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Worst Song Ever: Let Go. No Seriously, Let Go.

And now, a round of "it's just too easy":

Justin Bieber, Boyfriend. There's a rhythm track these days that just plucks my last nerve: it's this kind of very spare, very slow beat box, often accompanied by a high pitched whistle, and it's really popular with rappers, and I think it came from Timbaland and the only person I've heard use it effectively without killing me is Missy Elliott. And that, my friends, is the signature hook to "Boyfriend," the lead single from Justin Biber's "Now I'm a Grown Up" second album. Bieber's got a serious case of Timberlake envy (all Justins are a problem: discuss), and just as Timberlake pursued an awkward melange of blue eyed soul, rap beats and techno edginess until a world cried out "enough already and take sexy back where you left it!", Bieber is similarly poised to wear out his welcome, and fast. Tween girls will, no doubt, lap this stuff up with a spoon (through radio has been curiously slow to dive into it), but with the usual amount of stalker lyrics and PG 13 sexiness, Bieber's both dull and dishonest, rather than sly and sexy, traits I'm pretty sure he enturely lacks. It's hard trick, drifiting from pre-teen bubblegum to young adult serious pop stardom (Leif Garrett, anyone?) and even Timberlake has fled to film acting (where, sadly, I think he's probably going to fulfill his promise). Here's hoping Bieber gets acting lessons. Or a fresh approach to songwriting.

Fun, We Are Young (featuring Janelle Monae). A song with a chorus so annoying, I've literally turned away every time; except one, when I decided I had to listen all the way through, just to be sure about my sense that it is indeed a Worst Song. Nope... I was right all along. My only question is who thought the reasonably interesting, if downbeat, verses of the song ought to marry up to that inane, loud, chant-like chorus (and sub question: can anyone find Janelle Monae in this)? Dopey, meaningless, yet somehow perceived as deep, We Are Young makes actually being young sound far worse than it is, or was. And this, from a group named Fun?

Train, Drive By. For me, Train exists on this knife edge of pop kitsch: in their bombastic, middling way when they shoot for the moon they often get further than they rightfully should, and it really is pop magic (Drops of Jupiter, Calling All Angels, Hey Soul Sister, Marry Me). Too clever by half, the lyrics are often just short of treacle and musically, the band is workmanlike without necessarily being revelatory (the Glee arrangement of Hey Soul Sister for The Warblers actually imroves the song's dynamics, just as a f'rinstance). Drive By is a good example of how that all looks when it goes wrong: the lyrics are a mush of cheap sentiment and couplets that try too hard, while musically there's no payoff (it doesn't help that Patrick Monahan has a voice nearly as high as Adam Levine's, and is scraping the ceiling, much like Payphone). There's even less payoff in comparing love to a "drive by" - which usually refers to shootings, IIRC. All of which is a creepy reminder that Train tends to look daring singing about reinfocing social norms and standard expectations (Gee, Drive By seems to say, I hope you don't think I only screwed you once and walked away, cause that would make you look really bad). Still, I'm in a forgiving mood, and I suspect this was just a random misstep. So don't go proving me wrong, tramp.

Worst Song Ever: Out With The Old, Out With The New...

Something old, something new... I haven't heard a lot of terrible in a while, but when they do... jeepers.

Bryan Adams, Summer of '69. Lazy, lazy, lazy: never mind that Adams can't be the protagonist of the song (he was 10 in 1969), or the failure to evoke a decade as tumultuous as the sixties were, no, let's just wonder about "best days of my life," the line meant to imply this summer - remember, when his "band" broke up - was amazing because he met some girl and it just seemed to "last forever" when, of course, that girl's no longer in the picture and his rock aspirations amounted to even bigger, better things. Yes, the song, basically, is an insult to us al, dreamers or not, who fixate on our past as if it were golden, or reject holding onto the past because there's no point. Cynical, lazy and obvious, Summer of 69 is just corporate rock with little more than profit in mind. And no, I don't hate all Bryan Adams. What was really insulting about this song was that the same fairly sexy, smart songwriter who mixed pain and pleasure in "Cuts Like A Knife" (and showed up in one of MTV's most casually arresting videos) ultimately resorted to it. And no, I don't think "Canadian" is the perjorative for it.

