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A Year In America November 13, 2008
Week is more strange than dominating, but has a lot that's intriguing.
Kanye West "Heartless": Slow singing over slow quasi-dub. I fear the glinting Auto-Tune will become bothersome over multiple listens, but I'm impressed with Kanye's pacing, how he keeps the drama going by holding back the changes. TICK.
Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me": With "Love Story" the actual focus single, the record company keeps releasing other tracks to build album sales. So this week "You Belong With Me" rises while the far better "You're Not Sorry" tumbles. Anyhow, this time she explains in exhaustive detail how she's more sensibility-and-sartorially compatible with the boy than is the cheerleader queen he's stuck on. The vocal rings out high on the passable chorus, but the real heat is in the verses and their underlying murmers of sadness. TICK.
Paramore "Decode": Sounds like Katy Perry being uncharacteristically introspective and gothy - which is to say that this is blaringly introspective and shrilly goth. BORDERLINE TICK.
Beyoncé "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)": Big workout, decorated in pretty ribbons with intrusions here and there of agony. I'm damned if I know what to think, but that's worth a tick in itself. TICK.
O.A.R. "Shattered (Turn The Car Around)": Guitars yearn to be orchestras, keyboards yearn to be bells, singer plants his feet and yearns to fly. Good melody can't overcome the mediocrity of the presentation. NO TICK
Kanye West "Heartless": Slow singing over slow quasi-dub. I fear the glinting Auto-Tune will become bothersome over multiple listens, but I'm impressed with Kanye's pacing, how he keeps the drama going by holding back the changes. TICK.
Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me": With "Love Story" the actual focus single, the record company keeps releasing other tracks to build album sales. So this week "You Belong With Me" rises while the far better "You're Not Sorry" tumbles. Anyhow, this time she explains in exhaustive detail how she's more sensibility-and-sartorially compatible with the boy than is the cheerleader queen he's stuck on. The vocal rings out high on the passable chorus, but the real heat is in the verses and their underlying murmers of sadness. TICK.
Paramore "Decode": Sounds like Katy Perry being uncharacteristically introspective and gothy - which is to say that this is blaringly introspective and shrilly goth. BORDERLINE TICK.
Beyoncé "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)": Big workout, decorated in pretty ribbons with intrusions here and there of agony. I'm damned if I know what to think, but that's worth a tick in itself. TICK.
O.A.R. "Shattered (Turn The Car Around)": Guitars yearn to be orchestras, keyboards yearn to be bells, singer plants his feet and yearns to fly. Good melody can't overcome the mediocrity of the presentation. NO TICK
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But what I like about "Decode" is that it does the goth thing of collapsing the distinction between passionate and icy (not that Paramore are particularly convincing at either) to a basic pop-type melody (I mean, if you performed "Into The Groove" like this with a bunch of similarly portentous guitar pickings it would sound goth too) that's easily catchy - all of which would rile me up too if I'd ever felt remotely committed to goth (just as Madonna's "Lucky Star" pissed me off at the time for being "punky" while having little apparently to do with punk - until I eventually decided I was being ridiculous in holding that against the song and that anyway the little bit of punk might be actual enough and fine for the kids who needed punk breaking out into Madonna colors).
The guitar solo is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any Girls Aloud songs living or dead is entirely coincidental.
I could still imagine "Decode" being a thousand times better if it had been performed by the Jefferson Airplane of old. But then, I'd be curious what music (if any) in the last twenty years performed by ex-Jefferson Airplaners would be something worth being performed by the Jefferson Airplane of old.