Top 10 Top 40 Songs of 2011

10. Adele - "Someone Like You" 
Hey, remember when Adele was just that British lady who sang that “Chasing Pavement” song that they used in all those Lifetime Original Movies? The unanimously-adored 21 changed all that. I was recently in a hunting bar in rural Wisconsin that had been somewhat overrun by city-folk visiting for the holidays, and when “Someone Like You” came on, all the women threw their arms around each other and started belting along. Everyone knows and loves this song. “Someone Like You” is the ultimate torch song because it so effectively masks its vulnerability as bravery. She’s totally keeping it together enough to have faith that she’ll find love despite being devastatingly hurt, but still gives into her overwhelming pain to deliver this soul-crushing gem: “’Don’t forget me,’ I beg/ ‘I’ll remember,’ you say / sometimes it lasts in love / sometimes it hurts instead.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SO TRAGIC. SO BRAVE. [Sam]
 
9. Lupe Fiasco - "The Show Goes On"
It always warms my heart a little when a socially conscientious musician can also make it rain on the mainstream charts (no, I'm not talking about Bono.) Lupe Fiasco's stellar "The Show Goes On" is at once hipster-baiting (y'know, cuz of the Modest Mouse sample), a solid "message" song, and catchy-as-all-get-out. The catchy-as-all-get-out part is probably what wins everybody over the most, and it is definitely catchy the way Mouse's "Float On" was an earworm for the masses. It's good trickery, because the track works both as an offshoot of post-pop with its mash-up roots, and a subtle positive message for the masses, while still allowing the masses to raise their hands in the air. [Qualler]

 
8. DEV - "In the Dark" 
"In the Dark" does reek of sex in a number of overt and obvious ways, but somehow manages to still be sexy. I don't even find Dev particularly attractive, and in fact I prefer just listening to this song in my car to watching the video on a computer (the venues of consumption may have something to do with it), but damn if I don't get kind of bothered whenever I hear that saxophone riff. By now I think we can all agree that Kenny G's instrument of choice became overused in 2011, to the point where the man himself even guested on a Katy Perry bridge to complete the ouroboros, but it's pretty tough to argue that it doesn't hit hard when it's used correctly. And here it's all smoke and shadows, complementing the vocals as much as it enhances them, but in such a way that it never feels like the usual Top 40 calculated balance of computerized effects and sugary melodies. It may not be gritty like a lo-fi dubstep dance floor banger, but it still bangs; it's just that it slithers on the off-beats. [Chris]

 
7. Beyoncé - "Love on Top" 
After separating professionally from her manager/father at the beginning of this year, Beyoncé released 4, which, although not a fan favorite, is where we see Beyoncé shucking the pop princess persona and really being Beyoncé. While none of the songs on the album are ever going to be top-charting radio singles (besides “Run the World (Girls)”, which I like to pretend just never happened), Beyoncé exhibits maturity, variety of sound, and one of the greatest singing voices around. And nowhere is this more evident that in “Love on Top”. This song is not about sellability or pop music or about making vocals subservient to a dance-able beat; everything about this song, including the four key-changes and the amazing music video, is about Beyoncé singing, loudly and strongly, and not because a man broke her heart, but because she’s so impossibly happy. In a year dominated by the powerful tragedy of Adele, the weird angst of Rihanna, and the synth-dance of everyone else, this song stands out like as a reminder that things really do get better. Plus, listening to it when you get ready in the morning is pretty life-affirming. [Sam]
 
6. Lady Gaga - "The Edge of Glory"
The Gagster has had an up-and-down relationship with The Blogulator (cuz, obviously she is a big time reader) and, while I have been on the mostly-positive liking-most-everything-she-does side of things (except for that horrible album cover for Born This Way and the fact that every one of her videos is like a million effin' minutes long, and, as I told somebody in a convoluted way recently, "if they're all long, then none of them are long"), she really hit her stride with "The Edge of Glory". In my eternal search for The Perfect Song To Cross A Marathon Finish Line To (hey, new Blog feature in 2012? Mayhaps!), The Good Lady of Gaga  crafted a perfect upbeat, positive, emotional song about, well, big themes like being on "the edge of glory" and "hanging on a moment with you" (the best use of that phrase since Lifehouse used it?). And while I agree with Chris that the saxophone was an overused element of pop music in 2011, none of the other pop songs featuring sax had Clarence Effin' Clemons (rest in peace) playing their songs home. So when that final blast of the final run through the chorus, plus the soulful sounds of Clemons' sax bursts through your speakers/headphones, it's truly glorious. [Qualler]

 
5. Wiz Khalifa - "Roll Up" 
"Roll Up" does so much to convince the "Black & Yellow" naysayers (and I like to think there are many of us) with seemingly so little. Khalifa worked so hard to annoy millions with that oppressive synthetic xylophone (or whatever it was) and yet it sounds like he's barely putting in any effort to write about an otherwise self-aggrandizing subject here: the significance of self-arrival. It should be skeezy, it should be smarmy, and it should definitely be arrogant, but he manages to eschew all of these negative stereotypes of the rapper that just wants his girl to know how great it will be once he shows up in his expensive car. Speaking of his rapping, the man's downright charming in his laid back and yet playful delivery, suggesting that not only is he just doing this for kicks, but it's also some kind of grand stress reliever rather than heavy emotion conduit. Whodathunk - effortless pop music that doesn't smack of slackerism. [Chris]

 
4. Britney Spears - "Til the World Ends"
Alright, Britney, here I thought that you were being metaphorical when you sung about dancing until the world ends, but your video proves me wrong. You LITERALLY want us to continue to dance UNTIL the WORLD actually ENDS. Which, according to your video, will happen on December 21, 2012. (Very specific.) Well, the good news is, after a few years of blah music from the Britster, her 2011 record Femme Fatale was a step in the right direction in forward-thinking pop music, while bringing back a little "classic Britney" sound from the late 90s / early 00s. Something about the way the main drum beat keeps the sixteenth-notes humming and building while the synth wobbles around and Britney sings with so many vocal tracks until it builds to that great conclusion where everything's just going nuts makes this song special. It's another entry in my "Perfect Song To Cross A Marathon Finish Line To" feature that I'm now developing even more in my head. ("Maybe work on the title a little, ya jerk?" say the masses. The masses are really mean in my head.) And don't you feel like, after all Britney's been through in the past decade, and all the growing up she (and in turn, we) have done, she deserves to have a little bit of happiness? Anyway, Britney Spears, so glad you're back making interesting-but-not-too-adventurous-but-just-adventurous-enough pop music. [Qualler]

 
3. LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock - "Party Rock Anthem"
I honestly don’t think I’ve gone to a party or bar this year without hearing “Party Rock Anthem”; I even have a coworker who greets the office every morning by walking in and saying, “Everyday we shuffling.” (He’s referring to paper. That’s why it’s funny, I guess.) When VH1 produces I Love the Teens, they will talk about this song as being quintessentially 2011. You see, LMFAO is embodying this weird sort of totally 2011 meta-irony, where their hipstery self-mockery is actually just a ruse for post-hipster self-mockery mockery. At least that’s how a Cultural Studies minor looks at it. In any case, Party Rock Anthem is exactly what it says it is: an anthem for party rocking, whether at a club, at a party, at home, or in your car. Like the zombified dancers in their music video, just hearing “Party Rock Anthem” makes us all want to dance in an unflattering hipster ironic way with lots of little jumps and fist pumping. That weird synthesized chorus line triggers some weird fluke in our physiology, and we just can’t help but party rock. [Sam]

 
2. Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass"
I admit that I'm somewhat of a Nicki Minaj hater, so it pains me somewhat to say that "Super Bass" is just an unbelievably catchy, clever song. Her fast-pace rapping, which, I also admit, sounds very good, works really well with the slow-ish backing synths and driving beats. COMPLAINT TIME! (And if you don't come to The Blogulator at least partially for allowing us to validate our opinions, then you're not here for the right reason.) Why does Nicki, whose "real life" persona exhibits a predilection toward at least bisexuality, have to be rapping about how much this one dude is really handsome and how she wants to do it with the dude? Okay, that's not really a fair complaint to lob her direction, because, the fact is that a song this catchy wouldn't be as popular if it had a less hetero-normative core to it, and pop stars gotta get paid. Regardless of all that, there's no doubt "I mean, you're so shy and I'm loving your tie / you're like, slicker than the guy with the thing on his eye" is one of my favorite lyric lines of 2011. So, Nicki, don't be afraid to bust out of the misogynistic Young Money label you're tied to and say something that's true to you, please, and maybe then I won't be a Nicki Minaj hater anymore. [Qualler]

