of how he really WANTS to find respectful language. His starting point is that she’s “not like the neighbourhood whores”: for you and me babe, the only way is up. David Guetta rolls out another instantly appealing commercial banger which will I’m guessing have as poor a shelflife as his last one. I grievously overmarked that so I’m being cautious here.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: “I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful!” That’s funny: most of us can do it without trying.
[4]

Martin Kavka: Did he not even for one moment consider consulting a thesaurus? It would have helped, especially had he discovered the word “callipygian.”
[5]

Matt Cibula: This is a real Frankenstein’s monster of a track, put together with rank cynicism and rubber cement, smelling of the grave and wet muddy hands. Unfortunately, it’s neither sexy nor memorable, and (despite the disclaimers) the misogyny is thick and sour. I have no idea why I’m giving it even a 2.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: The lyrics are fatuous “she’s hot” nonsense, and I have yet to get much out of an autotuned performance, but there is a wiggle and punch in the music that I enjoy. I’m surprised at its global hugeness, but it is mostly fun.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: This is nowhere near as bonkers as “I Gotta Feeling”, my only previous acquaintance with Guetta. Still pretty good (tho).
[7]

Frank Kogan: Strangely, I find this U.K. chart topper funnier and more inventive than the officially quirky and funny Guetta production that’s been topping the U.S. chart for the last eight weeks. Akon’s voice is too thick for the track, as usual, but Guetta mitigates the heaviness by throwing sliders and change-ups at him (think I used baseball metaphors in my review of “I Gotta Feeling“, too). Practically a variety show of beats.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: Akon dance is better than Akon ballad, and his failed attempt to find an respectful way to describe the object of his affection is hilarious. But deep down, I know what Akon really wants to say: “she’s an easy lover.”
[6]

Kat Stevens: Homogenised ‘Tainted Love’ riff makes for grim #1. I’ll inevitably end up dancing to this without realising, then feel disgusted with myself for having such low standards.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Sexier than “Sexy MF” by Prince. (How’s that for damning it with faint praise?)
[4]

How we like him now? A bit more than last time, actually…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Anthony Miccio: Funny, I thought his last name was Gokey.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Mark Ronson coaxing an Aussie into his best Lovin’ Spoonful imitation, over spidery guitar.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: It’ll probably be a good while before I start disliking Mark Ronson’s more-Mod-than-thou production style, but getting the bass sound and horn parts just so doesn’t equal compelling songwriting or, especially, singing. If Merriweather’s a soul man I’m the Easter Bunny, and I don’t even like dyeing eggs.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: I do like that surf’n’spy guitar sample. And there’s something funereal in the melody of his ooh-ooh-oohs that suggests some Motown classic sifted through “Wild World” or “It’s A Sin”. But I’m not buying his blue-eyed Levi Stubbs, and I’m buying the lyrics even less. Wonder if I’d trust this more if Mark Ronson wasn’t involved.
[7]

Martin Kavka: I find it really difficult to assess musical homage. Take this, for example. It sounds a lot like The Animals’ version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” A lot. However, there’s no single element that is a clear example of theft. On the other hand, there’s more being borrowed here than just a sensibility. But what? How? In any case, the seamless recombination of the past makes this Merriweather’s strongest solo single yet.
[9]

Anthony Easton: Being self-reflexive of your cliches does not excuse them; being meta about your love songs does not mean that you are allowed this level of slop.
[2]

John Seroff: Merriweather’s versatile voice recalls the soulful screams and velvet tone of a young Terence Trent D’Arby. The rock-solid (if derivative) structure is rent rococo by innovative flourishes; a different instrument or variation on the theme is introduced virtually every four measures. When every other track on the jukebox considers itself out the door with 1.5 ideas (looking at you, Pitbull), it’s refreshing to find a song with considerable complexity and higher aspirations. This sounds suspiciously like it could break out as a ‘Rehab’ sized hit; I’m gonna feel real dumb if my obsessive repeat play (“Just one more time through the “I-would-do-any-thing-and-ev-ry-thing” part…”) leaves this jewel unlistenable by the time it becomes ubiquitous, but my iTunes count (thirty-five and rising) suggests that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
[10]

Martin Skidmore: This is a bit brighter than the last rather Blunt/Morrison one. Here we have a Ronson production heading more into Jamiroquai territory. He has some vocal talent, and even sounds lovely on the odd word or two, but his melisma feels painfully stiff and clumsy, and the song is dreary.
[4]

Matt Cibula: And just when I was about to give up, here comes a blast combining many sounds I love with a great singer who kind of sounds like if Roland Gift had ever really had any guts to go with his glory. Wish dude didn’t roll up his sleeves like that in the video, though, that’s pretty gross.
[8]

He does care about the young folks…

[Video][Website]
[4.00]

Alex Wisgard: As frontman of Million Dead, Frank Turner was a firebrand punk, spouting polemic and cracking wise — a revolutionary with a smile. Fast forward six years, and as his records increase in popularity (through pretty admirable word of mouth acclaim), his fangs have been removed one by one. The lead single from his horrifically named third album Poetry of the Deed, “The Road” is a hookless, edgeless, acoustic abortion of tour fatigue, and finds Turner talking a lot — and looking damn smug while doing it — but saying absolutely nothing. The sound of a man pissing on his own bonfire.
[1]

Alex Ostroff: This is proper folk, then? Not alt-country Wilco, not acoustic emo Bright Eyes, not literary Okkervil River, but proper folk, apparently. Turner used to be a member of a hardcore punk band, and perhaps as a result, isn’t tied to equations of folk with whispered vocals and finger-picking. He’s not afraid to let his guitars scream or his voice holler. In this, he reminds me of Great Big Sea, a Canadian band who sit firmly at the juncture of harmony-laden folk, Gaelic fiddling, and songs about nautical wanderlust. This is a good thing.
[8]

Erick Bieritz: Moving between the superficially dissimilar genres is a way to stumble into musical maturity with punk’s primitivism intact. Neither primitivism or maturity is meant pejoratively here, but nonetheless, jumping from a genre that ostensibly rejects conventions to one that cherishes them risks anachronism and repetition.
[6]

Alex Macpherson: Busker mistakes being “moved on” by police and Tube staff for possessing a romantic troubadour spirit.
[0]

Martin Kavka: Wow, Billy Bragg has got an amazing plastic surgeon.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Like Conor Oberst covering Linkin Park, only not as listenable: not a comparison I make lightly.
[2]

Anthony Miccio: Man, I don’t know if Nickelback does covers, but they could really strengthen their market share by covering a blustery English drinking song like this. I’m sure their fans would be grateful for something “appropriate” to put on the jukebox during World Cup games at UK-themed pubs.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: He’s not allergic to vocal presence or ringing guitars. Chorus is moderately rousing; verses don’t stick; traveling troubador theme is as old as hats get. Coda feels kinda tacked on.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: There’s folk and country tinting the basic rock, and it bounces along pleasantly enough, but his voice does nothing for me, despite his obvious enthusiasm.
[3]

Ian Mathers: I’m torn; by the end of “The Road” Turner has built up enough momentum that the song is almost compelling just by virtue of its full-throated roar. But it only gets there by contrast to its annoyingly weedy intro and outro, and in any case Turner’s first verse proves so on-the-nose that any interesting ambiguity he could have fostered is killed. Ultimately, there are plenty of songs that have “The Road”‘s virtues without its weaknesses; unless you really love thinking about the romance of the open road, there’s little reason to listen to this one.
[3]

Kat Stevens: Slightly less soul-destroying than the A406.
[2]

Additional Scores

Anthony Easton: [6]