alternate ways beyonce could have launched a solo career instead of that retrofunk austin powers shit (the video is really good though!)

- upbeat 'dirty pop' (and what happened to the dirty pop revolution anyway??), vaguely-electro anthem produced by dance lamer (bt, spiller, timo maas??) who would come up with the goods anyway cuz matthew knowles would be in the studio stomping on all excess breakdown bits and fashioning it into pop gold; would sound like an empowering disco-diva take on jordan knight's "give it to you".

- shocking promo-only (and somewhat out-of-date) brandy + monica dis track, using the beat from "oh boy".

- six minute power ballad-but-not-really featuring heavy use of mutt lange's digital guitar preset and those drums from the first track off the eminem show; unbelievable vocal performance, very long verses, lyrics would use the cunning formula behind all great songs: first verse - indulgent self-pity; second verse - misguided self-belief; third verse - towering self-righteousness!

- bubblegum nu-soul in the style of "got till its gone" or "oops (oh my)"; beyonce wears understated turtleneck jumper in the video and ties her hair back (shocker!); sleazier than its meant to be due to occasional liquid guitar sessiony muso shit; outro erupts into proper spaz-r'n'b like it was 1999 all over again, yeah!

- over-produced kitchen-sink latin stomper; inexplicable spoken-word intro features beyonce claiming she recorded this tune "to set the record straight over all the rumours saying i'm black"; would prove strangely disappointing after several listens.

space cowboy - "i would die 4 u"
not as harsh as i thought it was when it woke me up this morning. in my half-awake bleariness it was very very odd - a scary wall of noise, fairly impenetrable for the breakfast show. the vocals are reeeeeally low in the mix; the production is the next level of highly compressed nu-disco extreme perspective-fucking. i've got used to it after listening a few times but i still can't concentrate while it's playing - this is a good thing for a while, but i wish the vocal was stronger or more cathartic; i want it to sound like its fighting for space with this infernal noise. it was way better this morning when i was confused and it sounded so all-encompassing, so i might stick to that beautiful memory and never listen to this song again!

the pink album is fucking dreary!

issues:
red hot chili peppers - "by the way"
this 'we can have contemplative emotional bits as well anthemic choruses and hard rocking stomp bits and fit it all in the same song to appeal to every pleasure zone' madness will kill us all! (see also: nickelfuck)
pink - "don't let me get me"
a better trend: totally unrocking digital rock! (see also: a good half of the no doubt album; "escape" by enrique.) i don't know why this is a good thing but i like the sound of it. (looking at pink's album credits on cdnow it seems she has put together the greatest team in the history of music! no really, check it: linda perry - bass, fender rhodes, guitar, synthesizer, drum programming; richie sambora - guitar; scratch - beatbox; dallas austin - arranger, producer; scott storch - producer. i'm downloading the rest of the record now, it had better be good.)

jennifer lopez feat nas - "i'm gonna be alright"
it's the "i got five on it" bassline! which should have been resurrected before but i don't think it has been. nas always sounds out of place when he guests on r'n'b tunes, always sounds ill at ease on beats that arent like the grime-hop shit from illmatic, but sometimes that awkardness can be nice - or i just like when rappers try to make their guest verses fit the narrative of the song. this is kind of ambiguous, i'm not sure if j-lo is angry at nas because he is a criminal or he's cheating or something even more sinister(as suggested by "mysterious tragedy" synths)! muddying the issue is another version of this mix which features 50 cent (the dude who made his name dissing pop-rap on "how to rob"!). where does he fit in with this story?? i can't work it out.

j-lo's voice is a bit different on every song - i suspect she is a genuinely terrible singer, but it could be she just follows the guide vocal too closely, like on "play" when she phrased everything like christina milian (who just happened to write the song!), and on the murder inc remixes it might as well be ashanti singing. she is also by quite a distance the worst dancer i have seen on mtv in a while. but since she releases so many singles and follows the codes of 2002 r'n'b so closely, slotting in politely to whatever's going on, her lameness has become endearing - i probably won't ever expect much from her songs, but that means they can pleasantly sneak up on me like "its gonna be alright" and "i'm real" have done. and so it follows that they're a good yardstick for the current quality of songwriting and arranging (even the quality of guest rappers!) in pop since j-lo fails to exert any individuality on her tunes. but j-lo you're ok by me! now i actually want to buy that remix record and ruin it all.

