19

Adele
19
XL / Columbia
Billboard 200: #10

Adele, an English soul artist in the vein of Amy Winehouse and Duffy, shines on her debut album, 19. Her voice glides and bubbles over a dozen tracks like a love-torn babbling brook. Most of the songs include acoustic guitar and slight drumming and it is blessedly bereft of much electronic instrumentation. Standouts include up-tempo numbers like “Best for Last”, “My Same”, and “Right as Rain”. The breakout single from the album, “Chasing Pavements” (2009 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance) continues to amaze with its beautiful lyrics and gorgeous melody. Subtlety reigns in songs like “Melt My Heart to Stone” an ode to a lover unattainable and uninterested and the sweeping piano ballad “Hometown Glory”. First time to bat, I’d call this a homerun.

A+
Download: Melt My Heart to Stone, Chasing Pavements, Right as Rain

Thanks for 100,000 Hits!

Thanks. I mean it. Thanks to all my loyal readers like Espa, a_chan, and my friend over at Appears who inspired me to write and gave me invaluable information and advice at the beginning.

I plan to continue to write for as long as my fingers work at the keyboard.

Just an update for ya’ll… I will be attending FSU in the fall. I’m majoring in Geography and I think I already have a minor in music, so lol. It’s a change but a welcome one. The music program at IRSC burned me out. Five shows a semester will do that to you… plus the rest of my classes.

Anyway, I plan on reviewing Lady GaGa’s album The Fame soon, but I don’t think I can find the words to do it justice. Katy Perry’s album is also a must along with Brandy’s new album. Any requests? Feel free to leave them in a comment.

Again, sincere thanks and gratitude,
Patrick

Good Girls Go Bad

Good Girls Go Bad feat. Leighton Meester
Cobra Starship
March 11, 2009
Hot Mess
Atlantic Records
Fueled by Ramen
Decaydance Records
Billboard Hot 100 Peak: #24

It’s sad when a good song is overshadowed by the burgeoning celebrity of its featured artist. I can’t think of when that’s happened before, but I’m sure it has… maybe not. In this time of instant celebrity and even quicker demotions to oblivion (unless you try to drag it out with arrests, rehab, and/or a sex tape), one can see how music would be a way to stay legitimate in Hollywood (cause it worked so well for Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan). Well, Leighton Meester is exactly everything I’ve just described. Not to say that the girl didn’t work to get where she is but her biggest role to date is a CW show, which you may or not have heard of depending on whether or not you’ve had your head buried under a rock on a deserted island for the past two years, called Gossip Girl. I’ve never watched it but I hear that it’s addictive and fun and pretty and mostly shallow. All the things we’ve come to expect from pop culture for the last decade. Not that I’m complaining, I’m kind of enjoying not having to over think my leisure time, so sue me.

Anyway, (see this is what I’m talking about, I’m not even talking about the damn song), [Good Girls Go Bad], (I guess, since Rihanna has stopped releasing singles from her multi-platinum 2007 album of a very similar name, think it’s safe to name something this without the threat of rabid fan retribution) is a great piece of electropop in the vein of Metro Station’s hit [Shake It]. If it sounds even more familiar it’s because Kevin Rudolf, of [Let It Rock] fame, produced the track along with American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi of, “about a half a key lower” fame. Anyway, star studded, right? It has some really well placed and executed auto-tuner fun and a pounding post-GaGa-esque production value along with a high school cheerleading chant sure to endure it to the classes of 2010 through 2014.

Vocally, Gabe Saporta (that’s the lead singer) has a great pop voice: clear, clean, and with a certain suburban sexiness. Leighton Meester is like a well-trained de-country-fried Miley Cyrus. She even manages to make a decent run towards the end, although how much of that was auto-tuned assisted, the world may never know. In the end, the song is grade-A pop. It’s everything a club will want and everything a GaGa-obsessed fan needs in lieu of more GaGa material.

All I have to say is that if this is where popular music is going, I’m, like, totally in for the ride…

4 Stars
A+
98%

3 SPLASH

倖田來未
Koda Kumi
3 SPLASH
July 8, 2009
Rhythm Zone
avex trax
Weekly Singles Chart Peak: #2
Opening Sales: 62,576

You wanna talk about an artist just meeting expectations; Koda Kumi’s latest single is a handbook to giving her fans a solidly mediocre summer single. Where 2006’s 4 hot wave gave JPop lovers everywhere four auditory masterpieces of fun, 3 SPLASH does its best to just keep the status quo of the slightly-better-than-good FREAKY. [Lick me ❤], the lead song from the triple A-side, sounds like so many other Koda songs: [With Your Smile] (4 hot wave), [Come Over] (愛のうた), [空] and [girls]; the last two being utterly uninspiring tracks from 2007’s summer blockbuster FREAKY. It’s not a bad song, it’s bubblegum pop and Koda does that well (see above), but it’s the fact that I’ve heard it all before… multiple times on multiple singles. [ECSTASY], which is described on her site as being a “cool dance number”, is anything but. It falls flat and just sounds like a failed attempt to recreate the magic that was 2006’s [No Regret] while throwing in some vocoder courtesy of the States utter compulsion to put it in every song that has come out in the last year. The only saving grace of this song is the really cool harmony in the chorus. [走れ!] or “Run!”, is a straight rock track that isn’t as expected as the rest of the single but still doesn’t quite capture any summer magic. The Caramel Pod E remix of [ECSTASY] is quite good, though and so is the remix of [走れ!], but these two things are in no way good enough reasons to spend $15 on this second-rate summer single.

3.25 Stars
C+

When Love Takes Over

When Love Takes Over feat. Kelly Rowland
April 21, 2009
Virgin / EMI
Written by: Kelly Rowland, Miriam Nervo, Olivia Nervo, Fred Rister
Produced by: David Guetta, Fred Rister

Kelly Rowland may have been in Beyoncé’s shadow these past years, but, really, shadow isn’t a strong enough word. Beyoncé has more eclipsed Kelly and even more so Michelle, given credence by the fact that you are probably asking who Michelle is… But with her new pairing with David Guetta, a French electric musician of some fame, she is beginning to carve her own niche in the music industry apart from the mid-tempo R&B of her sophomore album Miss Kelly. [When Love Takes Over] is a mix of Coldplay’s [Clocks] (with rapid piano scaling and building 808 to a very disco-esque vibe, if it wasn’t Guetta’s intention to begin with) and Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown’s duet [No Air]. Some of the intervallic relationships in the chorus and surrounding melody feel very similar to [No Air], if not almost exactly the same. There are some moments of soul in Kelly’s voice towards the bridge and ending as the backdrop of electronica backs down and lets her voice shine, but overall it is a very pop-y performance, liken to a Donna Summer disco record but [When Love Takes Over] is definitely a good song, regardless of its pedigree. I expect it be very well received by radio and from the few moments of the music video I saw, it should have a beautiful vision tied to it as well.

4 and a Half Stars
A