Yet Another Year In America September 9, 2010

As predicted, Far East Movement leap into the Top 40, only the third Korean Americans ever to do so, as far as I know (Joe Hahn of Linkin Park and Amerie are the other two), and the first from Korea Town; don't know if or how that contributes to their sound, though maybe someone on my flist will have an idea. It's the two Asian guys in Linkin Park who are responsible for Linkin Park's DJ and hip-hop element, if that's significant. Far East Movement also come from the DJ-producer end of things. On the basis of a half hour's searching on Google etc. I'm surmising Far East Movement belong to some L.A. electroclub scene, though who knows, they may just be following their own style. The Cataracs, who apparently wrote and produced the track, are from Berkeley and have a tangential relationship to hyphy but they seem much more "club." Actually, the Cataracs are willing to list themselves as "indie pop" (among other things) on their MySpace, though I'm damned if I know why. Maybe they're indie pop in the same way that 3OH!3 are, which isn't very indie. I'd have fun saying that this sort of stuff splits the difference between Ke$ha and jerk, but that's probably not right. Is probably less teenage than jerk is (Far East Movement have been an act for seven years), and probably from an older electrobrat tradition than Ke$ha's. Colette Carr's effectively insinuating "Back It Up" may be relevant here; also "Booty Bounce" by Dev, which "Like A G6" builds around three lines from, though "Like A G6" is far better.

(Also, interesting stuff happening in K-pop, as 2NE1 release three videos in one day. I may post on that later today, on lj or over on the ilX K-pop thread.)

In other chart news, Katy displaces Eminem on top, which must mean that it's her tying him to the bed.

( Far East Movement )

( Cee-Lo )

( Sean Kingston )

Single Ladies (Put A Riff On It)

Something I posted on a comment thread here, about the Turnage-Beyoncé thing:

Just a point in regard to whether one "got" the reference to "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" [not an issue for me, 'cause I discovered the Turnage piece through one of the mashups, and wouldn't bet on my having recognized the tune otherwise, though probably would have been saying to myself, "this reminds me of something; what the hell is it?"]: loads of melodies sound like other melodies, some deliberately, some from the songwriters' unconscious, some coincidentally, etc. I often miss the obvious references and then hear connections that aren't there, or when I do hear I have no idea what's intended and what isn't. And just to give an example, I've probably heard Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and Ashlee Simpson's "Surrender" over a hundred times each, and I know that Ashlee has covered "Celebrity Skin" in concert, and I saw the episode of Ashlee's reality show where she and her label president, Jordan Schur, are discussing "Surrender" and Schur says that it makes him think of Hole's "Celebrity Skin," my assumption being that he's correctly inferring from the sound that Courtney Love is a huge inspiration for Ashlee, yet I didn't realize, until just a few days ago when I ran into a YouTube mashup that showed it, that "Surrender" uses the riff from "Celebrity Skin." So... well it's not a contest, to see who gets it. No one gets it all.

[Worth clicking the link to see my comment on someone's odd assumptions concerning the authorship of "Single Ladies."]

[Also, though I love "Celebrity Skin," "Surrender" is one of my least favorite Ashlee tracks, Ashlee's most triumphant Hole-style song being "I Am Me."]

[EDIT: I'm speaking loosely when I say "uses the riff," since I don't mean "plays the riff" but "plays something similar to the riff that was almost certainly based on the riff," the rhythm and the style of power-chording being identical but the notes not. I talk a little more about this in the comment thread.]