The Singles Jukebox

It isn’t a competition… but I think we all know who won the Top Of Head Fashion Round…

[Video]
[6.00]

Alfred Soto: Miguel’s falsetto, creamy and full, would represent a significant victory in one of his own songs, but Kweli’s love-you-down is at best perfunctory. What we’ve got then is yet another expenditure of Pimentalian energy.   
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Like a Spike Lee movie, you’re moving across the floor,” raps Talib Kweli in reference to a scene from the director’s film Bamboozled, though another of Lee’s films comes to mind: his documentary The Original Kings of Comedy. In that film, there’s a famous Steve Harvey routine where he plays a selection of soul classics to a reverent audience, culminating in a recital of Lenny Williams’ shaky emotional odyssey “Cause I Love You”. Harvey rants and raves: “See, that’s what songs used to be about – you used to tell a woman how you felt about her! You can’t tell me Lenny Williams didn’t mean that shit!” Kweli, a nostalgist like Harvey, has made a song that could slip into a new version of that very routine. It sure helps that Miguel’s sweet voice is on the hook, but Kweli’s ace in the sleeve has always been his unpretentious lover’s dispatches: listen to Train of Thought’s “Love Language” or Quality’s “Won’t You Stay”, for example. “Come Here” is a low-stakes but warm outburst of unfettered romance, so behind the times as to appear timeless. Crucially, his lyrics about making like Heathcliff and Clair seem tinged with amorous investment rather than coming across corny. I mean, c’mon — you can’t tell me Talib doesn’t mean that shit.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Polite, well constructed, confident, has some good lines and a genuine desire to make good work, and it’s solid — but solid isn’t interesting or ambitious. 
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Sorry, I got distracted by the way Miguel swoons all over this. What were you saying about Talib Kweli?
[6]

David Lee: It’s so rude to woo me with Miguel and Marvin Gaye when all you really have to offer is a bad case of history repeating itself.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The tap is open. Pop, hip-hop: Miguel will be whoever you want. Kinda wish Talib would’ve let his imagination fly higher than Marvin, but this is his best bet for that elusive crossover. (JT, Kanye, MJB, John Legend, Norah Jones, will.i.am: no one yet has been able to take him to the top 75.) He upholds his end of the bargain with the standard loverap corn — but still, he’s going to be just the second rapper on OHHLA to namecheck Lady Chatterley. (RIP, Twelve A’Klok.) He’s the tell, Miguel’s the show, him and a decent approximation of (yeesh) What’s Going On.
[6]

Sonya Nicholson: Four and a half minutes of urgent come-ons with tension (guitar strumming) and languid self-indulgence (strings and piano) kept in balance at a constant just-this-side-of-comfortable level the whole time.  Yeah, that’s about right.  
[7]

no blergs » no reader votes » Thursday, May 16th, 2013 7:01 pm

A relationship that might need some fixin’…

[Video][Website]
[4.00]

Patrick St. Michel: Everybody needs a summer jam, including the folks who make, distribute or indulge in moonshine. Enter Florida Georgie Line with a more-than-serviceable ode to hooch, one that’s clever enough to appeal to Moonshiners superfans and folks who just want something to hum while driving down the interstate this summer.
[7]

Alfred Soto: At least a minute too long and a decade too late.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Either Florida or Georgia is trying his best Tim McGraw in that first verse. I know what the title’s about, but I like how spangly the lyrics are: sparkles and lights and rhinestones. Even the banjo gets refractory! The chorus most definitely does not shine, though. Instead, it becomes an ambulance wail, gleefully yawing between two awful notes. A sure party slaughter.
[4]

Iain Mew: I didn’t realise that country could ever sound quite so ’90s Brit-rock in its excess, but the chorus here is just the right (wrong) kind of nauseatingly bloated. Mostly Reef, but I can also almost hear the title phrase sung as “shiiii-yine”, Liam Gallagher style
[3]

Anthony Easton: Finally, a song about fucking that doesn’t feature the back of a pickup truck (though who knows what happens in the back of that Silverado). I love how he calls to his lover, the demand of it — it seems like pretty low-key pleasure, not some huge scandal — so it’s one of the better examples in a genre with significantly diminishing returns. 
[7]

Ian Mathers: Nothing about these guys makes it seem like they’d be safe people to drink moonshine around.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: This song is too sluggish and Tyler Hubbard’s voice is annoying, but it’s not so bad that I didn’t watch the video like ten times to gaze at Brian Kelley looking adorbs in that blue raglan top. So that must count for something. The chorus makes good use of the easy-rhyming facility of “shine on” but the melody is a dog. There’s no horniness, no abandon, no actual shine.
[4]

1 blerg » no reader votes » Thursday, May 16th, 2013 11:07 am

One of, like, three possible SFW screencaps.