 
1. T-Pain feat. Chris Brown - "Best Love Song"
"Best Love Song" is so anthemic it hurts. T-Pain takes adoration to a level potentially not yet seen in pop music until now, imbuing his usual wacky mentality into a topic that nevertheless feels 100% serious and universal, thus making it wholly original all over again. It's a magnanimous feat, yet because he goes all out without reserve or embarrassment, he nails it. Chris Brown's presence may mar this effect on the surface, but ultimately he's just a pawn in T-Pain's game, playing the side character for a maximum arena-level battle scene in which the winner is not a persona nor a celebrity but rather the listener's hands, which invariably raise involuntarily into the air, conveying their agreement in the notion that yes, they could hypothetically hold a pen that could write the best love song she has ever heard in her life. [Chris]

Top 10 Albums of 2011

10. Cults, Cults, [In the Name Of]

I think I heard somewhere that the random voice samples on this album are from real life cult leaders. Isn't that crazy? So what if you can't understand them; it's neat. This band is some art school duo. I think it's a dude and a lady so I'm going to pretend there's love. For romance, duh. Oh! The album! It's rad. Plenty of catchy oldies-style tracks about love and relationships and stuff (romance, the good sides and bad). "Go Outside" is a rocking time. Ditto for "Bad Things." "Bumper" has some male/female call and response going on and you know that's good. The band has simple percussion, spacey bells, and the catchiest melodies. You'll be tapping your toes. [Sean]

9. Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest [Acony]

I'm getting older. And with getting older comes the more and more willing admission that I like music that I used to ignore for being "too boring." Folk/bluegrass singer Gillian Welch released her first new album in seven years with The Harrow & The Harvest and it reminds me of the grassy Appalachian mountains featured in FX's Justified. Welch and songwriting/performing/life partner David Rawlings craft gorgeous, sad melodies about sad, dark stuff. Sadsies abound! Songs like "Scarlett Town", "Tennessee" and "The Way It Will Be" sound like they have existed for eternity, and will continue to exist for eternity. [Qualler]

8. Real Estate, Days [Domino]

 I am a simple person with simple needs. Give me sparkly guitars and hummable vocals and call it a day. I didn't even like Real Estate's first album, but the tunes on Days are just so far and above the humdrum acoustic lo-fi wanker that was wildly popular for some reason two days ago. I'm glad they've changed with the times, because half a decade ago there was this band called Human Television that I thought for sure was the second coming of jangle pop, but then they faded away and I got sad. Luckily this hipster band is filling the void and making the sound come alive again. But what makes me most happy about this record is that not every song is just the obligatory mid-tempo slacker anthem with pretty guitar lines. There's the hyper side ("It's Real"), there's the languorous side ("Green Aisles"), and the off-kilter quirky side ("Out of Tune") too. But okay, mostly it's just a lot of insanely pretty guitars. [Chris]

7. The Roots, Undun [Def Jam]

I'm a sucker for concept albums, so when The Roots released one late in 2011, I was all over it. Their record Undun does not disappoint in that regard. The album follows a man named Redford Stephens (named after Sufjan Stevens' Michigan record song "Redford" and, assumingly, Stevens himself), a man who has to choose between a life of crime and a life of legitimacy. Of course, it wouldn't be compelling if the music wasn't great, and it is. Both slinky and cool, upbeat and dark, Jimmy Fallon's house band crafts great beats throughout. Ever since The Roots got their gig on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, they seem even more willing to explore new facets of their abilities. [Qualler]

6. Julianna Barwick, The Magic Place [Asthmatic Kitty]

Blogulator co-writer DoktorPeace vehemently disagrees with the praise given to this album by Qualler and yours truly. He says it gives him a "headache." And yet to me it's a collection of some of the most peaceful sounds ever created by a human being. Another Blogulator co-writer, Sean, went so far as to make fun of Barwick by recording his voice emulating her airy ambient coos and layering it a bunch of times while trying to stifle his own laughter. Well poo on them I say. While I can sympathize with the argument that if a bunch of effects and reverb need to be slathered on top of a voice or instrument then there's a minimal amount of musical proficiency at the artist's outset, I don't think that's what's necessary to make profound sounds or more frankly, good art. Barwick takes a very simple yet wholly original approach to making angelic choral solo music and it soars. You can't argue that it doesn't soar. If it soars so much it induces pain in your brain, then I guess you were meant for her grandeur. But I was, dammit, and it's effing gorgeous. [Chris]

5. Katy B, On a Mission [Columbia]

The British dubstep-y (or, at least, her producers dabble in dubstep, I think?) pop chanteuse Katy B released an album full of songs that, in my dreams, are popular enough to get the whole floor of a future wedding party going like crazy on the dance floor. Of course, the secret to a great dance pop record, as is the secret with all albums, is good songwriting, and On a Mission delivers in that regard. From the slinky-sexy beats of "Witches Brew" and "Movement" to the Toni Braxton-esque sad-breakup song "Go Away" (listen to the chorus where the multi-tracked vox in the chorus!), the record is full of straight up great songs with melodies that creep into your head. And it's a great alternative to the Ke$has and Katy Perrys for quality pop music good for running. The best part? She thanks all of us for listening with a long thank-you section at the end of final song "Hard to Get". You're welcome, Katy B. [Qualler]

4. R.E.M., Collapse Into Now [Warner Bros.]

R.E.M.'s swan song probably wouldn't be on my list of favorite albums of 2011 if it weren't their swan song, but my Favorite Band of All Time dropped the swan song bomb on us in September, months after the release of their fifteenth studio album with their breakup announcement. In typical understated R.E.M. fashion, the signs of imminent breakup are all over the album, from the epic opening track "Discoverer" to the even-more-obvious-"we're-gonna-break-up-now" track "All the Best" (lyrics like "I'll give it one more time / I'll show the kids how to do it fine") to the maybe-the-moment-they-decided-it-was-over "It Happened Today" (probably in my top 20 R.E.M. tracks of all time), to the Patti Smith-guesting funeral dirge "Blue" that gives way to one more blast of "Discoverer". Context is everything, so putting this record in the context of their swan song makes the musical content all the more immediate and bittersweet. [Qualler]

3. M83, Hurry Up We're Dreaming [Mute]

First things first: I hate the talking kid on "Raconte-Moi Une Histoire." It's the worst part of an otherwise solid album. No I don't think it's cute. No it's not charming or inspirational. It's dumb and ruins the mood right after my second favorite track ("Wait"). With all that out of the way, I can say that Hurry Up We're Dreaming is a super awesome M83 album. It follows the sonic themes of Saturdays = Youth and at 22 songs in length it provides plenty on sweet Jams to groove to. "Midnight City" is my personal favorite track even if I can't understand half the lyrics. "Waiting For a call"? "Waiting for a cab"?* It's like how I thought "Kim and Jessie" was about somebody muslim shouting and drowning your towel with voices. Hey! You like Zola Jesus? She's in the intro song. Bonus! [Sean]

* "Waiting in a car" makes way more sense (holy cow! Saxophone solo!)

2. Fucked Up, David Comes to Life [Matador]

Qualler talked above about his love for concept albums. I personally can't stand them. I like that Roots album a lot, but not because of the story it tells, though I can appreciate its sentiments. I also like that Janelle Monae record about the spider robot queen or whatever, but again, I honestly just can't listen straight through imagining this strange abstract movie in my head, though that seems like something on paper that I'd love to do. It feels too bloated or self-important when I concentrate that much, which is why David Comes to Life is a concept record I can get behind. Sure, if you want to, you can go deep with it and follow the tale of revolution it tells, but really, I'm just listening to the songs. Even at an epic eighteen tracks long, I am amazed at how easy it is to listen to each individual track as its own barn-burning melodic hardcore (or whatever) pop song. Every single riff melts my face off in a way that I feel okay using that phrase four or so years after its expiration date. I could care less about the politics of it as long as I can feel its fury and potency. [Chris]

1. Geotic, Mend [Self-Released]

I'm glad that DoktorPeace can agree with me on this one, if not Julianna Barwick (see above). He said he would often listen to it when he was writing his next magnum opus screenplay and I find that offhand fact very telling. Will Wiesenfeld also records as Baths, a project that got big last year with the record Cerulean, which is also definitely worth checking out, but it's so much more spastic and involved than Geotic that it makes a lot of sense that he has a completely different moniker for his more reserved and introspective side. It's so inward, in fact, that he only self-releases material under the Geotic name for free on his Angelfire (I know, right?) page. (You can download Mend and other beautiful recordings gratis here.) And sure, his loopy guitar meditations with static edges are nothing revolutionary or even necessarily ear-catching, but the more time you spend with them, like DoktorPeace did, the more they unfold into something singularly cathartic and addictive. It's music that exhilarates as much as it soothes, and through the instrumental and therefore multi-interpretational theme of amelioration, it becomes therapeutic as well. Sometimes that kind of small genius is what deserves the most attention, but it rarely gets its proper due. [Chris]

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Crappy Love

Welcome to the final edition of Today's Top 40 Spectrum for 2011. In a fitting sort of denouement, I have no idea how to rank, like I typically do, the five new songs currently in heavy-ish rotation on my local mainstream pop radio station(s). Seriously. I like a teeny tiny bit about each of these songs, but I tried and tried to move them around from least to most sucky and nothing really made sense. They're all songs about finding love in poopy situations (even if it's self-love in the case of, surprise surprise, "Ms. Angsty Kelly," as I like to call her) and they're all kind of poopy. Which sucks because the message is an interesting one, and in surprising moments even moving, but ultimately it doesn't add up to much more than flatlined melodies and a story that means little to nothing besides, "love sucks and then you die, but it's kind of great that we at least have love in this life." I told my wife that Top 40 was going through a rough patch the other day, and I hope you agree after reflecting on what it has to offer us as we enter the last year of Mayan calendar. Here they be, ranked alphabetically...



