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E-mail: dalatudalatu@gmail.com

Blurred into Oblivion

I’m tired of people telling me I’m ignorant for liking pop and hip hop, because I’m not.  I know whats up with music.  I have thoroughly investigated both mainstream and experimental music.  in fact, i was so dedicated to experimental music that I didn’t even bother to learn about pop and R&B until i was 21.  I put out multiple records on a label that was run by my friends and released my music on tape because it was the cheapest option.  so please don’t tell me that I haven’t been enlightened to the world of alternative music.  

Grimes

1. Grimes, “Oblivion”
2. Frank Ocean, “Pyramids”
3. Usher, “Climax”
4. Kendrick Lamar, “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe”
5. Japandroids, “The House That Heaven Built”
6. Bat For Lashes, “Laura”
7. Tame Impala, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”
8. Beach House, “Myth”
9. Fiona Apple, “Werewolf”
10. Jai Paul, “Jasmine”
11. Frank Ocean, “Thinking Bout You”
12. Miguel, “Adorn”
13. Chromatics, “Kill for Love”
14. M.I.A., “Bad Girls”
15. Andy Stott, “Numb”
16. Solange, “Losing You”
17. Chairlift, “I Belong in Your Arms”
18. Nicki Minaj, “Beez in the Trap” [ft. 2 Chainz]
19. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, “Only in My Dreams”
20. Kendrick Lamar, “Swimming Pools (Drank)”
21. Jessie Ware, “Wildest Moments”
22. Death Grips, “I’ve Seen Footage”
23. Dirty Projectors, “Dance for You”
24. Chief Keef, “I Don’t Like”[ft. Lil Reese]
25. Grimes, “Genesis”
26. TNGHT, “Higher Ground”
27. Grizzly Bear, “Yet Again”
28. Cat Power, “Nothin But Time”
29. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe”
30. Kanye West, “Mercy” [ft. Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz]
31. Frank Ocean, “Bad Religion”
32. Sky Ferreira, “Everything Is Embarrassing”
33. Danny Brown, “Grown Up”

Pitchfork Top Tracks of 2012 

And just as some might interpret music like Charli’s or Sky’s as a dignified alternative to the never-ending RedOne radio thump, others may see it as pop that’s diluted and dolled-up to appeal to listeners still unwilling to commit to their more universal impulses. Others might not think to classify it at all, because those sorts of categorical boundaries have blurred into oblivion.

Carrie Battan, from her excellent Pitchfork article “A Small Pop”. 

Rock music has always been a breeding ground for great albums, while commercial pop continually worships at the altar of The Single, so it makes sense that our two Top 50 year-end lists reflect this. But in 2003, there were more than enough brilliant tracks from both sides, and friends, coming from a reformed tightass, there’s just no reason to deny it. When shit’s free, there’s no guilt for pleasure. Enjoy.

Pitchfork’s introduction of the Top Singles of 2003. 

I’m trying to rebuild my own canon where Joy Division or Radiohead doesn’t matter but Tori Amos or Sarah McLachlan or the Spice Girls or George Michael or Des’ree or the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack do matter

James Brooks, an aside from an interview with Carrie Battan. 

The lyrics are easygoing yet confident, when Wasner breaks from her singing to say, “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s love, and I know that it’s good enough.” It’s a truly sweet single with a melody that smacks of 1990s teen-pop singers like Mandy Moore and Stacie Orrico.

Britt Julious, in Pitchfork on the Dungeonesse song “Shucks”. 

THE RED BACKPACK: An Introduction to "Praising the Radio Song"

theredbackpack:

How fucking boring the world would be if only Bon Iver-types played on the radio or the megaplex showed only tender German coming-of-age films that take place in small industrial towns. Yes, taste exists as a mostly arbitrary development of rules to govern your sense of self, the way all rules exist to create mostly arbitrary limits of government; but the great freedom of the modern world means I can plop this Justin Bieber song right after my Julie Doiron collection and before 400 Degreez in iTunes. And, ultimately, it’s progressively less novel the more and more this occurs.

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This week, David Turner (dalatu.tumblr.com) and I will write about some of our favorite, mostly underwritten-about pure pop/radio songs. Turner is a music blogger who once reviewed a Waka Flocka Flame/French Montana mixtape for Pitchfork. He is unreasonably good at responding to emails in a timely fashion.

It’s generally true, that I answer e-mails pretty quickly. Anyway, this should be fun to do, and please follow theredbackpack if you don’t on already (and read the rest of this post there also). Also, his Twitter rants are very IMPORTANT and usually great. 