[Video][Website]
[5.67]

Anthony Easton: Volcanoes do not become any more or less dangerous depending on their age — it’s kind of random when they go off, from my understanding. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: Sneaking the line about making boys next door out of assholes over “Hey Soul Sister” chords is my idea of termite art, but we’ve still got an undeveloped title metaphor and singing too adenoidal for its own good.
[5]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: That little laugh after “how to make boys next door out of assholes”. God, if I’ve learnt one thing from my years in the trenches of eyeliner pop-punk it’s that there’s no conversion happening here. We’re all boys next door and we’re all assholes. We’re all, if you will, both Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz (I’m sure Andy and Joe are happy not being so easily shoved into ill-fitting archetypes). This song here’s on charm offensive, super approachable in the vein of those radiofaces fun. and Train — a bright-eyed anthem rattling along on handclaps and trashcan lids, tuneful, cheerful, hateful. Fall Out Boy have always known how to make a panic attack sound like a victory lap, but this one’s all triumph: all boy-next-door, all asshole.
[9]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This is the make-or-break moment for FOB circa 2013: Patrick Stump singing, “We will teach you how to make boys next door out of assholes,” and then following it by chuckling to himself. It breaks the secret rule of Fall Out Boy’s music: sell, sell, sell. Their self-awareness was evident in Wentz’s twisty-turny journal dispatches, Stump’s powerhouse voice, their theatrical studio compositions. They sold the hell out of their music, knowing how bonkers it all seemed, understanding that they needed to go big or go home. The Laugh shatters the illusion for an attempt at off-the-cuff honesty, an acknowledgement of the band’s history with scorched-earth moaniness, a intimate peek behind the curtain. While it does all three, it also draws attention to how masterfully Fall Out Boy had maintained the cartoonish illusion of their music until this very point, to the point that it became one of their finest artistic elements. “Young Volcanoes” is the sound of the band as they corpse their well-oiled routine; The Laugh is the sound of Stump deciding to bluff the punchline for once. As their one-time tourmates sang with a mix of disappointment and understanding: I guess this is growing up.
[5]

Crystal Xia: “Young Volcanoes”, like pretty much every song on the new Fall Out Boy album, is a collection of little moments and small things I’ve noticed that I’ve loved: the acoustic guitar serving mostly as some sort of rhythm keeper; handclaps keeping the rhythm throughout the track; the contrast between the two words “Americana” and “exotica”; the fact that they are placed one right after the other; the way that Patrick drags out the “easy” in “make it easy”; the line “we will teach you how to make boys next door out of assholes”; Patrick Stump’s little giggle after that line; the pinging echoes of “we are” by the bandmates in the chorus; and many, many more. Patrick Stump is basically an MVP here; the rest of the band is along for the ride, but it’s really his chance to holler with the full force of his teenage boy personality.
[8]

Brad Shoup: More fun with addition: today, Ke$ha and Billy Joel! The bass is coming through, so that wish is granted. I’m great with one-note piano pings; they’re even more of a delicacy wrapped up in the low end. The chorus is a full triumph, which is fortunate cos this song would be a quarter otherwise. But listen to these white boys marking the loss of empire!
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Although this song is enjoyable enough, how galling must it be to be Pete Wentz right now? He can throw in all the clever lyrical jabs he wants but most of what I remember from the Fall Out Boy record is Patrick Stump going anthemic over wordless crowd chants. Fortunately this shares a characteristic of the rest of the band’s recent output: it’s comfortable in its own emptiness. So comfortable you won’t even notice the barbed wire.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: Good to see Fall Out Boy continuing to Save Rock And Roll from the Monsters And Men that have, well, taken it in this very direction. Patrick Stump’s voice doesn’t suit it though, whether due to prior associations or just it being a bit loud. Take That put the cap on this microgenre four years ago anyway, before Mumford was even on the scene, never mind his Sons.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: I would have guessed rock’n'roll needed saving from Train, not through Train.
[3]

16 blergs » 1 reader vote » Thursday, May 16th, 2013 7:01 am

In which we share our Semisonic memories…

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Edward Okulicz: Dan Wilson helped the Dixie Chicks metamorphose into a great rock band on Taking The Long Way, and here he takes Maines, gives her one of his old songs, and turns her into Aimee Mann (this reminds me of “Lost in Space” in places) with wailing capacity. Which is all very well and good, but it’s not the most effective use of Maines’ talents and if the idea was to make her a mainstream rock artist then the job was already done. Her voice is still impressive but the song’s too small for it — it feels like an artistic retreat because Maines once grew her fanbase with bravery, cheek and sticking to her guns. Of course given its creators, it’s perfectly sung and produced which counts for something.
[6]