"Mr. Know It All" by Kelly Clarkson: Per the missive above, at least Clarkson mixes it up a bit by having more than an iota or five of self-esteem, but it's still a kind of cringe-worthy song about a destructive relationship. Yes, the titular Mister in question is probably not (just) an actual dude in her life, but you see, it's representative of "the system" that doesn't like when their girl pop stars are kind of bland and safe and so on. Oh and how cheesy is the video? Oh well, the overlapping chorus at the end kind of makes up for it. But not really. But kind of. Ad nauseum.




"Domino" by Jessie J: I was perhaps expecting too much from this British superstar-in-training. "Price Tag" was refreshingly unboring for the typical dancey chanteuse pop star, but this is so trad it's basically a stock entry in the mid-tempo file folder of death, along with anything that didn't quite hit #1 by Paula Cole, P!nk, or Gwen Stefani. Her voice is pleasant, though, and has just enough of a lilt to it that I'm not falling asleep until the third chorus, but by then I've realized I've just listened to the most disengaging sequence of melodies put together to describe the feeling of getting knocked over.




"How to Love" by Lil Wayne: Legitimately surprised that Weezy could make a song backed almost entirely by an acoustic guitar that didn't make me want to gag or dry heave (or both), this should actually be considered some kind of miracle, despite the anti-climax that this post is drenched with. Yes, the video is as manipulative as it is sincere, with confusing messages about abortion, single motherhood, and domestic abuse, but I was so genuinely shocked that the guy that uses candy euphemisms for talking about sex a little too often for an adult actually attempted to say something significant that I didn't even notice how slight the whole production was until the second playback.




"The One That Got Away" by Katy Perry: She caught my ear when she namedropped Radiohead in the first verse, but then I oh so quickly got lost in the vague cliches that apparently added up enough to some ambitious music video director to come up with a whole back story. If you couldn't tell by her "I can't believe no one has ever made a hit song with this title" lyrical ethic, it's allegedly about an old lady looking back to her first crazy love and how the dude (who is of course a painter) died because she effed up one of his works of art and so he drove his car off a cliff. Or something. Then there's a ghost and Johnny Cash covering "You Are My Sunshine." It's heavy. And yet not.


  

"We Found Love" by Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris: In the second video of this five that features tussling lovers half-forcing makeshift tattoos on each other's bodies we at least have some flashy aesthetics. They're largely stolen from Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream in Particular) and/or Sid & Nancy, but hey, at least they're stealing from the best. Too bad the song itself is such a lazy back-and-forth between techno builds to nowhere and somehow simultaneously too-short and too-often verses and choruses that all resemble each other far too closely. Again the theme of the month seems to be "tell a sad and tragic story, but make sure not to make it mean much other than that love is powerful and great no matter how many drugs we take, regrets we have, or strife we endure." Thanks, Top 40! You've depressed me AND added nothing new to the conversation!

Qualler's Blogulator Thanksgiving

I feel about Thanksgiving the way Brigitte feels about Halloween: pure, unrepentant, almost-bordering-on-evil joy. What ISN'T there to love about Thanksgiving?! Let's see -- it's the only holiday that pretty much requires people to stay at home. You get two paid days of work off for it. There are football games on TV. There are road races to be run. And, there is FOOD SO MUCH FOOD AND TURKEY IS DELICIOUS. And the holiday even encourages naps! Amazing. You're the best, Thanksgiving.

And, like Chris & Jerksica did for this week's Blogulator Radio, it's a time to give either sincere (or spitefully sincere) thanks to the people, places and things that make your life so full of thanks. And we here at The Blogulator have had a long and rich tradition of being thankful for things in pop culture. Here are the pop cultural things that I am most thankful for in 2011.

Music! 
R.E.M. 1982-2011.
Oh, R.E..M. My favorite band of all time, the band that most inspired me and moved me and made me dance. I am grateful and thankful for your long and storied career. You had your ups and your downs, but you fought through all of them to just be who you are. And when you decided it was time to quit, you unrepentantly quit, with no apologies and no winks that, maybe, just maybe, they'd be back for a reunion tour to line their pockets. In recent interviews, Mike Mills commented on the fact that they knew going in that this year's Collapse Into Now would be their last, and recently re-listening to it, it makes all the more sense. Thanks. R.E.M.

Movies!
Longevity For Old Guy Movie Directors (like Werner Herzog and Woody Allen)
It's not always great when old guys keep directing movies forever. But, we can be grateful for the constant quantity of work that gets produced by some directors. (Hey Paul Thomas Anderson, you could maybe learn a lesson here. Don't give me this "Wah, nobody will finance my movies" BS. You need to produce films. It's okay if they're not totally perfect. Just produce anything at all, ever. You were supposed to be our generation's Scorsese, and instead Scorsese is our generation's Scorsese.) And like clockwork, we can expect an annual film in the local arthouse movie theater by Werner Herzog and by Woody Allen. Herzog's most recent documentary Into the Abyss is a typically hypnotic, thoughtful, beautiful and tragic look at death row inmates. And PBS's recent Woody Allen documentary on American Masters is a fascinating, rare look inside Mr. Allen's personal life and his filmmaking process. Dammit, even Terrance (Terry is what I call him 'cuz we're buds) Malick is churning out work like crazy these days. Quantity over quality! It's the Thanksgiving way!

Television!
Teen Dramas
I admit that I'm on a bit of a teen drama kick. Revenge, though it's not technically a teen drama, kind of follows teen drama tropes, is my favorite new drama of the Fall (haven't seen Homeland yet, though! Somebody Showtime me!) Catching up on The Vampire Diaries is pretty amazing, and I admit I am totally finding Elena a very attractive lady. And who knew Ian Somerhalter was such a showstopper? Most importantly, I have finally started to watch Brigitte's Dawson's Creek DVDs from the beginning, and that first season is a solid B/B+, with nary a scent of the intense schmaltz that occurs in later seasons that gave me such a gross feeling about the show. The transition from self-doubting Joey Potter to bland Joey Potter from season one to season two is an extremely disappointing one, but Joey Potter season one might be making my proverbial Top 10 TV Characters list after seeing her entire arc in that first season.

Video Games!
NBA 2K11's MyPlayer Mode
I'm extremely sad about the NBA season being locked out with a possibility that I will have to wait until next Fall to see Ricky Rubio toss alley-oops to Derrick Williams and Rick Adelman grumpily pointing at players while that crazy guy who has courtside tickets at Target Center hits the court with his newspaper. But, it's sorta a'ight since I just finished my rookie season as the eventual starting PG for the New York Knicks. Amar'e Stoudemire is a point guard's dream teammate, what with the sweet inside-outside game the two of us have together. (Dude gets double-teamed, tosses it back out to me on the perimeter, and hits the three pointer like WHOA.) Plus, in real life, Amar'e is a total hipster. And I wear a headband and look like a total hipster on the court, so we're buds. Video game friendship is much stronger than any real life NBA lockout could ever be.

Friends!
Seriously, guys, my friends are the best. From the IRL friends who have written on The Blogulator with me since 2005(!!!), to the Twitter friends I have made, to all the other cool people who do cool stuff, I am thankful. Here are some of the Blogulator posts of Thanksgivings past.


"Today We Give Thanks to the Biopic In A Way Similar To How The Pilgrims Thanked The Injuns" -Chris, Thanksgiving 2005

"...And Music Is My Mashed Potato" -Chris, Thanksgiving 2006

"Stars: They're Nothing Like Us (Thanksgiving Edition)" -Lady Amy, Thanksgiving 2008


Pop culture is fun, y'all. Sometimes bad stuff happens in pop culture, like the potential cancellation of Comunity and Cougar Town. But sometimes, pop culture can bring us good stuff. Let us all give thanks to the thankful things we have to be thankful for.

Now, eat some turkey and go to see the Muppets movie.

