Wherein it turns out Rodney J. Greene was Doug Robertson in disguise all along…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.08]

Rodney J. Greene: The production is handled commendably, given just the deftest of touch, but they squander it by coasting along, never risking a wipeout.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I was not convinced about the efficacy of this work until the chorus about being down by the rollercoasters, which is so sweet and teenagey, and completely innocent (i.e. seductive)
[9]

Chris Boeckmann: It’s been a good, um, two years since THE OC ended and an even better four years since we all stopped watching it, so I feel pretty safe stepping back and declaring it one of the most classic TV shows of all-time. The breezy, fun, hooky “Let’s Go Surfing” would have made a really dope transition from credits to opening scene. But thing is, “Let’s Go Surfing” is actually more than that: it’s an anthem. “Obama, I want to go surfing,” they may (or may not) sing. Whatever the case, I can imagine Ryan, Marissa and the gang chanting that at a concert, and I can imagine it subsequently becoming a t-shirt slogan. I wouldn’t have complained.
[9]

Dan MacRae: Wouldn’t it be great if it was “Obama, I wanna go surfing”, instead? Imagine the essays that would be written analyzing what a surf invitation to Barack Obama actually meant. Surfing as metaphor for insurance reform, for example.
[8]

Jordan Sargent: They can say that they aren’t singing “Obama/ I wanna go surfing” all they want but I”m not gonna believe them. And as much as that makes me want to step back and vomit, I admire the audaciousness. And if that hook puts you off, the guitars are catchier anyway.
[8]

Matt Cibula: The Boo Radleys shoutout is my favorite part of this one — no courage in its convictions.
[4]

Alex Macpherson: That’s some astonishingly feeble running and stretching on undignified display in the video, but these weaklings’ music has even less vim and vigour than their exercise.
[2]

Anthony Miccio: While the idea of a new band faithfully imitating a faithful imitation of a semipop moment isn’t exactly thrilling, all that keeps this Factory by way of Teenbeat trifle from providing a jittery contact high all the same is the singer, whose pro forma pleas stink of second-hand irony.
[6]

Ian Mathers: You know, there’s a reason an awful lot of surf rock was instrumental (you can keep the whistling though, that’s fine). The only time this even approaches interesting is at the end when the vocals start getting phased into stuttering, err, waves as the track comes to a halt. If they’d done that throughout, and more overtly, this might actually be worth listening to twice (I checked, and it isn’t).
[4]

Chuck Eddy: Where has that “down down baby, down by the rollercoaster” chant been used before? It’s in some totally classic song, but I can’t place it. Anyway, that took me be surprise. And there’s at least a soupçon of hang-ten twang to the guitar, too. But these pale and frail lads…well, they really do sound like underfed ponces who’d ask their Mums whether they’re allowed to go surfing. And then they don’t do it, because there’s no surf in Liverpool. Honestly, I’m not convinced they’ve seen an hour of sunlight in their lives. Weird thing is, I like this okay anyway — is it possible I miss well-done shambling? God, I hope not. (Wait, they’re from Brooklyn??? WTF?)
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: They sound like the closest they’ve gotten to the water anytime recently was admiring the aquarium at the post-grad ceremony hosted by the cool economics prof, but I like their thrumming little beats and whistled hook, and totally believe they’ll make it to the beach someday. Whether they’ll do something other than sit in the shade and read another Brian Wilson bio remains to be seen.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I almost like the clumsy whistling, which is catchy, but the overall amateurish indie or maybe post-punk sensibility bores me. Someone could do a good cover of this, I think.
[4]

Clueless is still total quality, btw…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.91]

Martin Skidmore: The valley girl parody opening is both quite funny and rather dated, and from there it’s a girly dancehall rewrite of “I’m Too Sexy”. It has some punch and amusing novelty value, but I did feel like one listen was quite enough.
[4]

Melissa Bradshaw: A female dancehall Right Said Fred? Not a bad idea. Done by the killer frontwoman of “Bubble Like Soup”, it’s doubly bizarre — though she clearly always had a finely tuned sense of humour and a penchant for the trappings of celebrity.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Speaking of valley girls, did you know that Moon-Unit Zappa is now married to the drummer and guitarist of Matchbox 20? Fer shure, fer shure.
[9]

