Another Year In America January 29, 2009

[koganbot]

New song barrels its way to the top of the sucking fucking charts, while country boys still can't get in on the guest list.

Kelly Clarkson "My Life Would Suck Without You": Oh, ah, arghh! This is like being bludgeoned to death with a lollipop. Help. (Is a tick, however.) TICK.

Lady GaGa "Poker Face": She's marching her way through mud, trying to push her way to melody. Kinda gets there eventually, but too late. NO TICK.

Keri Hilson f. Lil Wayne "Turning Me On": I like big bass hollowness, I like spare dark grooves, I like Keri, I like Wayne, I like Wayne being his goofy self no matter the context, but this still runs short for me. Maybe Keri's just not a frontwoman. She needed to bring tension, something unbalanced, held back, ready to strike at any moment, and then the silly Weeziness'd bring a wave of relief. Instead, this is just another trudge. NO TICK.

U2 "Get On Your Boots": Monster riffs, but it's yet another trudge, monster trudge, then a godawful chant off of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" that's 100 times worse than INXS much less Dylan, then an incongruous crooning bit that I actually like; overall this demonstrates effort but I feel like I'm struggling while just sitting here and listening. NO TICK.

Comments

[koganbot]

The melody to "My Life Would Suck," in the verse, sounds like "Desolation Row" made upbeat and made to segue into "You Can't Hurry Love."

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I am incapable of listening to "My Life Would Suck" without listening to "Since U Been Gone" immediately after it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh I haven't gone back to 'My Life Would Suck' at ALL. Maybe I should try that with the video, but it's too early right now.

I like 'Turning Me On', though not as much as 'Return The Favor' or 'Hands & Feet', which I think is Keri's finest moment. We talked about her on the R&B thread a few weeks ago...

Keri Hilson is about as famous as anyone pre-album now right?

― Plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, January 8, 2009 1:59 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hilson actually seems oddly un-famous, despite her songwriting rep and presence on bona fide hits. can't think why this wasn't put out sooner after 'the way i are', though as much as i like some of her songs, she seems a bit too chameleonic to be an easy sell as a pop star...jill of all trades, mistress of none. ie, you can hear she's a songwriter.

― lex pretend, Thursday, January 8, 2009 2:14 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, for a long time I think was way more into the idea of her -- beauty n brains, hot girl who can write good songs -- whereas now i've heard her voice more and gotten used to it, but still not crazy about it or convinced that she has 'star quality.' still really wanna hear the album before i make up my mind about her, though.

― some dude, Thursday, January 8, 2009 2:40 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and then we concluded that she's the new Kandi Burruss.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

i jam 'return the favor' lots but really to any audience which isn't a priori interested in keri hilson, it's either a) diminishing returns on 'the way i are', or b) 'official girl' without any resonant lyrical hook, ie a less interesting version of a cassie hype kru track

― lex pretend, Saturday, January 10, 2009 12:58 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a horrible way to dismiss a song i genuinely like a lot but i totally understand why it's not catching on

i could've seen hilson as a lady gaga figure - if her PR had really gone hard at the songwriter angle and if she'd babbled endlessly about artistry in her interviews (and unlike gaga she actually possesses some!), say. but all of her songs sound like they're written for established artists, not to break an unknown. still think her best moment is that sleazy mixtape track from a few years ago, 'hands & feet' (which was so obv a nicole scherzinger demo) (wait come back)

― lex pretend, Saturday, January 10, 2009 1:02 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

[koganbot]

Yeah, I should track down those ilX threads, though I'm barely finding the time to even look at Rolling Country. (You'd think I was gainfully employed, which I'm not.)

But the problem w. Keri seems to go beyond her being a chameleon. JoJo is a chameleon too, so's Paula DeAnda, so are whoever end up being the voices on bassline tracks. But JoJo is always able to deliver the drama of a song, even if what she's doing on that song doesn't match up with what she's doing on some other song.