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Full Recovery

Top 40 sure has recovered from last month. And by last month, I mean a month-and-a-half ago. Yes, yes, I am behind, so please excuse some of these songs for being already winding down on the Billboard charts, if not completely absent by now. But while I will still attempt to do two more Today's Top 40 Spectrum posts, I think with this here installment I officially have more than enough songs for my Top 10 of the Top 40 of 2011 list. Like it will actually feel uncomfortable, even without getting through the rest of this year, cutting some vapid pop songs from my allotted ten. That's messed up, dudes. Is the machine eating me up or is Top 40 music actually getting slowly but surely better? Who knows. What I do know is that this entry's assortment of tuneage is nearly uniformly enjoyable, even if nearly every song has some kind of inherently sucky/obnoxious quality. Well enough surmising - let's get on with it! Here's my most recent cavalcade of Top 40 jams, ranked from most to least tolerable/enjoyable below...


"In the Dark" by Dev: One of my students told me that I should careful when I watch the video for this song because it's weird and "almost too sexy." Not only is that one of the weirdest comments a student has ever said to me, it's also oddly true, despite the fact that there is far less skin or jiggling occurring here than nearly 99% of all pop videos in existence. Sure, there's one recurring shot in particular that's obliquely alluring, but I think most of the discomforting lust appeal stems from the song itself, which I would go so far as to venture labeling as a stone-cold modern classic. Not only does Dev improve on the hollowness of "Like a G6" by actually making a song that's about something, but cool detachment is replaced with hot steam in the tone department. Add an indelible saxophone sample and you've got yourself a not necessarily cerebral piece of pop, but definitely a memorable and visceral one.


"Without You" by David Guetta feat. Usher: Let's get one thing straight. Usher is done. Put a fork in him. But I'll be damned if Guetta gets some good use out of his aching yet innocuous croon as a backdrop for his Eurotrance-or-whatever beat destruction. It's strangely wowing to see a DJ that's not necessarily unique in any shape or form manage to provide an adequate amount of spectacle on his own through arpeggio-happy sequencers and fake kick drum pulsing, which just pushes the basically one long chorus by your guest singer into the background to the point where it makes sense that the person's voice is designated as featured rather than the primary author. Even the sickly sweet video, which (gasp!) tells a story no less, can be forgiven because every lens flare and slow motion jump in the air perfectly embodies what makes pop music so euphoric when does without deception or malice, but with just pure unadulterated celebration. Whether it's of the self or the other is up for debate; don't think to hard though - just let your eyes widen when that bleep-bloop climax explodes.



"It Girl" by Jason Derulo: As you can tell by reading my faves for the month in the sidebar to your right, I am currently enjoying the act of damning whistling appearing so cacophonously and ubiquitously in Top 40 songs this fall. First it was "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 (a song I'm embarrassed to say has grown on me since I bashed it to shreds in this here column). Then it was Britney Spears' umpteenth forgettable hit "I Wanna Go" that jumped on the bandwagon. Now it's my dearly formerly beloved Jason Derulo, whose smash jam "In My Head" from last year was a not-so-secret obsession of mine. His Harry Belafonte-sampling first single from his new album didn't warm my heart over, though, and so I thought I was done with him. But then he comes back and wriggles his way back into my soft embrace, despite the fact that he is now the THIRD person on my radio whistling a hooky little piece of audio poop at me in between smooth verses and an airy yet amiable chorus. Oh how divisive our love must be! Why must you torment me so, Jason?!



"Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO: Not...really...sure...what to make of this. Does the main guy with the fro wish he was "Weird" Al for a new generation? Cuz he's certainly acting like it a lot more here than he ever has before, and yet it feels like a completely logical progression from "Party Rock Anthem." These guys have a shtick and they're shticking to it. Neon and gaudy everything. Goofy dancing and facial expressions. So while it's ultimately a silly Z-grade Flight of the Conchords song and an obnoxious C-grade "Weird" Al song, the internet age acronymic collective have developed an aesthetic and oeuvre. And it's unsettling, but hell if it ain't at least a compelling novelty for 2011. And that's basically all they're trying for, right? Nothing more, nothing less? Well, I enjoy it more with the video anyway. It's refreshing even if it's crass to play on the gender/sexpectations of the music video with such uninhibited delight.


"Cheers (Drink to That)" by Rihanna: Believe it or not, even though it's at the bottom of the spectrum, I think this might be the only Rihanna song I've liked for more than a couple seconds since "Umbrella." I think I kind of liked "What's My Name?" when that was on the radio constantly but I honestly can't remember what it sounds like now (though part of this problem may be that I have this song and many M83 songs currently in my head). The weird thing about this, though, is that there's only a couple distinguishing qualities that set this apart from all of the monotonous glut of half-assed Rihanna hits from the past couple years, one of which is the immediately jarring third chorus in which it sounds like literally a room of drunken fans were recorded singing Rihanna's part before the Barbadian in question suddenly swoops back in and reclaims her song. That moment where it slides everything back into place is so exquisitely chosen and executed that the woozy nature of the song (whether intentional or not) can be forgiven. The other thing is that hey, it sounds like Rihanna actually cares about something kind of! Sigh, it's just drinking, nay, "toasting," but at least she doesn't sound like she wishes she were dead! Right?

(Yesterday's) Top 40 Spectrum: Billboard #1s Through The Years

As you probably already know, Spotify is totally the Best Thing To Ever Be Invented, At Least Currently, On The Internet. Yeah, it's pretty great. It has allowed a lame-wad who feels as out of touch with current music trends as I ever have to at least feign to know what is new and cool in music these days. (Bon Iver is totally overrated, guys.)

So, when I came across this Spotify playlist that features every song that ever hit #1 on the Billboard Top 40, ever, I was, naturally, very intrigued. And over the course of the past week, I've listened to this playlist. Memories have come flooding back to me; the musical cues that defined my life are embedded in this playlist.

I've learned a lot listening to this playlist:

1) There are a lot of really dumb songs that hit number one;
2) Some artists are ridiculously famous because their number one songs are a lot better than the dumb ones that hit number one.

As is wont to do on a Pop Culture blog, I have cultivated my thoughts in a free-form list of the best and worsts of the songs that reached #1 on the Billboard charts. These thoughts are based on my pop music consciousness which, according to my estimation, started with Los Lobos's "La Bamba", the first song I remember being popular at the time it was popular, which hit #1 on August 29, 1987. My thoughts on that song: I loved that movie, and then cried a lot at the end when Richie Valens died. Totes heartbreaking.

Without further ado:

Best #1 Song: Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)"; two weeks at #1, November 14-21, 1998
I have indeed identified the greatest song to ever hit #1 on the Billboard Top 40. "Doo Wop (That Thing)" reaches that pinnacle. It's not just that the song is more socially conscious than most popular songs that have followed it, #1 or otherwise; it's just an unbelievably hooky, infectious song you can dance to and sing along to. Current female chart-toppers don't have that combination of dense lyrical and musical content and straight-up catchiness, and they definitely don't have Ms. Hill's powerful artistic voice(*). Kanye was right when he said he wished you were still making music, Lauryn.

(*)Which is one reason why, despite generally enjoying Nicki Minaj's overall vocal stylings, I find the perception she is a female trailblazer irritating. Please - she's still beholden to the male artists that discovered her and mostly cultivated her musical artist identity, whereas Hill is a complete artist with a true, strong voice. And she hit #1 over ten years ago.

Worst #1 Song: Jennifer Lopez feat. Ja Rule, "I'm Real"; three weeks at #1, September 8-22, 2011
With all due (dis)respect to other nominees, like the multiple #1s by Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, and New Kids on the Block, "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed, and "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" by Nelson (which at least scores points by being kind of hilariously bad), J.Lo's collaboration with Ja Rule is the most offensively bad #1 for a variety of reasons. One is its extreme social non-consciousness, with J.Lo droppin' the n-word in her lyrics in a way that is, at best, extremely uncomfortable. But then, J.Lo is, as I determined, America's Most Bland Celebrity, with her milquetoast delivery of every line. When she talks about when she's "feeling sexy", nothing feels more like I'm being pandered to than this line. And of course, Ja Rule, the man who 50 Cent mocked for sounding like Cookie Monster, delivers the chorus. When 50 Cent disses you, you really do suck. Seriously, though, J.Lo has done nothing to take away from her throne of America's Most Bland Celebrity, as evidenced by the latest magazine cover talking about her romance with America's Most Bland Actor, Bradley Cooper.

