Pixie Lott ft. Jason Derulo–Coming Home

Was then wasn’t a single. Quite messy. It’s from Turn It Up Louder (which was released 18th October 2010).

This is a rather interesting case. I’m generally not a fan of silly, overly light-hearted songs (California Gurls, OMG, LOL :-), even Just The Way You Are). However, I did like Nothin’ on You and perhaps this song may be well compared to Nothin’ on You. Two reasonably young and up-and-coming artists (actually Lott and Derulo are probably more established than B.o.B and Bruno Mars were, prior to their release) releasing a silly love song, with just the right amount of sugar to make me go ‘awww :-)’ instead of ‘meh’ (Make You Feel My Love, the Adele 2008 song that’s still on the UK charts somehow), ‘eek’ (Just The Way You Are) or ‘yuck!’ (can’t think of examples offhand). I know B.o.B’s primarily a rapper but he has some (won’t say much, but some) singing ability too… It’s actually quite like Nothin’ on You (review), I find.

There’s another song entitled Coming Home on the charts too, and I liked the other for some of its references to older ‘classic’ soul songs (Tears of a Clown, A House Is Not A Home and Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now if I recall correctly) and Skylar Grey’s chorus. The other song brought with it some degree of lyricism and intelligence to it, and also seems to have the appropriate level of sugar. This Coming Home that I’ll be covering today is quite different from the other Coming Home. In my opinion though, both are reasonably good songs though for different reasons.

I like Derulo off-single but not so much on-single. In my opinion the standout track from his debut Jason Derulo was the more downtempo piece Blind (review – it’s grown on me, more appropriate would be 7.5 actually); now I think I prefer it to ALL the five singles he has released – the Imogen Heap structured Whatcha Say (liked at first but got annoying quickly), the lyrically terrible yet somewhat enjoyable In My Head, the scary-falsetto Ridin Solo, the annoying-chorus What If and finally the fun yet, ironically, limited The Sky’s The Limit. I kinda like The Sky’s The Limit but still his non-singles (not just Blind; I actually enjoyed Fallen, another moderate-sugar midtempo piece on love, too) work better for me. I haven’t heard much of Lott’s music up to this point; from what I can recall it’s okay though I’ve never been impressed by her songs – based on past releases, Derulo was more memorable, I find…

Anyway so let’s get down to today’s song. It’s a non-single though it went on the iTunes charts, I think, and it’s a very relaxed song. The instrumentation sounds like the kind of thing that would piss me off for being overly boring, but yet the mild guitar elements in it work well. Plain guitars and plain R&B seem to blend quite well, actually. I guess partly because of the simple, optimistic message, the guitars and production are appropriate for the song. It’s the kind of piece that gets you in a light mood.

Their voices are individually capable to say the least, and, more importantly, work well together in the chorus. The harmonies are good, and in general I think it’s a more slick, cohesive-sounding song than even Nothin’ on You (though it’s easier for singers to blend into each other than rap-singing, I’d think, ceteris paribus). This sounds more like the song that Chris Brown and Jordin Sparks should have done in place of No Air – the two have individually strong voices that worked well together on a technical level, but I personally found my enjoyment of No Air limited for a variety of reasons, such as the painfully overdramatised nature of the song, giving me echoes of JLS’s musically-good but lyrically-terrible Beat Again (review), the slightly awkward chorus (I liked the verses) and some excessive, inappropriate bass notes. I found the song got quite draggy after a while, more so than other ‘slow’ pieces (maybe Ne-Yo’s Mad, FEM Rocketeer, Mario’s Let Me Love You etc). That said No Air was pretty decent (I’d probably have given it around a 5.5 or 6) but they could have gone much further, I think.

I think another reason the song works well is because the lyrics are quite easy for a more reserved guy like me to handle. Looking at the Billboard charts, many of the songs have lyrics that distance me (Born This Way, as discussed in my unfortunately negative review of it, or Rihanna’s S&M – seriously…), about breakups that seem overdramatic (Grenade), or hyper-steamy club songs (Tonight) or weird pickup line attempts (Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor) which I seem to think should be Hey Baby (La La La La), or the ridiculous yet funny Britney Spears song Hold It Against Me) or are too splashed with needless profanity to make the song unlistenable (Pink’s F—in Perfect and of course Cee Lo Green’s F—k You). Looking at the top 20 perhaps we’re left with Rocketeer, Firework, the semi-innocent club song Hit The Lights and I’m not sure what else. The song touches on love issues that would probably be more relevant to a non-superstar non-extrovert guy. Being too busy with work? Yup. Or, to put it the way they do,

I’m out for the whole day
Trying to do it my way
Monday to Friday
Gotta make my baby understand, I do this for ya girl, cause you deserve the time.

<3. Though Derulo goes now that I’m famous… in his verse, most of the song still applies. You don’t really need to be famous to create a situation where it’s hard making time for the one that means most to me, really!

(Interestingly, going down to the next 10 for me yields the ambition-laden but believable #21 More (though for Usher, that’s another story…), the not too mad Yeah 3X at 22, Colbie Caillat’s light and breezy I Do at 23, Taylor Swift’s powerful Back To December, Bieber’s inspirational attempt of Never Say Never, the aforementioned intelligent Coming Home, the slightly resistance-laced Jar of Hearts… and #28… No Hands? Okay. No. But still that was seven in a row…)

Let’s have a rundown of the lyrics.

[PL] Jason Deruloooo
[JD] Pixieee

Heh.