I don’t really think pop needs renovated, in fact I think pop music has never been better, I love like 90% of what’s on the radio right now. it’d be cool to do some production work after the album and contribute to that though. I know Azealia liked ‘Whip It’ by Nicki Minaj so if she’s down to make pop hits then so am I.

—

Unicorn Kid, answering the question: “Would you ever make Eurobubblegum dance tracks with Azealia Banks to help renovate 2012 pop?”.

Unsurprisingly this kid is 20, but surprisingly he is only 20. And, a guy that wishes Drake would send him acapellas so he could make a Trance EP is a person I gotta like. 

It's Alive: Did Nicki fail pop, or did pop fail Nicki?

jordansargent:

This isn’t a rhetorical question; I’ve been thinking about it for a bit and still am not sure of the answer, if there even is one. But, now that the fervor over Roman Reloadedhas died down, I think it’s interesting to think about what the album means to pop. Is Nicki currently unable, or maybe unwilling, to navigate the waters of pop without resorting to the lowest common denominator, or is she a woman out of time?

My lasting thought reRoman Reloaded has switched from, “Wouldn’t it be great if she made a whole rap album?” to, “How would this album have turned out if Nicki had people like Timbaland and the Neptunes at her disposal?” My hope would be that if Nicki could work with peak-era Tim or the Neptunes, that the pop that she would create would be much more adventurous, something that bridged the gap between “Beez in the Trap” and the Billboard Top 10. (Or maybe “Beez in the Trap”will do that.) But maybe that wouldn’t happen, or wouldn’t even be possible considering the market.

Nicki is a singular voice in pop, but she’s come up in a time where basically no producers and/or writers are consistently bridging the gap between rap/r&b and pop in a way that doesn’t seemingly make massive concessions. Forget Tim and Neptunes, there isn’t really anyone out there right now that could even hit Nicki with a “London Bridge.” Wouldn’t it be great to hear what Nicki and Pharrell and Chad would’ve done with the “I’m a Slave 4 U” beat?

Whether listeners have pushed what would be (or could be) the next Pharrell out of pop or whether a lack of Pharrells has allowed pop to submit itself to Europe is something I also don’t really know the answer to. Would Nicki over the “Southern Hospitality” or “Gossip Folks” beats be top 20 hits right now? If not, would that be Nicki’s fault? Or would it be the marketplace’s fault? 

I realize I’m sort of creating an alternate universe here that contains an irreconcilable number of variables, but Roman Reloaded leaves me with a lot of questions about pop music in 2012, and a much smaller number that I can answer. At some point, I think the back-and-forth contrarian arguing over whether the pop parts ofRoman Reloaded are “right” or “good” will look silly to us in retrospect, as the next few years of Nicki’s career should help us answer a lot of the questions that we — or at least I — have right now.

Maybe here’s a better way of putting it (or maybe not): despite what you heard on Watch the Throne, it’s really Nicki that’s the LeBron James of pop.

I don’t think there’s anyone at fault with how this album ended up turning out and certainly no pointed blame could be made of the marketplace it was released into. While, it would be great to hear Nicki work with early 2000 Timbaland or Neptunes, I would also love to hear another Outkast album and well we know how likely that is to happen. The music climate is constantly changing, and maybe “Beez in the Trap” could become a Top 10 hit—I certain didn’t hear a Top 10 single the first time I heard “Niggas in Paris” or “Rack City”—but if it doesn’t no one would be surprised. 

The separation of Pop and Rap in 2012 is kind of interesting. A hit Pop song in 2012 is so by the numbers at this point that if Guetta, Dr. Luke, or RedOne on a track one can assume that it is already a Top 40 hit, but who are those producers in the rap world? At least in terms of Top 40 hits, the era of the rap producer reigning supreme has been over for a few years now, and while there are those occational hit cross-over songs, no one producer dominates the rap and pop charts the way someone like Lil Jon was doing nearly a decade ago. Yet, if one did, who knows if they would have produced more than a song or two for this album, because while “I’m a Slave 4 U” is a classic single, it was Clipse and Kelis were getting fully produced Neptunes albums not Britney. 

And to question of whether those previous Neptunes produced single would be hits today: No, they wouldn’t be. Most songs don’t get second lives for a reason, because at least for the general public songs exist in certain period and are popular for a specific circumstance that just cannot be replicated no matter how great or timeless a song might seem. Would “Yeah” by a #1 hit again in 2012, probably not, and I doubt it would even crack the Top 20. 

