Iyaz–Pretty Girls (ft. Travie McCoy)

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.

Chris Brown ft. Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne–Look At Me Now

Released February 01, 2011.
Billboard: #11
UK Charts: –

Posse raps can be interesting, as you get to hear a little slice of each individual’s style. For example, on the remix of Brown’s Deuces, from hearing their voice I could pick out Drake, TI, Kanye and Andre3000 easily without needing to see the list of featured artists. When I first saw the concept on paper – Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, I figured it’d be an R&B track, possibly with some extended rap features. I was wrong.

However, I had heard him do a rap section (feature, actually) on Chipmunk’s Champion, in addition to his semi-shouting part on Yeah 3X; now I think about it actually quite a number of R&B singers are doing semi-crossovers (Trey Songz put his own take on Look At Me Now, and Ne-Yo opens One In A Million with some rapping). So I wasn’t too surprised…

Unlike Forever where all four of them had their strengths going for them, the aforementioned Deuces remix where all could be contenders, or perhaps even the depressingly weak yet somewhat egalitarian (bad) nature of Bedrock, this is one of the most one-sided ones I have ever seen, to put it bluntly.

#1 CHRIS BROWN

I don’t see how you can hate from outside of the club
You can’t even get in
Hahaha, leggo

Heh, the lyrics are obnoxious, as is the laugh. Anyway, that was just some random intro bit, so we should get down to the real content of his verse. I

Yellow model chick, yellow bottle sippin’
Yellow Lamborghini, yellow top missin’

Okay… This reminds me of Wiz Khalifa’s song about a car as well (Black And Yellow). Though my critical mind thinks Black And Yellow is bad as a song, I find it pretty catchy as harmless entertainment. The sheer ridiculousness of some parts of the song made it more humorous than anything – which may be a good thing.

That shit look like a toupee
I get what you get in 10 years, in two days

If I earned $10000 a month, I would get approximately $1.2 million in 10 years, not including bonuses. Let’s take the bonus as 1 month so that’s $1,320,000 in 10 years. In 2 days would mean that you earn… $241 million a year. True, that’s not impossible, but I believe that kind of level was surpassed only by Oprah for 2010. Even the top earning popstar, Beyonce clocked in at $87M, a little over one third of that. Pretty ambitious there, eh?

Ladies love me; I’m on my Cool J
If you get what I get, what would you say?
She wax it all off, Mr. Miyagi

No issues, no comments here.

And them suicide doors, hari-kari

LAZY rhyming. The term for suicide is hari kiri… Well, I guess it isn’t too bad that he gets his words on timing most of the time. 3.0 / 10

HOOK – CHRIS BROWN

Look at me now, look at me now
Oh, I’m getting paper
Look at me now, oh, look at me now
Yeah, fresher than a muff(??)

I can’t seem to hear the dirty word that this is supposed to end with. Anyway, could you sing something? At least I sort of liked his oversinging on Champion… He’s a singer first, a dancer up there as well, and a rapper maybe 20th. 4.0 / 10

#2 CHRIS BROWN

Lil nigga, bigger than gorilla
Cause I’m killing every nigga that can try to be on my shit
Better cuff your chick if you with her, I can get her
And she accidentally slip and fall on my dick

Heh, how incredulous (accidentally? It shouldn’t be exposed at all!). He’s trying a bunch of 16th note syllables here, and it’s at least kinda nice to listen to.

Oops, I said on my dick
I ain’t really mean to say on my dick
But since we talking about my dick
All of you haters say hi to it

Suck it, huh? As again, I somehow feel he’s not really trying at least in terms of lyric-writing here.

I’m done.

Well, I hope that was some fun experimentation, but please return to a main singing role in your songs. It wasn’t really terrible, but you can do much better. 4.0 / 10

#3 BUSTA RHYMES

Ayo Breezy, let me show you how to keep the dice rolling when you’re doing that thing over there homie

Yeah. He only did it for around four bars or so. Let’s do this!

Let’s GO!