Nicki Minaj, Starships. I freely admit, I don't entirely get Minaj or her success, but I don't entirely depise it: Super Bass has its charms (boom ba loom ba boom ba boom boom bass, indeed), and somebody should indeed know who the f*** I is. But that song came from Stargate, a production team recently profiled in The New Yorker's creative arts issue (I don't hate all New Yorkers, either, natch) along with this song's writer, Ester Dean. The article is especially deadly for the way it pulls back a Wizard of Oz-like curtain on the team's approach to songwriting, what they term "hhok plus hook plus hook" which appears to mean the layering on of easy catch phrases (going a long way to explaining a lot of their work with Rihanna, like the atrocious "S&M"). Starships, produced by another, Stargate-like team, is a good example of how the process can fail, all meaningless catchphrases loaded on top of one another until complete incoherence is achieved. It's not the song is lazy, overprocessed, or not undeniably catchy - it's all of these. It's the astonishing amount (obviously) of money, time and effort spent to put complete gibberish onto a digital hard drive as if it did, indeed, mean something. 

Maroon 5 (featuring Wiz Khalifa), Payphone. Let's be honest, it's hard being Maroon 5; hard being a band who zoomed to the top of the charts in about 1 and a half albums, rethinking Chic-era bass heavy disco beats as stylish, designer rock music for the upscale lounge set, and proving, on a string of hits (not to mention some pretty choice album filler), at least a dozen ways to reinvent that wheel.  That success is due, in no small part, to Adam Levine, possessed of one of the highest, most graceful tenors in pop, able to sound yearning, sweet and sublimely sad, often all at once (She Will Be Loved, for starters, Misery to follow). Levine's also an offbeat heartthrob, which explains his budding success as the latest thing in Reality show TV judging on The Voice. But, alas, success will spoil Rock Hunter: Levine is, more or less, phoning it in for this lazy Chris Brown viaTaio Cruzish, Usher-lite single, which can't even be bothered, lyrically, to either set itself in a past where payphones actually mattered, or somehow explain why the central image of a payphone even matters to the point of the song. Instantly forgettable, yet still featuring a vocal jump that borders, even for Levine, on screechy, Payphone is the first time I've felt like Maroon 5 is cashing the check rather than putting in the effort. And yes, Moves Like Jagger did kind of hint at this development, but even that, egregious Xtina notwithstanding, made up in verve what it lacked in panache. Levine may not have moves like Jagger, but his own style is sexy enough, most of the time. Here's hoping the album isn't a complete dud.

Worst Song Ever: Next Big Things

Or... Turn off the radio:

Adele, Rolling in the Deep. Every one to two years we get the "next big thing" out of England, often an appealing young woman (oh... say, Sade, or Duffy, or Amy Winehouse) with a soulful voice and a song about heartbreak. Some times they work out (I was just thinking... does Sade even have a worst song?) and sometimes they don't (though Winehouse could still get sober and pull it together), but I'm usually a sucker for it. Not so much with Adele, who just seems... well, strangely ersatz. She sure belts it really hard, but to what end? Rolling in the Deep is an especially miserable song - "We could have had it all"... there's an up thought - without much payoff and that "rich soulful voice" I hear so much about mostly sounds like braying on this sad single. Acquired taste? Perhaps. Just not the right song? Maybe. But for now, I think Adele as next big thing is more hype than fact.

Jennifer Lopez, On The Floor. Ah, yes, the new, kinder, gentler J-Lo, grizzled veteran of the music biz. I'm happy enough that Lopez has found something of a new niche on American Idol - where, true to form, she's mostly a pale copy of other, more interesting judges - but let's not take this too far. Recycling "The Lambada" (it took the gossips at PopBitch for me to realize why the thing seems instantly familiar) and doing yet another "let's get this party started on the dancefloor" type lyric is tired, tired, tired.... and that's before the tired recitation of international party destinations. Let's be clear: I don't hate all Lopez; go back and check out "On the 6" and see for yourself. But what seemed at first like a canny, effective deployment of limited singing strength (most notably in the hands of Darkchild, one of the greatest of session producers), has largely run it's course (and I'll even forgive "Jenny from the Block", which I thought charming as a record). Maybe someone can yet redeploy Lopez in some new and unfamiliar way... but she'll never be, say, Cher. Though she may hang around for a long time, insisting that longevity equals stardom. Not quite.