This Isn’t Pop? We Want Pop

One of the best songs on the radio right now is not by Nicki Minaj, Flo Rida, Fun., or even Carly Rae Johnson (no matter how great “Call Me Maybe” is): the song comes from One Direction, a young British boy band, with “What Makes You Beautiful”. But why this song? Is it their looks? Nah (Platinum hair dude? What?!). Is it their positive and way too cheery lyrics and lack of references to “clubs” and “the power of electronic music”? Yeah, that’s close enough.

A couple weeks ago I couldn’t have told you a thing about One Direction, except I kept seeing their name online and guessed it was be some bland Boy Band-Techno, which is oddly describes The Wanted, an Irish boy band, with an awful single “Glad You Came”. So, I recognized the name, and knew they were from Britain, so when I heard an excellent sounding single in my friend’s car and asked what song was playing, I ecstatic to find out it was “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. 

Katherine Morayati broke down some of the problems plaguing pop music right now pretty clearly in her recent post “WTF? Pop”, but as she ended it, she admitted there was still more to come back to. But, one of the shining examples of Top 40 right now is this One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful”, because it something rare nowadays, which is a pure Pop song on the Top 40. Electronic Dance music and Pop music’s DNA has never been that different and has recently overlapped to one and the same thing*. But if a boy band revival is going to be a thing, hopefully going back to Britney, Christina, and other Boy Bands of the era remind people how unformulatic pop music could be. The dubstep breakdown in Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” is still one of my favorite song moments on the radio sounding like a NES or SNES imploding, but listening to NYSNC’s “Pop” the breakdown there works in a more interesting way by what it strips from the song than what it layers on. This second electronic music revolution currently being experienced isn’t just felt in the pop charts as electronic music festival are selling out and critic continue to justify why Skrillex is the figurehead of a popular genre they would otherwise dismiss.  

One Direction hopefully won’t be held as the future saviors of Pop music, similarly the fact that Fun. and Gotye have two of the biggest songs in the US doesn’t mean “Indie” music is going to dominate the Top 40. And to agree with Katherine, I’m not crying out for more Adele clones but it is a bit surprising they haven’t been popping up more…then again maybe the eventual Adele clones and the embracement of “Indie” like music will lead to a return of “authentic” rock music and “real” singers. But, more likely Dubstep will fused with the Techno (think: “Good Feeling”) and will Chris Brown will release a heart-felt ballad about his haters that will top the charts for weeks, because Chris Brown’s music career cannot and won’t be stopped.

*Someone who was older than the age of 13 in 1999 can correct me here. EDIT: Someone did! 90z-20z mentions that Guetta/Harris were not “little known European DJs”, which looking at their wiki pages kind of confirms they were popular in their own rights Pre-American Top 40 hits.  

Rockism makes it hard to hear the glorious, incoherent, corporate-financed, audience-tested mess that passes for popular music these days. To glorify only performers who write their own songs and play their own guitars is to ignore the marketplace that helps create the music we hear in the first place, with its checkbook-chasing superproducers, its audience-obsessed executives and its cred-hungry performers. To obsess over old-fashioned stand-alone geniuses is to forget that lots of the most memorable music is created despite multimillion-dollar deals and spur-of-the-moment collaborations and murky commercial forces. In fact, a lot of great music is created because of those things.

—Kelefa Sanneh, from his 2004 New York Times Times article “The Rap Against Rockism”. When I am not checking out books, shelving books, checking out headphones or telling someone that I need more information than a “History book” if they want me to help them find a book at the library; I have been going through Kelefa Sannaeh’s pieces in the New York Times and I went with an obvious piece, but it is still too true. 

Mr. Saxobeat - Alexandra Stan

Every year there is a certain type of song that sneak their way onto radio stations: Dance or House or Electronica or whatever people are calling Club music that doesn’t feature an instantly recognizable pop star and yet finds a way onto radio stations. The songs filling that role in 2011 are “Mr. Saxobeat” by Alexandra Stan, “Hello” by Martin Solveig and Dragonette, and “Take Over Control” by Afrojack and Eva Simmons; the songs are all light international pop fair that do little to stand out on their own, which makes them easy to forget about once their short run of US radio popularity ends. One reason they are so hard to remember is that the vocalists are treated as a luxury and not a necessity for the song, offering nothing to the songs beyond repeating the chorus. There is nothing to the songs: no pain, no joy, no tensions, and no personality. 

