Our new favourite Welshies…

[Video][Website]
[6.80]

Al Shipley: Heard this band in passing recently and was surprised to find myself intrigued, since I’ve generally regarded U.K. rock as consistently on the wane for my entire lifetime. Hunkering down and focusing on an entire song is less rewarding, but still, not bad.
[6]

Doug Robertson: A good rule of thumb for judging indie music is that the higher the registers they hit, the better it is. An obsession with bass tones tends towards music that is sludgy with all the imagination you’d expect from a mud pool, while aiming higher on the scale often indicates a desire to soar higher than what’s gone before. So it is with the Joy Formidable, whose treble-tastic tastes provide a lift that pours out of the speakers like quicksilver, dripping with light and a hint of danger.
[7]

Iain Mew: I still haven’t worked out if The Joy Formidable are a shoegaze band who can’t help but write immediate pop melodies or vice versa, but either way it regularly makes for thrilling stuff. “Whirring” makes “Austere” sound tame in terms of both earworm hooks and feedback drowned breakdowns, the latter drawn out for four minutes in increasingly breathtaking fashion until it dwarfs the actual song part.
[8]

Zach Lyon: This doesn’t stand out to me as much as “Austere” did, but I still love that guitar and her voice and their constant sound explosions.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: This reminds me of An Horse, another indie rock band that charms by investing traditionalist guitar pop moves with a new intensity. Joy Formidable singer Ritzy Bryan does much of the heavy lifting on “Whirring”; her vocal lifts the sparkling riffs to even higher altitudes. The effect produced is one of nervous excitement, like the band is on the cusp of something great. Perhaps they are.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: The buzzsaw backing sometimes has some energy here, but by and large they sound like a band whose ambition is to have supported the Primitives, and it seems just about possible that they might eventually make a single in that class, but this isn’t it.
[3]

David Katz: Case in point of how bread-and-butter indie rock improves just by the addition of a lead female vocalist. I like how singer and guitarist Ritzy Brian evokes Corin Tucker as she bellows over the din of guitars. Suitably epic and earnest stuff for early 10s indie, but with a welcome dash of grit.
[7]

Alfred Soto: In honor of the late Poly Styrene, I resolved for the reminder of the week to be kinder to the female voice anchoring a punk band. Luckily, this act’s single is one of the good ones. Burying the line “Turn the dial on my world” behind a wall of shoegaze goodness required no further explanation. If the single had ended at the 2:45 mark it’d have been a minor classic.
[7]

Jer Fairall: A charming, chiming little jaunt in its embryonic EP form, “Whirring” now explodes from a three-and-a-half minute quirk into a nearly seven minute widescreen panorama befitting of an album titled The Big Roar. Even heard in isolation, though, nothing about the final four minutes of pummelling instrumental cacophony feels fatty or gratuitous, resembling instead something closer to the cute nerd you ignored in high school after a couple of years of hitting the gym, letting his complexion clear up and confidence build enough to suddenly demand and warrant the attention deserved all along.
[8]

Ian Mathers: If I were to use the classic critical tool of reductive caricature on this song, the Joy Formidable appear to be Emily Haines from Metric fronting a slightly more vicious Mew circa Frengers. But that’s an approach that overlooks all nuance and shading. Where do I get the album?
[8]

And now, an ode to gingham…

[Video][Website]
[6.11]

Jonathan Bradley: “Kitty Wells dresses,” sings Laura Cantrell, were “modest and sweet.” So too is this rather plain stroll through country music nostalgia.
[4]

Alfred Soto: In which Cantrell recasts Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” for the sake of another country icon. Very pretty, and Cantrell’s voice is crystalline, but it does little besides excite a No Depression fan.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: I thought I’d missed Laura Cantrell’s voice, and I suppose I have, but what I miss more is her A-game songwriting or equally wondrous gift for picking covers. Her singing is so warm and sweet but her best songs have never settled for mere nostalgia, they have always had intelligence and emotional depth that made her both a gifted interpreter and a devastating observer in her own right. This song is merely fond when it needs to be vividly reverent.
[5]

Ian Mathers: I’d only ever previously heard Cantrell on a Peel Session duet version of Ballboy’s ”I Lost You, But I Found Country Music,” which happens to be the best possible version of a modestly devastating song. “Kitty Wells Dresses” is a gorgeously wrought piece of complicated wistfulness, but two things are holding me back from adoring it like I do her turn on “I Lost You, But I Found Country Music”; on the one hand, we’ve got a song about heartache versus this song, which is about cultural codes that, in some cases, stand for various strains of heartbreak. And on the other, I’m too far away from those cultural codes to do much more than admire the craft of “Kitty Wells Dresses” (and, for that matter, of Kitty Wells’ dresses). If I’d grown up in certain parts of America, or even just on a diet of country music, I believe this would put a tear in my beer.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: “Every girl’s dream”? The dress sense of Kitty Wells? Surely not. Try image-googling her name. This is folky country, paying tribute in a bizarre way to a great singer. It’s sung without any detectable emotion, and no irony I can spot, and while it’s pretty enough, its subject matter mystifies me.
[5]

