Sorry, No Air. Sexy Can I Take A Bow?

Everyone deserves a second chance. This seems to be a trend as of late, with Death Cab for Cutie's latest record officially making up for the borefest that was Plans and even convincing many former DCFC fanatics (including myself) to go back and revisit that record with a new, open mind. Qualler and I are sitting here even talking about how the latest Weezer record (the for-some-reason anticipated Red Album) is actually pretty fun to listen to without being totally cocky and bland like the previous effort Make Believe. In fact, I re-watched the video for the song "Perfect Situation" from that album recently (starring Elisha Cuthbert, so you know why I watched it) and came to the conclusion that the song is actually pretty clever and even harks back to a time when Rivers was an unlikely rock star rather than another example of geek chic giving geeks a bad name. Well this is happening on the pop charts too (as if DCFC isn't part of this - their Narrow Stairs hit #1 this week on Billboard!). Let's investigate who properly utilized their second chance to an advantage and who foolishly squandered it:

"Sorry" by Buckcherry: If there's one band I thought I would never blog about, it would be Buckcherry. I felt a shudder of sludgy post-grunge, post-alt rock, post-anything that was ever good about guitars in the 90s when I typed their name. You may or may not recall (Qualler had to jog my memory) their 1999 barely-a-hit "Lit Up," which basically recalled the aroma of vomit mixed with a cinder block to the groin. Well somehow, nine years later, they have returned to write this generation's version of "More Than Words" by Extreme, which plagued the halls of my dorm Freshman year, chock full of acoustic guitarists trying to get laid. And yet, somehow, this song is leagues beyond the cocaine ruminations that filled their 90s death rattle album of yore. The melody isn't writhing and jumping into your loins with razor blades, it's at least ignorable. If Nickelback did anything good for the music industry, it's that they taught other terrible light-grunge artists how to produce light-grunge that doesn't tear apart your ear drums. Second chance utilized 60% effectively.

"No Air" by Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown: It's nothing new that American Idol first place winners don't actually get popular. The one that did actually get popular (Kelly Clarkson) eventually drowned with her second album. Yesterday, I would have said, "I'd be very surprised if David Cookuleta or whoever won actually made it big within the next year." Then tonight, I found out that this very catchy ballad is sung by none other than last year's winner Jordin Sparks. The song is gracing the Top Tens of pop stations around the country, including right here in the Cities, and it's actually pretty decent. The string swells are emotional without being saccharine and the piano intro is traditionally pretty without restraining the song from becoming a solid booming anthem (cough cough see Rihanna entry below cough cough). But what makes this second chance so successful is that finally some American Idol first placer's manager realized that a surefire way to true success is pairing the newbie with an already-insanely popular star, like Chris Brown, for a duet. She may have won the competition over a year ago, but she's coming back, and while there's nothing particularly interesting about her, at least they're marketing her intelligently. Second chance utilized 90% effectively.

"Sexy Can I" by Ray J feat. Yung Berg: Now you may call this one a stretch, as even I had no idea who Ray J was before I sat down to blog tonight. If he's a babyface in the music biz, how could he already be given a second chance? What did this nice young fella do wrong already? However, when I wiki'd the singer in question, the idea for this week's theme became apparent. A) Ray is the younger brother of Brandy, B) for this reason, he was cast in Moesha, and C) he's the guy in the Kim Kardashian sex tape (which only just a month or so ago I found out is the reason she has a show on the E! network). Obviously dude needs to make good in the world. Apart from the fact that the song hilariously makes no grammatical sense, the chorus (while played through one too many times) is straight solid. It's your standard female objectification fare, as booties, smokin' bods, and shakin' the both of 'em all come up more than once in both the lyrics and the video, so that gives a big 'ol boring stamp, but at least the riffs are unshakable. Second chance utilized 80% effectively.

"Take a Bow" by Rihanna: You might remember last summer that I was one of the few naysayers railing against the mediocrity of "Umbrella," the monster hit Rihanna unleashed on the public that is still highly inescapable. I don't recant on this position, but I have had more of a love-hate relationship with the song in the past 10 months rather than the original meh-meh relationship I had with it, so that's something, I guess. But this new song was one of those slow plodding faux-R&B tracks that even after listening to it twice, I still had to start the song over again because I hadn't been paying attention. I just listened to the song two minutes ago and I have no idea how it goes. That's a bad sign. So completely forgettable. Twinkly piano, utter lack of energy in the verse AND chorus...ugh. Such an overrated singer. That stupid hand clap on top of the plastic hi-hat...and yet, I somehow enjoy her as a person. Look at her - she looks pretty snazzy. Maybe she should try acting. Second chance utilized 10% effectively.

This entry was posted by chris, on Thursday, May 22, 2008. You can leave your response.