Radio Rant: Billboard’s Top 10 Songs of This Summer

Posted on August 31, 2010 by bgibs122

So Labor Day weekend is almost upon us. That means that the Summer of 2010 is officially over and done with; the kids are going back to school and the adults…well, nothing ever changed for them. And, because Billboard’s obsession with lists surpasses that of any known website, they already cooked up a little Top 10 for summer. So this week, I figured “Hey, why review one song when there’s ten of them so nicely bundled like this?”. And yes, part of this is me dragging my feet on the inevitable “Love the Way You Lie” review. So grab your Daisy Dukes and bikini tops as we count down the top 10 hit songs of Summer 2010.

10. Eminem – Not Afraid: #10? Really? I legitimately thought that this would chart higher than that. On “Not Afraid”, Eminem mixes pissed off with boast track, and does it all while trying and more importantly succeeding at being a serious artist. Not just some goofball so obnoxious that the guys in blink would tell him to grow up. A good song, but not summer-y enough, I guess.

9. Enrique Iglesias feat Pitbull- I Like It: Ah good, this made it. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Pop By Numbers. Take a man-pretty performer, throw in music that follows whatever the big trend is (in this case, club pop), toss him some “Pretty girl in the club” lyrics, add in a guess rap verse (doesn’t matter who does it) to break up the ensuing monotony, shake well, and done! Seriously, this song is so ubiquitous it could have come out anytime in the past 3 or 4 years and been just as dull and predictable as it is now.

8. Drake – Find Your Love: I’ll be honest, I had to look this song up when I saw it on the list. And until the “Hey, hey, hey” part, I didn’t know who it was. This isn’t that bad of a song. Sure, that…drum…beat…thing is annoying as shit, and the chorus is way too damn repetitive, but Drake sounds good and I generally like the music. It’s going to be one of the slow songs at homecomings across America this fall (calling it now), but since Drake can actually sing, I don’t mind.

7. Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me: Ugh. This guy again. The only thing I’ve heard about this sounds-like-the-guy-in-Silversun-Pickups-and-looks-like-JT bloke is that he apparently graduated from Duke University recently. Ok, sure, good for him. But this is either all we know about him, or the only interesting thing there is about him. And based on how bland this halfway bitter screw you to a college girl is (thank you, NevertheHero), I can only guess what’s the answer.

6. Taio Cruz – Dynamite: Here we are. An exercise in how a decent chorus can save a song that I’d otherwise hate. “Dynamite” runs middle of the pack in the Top 10, rather fitting for a song that runs in the middle of the pack as far as pop goes. Nothing about it stands out as being particularly good, but aside from the awful verses, there’s nothing really that bad about it either. The chorus might as well be subtitled “Please sing along”, so I’m gonna let go of the bad parts of the song and do that.

5. Travis McCoy feat. Bruno Mars – Billionaire: Yeah, not surprised this is on here. Really, this song was damn near engineered to be a summer hit. The up-stroke guitar, laid back goofball approach…hell, it’s almost a walking cliche. But, thanks to Travis McCoy’s wink ‘n smile delivery and a singalong chorus, “Billionaire” is a fun summer song. Too bad Sublime wrote it years ago.

4. Usher feat. Will.I.Am – OMG: Wait, this got this far? Shit, I figured that once I was into the Top 6 and hadn’t seen “OMG” yet, it must have just not made it. Between embarrassingly bad lyrics (“Honey got a booty like pop pop pow/Honey got some boobies like wow oh wow”), a bored guest verse by Will.I.Am, shaky production, and a bad misuse of Usher’s voice, “OMG” struck me across the board as eh. So of course it had to be a hit.

3. Eminem feat Rihana – Love the Way You Lie: DAMN. And the whole point of this list was to avoid talking about this song. And I say that because…*shrug* I still don’t really have an opinion on this song. Eminem’s lyrics are brutally honest almost to the point of being uncomfortable (let me stress, almost), but are still stellar. And Rihanna annoys me way less than she has since 2008, always good. For an Eminem song, the backing music is great, albeit a little a 90’s. Good song, it just hasn’t made an impression on me. Yet.

2. B.o.B feat Hayley Williams (and Eminem) – Airplanes: Whoa! I’m actually kinda happy that this got this high. A lot of these are the usual suspects when it comes to summer hits; love songs, breezy pop, etc. “Airplanes” plays things on the serious side in lyrics and sound. And the best part is that it’s actually all pretty good: B.o.B’s a refreshing face in rap/hip-hop, Hayley Williams delivers a great (albeit trying too hard) chorus, and on pt. II Eminem lets a verse off the chain that negates anything bad about collaborations. So yeah, “Airplanes” is a darker song with a great chorus, original lyrics, vocal/rap talent, superb instrumentation, and great production. Wonder what could beat that?