Most Bizarre #1: Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Together Forever";  Hey, America! Did you know that these two songs are EXACTLY THE SAME?!?!?!?!?? EXACTLY! THE! SAME! When the now-famous-due-to-meme "Never Gonna Give You Up" popped up on my playlist, I chuckled. When "Together Forever" popped up, though, I became horrified. I pointed out the different songs to Brigitte, which, naturally, caused us to start a "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" style dueling chorus improptu sing-along of me singing the "Give You Up" chorus and Brigitte singing the "Together Forever" chorus. Then, I had a grand plan of mashing the songs together to demonstrate to you, the reader, the similarities, but thankfully, someone on YouTube already saved me the work. So, here you go:



Most Deserving Artists To Reach #1 Multiple Times:
It sounds obvious, but it's totally true: the reason Michael Jackson hit #1 thirteen times, Whitney Houston hit #1 eleven times, Janet Jackson hit #1 ten times, and Mariah Carey hit #1 eighteen(!!!) times, is because they are all ridiculously talented people. Going through the playlist, these artists always provided a welcome oasis of greatness in a sea of other random songs that hit #1. I most enjoyed Janet Jackson, a hit-maker who was definitely more versatile than merely using her name recognition -- lady's super talented. And I hear that Michael fellow is kinda famous. Oh Whitney, if only Bobby Brown didn't totally destroy your career, cuz you have/had one helluva powerful voice. And after re-listening to a lot of Mariah's hits, I'm not quite as embarrassed to admit my owning multiple Mariah Carey CDs as a pre-teen.

Least Deserving Artist To Reach #1 Multiple Times:
On the other hand, George Michael's eight #1 hits feel like a product of their times, with the #1 songs he put out at best bland ("Faith") and at worst horribly schmaltzy. Sorry, George Michael - you're boring.

Hottest #1, At Least Compared To Its Chart-Mates: C+C Music Factory, "Gonna Make You Sweat"; two weeks at #1 starting February 9-16, 1991
In the context of being #1 the same year as Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush" (five weeks at number one!) and Bryan Adam's "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" (seven weeks at number one!), C+C Music Factory's biggest hit is like a shot of adrenalin that smacks you upside the head and makes you wanna dance right now in the office. 

Most Surprisingly Forward-Thinking #1 Song from the Early 90s: P.M. Dawn, "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss"; one week at #1, November 30, 1991
In the context of those super-lame other #1s (others include "I Adore Mi Amor" by Color Me Badd and "More Than Words" by Extreme), PM Dawn's almost-forgotten #1 samples "True" by Spandau Ballet. In my unscientific study, this is the best of the late-80s-early-90s #1 songs that sample previous songs. Well, it's definitely better than "Ice Ice Baby", right?


Most Creepy-In-Retrospect Love Ballad: Boyz II Men, "End of the Road"; thirteen weeks at #1 starting August 15, 1992
The lyrics of this song are CREEPY AS EFF! Are these the words of bass singer Michael McCarey's spoken word mid-song jam? Or the scrawl of a creepy stalking ex-boyfriend who might also be a serial murderer? You decide (bold and italics added by me):

Girl, I’m here for you
All those times of night when you just hurt me
And just run out with that other fella?
Baby I knew about it, I just didn’t care
You just don’t understand how much I love you do you?
I’m here for you. 

I’m not out to go out and cheat on you all night
Just like you did, baby, but that’s all right
Hey, I love you anyway
And I’m still gonna be here for you ’till my dying day baby
Right now, I’m just in so much pain baby
Coz you just won’t come back to me
Will you? just come back to me

Most Hilarious Song To Succeed A Wildly Succesful #1: "How Do You Talk to an Angel" by The Heights; two weeks at #1 starting November 14, 1992
Yes, it succeeded "End of the Road". Yes, it was the theme song to the short-lived Fox drama The Heights. And yes, that is actor Jamie Walters singing, who went on to play Donna Martin's boyfriend and hotheaded fictional recording artist Ray Pruitt in seasons five and six of Beverly Hills 90210. How do you talk to an angel, Ray Pruitt? How do you?

Least Deserving Artist Collaboration: "All for One" by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting; three weeks at #1 starting January 22, 1994
If I were Sting, and I were looking back at my career today, I would be looking back at that collaboration I did with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart and be thinking, "Wow, how was there a time that Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart were considered my equals? I'm freakin' Sting! I was in The Police! My body of work is timeless, while Rod Stewart is a glorified lounge singer and Bryan Adams didn't become popular until he totally sold his soul with 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)'! How did I sign up for this? What kind of self-respect did I have? Did I not meditate enough in 1994?" Regrets, Sting. This is one of them, isn't it?

Most Adorably Out-Of-Place Random #1: Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories, "Stay (I Miss You)"; three weeks at #1 starting August 6, 1994
Jumping to #1 after All-4-One's "I Swear" and before Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You", Lisa Loeb's Reality Bites soundtracker is the only evidence on the Billboard #1s playlist that this thing called Grunge Music was popular. Yes, many grunge and post-grunge bands hit #1 with their albums, but none of them hit #1 on the Hot 100. But adorably dorky Loeb made it to #1, who indeed made it safe for boys to make passes at girls who wear glasses. And, did you know, this was the first #1 song by an artist who was not signed to a record label at the time? Yeah, take that in your pipe and smoke it, Owl City. Lisa Loeb says, "YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Most Hilarious Collaboration: R.Kelly & Celine Dion, "I'm Your Angel"; seven weeks at #1 starting December 5, 1998
R.Kelly collaborated with Celine Dion just because he could, right? Honestly, I didn't know this song even existed, and now I am more happy than ever to know that it does.

First Meta #1 Song, In My Unscientific Estimation: Kanye West feat. Twista & Jamie Foxx, "Slow Jamz"; one week at #1, February 21, 2004
2004 was mostly dominated by Usher, but it was Kanye who made it safe for artists of today to write #1 songs that are about other songs. Today, it is commonplace for chart-toppers to include a layer of meta-songwriting in their tunes, but Kanye made the modern "song about a song" what it was. In my estimation, this is also the first #1 song to also get the Pitchfork stamp of approval, making it safe for hipsters and popsters to like the same stuff once in a while. Thanks for making it safe for hipsters to like pop music, 'Ye!

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Mostly White People

If you're ever curious why white people typically don't rule the Top 40 airwaves nowadays, check the majority of the people responsible for this month's new hits. Sure white people can be good at creating striking melodies, but said striking melodies also often come with a heavy dose of blandness. How can a powerful vocal trill or an obnoxiously catchy chorus be bland, you ask? I'm not sure, but as much as I cannot deny Adele's deep-ranged beauty or Adam Levine's earworm prowess, I do not find either of them particularly interesting. In fact, if we were to rank today's Top 40 spectrum by sheer brightness, meaning how much a song can brighten up a dreary day and actually make your mood change for the better, well then Big Sean would be at the top of the list and all the others would be in arbitrary order below him because none of them FEEL good to listen to. But for argument's sake, here they are, your newest batch of Top 40 spectacle, listen from most tolerable to least...




"Someone Like You" by Adele: This video just went live last night apparently. It's black and white just like the song. Piano and voice. Once soft and then passionate. Low arpeggios on the ivories and then high ones. And yet even if it's just on in the background, whenever she gets to those big notes ("don't forGET") it's like you're suddenly a vulnerable American Idol audience member and you get verklempt. It's so simple and often so boring but if you have just one iota of emotion in your bones at any given time, then it's likely going to connect and dig in and never let go. At least not until another ballad dominates mainstream radio.




"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People: Clearly since I felt so ambivalent about this month's top song it should not be interpreted that of course I, the nerdy white hipster, like it when a nerdy white "hipster" song gets hugely popular on the Top 40 station in town. Yes it has an imminently hummable chorus, and that is probably the only reason it's higher up than the others in this group of five, and yes it's got a wuss-rock mentality more so than anything that's been blasted through sports stadiums since "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn & John flirted with ubiquity, but neither of these factors matter because the song itself is frustratingly terrible. It's about shooting somebody who's running away from you, apparently, and while there's probably a good reason for that, I don't care. It doesn't sound like they care what they're singing about either. Even the production is full of torpor, like they were whistling to themselves one day and decided to quick record it before getting a good night's sleep on that decision.




"My Last" by Big Sean feat. Chris Brown: If the Auto-Tune wasn't so aggressive and/or the lyrics weren't so excessively discomforting this would have likely taken Foster the People's spot in the spectrum. Underneath both of these factors is a decidedly free-flowing and almost modest-sounding anthem. Perhaps it's because it's playing against four songs that feel so cookie cutter (even when that works) that when someone takes the laid-back ethic of "Roll Up" by Wiz Khalifa or "Whatever it Takes" by T.I. but ratchets up the life-or-death histrionics even further, it somehow feels like a liberating swan song for the ages in comparison. It's really too bad that the soaring beats get too often interrupted by hyperbole about alcohol that sounds exactly like it's coming from an alcoholic rather than a morose partier, or at least some combination of the two.




