After missing another week (sorry about that), I decided to take the easy way out, and stick to my favorite recent debuts. My Top 40 Radio bent has always led me to crave the absolute latest new singles over that tired boring old stuff I was listening to last month... last week... yesterday. And then I get frustrated when radio - especially New York radio - is too cautious to play the new stuff every hour on the hour, instead of that already overplayed stuff from Jay Z. (No, seriously... I like the Jay Z/Alicia Keys thing about New York well enough... but come on.) So, for now - right now - these are the pieces of the latest ear candy in the box to get my attention. More, more, more... please.
- Justin Bieber, One Less Lonely Girl. Bieber's the latest - and the youngest - in a string of tween sensations, most of them appearing off the assembly line of Disney channel shows and films (Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, the High School Musical kids... I could go on). Bieber, who has yet to make the leap to a Disney series, managed instant success with "One Time", his first single. I couldn't stand that one, nor can I stand the other two that have shown up, pretty much one a week since mid October. But the pop machine is so determined to make Bieber a star... I was bound to be won over by something, and this is it. It helps that Bieber's vocals have been highly processed and layered over themselves - listening to him do this in an acoustic solo setting, you realize he tends to sing flat.
- Britney Spears, 3. I'm sure at soem point, the committee assembled to identify new ways for Britney to shock us will run out of ideas... but not yet. It's not that the song manages to work "threepeat" into the chorus, or sully Peter Paul and Mary as no one before; it's that damned catchy propulsive beat driving the thing. As I keep saying, the woman is on a roll. It may be a wrong, oversexed roll... but clearly it works for her.
- Leighton Meester featuring Robin Thicke, Somebody to Love. Meester's apperance with Cobra Starship on "Good Girls Go Bad" appears to be strategic - in her time off from Gossip Girl, Meester decided to try her hand at pop stardom, and so far... it's working. Meester's voice seems tailor made for the current vogue in electronica (which mostly means processing it beyond tin), and she sings with considerable energy. This is also a great gust star turn for Thicke, who could use the chance to show his range on something catchy and upbeat. Can she sustain a whole album? I don't know, but I'm curious to find out.
- John Mayer, Who Says. It's not that Mayer isn't, as so many point out, a complete dick; it's that his music does nothing, really, to hide his poseur qualities, but honestly revels in them. Who Says is probably the most lazy, self centered song imaginable, married to the sweetest, laid back, most tuneful folk melody around. And in that sense, it's at least refrshingly honest, harking back to that moment in his early thirties when Paul Simon could do almost anything... and still not be entirely likable. What can I say, I love singing along to the selfish musings of a lazy stoner.
- KeSha, Tik Tok. Yet another fun dance vibe. The song is light as air, and just about flawless. At least for another 5 minutes.
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