tomk
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Since: 30.7.02
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|  #2 Posted on 29.11.06 1949.49 | Instant Rating: 6.93 | I can't add reply to proper thread:
http://the-w.com/thread.php/id=31373
But me and Phil on a lark decided to try to listen to the itunes top 50 and write about it..not botrhering with seperating genres just treating it like a top 50:
http://concussion.blogspot.com/
We've made it to 16 thus far. 50-26 look like:
50. Stone Sour- Through Glass
TKG: This really sounds like a folk rocker doing a power ballad. Like this guy got tired of opening for Iron and Wine and realized he had a mortgage to pay.
PAS: There are actually a bunch of songs on this list which are basically power ballads, and it is interesting to try to figure out who the band wanted to be before they decided to throw it in and just become Skid Row. Stone Sour clearly wanted to be Songs:Ohia
TKG: For power ballad this feels like it belongs somewhere between REO Speedwagon's " Can't Fight This Feeling"and Boston's "Amanda".
49. Paula De Andra- Walk Away
PAS: Linda Perry completely ruined girl pop. With this basic Casio keyboard beat this could have been a perfectly passable 2001 Vitamin C album track. Now every single teen pop song has to be all maudlin and deep.
TKG: This needed a spoken part where she calls Mos Def to tell him about the jacket he left at her folks Mexican restaurant.
48. The Fray- Over My Head
TKG: Is this the theme song to Spider Man 3? The new Ghost Rider movie?
PAS: Have the Real World Denver spoilers leaked yet? Does the gay Southern Baptist kid attempt suicide? I imagine this is the song that plays while he gets the razor.
47. Gnarls Barkley- Crazy
TKG: This has been around long enough that I can't really write about the song itself and can only write nostalgically about memories of things that happened while listening to it. So I'm in this bar and meet this girl. She told me she was from DC so I asked her what high school she graduated from. When she told me, I asked her what year she graduated thinking I might know one of her classmates. She reluctantly told me that she graduated in 2002. She wanted me to know that people were always surprised about her youth, because she was kind of an old soul. She really liked old things and old music. I was expecting this to mean that she was into hot jazz or something but instead she told me "Like I really should have been alive when Marley was alive" Marley died in the 80s. That's old? Thats like claiming "I'm mature beyond my years because I like the Cars". It was a struggle, as laughing in some ones face normally will prevent you from getting pussy. She played Crazy on the jukebox as she wasn't an old enough "soul" to play "Lovely Day".
PAS: I saw Goodie Mob open for Fishbone and De La Soul in 1995, and they pretty much saved that show (Fishbone was so bad, my buddies girlfriend broke out the Economist mid set.) The highlight of the set was an amazing version of Cell Therapy done with Iron Man as a backing track. It is pretty weird to think that Cee Lo Green did basically two brilliant pieces of music 10 years apart. There were a bunch of bad Goodie Mob and solo albums in between Cell Therapy and Crazy, but if you are going to have a two song resume, those are a pair of songs to have.
46. Diddy featuring Nicole Scherzinger- Come to Me
PAS: Being somewhat ignorant about pop radio, when I saw Diddy did a song with someone name Nicole Scherzinger I figured that he got some Teutonic Opera Singer to sing the hook of his latest exploitative Biggie tribute. This was a lot less interesting then that would have been.
TKG: Bad Boy is all about being all baroque and over the top. Pushing stuff to be so over the top that it's almost tasteless. Should be about Diddy bringing together lots of talent and pushing them to be as over the top as possible with as much over the top production as possible. The production here wasn't especially expansive sounding and this only had one singer and Diddy. Where's the LOX?, Where's Craig Mack? Shouldn't deaf Foxy Brown be making overproduced seal noises? Bail out Shyne, damnit!!!
45. Plain White T's-Hate
TKG: False Advertisement. False advertisement. I was expecting a snap tune. D4L are better lyricists.
PAS: This has a semi-amusing chorus, and appears to use the Mighty Mouse theme as its guitar riff. It still may be the worst non-Fergie tune on this list
44. Taylor Swift- Tim McGraw
PAS: So it has gotten to the point where current shitty modern country artists are doing nostalgia songs about other shitty modern country artists. At least Alan Jackson wanted to be Waylon Jennings.
TKG: Jenny said when she was just five years old, you know there's nothing happenin' at all. Everytime she put on the radio, there was nothing going on at all. One fine morning she put on a Nashville Station and she couldn't believe what she heard. she started crying to that fine-fine music. Ooh her life was saved by Tim McGraw.