Blake Shelton, Honey Bee. Shelton is country's latest lunky heartthrob - and all you people who gave Billy Ray Cyrus even a few listens deserve to hang your heads in shame at what's happened since - with crossover appeal. What that appeal is... I can't say; I've committed to Brad Paisley. But Shelton seems to have sticking power, especially since he's Prom King to country's current female crossover darling Miranda Lambert (whose success I find so inexplicable, I can't even tell you which of her forgettable songs I'd call a Worst Song). I've grown especially weary of Shelton and Lambert making dual appearances on awards shows, singing their latest moony ballads to each other, googly eyed all the way. That, on top of the eternal cutes, Shelton is finding pop success with this especially cliched, hack-ish collection of dull metaphors ("you be my honeysuckle, I'll be your honey bee"... ick, ick, ick) just ices an already tasteless cake.  

Worst Song Ever: The Definite Article

Today, a few songs that shouldn't have tried to be definitive:

Bruno Mars, The Lazy Song. Lazy deserves better than this; though it's unfair to single out Mars, entirely, for a genre of songs in which young men celebrate indolence and upper middle class shallowness. Many of them are rap songs, you know, the ones about riding in the limo, popping the Cristalle, bottle service at the club, yada, yada. Mars, though, deserves to be singled out for a lazy song that can't even bother to make laziness seem appealing or fun. I'm also leery of of lines like "in this castle, I'm the fricking man" which, in these Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (i.e., Will and Kate) days, only underlines how far from royalty your eaverage American really is. Stupid, sloppy, and not nearly as fun as it imagines itself to be, The Lazy Song really only has appeal when one is, well, working. On days when I really don't feel like doing anything... and actually do it... I like my music to actually entertain me.

John Cougar Mellencamp, The Authority Song. Mellencamp has more than a few duds in his repetoire (I've shied away from "Pink Houses" all this time), but I was reminded how bad this particular tune is while flipping around my XM radio. And again, the chief complaint here is... this isn't much fun: "I fight authority, authority always wins." Really? Where's the fun in that? Pointless rebelliousness, always losing one's battles, isn't exactly a great argument for challenging the status quo. Mellencamp's delivery almost puts this over, though, like much of his midtempo work, it could use more instrumental bite (and sound less like Footloose) - musically it's not putting up much of a fight, another reason, perhaps, that he's always losing.

Simon & Garfunkel, The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy). Surely, Midtown Manhattan's vita bridge deserves better than this prime example of sixties hippy-dippy feel good foolishness. Instantly dated, it doesn't even have the subversive joy of suggesting that feeling grrovy might be a chemically induced high, No it's just loving life and sunshine and flowers. Even the small, gloppy, treacly part of my personality finds this teeth-grating, and it even breaks the flow of the otherwise exceptional S&G's Greatest Hits. No, really, tell me it doesn't.

Worst Song Ever: Explosive Edition

It's been a while... I think that the presence of XM Satellite radio in my life (or more precisely, in our car) has saved me from a lot of dreck (quick recommendation: avoid XM 23, the "Love" Channel, where it's always 1982, and not in a good way). But in the fast moving world of pop music... no one is ever safe, and there's always something to blow up... in your face.

Bruno Mars, Grenade. To be fair, Mars has been skating on the Worst Song edge all along - "Just the Way You Are" simmers with a kind of drippy treacle that's just too sticky sweet ("if perfect's what you're searching for, then just stay the same"). Grenade covers similar drippy territory - I love you so much; why won't you love me back - but it's just creepy and stalker-ish enough to make me change the channel. The real lesson - which led to this post - is that explosives make for terrible metaphors; in this case, "I'd catch a grenade for you, throw myself on a blade for you" is the kind of "love you til I die symbolism that makes, well, the nature of the demise all too clear: is the focus really on the depth of your love... or the image of your bloody corpse? And either way... ew.