I’m pumped. That sounds somewhat like Tinie Tempah’s signature before he starts his songs, though…

Cause I feel like I’m running
And I’m feeling like I gotta get away, get away, get away…

This is what I mean by fast. I remember in Forever that Eminem one-upped the others in terms of speed, rapping:

He’s wondering if he should spit this slow
Fuck no! Go for broke,
His cup just runneth over, oh no

You sure about this…? Forever was 158 BPM with a small bunch of 16th triplets. For the most part he’s just doing 8th notes at 158 BPM which a simple calculation would show to be 158 x 2 / 60,or around 5.27 syllables per second. Look At Me Now is only 146, but Busta goes mainly on the sixteenths. In other words, that is (146 x 4 / 60) or 9.73 syllables per second. Following the rappers on Forever would make for a somewhat hard song on DDR; but, Look At Me Now could easily be a boss song that would make Forever look like peanuts.

I’m not going to bother going through the lyrics. It’s fairly standard fare about pushing for the top in spite of haters, rebutting them, etc. Normally, songs that succeed for me do so on the intellectual level a la All of the Lights which I just wrote about; yet this is an example of serious technical proficiency. Good job. It’s the main part of the song which I can put on repeat. Heh looks like it’d be worth it for me to check out more of the guy’s work. This could be pop-slanted though relative to the rest of his work – somehow, like Raekwon’s verse on Runaway Love with Kanye West and Justin Bieber I get this feeling. Nevertheless, he’s very good. 8.0 / 10

Sheesh. This means the expectations are going to be VERY, VERY high for the next person up…

#4 LIL WAYNE

Man, fuck these bitch ass niggas, how y’all doin’?
I’m Lil Tunechi, I’m a nuisance, I go stupid, I go dumb like the Three Stooges
I don’t eat sushi, I’m the shit, no, I’m pollution, no substitution
Got a bitch that play in movies in my jacuzzi, pussy juicy

A porn star. I get it.

Seriously, most of this is also just standard fare about rising to the top and rebutting haters, so I don’t see much point in going through the lines. I’ll just point out the more interesting or uncertain bits.

You niggas ain’t eatin’, fuck it, tell a waiter
Marley said shoot ‘em, and I said okay
If you wanted bullshit then I’m like olé

Don’t quite get this bit. Who is Marley? I’ve heard it’s Wayne’s bodyguard, but still… isn’t this inappropriate especially given that he was just incarcerated for weapon possession?!

I don’t care what you say, so don’t even speak
Your girlfriend a freak like Cirque du Soleil

Ah ha! Like this. She must be a mad contortionist, probably. Nice one there.

Ciroc and Sprite on a private flight, bitch I been tight since Guiding Light

I learned that it (Guiding Light)’s apparently the longest running television drama (from 1975), and someone on rapgenius also commented that it could be a double entendre for God and Light. Nevertheless, going by this idea I don’t see a need for such reading anyway, since Guiding Light in and of itself, without changing the words, could also be an allusion to God, who was around since the beginning of time.

He isn’t bad. However, it’s hard to clear the bar that Busta set in his verse, and from what I see, Wayne doesn’t do it. Nevertheless, this is credibly okay. 5.5 / 10

And of course, the winner for me is Busta, hands down. Lil Wayne is good, but I think it’d be better if he throws in more of those interesting, witty couplets, or at least those that would make me smile amusedly. Brown should stick to singing, really.

OVERALL SCORE = 6.0 / 10
This is a rather unusual case where some elements of the song are excellent and others seem inherently flawed. I settled on a 6, as the hook while not good isn’t terrible, and the featured artists do their job more than satisfactorily (Lil Wayne), if not excellently (Busta). It’s pretty catchy, but probably could have been more cohesive if Brown used a more traditional pattern (e.g. Brown sings or raps v1, and sings the hook rather than just goes Look at me now, Look at me now. Wayne fires v2 and Busta does the bridge or vice versa). Nevertheless, I do respect Busta’s technical proficiency. I’d listen to the song for that part, really.