43. The All-American Rejects- Move Along
PAS: I saw Death Cab for Cutie play Constitution Hall a couple of weeks back. There was a long section in the middle of the show, where they did all of their pre O.C. indy stuff, which is all fine, but has no hooks. So you had a crowd of earnest 19 year olds wanting to sing along, but no hooks to sing. The All-American Rejects are a really sub par Death Cab for Cutie, but they at least write some hooks.
TKG: Is this the first pop tune with a Bo Diddley beat since George Michael's Faith? The opening drumming part also has a real cool hollowed out almost Adam and The Ants/Bow Wow Wow type production to it. I kind of like this tune . Good nostalgia for senior year song. I imagine fifteen years from now guys who graduated from high school in 2007 will listen to this and go "those were the days...Man. Frank, that car, that bridge" and then start crying.
42. Keith Urban- Once In a Lifetime
PAS: This song opens up with a Postal Serviceish spare electronic drum beat, and closes with a weird start and stop Q and not U guitar, and pretty much everything in the middle was standard pop country. I think we may have accidentally downloaded the Diplo remix of the original. Not actually a good song, but even stranger then any of the Timberland stuff on this list.
TKG: Is all Keith Urban this weird? The quiet quiet loud Dischord section segues into Mandolins and what the fuck. Feels like some sort of producers joke. I mean a country star with last name Urban. is this for real. I mean I guess there was an R&B hearthrob whose last name was Sweat. But...He's supposedly a New Zealander and I tend to like C&W from Oceania. The Koori country stuff with Aborigine's playing country rules. And a lot of country down under still has yodeling. This tune ends with Urban doing a little yodel. I kind of want to hear more Urban. For guys from Down Under doing fake country this may be weirder than anything Nick Cave has done.
41. Ciara- Promise
PAS: This was really dull, I have heard some Ciara before and usually her singles at least have a semi-interesting Jazzy Pha beat, but this was just boring. Who is still using Roger Troutman voice box stuff as innovative production in 2006? If you are going to jack Zapp, it shouldn't be this forgettable.
TKG: I didn't know there was non-Jazzy Pha Ciara. I mean I assume he wasn't involved with this as there wasn't two minutes of him telling me that he was there. I normally like Ciara but this did nothing for me and her attempts at falsetto didn't accomplish anything. I mean you go to falsetto it should be for some emotional payoff or something. And the spoken parts never felt confessional the way spoken parts should. This really felt like it was written for Tamia. Maybe she could have done something more with it.
40. Fergie- London Bridge
PAS: This is godawful for the most part, but I did kind like the horn stuff. It is kind of amusing production as they just throw three dozen things against the wall, and kind of come off with a nice horn. Only in England can a meth head become a sex symbol, I guess they just don't notice the teeth.
TKG: This is painful. I think there are a couple lines about scat in there somewhere which is always a good thing for a pop tune. I've heard this a million times before but this was the first time I heard the tinny horn blats. Fergie's attempts to sound like MIA are less convincing than Billy Childish's attempts to sound like Bo Diddley.
39. Augustana- Boston
TKG: I misread this and thought there actually was a band named Amanda ballsy enough to name their single Boston. I like the Shroeder piano. The lyrics and chorus won't make me forget Dave Loggins.
PAS: I really like the opening piano stuff, kind of reminded me of the Piano Man from Digital Underground, if he grew up in Berkeley instead of Oakland. There is really very little about this song I like besides the Piano.
38. The Game- Let's Ride
PAS: My old roommate briefly dated the ex-girlfriend of Ben Gibbard during the period he was writing multiple albums under multiple bands about their relationship collapsing. I wonder if Dr. Dre's new boyfriend feels as awkward about this album as my buddy felt about that.
TKG: Really? Is the Game's whole new album a breakup song? The Game built his first album around a bunch of hip-hop rewrites of "We Didn't Start the Fire". His second one will be reinterpretations of "And So it Goes"...? Here's hoping the Game never discovers "Goodnight Saigon". Someone needs to tell 50 Cent that he isn't Nate Dogg and no one wants to listen to him sing hooks. Game's fake 50 Cent as budget Nate Dogg is awful. I mean the one thing you can say about Billy Joel is he understood hooks.
