J Dilla posthumously gives his brother a hand…

[MySpace][Video]
[5.80]

Martin Kavka: It’s not much more than a simple drum loop and a chord sequence, but its smoothness, combined with the warmth of Illa J’s and Deni Nova’s voices, is quite effective. Best of all, Illa J refreshingly just gives up trying to express how deep his love is by the end of the track: “it’s just the music, it speaks for itself — that’s all I gotta say.” Points off only because that line can be appropriated all too quickly by a cynic who’d say that Illa J is riding his brother’s coattails to get laid.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Funny that this is the only part I ever remember: “Sitting here trying to think of what to say. It’s this: It’s just the music. It speaks for itself. That’s all I’ve got to say.” To which I’ll add only that the Dilla-as-greatest-producer-ever talk holds less water all the time.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Cool and assured, with real snap, a cousin of dour, minor chord hip-hop ballads like A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation.” It takes a real pro to make the I’ve-got-nothing-to-say portion work this well; maybe Illa J’s attention to dynamics and space helped.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: This has the same kind of sweetly laid-back summery feel as vintage De La Soul, say. He’s a pretty ordinary rapper, though I like Debi’s voice. This doesn’t excite me and feels out of time, but it is very likeable.
[7]

Dave Moore: Yikes, tasteful. A dab of Buffalo Springfield on an otherwise bog-standard smoove ‘n’ sfisticated bit of soul. Still, the slow-motion dap montage that inevitably loops in my head through it (in which third-tier Facebook acquaintances nod thoughtfully at a distance as closer friends partake in more complicated greeting rituals) is compelling me to overrate it slightly.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Soft, and slow, with a low-key, almost soporific phrasing from Debi Nova. I am not sure it is saying much of anything, but it’s beautiful.
[7]

Hillary Brown: As if I weren’t already irritated enough by this jazzy, laidback refusal to tickle my eardrums, its ending with a blast of static is a horrible way to go out.
[2]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: Some stupid humid summers all I can manage to do when I get home is lie on the floor and watch the ceiling, think cold thoughts, listen low to records that leave the air chill. Here’s another to hold in reserve. The beat’s vintage, lazy drum and bell-sweet harmonic, shimmering like the haze of water thrown up by sprinklers, like a drop of rain seen on slow play-back. A girly hook breezes to a burble; a guy talks devotion, sleek and unhurried. I wish it was summer again only so I could play this on repeat and feel it sink coolly into my bones, float all my stresses away.
[8]

Matt Cibula: This is the opposite of how to do a love song in rap, and was almost as bad when it was actually in fashion; can you imagine being actually turned on by this? *shivers* Even Common and Gift of Gab don’t do this lazy crap anymore.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: I was sucked in by the jazz-funk backdrop before I found out it was a posthumous J Dilla production. I was indifferent to the rapper’s come-ons before I found out he was J Dilla’s little brother. But with music this supple, it might be wiser to keep it in the family than risk the wrong star piddling their personality all over it.
[7]

And speaking of cracking the US top 40…

[Video][Website]
[5.57]

Martin Skidmore: Imagine mashing up the Doctor Who theme with Blondie’s “Call Me”. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Now imagine Muse doing it. Not so good, but gains points for being far less horrible than their Bo-Rhap abomination.
[3]

Peter Parrish: Matt Bellamy has written Ron Paul: The Musical and channeled the Doctor Who theme through Goldfrapp. If you don’t find that high-functioning absurdism quite irresistible then I dunno what I can do for you really.
[9]

Matt Cibula: I know they’re supposed to be the most awful prog-twats in the history of whatever but damn if they don’t steal all the right riffs here and put them together in a lovely way.
[8]

Kat Stevens: M. Bellamy ignores his ability to write ridiculously silly guitar riffs and settles for some poor-man’s-QOTSA schaffle dirge. I preferred Muse when they were screechy rather than sludgy.
[2]

Frank Kogan: A haunted house inhabited by friendly ghosts and freelance Cossacks. Singer rides his boogie to the rescue, like Mighty Mouse, and the Cossacks raise their eyebrows in “fright.” I have no idea if this song is serious – “They will not control us/We will be victorious” – but it’s a pisser.
[8]

