Another Year In America May 21, 2009

[koganbot]

Buncha tracks new to the Top 40 but they seem already old, and done.

Katy Perry "Waking Up In Vegas": Tuneful clatter with the tune barely holding its own. BORDERLINE TICK.

Eminem "Beautiful": Only track on the album to have anything like the old Eminem flow, as he tells us he's at a dead end. The dreadful chorus almost defeats him - claims that the beauty surmounts the bullshit, but in effect is also claiming that Em's beauty is now elsewhere than in his music. ANOTHER BORDERLINE BENEFIT OF A DOUBT TICK.

Lady GaGa "LoveGame": Originally thought GaGa'd definitively jumped the shark with this one, esp. that infantile "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" chant. But the basic force and danceability - including the chant - wins out. The boy-and-girl-playing-soldier conceit, despite being dumb and clichéd, allows this to have a martial feel; the chords convey a melancholy that has nothing to do with what this song says it's about, and the synth horns seem strangely forlorn in the distance, while the track works grimly at sex and fun. Hut two three four. TICK.

Jordin Sparks "Battlefield": Another case of prettiness contending with clamor, though this time the clamor is revved up to 11. The prettiness survives, just barely. TICK.

Jonas Brothers "Paranoid": Emo lite, sounds incongruously uncommitted for someone who thinks they're out to get him. NO TICK.

Pink "Please Don't Leave Me": Pink fights with herself while the track contends with its own distractibility, the sad plea of the chorus surrounding us in gentleness. TICK.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Interesting blurbs for these ticks all around, in the sense that the ticks themselves look like they're just on the verge of breaking.

"Love Game" is a borderline nontick for me -- in my review I claim the synth "doesn't really do anything," which isn't quite what I mean, but I see the gap in what it is doing to what it's doing it in the service of as too much of a deal-breaker. I mean, GaGa has some pretty awesome synths at her disposal, there's just too much dumb stuff (and basic mediocrity, i.e. everything but the chorus, which itself isn't her strongest) to bring me into tick territory.

Eminem hasn't really given us any other way to look at him aside from conceptually/meta, and in that sense I kind of like the way he sabotages the best song on his album (possible exception being "Underground," though that one drags a lot, too).

[koganbot]

Definitely prefer "We Made You" and "Crack A Bottle" for being catchy, and that "Bagpipes In Baghdad" track for being generally weird and maniacal (and Mariahcal), and "Same Song And Dance" for having a sad roll while the murderer tries to stay matter of fact. Haven't heard most of the rest more than once.