Posts tagged as Pop
Is This a Summer Without a Song of the Summer?
The song of the summer is easy to spot. You hear it in the softer-louder-softer of passing cars, dripping out of clothes stores, wafting up from block parties. It's inescapable. Think of last year's Katy Perry ode to boobs and hatefully nonstandard spelling, "California Gurls." (The Far*East Movement's "Like a G6" would have been the song of last summer, as it was released last April, but the single push didn't happen until late August, and it rode the charts high all through October and November.) Remember Beyonce and Jay-Z's domination of 2004 with their declaration of car-exploding mutual adoration, "Crazy In Love"? And there's the recent mother of them all, Alicia Keys' and Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind"—it was basically impossible to step out of a door and not be assaulted with that weirdness throughout the sweltering parts of 2009. READ MORE
Kanye West With Justin Bieber and Raekwon, "Runaway Love (Remix);" Kanye West With Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver, "Monster"
The busy, busy Kanye West took a pretty simple approach to his much-hyped bringing together of teeny-bopper Justin Bieber and the Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon: he basically recorded Rae and himself rapping over the grimy finger-snap beat from the 1993's "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit" (funny that, when Rae was so careful to write lyrics appropriate for his 16-year-old co-star), and laid clips of Bieber's vocal track overtop for the chorus. But in the way that shows how simple is so often best, it sounds pretty great. It definitely has the feel of the mid-'90s heyday of hip-hop/R&B mashups. You could almost imagine hearing it between Method Man and Mary J. Blige's "All I Need" and Mariah's "Fantasy" remix with O.D.B. at the Tunnel. And at least from the first few listens, I prefer it to this other Kanye track that came out over the weekend, "Monster," featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver. READ MORE
Beyonce Needs a Giant Sequined Cummerbund That Says "G.M.O.S."
Rap Radar points us to this youtube clip of Beyonce performing "Crazy In Love" at a recent concert in Singapore. It's amazing to watch someone so on top of her game. Her relationship with the song-which is already a generation-defining standard-and her horns, and her drums, and her guitarist, and her back-up singers and dancers, and the lighting, and the wind-machine and the audience: she has every element on lock. READ MORE
