Radio Rant: Luke Bryan – Drunk On You

Posted on July 22, 2012 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants, y’all!

Today, I’m going a little out of my element. I’m not going to pretend that I know a lot about modern country, or country as a whole for that matter. I own exactly one country album, and aside from a few alt. country acts, I don’t run abreast of the genre that often. When I do, it’s on the Hot 100. This is the first time that I’ve written about it, but I see crossovers landing on the chart in the 30-80 range all the time. Mostly, these tend songs tend to be mid-tempo, self-congratulatory tunes with country-tastic titles like “Truck Yeah”, “Country Must Be Country Wide”,and  “One More Drinkin’ Song” that might as well be called “Fuck Yeah, Country Music”. Despite being a constant presence, these things rarely crest high enough to qualify for Radio Rants, but Luke Bryan made it last week, so here we are.

“Drunk On You” is Bryan’s third single from his Tailgates & Tanlines album, and comes on the heels of “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” and “I Don’t Want This Night To End”. You can guess what each one’s about. “Drunk On You” continues Bryan’s lack of subtly, and fascination with females, so let’s see how he expresses it this time.

For a song that has “drunk” right there in the title, “Drunk On You” has some seriously sleepy instrumentation. The set-up is a standard four piece band with a mandolin thrown in for good measure; all in all, not a bad idea. The only problem is that the arrangement is uninspired: the drums keep a default “big sound” beat, the bass and mandolin don’t do anything special, and the electric guitar riffs that slide in and out of the song are immemorable, as is the guitar solo. Calling the guitar part “riffs” might give you the wrong idea; they’re more random clusters of notes the guitarist threw in for the sake of variety. Still doesn’t work, though. The production doesn’t do the song any favors, either; it’s pretty toothless, and doesn’t give any instrument real distinction. Musically, “Drunk On You” is lifeless. If this is gonna work, it’s gonna be Luke Bryan’s broad shoulders.

“The cotton wood fallin’ like snow in July” Ok, surprisingly good start…

“Sunset, riverside, four wheel drive and a tail light circle” Heading into cliches, keep it steady, Luke…

“Pour a little Crown in a Dixie cup/And get the party started” I know that this is like picking on a big name rap song for doing something predictable like rhyming “Louie” and “Gucci”, but this is still so cliche it hurts. Just promise me that Luke Bryan’s going to leave his tractor out of the song.

“Girl, you make my speakers go boom boom/Dancin’ on the tailgate in a full moon/That kind a thing makes a man go mhmm hmmm/You’re looking good in what’s left of those blue jeans/Drip of honey on the money maker gotta be/The best buzz I’m ever gonna find/I’m a little drunk on you/And high on summertime” Is that a…compliment? The song combines the leeriness “Country Girl” with the aw shucks earnestness of “I Don’t Want This Night To End” for an awkward come-on. Maybe he really is drunk.

“So let’s slip on out where it’s a little bit darker/And when it gets a little bit hotter“ I know most of you aren’t listening to the song right now, but he twists the bolded words around so they rhyme. It’s cringeworthy.

Plenty of country songs use booze as a launching point. Despite the title, “Drunk On You” isn’t one of them. True, it wouldn’t be that original if Bryan went into detail about what about this girl got him drunk, but there’s one throwaway line about homemade wine in the second verse, and that’s the only time alcohol gets mentioned besides the chorus. And there’s no metaphorical reference to being drunk, like, this girl doesn’t have him dizzy, slurring his speech, none of that. Drinking is mentioned in the title of the song, and never brought up again. I know it’s a nitpick, but it bugs me; it’d be like calling a song “Batman”, then talking about firefighters.

I wasn’t a country fan going in, and “Drunk On You” doesn’t do anything to change that. The lyrics are dull, the arrangement is lazy, and Bryan doesn’t bring anything to the table that Toby Keith or Eric Church or any other Good Looking Country Guy couldn’t muster. The song’s like drinking on a tired day: it just makes me sleepy and irritable.

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Album Review: Chris Brown – Fortune

Posted on July 11, 2012 by bgibs122

A few weeks back, I was writing my review for Maroon 5’s  Overexposed while talking to my partner. I mentioned that the album had a few decent songs, which she didn’t believe. It sparked a discussion between us where I theorized that, no matter how bad things get, no artist (or album) truly bats .000.

The thought feels like famous last words going into Fortune.

Naming the album Fortune as a play on Brown’s previous outing F.A.M.E. (this pretense of theme is one of the more creative aspects of this record) is gimmicky, but gets the point across rather nicely: Fortune is a direct follow-up to that Grammy winning record. And while the runaway success of that record was surprising, seeing Fortune get any real success of its own is even more baffling.

Once again, Brown blends pop, hip/hop, dance, and R&B in a way more boring than any of those genres deserve. “Turn Up the Music” and “Don’t Wake Me Up” are the album’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 of Trend Chasing Pop Singles, but they’re both C-level pop songs; neither one can even muster the cheap thrill of a by numbers jam like “Yeah X3”. “Till I Die” (feat. Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa) and “Mirage” (feat. Nas) make for a pair of passable tunes, mostly off the strength of each one’s beat.