1. Katy Perry – California Gurls: …you know, as much as I want to be surprised by this, I just can’t be. “California Gurls” was freaking made to be a summer chart-topper.  I mean that whoever wrote “California Gurls” had to sit down and say “We’re going to write a hit for the summer”. It laughs in the face of “artistic integrity” (although at this point I wonder if Katy Perry even knows what that is). It’s not that “California Gurls” is a bad song by any stretch, it’s actually rather catchy, but for a summer song it feels so cold. Every note here is calculated; Perry’s too-processed voice, the ProTools slap-bass, that little “Whoosh” sound effect at the start of the chorus which is at the start of every freaking song’s chorus now…not bad, just predictable.

But it’s not all bad news. A lack of “Your Love Is My Drug”, “Hey Soul Sister”, “Ridin’ Solo”, and “My First Kiss” at least proves that America has ears. And hey, Gaga hasn’t put anything new out in months, so I’m getting my wish on that front. Here’s to a good second half of 2010.

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6 Awesome 90’s Alt Rock Guitar Solos (You’ve Never Heard)

Posted on August 31, 2010 by bgibs122

Wow, check out the Cracked.com level parentheses abuse I got going on up there. Anyway, yeah. The guitar solo. An often employed but not always effective way to boost a song, fill some space if you have nothing better, give your star guitarist his own time, or hope to score a little chick-age for your band.

But after the excessive tapping, shredding, and general wanking of the 80s, most guitarists (especially alt rockers) started taking a step back in terms of soloing. Kurt Cobain is a prime example of this; most of his solos, especially on Nevermind are either the vocal line or a blast of noise. But still, there were guys who saw the value of a good solo as a great addition to a song, a quick flash of technical skill, or an epic jam fest. And they didn’t always show it on the big songs, some of the best work never left the albums.

6. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Easily (1999)
Californication might as well be considered to be John Frusciante’s masterpiece. Not to say that Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, and Flea weren’t at the top of their game, but Frusciante’s newly melodic less-is-more way of playing is the driving force behind singles like “Scar Tissue” and “Californication”. And he’s able to show some impressive compositional chops on “Easily”, a mid-album cut that features a great solo about halfway in, and ends with an absolutely joyous 4 guitar solo with one tracked on top of the other. On their own, each of these is an OK enough piece, but the interplay is what makes “Easily” so solid.

5. Pearl Jam – Brain of J. (1998)
The more I look at Yield, the more I consider it a victory lap by Pearl Jam for totally killing their popularity. On Yield, the guys sound more charged and alert than they ever did on their previous album No Code, and no song exemplifies that than album opener “Brain of J”. Mike McCready and Stone Gossard are all over this song, and Gossard starts off with an excellent solo from 2:00 to 2:23, and then keeps it going in the background until the song ends. McCready’s usually the band’s go-to for awesome solos, but songs like “Brain of J” make me wish Stoney got a chance more often.

4. Weezer – Tired of Sex (1996)
Despite his geeky shirts, Buddy Holly glasses, and quirky behavior, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has always been indebted to classic rock. Songs on their debut album like “Say It Aint So” and “Only in Dreams” showed that Cuomo had a knack for stadium sized solos that were impressive, but nothing that gave you that “Holy shit” feeling. Something that Weezer’s distorted to hell Pinkerton opener “Tired of Sex” delivers in spades. On “Tired of Sex”, Cuomo unleashes a nimble fingered solo that jumps up and down the scale, doubles octaves, and even creates harmonics on the pickups all within 15 seconds.

3. Nine Inch Nails – Ruiner (1994)
The Downward Spiral introduced the world to Nine Inch Nails’ flavor of industrial metal: pulsating drums, hell-bent synths, and dense atmospheres. But guitar was barely used as anything more than an embellishment. Well, “Ruiner” changes that for the better. After almost three minutes of synthetic onslaught, everything cuts out but the bass, which noodles around before an outright sleazy solo starts. Guns N’ Roses wishes they were as decadent as this sounds; the fuzz and distortion are cranked to 10, and it sounds like at any moment it could just keep over dead. It fits the concept of the record so well and sound badass while doing it.

