gimme indie rock...after tuning in to see what's on top 40.

whenever i switch cds in my car, the minneapolis top 40 station kdwb is what's playing until i get a chance to put a new album in. depending on what's on air, i either let a guilty pleasure play until the next jam/pestilent commercial comes on or almost get into an accident in an attempt to get the next emo disc pumping in my intrigue so as to avoid say...amy winehouse. so, sometimes for about 30-40 seconds, i end up forming opinions about these songs that apparently voraciously impregnate the airwaves for all those suckers that don't have some trendy dance music to listen to that they downloaded off some pretentious music blog. here be a handful of those opinions...

"umbrella" by rihanna feat. jay-z: this has recently usurped the title of "song that is playing most often whenever i press eject" from mims's "this is why i'm hot." it's fitting, really, mims explaining the various repetitive and nonsensical reasons why he is hot, and then a woman taking over his reign of the radio with a convulsing yelp of how the rain never stops and luckily she has an umbrella. heatin' up to the max, followed by the wash away -- the cool down if you will. i don't think i ever actually heard jay-z's limp introduction until i just watched the video on youtube, so that explains why i had no idea why it was featuring jay-z until now. it was almost as if he did the intro, was supposed to stick around, but then got bored, went to go grab a taco, then came back and the song was over, so he just ate his taco and said, "whatever." unless i missed his return in the song, which is possible because i just felt like after about 2 minutes, the song went pleasantly but innocuously "ella ella AY AY" on repeat for the rest of the song. i'm too disinterested to go back and check. let it play through or shove in something hipsters listen to asap: shove in some indie rock asap. grade: D+.

shoved in --> "pogo" by digitalism

"beautiful girls" by sean kingston: i actually heard this song while delivering wedding cakes with jerksica and she started singing it like she effing wrote it. so i didn't really have much choice about replacing it with something with "more substance." but luckily, i didn't want to. it's got that weird mild reggae tinge that seems to be popping up more and more in r&b, but i promise you it's not grating. why? because there's VOCODER! we all know how much i cherish this formidable piece of technology. and there's this fake lullaby xylophone line in the pre-chorus that brings a smile to my face instantly. then the chorus comes and literally ascends you to a world of fluffy puppets smackin' on that snare drum and singing back-up to offset the consideration of suicide that our narrator confesses about. and while the sunniness of the song is getting to me after listening to it three times in a row now, it's still a strong contender for the top 10 of the top 40 of 2007. and this guy is only 17-years-old, which is both impressive and depressing. enjoy the touching anime collage some nerd put together to complement the song, whose video is still shooting and will hopefully be at the top of trl by the end of the summer. let it play through or shove in something hipsters listen to asap: let it play through. grade: A-.



"makes me wonder" by maroon 5: i really don't want to blog about maroon 5. like really really really. but i can't help it because last week i re-listened to the kara's flowers cd and when the admittedly overly saccharine "captain splendid" came to a close, i pressed eject, and of course "makes me wonder" was grooving along on kdwb like it had no connection to what was playing right before it. when i was 14, i found out about kara's flowers the same way i found out about most new music -- by typing in "weezer" in the aol member profile search directory and seeing what others bands weezer fans liked. after waiting a half-hour for the album's single "soap disco" to download, i became instantaneously enamored with the song's geeked-out energy and random lyrics about slime and bright lights. hearing kara's flowers change from dweeby power pop to hippie 60s wuss pop was welcomed a few years later, as i discovered the elephant6 collective, but i became antsy when these songs didn't make it onto any sort of official sophomore effort. hearing from a freshman at usc that they changed their name to maroon 5 and were wearing tight leather pants at a concert of theirs he went to while little girls screamed along with the singer's increasingly caustic nasally voice made my heart sink. let it play through or shove in something hipsters listen to asap: shove in some indie rock asap. grade: F.

shoved in --> "son of the son of the kiss of death" by the narrator

This entry was posted by chris, on Friday, June 29, 2007. You can leave your response.