22/01/2011

Bruno Mars

Grenade

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/36/BrunoMarsGrenade.jpg/220px-BrunoMarsGrenade.jpg

 

My biggest grumble with Bruno Mars has always been that on occassion he comes across like a whuny crybaby and it does make some of his songs - particularly 'It Will Rain' and another song that will pop up in 2013 - pretty unbareable and cringy for me. But, despite this, the over the top hyperbolic examples of his heartbreak have actually produced two of his best singles for me; this one and a certain 2012 hit that we will get too eventually. What separates 'Grenade' for me here is the fact that Bruno seems to be genuinely aware that he's been wronged, and that what has happened to him isn't right and despite his moaning he's at least doing it in a rather embitted manner; in 'It Will Rain' he just moans and moans about what could happen in the future as to what has actually transpired.

 

'Grenade' is a song that is very easy to mock, and that's because it opens itself up to teasing because of it's pure soap opera and over the top metaphor. Bruno would quite literally 'catch a grenade for you' - i.e. he would quite happily allow himself to be blown to smithereens in your name. Now, I'm all for a bit of chivalry but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that no girl would want a boyfriend who'd go quite that far for them. I remember a friend of mine around about the time hilariously dubbing Bruno as a 'guy who would cry after sex' and I think that's a pretty perfect way of describing it (pre-'Uptown Funk' of course, that's a confident record).

 

But, does all this over dramatic hyperbole and extreme emotional over-the-top-ness make this a bad song? Not in my view, 'Grenade' is absolute melo-drama but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

29/01/2011

Adele

Rolling In The Deep

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5d/Adele-Rolling_In_The_Deep.jpg/220px-Adele-Rolling_In_The_Deep.jpg

 

And here is where Adele-domination begins in earnest and I'll be honest, at the time it was very out of the blue, to me at least anyway. At this point in her career Adele had only had two hit singles; "Chasing Pavements" in 2008 and then "Make You Feel My Love" which didn't hit the top ten until October 2010. In future years, it will probably look like the surgence in the popularity of Adele's cover is really what kick started the whole take over but I've never read it that way. Whilst I don't doubt 'Make You Feel My Love' put her name back out their conveniently a few months before her second album release, I don't feel like it's what made the public love Adele. Her version was simply the most marketable and duly flew up the iTunes charts, very little do with her.

 

Back in the realms of 2008, I hadn't paid Adele that much attention. I think I heard 'Chasing Pavements' on the radio once or twice and thought it was OK and I probably heard 'Hometown Glory' somewhere but back in 2008 I wasn't very interested in the type of music Adele was putting out so she pretty much just passed me by; not to mention the fact that she was well overshadowed by the likes of Duffy (who?), Leona Lewis and Amy Winehouse back in '08 as well. So, when that girl who sang that song that was OK a few years ago suddenly re-appeared near the top of the singles chart, particularly after Duffy's comeback had crashed and burned a few months before, it was fair to say that my interested had picked up a little bit.

 

What I find odd with 'Rolling In The Deep' isn't that I don't recall hearing it before it became this immesnsley popular top two charting single. For me, it literally just appeared overnight and I was very confused by it's appearance but ultimately pleased as it truly is a stomper of a pop record. Adele channels every bitter feeling one has following a breakup into this three minute track and it, for me, really signified a change in the current of our popular music scene. I don't know if I've said this already but I've always nicknamed the 2008-2010 years as the 'In da club' era of music. Most of what was popular was upbeat tempo dance music; some of it good and some if terrible. With a few others, the popularity of Adele in 2011 has certainly turned the tide in terms of what music is popular nowadays. It took it back to a more artistic place; not all around perfect I grant you, but it was a welcome and needed change all the same. This was a song that one heard for the first time and know immediately, this is a game changer

 

But what of 'Rolling In The Deep' itself? Does it hold up? Hell yes, it's still the best song of Adele's career and not one I can imagine her ever topping. The stomping beat, the powerhouse vocals, the sheer anger in her voice, everything about this record is perfect and was a perfect introduction and showcase into what would come in the year ahead.

 

 

Grenade beating Rolling In The Deep was a MASSIVE victory in my eyes. Absolutely love Grenade, some fantastically belted vocals & can't stand Adele in general or her music at all. She's only done one song I've ever liked, Chasing Pavements.

 

BTW, great to see these back looking forward to 2011 reviews there was a lot of variety.