2. Temple of the Dog – Reach Down (1990)
Mr. Mike McCready’s finest work. Hell, just the intro “the sky is opening on you” riff should be the first clue. For the first four and a half minutes, McCready, Gossard, Amnet, Cameron, and Cornell lay down one of the tightest grooves in grunge, but then McCready gets to work, making every noise with his guitar he possibly can. There’s also more than a few technical flourishes, and really the most impressive thing is how flowing the whole thing sounds. Around the nine minute marker, Cornell comes in with an acapella, then McCready spends the rest of the song throwing everything he’s got at the song, finally ending at 11:12 to an in-awe listener.

Part 1 (mostly song)

Part 2 (mostly solo)

1. The Smashing Pumpkins – Starla (1992)
The earlier part of The Smashing Pumpkins’ career (“Gish” to “Siamese Dream”) was filled with alternative rock-defining guitar work. Lines, tones, riffs, dynamics; Billy Corgan fired off any idea he had, and quite a few were great (“Geek USA” and “Rhinoceros” stand out, and “Bury Me” made a convincing case for the #1 spot), but really “Starla” is where the best of everything came together culminating in a five minute solo. To this day, I still haven’t heard anything quite like Corgan’s tone when he solos here, and that’s compliment. For five minutes, Corgan runs through intense riffing, banshee-wail high notes, and guitar effects freakouts while the band makes nothing but sheer noise behind him. That feedback and noise at the end of the track? That’s the sound of a band throwing absolutely everything at you, as “Starla” alone proves Corgan to be one of the most underrated guitarists out there.

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Album Review: Katy Perry – Teenage Dream

Posted on August 25, 2010 by bgibs122

I wanted to hate this album. Not just because of that stupidass MTV article, but because my past 3 reviews have been 4.5 and 5 stars, and I need to save face.

But I could have been wrong. This could have come out as 12 pop songs that allowed all the personality of Perry’s debut One of the Boys to shine through on top of the wonderful work of Max Martin and Dr. Luke (the two high profile producers at work here). Why, that’d be a dream come true.

Too bad that Teenage Dream comes across as an overly glossy, plastic, robotic, lackluster package of bad ideas. And I’m not hating on this album because it’s popular or because of what some two-bit article said. I’m basing everything I say based on the album itself.

When I first heard the title track, my reaction was “eh”. It made Perry’s limits as a vocalist really clear, the “You. Make. Me. FeelLikeI’mLivingA. Teen. Age. Dream.” chorus kind of annoyed me, and the music, while fitting, felt a little too synthetic. Despite this, it’s still one of the better cuts on the album, which should be your first warning sign.

Back when I did a Radio Rant on “California Gurls”, I mentioned that Perry always put some personality into her songs, and I liked it. That is clearly not the case here. Take “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)” for example. Perry sounds completely robotic while singing some of the dumbest “party” lyrics I’ve ever heard. The backing music doesn’t help; hell, every song on here sounds too plastic and way too glossy. Even for nothing but synths, Teenage Dream sounds fake, and each song is loaded with too many bleeps and bloops, making the end result a digital mess.

And I feel like I’ve heard half of these songs before. “E.T.” irritates me because I can’t place where I’ve heard just about every sound in the song. Meanwhile, “The One That Got Away” uses the same synth tone that’s been kicked around since Timbaland used it in 2007. On future single “Firework”, the chorus melody sounds like “Careful” by Paramore (I don’t know either), while the string section from Jay Sean’s “Down” makes a guest appearance.

Then some songs decide to be bad by their own nature. The main offender here is “Peacock”, which might be a weird title, but let me tell you the first lyric in the song and you guess the rest. “I wanna your peacock-cock-cock”. Yeah, a four minute song about seeing a guy’s dick. What is she, 12? Then, moving on down the line, there’s “Circle the Drain” which finds Perry calling a guy out for substance abuse…even though she talks about blacking out and smelling “like a minibar” and how she can’t wait to do it again on “Last Friday Night”. “Circle the Drain” is also one of the weaker tracks on here for everybody: the bad lyrics (including an awkward F-bomb or two) in the weird melody with the electronic trainwreck of the backing music all run together making this song a bigger mess than the guy Perry’s telling off.

