02/08/12-02/14/12
The chart.
Dr. Luke returns to the top of the charts, in spirit if not in fact. After all, it was the good doctor who launched this whole Clarkson revival, and who got her to the top of the charts last time. And Gottwald's indie-rock infused pop is all over this hit: a Maroon 5 style guitar accents the synth (or is it another guitar?) keeping the tempo, and a snatch of funk guitar accents every bar of the pre-chorus. Twenty-six seconds to the pre-chorus, 42 to the chorus... a classic "get to the fucking chorus."
What does this mean? It means we're fucking back, baby! Finally through with the melodrama queen, with the breakup obsessional, with boring-hand-gesture girl. At least until last night's Grammy performance gets "Rolling to the Deep" back to the top of the charts (assuming there is still someone on this Earth who hasn't bought it yet)... Look, Adele has a hell of a voice (obvious statement is obvious), and "Rolling" does have a great edge and a throw-back soul vibe that earns it major points for distinctiveness (in the brutally tight confines of pop, that is), but for the most part she is a Whitney/Mariah retread and this movie was boring as fuck the first time it was shown. Adele would win American Idol, and that is a death kiss for entertainment.
I'm all for catharsis and empathy in music... just not pop music. Pop music, at it's best, should work in the car and in the club. It is a force for uniting us, to give us a common identity and a common frame for our individual experiences of a point in time. There's plenty of music out there to cry to, and that music should not reach number one... what pains us is way too individualized for that. Except if it's Lana Del Rey, in which case the subversion and artistry of it overwhelms the genre's dollar-store sentimentality.
The rest of this chart is pretty dead, unsurprising for this time of year. We have the continuation our Euro-dance invasion, which, outside of the capable hands of Rihanna, is just obnoxious. David Guetta may have made one of the best dance songs of all time but "Turn Me On" has to be one of the most pedestrian songs ever recorded. "Good Feeling" is David Guetta-era Flo Rida, with his foot undeniably off the peddle. And "We Found Love" continues to be a haunting, danceable, sharp exercise in paradoxes.
Probably the two best songs of the last month, "Niggas in Paris" and "The One That Got Away," are continuing their slow decline, meaning that other than Kelly Clarkson we have little to save us from more Euro-dance cliche and Adele bathos (not to mention the inevitable "Look at Me Now" clones, starting with the ludicrously boring "Rack City") except for "Young, Wild and Free," which, through the genius of Snoop Dogg manages to do sentimentality right in a rap song, and, in the distance, "Someone That I Used to Know," by far the best Belgian song in the Top 40.
Top 10 Quick Hits:
1. Stronger: Dr. Luke wannabe rock-pop, with excellent execution even without the maestro. Not a bar of originality though. 7/10
2. Set Fire to the Rain: Everything that's wrong with Adele in less than four minutes. 3/10
3. Good Feeling: This guy fucking did "Low"! How is he so boring now? 3/10
4. We Found Love: Never breaks the Euro-dance paradigm while sounding 100% original. Rihanna's best song since Umbrella. 8/10
5. Turn Me On: Sounds like 10,000 other songs I've heard, and I don't even like Euro-dance on purpose. 4/10
6. Domino: At least she's not making money off a song about how she doesn't care about money anymore. As mundane P!nk wannabes go, she's only half bad. 6/10
7. Rack City: As a YouTube commenter once said, "I like the part where he says 'Rack City bitch.'" 2/10
8. Young, Wild and Free: Speaking of rappers who like to repeat one phrase until it's drilled a whole into your brain, Wiz Khalifa never seems overmatched on this track, pretty impressive. This track is exactly what high school reminiscing should sound like. 8/10
9. Sexy and I Know It: Eh, it's no "Party Rock Anthem." 7/10
10. It Will Rain: It's like "Grenade" with less death and more drug use. Boring, melodic... Bruno Mars is what he is. 6/10
Monday, February 13, 2012
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