Doug Robertson: For a band who pride themselves on the scale of their ambition and their ability to embrace both the sublime and the ridiculous in the sort of pudding that lacks not for eggs, this sounds an awful lot like something Kasabian would come up with. Sure, the palette contains a few more colours than Serge and his gang would ever consider using, and Matt’s voice instantly raises this track above the workmanlike, but listen to that chugga, chugga guitar. It’s as inspiration free as a daytime soap opera. I never thought I’d be saying this, but Muse really need to start thinking outside the box.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: At long last, Muse goes electroclash. And hey, they have a budget! So it sounds like actual big, meaty early ’80s sleaze-disco, including the stinging two-note guitar hook. Singer’s still an unctuous dink, of course, but at least he makes me wonder if I’ve missed something else, a first in this band’s history.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Not quite an uprising, more like a catwalk. The keyboards are vulgar, the vocal shrill, the synth bass and drums syncopated. I’m not sure what this supposed to do besides serve as a soundtrack for single women trying to get their Coyote Ugly on.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Rock and roll is supposed to be all about liking the drugs, and frankly Muse strike me as one of those bands that enjoys chic pharmaceuticals, so I am not buying the neo-puritanism they are selling.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: This record is obviously designed to incense most critics who probably regard its audience with as much contempt as they do the band itself — and perhaps with some reason. But far from being the abject wank their teaser was, this is basically “Knights of Cydonia” sped up, with added “oi” bits played over the top of “I Don’t Care” by Fall Out Boy. And why not? You can’t take the (M)us(e)-against-the-world lyrics seriously, and while I worry a bit about those who connect emotionally to this sort of stuff, I totally understand those who do so viscerally — it’s pretty enjoyable nonsense.
[8]

Iain Mew: I’ve not been as nonplussed by any review this year as much as one I read of “Uprising” which compared Muse positively to other current pop as “they actually have something to say”. It’s a song about how we’re being sinisterly controlled by green belts! That out the way, this is actually rather good glam rock, especially the crunchy start/stop moments. They’ve graduated from lifting their hooks wholesale from classical music to lifting them wholesale from Doctor Who, but make them their own just as energetically.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Over the past couple years, I’ve taken to calling the shuffling martial dance-metal stomp employed here (which I hear employed quite often lately) the “Beautiful People” beat, but that can’t be its original source, can it? Because Swine Flu victim Marilyn Manson couldn’t have actually invented anything, right? Here, it starts out kind of like Gary Glitter (surrounded by Gary Numan atmospherics), but once the singing starts, it’s Marilyn all the way. And said singing is overwrought to the point of ridiculousness, but to my ears more in an amusing way than annoying way.
[7]

Al Shipley: Oddly enough, this reminds more than anything else of the crappy glam stomp that Fall Out Boy released as a lead single last year, completely with the splashy falsetto bits. Bit of a drag then, bit of a drag now.
[4]

Martin Kavka: A 6/8 beat should be inherently sexy. This strikes me as neutered, although I can’t quite tell why. Perhaps it’s just the fact that the drums need to be mixed up further. But perhaps it’s the apocalyptic lyric: who has time for sex when you have to save the world from US domination?
[3]

Outspoken political hip-hopper unexpectedly cracks the US top 40…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]

Martin Kavka: At 43, Michael Franti is probably the oldest person to have a US Top 40 hit this year. But that’s not nearly as shocking as the fact that program directors have taken to this bit of nu-reggae, not a popular genre on US radio. Is it because its I-love-you-but-by-the-way-I-must-be-going-now lyric is light on commitment? Is it because it’s positioned halfway between reggae and house? I can’t quite tell, but this is a rare case in which I’d rather not try to analyze it too much.
[7]

Hillary Brown: It’s a bit Jimmy Soul, but then it’s a bit Jimmy Soul. Catchy, perky, easily slottable into a film montage of zanily doing the dishes or something. These all work both ways.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Man, back when I was making Disposable Heroes of Hysterectomy and Disposable Heroes of Hippopotami jokes on my 1992 Pazz & Jop ballot, I sure didn’t expect Michael Franti would be blowing up Top 40 radio with a Wyclef-doing-“Don’t Worry Be Happy” move 17 years later — not even one featuring junkies in the corner alley, right out of “The Message.” Suppose this makes Spearhead the most archetypal “political band with one pop hit” since the glory days of Chumbawamba. And if anybody knows whether my wife’s Beatnigs LP is worth money now, I’ll pass the word on to her.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Far from the earnest conscious rap I remember them for, this is a cute party record with a very Caribbean feel – its insistent chorus beats almost remind me of Shaggy’s “Oh Carolina”. There’s the odd big word, of course, but it’s fundamentally a simple love song, and the infectiously celebratory mood might appeal to all of the same people who propelled Sean Paul to the top a few years back. I love it, and never thought I’d hear them sound like this.
[9]

