Iyaz–Pretty Girls (ft. Travie McCoy)

May 18, 2011

IYAZ - Pretty Girls

Released two days ago! 16/5/2011
US Billboard: –
UK: –
(of course, we’ll see if this charts. It’s interesting to see how this’ll turn out.)

This song’s premise is stupid, it’s even sillier than Replay; there are strange lines (I need a chick that’s gonna hold me tight like vice grips?!) not to mention there is a spelling error in the music video. (It’s spelled INDECISIVE. Not “INDECICIVE”.)

But is that necessarily a bad thing? I’m not so sure.

I recall Tinie Tempah’s Frisky and during my review of Invincible I mentioned that on a musical basis Invincible is probably his best song. Since then, I’m not so sure about that. The Yes Remix of Simply Unstoppable is one energy-loaded song which I do like, but really, Frisky has grown on me because of its sheer ridiculous. With chorus lines like

Oh la la la la, la la la la la
Oh la la la la, la la la (frisky)

Not to mention Tempah’s relaxed and light-hearted delivery over the whole song, I must admit Frisky has really grown on me a lot; perhaps willing of an upgrade of originally a 3.5/10 to now around 6.5/10. It’s a positively happy ball of silliness.

Replay was charming and worked well in juxtaposition to the other ‘love’/’lust’ songs that were out then. It certainly didn’t excel in terms of intellectual appeal, and neither does Pretty Girls. In my opinion, the strength in both of the songs is their horrible catchiness. Musically, I do like the pre-chorus section too (See I done been around the world before to places you would not believe…). The melody there is pretty good. Iyaz might want to work a bit on his singing though – the autotune effects are really blatant here, it’d be nicer if he could use less of it.

(That said, there are clear lyrical weaknesses in the song. Lots of strange rhymes or out-of-place lyrics (one of the worst offenders: And I know ain’t nothing like those London girls, cause they know how to party OH!; the line is not even supposed to rhyme with anything, so what was the “OH” for?!), and excessive repetition.)

It’s a pop confection clearly designed for summer. It’s just so… bouncy, really.

Not to mention Travie McCoy. Didn’t like the guy on his hit Billionaire (though I’d blame Bruno Mars mainly for that) but his flow seems to work really well on light-hearted tracks. I found his collaboration with Taio Cruz on Higher easily the best version of the song… and I can say I really like Higher in general. (8.0/10). His rapping isn’t intellectual material, and even comes off as weird and random at times, but the general sense of relaxation and a carefree spirit is there.

OVERALL SCORE = 6.0 / 10
Pretty Girls does have many lyrical deficiencies and honestly, the concept as a whole is an overused (and, in my opinion, silly) one. However, the sheer bounciness and catchiness of the track, combined with Travie McCoy’s light, relaxed rap do make for a very serviceable summer song. Personally, I think Iyaz’s singing could use a bit of work. JR Rotem’s production is definitely on point here.