iTunes Top 50 40-36

40. Lean Like a Cholo -Down


PAS: Lou Dobbs was right, we now have Mexicans coming in stealing novelty dance rap tunes from hardworking American Black Folks. Mentirosa was one thing, but these are Itunes downloads which should rightfully be going to DJ Unk.


TKG: I think Mello Man Ace was Cuban. Lou Dobbs has no problem with the Cubans. And I imagine Kid Frost's La Raza would've caused Dobbs plenty of Hispanic Panic. How did this get this high? I mean I realize that Clinton Sparks thinks " Being a lyricist doesn't matter anymore" . But not only does Down not have the lyrical flow of Chingo Bling. He doesn't have his beats either.

39. The Sweet Escape-Gwen Stefani


TKG: Can Akon do no wrong? Can he save everything? As a rule I don't like Gwen Stefani tunes. I mean I can't think of a single one that I actively enjoy. This I like. I mean I watched the Rodney Bigenheimer documentary and know that she was raised on Rodney on the ROQ. And this really has all the L.A. mod celebrates catchy L.A. popcraft that you want, hints of L.A. glam and L.A. girl group combined with New Wave singer doing fake West Indian lilt. And it all combines together smoothly. The really commercial production and Akon doing his signature not a yodel chest to head voice shift thing put it over the top. Really if the world has to have a Gwen Steffani, this is the type of thing she should be doing.


PAS; Yeah this was shockingly inoffensive, I really liked the video game sounds and the Akon stuff was completely great. Usually Gwen Stefani can take a producer I like and lead them to their worst impulses. Akon can work with anyone apparently, although he really should have saved this beat for T-Pain.

38. Lost In This Moment -Big & Rich


PAS: What makes this Country music? Is the rule now, Southern accent=country? Because this was indistinguishable from a 70's MOR adult contemporary ballad. If James Taylor was from Kentucky would he be considered country music?


TKG: Holy shit this stinks. Listening to it, it was clear that this was written for the purpose of being a first dance wedding song. I'd like to believe that Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" was written as a romantic song. Just happens to be that it works as a first wedding dance song. Phil Collin's "Against All Odds" was written as a romantic song. Just happens to be that it works as a first wedding dance song. Big and Rich can't be bothered to do all that. So they just write a song for the purpose of marketing it as a wedding dance song. It's really craven. Marketing executive came up to them and said "you should write a first wedding dance song, make sure that it has one slide guitar riff to give it a sentimental country feel, and remember you're writing for arrhythmic white folks, so make sure the spots where you dip your partner are really obvious. The notes need to sustained long enough to dip even he fattest country fan." Song doesn't work in any context but a first wedding dance. Well maybe you could use it for the parents of the brides dance too.


37. Working Class Hero-Green Day


TKG: Green Day covering John Lennon really exposes the jejuneness of John Lennon. You listen to this and go damn Billy Joe Armstrong would never write a couplet as shitty as "They hit you at home and hit you at school/they hated your clever and despise the fool". You listen to this and go "Never realized that Billie Joe Armstrong is really insightful when he writes about class struggle". But you listen to him covering Lennon and suddenly Armstrong originals become Bertold Brecht in comparison. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" suddenly feels like something written by Foucalt.


PAS: Green Day covering John Lennon may be the true tragedy in the Darfur genocide. Damn you Omar al Bashir.

36. The Way I Are-Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson & D.O.E.


PAS: Man what the fuck happened to Timbaland? Was all of his talent in his fat? This, much like every song I have heard on his album is atrocious. Man, maybe Scott Storch was the brains behind the whole operation. This almost feels equivalent to Stevie Wonder's 80's post drug artistic collapse. I guess hoagies were his heroin.