But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. Far from it in fact. Because as the biggest pop songs have just become boring techno songs, there is something to be said for the original music actually making its way to American radio stations. As, the “2011 Summer of Sax” comes to an end, “Mr. Saxobeat” probably found its way on to radio stations/AMTV rotations because it is kind of what “In the Dark” by Dev and those Cataracs boys would have created if they stuck a bit closer to their influences. Alexandra Stan doesn’t have the cold, slight awkward attempts at being sexy that is Dev’s main contribution to “In the Dark”, which takes away part away part of the fun of these songs. I have no idea if Alexandra Stan enjoyed recording this song as she really doesn’t convey much personality with what little she is given to work with, but I would have found it surprising if Dev did not get a kick out of writing and record “In the Dark” and her not quite obtuse enough double entendres. 

“Ke$ha may be super untalented, but no one can deny the fact that her music is fun! haha” -A Facebook friend, describing how plenty of people think about Pop stars. 

“Ke$ha may be super untalented, but no one can deny the fact that her music is fun! haha”

-A Facebook friend, describing how plenty of people think about Pop stars. 

That Song on the Radio is So 2011

If a song is going to encapsulate an entire year (well half a year) then it better pull and grab from the many trends that are floating around the pop world and still result in a hit. Luckily there are plenty of trends to catch: faux-dubstep sounds, Chris Brown sung hooks, Nicki Minaj rapping, being produced by Dr. Luke/Max Martin, embracement of the Euro-trance-pop-dance sound, or maybe it just features Lil Wayne as the dude cannot go a day without being featured on a new song. That is a lot of different trends to grab from, so let’s see if we can hit on all of them.

If pop song writers were actually well known, Jessie J, a British rapper, would be best known for the death of Osama Bin Laden anthem “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. Her song “Price Tag” climbed onto Billboard top 25 relatively quietly considering the number British rappers who have tried to cross over into the United States. Produced by superstar producer Dr. Luke, it contains a feature by Pop-Rap everyman rapper B.O.B. Whose biggest hits last year “Nothing On You” and “Airplanes” were notable not for his rapping, but the hooks of Bruno Mars and Haley Williams respectively. That kind of facelessness to his rapping makes him the perfect guest rapper for this particular type of single, it compliments Dr. Luke’s unmemorable production and Jessie J’s poor rapping by not allowing her to be upstaged by own guest.

The pure-pop appeal of B.O.B. is one of the few traits that would not be ascribed to Lil Wayne, even as he in the last six years has attached himself to nearly every song that could appear on a rap or pop station. “Dirty Dancer” by Enrique Iglesias features Lil Wayne and unlikely trance-pop star Usher. Without invoking a sense of false early 2000s nostalgia, “I Need A Girl Part 1” and “U Got It Bad” are done by the same guy who sings “More” and “DJ Got Us Falling In Love”, which are some of the most generic trance-pop tunes of the past couple years where any vocal or lyrical styling unique to Usher are lost in the sea of pulsating synths. Enrique Iglesias has ridden bland techno on his way back to the American pop landscape with “I Like It“ with Pitbull and “Tonight (I’m Loving You)” with Ludacris, where the formula of frat fist-pumping combined with a disposable rap verse has resulted in top 10 songs. “Dirty Dancer” is all of these elements distilled to one mediocre song, where Lil Wayne awkwardly raps, Usher gets a paycheck for his slight vocal contributions, and Enrique Iglesias says “You’re a 5 when you drink and you’re a 10 when you’re on top me”.

Lil Wayne’s ability to go from Enrique Iglesias to Rick Ross and Drake could be lauded, but the guy has been doing this for what feels like decades resulting it being more surprising when he does not appear on a song, remix, or freestyle of it. “I’m On One” from DJ Khali’s most recent album, which like most DJ album on major labels exists to stuff as many rappers as possible on one song or to figure out the best way to calculate a hit song, produced by Noah “40” Shebib, Drake sings the hook, and with verses by Lil Wayne and Rick Ross what more could a rap song do to climb the charts. Not much else, as it has the biggest rap-pop star in Lil Wayne (the featured single Wikipedia page for him is actually frightening) and the biggest rap star: Rick Ross, who went from a laughing stalk to being the last act to play at New York’s 2011 Summer Jam. Drake’s hook of “I got that drink could be purple could be pink depending on how you mix that shit” is one of the best hooks this year and Rick Ross and Lil Wayne verses even if a little by the numbers on top of this beat are great, which might be why the song has been one of the biggest songs of the year.

Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj, and near dubstep sounds have yet to be covered…“She Ain’t You” by Chris Brown covers the Chris Brown quotation along with Jason Duerlo’s “Don’t Wanna Go Home” as great examples of post-mashup songs where multiple elements of songs are grabbed and pulled apart to create a by definition unoriginal and derivative pop song (“She Ain’t You” is a lesser remix of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and a couple other songs, while “Don’t Wanna Go Home” is derivative of 60 years of pop music in under four minutes). “Till the World Ends (Remix)” by Britney Spears should not count, as it is exists to hit on all of the different trends of 2011, but it does them all so well. Nicki Minaj’s verse is fine (not a “Bottoms Up”, but then again not many rap verses can be), Ke$ha probably should have kept the song for herself as it would have been one of her better tracks, and the increase bass and dubstep breakdown are either interesting pop embracing of the underground or a more problematic pop just stealing from the underground as Brandon Soderberg has pointed out (I’d like to be believe the former, but it is most certainly the later).

With the exception of “She Aint’ You” (which is really just a 1984 song), despite all of the different trends these songs represent listening to the previous tracks mentioned in a quick mix can gloss over the differences, except “I’m On One”. Yet Drake, one of the most successful rappers in the last couple years, has done this type of track so well that even being an outlier here is well grounded in the pop landscape.

This “problem” of the derivativeness in Pop music is a topic Simon Reynolds talked about his New York Times article, after pointing out ways modern pop is just recalling past music from the 60s to the 90s, he reluctantly (“For better or worse Auto-Tune is the date stamp of today’s pop.”) gives auto-tune the credit for representing this time in Pop history. Maybe I like auto-tune too much, but he seems to down play the effect: “Blow” half of the fun of the song is the fact that Ke$ha’s voice is extended and echoed to unrealistic proportions as the club is about to “blow”, or even the Black Eyed Peas in their current form owe quite a bit of their style and robot appeal to the effect. It just seems weird to me to worry about the derivativeness of Pop music, when the one of its biggest factors is dismissed and accused of being just another thing ready for a future hipster revival…haven’t in the last decade Bon Iver, The Knife, and other “Indie” group used the effect to critical acclaim… Looking at the trends of a musical style are easy to minimize when you put blinders on to the types of songs you are willing to consider, but it is easier to make your point, when the last decade’s biggest Pop trend is reduced to a future hipster gimmick.

On the Floor - Jennifer Lopez (feat. Pitbull)

280,000,000 views—people have heard this song, I guess. There are numerous reasons one might listen to “On the Floor”: Pitbull’s guest verse, Jennifer it’s Lopez biggest hit in years, or maybe less likely (but I can hope) someone just enjoys keeping track of all songs that reference Keith Sweat. All of those noble reason aside, I’m in the song mostly for its buzzy bass wobble. Produced by RedOne, featuring Pitbull; the song is trying to appeal to all people across the globe, and in a year where Pop songs have only gotten bigger and bigger that arrogant goal is very necessary.

Hands are in the air, alcohol is consumed, and over-exaggerated 4/4 stomp, so that bass wobble is not going to increase the song’s global reach, but it adds a groove and wiggle that usually lacking in these Trance-Pop hits. Even though I love the bass wobble with its slightest hint of dubstep, I will not be seeking out any “Dubstep” remixes of the song. As the producers, who are behind most “Dubstep” remixes of popular songs have little concept of what makes a good pop song let alone a good dubstep song.

So, I guess it would be better leaving this type of genre mashing to the professionals. The professionals in this case, Dr. Luke and Max Martin whose remix of “Till the World Ends” includes: an increased bass, the original writer of the song Ke$ha, number one female rap star Nicki Minaj, and just for fun a dubstep breakdown at the end. To reduce another great pop song down to its bass and synths: the bass at certain point wraps and twists just like in “On the Floor”, slightly overblown never calling attention to itself letting it be a slight nod to other music trends happening across the musical world. The song may be overstuffed, but even the breakdown at the end does not push the song over the edge with it being only a slight extension of the increased bass and not a minute long excursion of aluminum foil crinkling. “On the Floor” and “Till the World Ends (Remix)” are not going to lead dubstep to being heard across US radio stations, but if the pop landscape morphs toward that direction, then these songs can be seen tangoing with new sounds while still being able to top charts 2011’s pop landscape.