Alfred Soto: A typical newly solo indulgence: disinterest in length, a putative manifesto written for and sung in the singer’s private argot, the absence of colleagues who could have sharpened this thing.
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: So the Dixies vocalist covered a song by the Semisonic guy and turned it into a Sharon van Etten song? Where do I sign up?
[7]

Brad Shoup: I was all about Dan Wilson in high school: believe that. His tremulous tenor, his way with turnarounds and middle eights and experimental-for-AAA sonic touches… I practically had to sneak “DND” past my parents, such was my evangelical situation and my need for songwriting chops. Some tunes are written, some must be crafted. Free Life came too late for me, though. It’s a total neo-Wounded Bird deal: overlong pop-rock polished by pros. Cause-célèbre context aside (there’s a Spotify commentary if you wish), this plays like a love note from one insider to another. The Feeling Strangely Fine organ joins, Wilson’s sprightly tempo and ’70s sensibility recedes. This is a sac bunt from a pop slugger.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: A little heavy-handed, but Maines sells it so well it doesn’t even matter.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I’m not sure how I feel about the emphasis on “free” in “free life” (although thankfully the rest of the lyrics read to me at least as being more about free from oppression rather than necessarily free from responsibility) but Maines remembers something a lot of her contemporaries seem to forget, which is that if you make the song soar that kind of concern can seem decidedly secondary.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: There’s a handful of Dan Wilson songs worth enjoying and admiring — “Chemistry,” “Home,” even a couple Grobans — but this ain’t one of ‘em. Too linear, too writerly, nothing that qualifies as catchy, so Maines is forced to simply unleash her awesome wail on the chorus, as though wailing could bend this straight line of melody into a hook.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Maines has a voice, and she maintains it — I have always thought she was more interesting than her band mates, and the slight chop of the vocals is a good choice; even the lyrics have a kind of prophetic power. I mean it’s not Richard Harris doing “The Hive,” but it does what it needs to do until near the end where she blows up the whole mess via over-effort. 
[5]

1 blerg » no reader votes » Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 7:08 pm

Business mythological…

[Video][Website]
[6.82]

Jer Fairall: “I Feel Love” without Donna’s ice-melting touch, or maybe some early 90s club hit minus the big “3 A.M. Eternal”/”Rhythm is a Dancer”/”No Limit”-style chorus, this broody, thumping track sounds like it could have come from just about any era during the PSB’s existence except for maybe our sorry Guettized one. If the Boys themselves barely sound present here, their cool austerity still completely guides this in spirit. 
[7]

Anthony Easton: Fashionable, and interesting for how it has stripped away almost all vocals, which really was the purpose of the PSB existing. I am yet to be convinced that interesting means good. 
[5]

Iain Mew: Sounding like someone involved in the single somewhere is having fun is already a big improvement on the singles from the last album. The results are mostly just gently pleasing, but some of the fine details, the evolving sounds and the headphone-ready panning, are great. The brief bit of hard distortion towards the end reminding me of Capsule may not be placing the original source, but it’s a highlight regardless.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: On “Axis,” Mr Tennant and Lowe are happily nudging the listener in the ribs, reminding them that they watched electronic music blossom from humble beginnings, splinter off into subcategories and proceed to conquer the world. Does this give them the license to indulge every techno and electro whim they have? In a way, yes, because the way they inherit familiar tropes — buzz-saw synths, robot chants, head-nod percussion — and make them sound vital is a lot of fun and a very Pet Shop Boys thing to do. More an act of strategy than anything, but rarely does a planned status reminder come off as well as this song.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Into the fray, with a fidgety bassline and a giddy-dumb hook. A dancefloor comeback that bends time.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: “My name is Christopher Sean, but everybody calls me Chris.” One of the best backward-looking, forward-moving dance tracks put out by a duo partial to eyecatching headwear in a long while. It sounds like the soundtrack to a film about a dystopian future where people have to race futuristic cars around futuristic CGI tracks for some reason or another: relentless — Very Relentless, even — foreboding, and most importantly, exciting. Pet Shop Boys have a liking for following up one album with a reaction to it, and if the reinvigoration of “Axis” is reflective of Electric than that should not only bear out once more, but with spectacular results.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Two consecutive dud albums – being boring is not what we expect of Tennant-Lowe. “Axis” returns us to love and dancing, a look backwards to a time when several strands of thump synergized. Want a strand of ”Trans-Europe Express”? It’s in here. Rattling post-disco Patrick Cowley? Check. Basic Harold Faltermeyer keyboard pads? Yup. In other words, a true axis. Slip this between Lindstrøm and Disclosure and somebody might notice.   
[7]