Jer Fairall: The sweet, plainspoken, slight off-keyness of her voice is the first thing that sells me on this, coming as it does from the exact opposite end of what it is that so alienates me about today’s pop country. The rest of the song turns out to be just as genuine in its humble, deeply felt sentiment, a tribute to virtues worth celebrating for the sheer wonder they once inspired in their audience, rather than simply “tradition” for the sake of it. Possibly the best artist tribute song since The Replacements’ “Alex Chilton,” and oddly enough for some of the same reasons.
[8]

Iain Mew: I have to admit to not knowing who Kitty Wells was before looking it up, but to me this sounds like a cloying and overworked confection and the chorus about how the dresses are “every girl’s dream” jars a lot. Hate the way she sings “Paree” too.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: Despite key adjectives like “old-fashioned” and “modest” that I read as much as rationalizations for Cantrell’s stodgy folkie musical aesthetic as fashion signifiers, I’d like this homage to frugal clothes-shopping habits more if it wasn’t for all the clunky historical name-dropping. (A common tactic in alt-country, probably even more than in Nashville country, that’s supposed to let the legends’ greatness rub off on the current performer in our minds even though they probably don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence.) I’d also like it more if it sounded less modest and old-fashioned. And maybe even if Laura didn’t pronounce “Paris” funny. On the other hand, it’s still a pretty song about pretty dresses. And hey, I shop at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets myself. So especially in this economy, I relate to the cheapskate stuff.
[6]

Anthony Easton: My mother, when I grew up, did hysterically funny impressions of Kitty Wells until we asked for it a little too much, and she stopped doing it, because she was worried about being cruel to Ms Wells. Not because of any respect for Ms Wells, but because she spent most of her life being essentially kind to people. My mother is very smart, and very plain, and very kind. Essentially kind, in the best Christan way, and I learnt about all sort of things from her Kitty Wells impression. I learned not to be cruel for the sake of being cruel, and I learned that making fun of someone for their god-earned talent was excessive, and I learned to sing in church, loud and pure, because G-d didn’t really care about quality as much as enthusiasm. I was thinking all of this a few weeks ago, when my friend Sholem talked about me having this urbane gay wit, and this old weird America side — and my momma, in all of her earnestness, had a wicked wit and righteous anger. She moved on to sarcastically decimating those who deserved it. All of this sounds cloying, but one of the reasons why I love country music, deeply, is that it allows for earnestness and sentimentality to be legitimate. I learned to love country music when my mom sang it to me as a kid, when I heard my dad’s copy of Folsom Prison Blues, and when the radio played on the way to school, to scouts, on trips to southern Alberta for Easter or Christmas. I still listen to Country radio when I travel more than a few hours. Nostalgia may be toxic, but like any opiate, it makes me feel better in the midst of pain. I am sitting here, in the middle of the biggest city of Canada, on the morning of Easter Sunday, and I yearn to go back home for a couple of weeks. I am tired and frustrated, and worn out and all I wanna do is go home and visit my mother and watch TV and play cards, and eat ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner. The song is pretty much the embodiment of Cole Porter’s sharp line about the power of a cheap tune, except my Mother and Ms Wells and Ms Cash were never cheap, and I would never be as thrifty, or virtuous or holy as they are.
[10]

It’s hardly “Sandcastle Disco”, though, is it?…

[Video][Website]
[5.85]

Katherine St Asaph: Beyonce hasn’t sounded this much like her old group in years. Part of it’s the “Lose My Breath” (or “Pon The Floor,” whatever) military beat, but even more than that, this reminds me of “Independent Women Part 2” (i.e. the one that isn’t a Charlie’s Angels ad). I could talk for hours on this: how it sucks that Beyonce needed to go all Benjamina Button on the title or add a dreamy “JK, hope my boyfriend don’t mind it” interlude, how DC’s “if you ain’t in love, I congratulate you” lyric sounds just as radical now as it did as to a nerdy 13-year-old girl. There’s also hours of talk in how Beyonce (and Pink, for that matter) have become the second-wave feminists to, say, Ke$ha or Nicki. But for now, I’ve got about fifty perfect melodic lines to hear, a pressing living-room dance engagement and a worldlet to run. See you in a few.
[9]