And were it not for some occasionally decent production work, Fortune would be a complete misfire. “Till I Die” has a laid back beat that switches between synths and a drum break. “Mirage”, meanwhile has a demented groove and features a choir, of all things. “Sweet Love” stands out as being extra pretty and expansive in the album’s too samey sounding middle section. Overall, Fortune favors slightly echoing, reverb friendly production style that’s nice to hear, but seldom makes for compelling listening.

Despite being loud off-record, most of Brown’s personality evaporates once he enters the recording booth. Then again, songs like “Bassline” remind us that maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. “I’m winning, you heard about my image/But I couldn’t give a flying motherfuck about my image” he boasts on the album’s unquestionable lowpoint. Between the shallow imitation of dubstep for a beat, a hook consisting of “Girls like my bassline, girls like my bassline, shake it to my phallic metaphor bassline”, and Brown’s complete inability to rap, “Bassline” borders unlistenable.

In a way, “unlistenable” describes most of the record, although not in the way you’d expect. Even if it isn’t exactly good, the first four songs (“Turn Up the Music”, “Bassline”, “Til I Die”, and “Mirage”) at least leave an impact. Around the point of “Don’t Judge Me” and ending some eight songs later (over half the album), Fortune hits a dearth of interesting songs. Again, the production’s not bad per se, but the ballads “Don’t Judge Me”, “Sweet Love”, and “4 Years Old” are mawkish at best. “2012”‘s lyrics are almost laughable; the premise of the song is that Brown and his lover need to have some world-saving sex, and the other songs are so embarrassingly forward and uncreative that they could pass for a collection called “Fifty Shades of Brown”.

On top of its other problems, Fortune struggles because Brown is such a blank slate of a performer. He sounds ineffectual instead of tough or threatening, ham-fisted instead of sincere, and bored instead of inspired. A singer of no significant ability, his vocals are processed on almost every track, and he fades too easily into the background of his own songs. Taken on their own, Brown’s performances on Fortune pass without leaving any impression. Given his personal history and current status, they only become much worse.

I still maintain that no one bats .000, but holy shit do some people get close. Fortune is a mean-spirited, dull, and calculated record that goes in one ear and out the other without leaving any lasting impression. Even as another rank and file pop record, it feels superfluous coming out less than a month after Usher’s Looking 4 Myself. One star out of five.

tl;dr: You’d be more fortunate to skip this one, 1/5 stars.

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Radio Rant: Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City – Good Time

Posted on July 9, 2012 by bgibs122

Hello and welcome to Radio Rants. What’s on today?

Hey, look, it’s that pop star with the super sugary song that I love, and that pop star with the super sugary hit that I hate. If you’re bitter enough, you could make the argument that Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen collaborating on a song is an attempt by two overly-twee one-hit-wonders to stay relevant. The timing is rather convenient for both artists: for pop chart fresh face Carly Rae, it’s a song to bolster “Call Me Maybe”, and for Owl City it’s publicity for an upcoming album.

But, in addition to possibly being a marketing ploy, it’s totally believable. Both artists’ hits are innocuous slices of the fluffiest of fluffy pop, and generate either love it or hate it responses. And, since I loved one and hated the other, I wonder how this one’s going to go.

“Good Time” feels slightly more like an Owl Shitty song than a Jepsen tune, although that’s mostly because Adam Young has a more distinct production sound. Musically, the song meets both artists halfway: there’s the forward push and pop sheen of Carly Rae’s music, but enough studio effects and synths that the Owl City element shines through. Using Jepsen’s pop-style as a base, then adorning it with the extra electropop of Owl City works surprisingly well, and plays to the strengths of both.

And to the song’s credit, it’s pretty catchy. The sing-song melody of the chorus and the “whoooooa oh oh oh” hook are the kind of thing you catch yourself singing later in the day, and hating yourself for. The downside to the music is that it’s not as jitteringly happy as “Call Me Maybe”, or as pretty and pleasant as, say, “Fireflies”. For some reason, it reminds me of something like “Moves Like Jagger” or “Part of Me”, where interesting music got sacrificed for a big beat. Eh, it works.

As far as vocals go, both artists get a satisfactory check mark. I’d have to give the edge to Jepsen here, since she sounds like she’s having more fun. Then again, a pop song like this is more her forte than Young. And Young, in the interest of fairness, sounds more confident and sturdier than he used to.

So, what’s that thing that both Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City have been known to be terrible at? Lyrics!

“Woke up on the right side of the bed” And dragged a comb across your head?

“What’s up with this Prince song inside my head?” Did the Owl City guy just make a Prince reference?

“Slept in all my clothes like I didn’t care/hopped into a cab, take me anywhere” This doesn’t even sound like a real song anymore. A verse like this is something that you hear on Sesame Street.

“Freaked out, dropped my phone in the pool again” Wait, what? The rest of these little incidentals are about good things; dropping a phone in a pool’s kind of a major inconvenience.