Ian Mathers: I mean, this is fine for what it is (if not terribly distinctive), but why have Neil Tennant if you’re not going to use him?
[5]

Crystal Xia: I get that Pet Shop Boys are the ones who started it’s all, but it’s hard to get excited about “Axis” when it feels like artists like GRUM and Fred Falke have been taking this to a new level. Something interesting and new sounding finally happens around the three minute mark, but it’s too late to revive the track.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Nothing since Very has been as propulsive as this; the shock of a PSB single without much in the way of Tennant on it is a relief because his lyrical wizardry has frayed a bit. But just because his schtick is stale, that doesn’t mean that there’s not plenty of other things he and Lowe can do. Think of this as a clearing of the drawing board; it’s a whizz through techno from Kraftwerk and Moroder to… whoever today is still drawing from them and having #1 hits, if you know what I mean. That’s a compliment — “Axis” sounds modern and sleek and has bigger hooks than anything off their last two albums with barely a word in it. It sounds like a fanfare portending the return of blood in the veins of two of pop’s true geniuses.
[8]

Sabina Tang: A heartening return to form after the last album, which was sleepy and a bit rubbish. (I like downtempo PSB, mind you, and was just as excited at the equivalent point in Elysium‘s promo cycle, so full judgment is deferred until July’s crop of disco lasers.) 
[8]

7 blergs » no reader votes » Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 3:04 pm

Album sales in the toilet? Buy a will.i.am verse and your score will be too. Limited time only!

[Video][Website]
[4.58]

Anthony Easton: Ke$ha has always flirted with earnestness, and positioned her partying as a kind of self-actualization. It was hinted at, never quite made explicit, but it was kind of a road-of-excess, Blakean thing. The interesting bit about that is that she never let the inspirational process fall over the genuinely pleasurable bits. It was a bonus. Making it the main course — and adding will.i.am — kind of ruins the meal. 
[4]

Will Adams: When will his reign of terror end? Never mind the whistling (I’d rather not talk about it), someone please explain to me who decided it was a good idea to replace one of Ke$ha’s sharp-tongued verses for will.i.am’s dribble. He loses a point for “boobies” alone (though to be fair he gains it back with the mumbling bit, which is genuinely funny). The song itself is mediocre, another in a line of Ke$ha’s mission statement and another in a line of a build-drop template composed of two disparate parts held together by Scotch tape. It’s not nearly as crazy as the title wants it to be.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Her career fading a bit, she turns to the track with a redundant will.i.am bit and revs up the riffage. Who needs this when “Die Young” and “We R Who We R” exist?
[4]

Rebecca A. Gowns: I’m one of those people that adored Warriorwhen it was released — it’s just a fun set of songs. So I’ve heard this song several times by this point (and yeah, this is super close to the album version; as is typical lately, the “remix” just consists of a VERY lazy will.i.am. verse being shoved into the middle for 25 seconds). My seasoned review of “Crazy Kids” is as follows: the whistling sounds as if it’s being performed by an asthmatic, the guitar parts are dreary, it’s full of that “youth!!” marketing flavor that’s all over the radio, and the song is not NEARLY crazy enough. The verses are fine enough to dance to, but even then, it’s still warmed-over Far East Movement. The song as a whole has too many sleepy parts to really get a crowd moving; frankly, those parts are not even rousing enough for people to pull out their lighters (or cell phones) and sway them slowly. 1 point for being dull but serviceable, 2 points for being a Ke$ha song, after all.
[3]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Despite the successes of “We R Who We R”, the underlined Up With People approach in Ke$ha’s music has never successfully aligned with her most famed aesthetic – the spirit-drenched mix of goofy rapping and standardized four-on-the-floor beats. Her optimism isn’t at odds with her flippant club persona, but rarely have they clicked successfully, with one overpowering the other. But suddenly on the “Crazy Kids” remix, everything makes sense. The verses’ muffled techno programming allows Ke$ha and guest will.i.am to enjoy the spoils of their silliness, the latter seeming more human than he has in years. This gives way to the chorus’s mix of strumalong guitars and appropriately tribalistic drums, the setting for the artist to build a community out of the clubhoppers, make-out kids and weekend warriors: “We are! We are we are!” The repetition of ‘we’ above all else makes it a mantra, a charmingly naive message of inclusion topped off with a whisper: “WE ARE THE CRAZY PEOPLE.” The whisper, straight from a theatre-kid playbook but undoubtedly effective, seals the deal of inclusion. The bridge (returning to her apocalyptic imagery from “Die Young” and “Out Alive”) acknowledges that there may be little more to her politics than to gather people together for celebrations, but even that is enough in a world spinning out of control: “This is all we’ve got/And then it’s gone.”
[8]