Katy Perry, Firework. I've had Perry's album since it first came out - living the teenage dream, indeed - and initially this song's twinkly Pachenko videogame backdrop exceeded the slightly too self conscious empowerment message in the lyric. But then it got released as a single, and overplayed became part of the scenario (and met the Ground Rules)... and that was followed, today, by the pithy observation of J in B:

"Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth"

...um, one among hundreds, contributing to a single fleeting moment and a smidge of smoke residue?

Speak on, my truth-telling poet friend...

Taio Cruz, Dynamite. If there's a running theme to the Worst Songs, I've noticed that desperate calls for forced frivolity are a sure warning sign that there's a train wreck dead ahead. Cruz is one of several young black men - along with Usher and Chris Brown, just for starters - who have done a great job of getting men's voices back on the dance floor... but the crushing sameness of their songs, musically and lyrically, is beginning to overwhelm the fun. Cruz seemed more in his element with the slightly nasty "Break Your Heart" than he has since, and Dynomite especially suffers from lame lyrical dullness ("I told you once, now I tell you twice" and then literally repeating the same line... ugh). And here too, the explosives metaphor is weak: dynamite is a destructive force... so we're going to light up the night like it's a dangerous explosive... sounds less than ideal. Maybe some fireworks?

 

Anniversary Waltz: The Worst Songs, Ever

It seems like a fitting moment to draw together a bunch of posts that date back almost to the beginning. When I was sitting in a MacDonald's in Somerville, Mass, being assaulted, as one can only be in a fast food emporium, with bad Bryan Adams, I never intended for the thing to take on a life of its own. Over time, I've come to appreciate the effort, energy, and passion behind The Worst Song Ever. It's work, you suffer for it (and through it)... but that glimmer of recognition, the "yes, oh my God, do you hate that too?" moments of shared loathing... these are the things that connect us, bring us together. As only listening to the worst songs can. :)

To honor my third anniversary... the playlist so far. While we began with an idea of ranking them... that never quite happened (and I blame you - because you were supposed to vote, and you never did. Yes, I mean all of you). So, in lieu of actual rankings, we have them in random, but numbered, order. They're all bad. Why pick? 

And who knew we had so many?

To kick things off... let's add one more:

1. Boston, Amanda. I thought I already did. But as it turned out, I always promised, but never delivered. And there's just so much here - there's the soppiest of bad lyrics ("I'm gonna say it like a man, and make you understand... Amanda". Run, girl, run), there's the bad power rock Boston always represented... and then there's the fact that this was Boston reuniting and attempting a comeback... as if we'd ever missed them to begin with (and yes, I like "More Than A Feeling"... but it's hardly essential). Thanks to the reunion and a zealous record promotion department, Amanda came to stay on pop radio, and wouldn't leave... for months, and months. Thankfully, because Boston isn't taken too seriously, this no longer clogs up classic rock radio, and because Boston is too rock for today's soft pop stations... it tends to miss the mix "of the eighties, nineties... and today!" blather of Lite radio, too (remember... this is worst song ever... not worst Radio Station ever). Let's hope it stays in music purgatory... but it probably won't. And now... on with the countdown...
2. Starship, We Built This City. Of course.
3. Morris Albert, Feelings. Whoa, whoa, whoa... no seriously. Whoa.
4. Starship, Sara. "Storms are brewing in your eyes"... is that even physically possible?
5. Gerardo, Rico Suave. "I eat 'em raw, like sushi..." nuff said.
6. Justin Timberlake, Sexyback. Whether it left or not is not the issue. It's because the man who brought the sexy, you child, is Prince.
7. Madonna featuring Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. Four Minutes. And you can't bring sexy back to her, either.
8. Madonna, American Pie. The destruction of the best pop song, ever.
9. Beyonce, Deja Vu. Of a number of not tuneful, not songs she's managed to shake into the top ten, this one is especially incoherent.
10. Cascada, Evacuate The Dance Floor. Stop, this song is killing me.
11. Aaron Carter, Oh Aaron. Oh dear.
12. Plain White T's, Hey There Delilah. Run, baby, run. Don't ever look back.
13. Plain White T's. 1-2-3 (I Love You). Don't worry... be happy.
14. Feist, 1 2 3 4.
15. Nickelback, If Today Was Your Last Day. If only.
16. Gillian Welch, I Wanna Sing That Rock And Roll. Then, go.
17. Miley Cyrus, The Climb. There's always gonna be another ballad...
18. Kool and the Gang, Celebration. Shome On.
19. Wang Chung, Everybody Have Fun Tonight. For forced frivolity, not "everybody wang chung tonight."
20. Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling. Whoo-hoo.
21. Hall and Oates, Maneater. Sexism, in its pure form.
22. Kings of Leon, Use Somebody. ...rather than... assault somebody's ears.
    