Yes at this thread back :cheer: Loved reading all of these so much :heart:

Will make a bigger comment later but I have adored nearly every song so far as january-February 2011 was possibly the best era ever of music for me :heart:

“Rolling In The Deep” is one of the best pop singles of the past few years, and “Grenade” is just a bit bland really - but Adele has the last laugh because RITD has sold a lot more than Bruno Mars. :D

I'm not a massive fan of Adele but Rolling In The Deep is by far her best song. It's very powerful to listen to.

29/01/2011

Diddy - Dirty Money feat Skyler Grey

Coming Home

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f0/ComingHomeDiddy-DirtyMoney.jpg/220px-ComingHomeDiddy-DirtyMoney.jpg

 

Constant and confusing name changes aside, P. Diddy/Puff Daddy/whateverthehellelse has always been one of the best rappers in the game for me. Not a favourite but he's a very accomplished artist and really had me on board back in 2006 thanks to tracks like 'Come To Me', 'Tell Me' and 'Last Night' all of which I completely adored when they came out. And I was the absolute same with this one, of all of the January 2011 tracks we've had so far, this isn't the best but back at the time this was the one I was listening to more than anything else.

 

But it's....well, it's not about Diddy for me unfortunately. It's all about that chorus from Skyler Grey, the same way I loved 'Come To Me' because of Nicole Scherzinger or 'Tell Me' because of Christina Aguilera. Puff is more than good on here but for me, songs in this vein are always made by the singer featured on the chorus, and 'Coming Home' is probably one of the best examples for this. Grey's voice on the chrous just lifts the whole experience of the song and gives it some nuance and soul which I find sadly lacking from Diddy's verses. I don't particularly have an issue with self aggrandizing statements in rap songs; but the verses by Puff just seem to be aiming to hit every cliche that he can instead of them coming from a place of true earnest-ness.

 

Grey just repeats the same line over and over again, essentially, but she somehow manages to draw me in and relate to what's been said moreso than any of the verses. I don't doubt Puff found some truth in his lyrics here, and maybe they are ultra personal, but they just fall a little flat for me.

 

 

29/01/2011

Wretch 32 feat LV

Traktor

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e2/Wretch32_Traktor.jpg/220px-Wretch32_Traktor.jpg

 

I will always maintain that American rap at its worst is a lot worse than British rap at its worst (when it's at its best, the same applies, the Brits just cannot keep up there). Wretch 32, of all the 2010's newbies so far, remains one of my least favourites of the new crop with his barely listenable tracks as well as just...ugly sounding beats and the fact that I just don't find him to be a very good rapper at all. I can barely understand what he's saying here, and it's down to L to salvage whatever he can, and his verses just about manage to save 'Traktor' from being an absolute mess though they themselves are by no means fantastic.

 

That all said, I don't hate this record quite as much now as I did back in 2011 when I just considered it to be nonsense and about nothing. Four years on and I can see it's about something but it's just unfortunate that the things it's about is both a) incredibly common, b) overdone and c) not good enough to stand out against the myriad of tracks which are just the same. Yes, 'Traktor' is a song about how awesome Wretch 32 finds himself to be - his 'The Real Slim Shady' or 'Jesus Walks' if you will - but my god, it just blows.

 

First of all, he's too quiet. He doesn't even sound assured in his own grand statements of awesomeness and second, 'like a tractor' really? You're going to compare yourself to a tractor. Kanye West compared himself to a deity, and yeah he took some shit for it, but he's still here now whereas Wretch 32 has pretty much vanished from the face of the year. Or maybe he's driving his tractor around a field in Shropshire.....

 

Love this thread and the balanced review that go with it! I disagree with you about Traktor though. Wretch 32 is probably the best Brit rapper that's come through this decade and his songs are both heartfelt and meaningful (like Don't Go, Blackout or 6 Words). Traktor doesn't really reflect his discography, its more of a statement and club song. The chorus and production trump the verses definitely, but there's much worse offenders out there.

The last 2 are amazing.

I find Coming Home, P Diddy's best.

I think Traktor was a great introduction for Wretch and apart from 6 Words I've enjoyed all of his songs since.

Traktor what an absolute BEAST of a tune!

I hated it at the time, but have come round to actually liking “Traktor”. I think using it as the end credit theme to Babylon has definitely helped in that respect.

