Sunday, September 9, 2007

Chart roundup- 9/9/2007 (not 2009, unfortunatley)

1.Sean Kingston- Beautiful Girls
I liked this song for a short while. I could even tolerate Kingston's voice, and described it as having 'a sort of interesting quality to it'. Perhaps it's seeing one of his horrific live performances on Youtube. Perhaps it's hearing Jojo's (better) version. I don't know. But i've come to the conclusion that Sean Kingston just cannot bloody sing. The production's impeccable, and the sample is absolutely fucking inspired. If his voice didn't sound like the exact midpoint between a foghorn and Mort Goldman from Family Guy, it might be the third great number one of 2007.

2. Plain White T's- Hey There Delilah

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. At least it's nice to know the one hit wonder's alive and well (we've got at least three entires in the top 10 who will never have as big as hit as their current single again). Christ, Bright Eyes had the decency to be...good. After four minutes, you see exactly why Delilah's fucked off to New York, and is probably shagging somebody with a trust fund. Good on her.

3. Kanye West- Stronger
Kanye's gonna put them straight. Kanye's smart, has at least a reasonable knowledge of politics, and isn#t too bad at this whole production malarkey. So, what is he going to do now? Have a go at George Bush? Highlight the problems in Darfur? Erm, no, he's going to spend five minutes talking about how he's gonna get into your pants, over a sample by a band nobody in the blogosphere's cared about since 2001. Nice.

4. James Blunt- 1973
Despite failing to inject any life into Texas, Blunt should have handed production of this one over to Xenomania. If the 'here we go again's led into a MASSIVE chorus, this would have been Quite Good. As it goes, it could be anybody. Yep, a James Blunt record through and through.

5. Girls Aloud- Sexy No No No
Yes, it's messy. Yes, it never really matches up to the brilliance of the intro. And yes, Brian Higgins really needs to move on from The Show, but it's sort of refreshing that in a year where Dragonette, Chungking and Siobhan Donaghy have failed to have any hits whatsoever, the British Public (TM) are still willing to buy a record that is madder than everything else in the top 10 put together. Continuing their run of top ten hits (impressive, considering they released See The Day), whilst this'll be forgotten about once the next single comes around, it certainly livened up the

6. Rihanna- Shut Up And Drive
Good Girl Gone Bad is still a good album, but this is nowhere near as great as it first sounded. Compared to the amazing Don't Stop The Music (the gayest record of the year until Booty Luv recorded their next single) it's a bit flat, really. Oh well, you can't win them all.

7. Robyn With Kleerup- With Every Heartbeat
I have tried to get over this song. But Robyn has the power to make you act like a quivering infant in just one line. It's the kind of song that makes you want to fly to Sweden and tell her everything's okay, but then it turns out that you're far more upset than she is. It's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain, i guess.

8. 50 Cent/Justin Timberlake- Ayo Technology
In case you don't get it by now, 50 is good at sex. Justin Timberlake is also good at sex. I don't know if Timbaland is good at sex, he only seems to complain about Scott Storch nowadays. He does hang around with Timberlake a lot though. Perhaps he holds the camera. Anyway, combining forces should make a record that is so dripping with sex, you will need a wash immediately afterwards. Funnily enough, it just ends up sounding like a demo from the FutureSex/LoveSounds sessions that's got 50 rapping over parts that they never quite finished.

9. Scouting For Girls- She's So Lovely
Oh christ, it's Air Traffic but without the 2 good songs. Having a simple message is no excuse for crap lyrics. Brian Wilson basically wrote songs about having fun on a beach, but he never to my knowledge tried to rhyme 'cool' with 'beautiful'. It's no better than trying to fill your songs with long words just to sound smart. The video raises many questions too. Why does the girl's boyfriend look like he's a rapist? Is the lead singer really as downs syndromey as he looks? Why does every male in the bowling alley stare slack jawed at a girl who, whilst not unattractive, is surely no more than a 6? So many questions. I don't think the band will answer them, they'll be too busy finding something that rhymes with 'fit'.

10. Timbaland Ft Keri Hilson- The Way I Are
Surely there's a piece waiting to be written by The Guardian about whether Timbaland's dominance of the top 10 has resulted in lesser quality songs? Whether it has, or it hasn't, this (and 55% of his Shock Value album) is still ace. And the caravan line only gets better with time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was at James Blunt's SF concert recently. I wasn't too excited about the headliner performing (more excited about Joss Stone and Gin Blossoms) until I saw him come out and sing. Man, what an amazing guy...nothing does 1973 justice like hearing it live :)