23. Air Supply. Every Woman in the World. N'est ceci mi fantasie.
24. Aerosmith, Don't Want To Miss a Thing. Oh, but I do.
    
25. A Fine Frenzy, Almost Lover.
26. Laura Branigan, How Am I Supposed To Live Without You.
27. Feist, So Sorry.
28. Ray Parker, Jr., Gohstbusters.
29. Michael Jackson featuring Siedah Garrett, I Just Can't Stop Loving You. Try. Please.
30. Michael Damian, Rock On.
31. Rick Springfield, Don't Talk To Strangers. 
32. Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman. ... Really? Have You? Ever? Really Really?
33. Simple Minds, Don't You Forget About Me. Because it's my list, and I loathe it. And I'm not too keen on Breakfast Club, either.
34. Earth Wind and Fire, That's The Way of the World. Hearts of fire... create love desire... oh God, I'm going to be sick.
35. Michael Bolton, How Am I Supposed To Live Without You.
36. A Fine Frenzy, Near To You.
37. Neko Case, I Wish I Was The Moon.
38. Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight.
39. Bob Seger, We've Got Tonight. Let's make it end... let's find a way.
    
40. Neil Young, After The Gold Rush. And no, I don't hate all Neil Young... I'm sure there's something...
41. Def Leppard, Love Bites.
42. Calexico and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Just Like A Woman.
43. Toto, Rosanna.
44. Corinne Bailey Rae, Daydreamin'.
45. Diana Ross. I Will Survive. I was petrified, too.
46. Barbra Streisand. Woman in Love.
47. Mariah Carey, Obsessed.
48. Marcia Griffiths, Electric Boogie. A/K/A The Electric Slide.
49. Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton, We've Got Tonight.
50. Manheim Steamroller, Deck The Halls. A reminder that we probably need a Chrstmas special Worst Song List.
51. The Honeydrippers, Sea Of Love. I do not hate all supergroups... but most of them.
52. Sergio Mendes, Never Gonna Let You Go (Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller, vocals)
53. Tommy James and the Shondells, Mony Mony. Because really, you have to be drunk to not notice how dumb this is.
54. Billy Idol, Mony Mony. Because as bad as the original is, when Billy Idol says "I want to ride the pony"... you know it's not a horse. And... ew.

If you made it this far... man, you're devoted. Now, nominate some more. This can't be all of them. :) How about we finish up this anniversary party with The Macarena? Come ion... who's wth me? :)

Worst Song Ever: Bringing Me To My Knees

Sometimes these things just write themselves, like, say, when you start thinking about 80s music... this one's a gimme:

• Rick Springfield, Don't Talk To Strangers. ...and then General Hospital made him a star, and what had seemed merely amusing became stifling. This vaguely stalker-ish, obsessive midtempo number is tuneful enough... but it's a good indication of the late seventies, early eighties dismal, dark aspect of pop music at that moment. Love hurts when only one's in love... or perhaps, that's because it isn't.
• Aerosmith, Don't Wanna Miss A Thing. ... there's just this fine line between "comeback" and "sellout" that's best indicated by recording a power ballad for an overwrought oversold summer film (cf "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship... which I have a soft spot for, but admit is dreck). You can't really walk away from this Aerosmith ballad - which, it should be noted, refers in the film to Liv Tyler - and not shake your head at the unfortunate shamelessness of Steve Tyler's vocal.  Then there's the soppy, sweeping strings...and the music video.
• Wang Chung, Everybody Have Fun Tonight. Look, this is about more than "everybody wang chung tonight." You could, seriously, get away with that lame lyric (remember, we're talking about the era when Talk Talk released the single "Talk Talk" from their album... Talk Talk), but you can't escape the cheerless, forced frivolity implicit in the title. You shouldn't have to tell everyone to have fun (or like Kool and the Gnag, so relentlessly insist on "celebrate good times, c'mon"), it should, really, be ocurring organically. It's not... and those poor fellas in Wang Chung have been paying for it ever since.
• Def Leppard, Love Bites. ...and bleeds, and brings me to my knees... just atrocious. Just to be clear on the guidelines... I don't hate all power ballads. Just this one. And maybe a few others (which is a separate issue from "girls name" ballads like Boston's "Amanda")
• Cascada, Evacuate The Dancefloor. I didn't say everything was going to be eighties, did I? This brings up an amusing moment from J in B, who always points out to me that Michael Jackson's Blood on the Dance Floor is a terrible song because it links dancing - a peaceful activity, really - to violence and mayhem. I like the song, myself... but his point makes sense to me when I think about why "Billie Jean" bugs me so much. And, in any case, Cascada's current single, equating love of a dance song with a painful disease, seems an even worse, far more inappropriate metaphor ("stop, this beat is killing me"???). This is why we love Madonna for "Spotlight" and "Into The Groove" and now "Celebration" - if the groove is infectious... it should be in a good way, not a scary one.

Worst Song Ever: It's All About The Dreck

Speaking of music, as I went back to link up the Worst Song Ever section of the blog to my last post, I noticed I haven't picked any "worst songs" in about a year. A year. Which means, I think, that I've been surprisingly successful at eliminating especially lame music from my listening base! Thank you Pandora! And Thank you, Pulse 87!

Still, listen to New York radio for extended periods - as I do in the car - and it's hard to deny that they're still out there: examples of dreck so lame and so weak, you have to run, screaming to something, anything else.

And so... it's time. Let's dive back into it (but don't forget the Ground Rules):

• Miley Cyrus, The Climb. For what it is, I've never completely dismissed Cyrus or her music career; since she burst on the scene as Hannah Montana (similar to Clark Kent no one can tell Hannah is secretly a pop star... because she wears a blonde wig), Cyrus has provided her share of tuneful ear candy. But this overblown ballad from The Hannah Montana Movie does more to play up her limitations than her strengths. Cyrus' thin, slightly tuneless voice and often somewhat flat singing work better in the mechanical eighties pop and "riot grrl lite" tracks which made her a star than a traditional pull out the stops ballad. The song is all buildup and no particular climactic payoff - she certainly can't deliver it - and the message of "it's all about the climb" rather than reaching the top of the mountain is actually something of a pointless downer. Cyrus is never going to be a belter - or for that matter, Taylor Swift - and hopefully someone will get her to stick to what her producers do better - formula pop with a rough edge.
• Kings of Leon, Use Somebody. In recent years there's been an unironic return to the power of male solo singing; at the height of the Boy Band craze it was virtually impossible for a grown man to succeed as a solo act on the popcharts. And the real engine for changing that, I think, was American Idol: after early seasons of fey singing from the likes of Justin Guarini and Clay Aiken, the show broadened its search to include more passionate male rock gsinging, probably cuminating best in Chris Daughtry, perhaps the most successful of their non-winners... as well as the recent finale successes of David Cook and Kris Allen (and his competitor Adam Lambert). Of course, now the needle is veering the other way, and so we get... Kings of Leon, to remind us that oversinging and a bad rock power ballad are a deadly mix. Indistinguishable from bland Idol "winner" songs, Use Somebody has allowed the band - four albums in - to finally cross from alt rock to the pop chart... but the debatable qualities of oversinging and so-so lyrics have been with the band all along. And if you think it's no big deal... remember, we're still stuck with Nickelback.
• Nickelback, If Today Was Your Last Day. I mean... does it really ever change with these guys? Isn't the whole raspy, urgent quality of Chad Kroeger's color-by-one-number vocal beyond predicatble? If today really was your last day... is that what you'd want to spendit listening to? I thought not.
• Mariah Carey, Obssessed (original version). Since Carey fled her marriage and her record label, made bad movies and had a meltdown... things have never been quite the same. Oh, she's managed to resume her recording career with The Emancipation of Mimi and E=MC2, but something's seemed a bit ... off. Often, it's her clothes, but never mind; it does (they do?) nothing for me. Perhaps that's why "Obssessed" seems so weak - compaining that someone (Eminem, by all accounts) is too fascinated with you when you seem determined to have that effect, is at least somewhat naive. But the real drag is that the song's repeat of what's been working for Carey for a while... breathy vocals over a hip hop beat which is heavy on the base goes beyond tired, and the "what did she say?" aspect of trying to hear her lyric is mostly  frustration for no payoff ("like you bathing in Windex"? Seriously?). Carey's a strong singer - perhaps the strongest working - and capable of much more, and it's dispiriting to see her go through the same tired motions when the payoff is essentially "sex kitten on my own terms." That's hardly emancipating... and no, it's not even interesting. Though the remix, I should point out, actually is interesting, and ought to be the real story here.
• Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling. Perhaps it was the Fergie solo album, or the ubiquitousness of Will.I.Am showing up everywhere during their "haitus", but didn't the "break from the Black Eyed Peas" tend to underscore how unnecessary they were, rather than make the heart grow fonder? As much as Elephant provided a kind of exuberant, anything goes notion of upbeat pop and dance, most of the lyrics were light as air, and the basic message "whoo hoo, let's party!" hardly amounted to a powerful statement... and it's been downhill ever since. And the fusion of rap and singing, while interesting, has been well eclipsed by further hybridization across rap, hip-hop, dance and pop. "Boom Boom Pow" wasn't much to write home about, though at least "I'm so 3008, you so 2000... and late" was brilliant trash talk. I Gotta Feeling is even less, not really a song, with instantly forgettable exhortations to jump up, go out, and have a ball. If it takes this much energy and effort to get people motivated to go out... and your best payoff  is "and then... we'll do it again"... I think you may have managed to underscore how lame the club scene can get, these days. I get the feeling it's over... and we should probably just move on.