Ian Mathers: On the one hand, I find this song the kind of intensely annoying novelty that makes one think fondly of comedy YouTube videos of years past. But on the other hand, listening to it over a few times, Timberlee is just so goddamn happy the whole time, and the song follows. It’s actually kind of infectious and while I doubt I’ll ever voluntarily listen to it again I have to respect its relentless cheer and how much fun they appear to be having.
[5]

Martin Kavka: A poor imitation of Liam Kyle Sullivan’s “Shoes.”
[2]

Anthony Miccio: That “Shoes” YouTube really beat these guys to the punch, didn’t it?
[4]

Kat Stevens: In the video, Timberlee’s Valley Girl persona is squawking about her footwear to a confused priest in the confessional booth. It feels like the priest and I are alone in sharing a sense of bemusement at this track’s appeal – although Timberlee’s performance is refreshingly daft, I find the oompah beat utterly obnoxious.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: I don’t know: her unbridled enthusiasm slyly undercuts the elegance of the song’s subject matter? Whatever: her squealing is irritating and idiotic, and as much as I can relate to enthusing about excessively expensive fashion, I at least have some goddamn self-respect about it.
[1]

Frank Kogan: Jamaican dancehall gal dons Valley Girl garb, rides a tootling Benny Hill riddim, and serves us a banquet of squeaks and yammers. This is true world music.
[9]

Alex Macpherson: The Benny Hill riddim is daft enough, and Timberlee’s approach is to match its silliness — and then some. She and Tosh are like ventriloquists, their array of goofy accents keeping you on your toes — one minute they’re giddily vapid, the next no-nonsense fierce, different voices tumbling over each other from all directions while the beat parps merrily on. Tremendous fun.
[8]

Rodney J. Greene: The brief moments where this goes full dancehall engage me in positive manner, but the stretches in between are a wasteland of mall-rat blather and autotuned oompah. Please get me out of here.
[2]

Rat-a-tat-tat…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.11]

Martin Kavka: The full 17:37 version of this rave-sunrise anthem is better, but even this edit makes me cry when the mandolin drops in. Besides the xx and Maxwell, no act has had a better command of mood this year.
[10]

Martin Skidmore: I really like this. Restrained house music around acoustic guitar, with a gentle, relaxed feel. It’s gorgeous, and the most moving instrumental I can remember for ages.
[9]

Matt Cibula: Entirely pleasant, if a bit pointless as this kind of hoedown has been being done for more than a decade.
[5]

Alex Macpherson: Funny; having made the slightly leftfield comparison of Subeena’s “Boksd” to Border Community’s output, here comes something which actually does sound like something released on that imprint in 2004. Its pretty pastoral guitar line and drifting electronic haze bring back some good memories, but where “Boksd” pushes the game forward substantially, “America” merely sounds rather dated.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: Adult contemporary electronica that makes recent records by Underworld and New Order sound faintly dangerous. Readymade for insertion in an advert for a hybrid SUV or some portable media device you silence your children with while driving said SUV across those expansive vistas found mainly in the smug, self-congratulatory western portion of this country.
[3]

Ian Mathers: The first time I played this, I quite liked the intro music but was bracing for some fatuous singer to come in and sing lyrics as grandiose and silly as the song’s title. When that never happened (I was half expecting Bono) I was inclined to look fondly on Dusty Kid, and there are some nice touches such as the way the rustic guitar breakdown in the middle kind of reminds me of Jim O’Rourke’s Bad Timing. But once I got over my shock that “America (The Director’s Cut)” isn’t nearly as bad as the title suggests it ought to be, I noticed that much of the track is still pretty cheesy.
[5]

Rodney J. Greene: An subtly constructed Balearic slow ride that stays just out of mind’s reach and body’s threshhold. The disjunct between its beauty and functionality is flustering.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Every few years there’s a track like this: muted enough not to seem too pop for dance fans, overtly melodic enough for pop fans who don’t really dance. It’ll probably end up in an ad if it hasn’t already, and good: it deserves to prick up some real-world ears.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Such a thin line between atmospheric and boring.
[3]