“Doesn’t matter where, it’s always a good time/Doesn’t matter when, it’s always a good time” I legitimately wanted this part to go through the entire “who, what, when, where, how, why” roster. Sad.

“Good morning and good night/I’ll wake up at twilight” That line sounds like a throwaway, but seeing how twilight is either dawn to sunrise or sunset to dusk…that’s actually kinda clever.

“We don’t even have to try, it’s always a good time!” Well, I’m glad you’re self-aware enough to know that. This is pretty much the main thought behind the song: “Look at the fun! Ignore that it says/means nothing!”

Another commonality that CRJ and Owl City have is that their one hit wonders were essentially flukes. For all of its popularity now, “Call Me Maybe”‘s spent most of its 10 month life unknown, and “Fireflies” was a complete anomaly when it came out. Neither song was concerned about being a hit, but became one anyway. And now that these two want “Good Time” to be a hit, it sounds like it, and that’s the problem. It sounds almost indistinguishable from the other summery, catchy pop songs that are out there. Of course, watch it stick around, and still be in the Top 20 come late August.

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Album Review: Maroon 5 – Overexposed

Posted on July 1, 2012 by bgibs122

“Moves Like Jagger”, a one-off single released for The Voice, brought Maroon 5 back from the brink of irrelevance. Before then, Maroon 5 looked like they were going to be a mid-’00s burnout group doomed to appear in VH1 I Love the ’00s! specials with frontman Adam Levine earning enough Wash-Up Points already to qualify as a reality TV talent show judge. But after a wildly successful first season and single, Maroon 5 were able to work their way back into public consciousness so thoroughly that they could cheekily call their next album Overexposed.

The philosophical question that Overexposed asks is “Is it ‘selling out’ if you didn’t have much to sell in the first place?” Well, not really, but even if it isn’t selling out, there’s a clear feeling of something giving up here; guest writers and producers cowrote over half the record, while the non-Levine members only have writing contributions to the album’s back half. And while Maroon 5 had always emphasized the pop half of “pop rock”, very little of this album sounds like an actual band playing.

And even when they do, such as on first song/second single “One More Night”, they sound covered in so many studio effects that Overexposed sounds more like Teenage Dream than Hands All Over. But, to “One More Night”‘s credit, it has enough bounce and rhythm to stick around as a decent Summer Single. It’s a better sight for the radio than actual first single, “Payphone”, an awkward, graceless song made even more so by Wiz Khalifa’s guest verse. The song builds like a ballad, but never pays off like one, and instead stays mid-tempo and unsatisfying.

Some of the cowriting credits on Overexposed include Shellback, Max Martin, Benny Blanco, and Ryan Tedder, names that frequent the credits of Hot 100 hits. Their collaborations are bright and shiny and radio ready; “Daylight” and “Lucky Strike” are going to be singles, it’s just a matter of which one’s third and which is fourth. “Daylight” is an ok ballad, but could be stronger if it had more room to breath (you know, like if a band was playing it). As it is, it doesn’t swing hard enough into pure pop to be anything but a pleasant if anemic listen. Ironically enough, the raved up “Lucky Strike” is bolstered by being so thoroughly processed (it’s also the direct “Jagger” sequel present). It’s catchy as all get out, to boot, and the most sensual song you’d ever attach to Ryan Tedder’s name.

Hell, if the album kept the pop thrills going, I’d call it a success, but after “Lucky Strike”,  Overexposed becomes Underplanned. After a few filler tracks, melancholy slowburner “Fortune Teller” is pretty in a kind of rote way, and only marred by a faux-dubstep breakdown (the same thing threatened to derail “Lucky Strike”). “Sad”, a piano and vocal only number, wants to be by Adele so much it’s embarrassing, and the song is painfully out of place and on the nose.

The last three songs on Overexposed do little to recover any momentum. “Tickets” and “Doin’ Dirt” try to compromise Maroon 5’s funky side with the album’s pop style, but results in sludgy disco that’s too overstuffed for its own good. “Beautiful Goodbye” ends the album on a slightly positive sounding note; the album’s pop excess is curtailed in favor of a “classic” Maroon 5 sound (if there is such a thing).

Of course, some problems dog Overexposed from top to bottom. It works in some places, like on “Lucky Strike”, but the album as a whole leans on “La la la” and “Whoa-oh-whoa-whoa” choruses and extended breaks past the point of annoyance. Levine’s voice and lyrics go unchanged for the most part; the only difference is he sings noticeably lower a few times (“Fortune Teller”), and while his lyrics aren’t regressing, 12 songs vaguely about women in rote ways gets tiring after awhile. Instead of being a synthesis of the band’s pop rock origins and the new producer’s pop influence, the two sides don’t gel together as often as they could.

Even with its numerous flaws, I’d forgive Overexposed if it was fun, but after the initial rush, that’s seldom the case. It tries doing sad for a few tracks, but even then, it finds limited success. The shortest way to describe Overexposed is that it’s a typical pop album: good for a few singles, and then blandly commercial. Two and a half out of five stars.

tl;dr: When you can’t sell out, you can always give up, 2.5/5

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