Itunes Top 50 11/18/06 40-31

40. Fergie- London Bridge

PAS: This is godawful for the most part, but I did kind like the horn stuff. It is kind of amusing production as they just throw three dozen things against the wall, and kind of come off with a nice horn. Only in England can a meth head become a sex symbol, I guess they just don't notice the teeth.

TKG: This is painful. I think there are a couple lines about scat in there somewhere which is always a good thing for a pop tune. I've heard this a million times before but this was the first time I heard the tinny horn blats. Fergie's attempts to sound like MIA are less convincing than Billy Childish's attempts to sound like Bo Diddley.

39. Augustana- Boston

TKG: I misread this and thought there actually was a band named Amanda ballsy enough to name their single Boston. I like the Shroeder piano. The lyrics and chorus won't make me forget Dave Loggins.

PAS: I really like the opening piano stuff, kind of reminded me of the Piano Man from Digital Underground, if he grew up in Berkeley instead of Oakland. There is really very little about this song I like besides the Piano.

38. The Game- Let's Ride

PAS: My old roommate briefly dated the ex-girlfriend of Ben Gibbard during the period he was writing multiple albums under multiple bands about their relationship collapsing. I wonder if Dr. Dre's new boyfriend feels as awkward about this album as my buddy felt about that.

TKG: Really? Is the Game's whole new album a breakup song? The Game built his first album around a bunch of hip-hop rewrites of "We Didn't Start the Fire". His second one will be reinterpretations of "And So it Goes"...? Here's hoping the Game never discovers "Goodnight Saigon". Someone needs to tell 50 Cent that he isn't Nate Dogg and no one wants to listen to him sing hooks. Game's fake 50 Cent as budget Nate Dogg is awful. I mean the one thing you can say about Billy Joel is he understood hooks.

37. Birdman & Lil' Wayne- Stuntin' Like My Daddy

TKG: This is the first tune on this list that I actively like and listen to regularly. But it's 2006. On some level the Cash Money/Bad Boy escapism through buying expensive motorcycles feels dated. In 2006 escapism is built on the choice to shake your head and "act stupid, dumb, dumb, dumb". You don't need fancy Yamaha's. It's 2006 for escapism you don't need product, "You can do it all by yourself". Still Lil Weezy can make the odes to the James Bond lifestyle work. It helps that he feels like he was raised in it. I always liked Birdman and Mannie Fresh as they seemed to know that they weren't really lyricists, and never tried to be. Just two guys slinging game than actual rap lyrics. It was endearing. But really you put Birdman next to Wayne and it just doesn't work. It's a shame Lil Wayne didn't have Olu Dara for a daddy. favorite part is Lil Wayne stopping to eat cornflakes in the middle of spitting a vese.

PAS: The ratio of this was two Wayne verses to one Birdman verse, but it really should have been three to one or four to one. I got the album and it was fine, but Wayne is a guy who puts out 6 mixtapes a year. The Album was sub Carter 2.7. Sub Cart 2.9, Sub Suffix and Sub Prefix. This was a pretty great single though, it is pretty impressive that Cash Money could lose Mannie Fresh as their main producer and still have such great beats. They are like the Walsh 49rs, you lose Montana, plug in Steve Young, Young goes down, Steve Bono or Jeff Kemp takes over.

36. Unk- Walk it Out

PAS: Like alot of the recent Atlanta rap, this is a really great hook and beat with kind of shitty rapper. Those songs really don't get good until they get actual good rappers to do the remix. I am sure the inevitable Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, Bun B and lets say Rakim remix will be really awesome.

TKG: Really great hook plus a bunch of verses that really should be used as hooks. "it's on once again/Patron once again, I threw my head back then I froze like the wind." that's a hook right there. I mean "Froze Like the Wind" is a tune right there. I love the Lil John style keyboard stuff all over this. and you get the sense that even with all the keyboards this would segue nicely into a sparer Nitty type beat. Yeah the remixes are going to rule.

35. Green Day & U2- The Saints Are Coming

TKG: Is Green day an ex-Ska Punk band? Was that them on the horns? Many of the New Orleans Indians have lost their costumes and supplies. Bono could have put them on tambourine. Ernie K Doe's wife lost the Mother In Law Bar. Bono could have sang one of his tunes and the royalties could have really helped them out. Fats Domino almost died. He could use some royalties. Mia X is stuck trying to raise her children in Texas. Bono and Billy Joe could have covered "Bout it Bout it" and really helped her out. Instead they do this self aggrandizing original New Orleans music pastiche and hoard the royalty checks. Cash money is an army that Bono won't relinquish command of.