Jer Fairall: DESTINY’S CHILD REFERRED TO AS ‘FEMINIST ICONS’ WITH STRAIGHT FACE, snarked an Onion headline a decade ago, but it is to her credit that Beyonce has continued to make her admittedly reductive brand of female empowerment a constant theme. Still, I think I like her best in the moments where she either scales this perspective back to something as human-sized as “If I Were a Boy” or forgets herself just long enough to indulge in the delirious pleasures of something like “Check On It”. This is another Beyonce message song, basically, and the message is the exact one that we’ve come to expect from her, but this still wins some major points from me for the unusually non-materialistic “raise a glass for the college grads,” the enthusiastic way in which she reps “Houston Texas, baby!” and for how the martial drums and stuttering vocal distortion bits reveal how closely she’s been listening to her copy of Kala.
[7]

Asher Steinberg: These guys say it all. Just another episode in the never-ending vapidity of Beyonce Knowles, whose idea of a feminist empowerment anthem is saluting “all my girls that’s in the club rocking the latest/who will buy it for themselves and get more money later”.
[1]

Al Shipley: B has had a penchant for shrill, bombastic, attention-grabbing lead singles, ever since she and/or Destiny’s Child were big enough to command feverish anticipation with “Survivor.” This sure isn’t a homerun like “Crazy In Love,” but it’s also not even as overbearing as “Lose My Breath,” just kind of thin and ill-considered.
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: Nothing that reminds me of this can be bad.
[9]

Anthony Easton: Though she uses the word “girls”, this is about women, and its relentlessness is terrorizing. She connects secular power with motherhood, with education, and ties it all together with an all consuming H Rider Haggard-meets-Leni Riefenstahl line about devouring; how she cuts fucker from mother recentralises and emphasises the sheer excess of it all.
[9]

Doug Robertson: My head hurts after listening to this. It’s like every noise that Beyonce has ever heard is all happening at once, and unfortunately this surfeit of ideas ends up as an awkward cacophony. There’s about three amazing songs going on here, and it’d be better if they were allowed the space to breathe, rather than being crammed into one disjointed whole.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Oddly reminiscent of Rihanna of several years ago, Beyonce gives us a dancehall number with beats like a military tattoo and another of her female empowerment lyrics. It’s a bit frantic, often raucous and stuttering, and I’m not sure it’s the best showcase for her powerhouse voice, but it’s kind of exciting too.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: The beat feels propulsive for a few seconds at the start (briefly reminds me of “Ass On The Floor,” sort of), then gets less so once all the pointless prog-hop changes set in. And I can see how those changes might be interesting in theory; in a perfect world, the operatic parts could flash me back to “Hocus Pocus” by Focus, and I’d find this audacious and hilarious. But Beyonce is her usual zero-personalty ice-queen self, and I’m bored.
[3]

Kat Stevens: Swizz and B join one of those musical collectives that bang dustbin lids together in the Blue Peter studio: cheerleader squad choreographers rejoice; feminists heave sigh; Kat remembers to dig out that great Fela Kuti/Swizz mashup of ‘Money In The Bank’ again.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Oh, it’s “Pon de Floor” with Be’s usual one-womanist anthem sprinkles on top. Cute, but I’ll take that jabbering yip from the original over it anyday.
[6]

David Katz: The stuff of dream artist collaboration message board threads. “Pon de Floor” gets the dominating vocal performance it deserves. We get the radio-overplay payback for Katy Perry. Everyone’s happy ’til the summer’s last encore.
[8]

Alfred Soto: If she’s so sure, why remind us?
[4]

Now definitely our most-reviewed artist evah…

[Video][Website]
[5.69]

Kat Stevens: Is there a word in German for when the difficult second album is actually the difficult second album and a half? Something that sums up the feeling of disappointment after an artist has shown so much promise of long-term success (the 1.5 albums creating an illusion of consistency), but also taking into account the leniency one allows for an artist to make (and learn from) sophomore mistakes as they mature. How about ‘Mugler’? “Yeah mate, I thought Bad Romance was alright but the chorus on this one is a bit Mugler, innit?”
[7]

Martin Skidmore: If you loved “Bad Romance”, you’ll like this one, since it sounds a lot like it. I didn’t and don’t: the thumping Red One beats rather bore me, and I continue to dislike her nasal vocals. It has a bombastic catchiness that means it’ll be another global smash, but she always irritates me.
[3]