As always, your nominations and comments welcome...

Nothing More Than...

Muppets, naturally... and possibly the Worst Song, Ever.

Worst Song Ever: No Repeat Monday

It's been a while since I hauled out the Worst Song Ever list for any reconsideration, but I thought about it this week. As you may have heard, Starbucks has been rejiggering its music offerings, and part of it, it appears, is narrowing the Starbucks Radio playlist in store.  So instead of dozens of annoying songs... we have dozen. Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

(And I'm hoping that somehow this seeps into the consciousness of the folks over at Starbucks Music, because the one about the dirges at Starbucks Radio seemed to get them to update the playlist.)

Which brings me to a question: Can Aretha Franklin ever have a Worst Song?

Don't just knee-jerk a "no", I'm serious. One of our overplayed numbers is hers, and while I could put it on the list, I remember, each time, that it is the Queen of Soul, and even overplayed you have to give it up to her. I mean, clearly her sixties material is essentially untouchable; I was raised on "I Never Loved A Man" and still consider it genius. It's the later stuff, the seventies MOR stuff, or the eighties reinvention stuff... is all of that off limits too?

If you got to the seventies period, when some of the fire was clearly missing, you still have to admit that "Until You Come Back to Me" is brilliant. So, too, is "Daydreaming" - though that's the song in question - and even overplayed, it somewhat holds up.

I suppose the more frustrating thing is that the Starbucks programmers are alternating Aretha's with a dull as dishwater version from Corinne Bailey Rae that adds nothing (kind of like remaking I Will Survive... why?), and doesn't showcase Rae as well as other numbers (and really, does anyone expect Rae to record again any time soon?).

As for the other annoyances, any seem to come from a collection of remixed jazz classics on the Verve label. The Verve Remixed series is generally quite good, and as someone who likes Nu Jazz, and serious Lounge music, I'd heartily recommend them... usually. But the seventh replay of Nina Simone remixed... and my patience is just at an end.

So... I suppose I'm not going to nominate a particular song.  But all suggestions welcome - especially, this round, those songs you encounter in the mall, the grocery store, the coffee shop, where it's beyond your control. And... remember the Ground Rules.