Probably the least chart-troubling of the TRP crop…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.57]

Alex Macpherson: Sabina Plamenova, aka Subeena, exemplifies the beyond-genre lateral thinking amongst the current wave of producers who use the spectrum of electronic club music as a toolbox from which to pick and choose. She’s used her background in dubstep as a jump-off point into grime, off-kilter soul and, on “Boksd”, gorgeously immersive techno which could slot easily alongside Border Community releases — and has excelled at everything she’s turned her hand to so far. Twinkling, frosty high-end sprinkles a trail of glitter and stardust; heavy bass creeps under the skin and warms the bones; and trippy, driving beats — a motorik rhythm gone awry — propel the body into motion.
[10]

Matt Cibula: Is “won’t o’ the wisp” an expression? Or did I just make that up to describe this?
[3]

Martin Skidmore: Laid-back dupstep of an almost ambient kind, with a plinky string figure over some very attractive bass sounds and diffident beats. It’s a bit too polite and modest to really grab me, but it’s very pleasant.
[6]

Ian Mathers: Tracks like “Boksd” always leave me a little nonplussed; there’s nothing boring or objectionable about the song as its playing, but there’s also nothing that makes it stand out for me against the myriad other instrumental, electronic tracks out there. And yet this is one of our TUNES RECOVERY PROJECT tracks, which means at least one of my Jukebox compatriots cared enough to lobby for its inclusion. That makes me suspect that there’s more to “Boksd” than I’m currently hearing, but if I don’t get it after a dozen listens, will I ever?
[6]

Melissa Bradshaw: A 23 year old Bulgarian-Italian woman comes with a fresh answer to the problem of where UK bass music goes after dubstep. The warmth, groove and 808 sounds reflect her love for Warp, but the overall fusion and the pretty clarity of her melodies are unique and intriguingly beautiful.
[7]

Rodney J. Greene: The synth arpeggios cascading one atop another are lovely. They do tend to wash over me if I’m not paying close attention, but I’m occasionally jolted out of my stupor and amazed at what I hear.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: I’m a perpetual sucker for pretty drift, especially with a beat, and this 12-inch by a 23-year-old London woman is no exception. It’s even got one of those silly crumbled-letters titles just so you know you’re not supposed to actually dance to it, though you might anyway. That’s partly because its drift isn’t as pronounced as its prettiness: it’s melodic not like a pop song but like a composition. She’s got others too, and I thank whoever suggested this for getting me interested enough to find out what that might be.
[7]

Right, we were supposed to start this on Monday, but never mind.

Starting next Tuesday, the Singles Jukebox will roll out its year-end extravaganza, which we’re still keeping slightly under wraps. What we can say is that it’s only gonna involve singles we’ve reviewed this year, cos having a song we’ve not reviewed as single of the year would just be stoopid.

However – the Jukebox Selection Committee is well aware that it’s missed out on some stuff this year. That whole “I’m In Miami Bitch” thing. The 73rd, 82nd and 94th singles off the Beyonce album. The Twang. Tons of stuff.

And so we asked our writers to put forward songs we hadn’t reviewed from earlier in the year, with the intention of getting them all reviewed in the week before the year-end thing so that they’d be eligible for inclusion in the year-end voting. Today, we begin the process of reviewing those songs, in a series that we were gonna call Amnesty Week but which I’ve now changed to TUNES RECOVERY PROJECT because I just came up with it and I think it’s quite a good pun. So there.

Over the next three days, then, it’s nothing but stuff from earlier in the year that we missed out on covering through ignorance, lateness or sheer bloody stupidity. We start in a couple of hours with the follow-up to one of the UK’s biggest breakout singles of the year. Do please join us.