David Katz: “Born This Way” felt like a placeholder, a garlanded victory lap to remind everyone of her musical existence, giving away nothing more. “Judas”, then, does as expected from a follow-up: blows up her club and glam-rock predilections to heights befitting the fanfare of brand new material. But it’s a big shame these promising elements fit so crudely. It lurches from an ’06-bloghouse-vintage dance breakdown into a chorus that is pretty enough, but feels rather meek amongst its gaudy surroundings. Hoping for much, much better from the LP material, even if she can’t top “Speechless”.
[6]

Al Shipley: Campily croaked verses and airy Europop choruses are two of my least favorite default Gaga modes, so I actually like this more than I should have any right to expect.
[5]

Doug Robertson: Even without the assistance of Weird Al, it’s very easy for an artist like Lady Gaga to descend into the realms of parody, and already she’s beginning to sound like someone who needs to use their own back catalogue for inspiration. It might have been the differences that originally attracted the world towards Gaga’s embrace, but these similarities are going to repel equally strongly.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Gaga’s confident enough now to blast through a weak chorus, but while I find the wordless chanting almost as compelling as Britney’s recent attempts at same, I’ve heard the thick Euro-friendly block of backing track from her too often. And I wish like hell she’d found the musical correlative for the Madonna-cum-Oscar Wilde kick of “Jesus is my virtue/Judas is the demon I cling to.”
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: She’s trying too hard. The showbizzy melange of styles, a hook (“I’m in love with Judas”) that seems to punch the clock in its attempt to whip up a little instant controversy, the passel of outfits she decides this one will best benefit from: at this point it’s starting to lose its luster. Remember, Madonna’s records kept getting better during her ascent.
[5]

Iain Mew: This is more like it! The recycled elements are of minor consequence next to the way the beat clangs with awesome industrial force like nothing else she’s done, the best thing about it. Then there’s the sweet and addictive hi-NRG chorus and the way that that and the heavier elements are not so much stitched into a song as crammed violently together into the same four minute space. The effect is actually to make both of them sound all the more strange and exciting and the straight-faced nonsense delivered over the top works perfectly in that context.
[9]

Chuck Eddy: I like her so much more when she is ripping off Boney M than we she’s ripping off Madonna! Well actually, I haven’t figured out which Boney M song this rips off, but I’m pretty sure it rips off either them or someone very much like them. Or at least parts of it do. Kind of slides downhill when it gets less Euro-weird, though — including the part that reminds me of “Like A Prayer,” come to think of it. When your more conventional parts bring to mind “Like A Prayer,” you’re probably doing okay. Even if your shtick’s wearing out and your theology is a mess.
[7]

Asher Steinberg: At heart, Lady Gaga’s always been a not very bright kid who took a few too many Madonna Studies courses in college and decided she’d become a performance artist. For a while, this was partially masked by her ability to write a decent pop song, but now she seems bent on eschewing any commercial standards of craft in favor of full-bore, Madonna-biting “art,” and the result is fragmented dreck like this. Gaga alternates from “Bad Romance”-esque chanting, to pointless and horrible Jamaican-face, to a respectable imitation of Tiffany album filler (the only good thing in the song), to some spoken word nonsense about Mary Magdalene, to more “Bad Romance”-esque chanting, all without any coherence, purpose, or meaning. She has nothing to say about religion; the only reason this song is called “Judas” and not “Jared” is to gin up some meaningless controversy. It’s like she listened to “Like a Prayer” and drew the conclusion that drawing parallels between religion and sex is “interesting” per se, even when such parallels run no deeper than giving fictitious significant others biblical characters’ names. And I don’t think she has anything to say about relationships or attraction either. There’s a definite thesis here — I’m in love with the wrong guy — but nothing else, no feeling or insight or detail, which will happen when you subsume what you’re actually trying to say into a ridiculous concept.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: So let me get this straight. First she’s kinda falling for Judas, then he betrays her three times so he’s Peter, then he’s some tongue-in-brain eldritch thing? And first she’s Mary Magdalene washing his feet, then maybe Lloyd Webberish Jesus, then her character from the “Telephone” video bantering with Honey B, then a fame hooker/prostitute/wench; the ’90s processing on her voice in the choruses makes her Madonna, but what if she’s the Madonna? Theologians don’t even agree on how precisely the Trinity is three in one; this is the stuff of endless schisms. That is, if the “Bad Romance”-with-more-Richter beat doesn’t crack things first.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Back in the day, Prince and Madonna straddled tensions between the carnal and the spiritual in their music in such a way that pop has pretty much thoroughly abandoned since, having either consciously made its choice of one side over the other or having since become so grounded in the secular to have rendered said tensions irrelevant. Credit Gaga, then, for at least engaging in the conversation at the heart of pop since the birth of rock and roll, particularly coming, as it does, after an astonishingly safe event single calculated to offend absolutely no one. But pop music is more than just text (and even if it weren’t, “Judas” would still be a pretty awkward one, cursed, as is increasingly becoming the case, with Gaga’s occasional lyrical fumbles), and as a composition “Judas” is energetic but derivative, full of “Bad Romance” lurches and “GA-GA”s, and further proof that she only knows how to write exactly one kind of chorus melody. I’m intrigued, disappointed and torn all at once.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: This is also a song.
[6]