my mistake, it is 1998, fucking fuck. the number one manages to incorporate elements of big beat and laddish swinger-cool; number two and number four are like pre-discovery french disco-house tunes; ok, number three... is an epic shotgun-ballad that, to be fair, doesn't really fit in for any year in recent memory. chad and josey the comedy fat man/thin man combo is pretty cool though. "love at first sight" builds quite nicely to a swirly glitter climax but then it very abruptly ends! or maybe it only seems like it's building to a climax because the vocal is kind of weak (oh, more 98 proof, kylie is wearing combats in the video!).

listening to sophie ellis bextor reignites my bitterness over the great "groovejet" vs "out of your mind" chart war (what were you all thinking??) and so i find it impossible to judge her current output. on a different note, the very-2002 "rollout" is a key track in jack cable's ellaborate timbaland-hasn't-been-good-since-1996 theory - i think he has a point, this just doesn't work like it should and it definitely isn't any fun to dance to. it also reveals the inevitably less likeable third dimension of ludacris' jokey persona - whiny self-righteousness, great!

i don't want to talk about "the logical song" for mysterious personal reasons.

mysteries of the radio one playlist

papa roach? on the a list? waking me up every morning? this is insane because
a) the roach are rejecting the hyper production techniques that totally disconnect nu metal from the natural sound of a band playing in a room, distorting your aural perspective and sometimes making you queasy and giddy - this is some of what i like about nu metal, why are they taking it away from me?! (the radio one broadcast expensive compression box also helps to make the percieved distance in songs very odd - i can't get enough of it.)
b) the dude is no longer called coby dick
c) that is a weak, weak excuse for a chorus. (to be fair this could be levelled at most of the a list... notable exceptions: "hella good", "love at first sight", "don't let me get me", "what's luv"... "blurry has a strong chorus even if it is odious.)

but fuck, i'd still rather hear it than that terrible elvis remix. this isn't 1998!

beyonce knowles - "work it out"

(neptunes love/hate saga continues, sorry!)

beyonce can be all three members of en vogue at the same time! which is cool, but this should have been sung/rapped by mystikal, as he's the only person who can enliven dry-funk nep-beats like this (i'm only even assuming it's them - if it isnt then my fears about their growing influence are justified); with a competent or even talented singer it just shows up the inherent conservatism at work. all recent progressions of actual substance in r'n'b (interesting and moving narrative, hyper-detailed lyrics, risk-taking sound collisions, unique mood that no other genre could even touch - i'm not saying these things didn't exist before the boom years though!) are scrubbed away till there's just the memory of how fresh "superthug" or "caught out there" sounded a few years back when all this wasn't so familiar. the texture remains but there's just nothing to get excited about; nothing that compels me to keep listening to the radio in case it's played again.

i don't consider innovation or progression much usually (maybe because there's been such an embarrassment of it in r'n'b and hiphop over the past few years, or maybe because i don't really care) but the neptunes are sounding increasingly like a staid reaction to all the fun one-upmanship of the other super-producers, the ones who are still coming up with new ways to make me dance and keep me interested. i promise that's the last i'll say on the matter!

cam'ron ft beanie sigel + memphis bleek - "welcome to the extravaganza" (or it might be officially called "the roc")
best intimidation-rap track of the year. no chorus, so you focus completely on the cadence of the rappers. their rhymes aren't classic or anything but they just attack the beat so nicely it makes me shudder. kind of like the way jay-z and biggie take on the beat on "brooklyn's finest", or jadakiss on "we gon' make it" - in fact this has a similar end-of-tether soul loop for them to sound desperate and threatening over. cam'ron's voice has gained character, seriously you have to hear him on this line to believe it: "all y'all think it's peace and peachy/i leave you reesy piecy, all my bitches rock/christian dior, bcbg/'round phony niggaz get the heeby jeebies/hungry hoes say "killa feed me feed me..."/calm down ma, easy easy". he has found the secret of swaggering convincingly!