[PL]
Oh-oh, usually I’m always late, tonight I’m gonna be on time

I’m coming home straight after work, so you can have me all to yourself
We’ll be alone just me and you so no one interrupts what we do

Eh so it has a bit of a sex-ish tone to it, huh? Or am I just over-reading things? Nevertheless this sounds promising. It’s certainly a more romantic and for me preferable way to spend the night rather than in another song where I can think of work being mentioned and even focused on – the Roll Deep and Jodie Connor hit Good Times (which was #1 for 3 weeks in the UK, kind of a rarity nowadays, actually, and I enjoyed the song. It’s a good party song, I think, actually!).

[PL]
You say, “where are you going?”
In the night, on the way cause my body’s not to close to you
But you don’t call me, out of respect you can bet that you’ll be waiting home for me, yeah
I’m out for the whole day, trying to do it my way, Monday to Friday
Gotta make my baby understand, I do this for you boy, cause you deserve the time

Like the lyrics here. Simple but sweet. The instrumental as I’ve said is well complemented by lyrics like these.

[PL – Chorus]
I’m coming home straight after work, so you can have me all to yourself
We’ll be alone just me and you, so no one interrupts what we do
I’m coming home straight after work, so you can have me under your spell
All night, all day
So you can have me all to yourself

What exactly is she doing when she sings All night, all day? I’d like to know. I’m working on trying to sing this song, and it’s probably one of those that I can tackle quite well, but I’ll need to figure out what she’s doing. The best I can do now is to roughly try and approximate her melisma here. It’s good, though.

[JD]
You’re always complaining, in the morning when I wake from my sleep,
Brush my teeth and leave
And now that I’m famous, it’s kinda hard making time for the one that means most to me
Yeah, I’m out for the whole day, trying to do it my way, Monday to Friday
Gotta make my baby understand, I do it for you girl, cause you deserve the time

I prefer Jason Derulo’s voice not so overproduced as it often is in his singles. This part works very well for me. He seems to switch from chest to a more mixed voice as he hits the I do it for you girl part; works nicely. The chorus rolls round again, this time with Derulo’s harmony going into the picture, and then we have the bridge…

[JD] When I’m away I miss my baby
[PL] Yeah, I’m gone with half my heart
[JD] God knows, I must be crazy
[PL] For loving from afar
[JD] But tonight is gonna be different
[Together] Cause I’m coming ho—ooo—ooo—ome

YES. It’s a simple pattern, but I find their voices sound well together. This wasn’t a collaboration that I’d think would work on paper, but it does. Not to mention that if trying to sing this solo, this part requires some rather fun control, because (expectedly) Lott sings a lot higher than Derulo does. The long note they sing together is a fun one to follow too… Anyway, they close up by repeating two more times, and then the song sadly draws to a close, though with a nice little instrumental riff at the end.

OVERALL SCORE = 8.5 / 10
I thoroughly enjoyed Coming Home. It’s sugary and optimistic, for sure, but it remains quite a bit more relatable than many love songs out there nowadays are. The instrumentals, Pixie Lott’s and Jason Derulo’s voices, the songwriters behind this song, the lyrics that they came up with… it adds up to a very solid package. It’s simple, but the song has an endearing simplicity that works brilliantly. Normally, songs of this kind make an impact and fade quickly, but for me at least it hasn’t – it’s been one of my top tracks since November or so when it was released.

Jason Derulo–Blind

Not released as a single… The album Jason Derülo was released March 2, 2010.

Derulo has released five songs from his album as singles already – Whatcha Say, In My Head, Ridin’ Solo, What If and The Sky’s The Limit. Given that his self-titled debut album only has 9 songs, it seems like quite a bit (though nothing compared to what Kanye West is doing with My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy, or Dark Twisted Fantasy, I can’t remember). Other than What If, the rest of the singles have been pretty energetic, danceable affairs that honestly, though unimpressive, have been more than serviceable – though as some listeners have expressed, they’re probably technologically advanced affairs, especially Ridin’ Solo. Well, the use of autotune… it’s there, and I don’t really see why people should complain about it; I can understand the viewpoint that it requires less skill, but given that in most cases autotune can be identified as being used, I don’t see much grounds for removing it at all. Even if autotune became sophisticated enough to be nearly unidentifiable, I wouldn’t outright reject it too, because as a listener I’m mainly concerned with how a song sounds… And furthermore, vocal tuning requires skill on the part of the sound engineers too.

This one’s one of the slower tracks on the album, and compared to the other ballad on the album, What If, I prefer this one – though it may be a natural bias towards songs with a more “down” message. His vocals are somewhat whiny, but I guess it’s appropriate given the content, and the song seems pretty addictive nonetheless. The production and use of piano are good, the melody is nice, and the autotune is used reasonably smoothly. I like the bridge in this one, too… And the last time he does You’ve made a fool of me~eeeee~ it sounds pretty good too.

Content-wise, this is pretty much a generic heartbreak / break-up kind of song. The lyrics at points are nice, though… Okay…I have little complaints about this, really. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s solid and well produced, and as far as I’m concerned better than all the singles he’s released other than The Sky’s The Limit, probably. The way things are going, though, I don’t know if he’s going to release all 9 songs on his album as singles!

OVERALL SCORE = 6.5 / 10
Blind is a reasonably catchy and solid song about heartbreak that… wasn’t, or at least has not yet been released from Jason Derulo’s debut self-titled album.