Our first spin with her, oddly…

[Video][Website]
[6.70]

Chuck Eddy: I like how this sounds not remotely country; comes off more like an old-school, more R&B than C&W-based, adult contemporary ballad, circa 20 years ago. Like, say, Vanessa Williams or somebody might do. Refreshing, rather lovely, and not at all what I’d expect of Gretchen, who has often over the years made me wonder why she does ballads at all.
[7]

Pete Baran: In the opening seconds I doff my cap to the minstrels who welcome me to Gretchen’s simple manor house. But sadly it shifts from being an intriguing fusion between a 13th century courtly love ballad and a country song, to just a quite dull ballad. It seems heartfelt, but an alternative reading of the chorus suggests she wants to kill her lover. So medieval enough, then!
[4]

Martin Skidmore: Her career has rather sagged after a strong start. This is a slow, sensitive ballad, and while I think she’s best when she’s being ballsy, I rather like her restrained delivery of this, over acoustic guitar and strings, and it’s a very pretty song.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Nice to hear her essay a real ballad; “When I Think About Cheatin’” was my second-favorite on her debut. The arrangement is so bare that her voice can dominate it without raising above a whisper. The song, alas, isn’t up to the performance.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Clay Walker has made a career of slightly chiding anthems against sex in favour of a mooning monogamy. I believed it when he sang this. Gretchen Wilson is a belter of hard edged party songs. This one is just a little too careerist for me to buy her doing it.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Affecting in its tentativeness, this ballad represents a break from Wilson’s string of barnstormers. She doesn’t quite transcend these origins, although her breathy, unsure singing comes close. I’d love this to be her first.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: There’s plenty affecting here: how rickety the guitar strumming is, how Wilson’s brassy voice becomes tentative in miniature, the relative complexity of the narrative — layered a bit more once you realize this is a cover that isn’t completely gender-swapped — the cellos. Any one of these things might’ve been the one to grab me; I suspect I’ll need many more listens to narrow down which.
[8]

Zach Lyon: I guess there’s some interesting stuff to talk about here: it sort of genderfucks a Clay Walker song, insofar that it seems more about deflowering a boy than deflowering a girl, which is something rare; it sounds musically like it’s tailored for wedding receptions when it’s all about premarital sex; there’s probably some other stuff but I was originally inclined to just leave my score and “this makes me cry too much.” That isn’t a common thing and maybe I’m alone in it. But I love the way her voice enters just a biting, unsung yelp in “I don’t care if I’m your first love,” making it sound like she’s struggling to convince him of this after a long prior discussion we haven’t heard (compare to Eric Church doing the same, just with reprehension), and the way the middle eight leads to a final verse that’s packed with relief and finality.
[9]

Iain Mew: It’s interesting how she sings “I’ve never been too big on looking back” but spends a large part of the song doing just that. She’s realised that she has to finally come to peace with how things haven’t gone perfectly in order to throw herself fully into her relationship now — and does so despite it not being completely clear that her partner reciprocates. The title line is a clever and beautiful sentiment and it’s delivered with a really light and deft touch, conveying the blooming of something wonderful but still a little uncertain.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: It’s very rare that I find song with a tempo this slow this affecting. Sure, it can double as a lullaby, but its stillness exudes such confidence and poetry that it’s pretty hard not to love, try as I might.
[7]

So they’re basically the swag version of Danny Wilson. Gonna guess the number of people who get that reference will be in single figures…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]

Chuck Eddy: “Jerk”? “Dougie”? “Snap”? Apparently from Georgia, so more likely the latter? Or has snap been over for years? Anyway, this sounds real good, or would have back before I’d heard so many other hits that sound the same. As long as I ignored the words (your usual dumb strip club blabber when audible), anyway. Though the lines about the white girl’s lack of teeth and/or cheeks did make me smile. And maybe the uh, I dunno what you call it — sort of spaghetti western parts? — don’t sound the same.
[7]

Tal Rosenberg: Bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back to snap, doo-wop, crunk hybrids with hypnotic voices hypnotically and laconically spouting moronic chronic non sequiturs. Shazammed: Twice. You don’t like it? You can act you can act you can act you can act you can act and then bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back.
[9]