37. Birdman & Lil' Wayne- Stuntin' Like My Daddy
TKG: This is the first tune on this list that I actively like and listen to regularly. But it's 2006. On some level the Cash Money/Bad Boy escapism through buying expensive motorcycles feels dated. In 2006 escapism is built on the choice to shake your head and "act stupid, dumb, dumb, dumb". You don't need fancy Yamaha's. It's 2006 for escapism you don't need product, "You can do it all by yourself". Still Lil Weezy can make the odes to the James Bond lifestyle work. It helps that he feels like he was raised in it. I always liked Birdman and Mannie Fresh as they seemed to know that they weren't really lyricists, and never tried to be. Just two guys slinging game than actual rap lyrics. It was endearing. But really you put Birdman next to Wayne and it just doesn't work. It's a shame Lil Wayne didn't have Olu Dara for a daddy. favorite part is Lil Wayne stopping to eat cornflakes in the middle of spitting a vese.
PAS: The ratio of this was two Wayne verses to one Birdman verse, but it really should have been three to one or four to one. I got the album and it was fine, but Wayne is a guy who puts out 6 mixtapes a year. The Album was sub Carter 2.7. Sub Cart 2.9, Sub Suffix and Sub Prefix. This was a pretty great single though, it is pretty impressive that Cash Money could lose Mannie Fresh as their main producer and still have such great beats. They are like the Walsh 49rs, you lose Montana, plug in Steve Young, Young goes down, Steve Bono or Jeff Kemp takes over.
36. Unk- Walk it Out
PAS: Like alot of the recent Atlanta rap, this is a really great hook and beat with kind of shitty rapper. Those songs really don't get good until they get actual good rappers to do the remix. I am sure the inevitable Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, Bun B and lets say Rakim remix will be really awesome.
TKG: Really great hook plus a bunch of verses that really should be used as hooks. "it's on once again/Patron once again, I threw my head back then I froze like the wind." that's a hook right there. I mean "Froze Like the Wind" is a tune right there. I love the Lil John style keyboard stuff all over this. and you get the sense that even with all the keyboards this would segue nicely into a sparer Nitty type beat. Yeah the remixes are going to rule.
35. Green Day & U2- The Saints Are Coming
TKG: Is Green day an ex-Ska Punk band? Was that them on the horns? Many of the New Orleans Indians have lost their costumes and supplies. Bono could have put them on tambourine. Ernie K Doe's wife lost the Mother In Law Bar. Bono could have sang one of his tunes and the royalties could have really helped them out. Fats Domino almost died. He could use some royalties. Mia X is stuck trying to raise her children in Texas. Bono and Billy Joe could have covered "Bout it Bout it" and really helped her out. Instead they do this self aggrandizing original New Orleans music pastiche and hoard the royalty checks. Cash money is an army that Bono won't relinquish command of.
PAS: I know alot of people died, and many many more were left homeless, but this song may be the real tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Damn you Micheal Chertoff.
34. Danity Kane- Show Stopper
TKG: See this is what Diddy should be doing. This is weird expensive expansive sound....which pretty much is a snap beat with the theme from Halloween on loop. Diddy putting Young Joc together with a girl breathely talking about her auto's specs. And this is like a Paul Wall tune where description of car parts isn't a euphemism for something else. This isn't she has a nice trunk and shiny headlights. Nope car specs aren't about sex or anything else. When she says stick the key in the engine and make it purr...she's actually talking about putting a key in the engine and disengaging the parking break. It's about the actual car parts. We're sitting on 22, sitting in big bucket seats just me and you. Its like a Bikini Kill song about empowerment through changing your own tire. Except Bikini Kill actually might have actually use jack as a metaphor for something. No metaphor here. Young Joc is really out of place. Diddy really needed to get Paul Wall or the Tappett borthers. Not actually good, but this is the thing Diddy should be doing.
PAS: I think when Diddy told her to leak brake fluid it might have meant something else, but Diddy isn't really dirty enough to make that work so it might have been literal. The best part of this song was all the timing on the falsetto's "Sitting on twenty toooooos, mink bucket seats me and yooooooo." She also give a shout out to her Escaladies.
33. Lady Sovereign- Love Me or Hate Me
PAS: I clearly don't get British rap. I know that Lady Sovereign is really popular, but I can't get into some girl rapping about her hairy snatch over shitty video game beats. Call it a culture clash.
TKG: Well I really liked Shampoo who I think you can claim were rapping..I mean they weren't singing. and i tend to like arcade beats but the non arcade beats weren't as good as the beats in the Spice Girls "Wannabe". I don't think this is as lyrically interesting. I really thought Princess Superstar might make it as the Feminem. But apparently this fake Heather B has the number 33 song.