"You and I" by Lady Gaga: Blogulator friend and commenter Molly had me watch this video before the song started getting played incessantly here in Minneapolis and she introduced it by telling me that this was her "country song." Immediately I knew I was in trouble. At first I thought I could handle her bombastic take on the most generic characteristics of modern pop country that she infused into her now by-the-numbers mix of weird The Cell-esque visuals and driving accessible diva pop, but then that awful booming distorted guitar came in, and alongside the "woo hoo" flourish no less, and I immediately made a face that resembled a leaner Jabba the Hut having bad gas. And as she gets more and more "wild" throughout the song/video, making way for her Joe Calderone persona, I suddenly had flashbacks to Chris Gaines, the big Aerosmith ballads of the mid-90s, and I just wanted to do anything but give in to Gaga's latest shock tactic - tackling genre-specific pop music in the most egregious way possible.




"Stereo Hearts" by Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine: For some reason my brain likes to think of 90s acts like Scapegoat Wax, Citizen King, and Bloodhound Gang whenever I hear this strange concoction of "rapping" and neon-colored bile. It automatically puts the melodies at a disadvantage, which have the odd ability of ingraining themselves into my inner jukebox for exactly the duration of the song (no more, no less), because I'm tricked into thinking I'm once again 15 years old and unable to tell the different between an ADHD-fueled love song that happens to have rhythmic verse-spitting and something that is legitimately unique, interesting, and vibrant. Luckily the trick only happens while the song is playing and for the purposes of this feature I can just press pause and exit the window rather than get stricken with horror while in the car when it comes blaring on.

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Turns Out Mainstream Pop is Terrible Again

Ugh. I knew things were going too well for too long in Top 40 land. I mean it was only July and I already had a solid Top 10 Top 40 Singles of 2010 list going in Excel (don't judge). Then August came along and reminded me why I went almost a decade trying to avoid mainstream pop music. Maybe this is for the best, though. Perhaps I needed to, before the school year begins, have my summertime fun deflated by the lack of genuinely enjoyable vacuous pop melody, so as to mentally prepare me for not having weekdays off anymore. Plus, if I really needed it I could go back to earlier 2010 jams to get my fix, such as Avril's "What the Hell" or Jessie J's "Price Tag". It also doesn't help that I've been YouTubing 80s Billboard hits searching for the perfect cover song opportunity for the new band (featuring two other Blogulator contributors - shameless promotion alert!). Man everything was better in the past. Anyway, here's Today's Top 40 Spectrum, ranked from most tolerable to least tolerable for the month of August...


"She Ain't You" by Chris Brown: You know the pickings are slim when Chris Brown is at the top of the spectrum. In truth, however, take away the AutoTune trills, the periodic Euro-synth bursts, and Brown's destructive personality and you have a pretty nice 90s throwback R&B song. In fact, if it didn't have that undercurrent of Brown's generic yet somehow signature sound, I might actually say it's a great song. Part of the problem, unfortunately, is that it's pretty limp because Brown either cannot or chooses not to out of laziness to really bring the house down during the chorus. The melodic potential is there, and the groove almost gets going a number of times, but the AutoTuning shows he's more determined to coast and detract from any possible real emotion baring. Too bad. I, along with half the world, am still waiting for the next generation's D'Angelo.


"Don't Wanna Go Home" by Jason Derulo: You may recall that this young man's past singles from his 2010 debut album were always top-of-the-spectrum contenders. The Imogen Heap-sampled "Whatcha Say" was cheesy, but incredibly effective. "In My Head" was a near-perfect upbeat love anthem. And "Ridin' Solo" was a furious rush-to-the-finish-line antithetical to the aforementioned, showing that the kid truly had some game. And now we have a second album on the horizon an equally obnoxious homage trifling a new first single. But while Imogen Heap was only canonized to The O.C. fans, Harry frakking Belafonte is a bit harder of a sell to the masses. And by masses, I mean people my age and older. The kids are probably eating it up. But oh how it ruins some good electroclash-tinged verses. This is the kind of riff that just does not belong in any other song besides the original because it's way too over saturated to become reinvented into something else. Sorry, Derulo, I hope the next one's better.


"Lighters" by Bad Meets Evil feat. Bruno Mars: The first time my wife Jerksica and I heard this song in the car we looked at each other in a lurid combination of fear, disgust, and bewilderment. And one of us actually maintains to this musty August morning that "Grenade" is one of, if not the best mainstream ballad of the year. To make it simple, upon first impression, it sounded like such a forced collaboration that it confused as much as it grabbed our attention. I get Mars with B.O.B. I even get Mars with Travie McCoy, even though I can't stand that crap. I could potentially even get behind Mars with just Royce da 5'9" (the less aggressive half of the new duo Bad Meets Evil), because while he's clearly got some anger issues, at least he doesn't grunt 90% of what he raps. Yes, if you haven't figured it out by now, Eminem is apparently supposed to complement Mars' piano-twinkle prissy chorus about raising cell phones loaded with the lighter app to the sky to show solidarity, or whatever. Sure at least the wordplay is entertaining to listen to, even if it doesn't say as much as they make it sound like they're trying to, but this is a three-way collaboration that is so obviously manufactured that it hurts to hear.


"I Wanna Go" by Britney Spears: There are two redeeming factors about this song. The first is the whistling, which I'm almost certain will start to become unfathomably annoying around the 22nd time I hear it. The second actually isn't in the song - it's in the video. At one point Britney's sexy superpowers are being deployed in a traffic jam in front of a movie theater, playing Crossroads 2: Cross Harder. I found that chuckle-worthy. Too bad that piece of clever callback self-deprecation is canceled out by the opening skit, in which during a press conference Spears makes a sorry attempt at replicating an expletive-laden line from the 1998 stoner comedy Half Baked, and the original actor responsible for it, Guillermo Diaz, gets a bit reaction shot. Between these two decade-old-or-more pop culture references, I can only posit that either Spears really is disconnected from the act of being a pop star in 2011 or she's trying to be tongue-in-cheek and regain the affection of those that were teens upon her first rise to fame. Either way, she still is churning out boring club banger after boring club banger nowadays.


"Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera: I originally heard this one when it was performed live on NBC's The Voice, which was one too many times already. I had hoped that perhaps the show and Adam Levine's career would finally take a nosedive because he was being overly haphazard about the amount and what kind of press he was doing for his band, going so far as letting Aguilera have a verse on a track with a titular Rolling Stones reference that's performed on a network second-rate singing competition show. There are just too many target markets packed into this sad attempt, yet? Apparently not, because it seems like the band formerly known as Kara's Flowers did right in throwing as many pieces of proverbial spaghetti at the wall as possible. It resulted a truly atrocious song with a terrible hooky refrain (again with the whistling, except it's used far too much here to be appealing, even if it's buried further in the mix than Britney's) that is one of the biggest insults to a legendary rock band that I don't even like that much. So there's your lesson, kids in garage bands that want to be pop stars someday: just do whatever. As long as it's a lot of it, actually far too much of it, you'll succeed.

Museum Review: Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA

Museums can be pop culture! Just ask the Experience Music Project in Seattle! Brigitte and I visited this fine museum when we traveled to the Emerald City last week, and boy did we have a good time. It was the most fun I've ever had at a museum, maybe ever. As it turns out, much fun and learning can be had at museums. In this (possibly one-time) new feature, I explore the plusses, the minuses, and the straight up weird, wild stuff about this particular museum, the Experience Music Project.

The Experience Music Project is located at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle, right by the sadly vacant-of-NBA-teams Key Arena. (RIP, Seattle SuperSonics. Screw you, Oklahoma City Thunder.) Although the Space Needle is not as great of a neighborhood as where Safeco Field and Qwest...er...CenturyLink Field are, the Space Needle area is interesting in its own charming way. (See: the really weird, creepy looking store with a giant skull for a sign.)

Entering the EMP, one immediately notices the giant video screen, dubbed the Sky Church, in the central hall. This four-story screen, however, differentiates itself from other museum screens in that it shows cool stuff like Beastie Boys videos instead of boring stuff like nature. There is another screen where you purchase tickets that was, at the time, showing videos by hip bands like Minus the Bear and The Decemberists. Immediately upon checking in, I realized that this was my kind of museum.

The main exhibit I was most excited about was the Nirvana exhibit. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nevermind (HOLY CRAP 20 YEARS WHAAAAAAAAAAT) and it did not disappoint. The exhibit is loaded with memorabilia from Nirvana's early years, props from shows on their megatours, and music booths sampling music from the Pacific Northwest, the underground rock scene in general, and a final booth featuring the records that were, in so many words, labeled as the "lame post-grunge" records that happen to be most of the CDs I currently own. (Sad.) Although I was saddened to hear the many teens asking their parents when they could leave (because they don't remember Nirvana, because they're freakin' young, and also we're freakin' old), this exhibit is curated gorgeously. It tells a story that actually educates when it could have gotten by just with the really cool Dave Grohl drumset. Well done, Nirvana exhibit.