Usher–More

Released November 22, 2010.
US: #70 (album version)
UK: #26 (RedOne remixed version)

I’ve liked quite a bit of Usher’s songs, as mentioned in my previous post, I enjoyed There Goes My Baby and also DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love. He had four other releases in 2010, if I recall correctly – Papers, Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home) ft. Plies, Lil Freak ft. Nicki Minaj and OMG ft. will.i.am. The quality does range a lot; Papers was good and pretty much in the style of Burn and Moving Mountains, though the latter is still my choice for relationship troubles it was pretty decent. Hey Daddy is pretty middle of the road for me, with this questionable line:

And tonight we’re gonna do a lot of sexin’ – Doesn’t that sound insidious.

A little disturbing, and though it was kinda fun to listen to Plies when he did Bust It Baby (Pt. 2) with Ne-Yo, it seemed to up the disturbing factor a little; his shouty bridge here didn’t work for me. Lil Freak was admittedly fun and the heavy bass beats were good, though there’s unnecessary swearing, the lyrics are about a threesome, and Nicki Minaj releases 2 questionable lyrics:

I’m hotter than 100 degrees – Somehow this wouldn’t appeal to some of the Americans, or the scientists, for that matter.
…
Everybody loves Raymond! – HAHA, he’s Usher Raymond, yes……

Nevertheless, it was enjoyable. And then we had OMG, which was just… a rather weird mess, which though on a critical level I found horrible, actually wasn’t really that unlistenable at all! He hasn’t been doing badly, even on the weaker releases.

This one’s somewhat in between the best and the worst, but as far as I’m concerned doesn’t disappoint. Firstly, the RedOne version. Very danceable, as most of the producer’s releases have been, but is that ‘LET THE BEAT ROCK’ I hear in the vocal bridge section or something else? What exactly is that sound? I do not need to be reminded of Boom Boom Pow, and furthermore this sample was already used in OMG! Or am I hearing things?

The album version, second. Actually I think this is somewhat better than the RedOne remix, it’s more to my preference, I guess, with the harder, sharper, clearer drum hits, better introduction (I think so personally). But I still seem to hear some mechanical-ish voices in the background during the bridge. I don’t think it’s ‘LET THE BEAT ROCK’, something more like ‘GG-GIVE IT MORE’, but it’s annoying and I find detracts from the song.

Either way, I’m pleased by the vocal performance here. It’s strong, commendably timed and not easy to follow; at least he wasn’t wasting his pipes as much as compared to OMG or Lil Freak (though in the latter case I don’t mind, the track was fun nevertheless). Both versions are rather solid club-bangers; I can’t say whether I prefer this or DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love, both are very, very passable. Pitbull’s better than those irritating mechanical voices, but More (album version) has a beat I prefer.

Lyrically, this is one egotistical song, which isn’t a problem in and of itself, and the chorus though nonsensical (bring out the fire? Light what up and take what up higher? Push what to the limit???) is actually quite nice, I think. That said, there are bits that strike me wrongly, mainly in the pre-chorus sections.

Know y’all been patiently waiting, I know you need me, I can feel it,
I’m a beast, I’m an animal, – Somehow this sounds better done by Ke$ha.
I’m that monster in the mirror, – Why am I reminded of Man in the Mirror? Not good.
The headliner, finisher, I’m the closer, winner.
Best when under pressure one second’s left I show up – I see why this was used for the NBA, but… I don’t know what you’re trying to get at!

Despite the prechorus which I’m still confused about, most of it’s a good song, it’s definitely catchy. I’m a bit concerned with all these high ratings I’ve been awarding, but I guess it’s more normal for me to want to write about good songs, so the average would be quite a bit higher than 5.0 which is more like an average across the board for singles, whether I like them like Airplanes, fail to understand them, like, well, Teach Me How to Dougie, see them as overhyped (Airplanes (Part II), for one), or what.

OVERALL SCORE = 6.0 / 10
More is a solid club-banger that doesn’t disappoint. It’s slightly lighter in production than DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love (I’m talking about the album version) and it’s highly danceable, though it doesn’t do much more than come off as a by-the-numbers performance to me. Nevertheless, Usher by the numbers is still relatively good.

Tinie Tempah ft. Kelly Rowland–Invincible

Released December 26, 2010.
Billboard: NA
UK Charts: #32 (December 25 chart), but (probably) climbing.