He jumps on his keyboard, we jump down his throat…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.29]

Michaelangelo Matos: I’ve been avoiding this guy’s music for a decade, largely because every description of it I’ve read made me fear it would sound exactly like this: ’70s AM-radio pop-rock with textbook-clever lyrics, stacked-harmony choruses, pianos for melancholic contrast subsumed (lest we give up hope!) by buzzy guitar, produced with clear and obvious passion and sounding freeze-dried to anyone who doesn’t share it in precisely the same dosages.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: Splits the difference between classic rock and power pop, and doesn’t acquit itself well in either pose. The nostalgic country-rock isn’t as epic as it wants to be, while the power pop arrangement doesn’t go down as smooth as it should. Jason Collett does whiskey-soaked bar band far better, and Brendan Benson can pull off the power pop in his sleep. As it is, “White Leather Days” has neither the bombast to overwhelm my emotional barriers nor the subtlety to sneak past them.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: For all his new wave invocations and seeming indie ambitions (oxymoron, I know), the clean sounds and strangled singing come out sounding closer to The Fray, who boast better songwriting than this bunk.
[3]

Ian Mathers: I guess it’s nice that the Killers have people imitating stuff past their first album now, but Brandon Flowers is more ingratiating than this guy (and — I’m surprised too — writes better lyrics).
[3]

Matt Cibula: If this guy had the voice of Meat Loaf, or even Wayne Coyne, we’d be paying a lot more attention. But he doesn’t, and his Dean Friedman shtick is not quite doing it for me. (Anyone else remember Dean Friedman, except maybe Chuck?)
[6]

Chuck Eddy: As a passing-evocative late ’00s indie-rock approximation of late ’70s urban singer-songster pop-rock, surprisingly not too shabby — vocally, melodically, lyrically. But it’s the age-old indie story: Dude, in the late ’70s, even B-listers like Mink Deville or Jim Carrol or Tonio K or whoever were savvy enough to find a good band. Complete with rhythm section. Follow their lead, figure out a way to add some meat to your songs’ bones, come back, and I’ll listen.
[6]

Martin Kavka: Twenty years ago, a friend from Minneapolis introduced me to the music of Trip Shakespeare, and promised me that they would be the next great rock act. They weren’t, and neither will Mark Mallman, for in his attempt to write timeless pop-rock, he comes off as a mere epigone. Then again, maybe if I drank the Minneapolis water, I’d be convinced that this was amazingness incarnate.
[3]

Made the tragic error of not being on a car advert, so it didn’t crack the top 10…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.71]

Chuck Eddy: Ultra-reined-in retro-something-or-other with a slight reggae lilt and slight rock guitar parts and slight early ’60s girl-pop crescendos, so inept at mannerisms it doesn’t comprehend that you never notice whether there’s a song attached.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: The Britishes vs. retro-soul formula has had some of the most quickly diminishing returns of any trend ever, and no, tossing in a couple power chords doesn’t return any novelty. Really, no one is good at this except for Amy Winehouse.
[5]

Matt Cibula: Brits love the Wall of Sound these days (V.V. Brown what what), and I wish we did too. Also, Shingai is almost unbearably sexy.
[9]

Martin Skidmore: I said nice things about Shingai Shoniwa for “Don’t Upset The Rhythm”, but this is kind of dreary. It’s also sort of classy, and there’s nothing really wrong with her vocal, but I don’t think she is special enough to carry something so subdued.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: This threw me at first: Shingai Shoniwa (at least on this, my first ever Noisettes song) is a ringer for early Mariah, to whom I’ve long been averse. Except early Mariah would have thrown more technique at this song than it could have withstood, and Shoniwa leads from the gut, or the heart — whatever it is, it drew me in immediately and has only squeezed harder with every play. Maybe it’s the arrangement, as much of a throwback as Winehouse, only late ’80s quiet storm rather than early ’70s funk: chunky beatbox beneath church Casio, generously arranged backing vox. Maybe Mariah would have always sounded better on the cheap.
[9]

Keane Tzong: A sweet, insubstantial retro pastiche isn’t the kind of song for which I expect to have any depth of feeling, but these things happen, I guess. Time has made me appreciate this more and more (I found this quite insubstantial the first time I heard it), but every time I listen to this I hear new nuances in Shingai Shoniwa’s vocals: simultaneously warm, amused, and full of regret, they cement her position as one of the best frontwomen in pop today. Wild Young Hearts may be derided as a sell-out album for the ages, but when the results are as winning and seemingly effortless as this, I see little reason to complain.
[9]

