Hey there, Radio Runts. You know where we haven’t been for a while?

Yep, the club. Sure, Britney’s album took us back last week, but it’s been a blissfully long while since we did a club pop Radio Rant. There’s been more interesting material out there to look at, and really…club pop kinda bores me. Yeah, it’s decent dance music, but I’d honestly rather throw down to something wacky like “Magic”. And even while the music is pretty danceable and catchy sometimes, club pop’s been responsible for some of the worst songs I’ve covered.

Then there’s our performer, Jennifer Lopez. J.Lo got popular back during the Latin pop boom in the early 00’s, and after that died out, she started taking on signs of being famous for being famous; bit roles in films, award presenter, perfumes, and humanitarian work. This year, she became a judge on American Idol to fulfill the role of The Chick. Or perhaps that’s why the got Steven Tyler, I don’t know.

Anyway, because of the major increase in screentime, J.Lo figured now’s as good a time as ever to stage her comeback, and thus we have “On the Floor”. Truth be told, J.Lo was fairly inconsequential in “her day”, so converting to 2011 synthy electro club pop just took a visit from producer RedOne.

RedOne’s production is so-so. It recalls J.Lo’s Latin background in that it has a sleek, less hard-hitting or sleazy vibe than most other club songs. At the same time, I can’t help but feel like it’s two or three different ideas that got forced together; there’s no real cohesion to it. The song begins with some soft synths that recall one of RedOne’s more notable accomplishments (just sing the chorus over those synths, it fits). After that half a minute of niceness, Pitbull throws in some ad libs before the beat becomes the usual noisy fire-alarm squeal that we’ve all heard in about 12 different songs.

Pitbull. Bless his heart, Pitbull’s been trying for the past half a year now to be top dog, but it just isn’t taking. I’ve never heard any of his solo stuff, but based on his multiple features, he seems to be a poor man’s Ludacris, but with more Spanish and pop culture references thrown in. Like this gem, “I’m like Inception/I play with you brain!”. Wait, hang on.

What’s with rappers and referencing Inception? I mean, yeah, it’s a great movie, but why can’t we let some other 2010 hits get in on this? What would that even sound like?

Lil Wayne: “I came on her face, she said she wouldn’t swallow it. Now she only got one eye, True Grit.”
Drake: “Y’all running hard, y’all frontin’, I got The King’s Speech, y’all still stuttering”
Kanye West: “She tell me ‘Yeezey you the only one’. Now she follows me like Mila did in Black Swan”
Nicki Minaj: “Call me the greatest cuz I’m killing all the villains, smash’em into coins, Scott Pilgrim!”

Hm, right. Well, anyway, J.Lo turns in a decent performance on the verses which are about, you guessed it, breaking it down in the club. And in some sort of competition to out-loud the other one, she and Pitbull end up shouting geographical locations over each other as the verses end. In fact, on a closer listen, Pitbull’s kind of mumbling to himself over the course of the song. A lot of times it’s just a groan, but he also mentions “Dale” a few times. Did they just leave him in the recording booth with the mic on between takes?

But yeah, back to J.Lo. She does a decent job on the muted chorus. It’s not a really high energy performance, but it sounds kinda fun anyway. Catchy in that stupid sing-song way. Sorry I don’t have much to offer on this song, but it’s a little…boring, to be honest. Its subdued sections aren’t pretty enough to carry it, and even the energetic sections don’t get that amped up. Hell, the parody version has more bite to it than the original does. “On the Floor” isn’t a terribly offensive song, but it doesn’t make a case for itself, either.