32. Pussycat Dolls- Wait a Minute
PAS: I really hate Missy Elliot, I mean an utter visceral shudder runs through me every-time I see her fat face or hear her voice. Outside of that, I pretty much enjoy everything Timbaland does. This was pretty lazy third rate Timbaland, the kind of beat that really belongs as a Magoo album track. If only Aaliyah had taken Royal Caribbean.
TKG: Umm. This is a tune with Nicole Shevardnadze doing the rapping and Timbaland singing the hook? I mean its Timba on the hook..like suddenly he's Pharrell. It is a pretty lazy beat and the song comes across as really derivative. i leave it thinking "Hey didn't Eddy Grant's cousin's neighbor put out something similar". Still I think with enough listens I might learn to like this as much as I like "Walk it Out"
31. Brad Paisley- She's Everything
PAS: She's the lint in my belly button, she's the bookmark in my John LeCarre novel, She's the iceburg lettuce on my turkey sandwich, she's EVEEERRRYYYY THIIIING TOOOO MEEE
TKG: Brad Paisley writes music for women. Songs about what women want to hear. I don't really care for his bland tunesmithing where this really fells like he combined the blandest parts of Jewels "You were meant for me" with the blandest parts of "Like a Rock". I don't care for his guitar solos which are really the most whisting sissy guitar solos. It's so wussy that it almost becomes an interesting effect. Like an anti-Duane Eddy. I imagine Neil Haggerty would copy for a noise rock album and it would almost rule. don't care for his production or his voice. But I have to admire his commitment to writing music for women. I mean this woman sounds absolutely unbearable and yet he's the one he'd lay his life down for. You almost have to admire his craftsmanship to the genre of songs for needy women. Fuck if Omarion covered this tomorrow, Chris Brown would have to retire. " Why are you quitting the". "Well La-La, have you heard Omarion's 'She's Everything'...I mean there's no room for 'I heart Chris Brown' on anyones spiral anymore"
PAS: The last semi-relationship I was in, was with this girl who I hooked up with after a night of relatively deviant sex. Then because I am basically a coward, I ending up dating her for a couple of months, by the end there it was like a weight was pressing on my chest every-time I had to listen to her on the phone, and I started get claustrophobic even if I was on a cell phone outside. I got that same feeling just hearing Brad Paisley describe this clingy harridan he was writing about. "I want a piece of chocolate, take me to a movie, I got nothing left to wear." He wants to spend his life with her, I would jump in front of a bus.
30. Evanescence- Call Me When You're Sober
PAS: Evanescence does a thing that I don't particularly care for, but unlike a lot of music I don't like, I think I can differentiate between good and bad Evanescence. This feels like kind of a throwaway Evanescence track. Like any cutting done to this song would be desultory rather then enthusiastic.
TKG: So Phil goes looking for this tune on Limewire. their record label has put up a bunch of fake links to prevent us from downloading it for free. Phil realizes that their fans probably can't spell and so looks up Evenescence and we get it immediately. I understand the construct that Brad Paisley is working with. He sings a song where he portrays a really needy demanding girlfriend....the kind of woman that even other women would go...shit how does anyone put up with that. And then he talks about how much he is devoted to her. this should elicit response of "aww what a great guy". That construct makes sense."Don't cry to me, if you'd love me you'd be here with me" ? Huh? I don't get this construct. She's describing a needy girl who won't put up with her boyfriends drinking? This is supposed to appeal to boys that don't drink and want to rescue her from her relationship? They make songs to appeal to those losers now? Don't those guys still collect limited edition power pop singles?
29. Rascal Flatts- Life Is a Highway
PAS: The Tom Cochran original is really not a good song, but this is so much worse, that it's shittiness actually elevates the original. The twang here is ridiculously fake sounding. It actually kind of sounds like Bruce Bruce imitating a redneck.
TKG: Fu-uck. fifteen years from now I imagine some fucker is going to try to country up "Ants Marching" and I'll be left nostalgic for this. It's not just that the vocal twang feels Def Comedy fake, but the guitar twang sounds like a parody too. Can't someone expose Flatts mom as a Tunisian Jew?
28. Chris Brown- Say Goodbye
PAS: There are parts of this when Chris Brown was attempting to do almost an Akon voice, and he is not Akon. There is also a section where he is trying to sing really fast like Crazy Bone, he isn't Crazy Bone either.