Ian Mathers: The singer’s got a weird sort of double voice here — at times she manages to flit between timbres in the space of a single line or phrase (especially at the beginning of the song), which is a neat trick. If only the song made any real use of her Jekyll and Hyde phrasing — it just sounds like she’s singing around a sore throat or something. The rest of the song is a good-enough retro vamp, but it gets a bit tiresome when they start piling guitar rumble on string swoop and percussive punctuation. Like the voice, there’s tons of potential here, but they still haven’t made good on it.
[6]

The mopping-up we promised you yesterday will now start a wee bit later on today…

[Website]
[6.33]

Pete Baran: Taylor’s Rubber Band Steel Guitar marks this out as being something a bit different for the first twelve seconds. Then it’s US Pop by numbers, but at least she accurately describes the procedure for parachuting.
[5]

Anthony Easton: I fear after two years of hearing the same songs, they are blending together. This is a fairly generic use of her talent and is not as much of a pop crossover as, for example, the Carrie Underwood/Max Martin track.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: It’s her most pop — that is, her least country — song to date, and if it weren’t for Swift’s playful girlishness, it could almost be classed as Adult Contemporary. If you wore those shoes, she’d probably wear that dress, I daresay. But in my continued and increasingly unnecessary quest to prove just how astonishing a songwriting talent this woman is, admire how thoroughly she inhabits what is, on the face of it, a rather slight stopgap appended to the bonus edition of her wildly successful Fearless album. It doesn’t matter that she re-uses the leaping/falling metaphor she already deployed in “Fifteen” (“Don’t forget to look before you fall”) or that the song covers the same well-trod ground of being giddily astonished at much how happiness another person can induce. Not when Swift can sing a line like “without a warning/I realize your laugh is the best sound I have ever heard” and make it sound actually true, or is willing to blushingly admit, “I like the way I can’t keep my focus”; wholeheartedly welcoming the most throughly silly aspects of infatuation. It’s cleverly constructed as well, a light, skipping song with a chorus that flutters so expertly it barely sounds like a disruption from the verse.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: An appealing melody, a lyrical trope I’ve always loved and her trademark novelish, colourful descriptions, this is… Taylor Swift marking time, more or less. A good pop song, but Taylor Swift at her best is an astonishing thing, at ease with conventions while soaring over them, sharp as a tack with her words and generous with her hooks. This, on the other hand, is just a good pop song.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Crying “uncle” loudly, Swift records the almost-anonymous pop song that “You Belong With Me” never quite was; I can hear this playing over the trailer of a Mandy Moore comedy. She still finds time to notice the freckles on his chin. Also: what “people” say still holds a lot of currency. Maybe “people” told her to write an airbrushed pop single. But Swift is smart enough to sound an awful lot like Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays. Mandy Moore can’t boast that.
[6]

Ian Mathers: Swift continues to be a winning presence, and she’s done perfectly fine with cliches before (coughYouBelongWithMecough), but the problem with the pleasant enough “Jump Than Fall” is that there’s little in the way of detail or interest to the narrative, and the chorus isn’t world-beatingly huge enough to make up for it (as far as the music goes, those digitized guitar (banjo?) gurgles at the beginning are just annoying).
[6]

Anthony Miccio: “Every time you smile, I smile” — yeah, but you’re always smiling. Based on bubbly pleasantries like “honey, I like the way you’re everything I ever wanted,” it doesn’t sound like Taylor wants to be your mirror so much as your cheer captain. She was more affecting on the bleachers.
[6]

John Seroff: I think much of what scares off an otherwise receptive Taylor Swift listener is the counter-intuitive degree of patience that her music requires. First listens of Swift’s work hardly suggest potential complexity; they’re more easily scanned as almost cloying, twangy tweenpop. It’s the “almost” that’s pivotal there; Taylor has a craftsman’s balance and tact with the accents of emotion and drama. Over time, her initial sweetness cedes to depth and considerable narrative nuances and vocal heights are revealed. By those standards, “Jump Then Fall” is a slight misstep; there’s a touch too much sugar in the bowl for my taste, though even at her least appealing and most beamingly Gloriana-ish, the pleasures of Swift’s clear, honeyed voice are not to be denied. It’s simply in comparison to most of Fearless that “Jump” disappoints; divorced from my heightened expectations, it’s a pleasant enough bit of fluff.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: From “shine for you” to “hair in your face”, this is a collection of Taylor tropes — no more, no less. Except for the melody. “Jump Then Fall” lopes along until Taylor realizes your laugh is the best sound she. Has. EVER. HEARD. Which is emphatically stated as she descends down the scale. The fragile melodic leap upwards on the word “jump” might be overly literal, but it’s evocative, too. By Taylor’s standards this is slight, but it’s compulsively hummable nonetheless.
[7]

