I have children who insist on listening to top 40 (though, really, it's more like top 20) radio, so periodically I vent my thoughts on the stuff I hear. Here goes:
Taylor Swift, "You Belong With Me". Despite Taylor Swift's winning performance on Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago, I loathe her bland pop country pap. This one feels particularly cynical because it's a tale of unrequited love in which the rival is a total straw man. "She wears high heels, I wear sneakers..." what girl can't identify with that? Because nobody wears high heels to high school! It's brilliant marketing, really. And I'd rather tell kids pining after the wrong boys or girls, "Don't pine! Move on! Their bad boyfriend/girlfriend choices indicate issues you'd rather not deal with anyway!" Or, in any case, that's what I'd like to tell my 16-year-old self. And then again my 18-year-old self. Sigh.
Miley Cyrus, "Party in the USA" Another cynical pop confection that plays on Miley's image--oh, she's just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world, at sea in this world of celebrities! So it appeals to middle america's smug sense of superiority to the superficial coasts (hey, I grew up there--I can say that. The coasts have their own smug sense of superiority). Here's what I like, though--she name-checks Jay-Z. This shows two things: 1.) that Jay-Z is really, officially, totally over, safe enough to be name checked by teen stars and 2.)that the cynics who write pop songs for Miley Cyrus recognize that even the Middle American white kids that "Party in the USA" is aimed at love hip hop. I just love that a pop/country/dance singer is given a song that references a hip hop mogul. It's not using music to divide and balkanize--it is, in its own cynical, market-driven way, using music to bring people together. Oh yeah, and the chorus is catchy as hell and I annoy the hell out of my coworkers with it. So that's cool too.
Jay-Z with Kanye West and Rihanna "Run This Town." Boy, there's really no song here at all, and Jay-Z's forgettable verses show he can barely be bothered to show up for his own song, which is dominated by Rihanna's singing the hook. Kanye's verse is actually kind of good (and how humiliating is it to be outrapped by Kanye West in any setting, but especially on your own record?) and very revealing. "What you think I rap for? To push a fuckin' Rav 4?" This is why commercial hip hop totally sucks right now. I mean, yeah, good for you Kanye, glad you got a nice car out of the whole rap deal, but I know kids who rap because their freaking heads are going to explode if they don't. We've all been to concerts where professional musicians went through the motions for the payday and concerts where musicians looked like they had to get the music out of them or it would harm them. The latter kind are the good ones. Seems odd but I guess admirably honest that Kanye admits that for him, it's all about the money.