Brad Shoup: I’d like to add a point to my Mariah/Miguel score, please. I forgot the no-whistling curve.
[4]

Jer Fairall: Ke$ha remains, to me, a one-trick pony whose one trick I never cared much for in the first place, though I’ll give it up a bit for will.i.am’s “speaking in a mumble” bit–the only time he’s ever made me laugh on purpose.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Lots of pop stars start or moonlight as session writers, but it’s only ever brought up on two occasions: when they’re trying to break out, the “she’s written for Britney!” script; or when pundits want to prove their authenticity with the trusty Procrustean rubric “she writes her own songs!” (As always, always she.) Everything else is just assumed to be part of the artist’s grand 360-deal vision — which can be misleading. The chorus to “Crazy Kids” is so clearly a Kesha Sebert work for hire: a pretty, melodic clarion call to whoever you are, singable by whoever you’ve got: Avril, Selena, Britney, Katy, Amy out of Karmin had she not reached her “hello” limit. Ke$ha took this one herself — maybe under duress — and because Ke$ha can’t yet release a single that’s entirely fluttery plaint, it’s awkwardly grafted onto a dirty bit, with a will.i.am verse grafted onto that for the single. (Give Will this: that muffled shutting-up of an ending is probably fanservice for lots of people, and he knows it.) Session writing isn’t inherently bad, and Sebert’s very good at it; that intro “hello” is some Lionel Richie shit, but to a kid alone with the airwaves, it probably sounds like her fairy godmother. The verses are identikit$ha, but they fill their time. It’s just that none of this, content or construction, is crazy.
[5]

David Lee: will.i.am is definitely one of those assholes who likes making Roller Coaster Tycoon POV videos in which unfinished roller coasters pull their passengers to thrilling heights only to fling them into the air and kill them. It wouldn’t be an endeavor all that different from his work of late. Like “Scream and Shout,” this presents a buildup that never achieves any kind of recognizable, cathartic chorus. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since will.i.am seems to have a knack for making bland party anthems. Only the Ke$ha parts of “Crazy Kids” – no, not the rapped bits that are covered in will.i.am’s fingerprints – redeem it from total failure. They make up about 40% of this remix so it gets a
[4]

Crystal Xia: The original without will.i.am is one of my favorite songs of last year, probably my favorite album cut off of Warrior. It features a lot of things that I am really into: dumb and probably needless whistling; acoustic guitar serving more of a rhythm role; Ke$ha faux-rapping about her coochie in her perfect bratty intonation; and that grounded “Like a G6″-esque beat in the verses. Those things are all still here, except now we’re down one Ke$ha verse where she gives us a bratty “booty paahp” and more vagina talk (coded as “kitty kat”). It’s been replaced by a giant, awkward pause from the fun when will.i.am verse comes in. It is impossible to describe how bad he is; all I can say is that there are un-fun boob jokes and there is actually part where he just goo-goo-gah-gahs like a child. What a shame the original wasn’t released as the single.
[6]

Ian Mathers: I mean, there are obviously ways, musically and not, that Ke$ha is admirable, and her songs are often quite good, but she can’t elevate will.i.am (no matter how hard the production tries), she can’t quite make whispering “we are the crazy ones” in a song at least partly about partying any less dodgy, and she can’t make this one feel much less distinctive than her great songs.
[5]

Sabina Tang: Ke$ha has the intonation and the laugh of a high school cool girl; not a bully so much as someone whose gaze would have raked me with contemptuous mild amusement in the locker room. Such girls will always be a different species. Find a specimen who’s in school now: no matter how old you are and how much you’ve changed, she’ll look at you and see that you weren’t a cool girl then, and fail to respect you accordingly. That frisson of.. native enmity?… is what makes me pay attention to Ke$ha; even in moments like this one, when her surroundings vie to render her anonymous. 
[5]

4 blergs » 1 reader vote » Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 10:24 am

Archived live blog under the jump:

(more…)

no blergs » 1 reader vote » Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 7:45 pm

Tax Factor.