Andrew Casillas: The cynic in me wants to ignore the sheer hummability of this in favor of decrying the meaningless of it all but, dammit, this is pretty enjoyable. This begs to be played in the world’s most annoying advert, but at least it’s palatable.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: I find Michael Franti impossible to hate, which isn’t the same thing as easy to love. Cross-pollinating Jack Johnson’s audience with Wyclef Jean’s (even though Franti has been around a lot longer than either) suits him better than rhyming “loophole” with “poophole” back in the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy ever did, and he’s gained real grace as a vocalist: I still recall 2001’s Stay Human with fondness. Nevertheless, this is a little too perfect for the Sesame Street spot that will inevitably follow. It’s indelible, but hard to care about.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: I haven’t heard a thing by — or about — this Disposable Hero Of Hiphoprisy since Spearhead’s first album fifteen(!) years ago. So it’s a shock to find Franti on the pop chart, apparently without the help of a ubiquitous ad campaign. Between the smooth vocals (far less strained than what we get from Wyclef) and the sprightly Sly & Robbie production, this is as inoffensive and well-pedigreed as banality gets.
[5]

Matt Cibula: I have a deep abiding love for Michael Franti, but I find it very hard to listen to his records; the problem seems to be that he thinks he is a lyricist when his true gift is melody and rhythm. Pretty obvious here, I love the beat and the sounds and the vibe, everything but the god damned words.
[5]

Erika Villani: I can only think of one reason why this song — which was released back in 2008, and feels joltingly out of place crammed between T-Pain and Jason DeRulo on the KIIS-FM playlist — is suddenly having a moment: Behold. That video first came out in mid-April, and I first saw it in mid-June, when, after three straight weeks of rain, I tweeted a link to it with the words, “You know what, sun? It’s fine. I don’t need you. I have this.” And by the time I finally saw the sun again, “Say Hey” had become an indispensable part of my summer soundtrack. The last time I listened to it was late August, so when I saw it pop up on the Jukebox, I figured I would give it one last spin to refresh my memory before writing a glowing review. But it turns out all the things that felt so promising when summer began, all the things that made it so perfect for squinting in the sunshine on Coney Island or dancing in a dark bedroom on a hot July night — the solid beat, the slurred vocals, the rollicking piano and reggae flourishes — are a lot less magical on a chilly September day.
[5]

But most of all, you’ve let us down…

[MySpace]
[3.92]

Ian Mathers: Aww, thanks guys! I totally did want proof that I don’t automatically love everything with Taylor Swift in it. And all it took was one schlocky, hookless power ballad!
[3]

Hillary Brown: A weakly produced piece of treacle topped with Cool Whip. Ecch.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: The male nasal whine makes an uncomfortable blend with Taylor’s sweet tones, and the playing is fairly clumsy — neither can do a power ballad, really. The song’s okay, but it might work better with Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. Back to energetic rock-pop and country pop respectively, please.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: At least late Aerosmith ballads have an incurable ham at their center. And I do find the swooping chorus mighty effective the first time around. That’s probably because the opening verse is so bloody awful, though; anything comes as a relief after it.
[3]

Matt Cibula: Not bad for shiny shiny mopey pseudo-country, especially when the string section starts, but knocked down for the ennui and crap lyrics, and because I hate this group’s name. Just hate it.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: “Love Drunk” was a fun slice of pop-punk, and these guys are smart to try and capitalize on its success by releasing a gloopy ballad. Hell, bonus points for snagging Taylor Swift. But good demographic targeting isn’t always the same as good music, and there’s too little bite and too much melodrama for them to pull this off convincingly. Lifehouse and The Calling did this stuff regularly and (more importantly) well at the beginning of the Aughties, but while Boys Like Girls strike the right mood, “Two is Better than One” is lyrically vague and limp. Maybe they should have let Ms. Swift pen it.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Overproduced, goopy, lacking the moral ambiguity that undercuts the teenage romanticism in the best of Swift’s work, treading the same ground badly. Sadness.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: Can’t say for sure this is their best hit ever, but I’m confident in saying it’s her worst. Then again, Metal Mike Saunders thinks “Love Drunk” sounds like the Backstreet Boys (“is that Nick or Brian on the lead vocs?”), so maybe this festering ball of makeout mush is a letdown from Boys Like Girls, too. As for the title, these kids all need some remedial arithmetic tutoring from Brad Paisley (see “Math” on his new album); a girl plus a group equals more than two, right?
[6]

