Yet Another Year In America May 6, 2010
May. 10th, 2010 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotYet another performer has changed a letter in his name without my knowing it.
Travie McCoy ft. Bruno Mars "Billionaire": Wasn't expecting that it'd be Mars who'd do the clumsy, comfortably mediocre might-as-well-be-a-white-guy rock reggae, though it's the arrangement more than the OK singing that weighs this down. Travie has little to say other than that he'll give money to the needy, but does a good job with syllables, rhyming "Christmas" and "Wish List." Speaking of Katy, whom we're about to, Travie refers to himself as Travie Claus minus the ho-ho, which in context feels more silly than nasty, though maybe I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt. NO TICK.
Timbaland ft. Katy Perry "If We Ever Meet Again": Autotuned prettiness with a subdued, lonely Katy. Timbo and Beanz use the sort of flexible plasticine beats that worked well on Ashlee's Bittersweet World, but here what starts with impact just fades away, like the track as a whole - though maybe not commercially: this song's been limping around for six months, then suddenly strides onto the chart. NO TICK.
DJ Khaled ft. T-Pain, Ludacris, Rick Ross & Snoop Dogg "All I Do Is Win": Khaled and T-Pain come up with a better (Auto)tune than Rotem and any of his recent pretty sugarpop Iyaz-Kingston-Sean-DeRulos have. The raps seem superfluous but occupy the space adequately, except Snoop's, which sounds out-of-place and inexplicably quotes Al Davis about winning (Davis's Raiders have been a dismal 29-83 over the last seven seasons, which is only one win better than the catastrophically bad Detroit Lions). BORDERLINE TICK.
Travie McCoy ft. Bruno Mars "Billionaire": Wasn't expecting that it'd be Mars who'd do the clumsy, comfortably mediocre might-as-well-be-a-white-guy rock reggae, though it's the arrangement more than the OK singing that weighs this down. Travie has little to say other than that he'll give money to the needy, but does a good job with syllables, rhyming "Christmas" and "Wish List." Speaking of Katy, whom we're about to, Travie refers to himself as Travie Claus minus the ho-ho, which in context feels more silly than nasty, though maybe I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt. NO TICK.
Timbaland ft. Katy Perry "If We Ever Meet Again": Autotuned prettiness with a subdued, lonely Katy. Timbo and Beanz use the sort of flexible plasticine beats that worked well on Ashlee's Bittersweet World, but here what starts with impact just fades away, like the track as a whole - though maybe not commercially: this song's been limping around for six months, then suddenly strides onto the chart. NO TICK.
DJ Khaled ft. T-Pain, Ludacris, Rick Ross & Snoop Dogg "All I Do Is Win": Khaled and T-Pain come up with a better (Auto)tune than Rotem and any of his recent pretty sugarpop Iyaz-Kingston-Sean-DeRulos have. The raps seem superfluous but occupy the space adequately, except Snoop's, which sounds out-of-place and inexplicably quotes Al Davis about winning (Davis's Raiders have been a dismal 29-83 over the last seven seasons, which is only one win better than the catastrophically bad Detroit Lions). BORDERLINE TICK.
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Date: 2010-05-10 09:31 pm (UTC)One of the proudest moments of my elementary school career was once (in, I dunno, second or third grade maybe? Is that possible?) we were given the homework assignment of finding rhymes for a list of words, one of which was "Christmas," and I was the only kid in the class to show up with "isthmus" the next day. (True story, unless I dreamt it, which I may have.)