Matt Cibula: A low-key outing but pleasant withal. I was going to give it a 7 but was afraid that Rodney would be mad at me so knocked it down to a more reasonable score.
[6]

Additional Scores

Chuck Eddy: [6]
Martin Skidmore: [8]

There’s probably a zillion-and-one other singles we could have reviewed. But, well, we’re here now…

[Website][Video]
[4.44]

Matt Cibula: I dunno, genius; maybe your problem is that no one wants to be in love with someone who sounds so over everything. Or maybe that pose has been overstruck.
[3]

Pete Baran: Like a knocked-off Victoria Beckham album track, Meester seems bored, though at least Thicke seems to care about having a hit. Remarkably dull.
[2]

Kat Stevens: Lethargic and mushy, like hungover porridge.
[2]

Alex Ostroff: Leighton’s barely present, intoning dead-eyed tales of world travel over a shimmering beat. That’s exactly what the track needs. Bored with the wonders of the globe and pessimistic about the prospect of love, her character should be as blase as humanly possible. At least until she turns on a dime, her voice breaking on “but can a girl believe.” At any rate, the spoken word bits are really just a time-filler until the marvelous warmth of the chorus, hopeful and searching, lamenting solitude but unwilling to throw in the towel. Robin Thicke sleazily calls Leighton “babygirl” and “putty-cat”, trying to pick her up in a club with offers of shopping sprees and shoes, which makes him the most embarrassing thing here. Or at least he would be, if it weren’t for the cringe-inducing “Je t’adore” bridge. The first 60 seconds are PERFECT, though.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: “Looking at me like a puttycat,” says a sexed up Kirk Cameron, pointing out a big reason Leighton Meester is less attractive than Blair Waldorf, who’d have no time for this submissive disco dolly.
[5]

Ian Mathers: I continue to be underwhelmed by Robin Thicke (yep, he continues to sound pretty much as suave and interesting as I’d expect from Alan Thicke’s son), but I’d much rather this be his song than Meester’s. She adds nothing to proceedings but bad French, and Thicke’s verse is a model of charisma and wit by comparison. The chorus isn’t horrible in a smoothed-out-by-the-studio way, but is that worth giving another actress a tepid pop career for?
[3]

Martin Skidmore: There are too many things in this: medium-pace modern electropop with flourishes not unlike ancient Blondie, Meester’s voice lazily rapping more than singing, Robin Thicke guesting on a song he was not involved in writing, some autotuning around the chorus, a verse in French… Actually, it comes together well enough into a quite smooth and seductive number, but I’d have dropped one or two parts.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: In “Good Girls Go Bad” her rapping reminded me of L’Trimm for a few seconds, and here her rapping half makes me think Debbie Harry auditioning for Ze Records (or Tom Tom Club? The Waitresses? Somebody ’80s-new wavey). Too bad both parties’ sung parts are so expendable (and I say that as somebody who counts Robin Thicke’s “Sidestep” as one of the very best r&b singles of 2009).
[7]

John Seroff: Among the current crop of moonlighting would-be pop starlets, Leighton Meester shows the least natural talent and the most savvy in picking her collaborators. Her conversational purr sloppily apes Debbie Harry and Madonna, but she forgets that their casual delivery was generally earned. Sans AutoTune, she’s scant unmusical placeholder for Robin Thicke, who’s clearly on the wrong end of the “featuring” tag. Thicke’s sinewy, carefully metered soul shines on ‘Somebody’ if only in comparison to his songmate; his deft patter and velvet growl take this disco boilerplate a step past mediocre.
[6]

