Post date: Jul 09, 2012 12:47:38 PM
Ugh, is there really any point in this blog? There's some good news and some bad news with this week's UK Music Chart. The bad news is that the citizens of the United Kingdom are still buying into the same factory-belt produced music as last week, meaning that there are no new songs to review as the top ten songs simply re-arrange themselves instead. The good news is that I don't have to torture myself listening to new entries from the likes of Jessie J or Dappy, who had new entries this week which failed to make the top 10.
10. Call My Name - Cheryl
Not Cheryl Tweedy. Not Cheryl Cole. Simply “Cheryl”. I never understood why Cheryl was a big star in the first place, and the fact that a non-professional can judge a singing competition is a bit of a joke in my opinion. The worst part of this song is the one minute and twelve second introduction which sounds really random and terrible and doesn’t feature Cheryl at all (Why is this under her name when she has nothing to do with the song for nearly the first half?). Of course it’s a drum machine so nothing to analyse there, but the main feature is obviously the vocals – Which aren’t much a of a main feature. I don’t rate Cheryl as much of a singer, especially when you hear her auto-tuned backing vocals in this song.
9. Wide Awake - Katy Perry
This song has moved up one more space this week most likely as people gain more interest in “Katy Perry: Part of Me” which came out in cinemas last week. I found this song to be pretty standard electric stuff – There was no human drummer... In fact the only musician involved in this song is Katy Perry herself as the rest of music is made by man on a computer.
The chord progression remains the exact same throughout the verse and the chorus. And speaking of the chorus, I found it pretty bland in comparison to the verse. So all in all this song involved a guy sitting at a computer laying down a simple chord progression then adding sound effects, and then getting Katy Perry (Who, don’t get me wrong, is a good singer) to sing over it. Actually one of the better ones from the chart this week though...
8. Princess of China - Coldplay & Rihanna
A lot of people think this is a Coldplay song featuring Rihanna, but let me tell you that this is the complete opposite. Rihanna completely outshines Chris Martin in the song in terms of vocals, and the other members of Coldplay are missing in action. It’s strange to see Coldplay mixed with a completely different act like Rihanna and to be honest, I didn’t think it worked very well. Coldplay used to be in the same genre as Travis and Oasis but now they’ve gone a little strange. A shame as well because most of the guys in Coldplay are good musicians.
The song features the same chords over and over and is really unimaginative – Especially the chorus. Not a very good effort from Chris Mar... Uh, I mean “Coldplay” and Rihanna.
7. We Are Young - fun. (feat. Janelle Monae)
We Are Young continues to be the most interesting song in the UK Charts today being one of the only ones that is actually performed by a group of musicians (Isn’t that how music is supposed to be produced?). The drums are quite rhythmically interesting at the beginning but then lose a bit of momentum going into the chorus. The chorus is very striking and dramatic, and sounds inspirational. There’s a nice feature for Janelle Monae too. However, she is almost drowned out by the rest of the band during her part.
The song is nothing extraordinarily special, but among the other songs in the Top 10 this is definitely a cut above the rest.
6. Feel The Love - Rudimental (feat. John Newman)
Who on earth is John Newman? I tried my best to find out, even Wikipedia’d him and found a list of politicians, a bishop and a mayor among others. I’m guessing he is none of them. But I was listening out for a standout feature for a singer that never came. There was a trumpet solo at one point and I’m wondering if perhaps John Newman is a brass player? Who knows.
This song is terrible. Cheesy sythns, annoying voices, and surprise surprise, a drum machine. The song gets even worse towards the end when the rhythm changes to a shuffle which kills whatever momentum the song had.
5. Black Heart - Stooshe
If it’s a drum machine in this song it actually sounds pretty good. Could be an electric kit played by a human drummer but most likely just a programmed thing. However I thought this song was one of the better ones this week. Quite creative and listenable to, but not my cup of tea. Unfortunately the songwriter runs out of ideas after a while and the chorus is simply repeated in slightly different styles.