TKG: On some level this whole project has been a failure. As both me and Phil kind have been speaking with the same voice. We're guys who disagree on pop music. He likes Gnarls Barkley's Crazy alot more than I do. Crazy really feels to me to be a really obvious attempt at a Seal/Bill Withers mash up. and really isn't as interesting (doesn't have the friction) of an actual Seal/Bill Withers mash up. Crazy feels like something that would sound fine in Chipolte. I like Unk's -"Walk it Out" a lot more than Phil. I really like that it's just a DJ who figured out a couple neat loops and beats and threw some DJ patter on top of it. It's kind of a throw back to the origins of rap, capturing the spirit better than Jurrasic 5 would ever be able to. It's underdeveloped-ness is endearing. Phil thinks its underdeveloped and needs a better rapper on remix. We really haven't done a good job articulating the differences in our musical opinions. I've heard "Say Goodbye" a million times and never much cared for it. Hearing it after Lady Sovereign, Pussycat Dolls, Rascall Falatts , etc...and I think I have a new appreciation of the tune. It is sub- Celebrity N'Synch. But I I kind of like Brown's attempt at fake Akon sustain, and fake Crazy Bone stutter speed as it feels like it really does nice job laying out the outline for OG RON C to remix this on a F*ck Action CD..
27. The Killers- When You Were Young
TKG: Amusing to listen to guys who started as fake New Order doing fake R.E.M. I never really liked R.E.M.. But for bubblegum R.E.M "he doesn''t look a thing like Jesus/ but he talks like a gentleman/like you imagine when" may be better than anything Michael Stipe ever wrote. "They say the devil's water it ain't so sweet"... that's fucking "Daydream Believer" great.
PAS: Your basic music reviewer shorthand for this new Killers album was that they were doing Bruce Springsteen shtick. I agree with Tom that it sounds way more like R.E.M. then Bruce Springsteen. I liked the first Killers album a fair amount more then I liked this album on first listen. However this single may be better then Mr. Brightside, and kind of makes me want to re-listen to the whole album again, something I imagine I would do if Hell Hath No Fury wasn't coming out on Tuesday.
26. KT Tunstall- Suddenly I See
PAS: In a world where you have Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt, I see no reason to have a Scottish Sheryl Raitt with a much flatter voice.
TKG: I hang out in Irish bars. There always is some band playing Charlie on the MTA telling me I can buy their CD. I'm shit faced drunk and willing to drop cash on anything. Still have never been suckered into buying a CD. Apparently some A &R guy can't hold his drinks as well as I can.
(edited by tomk on 29.11.06 1751) | Mr. Boffo
Knackwurst
Since: 24.3.02
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| #3 Posted on 29.11.06 2150.57 | Instant Rating: 5.12 | | I get the feeling that the two of you could discuss anything while still A) sounding knowledgeable about it, and B) making it interesting. | Whitebacon
Boudin blanc
Since: 12.1.02
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| #4 Posted on 29.11.06 2356.47 | Instant Rating: 6.32 |
29. Rascal Flatts- Life Is a Highway
PAS: The Tom Cochran original is really not a good song, but this is so much worse, that it's shittiness actually elevates the original. The twang here is ridiculously fake sounding. It actually kind of sounds like Bruce Bruce imitating a redneck.
TKG: Fu-uck. fifteen years from now I imagine some fucker is going to try to country up "Ants Marching" and I'll be left nostalgic for this. It's not just that the vocal twang feels Def Comedy fake, but the guitar twang sounds like a parody too. Can't someone expose Flatts mom as a Tunisian Jew?
Thank you, tom. That puts everything I've ever hated about Rascal Flatts into words. I love some twang, but this guys twang is terrible. I wish they'd just go away.
 | CRZ
Big Brother
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| #5 Posted on 30.11.06 0130.48 | Instant Rating: 9.00 | This is unbelievably fantastic and everyone owes it to themselves to hit up the blog RIGHT NOW for 25-21 and 20-16 - then try to remember to come back for the last (presumably) three groups of five.
| tomk
Goetta
Since: 30.7.02
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| #6 Posted on 6.12.06 1331.19 | Instant Rating: 6.93 | Thank you for the kind words.
Yes I misidentified "Out of Touch". That and Method of Modern Love are the only Hall and Oates tunes I have any attachment to.
Anyway top 25 have now been posted.
Lots of bad cover songs,bad rip-off songs, songs that probably appear on commericals or on montages on season finale episodes, the attempt to bring back Euro Club music, the attempt to bring back Bon Jovi music, the attempt to bring Sexxy Back, the possibility that Bow Wow is a virgin, and the greatness of Convict Music.
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