Al Shipley: Never cared much for these swag-drunk goofballs before, but the synth squiggle on the chorus alone ingratiating this song to me, and soon enough I grudgingly gave into the appeal of the whole package.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Lightly diverting until you pay attention to the words, which aren’t good enough to put it over anywhere but the gentleman’s club.
[6]

Jer Fairall: Bumps and glides with such unrelenting precision that the Charlie Sheen-level skeeziness of the lyrics are, if not forgivable, then at least worthy of ignoring.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: The rapping is kind of Southern, but the beats are rather more jerk than crunk. I’m not sure the often drawled lyrics work terribly well with the bouncier production, but I still kind of like it.
[6]

Asher Steinberg: This just seems very un-energetic and clinical for what I suppose is intended to be a strip club anthem; it’s rather appropriate that the video’s treatment is this idea of manipulating models by remote control. The whistly sound on the hook is reminiscent of Lil Jon in his heyday, but it’s a lot more utilitarian and less playful than his stuff was. And the rapping’s really insular, like the members of the group are whispering to each other.
[3]

Alfred Soto: “I wanna see your big booty on my upper leg” goes the only incoherent order in four minutes’ worth of them. The simple beat is infectious, the voice a bug.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: It shouldn’t be so much work to have so little fun.
[4]

Singalingalingalingaling…

[Video][Website]
[4.50]

Michaelangelo Matos: I used to think the jelly-bracelet hits of my late-’80s adolescence surely represented the lamest pop-music epoch I’d ever live through. The second I heard (I think) Cory Monteith sing, “I’m not thinking about you haters/Cause hey, I can be a superstar/I’ll see you when you wash my car,” I knew I was wrong.
[1]

Martin Skidmore: I’m a big fan of the show, but I don’t care hugely for any of the performances. This one is a rare original song, produced with bright poppiness by Max Martin. It’s sung by Lea (Rachel) Michele, with her usual confidence, and it comes over as enjoyable enough, but I still can’t work up any interest in the music out of the TV show’s context.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I wanted to hate this. Not that I’ve ever watched the show, or have any interest in ever doing so; I long ago joined the casually anti-Glee bandwagon. (Sometimes I’m happy to go with the conventional wisdom that says something very popular sucks.) But then I heard it and… well, Max Martin. I’m told the lead singers are Lea Michele and Cory Monteith, but those are just verses, and who cares about verses? The chorus is what digs its hooks into you, a digitally-spun candy gloss of massed voices, electronics and giddy leaps up the scale. Even the eyeroll-worthy lyrics — you’ll never guess what position these kids take on haters! — are translated from standard self-justifying narcissism to an anthem of underdog empowerment by the sheer sugar-crack dynamism of the melody and production. I hate being wrong… but I like liking stuff even more.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Though the male Gleek’s revenge-of-nerd-on-bully verse is timely, and the female Gleek’s singing is better than competent, what makes the record is the riff out of “Mmmbop,” the lilt out of “Steal My Sunshine,” and the rap part out of the Bring It On soundtrack. A turn of the ’00s teen-pop revival? Hey, I’m game.
[7]

Jer Fairall: You mean to tell me there weren’t at least a dozen nearly identical songs in the current Disney pop canon that they couldn’t have lifted rather than go to the trouble of paying an army of songwriters to come up with this?
[3]

Al Shipley: Every Glee version of a pre-existing hit that I’ve heard flattens it only slightly less than Kidz Bop, so it’s not surprising that their first attempt at a Real Original Pop Song with Max Martin and everything is this awkward. Forget the headlines about them planning to tackle Rebecca Black’s “Friday” on an upcoming episode: how much better is this really than the average Ark Music Factory production?
[3]

Doug Robertson: It’s a little bit Pink, a little bit Kelly Clarkson and a whole lot of autotuning, but you know what? It works. It’s fun, catchy and knows exactly what its audience is looking for. It might not be overflowing with originality, but there’s still plenty of sparkle sloshing over the sides.
[7]

Zach Lyon: Before I learned this was from the cast of Glee, I actually thought it was being sung by a cartoon unicorn. I think I might prefer that? It’s a tad catchy, but not enough to make up for the vomity feeling I get every time she goes “all right” in that voice that only seems to exist in exercises like these. I do not understand this show.
[2]

Let’s stay together…

[Video][Website]
[5.38]

Jonathan Bogart: “There’s no tomorrow there’s just right now now now.” “‘Cause we’re never getting old.” “Keep on dancing till the world ends.” “We might not get tomorrow, let’s do it tonight.”” A gag order keeps me from saying much more on this topic, but it’s interesting to note that it’s bled over into the country side. True to genre form, Young scales down the drama to the merely interpersonal, but it’s not just the hot beat that’s missing, it’s any sense of urgency.
[6]