Iain Mew: Taylor’s voice serves only as a stark contrast to the strained falsetto and bizarre enunciation of the rest of the song, which is totally lacking in much needed turbo guitar power.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: This is such a perfect gloss of the high-pitched harmonies from Once — beefed but not overpowered by the studio bombast — that I hope it inspires MTV to produce a remake (or rip-off) for the songbirds to star in. Inane and cloying? Sure, but you can’t spell grade-A bullshit without “grade-A.”
[8]

Additional Scores

Spencer Ackerman: [3]
Alfred Soto: [4]

”Torn” was nearly 12 years ago now…

[Video][Website]
[6.31]

Matt Cibula: I love you Cathy Dennis! I love you Lisa Stansfield! I love you Kylie Minogue! I pretty much like you Natalie Imbruglia, especially in the softcore porn video!
[7]

Martin Skidmore: The opening sounds like a dancier mix of Kate Bush’s magnificent ‘Running Up That Hill’, which makes Natalie’s voice sound particularly thin and weak in comparison. Nonetheless, the beats are perky, and there is an endearingly swoony quality to the sound. Sadly, her mediocre singing lets it down.
[6]

Pete Baran: Ten out of ten for ambition; going the whole Kate Bush is a bold move (especially nicking the “Hounds Of Love” galloping backing track). But the singing sounds strained, and the chorus is weak. This is only the best single this year from a Johnny English cast member by virtue of Rowan Atkinson not releasing anything (EDIT – I forgot the Oliver Cast Recording, on which Atkinson sings “You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two”, which is better than this).
[3]

Chuck Eddy: Generic you’re-gonna-miss-me/I-wish-you-well-but-maybe-not-really post-breakup sentiments, voiced just passive-aggressively enough that you can’t tell whether the singer’s being sarcastic or not, made moderately tense by spare but propulsive production: ’80s art-disco synths that evolve from “Eye Of The Tiger” into “Running Up That Hill”; vocal echoes out of Ozzy’s “Crazy Train”.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: It’s spooky, but not in a Kate Bush fashion, and it’s disco, but disco by other means, and neither Bush nor disco were ever this icy and bitter. Despite running out of new ways to thrill around two minutes in, it’s pretty captivating.
[8]

Kat Stevens: I’m very glad Natalie opted for this as lead single instead of “Wild About It” (a plodding pastiche of fellow-Aussie Gabriella Cilmi’s twangy knees-up ‘Sweet About Me’). “Want” is its opposite in tone – compelling, moody techno-pop that wouldn’t sound out of place mixed in somewhere on a Bpitch compilation.
[8]

John Seroff: Given the pedigree at play, I was inclined to handle this song with tongs; Imbruglia, Silverchair and Coldplay encompass a pretty strong cross-section of what I don’t want to hear more of. It’s not half as bad as I feared; “Want” is a reasonably metered don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out sniff set to chimes and ride ’em cowboy bass that would be more at home in the club than The Gap, if only barely. It’s a sort of neutered Alcazar; too oil-free and Covergirl approved to bite but driven and pretty enough to not be totally dismissed.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: The absolute last thing I ever expected from the who-dat-now singer of “Torn,” her one blip in the U.S.: not just a good disco record, but a great disco record; also the last thing I expected from co-writer Chris Martin. It had my ear from go, but it wasn’t till I looked at the video (Natalie video-recording herself in various states of dress and emotion) that I focused on the lyric, and everything clicked: this is a fuck-you goodbye, angry, and the gossamer-identikit pop-trance production, lovely as its details may already have been, was hiding something much richer. “I hope you get all that you want/Cause I didn’t”: chorus of the year? I’d never have figured Natalie Imbruglia would have a shot at my 2009 Top 10, but things work out funny, don’t they? Thank you, Pop.
[9]

Ramzy Alwakeel: A staggeringly powerful lead single from Imbruglia IV. The electronic production is undeniably a somewhat glossy step up, but it’s handled with a musicality that would melt Cascada at fifty paces. ‘Want’ delicately manages its emotions like Good Humor-era Saint Etienne, with an elegantly furious lyric supported by insistent motivic repetition. It deserves to utterly ruin the charts.
[9]