Less impressive was the Avatar exhibit. Yes, the Avatar exhibit. As in, the 3-D movie / ride (I don't classify it as an actual movie, see) from James Cameron. Has its own exhibit. Showing things. From the movie / ride, Avatar. I was so perplexed by this exhibit that I said aloud to myself when I entered, "I'm not sure Avatar is worthy of its own exhibit." The friendly EMP staff responded to my musing with, "Yeah, I kinda agree." There it is, folks: the people working at the museum officially do not know why there is an Avatar exhibit. Perhaps most infuriating was the educational material about why the Na'vi race looks like the people who enter their bodies via Avatar technology. See, the reason they look similar is because they go inside their body and inhibit some of the same traits, so...wait a second...IT IS ALL MADE UP!!! Now, if the exhibit focused less on the size of a Na'vi person(?)'s head, since, y'know, Na'vi people are not real, and more about the actual making of the film, I would have been slightly more interested. Sadly (or, happily on the ironic level), this was not the case.

One other cool feature of the EMP were the Sound Booths. Interactive museum exhibits are totally my favorite, so I had a blast jamming in a sound booth with Brigitte and our friend Arun. No complaints there - I like to play with interactive museum exhibits. Fun times. There is also a Battlestar Galactica exhibit, which looked really cool and would have been even cooler if I have ever seen the show. (Yeah, seriously, I co-host a TV podcast and have yet to watch Battlestar. I know. I'll get to it, I promise.) And of course, there is the namesake exhibit, the Jimi Hendrix Experience exhibit that was pretty cool, too. That Jimi Hendrix fella sure has skinny legs. Which reminds me of a funny story Brigitte relayed to me about her dad, frequent Blogulator commenter Papa Thor:

Brigitte: "Jimi Hendrix is arguably the greatest guitar player of all time."

Papa Thor: "Arguably? ARGUABLY? What's arguable about it? He IS the greatest guitar player of all time!"

Overall, this was, in all honesty, a very fun and, at times, very effectively educational museum. If you are ever in the Seattle area, I highly recommend budgeting a few hours at the Experience Music Project.

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Silly, Slutty, and Sleepy

Beware: every song below is ridiculously catchy. Not that I would usually have to tell you this when writing about Top 40 jams, but there's almost a danger to the amount of catchiness in this month's five chosen ones for the spectrum, in which we rank, from most to least tolerable, the current pop hitz (as determined by the local radio conglomerate KDWB). To give you a better idea of how serious I am, consider the fact that the latest Katy Perry is arguably the least earwormy of the bunch. Yeah, it's getting bad out there, folks. And by bad, I mean sometimes annoying but mostly a grand ol' time for us gloss-pop fanatics. Tread on with me below, dear readers, if you should be so brave...


"Best Love Song" by T-Pain feat. Chris Brown: I don't care how much Auto-Tune there is. I don't care that Chris Brown is on the guest verse. I don't care that it's been hovering pretty low on the charts and has yet to (and might not ever) be as big as when T-Pain first started the robot/candy throat noise craze. I am so head over in heels with this banger it's almost sick. Man how I wish they played it every hour on the hour like they do with that awful Pitbull song. There's so much pure joy and computer finesse put into this manufactured gem that it ends up sounding as uncontrollably bombastic as the lyrics and video (which is awesome, by the way) narrative portend. To imagine "a whole stadium in love" sounds idiotic on paper, but here it's damn prophetic. Plus it's hilarious that the whole song's about writing the best love song ever, so the narcissism is dripping through the speakers as we never actually get a love song - just a tortured ego struggling with an impossible feat for three-and-a-half minutes before he gives up and just starts yelling "yeah" and "ayyy" over and over again until it finally ends.


"Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj: The divisive female MC that possibly doesn't even deserve that title (because she ends up singing more than she raps and her image is concocted and controlled by male record execs blah blah blah) now has this as her most successful single where it's just her and not some coattails-riding collab. And you know what? With a few exceptions involving her usual crimes (sexually charged shock value rhetoric) in the lyrics, it's pretty hard to deny how much this song explodes with ebullience. One could argue it's a bit much at times, especially in conjunction with the neon color scheme in her video (which, if you're going to be sex-crazed, it's good to at least make it egalitarian and get some topless silent guys in an attempt to challenge the stereotype for rap videos), but I am a fiend for crowded pop noise. And she even for some reason decides to call attention to it in the chorus and title of the song, once again making the silly link between being proud of one's music versus using it as a means to display affection. Also, I still like the funny voices she makes during her verses.


"Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" by Katy Perry: Every time an artist ends up sputtering out a fifth single off the same record that seems like it came out ages ago (in this case, 2010's Teenage Dream) I think about when Bush put out "Comedown" as its fifth single in 1995. I love(d) that song and even I thought it was overkill. And yet it still happens, despite my passionate sixth grade request for it to stop. If every song's a single, then where are the deep cuts? Case in point: the kinda-bland, kinda-fun, and super-annoying new one from the star of The Smurfs. It's definitely her least unique and most cookie cutter hit yet, but since it utilizes a popular idiom and talks about partying with a pleasant melody (it's almost catchy simply because it sounds so generic and recycled from past cheesy novelty songs) it has become massive and will likely continue to dominate the summer airwaves. Elements of the video, while gimmicky, are redeeming, however. I like that Hanson is her backing band and that Rebecca Black is the girl next door. I think Corey Feldman and Debbie Gibson as the parents and Kenny G as Uncle Kenny was a bit much, though, despite my love for saxophone solos.


"Good Life" by Onerepublic: On the one hand I want to give this song a lot more credit because the lead singer was a guest judge on my favorite reality show of the summer, Bravo's Platinum Hit (in which whiny people compete to be the next pop industry songwriter), and he completely destroyed all of the terrible contestants' egos. And I'm an apologist for their hits "Apologize" (see what I did there?) and "All the Right Moves", but this latest one, which might turn out to be their biggest success yet, is like neutered Matchbox Twenty or Vertical Horizon, if that's possible. The drummer continues to be the band's only truly interesting aspect, but at least in the past he helped bring out the slinky R&B in their otherwise traditional pop-rock sound. Here's he's just having minimal fun with tone and the hi-hat. And that damn whistling is the worst. Also, I know pop radio is the land of overused song titles, but seriously, people have to learn that Weezer co-opted this phrase once and for in the late 90s and then it was off limits.


"You Make Me Feel..." by Cobra Starship feat. Sabi: I'm not sure what it says about me that last year these idiots were at the top of my Top 40 faves with "Good Girls Go Bad" but now that they replace Leighton Meester with someone that can actually sing I couldn't care less. I like to think that's it's all about the melody, and while this isn't the most obnoxious one of the bunch (see above), it's certainly the most forgettable, which is ironic because it can be dreadfully stuck in your head for hours after hearing it just once. But it gets stuck in your head in the way that after it finally leaves your brain you'll tell someone how you're so glad it's not in your head anymore and they'll ask you how it goes, and then you'll have no idea how to sing/hum it to them. Granted this is probably a good thing, but it's like it has a self-destruct mode on its catchiness, which is not helpful if you're trying to get people to avoid it. And its video is a total rip-off of an actual great music video featuring photobooths and confessions! The main dude looks totally awkward the whole time too. Maybe that's just cuz I know him better from this band.

Smarmy Sam: A Plea to Lady Gaga

I’m post-Gaga.

There, I’ve said it. And this is a pretty big moment given that “Telephone” was my favorite song for about 6 months (“She’s so right! It is to hard to text someone with a drink in your hand-eh!”), right after “Paparazzi” was my favorite song for 6 months. But let’s face it: most of Lady Gaga’s new album, Born This Way, is downright boring. And, as a disappointed fan, Sam is pretty smarmy about it.

I was talking to a friend recently about Lady Gaga’s most recent musical endeavors, and said friend pointed out, “Nothing will ever compare to the way I felt when I watched the music video for ‘Bad Romance’. No matter how weird Lady Gaga gets, she will never be as unexpected as she was during that music video.” And she’s totally right. In the beginning with Lady Gaga, one never knew what to expect: Remember the bizarre tele-drama that was “Paparazzi”? Remember the novelty of the phrase “disco stick”? Remember how people thought she was so weird that she had to be hermaphroditic? Remember how “Bad Romance” was basically an Alexander-McQueen-induced psychotic break? And remember how she broke it all down and turned “Poker Face” into a dramatic piano ballad? She never turned off the Gaga and became Stephanie Whatever-her-name-is (even, to her critics’ derision, at her own sister’s graduation); she was always a pastiche of modern music culture, an amalgamation of high fashion, base sexploitation, and lyrical nothingness disguised by a brilliant dance beat. What was great about Lady Gaga was that you could just claim the haters didn’t understand her, couldn’t grasp that she was criticizing post-modern consumerism by become its most perfect product, offering absolutely no substance behind a shiny spectacle.