Listening in to the lyrics of Tinie Tempah’s rap, I’m reminded VERY much of a Celine Dion song, Because You Loved Me. In this song, though, the premise is shifted from what was previously seemingly a unilateral support to a bilateral one. I adore Because You Loved Me, though not because of the content but because of the well, insane stuff she sings:

My world is a better place, because of you~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Sadly, though not bad per se, the content otherwise makes me quite sleepy. Musically, though, the song does have potential. The piano hook from Kelly Rowland is quite smooth and is pulled off well. Tinie’s rapping is competent; I don’t have many complaints about it, really, though it doesn’t quite impress me either.

The bridge where he speaks in his talking voice, and the breakdown which follows are GOOD though. The piano line through the bridge and the variation on the chorus with only the piano contributed well to the song, and the chorus variation also showcased Kelly Rowland’s voice. It’s quite clean; not bad at all.

Other than that, I don’t really have too much to say about this song. In my opinion, it’s an improvement from Frisky and Written in the Stars. Comparing it to Pass Out is quite messy, though; while I think it’s musically generally better (making it, for me, his best single yet), the drum n bass sections of Pass Out do give the song its merit, and Pass Out is more interesting. This is technically good, but not much more.

OVERALL RATING = 6.0 / 10
Invincible is a solid, if (very) generic light pop-rap release from Tinie Tempah and Kelly Rowland. In my opinion it’s better musically than Frisky and Written in the Stars, and actually Pass Out as well, but it still fails to interest me as much as Pass Out did.

Jay Sean–Maybe

Released 14 April 2008.
Billboard: Not released in US.
UK Charts: #19

Second in a set of three singles from Sean’s album My Own Way. In terms of technical skill required to handle a song from a male pop singer, this one’s definitely way up there, as he shoots up into a very high register in the pre-chorus (Everyday I patiently wait – feeling like a fool but I do anyway). It’s well sung and pleasing; definitely serviceable.

Lyrically, it’s a very generic love song, a little cute with the use of technology like Facebook and phone flirting…  Somehow, this one doesn’t turn out a sleeper as do many midtempo generic love songs like this one do; probably because of the vocal fireworks he releases in the pre-chorus as mentioned above. Other than “generic-ness” I honestly don’t have complaints. The melody is pretty nice and flows quite well.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned this song shines more in Jay Sean’s singing than in the song’s lyrical content. Personally, I have preference for the last in the series, Stay, which I’ll be covering soon. This is still good, though.

OVERALL RATING = 6.0 / 10
Maybe, Jay Sean’s 2nd single from his album My Own Way is a solid, if generic, pop song that showcases some rather high notes (for a guy, that is, of course).

Chris Brown–Run It!

Released August 9, 2005 (US), 2006 worldwide
Billboard: Peaked at #1.
UK Charts: Peaked at #2.

This one’s a pretty fun dance song. Of course, the artist has undergone, to say the least, much controversy, and I didn’t really enjoy most of his recent works (I Can Transform Ya was barely tolerable, Deuces was decent but a sleeper and Yeah 3X just… isn’t my kind of thing). Nevertheless, much of his earlier songs are pretty good. His singing’s pretty decent, and Juelz Santana is entertaining, to say the least – which works, given the generally relaxed themes in this one.

The video is pretty much a collection of dance scenes in a gym, and it’s pretty nice and well-choreographed, with some nice solo parts. Bonus points for a blue cap, heh…

Lyrically, this one can be taken pretty much at face value. It’s basically Brown’s character well, asking a girl to show off her skills and “run it” which presumably implies dancing. The hook and the chorus, if pretty literal, are entertaining…

Is your man, on the floor?
If he ain’t, then let me know
Lemme see if you can run it (run it)
Girl indeed I can run it (run it)

Bonus points for being a nice guy, huh… Contrasts to Drake in Bedrock (Oh that was your girl? I though I recognised) – for some reason I thought of that as I wrote this. The little R&B tinged segment in the bridge is nice too… All in all, it’s a decent song, nothing too impressive about it though.

OVERALL SCORE = 6.0 / 10
Though it’s neither cerebral nor ground-breaking, Run It! is a fun and relaxed party/dance song that stays pretty clean and has rather good vocals and enjoyable raps on it. It’s decent.