Alfred Soto: This doesn’t sound like Saint Etienne so much as Anita Ward fronting a Trevor Horn-produced Seal track from 1991. Vocalists as blank as Imbruglia galumph from context to context in search of meaning, and if smooth Euro-diva disco gets her some of that Kylie dough, then more power to her.
[7]

Sophie Green: I think I really want to like this but it sounds like eight bars on repeat — there isn’t enough in the way of development or expansion throughout the song, but I do like Imbruglia’s cold, distanced vocals.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Imbruglia’s voice is so pleasant and low key that it delivers everything with a rarefied air of lassitude — usually a good thing, but this is slight even for her gifts.
[5]

Doug Robertson: She might have escaped the Beth-from-Neighbours tag, but it seems unlikely she’ll ever get away from the long shadow that “Torn” casts upon her. Natalie here is doing her very best to sound like an artist who totally belongs in the 21st century and isn’t just a remnant of the late nineties’ fondness for acts who had a way with a pretty tune and the face to match. Unfortunately, her definition of “relevant” seems to hover around the sort of track that even Dannii Minogue would have turned down a few years ago for sounding a bit too dated.
[5]

Ian Mathers: I like Imbruglia more than I’d imagine most here do (guys, White Lilies Island is actually a good album!), so I find this change of pace maybe less compelling than others might. “Want” is perfectly serviceable post-Sophie Ellis-Bextor pop, and certainly it’s worlds better than I’d expect from the descriptor “synth-pop co-written by Chris Martin,” but even as it gallops along I can’t shake the notion that it’s all surface and no feeling, which is a type of song I’m not sure Imbruglia can pull off.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: The arrangement is lush and her voice is smooth, but there’s not much to hold on to here, vocally or lyrically. On balance, strangely unaffecting, especially given how expressive I know she was once capable of being.
[5]

Iain Mew: The icy repeated line that runs through and drives this (“I hope you get all that you want…”) is pure unresolved ache, more hypnotising with every repetition. When it eventually does reach a resolution of sorts, it’s such an effectively cruel kick (“…cos I didn’t”), too. Don’t know just how much is down to Chris Martin but between this, “All Good Things” and “See It in a Boy’s Eyes”, I’d suggest that it would be better for everyone if he took over as the new Ryan Tedder.
[8]

I think we can all agree that’s a pish name for a band, if nothing else…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.18]

Chuck Eddy: Crooner sits alone waiting by his phone, sounding too shy and reserved but expressing melancholy anyway, probably thanks to how the pretty minor-key melody counters pretty forward-motion synths; the song actually loses something when it stops being sad. Sorta takes me back to the early ’90s Pet-Shop-wannabe moment of Sensation’s Burger Habit and the Beloved’s Happiness — a moment that I didn’t even realize I missed.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Australian label Modular knows what it’s doing all right; having found success with the dance-rock hybrid of Cut Copy and the pop-dance hybrid of Van She, it’s signed Bag Raiders, a combination of the two so precisely engineered it might have come out of a German laboratory. “Shooting Stars” is a wistful synth-driven pop confection with a soaring chorus and an allergic rejection of innovation. But even if synth-pop duos have, over the last decade, become as Australian and as generic as meat-and-potatoes pub rock, when it works, it works, and it’s tough to deny that this is indeed a very lovely little song. It’s certainly enjoyable enough that they have it in them to use that hook-writing talent for something a little less paint-by-numbers in the future.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: It’s hard to even call this a mash-up of singer-songwriter Moby and uptempo Cut Copy; the former actually fades out before the latter begins. As the reference points suggest this is pretty low impact as far as techno-pop goes, but the restraint isn’t stultifying.
[7]

Pete Baran: Annoying indie dance number which has a breakdown two minutes in which feels like the end, since the first couple of minutes have been that boring.
[1]

Martin Kavka: Pop has seen a lot of fooling around with verse-chorus structure in recent years; Girls Aloud’s tendency to go from chorus to chorus to chorus is probably the best example. Bag Raiders’ take is to record a song that is all verse for the first half and all chorus for the second half. But once the chorus begins, the “verse” half has deadened my desire so much that I’ve stopped caring. Even worse, the narrative of the video seems to claim that the collapse of tall buildings makes authentic existence possible. Is 9/11 really that long ago, even for an Australian act?
[1]

