Lady Gaga Bad Romance
I'm a bit conflicted about putting this as my top song. For one, it's not as if 176 Lady Gaga stans won't vote this round just to get the chance to list their girl at #1 (compensating for that Hot 100 upset), so this track is by no means desperate for my support. Secondly, naming this my top track suggests to some that I think the song is
perfect, or at least close to perfect. Don't get it twisted, I still think this song is flawed, but I do really enjoy this track and among this week's competition nothing else quite tops it. This is really finely produced pop music that's accented by interesting songwriting and all sorts of eccentricities that made it immediately interesting and fresh. The problem? A little restraint would have made this even better.
Gibberish chanting or French spoken word, you can only pick one. Which will it be? The track was memorable enough on it's own, the extra bells and whistles weren't needed, but for some reason Gaga feels the need to hide behind flashiness. Despite the fact that this is a very cluttered song, the best aspect of the track is RedOne's production, which was a huge step forward for him in terms of experimentation. Certainly there are elements that are uniquely RedOne, but at least he didn't recycle the beat from his epic 3 part single, "JustDancePokerfaceLoveGame." Also, this somehow manages to be one of the cleanest sounding mixes he's ever done. (10)
Muse Guiding Light
This is a bit of an odd selection to appear in this competition. "Guiding Light" is a song of a really epic nature that I find highly appealing, though I think it's a bit of a departure from their typical sound and might be something that may not fare as well with certain listeners as, say, some of the singles.
The track has been produced on such a grand scale; complete with shout-from-the-top-of-a-mountain worthy vocals and beautiful singing guitar riffs. With these elements in full force, I get a strong 80s power ballad vibe. What a nice nod to past musical trends. I must commend them for managing to avoid the campiness (see: The Darkness) that can be associated with this sound. (9)
Florence and the Machine Cosmic Love
I have a horrible habit of listening to a song or two from artists I'm not really familiar with and immediately dismissing these artist from my consciousness or welcoming them onto my iPod based on my reaction to the few song(s) in question. I've done it with Robyn, which was a horrible mistake. I did it with Florence and her machine, which I would say was a bad mistake but not as horrible a mistake as saying "thanks, but no thanks" to Robyn. Basically, I think "Dog Days are Over" is the worst thing I've ever subjected my ears to, but this,
this... this it's quite good, I must admit. There's an other-worldly quality to this track that perfectly plays into the idea of
cosmic love. Every element of the track is drenching in sweet echoy reverb and the effect is very spacey/dreamy/celestial sounding. I think it might take some time for me to fully embrace Florence as a vocalist, but before I decide that
The Machine can stay and the
Flo has to go, I'll have to spend some time investigating their work further.
Signed,
Pleasantly Surprised (8)
MGMT Kids
I'm not usually very interested in this sort of music, but if I am to get behind any sort hipstery musical act, it would have to be one that hides behind the wacky tones of synthesizers and employs a fair bit of pop catchiness. It's the music itself that has drawn me to MGMT, as opposed to the lyrical content of their work, which, in all honesty, is all a bit beyond me... or at least that's how I perceive it cause they're hipstery (but real hipsters probably scoff at MGMT, for all I know) so obviously they're like really smart and have super insightful and metaphorical lyrics, right? The several times I have managed not to get lost in the brilliant buzz of those synths and the perfectness of including sound bites of actual kids (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) in a song named "Kids," I've had a fun time trying to decipher all of this. What's it all about? No clue. Something about having babies, the stages of life, and not abusing some sort of resource (The earth's natural resources? The limitless resource of love and money we expect to get from our parents?) and whatnot. The brilliant minds over at
Song Meanings suggest it could be anything from a treehugger's conservation anthem to an ode to heroin addiction. The dudes from MGMT look like they have drug problems and they're undoubtedly concerned about the environment cause they went to a stuffy and fairly prestigious east coast liberal arts college. So how could I oppose these interpretations? The person who suggested that this song is "just bout kids bein kids, duh!" advised,
don't over-think it. So I won't. I'll just be content to like this song, especially the bit following the break where that annoying little playground brat screams his head off cause someone stole the ball he was playing with or he fell and scraped his knee. I wanna high five the kid who stole from him or tripped him. Hate kids. (7)
(Not really.)