TKG: This is really bad. I normally really like arcade game beats. But this is just shitty. Sounds like the Mortal Kombat theme mixed with a eighties teen comedy electro funk track. Not from a good eighties teen comedy either. Not a John Hughes movie but like the really derivative fake Yello that would play in "Hamburger Academy" or something. The singing and rapping feels really dated too. Did they make a sequel to "JoyStick"? "Joystick II: the Track Ball Controller" ? This should've been on the soundtrack.

iTunes Top 50 6/13/07 45-41

45. You Know I'm No Good- Amy Winehouse

TKG: Do I blame Christina Aguilera and DJ Premier for this? I mean there has to be some explanation for this type of retro-torch singing being embraced by the mainstream. I guess I should admire that she's doing it without the Aguilera need to package it in retro fashion. I like me some rockabilly revival, as musical form that I felt still could speak to current era...never liked people who needed to wear retro costumes while doing it. I don't know. Amusing that the backing bands attempts to do jazz drumming hip hop beats results in really Phil Spectorish pop drumming. You get the sense that Winehouse desperately wants to be Eartha Kitt for the hip-hop era. Instead she is hiphop era's poor woman's Darlene Love.

PAS: It is amusing to think that after such a long career, DJ Premiers lasting influence is going to be on female pop music. Honestly his kind of New York rap production never really was more then a niche thing. Gangstarr and Nas never really had a hit as big as "2 Step" much less "Walk it Out", however this torch singing shit looks like it is going to be legitimately big. As far as Amy Winehouse goes, she really isn't even Butterfly and is a giant step below whichever member of En Vouge was in Lucy Pearl.

44. Last Night-Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole

PAS: This is really clearly Diddy's attempt to do fake Prince, the beat is a fine fake Prince beat, and Diddy's fake Prince vocals are sort of inoffensive. What really fails is Keyshia Coles real vocal gymnastics. Female singers on Prince tracks are always girls like Apolonia or Vanity, women he is fucking, he doesn't pick singers for their vocal chops. So vocal chop singing doesn't work for this type song.

TKG: It's Diddy. Why use fake Prince instrumental instead of just using the actual Prince backing track? It's not like Prince needs the money but neither did Robert Plant or Sting. Unless Diddy was worried that the royalties would go to Warner Bros. Diddy is all about divestment from companies that benefit from "slave" labor?

43. Summer Love-Justin Timberlake

PAS: This is really the most N'Sync sounding of the solo Justin Timberlake singles. Did Lou Pearlman produce this in exile like Roman Polanski?

TKG: Most of Timberlake's current stuff seems like it's aimed at women, this really feels like it’s aimed at highschool girls. "Summer's over for the both of us, but that doesn't mean we should give up on love". Her going back to school in the fall shouldn't break up the couple? Her being school age should break them up. Timberlake breaks up with mid thirties Cameron Diaz and now wants to re-embrace Chris Brown's fans?

42. Face Down-The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

PAS: It is a pretty sad statement about the castration of today’s youth, that the worst thing Red Jumpsuit Apparatus can imagine to happen to the abuser is that "SOMEDAY SHE WILL SAY SHE DOESN'T LOVE YOU." At least Aerosmith had Jamie Get a Gun.

TKG: This is just a bad idea all around Using the second person is grammatically difficult but also demands that you only do it with one character. Song starts with singer telling how " He sees whats going on" and then he shifts to telling the story in the second person. "Cover yourself up with make up in the mirror, you cry, you tell yourself it will never happen again" followed by "Do you feel like a man when you push her around". I guess this could be a song about a lesbian BSDM relationship gone bad or it could be about an abusive boyfriend who brushes on foundation to cover the bruises on his knuckles. but more likely its just poor song craft. You can tell the story of abused girlfriend in second person, you can tell the story of abusive boyfriend in second person. But you can't do the two at the same time. There can only be one "you" in a song.

41. If Everyone Cared-Nickelback

TKG: So the premise of this song is that the guys telling his girlfriend that if all the world was like their "perfect relationship" that there would be no death. Ugghhh. I mean Mick Jagger singing about pretending he was Satan to get pussy was pathetic. But this guy singing about pretending that his love is God is a whole other level of garbage.