Frank Kogan: Electronic dance that’s dressed in inexpensive pastels. Don’t know why the singer starts out so glum – I suppose it’s ’cause he feels inferior to the lights in the sky. Fortunately, elevated by feelings of love, he himself lightens up by the end.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Always wondered why more of these kind of nagging tweaky synth-riffs didn’t make it into quasi-pop. A guess: they work better when layered one after the other, in succession, than when they’re underpinning words. This one doesn’t improve with time and repetition, either.
[5]

Erick Bieritz: Modular deserves a lot of credit for pushing the oughties electronic pop reclamation project since before almost anyone outside of Oz thought of these things, but for there are some clunkers in with the smash hits. “Shooting Stars” is the diminishing returns of the scene, great little processed twists on familiar riffs that nonetheless fail to excuse a middling chorus and dull hook, which was the same widely overlooked problem with the weaker half of Cut Copy’s “In Ghost Colours” album.
[5]

Mallory O’Donnell: I hate to think about music in terms of ratings and numbers and all evaluation methods and the like, but this right here is the perfect, almost the prototypical “5.” My feet and my gonads want to react positively with everything that happens here, but every part of me that is wary is so very wary of it all. It’s not simply that everything here has been done better before, but that it’s been done better before without making it so painfully clear that it was going about the process of doing it. The very definition of something that will cease to matter a half-second before you’re done thinking about it.
[5]

Ian Mathers: I quite like the first two minutes of this, where the vocalist mutters away like a shyer Bernard Sumner over a nagging, kind of chintzy synth riff. For such a florid production, it’s surprisingly withdrawn and as a brief interlude I actually think it makes a lovely song. The second half, where the production goes a bit OTT, the singer starts trying to emote and the melody is entirely different, might be okay on its own merits. But I’m sufficiently miffed that it’s stomped all over a perfectly good and very different song that it’s hard for me to tell.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The mosquito riff and use of space find the right balance between serenity and obnoxiousness, and when the song turns into a disco thumper in the last third, thanks to the riff from Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” it’s earned the right to burn into your earhole.
[7]

Yes I am, aw yeh…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.00]

Spencer Ackerman: Synopsis: Girl looks fly, like crazy fly, and you want to stunt on her. So you have this Big Green Tractor, and you offer her a ride on it. Slow or fast, baby you could have whatever you like. WHY WOULD YOU COMPARE YOUR DICK TO A TRACTOR?
[2]

Anthony Easton: List of Farm Equipment that is sexier then a tractor: a) chisel plow; b) spike harrow; c) terragator; d) combine; e) hay tedder.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: What’s the point of a Jason Aldean single that doesn’t have loud Bad Company or AC/DC riffs? (see “Hicktown,” “Johnny Cash,” “She’s Country” –the latter of which is the first country hit my Beastie/Biggie/Wu Tang/Wayne-bred youngest son has ever admitted to liking). Actually, I’m not even sure Aldean’s songs with loud riffs have a point, but at least they encourage car-radio volume-knob-blasting. This just sounds slow — and Kenny Chesney’s tractor was sexier.
[5]

Pete Baran: A song like this absolutely must use its central conceit as a thinly veiled sexual metaphor. But there is no sane human metaphor that could use a Big Green Tractor as a sexual substitute. Unless there is some sort of John Deere / John Thomas switch I am not getting. And yet the line “We can go slow or we can go faster” suggests something else, because I know tractors cannot go very fast at all. Its simplicity and goofiness doesn’t quite overcome its idiocy, but it could be the best tractor based single for thirty years.
[5]

Matt Cibula: Okay in some ways but dammit you can’t spell “power ballad” without “POWER” and someone needs to tell homeboy this immediately.
[3]

Michaelangelo Matos: Sleepy country semi-seduction, nothing special at all, but the buzzy lead guitar stays in my head for minutes after everything else fades out.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Chugs along like a dependable piece of farm machinery: whenever it threatens to stall and sputter, it reassures me. Aldean’s been a second-tier country star for a while now, and while his second number one in less than ayear suggests that he’s ready for bigger things, his essential namby-pamby nature reins him in. No double entendres or smirks here — Aldean means what he sings, which is all his pleasant, modest voice can promise. The organ washes and guitar solo promise a lot more though.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: The song is negligible and hamfisted, he strikes me as a particularly bland and dull singer, and the music would have sounded hackneyed 30 years ago. Rubbish.
[2]

Are you read-eh for love…

[Video][Myspace]
[7.00]