4. Whistle - Flo Rida
There’s a nice use of guitar in this song and it’s unfortunate that the best drum beat I’ve heard so far is from the drum machine in this song. No prizes for guessing that this is a cheesy song about whistling (Well, we all know what it’s really about but that’s for another blog), involving someone actually whistling. The singer isn’t anything special and my memory tells me that neither is the rest of the song as I can’t recall any lyrics.
3. This Is Love - will.i.am (feat. Eva Simons)
When the British public decide to drop you from their number one spot to their number three, you have to know that your music has bored the most easily pleased music audience in the world. Pretty standard stuff here with a not very exciting drum machine and more electric music going on. However, the piano is really nice (Played by will.i.am?) and the singing is pretty good, which confused me actually because I heard this guy singing at the Queen’s Jubilee concert a few weeks ago and he wasn’t very good. There’s a good feature for Eva Simons, but I think will.i.am should stuck to his rapping as it was definitely better than his singing.
2. Don't Wake Me Up - Chris Brown
(Oh no, his album is number one). Next up is a man who shouldn’t even have a music career, for more than one reason. The least of which not being that this is a terrible effort at making music. It’s a very dancey, electric, factory produced song with the most outrageously horrific use of auto-tuning on Chris Brown’s voice that I may have ever heard in my life. This song has no value musically and is a real slap in the face to any real music fan. Fortunately it looks as though we’ll never get to see Chris Brown live over here in Scotland because the last time he attempted to enter the UK his Visa was declined. I wonder why? Oh, isn’t it because Chris Brown’s music isn’t the only crime he’s committed?
1. Payphone - Maroon 5 (feat. Wiz Khalifa)
It seems that this song simply took a little break from its number one spot while people pretended to like will.i.am's effort from last week. If you go to Google Images and type in “sell outs”... You get a picture of a jar of peanut butter. But there should be a picture of Maroon 5. Back in 2002 this band were a semi-promising act with a couple of hit songs. Now they play standardized pop music so that they can shoot to number one. The vocals are pretty shocking in this song – They sound auto-tuned and there is a lot of very unnecessary swearing – I’d expect this in a gangsta rap song but it just sounds very out of place here. The drums have a very weird rhythm all the way through and sounds again like it may be a drum machine. The snare falls on the 4th beat making the music lose a bit of momentum.
Again, this is a song which features someone who is better than the main act – Wiz Khalifa. The rapping is certainly the best part of this otherwise forgettable song.
No change to the way I feel about how I would arrange this music in terms of musicality, creativity and just plain talent:
1. We Are Young – fun.
2. Black Heart – Stooshe
3. Payphone – Maroon 5 (feat. Wiz Khalifa)
4. Princess of China – Coldplay & Rihanna
5. This is Love – will.i.am (feat. Eva Simons)
6. Wide Awake – Katy Perry
7. Whistle – Flo Rida
8. Call My Name – Cheryl
9. Don’t Wake Me Up – Chris Brown
10. Feel the Love – Rudimental (feat. John Newman)
Best Drummer - Jack Antonoff from fun. for the third time on these music blogs. You'd think this means he's a brilliant drummer but unfortunately he seems to be a pretty standard one. Antonoff doesn’t play anything too exciting in We Are Young, although if you listen closely you can hear some nice rolls and ghost notes on the snare. He plays a very basic beat using only the bass drum and snare drum without any hi-hat. For what it’s worth, you could say the beat serves the song well enough but I personally think there is scope for much more.
I'll leave this blog with an interesting point about something which I feel is wrong with the UK Music Charts. I was in my car about an hour before I wrote this week's blog and I had Radio 1 on. To my surprise there was this really heavy metal music on and for a moment I thought I had switched on to some obscure rock radio until I heard Fearne Cotton's voice reading out texts she had received about the song. The first texter proclaimed that he had needed some painkillers after listening to that to which Cotton replied that she wondered how these "screamo" artists managed it after watching the singer from lostprophets do the same. Another texter praised the music and said he'd love to hear more metal music on Radio 1. Cotton told him to tune in to Daniel Carter's show... Which is on at midnight for a couple of hours on a Tuesday.
They really know their stuff over at Radio 1.