Jessica Simpson If You Were Mine
MGMT are too smart for me, but Jessica Simpson is more on my level and I'm more than happy to listen to her confess her desires for the cutie-pa-tootie at the heart of this song as though these words are the brilliant product of James Joyce (or some other genius author whose work I can't be bothered to read). I might be giving her too much credit as I assume it's unlikely she actually came up with any of this herself, but regardless, I think
she's Jessica's people stumbled upon something that really works. (Does she have a writing credit for this? I'm too lazy too look.) This is insipid and cheerful pop music at it's finest, made particularly great (at least for my ears) by throwback production that borrows heavily from the late 80s and early 90s. Had this appeared on her first album I'd probably find fault with these intentionally date elements and label it a horrible misstep of a song that was recorded 10 years too late, but considering this was on an album fron like 2006, its all good. On an interesting side note, all music from the 90s puts the music we listen to today to shame. I always feel really bad for members who were born in like 1995. (Can you honestly believe people were born after the year 1989? Neither can I.) Come over to my house and we'll jam to old school Brandy while we watch episodes of
Clarissa Explains it All. (6)
(Brandy was the first name that came to mind, this doesn't remind me of anything Brandy ever released, nor should Brandy's musical output during the 90s be viewed as something I consider amazing or essential to the decade. Her **** was good, though.)
Amy Winehouse Just Friends
A horrible muddy mess of a track that's salvaged only by the quality of the songwriting. I mean...
Brilliance. This is fantastic to-the-point sort of songwriting that doesn't shortchange us in the cleverness department. It's such a shame that Amy's voice gets lost in a bizarre mix of about 27 different instruments all playing what sounds like that old familiar standard, "Whatever the **** We Want to Play" at the same time. (5)
The xx Crystalised
So casual, so cool, so mellow, so aloof; it's both appealing and ridiculously frustrating. The soundscape is enjoyable and hauntingly beautiful; sounding as though it's been recorded in a large room with allowing for a generous echo (reverb is everyone's best friend). Couple this with the barely there vocals and you have the sort of music I love to nap to or the sort of non-distracting stuff that's makes for good background noise at work. And then I started listening to the words and it was all sort of ruined. Here we have people expressing the idea that perhaps their relationship is too much, that it's become too intense and there's too much pressure; so much pressure that they actually run the risk of
crystalizing. They're turning into freaking diamonds (figuratively) and you're telling me that they're going to maintain this casual manner and not sing these lyrics with a little conviction? Absurdity. This is enjoyable, but I find it somewhat poorly executed when I compare the content with the dispassionate tone. (4)
Koda Kumi Taboo
Stylistically, this should be right up my alley. It's dancey, it's poppy, and since I don't understand the language, I'm left to assume by the overall sound and appearance of this pop star that it's at least mildly ****ty. I love all of these things, and from everything I've seen and heard of Koda Kumi, I get the feeling that if I were to ever fall in love with a J-Pop musician, she would be
THE ONE. But despite the fact that this track checks a lot of the right boxes in my pop music pop quiz, it gets one very major thing wrong; the production. It's not bad, per-say, just weak. As a whole, I think it sounds a little cheap. The percussion work could be a little more inventive (or at least have more of a presence) and the synths sound just a little bit too plastic for my tastes. (I know, a ridiculous critique of a
synthetic instrument.) Don't crucify me Ayumians, Kodians, & Utadians, but cheap production is a problem that I feel plagues a lot of J-Pop music and has prevented me from finding much of the genre very appealing. (3)
Paramore Crushcrushcrush
I used to work at a store in the mall that had this as part of a continuously looping playlist of like 12 songs, meaning I would hear this at least 8 times during any given shift. Due to this fact, my opinion of this track might be a bit skewed or jaded, but the whole song is a bit of a "meh" to me. I'm not particularly fond of the arrangement, and Haley, who normally delivers a section in each song to which I have to bow down and praise her for her singing talent, doesn't really do anything to amaze me or sell me on this number. She might have a
Crushcrushcrush, but enamored I am not. (2)
Chrisette Michele Blame it on Me
What an interesting voice. I don't know if it's something she employed for this song specifically, but there's something peculiar about her intonation and pronunciation of words that I find very distracting. (Bold critique coming from a Ke$ha fan, I know. The difference being, Ke$ha's odd way of saying **** somehow enhances her work and gives it character. I'm not sure that's what's happening here.) If there's an aspect of the vocals I do like, it's all of the gliding she does between pitches, despite the fact that I think the trickiness of doing this occasionally causes her to waver off-pitch just a hair. Of course, it would be unfair for me to assess this track on vocals alone. I like the idea being expressed here. This whole "go ahead and blame all of the problems with our relationship on me, I'm done worrying about what you think" theme is something I think most people can relate to some sort of difficult relationship they have had, whether romantic or not. This relateabilty (not a word) factor is a strong point of this track.
With this sort of track, I always find myself waiting for the big emotional moment that kicks everything into overdrive. That "wow moment" indeed comes towards the end of the track, but I find it somewhat underwhelming. Perhaps it's a fault on my part to expect everything to be so grandiose. Also, the handclap annoys me. (1)