Hillary Brown: Yay, it’s the end of the movie, and the fuzzy crowd at the dance is slowly parting as we move in slow-mo to see the two kids meant to be together approaching one another. Heart-warming, and unfortunately already featured in a Taylor Swift video. Still, it fits about as well with this twinkly, shimmery, satiny song.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: It’s weird to think that these guys are by now a small institution, the kind of band that seems capable of putting out an album every other year in perpetuity, selling out mid-sized drinkeries-with-stage into comfortable middle age. I never cared myself until a couple years ago, when a friend’s enthusiasm pushed me to try Lust Lust Lust and learn to enjoy them as sunny kitsch dressed arty and not-quite-goth. This isn’t anywhere near that good, which probably indicates they’ve peaked.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The problem with the dance metaphors is that they occasionally turn into something harder, more emotionally reticent. Is the last dance here about death, or heartbreak, or some kind of Euro-Don McLean meta commentary on the music, or all of the above? What exactly are we saving, and are we mostly saving it from ourselves? Sharin Foo’s whispers here are infused with an ambiguity that refuses to answer those questions, much to her credit.
[9]

Spencer Ackerman: A perfect example of a band exceeding its limits, which in this case are schlocky Brill-Building throwbackism. “Last Dance” continues Lust Lust Lust’s obsession with morbidity (“Every time you overdose/I rush to intensive care”) through achingly pretty and unashamedly huge pop hooks. Phil Spector producing JAMC from his jail cell.
[9]

Matt Cibula: Over on Cave17.com we hella loved Lust Lust Lust but that was because of their rediscovered hard edges; this is too pillowy and wall-of-sound-ish for me to love. But tension and beauty are in short supply, especially together, so I expect I’ll come around.
[6]

Peter Parrish: If Lust Lust Lust was their Psychocandy then I guess In And Out Of Control will be Darklands. Which is fine by me; I love Darklands. Anyway, that makes this track … err, “April Skies,” I suppose. Certainly the portrayal of an utterly broken and destructive relationship gift-wrapped in cosy pop paper remains the same. Some lovely falsetto coo-ing in the chorus and blimey, is that a stylophone I hear being played in a non-infuriating way just before the coda? I do believe it could be.
[8]

Pete Baran: I’ve always liked what the Ravonettes do, whilst always wishing that there was a band like them that took the RAVE bit of their name more seriously. The sweetest record I can think of that mentions intensive care, it’ll get many a happy repeat play from me, whilst I wonder about a version with a more banging backing.
[6]

Alfred Soto: I didn’t expect this to sound like one of Stephen Merritt’s side projects. Wispy and crunchy in equal measures, it saves its truest pleasures for the choral harmonies.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: This is an odd mix of Phil Spector and the Velvet Underground: most of the music is the latter (think ‘Sunday Morning’ in particular) apart from end-of-the-pier organ, but the song is the former, and there are woo-hoo backing vocals. I’m not sure it’s a winning combination, but I find it likeable enough.
[6]

Are you read-eh…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.50]

Michaelangelo Matos: Oh wow: London gothgaze duo expands palette to include ranker-than-thou woman dismissal because (cough) they gotta be free, man.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: If you think the only problem with lumpen electro-shoegaze is that the lyrics aren’t as misogynist as hardcore rap, that’s been solved. Obviously there is none of the verbal inventiveness of rap here, but there is the same attitude to women. Hurrah.
[1]

Spencer Ackerman: “These girls fall like dominoes” is how you say “wait till you see my dick” in indie.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: Is it only my imagination, or does every new generation of British bands somehow manage to sing even more rigidly than the one before it? I can actually take this song’s stupid chorus, and the rhythm could be worse. But the cue-carding reading in the verses is some new kind of low.
[3]

Chris Boeckmann: I’m here to stand up for gigantic choruses.
[8]

Hillary Brown: Apparently, I hated their previous track, so either I’ve flip-flopped hugely, or this is just a good bit better. I vote for the latter. It’s quite listenable, all fuzzy waves and fairly nice vocals plus a fairly quick pace.
[5]

Matt Cibula: Surprising myself by liking this in a new wavey / martial law sort of way.
[6]

Talia Kraines: People tell me that the distortion and rumblings in this song remind them of The Jesus & Mary Chain. As a fully signed up member of the Spice Girls school of music as a teenager, I have no idea what they are talking about. What I hear is a calm but asserting opening that suddenly explodes into a euphoric pop hook that makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and stomp about.
[7]