Mercifully, the back half of the album finds Katy and her crew trying a bit harder. The lyrics improve a bit when Perry moves to more personal (albeit cliche as fuck) subjects. “Pearl” is about a girl that gets held back by a boy, “Hummingbird Heartbeat” is a more pop-rock oriented love song, and “The One That Got Away” is probably a high point, although I could imagine anyone singing it. Then there’s “Not Like the Movies”, Perry’s attempt at a piano ballad, and let me emphasize “attempt”. Even though it’s 4 minutes, it has two minutes’ worth of development and feels like six minutes long.

Two more quick flaws. First of all, Perry’s vocal limits are too apparent too often; on “Firework” “Teenage Dream” I’m afraid her voice is going to crack at any moment, she slightly AutoTunes on “California Gurls” and “Peacock”, and “Circle the Drain” melodically jumps all over.

But really, the biggest kick is that this wasn’t unsalvageable. A little extra work here and there could have made things so much better. Put “Firework” in a key better suited for Perry’s voice, take out some of the busier electronics, slow it down a bit, and it could have been a great ballad. “Peacock” is a stupid track, but has a melody that’s actually interesting when it wants to be. Giving “Not Like the Movies” a build-up and a sense of direction would have done so much. This could have actually been decent.

But, as it stands, Teenage Dream is too schizophrenic, awkward, robotic, fake, and outright not fun to warrant anything else. Two stars.

tl;dr: Teenage Dream plays more like a 2010 pop nightmare. Two stars out of five.

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Radio Rant: Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me

Posted on August 24, 2010 by bgibs122

Hi…welcome back to…to Radio Rants. I’m your host, and…hell, just throw the single picture up there. Down there. Whichever.

Yeah. I’ll be honest, I was looking for something, anything else to review today, but since I heard this song no less than four times today (video was on this morning, twice from cars going by, once on the radio itself), it just pushed its way to the forefront of my mind. Which is kind of impressive for a song that’s so unremarkable. Anyway, let’s begin.

Maybe it’s just because I play guitar, but I legitimately do like the guitar line in this song. Too bad it freaking ends once the song jumps into the…well, I don’t know, actually. Both the guitar backed part of the song and the ensuing boringish, uninspired electro-y part function as a “chorus”. That repeats itself. And lyrically it’s just bland, I mean completely beige. The lyrics…well, it’s all there in the title. But we learn jackshit about whomever the song’s directed towards. It could be me to Lady Gaga. It could be Mike Posner to Taylor Swift. It could be any unpopular guy in high school (I don’t need to stretch myself to imagine Posner was this guy) singing to a girl on the cheerleading squad.

And since I’ve pretty succinctly wrapped up the song sans rap part and the bridge (I’m getting there), let’s talk about Mike Posner. When I first heard him, I thought that guy from Silversun Pickups had gone solo on us ala Travis McCoy. Then when I saw him, I thought it was just Justin Timberlake going through a rough couple days. Anyway, this is his first single, so I’m guessing we’re going to have to sit through three more of these and then maybe, hopefully, he’ll go away.

So there’s this rap part that’s just bad. “Know what’s up? (Know what’s up?)/Cause your nose is up/I’m approaching up (Yup)/Like I can’t give you winter in the summer/Or Summer in the winter/Miami in December”. And I almost want to call that the good half. I don’t know who does the rap part, or who wrote it, but it’s all sorts of lame. Remember 4th grade, back when we all wanted to insult each other but couldn’t come up with good smack talk? That’s what the rap part is in this song. And again, don’t know who’s actually saying it (Posner?), but it almost sounds like they were trying to be ironic and failed miserably. It’s awkward, not good at all, and adds nothing positive to the song.

Then there’s the bridge, which abuses the “have a ‘back-up’ singer (your voice slightly shifted) repeat the last line'” card so much I’m surprised no one had to call the cops. Posner goes into his upper-register, or what upper-register he pretends to have, which puts “Cooler Than Me” in the long list of songs with blatantly obvious and usually bad bridges. I really hope that trend goes away soon.

And I don’t actually hate this song, I just think that it’s too run of the mill. I couldn’t call it a good song, but it doesn’t do much to warrant being called a bad song either. Yeah, it steals “You’re so vain/You probably think this song is about you/Don’t you/Don’t you”, but I don’t care enough to be mad about it. “Cooler Than Me” will be gone by Halloween.

Note**: I have just discovered that there’s a waaaay more electropop version of this song. Pros: The synths aren’t that bad in some spots and the rap part got taken out. Cons: The singing’s the same and they got rid of the guitar part. And the music’s busily annoying, and too much of a throwback to be good. Listen to “Bulletproof” if you want good retro-synths.

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