Doug Robertson: There’s a vague, by-the-numbers anthemic quality to the chorus, some unimaginative metaphors and the general impression that any emotions expressed in the song are entirely coincidental. Fire and gasoline? You’re not even talcum powder and a black shirt.
[4]

Anthony Easton: By the book production, and by the book rising bridge, hooking onto the chorus, and the lyrics are an unforgivable mess of cliches. Refuses to tell stories. All of this is a total shame because Young’s voice is beautiful, has a laconic edge and a tender warmth. Should work on that.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Young’s brassy baritone lends weight to this masochist’s plaint, but if you think they’re only going to fuck one more time, I got a guitar solo I’d like to sell you.
[6]

Zach Lyon: His warbly emotion in the chorus is so affecting, and just what he needed. He has a great voice, and the best thing he could do is betray it with such genuineness: that “no matter how hard I want to” that sounds almost Aguilera-like in its attempt at diva note-jumping but ultimately sounds ridiculous. Or the way every chorus ends with what sounds like tears. I’m smitten by this.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: I find I am saying the same things about him again: nice, strong, traditional country voice, some crappy soft rock guitar. However, this is a stronger song, about clinging onto a relationship you know isn’t working, and he delivers it with feeling and control, and it ends up rather moving.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Not hateable or anything, just a totally standard, pretty boring take on the “For the Good Times” template, only uptempo and less sung than yowled.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: He sings his heartfelt heart out, and I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone — at least, anyone not going through the exact same situation right this very second — would remotely care.
[4]

Would’ve done a pun about going to Church on Easter Sunday, but it’s a mite late for that now…

[Video][Website]
[5.25]

Martin Skidmore: Church is an intelligent songwriter and a strong country singer, with some imaginative flair in the arrangements too — I really like him, though I am less sure about the sentiments here.
[7]

Josh Love: A touching song about a man entreating his younger brother to cast off one cartoonishly cliched lifestyle in favor of another. One of these lifestyles is noble and honorable and satisfying and full of tender love and ice cold beer. The other is mean and selfish and scary and full of cruelty towards old people. Can you guess which one involves wearing “pants on the ground” and a “hip-hop hat?”
[2]

Anthony Easton: In the age of Eminem, the idea that working class culture is best represented in hip-hop and not country music is important. Also, country ceded the current for the nostalgic a long time ago (maybe the 70s?).
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Right: he can’t fool the country-singing narrator, but he can fool the hood into thinking he’s a hardened inner-city criminal. Solution: rip off the plot of the Lost Trailers’ “Holler Back” but recast it as hard-bitten tough love (“It ain’t a glamorous life/But it’ll keep you out of jail”) turned family-responsibility sermon. Very valley-of-the-shadow-of-death of him.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Can’t decide whether this sounds more like a morose folk song or a clanging industrial song — probably a good sign, seeing as how it’s a hard-droning country song. And it’s also, of course, a brotherly advice song, and a big part of the advice is basically “stop trying to dress like a rapper,” so accuse Eric of another r-word if you need to. But I think that’d be missing the point, since the hip-hop cap and low-riding trousers and fake gold teeth (and tattoos) clearly signify rebellion more than blackness. You get the idea that big bro’s done some rebelling himself, and little bro’s not fooling him, so Eric’s passing on his hard-earned knowledge. Or maybe he’s just jealous he didn’t leave first, so he’s warning the kid not to get above his raisin’ (since, in modern Nashville, only the ladies are allowed to search for adventure beyond the farm — the dudes stay put). Might be ignorant guidance; it’s a big world worth exploring, and a Yelawolf in the family might be cool, right? But even though we never quite find out why exactly the junior sibling’s a jail risk, the conversation rings true and powerful, contradictions and hypocrisies and all. “That old tractor got my home boys” — Woody Guthrie rapped that, back in 1940 or so.
[9]