Iain Mew: Elsewhere online, I suggested that this sounded like Kasabian, and fans of the song hurriedly denied it. I stick by it – The Big Pink are a bit cleverer, a bit fuzzier and have better lyrics but they achieve very much the same barely concealed menace via sneering vocals over booming beats. The results in this case, though, are a lot of fun. Almost as much fun as tagging “watch them all fall down” on the end of the chorus.
[7]

Peter Parrish: Anything referring to the toppling of dominoes puts me in mind of wide open spaces at BBC television center; patterns of black tendrils spreading across wooden floors against a ticking timer as the ghost of Roy Castle floats overheard. This song certainly isn’t going to break any records with me though!!! Ha ha … yeah, sorry. I’m bothered by how hollow this sounds, though. Not in a we’re-so-frightfully-bored-in-our-sunglasses way, or even an affecting-the-emotionless-stance-of-musical-robots way, just … devoid of a point of interest to cling on to. There’s a bit of glitz and a chap enunciating his lyrics with bewildering care and, oh yes, those dominoes. Which are actually girls. Blame them for standing too close together if you will, but maybe you should just stop pushing them over. Dolt.
[3]

Artist. Producer. Entrepreneur. CEO. Plus actor…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.20]

Frank Kogan: Goofy bass funk in the style of the early ’80s, staged with minimal scenery, printed on overexposed film. The result is a bit spooky, like telephone poles looming out from the fog. The story itself is uneasy, a clandestine affair that’s never quite sure of its boundaries.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: Ryan Leslie is the yin to The-Dream’s yang: where Love vs Money created lush, maximalist FutureSex/SoundScapes, Ryan Leslie remained indebted to R&B’s traditional influences even as it pushed its production in stark and sparse directions. In other words, he’s the Pharrell to The-Dream’s Timbaland. Never has this been more clear than “You’re Not My Girl”, a sleek little nugget of bouncing basslines and funk guitar that sounds like a lost track from the Neptunes’ Justified sessions. The clincher is Leslie’s seductive and conflicted kiss-off, delivered to a woman he isn’t allowed to have but can’t stay away from. “You’re Not My Girl”: The song that launched a thousand R-Les/Cassie/Diddy fanfics.
[9]

Al Shipley: Clearly it’s The-Dream’s moment right now, but the other chinless R&B auteur threatening to drop a 2nd album this year is working hard to play catch up. This may not be as immediate and undeniable as “Diamond Girl”, but it’s got a killer groove and low key charm I’ll come back to regardless of whether it actually hits.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: It really kicks in when you listen close how tricky the structure is, how buoyant the percussive arrangement is, how perfectly it recapitulates early-’80s R&B while sounding squarely now. But the fact that you have to listen close to catch all that says something too.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Disco doesn’t work if it’s this flaccid or hookless. Within the realm of pop-R&B, this is nearly as unforgivably unimaginative as Kings of Leon are in theirs.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: I detect echoes of early ’80s post-Chic pop-funk in the chimey bounce, and in Leslie’s singing here — which reminds me of old Brits like Imagination (and maybe Junior) in its higher register and old Americans like Ray Parker Jr. in its lower. There’s a jazziness to his technique that I respond to, and I like how he punctuates by taking little breaths — basically a Michael Jackson tic, I guess, and by now maybe a Justin Timberlake tic. Still not connecting emotionally, though; wonder why. Maybe it’s the songwriting?
[7]

Martin Kavka: In both its vocal and production, “You’re Not My Girl” is neither offensive nor exciting. If Michael Jackson were to have lived to make another failed comeback album, this would have been its fourth single.
[4]

Pete Baran: There is a boldness to the upfront bassline which is really refreshing, so it’s all a bit of a shame that its repetition is all there is to the song. By the time it’s being played on the “coconut shells” setting on the synth, I got a bit sick of it.
[2]

Anthony Miccio: Classicist R&B is conservative by nature, but this is harder synth-funk than homage dictates, giving the track an immediacy that more than makes up for the smooth anonymity of the vocals.
[8]

John Seroff: Leslie sounds like a mellow John Legend channelling The Whispers, the funk bassline sounds like a lax “Another One Bites the Dust”, the drums sound like “Billie Jean”, the second half of the song sounds exactly like the first half. There’s nothing exactly wrong with “You’re Not My Girl”, but neither is there anything exactly right; it’s a perfectly enjoyable light soul strutter but it just don’t ELEVATE. It’s a shame the cavalry never comes, ’cause the foundation is strong, just not thick.
[6]