PAS: I think the plot of the new Fantastic Four movie has Reed Richards love for the Invisible Woman save the planet from the Silver Surfer. So I imagine if this song is used as the credits for that, its awful rock hubris makes sense.

Itunes Top 50 6/13/07 50-46

So our last attempt to do this was aborted. And we try again.

50. Better Than Me- Hinder

PAS: I am really happy we get to review more Hinder, their 80's revival stuff sounds so much more authentic then the Strokes doing Velvet Underground. You get a sense that they understand Winger way more then any of the pseudo New Wave bands understood the New York Dolls. Also “I miss your hair in my face, I miss how your innocence tastes" is the best cunnilingus based power ballad lyric ever. Totally kills Cherry Pie.

TKG: Yeah this is pretty spectacular. Hinder have actively good game. You listen to this and go "damn I could see a girl actually falling for that line". The market for songs about trying to hook up with your ex is mostly dominated by emo guys writing songs of loss for other guys to listen to. Hinder writes songs of loss pitched at women, built on "game" to get another taste of her snatch. The manipulative-ness of their "lines" appeals to male audience, the "game" itself corners the women. They should corner that market.

49. (You Want To) Make a Memory-Bon Jovi

PAS: This makes no sense to me. Bon Jovi is a guy who has had a spectacularly successful career. The things he does well are clearly still commercially viable; I mean Hinder is right here on this list too. Instead he decides he wants to do fake Ryan Adams. Ryan Adams sells out clubs, he doesn't sell out arenas. Did someone tell Jon Bon Jovi that the only way to resurrect his career is to get a tune on the closing credits of Grey's Anatomy?

TKG: Yeah this is bad. Amused that he replaced the Ryan Adams mandolin parts with orchestral cello/piano parts. Really Fray style orchestral cello/piano parts too. As they just tease that they're building to crescendo without having a crescendo section.

48. It's Not Over-Daughtry

TKG: This guy isn't Hinder. " My life with you means everything/so I won't give up that easily." His game sucks. "I'll try to do it right this time around/ let's start over". No one's falling for that. "I want you to know that you're better than me" see that's endearing, while "This love is killing me/ You're the only One" that's just creepy obsessed talk." It's not over". Is he really in the position to be making that demand? What woman wants a guy telling her "It ain't over till I say it's over". This fails where Hinder succeeds.

PAS: Talking about current music means you are going to be listening to a lot of American Idol songs, but I don't understand why I have to listen to this tool, he lost the show. It means nothing if the losers pollute the pop charts too. It defeats the entire purpose of a contest. This isn't little league, why are the giving out record contracts like participation trophies.

47. Ticks-Brad Paisley

PAS: I really didn't like the last Brad Paisley song we reviewed, it was actively bad, but it wasn't unsuccessful. He was trying to write a song awful women would find romantic, and he really did that. Here he is trying to write a comedy song with lots of double entendres, and is also really successful at that. I like clever double entendres, and thus I really enjoyed this song. "I've got your back, and I also got your front" is a great lyric.

TKG: This is your country star doing a mock country cornpone joke song and it rules. I mean this is dead on perfect. My favorite part is the opening set up where it just comes off like a poorly written dumb song by a guy with Daughtry level bad game: " Everytime you take a sip in this smoky atmosphere/you press the bottle to your lips/ and I wish I was your beer." I mean that's some garbage lines but it's not an obvious out and out joke. That he executes all this with a straight face before he builds to the punchline chorus ("I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks/ I'd like to walk you through a field of wild flowers/I'd like to check you for ticks" ) makes the joke that much funnier.

46. This Is My Now Jordin-Sparks

PAS: This really sounds like the kind of song you would sing to win a middle school talent show. You wouldn't think this kind of "Greatest Love of All" shit would work in something contested by adults.

TKG: I don't know if you would even do this at a middle school talent show. Felt more like elementary school graduation song. Less like "Greatest Love of All' and closer to American Tail's "Somewhere Out There".