Edited April 13, 201510 yr by Doctor Blind

29/01/2011

Britney Spears

Hold It Against Me

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e3/Britney_Spears_-_Hold_It_Against_Me.png/220px-Britney_Spears_-_Hold_It_Against_Me.png

 

It's Britney! Bitch. Being a mid-90s baby means one thing; you grew up with Britney Spears and I happen to think that that is a universial statement. Even if your music taste has gone in completely the opposite direction; it still stands that Britney was probably one of the first experiences you had with popular music. I don't even remember 'Baby One More Time' from the time it was released but it's a well-told family story that I loved the song, even then, and Britney has always been a presence in our lives; whether you liked her music, or whether you found passive amusement at her 2007 meltdown, she's always been there in the background. But, as you do with most childhood things, you leave them behind eventually as your grew up and by early 2011, I didn't know many people who were too fussed about new Britney Spears music (myself included). That doesn't mean we didn't all look up in curioisty that day in the school canteen when the 'Hold It Against Me' music video came on TV, but yeah, I don't think there were many amongst my peers who were all that bothered that Britney had returned.

 

So, what does this trip down nostalgia lane have to do with my reviewing of a fairly recent Britney track? Well, here's the thing, I love Britney (well, within the realms of 1998-2004) but I'll be the first person to admit that she's not exactly the most dynamic or...dare I say it....talented performer. She was, in essence, a bubbly blonde here to day gone tomorrow pop star but she stuck around and was still getting top ten hits up to fifteen years after her debut. But why? Blonde popstars don't tend to have particularly long shelf lives so why did was Britney still getting hits as late as 2011? Nostalgia. I think it's fair to say that back in 98-01 Britney's output in terms of pop music was a lot stronger than that of her peers; she blew away competition from the likes of Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore and even Christina Aguilera to an extent.

 

Britney's earlier songs are still held in high regard by many whom have otherwise left her behind. I have friends who loved her as a kid but now listen to Metallica or whatever but will still happily bop along to 'Baby One More Time' or 'Oops! I Did It Again' if they come on. "Hold It Against Me" doesn't really hold a candle to much she did between 1998-2004 but it's still a pretty solid pop song. Good hook and a killer chorus can get you very far, and I don't think that examples any clearer in any performer more than Britney Spears.

 

 

Reviews will continue Thursday, busy tomorrow. Sorry if you were really looking forward to Aggro Santos/Kimberley Walsh

29/01/2011

Aggro Santos feat Kimberley Walsh

Like U Like

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/98/Aggro-santos-like-u-like-official-single-cover.jpg/220px-Aggro-santos-like-u-like-official-single-cover.jpg

 

You know, it's very convenient that this and 'Traktor' both entered the Top Ten on the same week. For all the negative stuff I had to say about Wretch 32, I'll say at the very least that he is a serious rapper. He puts effort into his songs, they at least try and strive to be something remotely credible and creative (they mostly fail but whatever) whereas the exact opposite is true of Aggro Santos; or 'Argos Santa' as a friend of mine called him at the time which I found pretty funny. His songs, that I know of, are some of the laziest songs I've ever heard and for any defences that may crop up. No. No, they are not good songs by any stretch of the imagination

 

'Like U Like' is a terrible, lazy song but for whatever reason, for whatever damn godforsaken reason, I like it. Yes, it's terrible and I can very easily outline everything I dislike about it but for whatever reason I just can't get enough of it. I don't know...it's like the musical equivalent of eating processed ravioli from a tin. You know it's bad for you, you know it's going to cause you absolutely no good in the future and it makes you feel dirty but by god, you just can't get enough of it. I don't even know what it is about this song that makes me like it so much; Kimberley Walsh being home to the weakest voice in Girl's Aloud, Aggro Santos sounds like he's in a rush to leave, but for whatever reason, I will play this. Fairly often. Good lord.

 

05/02/2011

Ke$ha

We R Who We R

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg/220px-Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg

 

What a profound statement. Anyway, I won't lie, this record makes me feel kind of the same way that 'Like U Like' did, I know that on hearing, it's not a particularly good song but I've always jammed happily along to it. However, I never liked 'Like U Like' because of how bad and lazy it was, I liked it because it just sounded good to me for some reason, whereas I adore 'We R Who We R' because of how terrible it is. Ke$ha sounds like a robot, the beat is ugly, repetitive and just drones on and on and the lyrics are about as clichéd as Howard from The Big Bang Theory. But I love it because it just has so many inane and stupid moments after each other, and every time it does, I just fall in love more and more.