(As for delivering drama on songs, I'll have to Boney Joan on this, since that's hardly an ability I'd credit Vanessa Hudgens or Heidi Montag with either. Maybe those two just managed to get the right songs - not that the world is agreeing with me on that point, since the five best tracks on Identified weren't chosen as singles. And Heidi is putting out digital-only releases without benefit of a label, as far as I can tell. Heidi, about whom I still know almost nothing, seems to have, or seems to have hooked up with someone who has, (1) very good taste in music, and (2) total commitment come hell or high water to an old style of postdisco dance pop regardless of the fact that it's not popular. And I'm still baffled by the fact that anyone, including me, thinks she has a viable voice. Yet there she is, always contending for my year-end lists.)

(My Heidi Montag quiz from nine months ago.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Chameleon' might be a red herring, to mix animal metaphors: it's not so much that she can deliver wildly different things, it's that I don't get a huge sense of Keri Hilson from any of them. They're well done, competent and everything, but they really feel more like a songwriter's demos for a more charismatic singer. DeAnda is a good comparison b/c she's not brimming w/personality either - but I've just paid more attention to Hilson b/c there's been more hype, she has a high-profile career of sorts whereas DeAnda is just some chick who's done a couple of good tracks. I think Jojo isn't quite in this bracket, her best songs definitely have some sort of Jojo-ness to them.

I didn't like that Montag song from last year...

[sm-woods.livejournal.com]

I've only listened to the Hilson track once (I loved the anonymous girlie-disco chorus of Timbaland's "The Way I Are." the only other thing I've ever heard by her, I think) but my problem with it is fairly simple: the "dark groove" sounds kind of dreary, there's no pretty melodicism to lighten the song's load, etc. NO TICK

I've only listened to the Clarkson song once also -- much much better. In pop music, a lollipop is probably the only thing I'm willing (nay, happy) to be bludgeoned with once in a while. The melody in the verses keeps reminding me of different things, none of which I can actually specify -- different known-but-unknown melodies hanging on the tip of my brain. I REALLY like this so far. Great synth-bleat beat also, and is it just me or is there something kind of country-ish in the verses?

[sm-woods.livejournal.com]

I think I mean "country-ish" in the vocal melody of the verses -- it's for some reason evoking some crossover-country thing from the early '70s for me. I could be WAY off in this impression. Anyway, I'm listening a second time... I give this song an unqualified TICK (in Radio On parlance, at least an 8.0).

[sm-woods.livejournal.com]

Ahh, have to be more diligent about reading thru all these comments before blathering away in la-la land... "Desolation Row" + "You Can't Hurry Love" = Right to my ears as well. (In fact, I'm laughing at the thought; "they're selling postcards of the hanging...")

[koganbot]

My dissatisfaction with "My Life Would Suck" (and this isn't the track's fault, obv) is that Kelly's done so many others that are better and that Luke seems to only be hitting these days when the sound is desperately appealing (this, Katy's "I Kissed A Girl," Avril's "Girlfriend") or dull (Britney's "Circus") while his better but non-hit-yourself-over-the-head stuff is either not charting (Paris's "Nothing In This World") or isn't even being chosen as a single ("Identified," "First Bad Habit," "Amazed" on the Vanessa Hudgens album).

But fundamentally, I'm still upset that Kelly and crew botched the album version of this:

[koganbot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dX-8llVoJo [maybe live from Tampa]

[koganbot]

Last fortnight's poptimists discussion of "My Life Would Suck Without You" is here.

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

I never commented in that thread, but wrote something in a discussion in a facebook status comment thread that I quite like:

"Kelly Clarkson's new single is my high-BPM aural crack. I mean, it's a little sad that she went from telling music execs to screw off and writing a vengeful awesome breakup album, to caving and making an electropop whatever confection written by industry insiders, but it like...the musical cousin of Since U Been Gone, but instead of being independent and unencumbered by a relationship and happy about it, she's like...codependently crawling back. It's a horribly depressing happy song. I love it a little bit."

The act of putting out "My Life" feels like some kind of surrendur, but if I tilt my head and squint, the song is kind of about that anyway. I hate to see her caged, but it's an enjoyable, albeit obnoxious, cage, and she's still Kelly in there somewhere.

That version of Maybe is kind of astounding. I quite like my december, but a number of the middle chunk didn't click with me on the album. youtube proves that I missed out by not seeing the My December tour, which seems to have been very tight.

[koganbot]

Vastly changing my mind about the Keri Hilson track, the dark bass putting pressure on her thin, nondescript vocals. Tense but vibrant.