[Video][Website]
[5.75]

Anthony Easton: It takes brass ovaries to not pay your taxes for years, and then go to Sony and ask them for millions of dollars for a five song EP, and then on the first track of that EP become disgusted with global capitalism. The song is a bit ragged, it’s been run out to the market fast, and her delivery, with its manic edge, marks a kind of awareness of the aesthetics of speed; it’s double tracked and one of those tracks is played at chipmunk speed. The lyrics are so dense that some of them say really interesting things, really important things — thinking of the global capital market like Mac Heath is a fantastic idea, as is the idea of coke as the prime drug of our economic core (but that was done better by Brett Eason Ellis), as is the idea of capital as cancer (which was done better by Sontag in Illness as Metaphor), and calling out hip-hop culture, reminding her community that their love of Louis Vuitton has any number of real problems, including that it perpetuates a kind of slavery. It seems to be such a vital piece in the culture right now, so symbolic, that to treat it as a song seems difficult. 
[5]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Last week, Lauryn Hill posted an iTunes link to her first new material since 2010. On her Tumblr, however, she referred to it as a “piece” — denoting that it was more than just a mere song, but art by a real artist, rushed out as a “Compulsory Mix” due to a combination of legal and label concerns. The next day, she was sentenced to three months in prison. The release of “Neurotic Society” is burdened with bitterness, seeing as Hill created it in a failed effort to pay off a large amount of money to the federal government. You want to like it, if not because Hill’s been absent from music for so long, then because of the surrounding circumstances. “Neurotic Society” is fascinating, but it’s still something of a rush job, a few drafts away from completion. The Imperial March strings would have been the first thing to go — way too unsubtle — but you wonder if Hill would consider rerecording her vocals. Hearing her rap again is almost worth hearing her recite Adbuster editorials in double-time monotone. Almost. But you imagine her word-tumbling flurry on the world’s many follies would surely stay as is, despite being an early draft. That’s the type of stubbornness that makes her a real artist, and that’s the type of stubbornness that makes her an artistic liability.
[6]

Iain Mew: I’m a long way from digesting much of what Lauryn Hill is saying, or even being sure how possible that will be, but I love how “Neurotic Society” sounds. The swirl of melody around her and the distorted voices are like she’s kicking up a tornado on her own through her force of belief and speed of her words.
[8]

Alfred Soto: A quick listen to “Lost Ones” reminded me of what we’ve missed since her withdrawal from public life. Reciting polysyllabic Latinates over a nominal backbeat may have the same effect on other listeners. Like a Beltway hack touring the Sunday talk show circuit, she hopes the fog of words will both adduce her intelligence and hide her vacuity, which is why a charge of tax evasion is so appropriate.
[2]

Ian Mathers: The gnashing production is at its most beautiful during the verse breaks, but it’s great throughout; a seething, forceful backdrop for Hill to emerge again against, on as much of her own terms as possible. The idea that her (mostly inarguable) criticisms of modern western society are somehow rude, more problematic than the problems themselves, or grounds for mental health concerns would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so chilling. That makes the track worthy of respect; it’s the production and Hill’s firebreathing performance that makes it great as well.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Ms. Hill reminds me of Doc Corbin Dart, another musician too moral to function within the day-to-day bullshit. Some people are just wired Manichaean, and for every awesome moment, there are a thousand little exhaustions. Rohan Marley has said that she writes at all times and on all surfaces; “Neurotic Society” could well be all that writing in one four-minute shot. Everyone’s indicted in this thesaurus of charges. On her biggest hit, she took a second to assure us that “Lauryn is only human.” Now, she takes on an alien pitch, as if she’s on the spaceship, pronouncing our misdeeds before she blows the planet away. The high-stepping chorus carries the seeds of excitement, even as the cymbals distort and the vocals must be scooped out. Weirdly, there’s no thrill in Ms. Hill’s gymnastics: it’s so much slam poetry read off a well-worried notepad. Still, she has my sympathies, but I know how much that’s worth.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Hill has so much to say that it’s a shame she’s been nearly absent from record. “Neurotic Society” goes some (in fact, a lot more than some) way of catching us up on her thoughts. It’s tempting to slow the track down or read along with lyrics, but that would kill some of the shock; a line like “pot calling the kettle narcissist” sounds more profound out of Hill’s mouth than it looks on a screen. The way this is put together makes it sound like she’s got fifty lines pithier and cleverer. Ultimately she doesn’t, and is in need of a better internal editor. The verses land lots of blows (some good, some not so good) but those strings are ham-fisted.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: The urgent, cluttered production apparently matches what’s going on in her head, if the fevered, Last Poets-style word-spew she’s delivering is any indication. She’s not wrong about any of it, and she’s perfectly within her rights to dress her ideas in the clothes of her choosing; but listeners have rights too.
[6]

no blergs » no reader votes » Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 3:05 pm

On some theoretical music map somewhere, this is marked as descended from “Levels.”