And as much as Gaga likes to avoid adding substance to form, the only way that works is if her songs are painfully catchy and weird. And the issue with this whole new album is that only a minority of the songs are catchy and absolutely none are weird, because her attempts at strangeness completely miss the mark. “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)”, for example, is about—you guessed it!—a unicorn that leads a woman on the road to love. And Smarmy Sam just wants to sit The Gaga down and say, “Yes, I know, Gaga, that you think the only thing better than a unicorn is a gay unicorn, but here’s the thing: Ke$ha already released a music video with unicorns, and it featured James Van der Beek, who’s, like, the gayest unicorn. The also shot rainbow ray guns at each other. So let’s call that one a loss and find something else, shall we?”

I’m not even going to talk about the fact that she ate David Letterman’s cue card. Gross.

But Smarmy Sam will be honest with you here: at first, I was really disappointed with the boringness of the album more so than the cheap irony of it. “Edge of Glory” is just so un-Gaga, you know? It’s about a one-night stand, yes, and it makes some peculiar metaphors, sure, but the chorus is weirdly uplifting and decidedly accessible. Same thing goes with “Born This Way” (the song). Suddenly there is meaning behind her music? She now sings on behalf of something she believed in? But when the songs that were intentionally bizarre (“Judas”, the aforementioned “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)”) felt like vapid echoes of her former strangeness, I realized that Lady Gaga had become unable to out-weird herself. Now that her audience expects the unexpected, is constantly waiting for her next bizarre outfit, meaningless song, melodramatic music video, then her weirdness just becomes normal and downright passé. So it isn’t the mainstream, more accessible songs that make this album boring; it’s the ones that try, unsuccessfully, to capture the strangeness and unexpectedness that defined Fame Monster. “Edge of Glory” is a fun pop song, worthy of a place on a summer playlist. “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” was over before it even started.

So I guess what I’m saying is this: In a world where everyone (Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Britney, even J Lo) is trying to become more like Gaga, I think it’s time for the Lady herself to join me in being post-Gaga. Let’s dispense with some of the weirdness, and let the music speak for itself. The more mainstream singles are the ones that seem fresh, and trying to reach a new level of absurdity has fallen short. Lady Gaga made her name on the bizarre, but she is in no way dependent on it; she’s a talented entertainer with a real knack for the catchy. She could be the next Madonna, but, if she gets real now, maybe without the awkward sex phase.

So join Smarmy Sam in being Post-Gaga, Lady Gaga. Being so strange all the time has got to be exhausting. And it’d be cool if you didn’t burn out after two albums.

Today's Top 40 Spectrum: Chillin' in the Summertime

This is very odd for the first official month of summer, especially when there are only two more 30-day calendar blocks after this one for the big sweaty jams to drop. Only one of the five traxx discussed below (ranked from enjoyable to detestable) actually hits with any kind of modern party vibe, and funnily enough, it's the worst one of the bunch. Granted, it's also the most popular of the five, but overall I think we're starting to see a change in the landscape of the summer anthem, if the majority is of any indication. The rest sound downright cool (ice-chipping drums, windy synths, and frosty saxophones all come into play at some point) in comparison to the average sing-along barnstormer of years past, and I'm digging it, even if the metaphor is a bit on the nose with 90+ degree heat plaguing the Twin Cities as of late. So press the power button on your cool blasterz (that's Tom Haverford talk for "A/C") and enjoy some chill vids and bangers...


"The Show Goes On" by Lupe Fiasco: There's a lot of hullabaloo with the indie crowd that obsessed over Lupe's mentor's latest record, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, about how terrible and corporate-label-infected the "Kick, Push" auteur's latest full-length Lasers is, but I like it just fine. I mean in comparison to all else, it's probably still going to be the best mainstream hip hop record of the year. He's still an insightful and layered lyricist, even when his beats come out as sterile and the novel-like coherence of The Cool dissipates into a bunch of songs about seemingly random topics. In particular, just as a single, this icy number does quite a lot to impress and hypnotize. One might credit its rather oblique Modest Mouse sample as to why, but I'd argue that it's actually one of the most clever and twisted (see what I did there?) sample uses on the radio right now, as it clearly evokes it, but doesn't ever go so far as to mimic it or ride its coattails. Lupe's forward-thinking message and scattered drums take over the whiny survival tale Isaac Brock sang to us back in the mid-aughts, and we're all a little bit cooler (see what I did THERE?) to sit back and admire the show.


"Roll Up" by Wiz Khalifa: I really never thought I'd like this guy. And while the slightly Autotuned and song-ruining repetitive bridge almost made me flip my opinion (the airiness of the song doesn't really grab you like you'd expect until the second or third listen), the video really changed my mind, if only because of that lens-flare vertical wipe that reveals the skinny stoner's infectious smile every 90 seconds or so throughout. There's also plenty else going on in the speakers that make up for his last abrasive single about his hometown and two colors which shall not be named so I don't get that unwanted melody in my head. For instance, listen to that breezy keyboard as it floats through so happily and carefree in the back, just like Khalifa's ego, which you won't even notice unless you read the lyrics rather than let him sing/talk them to you, with the charismatic way he rhymes "boring" with "morning" or silkily impresses upon the object of his affection's ears that no matter what he'll always be there (with status symbol auto in tow of course, but still, he's praising romantic commitment and loyalty, which is unfortunately rare nowadays in hip hop), and despite its old world triteness, it rings true. Also, once again I must emphasize - how could such a weird looking sketchy pothead have such a great smile?!


"The Edge of Glory" by Lady Gaga: This is the last of the good songs on this month's spectrum. I just wanted to make that clear because if you haven't been keeping track over time, I have a love/hate relationship with Gaga that in recent months imploded into an apathetic/grumbly relationship. But all that has changed with her latest single...I think. The last and only time I believe I genuinely liked the Gagster was "Telephone" and even then I had many issues with the insanity of her video, which was so absurdist that it likely was the tipping point for her being the butt of jokes for infinity. And as much as I like to keep things interesting in Top 40, she was only being absurdist visually, not sonically as well, which was obnoxious. But here she's taken the cake. It may sound like it's only a tick below the boringness of "Alejandro" but give it a close listen and you may fall head over heels like I did. The most obvious factor may be the E-Street Band's late saxophonist Clarence Clemons showing up seemingly out of the blue, which may seem laughable at first, but if you've been waiting for Rob Lowe's awesomeness in St. Elmo's Fire to come back into the mainstream fold, well this is your ticket. The song is blustery and fiery, and honestly more truthful and less of a marketing ploy than any single since "Bad Romance", even as it's way calm like the city streets she dances on by her lonesome. Then again, I might find some little thing about it that will annoy me (like the way she sings the word "edge" over and over like she's exerting herself too much) that may bring back the hate.


"Tonight Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae: According to Wikipedia (one of my favorite ways to start a sentence), the nonsensical band name stems from "a MySpace stalker" that was allegedly the group's "first dedicated fan", which is fun and basically epitomizes everything about Hot Chelle Rae that would make one want to stay away from them. Not only did they add the word "hot" to her online pseudonym, but they are the kind of guys who confuse the words "stalker" and "fan" so easily that it could lead to stardom, death, or both. Now we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. But damn if this isn't a tragic kind of earworm that despite its Maroon 5-esque clean pop take on the bastardization of emo (can you bastardize a bastardization? I guess so) and its lifting of one of the best pop singles (and music videos) of the 90s, I find myself at least engaged in its melody, unlike the tripe you find below this entry. Now, we could spend all day talking about their forced namedrop of Zach Galifianakis (read the Rolling Stone cover story to figure out why despite The Hangover Part II this should still feel wrong) or how the drummer and guitarist look like they barely know how to play their instruments, or how the singer yells out "even the white kids" in the final chorus in a bizarre twist of WTFness, but that would keep us from bopping our heads ever so lightly to the beat.


"Give Me Everything" by Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack, & Nayer: This song and video is so bland that it's really worrying me how much I'm finding little things to nitpick and get annoyed at. Then again, there's nothing really to listen to and/or look at, so this is likely why I'm resorting to petty insults. So let's get started. First off, his attention-grabbing couplet rhymes "Kodak" with "Kodak" which is always fun. He gets to promote a commercial product and be lazy all at once, but still have a #1 single in the country. Good for him. Then there's this mysterious person "Afrojack" who is listed in nearly every YouTube entry, radio station playlist, etc. and yet he/she's nowhere to be found in the song, including Pitbull's intro of the song in which he says "Pitbull, Nayer, Ne-Yo, let's go" (a slightly more sophisticated rhyme scheme by the way) but does not mention any particular jack of afros. Confusing. Lastly, regardless of Afrojack's apparent absence (is he the DJ? we'll never know), I am officially sick of watching singers/rappers do nothing while other singers/rapper spew nonsense lyrics. If you're going to lack meaning in your song, fine, but I am done with these jam-packed "featuring" collabs in which talented men like Ne-Yo just stand there for the majority of the runtime just nodding his head waiting to sing his one line during the chorus a few times in a row. Pitbull, you need to be put down. Also, what's up with that aspect ratio?