At least it’s not the end of the world…

[Video][Website]
[3.55]

Anthony Easton: I have not watched any of American Idol, but I have seen the Youtube video of his cover of “Ring of Fire”, which was iconoclastic, strange, and profoundly queer. He didn’t even change the pronouns. This pro forma genderless castrating of that instinct is indicative of the worst kind of homophobic self loathing, a willingness to have our voices sublimated by the mainstream, and then assuming that we are making some kind of progress.
[0]

Martin Skidmore: I enjoyed his rather ludicrous performances on an otherwise poor American Idol season. His natural home is heavy metal, but you don’t get there through TV shows, so we have here an attempt at an AOR power ballad instead. It sounds pretty sludgy, the chorus is inadequate, and he sings it with disappointing restraint most of the way, though when the music gets punchier at the end he goes for it, which carries some entertainment value.
[4]

John Seroff: A bullheaded, soundtrack superpower ballad with a distinct stalker vibe and a pathological need for the spotlight, “Time for Miracles” features more false endings than the Lord of the Rings cycle, a sense of rococo grandeur entirely copacetic with the Emmerich oeuvre and enough broken wings, busted hearts and teary eyes to start a pet-food factory. At a shade under five minutes, you’d swear it was at least twice as long; I’d bet my Bat out of Hell LP that “Time” has been artificially inflated for the sole sake of fitting all the CG team and craft service people into 2010’s final arduous credit crawl. Ironically, no one but ushers, masochistic maximalists and the infirm will stick around to hear it.
[2]

Hillary Brown: A certain amount of bombast is required for this sort of thing (which I assume will play over the end credits of 2012, which means, in turn, that that movie must have a love story or two in it in addition to the destruction of much of the globe — ick), so there’s flexibility in what’s normally acceptable. I’ve heard worse. Lambert does have a pretty nice voice, and he doesn’t sound like he’s straining to pass something, plus there’s actual melody present. Chris Daughtry does it better, though…
[5]

Matt Cibula: Jesus H. Christ on a parade float, did I love this song the first time I heard it. On doctor’s orders, I will have to wait a few weeks before I hear it again. But I love every little upshifting moment here; it reminds me of nothing less than that dignified, restrained ballad “Dream On” by Aerosmith.
[9]

Iain Mew: At the three minute mark, when what started as a pleasantly sleepy AOR ballad morphed unexpectedly into wannabe-prog, complete with dramatic pauses and a fairly unusual string arrangement, I was actually starting to like it. That was before a key change of such spectacular awfulness that it renders everything previous void. Not only that, but there’s still a full further minute of Adam stretching his voice to well beyond reasonable limits afterwards.
[2]

Alfred Soto: The first few bars recall Pink Floyd’s “Breathe,” which is bad enough, but the rest evokes Nick Lachey, and that’s not what the Rolling Stone cover story promised (I’ll just note the pizzicato). Maybe the advertised pansexuality acted as cover for a performer of unremarkable banality. We’ll find out soon enough.
[3]

Ian Mathers: The first nine seconds of this actually sounds very nice, before the pro forma acoustic guitar strum comes in and ushers in a totally different sound/melody that’s not at all interesting. And the lyrics/vocals are the usual American Idol soup of bland technical competence. Did nobody point out to the American public that this guy sounds like Richard Marx?
[2]

Chuck Eddy: There’s a richness and pang here, a glammish flamboyance in the high notes, that, say, James Blunt or Daniel Powter (inasmuch as I’ve heard them) lack. But I don’t hear the difference being as appreciable as wishful thinkers think. And the songwriting’s as boring as what they’ve mostly hit with, too (actually, Blunt’s “1973” blows this away), and when it climbs toward its pomp climax I remember that Queen’s ballads almost always seemed overrated to me, too. Always figured Freddie would be more moving with more r&b in his lungs. Also, Muse do Queen funnier.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: An appropriate love theme for 2012, with half-hearted attempts at human-scale emotion followed by the apocalyptic CGI bombast you paid for. And while I’m not against fireworks displays, I do wonder if they’re worth the hearing loss.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: This makes Eddie Money sound like Al Green.
[2]