[Video][Website]
[7.18]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Li Shang-Yin once wrote that “one inch of love is an inch of ashes.” Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had both of their lives taken away at astonishingly young ages under tragic circumstances — he at forty-four shot by his own father, she of a brain tumour at twenty-four. The music they recorded, both together and apart, became an intrinsic thread in the DNA of modern sound and a testament to the power of soul. The only track on the duo’s 1967 United album to be composed solely by Gaye was “If This World Were Mine”, a testimony to the vigor ordained from love and the desire to give back. “You’re my consolation,” Gaye sings to Terrell, intrinsically linking earthly pleasures to the unknown and the infinite. Chris Malinchak samples this lyrical turn on “So Good To Me” — along with much of “If This World Were Mine” — and sets it to a deep house instrumental that is by turns organic-sounding and gentle, shimmering where others would stomp. The romantic vibe is supported by Malinchak’s decision to retain the heart of the source material, especially given that he could have disembodied the voices of Gaye and Terrell and moved their romantic intentions elsewhere. This way, “So Good To Me” becomes an audio tribute, beaming in the romantic gestures of the past and giving them new life. An inch of ashes becomes, once again, an inch of love; somewhere in the cosmos, amongst the consolations, the lover’s wail propagates, reborn anew.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: If Flo Rida were trendy, and also mute.
[5]

Will Adams: It’s pretty, and I can see the muted euphoria it’s angling for, but it doesn’t quite hit it for me. It’s probably the fault of that vocal drone, which just buzzes around like a mosquito that won’t leave.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Gorgeous minimalism, with the vocals projecting that halff-remembered pre-dawn glow of love. 
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: This is so sweet and subdued, I want to sit in a hammock with it.
[7]

Ian Mathers: The production is such a lovely, low-key, unassuming little thing; you’d think it would wilt under or neuter the vocals. Instead this feels a bit like early Burial having a very good day out in the country, so good he’s decided to allow the samples to breathe a little. 
[8]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: Lightweight, low-key house: a bit too early in the year. The whole thing’s warmed through with the nostalgia of late summer. You can hear it in the long sustained choral coo, the paddy synth chords, the echo-treated guitar sound that bursts deliberately behind the vocal like time-stretched footage of a firework. You can hear it in the vocal, too. Though it’s sewn together from Tammy and Marvin’s “If This World Were Mine” it’s a different cut of cloth, a lonely single voice that warbles at the seams. Above all, you can hear in it the ghosts of all those dance tracks that travel back with us from festivals and summer holidays. It’s sweet, corny, like Roger Sanchez’ “Another Chance,” like Bob Sinclar’s “Love Generation.” Not a good-time banger, but the sound of sunrise, taking a breath, and deciding you could dance for a few hours more.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: When you’re trying to dance but it’s 3am and knees and feet are sore and you can’t do anything more than nod while having a drink to the side, a song like this could make the dance floor seem like a cosy bed. Peacefulness and sweetness are underrated qualities in dance music.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I’ve rarely heard anything that sounds so lovely and so settled — the desire seeking that fits into the desire sought, and the expansion of that, is not a new idea but it is a rare one, and rarer when done well. 
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: The greatest thing about this is how when it’s played on the radio it can just float in and out between songs, a two-and-a-half minute interlude that ends on the same level it’s maintained throughout. There’s no big finish or reconsideration, it doesn’t stop being lovely: it just stops. And then the mercifully even shorter “Paddington Frisk” by Enter Shikari comes on, as happened on Radio 1 the other week.
[8]

Brad Shoup: I was in Houston on Saturday evening with some friends, watching Yu Darvish and his Rangers squeak out a win against the ‘stros. Phillip Humber got hammered in the 6th; we watched his ERA, displayed in real time on the scoreboard, climb from an already-ghastly 8.49 to over 9-and-a-half. Mother’s Day was Sunday, and his presence reminded me of Dallas Braden, who pitched a perfect game on Mother’s Day 2010. Humber’s perfect game was only last year, and after Saturday’s bloodbath, Houston designated him for assignment. Sports prepped me for pop: scanning Total Baseball for unlikely league leaders; reading Bill James’ Abstracts and old SABR issues for tales of guys who had their afternoon, month or season in the sun; making cases for underheralded players. So pop made sense in this way: you recognize the greats, and savor those who attain greatness for any length of time. There are songs and albums; there are also people and stories. When I signed up at Rateyourmusic.com, I chose “Silent Mike” as my username in tribute to a solid Giants right fielder from 120 years ago. Malinchak spends this week lodged at number 2 on the UK chart, underneath Daft Punk. I can’t imagine he’ll be here again, but it’s still a wondrous thing. His moment consists of Disneyfied deep house, an androgynizing of Marvin Gaye streaked with grating coos, stitched together. It’s not All-Star material, but it’s humane and soothing, and just as with Mr. Humber, I wouldn’t complain if Malinchak earned another chance to impress.
[6]

3 blergs » 1 reader vote » Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 11:09 am

Only one syllable away from being a Weird Al Bangles parody.