 

Say what you want to about Ke$ha, but she knows how to have a good time, and this is a very joyful record. It's empty and inane lyrics, I feel, are deliberate. I don't particularly see this as a hard core 'yeah let's party' kind of song. I see it as more of a coming down very quickly, about to pass out but want to continue partying hard kind of song. The songs lyrics do sound like something you'd hear drunk people say to one another on the way home from a night out; "we are who we are" is about as drunk girl trying to be profound as you can get. In that way, this is an honest record. It's about that point in the night where your body is pretty much just running on adrenaline, you're probably not having much fun anymore but you haven't really realized, and you're becoming aware of how absolutely gone you are so decide to try and act as intelligent and profound as you can. Because that will prove your sober. I like that we have a song about the point in the night where everything just gets a little messy.

 

That's how I read it anyway.

 

 

 

It's so bizarre to remember that JLS were still legitimately huge as recently as 2011 :P

 

This whole page is full of hits that fairly underwhelmed me at the time, although parts of 'Traktor' had their charm. But sneaking a peak at Now 78 (and the pinnacle of hedonistic early-twenties clubbing memories that is Disc 2 of Now 79) there's some scattered nuggets of brilliance to come very soon.

Reviews will be back tomorrow.

05/02/2011

Ke$ha

We R Who We R

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg/220px-Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg

 

What a profound statement. Anyway, I won't lie, this record makes me feel kind of the same way that 'Like U Like' did, I know that on hearing, it's not a particularly good song but I've always jammed happily along to it. However, I never liked 'Like U Like' because of how bad and lazy it was, I liked it because it just sounded good to me for some reason, whereas I adore 'We R Who We R' because of how terrible it is. Ke$ha sounds like a robot, the beat is ugly, repetitive and just drones on and on and the lyrics are about as clichéd as Howard from The Big Bang Theory. But I love it because it just has so many inane and stupid moments after each other, and every time it does, I just fall in love more and more.

 

Say what you want to about Ke$ha, but she knows how to have a good time, and this is a very joyful record. It's empty and inane lyrics, I feel, are deliberate. I don't particularly see this as a hard core 'yeah let's party' kind of song. I see it as more of a coming down very quickly, about to pass out but want to continue partying hard kind of song. The songs lyrics do sound like something you'd hear drunk people say to one another on the way home from a night out; "we are who we are" is about as drunk girl trying to be profound as you can get. In that way, this is an honest record. It's about that point in the night where your body is pretty much just running on adrenaline, you're probably not having much fun anymore but you haven't really realized, and you're becoming aware of how absolutely gone you are so decide to try and act as intelligent and profound as you can. Because that will prove your sober. I like that we have a song about the point in the night where everything just gets a little messy.

 

That's how I read it anyway.

 

 

05/02/2011

Ke$ha

We R Who We R

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg/220px-Keha-We-R-Who-We-R-Official-Single-Cover.jpg

 

What a profound statement. Anyway, I won't lie, this record makes me feel kind of the same way that 'Like U Like' did, I know that on hearing, it's not a particularly good song but I've always jammed happily along to it. However, I never liked 'Like U Like' because of how bad and lazy it was, I liked it because it just sounded good to me for some reason, whereas I adore 'We R Who We R' because of how terrible it is. Ke$ha sounds like a robot, the beat is ugly, repetitive and just drones on and on and the lyrics are about as clichéd as Howard from The Big Bang Theory. But I love it because it just has so many inane and stupid moments after each other, and every time it does, I just fall in love more and more.

 

Say what you want to about Ke$ha, but she knows how to have a good time, and this is a very joyful record. It's empty and inane lyrics, I feel, are deliberate. I don't particularly see this as a hard core 'yeah let's party' kind of song. I see it as more of a coming down very quickly, about to pass out but want to continue partying hard kind of song. The songs lyrics do sound like something you'd hear drunk people say to one another on the way home from a night out; "we are who we are" is about as drunk girl trying to be profound as you can get. In that way, this is an honest record. It's about that point in the night where your body is pretty much just running on adrenaline, you're probably not having much fun anymore but you haven't really realized, and you're becoming aware of how absolutely gone you are so decide to try and act as intelligent and profound as you can. Because that will prove your sober. I like that we have a song about the point in the night where everything just gets a little messy.

 

That's how I read it anyway.