and jermaine dupri said:

"dr. dre motherfucker come on/see i know you don't do half the work in the studio"

nobody gives a fuck. dre is a brand, a seal of quality; i don't care that he stole "the next episode" from some undie no-marks (ok, the original wasn't that bad but it didn't have nate dogg on it!), i don't care if scott storch did all the beats on 2001; dre is there to round up others' ideas and turn them into gold. jd might want to pretend he didn't do half the work on that hiphop mix of "what's going on". however:

"plus you like letting niggas play with your booty hole"

this is exactly the kind of artless genius we all love jd for.

"who gives a fuck about a timbaland and dre?"

dude is pushing his luck!

"ya so stick this in your ass for a minute"

hee hee. end battle. but no! xzibit has already hit back, christening jd the leprechaun and papa smurf and comparing him to the girl in the r kelly sex video (?!). xzibit should only ever do dis tracks because of his silly wrestler's voice.

gonzales - "the joy of thinking"
the beats on gonzales' new record reference commercial rap, but his take on it is more cartoonish, more fallible in contrast to radio slickness (trying to convince us not to dance to it?!), still clearly affectionate (bit like the streets relationship to proper ukg maybe). generally this works well until he opens his stupid mouth - since the entertainist (where he proved himself a rapper of note) he has apparently not bothered to come up with a single decent verse so the record is full of half-arsed hooks, crappy cabaret shit sung by himself and others, and some nice instrumental bits.

"the joy of thinking" is one of the half-arsed hook songs, but luckily its a really good hook ("you need to rediscover the joy of thinking")! and its co-sung by peaches, who has a very pretty voice when not being disgusting. it makes me want to hear gonzales doing records with nivea or mya or someone, because he has some really good pop ideas that would make more sense without him cultivating this unlikeable, laboured persona over the top of them.

despite the fellini-like video for "light my fire", where will young and assorted boho friends frollic pool-side at a communal bath (?), i've still not paid proper attention to the song which currently straddles the charts; in fact it has just made me wonder what kind of audience he's looking for as he enters the second phase of his career, where the romantic narrative of pop idol is done; the one where he might have to put out a genuinely loveable tune for people to care (it ain't gonna happen)! there's been a lot of squandering of goodwill lately, what with atomic kitten releasing another lame rehash of "whole again" (still rocking that "bonita applebum" beat!) and ronan keating weeping into his new indie trousers (perhaps i was the only one who had any goodwill for him anyway - i mean how quickly has "life is a rollercoaster" been forgotten?!). but it's ok because it could mean an exciting changing of the pop guard!

only other new entry of note: "punk" by ferry corsten would appear to be the the first foray from excellent bubblegum dance label positiva into electroclashy sounds (i'm probably wrong), suggesting ruffer synth+vintage-drum-machine textures will become more common on the radio till all euro-dance tracks adapt and use it to their money-spinning advantage. it's still quite boring though.

dj otzi's "hey baby" (re-released for the world cup! cheers!) can be noted as an excuse to mention the outkast remix of the other "hey baby" (b-side to "hella good" - out now!), which is refreshingly like an early nineties heavy native tongues mix! its got the kind of drums (you know, like on "scenario") that even undie producers are afraid to revive, automatically making it daring and brilliant and giving gwen's intact vocal an unusual feel in the current neptunes/irv gotti-dominated climate. listen!

usher ft ludacris- "you don't have to call"
yet more neptunes. sometimes they can still pull lovely musical ideas into their pathologically narrow framework, and this is a good example: synth strings that twist beautifully around usher's usual mannered delivery; plus that hiccupy malfunction sound effect from "caught out there" recontextualized as something more poignant. the only thing i dislike is luda's weird new vocal style - he sounds like his own father!

proof that "hot in here" is lazy came when i heard "pass the corvousier" this morning. it has three choruses to nelly's one! (and a terrible one no less.)

and nelly's verse on "girlfriend" is better than his entire new single!

jesus!