[Video][Website]
[2.82]

Katherine St Asaph: I hate to encourage industry bullshit, but just this once: Rihanna better be getting a huuuuge kickback.
[1]

Alfred Soto: Wow. She’s freaky, can’t sing or dance, the subject of a tune sung by five young male assholes. Could be worse — it’s not “Forgives Like Rihanna.”
[0]

Scott Mildenhall: Yes, this is The Wanted’s idea of sensitivity. Very confusing though — are vocal and rug-cutting talents normally a prerequisite for being the lucky object (that’s object) of their affections? Certainly neither were prerequisites for getting into The Wanted (and who wouldn’t want to get into The Wanted, right lads?). Maybe it’s just a sly dig at Rihanna herself; after all, she’s probably the only female popstar they haven’t already picked a public figh(THAT’S QUITE ENOUGH OF THAT — AD HOMINEM ED). Nonetheless, “Walks Like Rihanna” is a melodic triumph, packed with hooks in a refreshingly clean Dr. Luke production that’s sweet without being saccharine. The “hearts go boom boom” bit in particular is actually kind of lovely, so well done all involved.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The problem is that Rihanna can sing and dance, and there’s nothing really special about her walking style. What makes your heart go boom boom with regards to Rihanna is her really quite clever dancing and singing — that its insouciant style is unique. This is a style that precludes walking just for the sake of walking. Although the chorus and the handclaps are pretty fantastic, the exploiting of Rihanna’s good name seems to be a cheap indie stunt. 
[2]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Maybe “Walks Like Rihanna” — a sub O-Town ode to picking up women or something — is the first sign that we stop and consider what Ms Robyn Rihanna Fenty has achieved in the space of eight years, from being just another girl singing over the Diwali riddim to leaving an irrefutable mark on the landscape of popular music. In the eyes of the here-today gone-today internet age, she’s earned her keep — it’s why she has a “Legacy” sub-section on her Wikipedia page. In the real world, she’s a never-ending fixation of the radio, press and public. She is important. There is a difference between importance and being iconic, however, and it seems as though it’s too soon to consider Rihanna a cultural icon. This makes The Wanted’s treatise on her walk (of all things) and pointed use of her name too much too soon. It isn’t helped that the only worthwhile moment is a bridge that could have been ripped from an quarter-decent emo song from 2003 (“our hearts go boom boom boom!”).
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: I realize what The Wanted are going for here, but I really like the image of a bunch of dudes falling for a woman just because she studied the “Umbrella” video and absorbed her moves. Oh yeah, this song is pretty boring.
[3]

Iain Mew: The twanging elastic bridge beats One Direction at their own game, and the tune as a whole is warmly affecting in a way that I would not have guessed a mid-tempo single by The Wanted could manage. The second verse vocals are ropey, but that’s par for the course. It’s a shame that it’s spoiled so much by lyrics that carry through on the awfulness the title concept suggests.
[4]

Ian Mathers: A perfectly serviceable chorus either held back or elevated (your choice) by a fairly out-of-nowhere conceit – “walks” doesn’t sound like a euphemism for anything else, seeing as how they specify that she can’t dance. The fact that that qualifies her as “the freakiest thing” according to these guys is a bit discomfiting, really. And the chorus only achieves about 75% liftoff, which doesn’t help.
[5]

Jer Fairall: Production-wise, this is far from charmless: the saccharine piano intro, the brief wash of strings, and the simple, chugging guitar figure that runs throughout the entire thing are all all easy on the ears. The vocals, though, are anemic enough to make one long for the polished anonymity of One Direction, and the titular lyrical conceit is among the stupidest that I’ve encountered in a long while. 
[4]

Brad Shoup: I feel like all of us — Rihanna, TSJ, the text’s audience, the bit in one channel that sounds like a boys’ choir, humanity — just got negged.
[2]

Will Adams: “She’ll be the girl of your dreams if you can close your eyes.” Yeah, we get it, guys. You just discovered masturbation.
[0]

5 blergs » 3 reader votes » Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 7:04 am