Yet Another Year In America July 8, 2010
Jul. 12th, 2010 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotKanye enters at 22, Miley falls thirteen, three country songs squeak into our 40, and the rest of the chart is moribund.
Kanye West ft. Dwele "Power": "Got treasures in my mind but couldn't open up my own vault" - a great line, but it makes a promise that the song doesn't keep, as Kanye fails to reveal anything except typical meta boasting and rhyme dexterity, and suicide waved first as a gag ("Goodnight cruel world, I'll see you in the morning") then as a threat, while the story holds back. The music, on the other hand, delivers power, the beats and the voice and Dwele's chanting giving us mystery, even if the lyics guy won't dig beneath it. TICK.
Jerrod Niemann "Lover, Lover": Comfortable country cover of an AC soul one-shot, with Niemann's refined twang penetrating farther than the original's vocals had, while the gospellish harmonies are neighborly rather than transcendent. Staid, but nice. TICK.
Zac Brown Band "Free": One of the stodgier and more inhibited freedom songs you're likely to hear, the beat too static for footloose fancies and the lyrics too witless to recall that Tom Petty had added the word "Fallin'" to his freedom song. NO TICK.
Luke Bryan "Rain Is A Good Thing": Fairly light and funny in its cityphobia, this country track's celebration of sex and agriculture implies that the delights of the earth are actually earthy, and puts a genial face on the underlying standard-issue defensiveness. BORDERLINE TICK.
Kanye West ft. Dwele "Power": "Got treasures in my mind but couldn't open up my own vault" - a great line, but it makes a promise that the song doesn't keep, as Kanye fails to reveal anything except typical meta boasting and rhyme dexterity, and suicide waved first as a gag ("Goodnight cruel world, I'll see you in the morning") then as a threat, while the story holds back. The music, on the other hand, delivers power, the beats and the voice and Dwele's chanting giving us mystery, even if the lyics guy won't dig beneath it. TICK.
Jerrod Niemann "Lover, Lover": Comfortable country cover of an AC soul one-shot, with Niemann's refined twang penetrating farther than the original's vocals had, while the gospellish harmonies are neighborly rather than transcendent. Staid, but nice. TICK.
Zac Brown Band "Free": One of the stodgier and more inhibited freedom songs you're likely to hear, the beat too static for footloose fancies and the lyrics too witless to recall that Tom Petty had added the word "Fallin'" to his freedom song. NO TICK.
Luke Bryan "Rain Is A Good Thing": Fairly light and funny in its cityphobia, this country track's celebration of sex and agriculture implies that the delights of the earth are actually earthy, and puts a genial face on the underlying standard-issue defensiveness. BORDERLINE TICK.