Josh Langhoff: As a narrative I buy it, because I know the Brother. Back in high school he had ridiculous dreadlocks instead of a “hip-hop hat” and the rest, he didn’t push Daddy around but he did spend some time in jail, and now he’s a solid taxpaying citizen with strong family ties. Small predominantly-white towns SUCK in many ways, so you try to escape to the first Other that comes along, and your conception of that Other is probably based on the broadest stereotypes, and maybe you pair those stereotypes with violence because that’s an Other too. The problem is, Church isn’t handing this sermon to his wayward Brother as a private press 45. As a cautionary tale “Homeboy” is worthless, because any real-life Brothers won’t listen to it. No, Church is preaching to a public country audience, much of which already views hip-hop culture as an Other and equates it with violence. But I’M Church’s audience too, and maybe lots of us know Brothers of our own and “Homeboy” touches us as a well-constructed piece of songcraft. Job well done! On the other hand, “Homeboy” is definitely constructed — Church and co-writer Casey Beathard have invented this Brother, the fake gold on his teeth, and his superficial take on Otherness. They’ve also appropriated the word “homeboy” and the synths from the hip-hop culture they’re dissing. They’re hypocrites and opportunists. But the synths sound great, and the lyrical twist “come on home, boy” is deeply felt; this song isn’t glib about Otherness like the go-to pariah “Beer for My Horses”. Finally all my back-and-forth on “Homeboy” zips it up into a tense interlocking bundle of contradictions that I can’t separate from how much I enjoy its details, guitars, and narrator, even if he’s using his bully pulpit to congratulate his country’s narrowest minds.
[8]

Zach Lyon: For years, the go-to Myspace “Favorite Music” answer for obnoxious people was “pretty much everything except country and rap”. It’s different now (rap, at least, is more acceptable) but seeing the two of them together in the same box for so long basically made them brothers to me. Country and rap are similar, almost inextricably so, on a surface/demographic/political level (on a musical level, R&B is probably a better comparison for country), at least to many of us that like to defend them both but aren’t so immersed in either to miss the relation. And that’s what really pisses me off about “Homeboy.” I wish I could say it’s the bubbling racism that does it for me, but really, it’s just disappointing to hear a country musician shit all over hip-hop culture when my mind wants the two genres to see each other as comrades. Church confronts his brother in the nastiest way, trying to entice him with the promise of a stereotypical country existence simply because that’s what he was born into, and he occasionally breaks into such a judgmental voice that the lyrics are spat more than sung. It’s a bit easier to swallow if you convince yourself the brother is selling meth (as they considered at The 9513) or is Yelawolf (which is kind of funny), but any good will is squandered by the production. Church once again lets instrumental ADD get the best of him, and this whole thing is all over the place with too many introductions to symphonies and heavy guitars and lighter guitars and more symphonies. Some of it sounds nice but most of it sounds like some sort of badly-executed prog-country. Church needs to take his own advice: drink a cold one and calm the fuck down. It blows that he still seems to have one of the most charismatic voices in country and it’s wasted on something like this.
[1]

Alfred Soto: The pun in the title reflects Church’s complicated feelings: he doesn’t want his buddy to wear tattoos or pants like the scary black kids he spotted on the wrong side of the tracks so he urges him to return to a suffocating blue collar life in the country surrounded by “kin.” I don’t hear racial “dog whistles” so much as genuine anxiety about the fate of a friend and maybe the singer projecting his own unease about living in less, um, urban environs. “We both know who you are,” he reminds him. The shift from folk to arena rock matches Church’s man-sized love; his “do this for me, buddy” is very touching – we don’t often get male friendship articulated so unambivalently. It’s fascinating though how the women — Miranda Lambert and Gretchen Wilson and the girls to whom they’re writing — can’t wait to get the hell out of Dodge. Hell, they’d burn Dodge to the ground if they could.
[7]

He’s become a lot more Googlable lately…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.14]

Michaelangelo Matos: Cute lyrics, decent execution, singer’s a little faint.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: I rather like his voice, which has a crispness that reminds me some UK garage of years back. There’s a relaxed feel to this that is very appealing, and a likeable fondness in the lyric and delivery, though I could have done without the repeated screwed-down vocal line, which for me breaks the mood some.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: I’m all for singing random metaphors, but not because you’re too sleepy to come up with anything else. That said, I do like the random Bob George voice that butts in every so often to deliver the hook, if that’s what that is.
[3]

Al Shipley: The nasal vocal, almost unintelligibly screwed sample hook, whiney synth line and timid beat somehow add up to something seductively singular and strangely addictive.
[7]

Jer Fairall: “You be the [something], I’ll be the [something else that typically compliments the previous something]” is a laughably tired lyrical trope, but there’s a lithe, seductive smoothness to both the understated production and his creamy voice that almost — ALMOST — forgives the sheer lameness of his pick-up lines.
[6]

Alfred Soto: So simple is its commitment to a kind of unhistrionic erotic desperation that I almost threw it away. I didn’t expect his restraint to sound sexy beside the high mournful wind instrument hooting in the background. I especially love his immersion in sound for its own sake.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Fantastic verses, decent crackle of a beat, strong singing, then things peter out where the chorus isn’t. I’m particularly baffled at how Miguel managed to go suddenly flat on the song’s title.
[6]