PAS: I know alot of people died, and many many more were left homeless, but this song may be the real tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Damn you Micheal Chertoff.

34. Danity Kane- Show Stopper

TKG: See this is what Diddy should be doing. This is weird expensive expansive sound....which pretty much is a snap beat with the theme from Halloween on loop. Diddy putting Young Joc together with a girl breathely talking about her auto's specs. And this is like a Paul Wall tune where description of car parts isn't a euphemism for something else. This isn't she has a nice trunk and shiny headlights. Nope car specs aren't about sex or anything else. When she says stick the key in the engine and make it purr...she's actually talking about putting a key in the engine and disengaging the parking break. It's about the actual car parts. We're sitting on 22, sitting in big bucket seats just me and you. Its like a Bikini Kill song about empowerment through changing your own tire. Except Bikini Kill actually might have actually use jack as a metaphor for something. No metaphor here. Young Joc is really out of place. Diddy really needed to get Paul Wall or the Tappett borthers. Not actually good, but this is the thing Diddy should be doing.

PAS: I think when Diddy told her to leak brake fluid it might have meant something else, but Diddy isn't really dirty enough to make that work so it might have been literal. The best part of this song was all the timing on the falsetto's "Sitting on twenty toooooos, mink bucket seats me and yooooooo." She also give a shout out to her Escaladies.

33. Lady Sovereign- Love Me or Hate Me

PAS: I clearly don't get British rap. I know that Lady Sovereign is really popular, but I can't get into some girl rapping about her hairy snatch over shitty video game beats. Call it a culture clash.

TKG: Well I really liked Shampoo who I think you can claim were rapping..I mean they weren't singing. and i tend to like arcade beats but the non arcade beats weren't as good as the beats in the Spice Girls "Wannabe". I don't think this is as lyrically interesting. I really thought Princess Superstar might make it as the Feminem. But apparently this fake Heather B has the number 33 song.

32. Pussycat Dolls- Wait a Minute

PAS: I really hate Missy Elliot, I mean an utter visceral shudder runs through me every-time I see her fat face or hear her voice. Outside of that, I pretty much enjoy everything Timbaland does. This was pretty lazy third rate Timbaland, the kind of beat that really belongs as a Magoo album track. If only Aaliyah had taken Royal Caribbean.

TKG: Umm. This is a tune with Nicole Shevardnadze doing the rapping and Timbaland singing the hook? I mean its Timba on the hook..like suddenly he's Pharrell. It is a pretty lazy beat and the song comes across as really derivative. i leave it thinking "Hey didn't Eddy Grant's cousin's neighbor put out something similar". Still I think with enough listens I might learn to like this as much as I like "Walk it Out"

31. Brad Paisley- She's Everything

PAS: She's the lint in my belly button, she's the bookmark in my John LeCarre novel, She's the iceburg lettuce on my turkey sandwich, she's EVEEERRRYYYY THIIIING TOOOO MEEE

TKG: Brad Paisley writes music for women. Songs about what women want to hear. I don't really care for his bland tunesmithing where this really fells like he combined the blandest parts of Jewels "You were meant for me" with the blandest parts of "Like a Rock". I don't care for his guitar solos which are really the most whisting sissy guitar solos. It's so wussy that it almost becomes an interesting effect. Like an anti-Duane Eddy. I imagine Neil Haggerty would copy for a noise rock album and it would almost rule. don't care for his production or his voice. But I have to admire his commitment to writing music for women. I mean this woman sounds absolutely unbearable and yet he's the one he'd lay his life down for. You almost have to admire his craftsmanship to the genre of songs for needy women. Fuck if Omarion covered this tomorrow, Chris Brown would have to retire. " Why are you quitting the". "Well La-La, have you heard Omarion's 'She's Everything'...I mean there's no room for 'I heart Chris Brown' on anyones spiral anymore"

PAS: The last semi-relationship I was in, was with this girl who I hooked up with after a night of relatively deviant sex. Then because I am basically a coward, I ending up dating her for a couple of months, by the end there it was like a weight was pressing on my chest every-time I had to listen to her on the phone, and I started get claustrophobic even if I was on a cell phone outside. I got that same feeling just hearing Brad Paisley describe this clingy harridan he was writing about. "I want a piece of chocolate, take me to a movie, I got nothing left to wear." He wants to spend his life with her, I would jump in front of a bus.