Not really sure why I felt like writing about this.
Nelly - "Flap Your Wings"
When I first heard this, I was fully prepared to give it a 10 on the lame meter, but I'm not so sure of that now. This is a strange single. Clearly an attempt to create another pop/club anthem along the lines of "Hot In Herre", "Flap Your Wings" lacks nearly everything that made that first song great. First off, the beat is really tame. These days, every Neptunes beat sounds so formulaic and unremarkable. Ladies and gentlemen, if there was any doubt before, and there shouldn't have been given their output for the past year, we are officially witnessing Neptunes on auto-pilot. All their tracks sound so physically underwhelming now, like they're making some concerted effort to prove their songwriting skill by ignoring the base elements of an appealing beat. To follow up on what I said about "She Wants To Move", in adddition to meandering, the best Neptunes tracks also tend to sound a bit disconcerting at times. Not necessarily unpredictable, but they keep you on your toes and have a little something extra that knock you upside the head often enough to keep you interested. "Hot in Herre" is glorious...it's like SMASH... break... SMASH... break... over and over again. Or consider "Bouncin' Back (Bumpin Me Against The Wall", that weird collapsing, point of emphasis thing the beat had going for it. And why didn't they ever follow up in the direction "Young, Fresh, N' New"? A dizzying array of swirling synths, buzzing guitar, and the kind of deep, grinding bass line that blows your hair back and knocks you on your ass. It's just so sad how they've sort of suddenly given up. I mean, "Flap Your Wings" is all ho-hum jangly tambourine and punching bag oomph instead of dropping the sledgehammer and beating you into submission like I think it needs to. There have been several successful Neptunes tracks that have gone this route, but their catalog this year has been so sparse, and it's been so long that they've made any kind of statement, I just sort of wished they'd come out guns blazing. Upon self reflection, I can see that perhaps I'm just weary of the standard Neptunes sound and I want them to be a bit braver again, so I'll try not to dock them too much for this. I suppose while the beat is nothing special, theoretically, this song could still prove it's mettle. So we take note of Nelly's vocal hooks and well, I feel like burying my face in my hands in embarassment for him. "Drop down and get your eagle on girl"? Maybe I'm just dense, but WTF does that mean exactly? If I tried really, really hard, I could take that as some kind of sexually coercive statement, but I mean seriously... And the whole "C'mon flap your wings! C'mon flap your wings!" thing. Are we talking about some updated modern day funky chicken? Maybe I need to see the video for this, because I'm not following. It's almost amusing to the point of "so bad it's good", but that's territory I don't like to delve in so we'll just acknowledge how desperate and ridiculous this all seems and drop it for now. Ridiculousness though, might be the one saving grace for "Flap Your Wings", as there are some genuinely off, yet smile inducing moments. That slow, unbalanced ascending synth during the chorus is pretty hot (enough with the panting though!), like a rising kite with enough wobble that you fully expect it to spiral down towards the ground at any moment. Perfect sequencing really, as this leads into a fun pseudo gothic organ line that suddenly just drops out and leaves you hanging. Barking dog samples haven't yet reached their sell by date, so those are cool too. The whispered "sweat drippin' all over my body" mini conversation is also very nice. It lends the song the same interactive quality that the female "What?" "Oh..." part provided for "Hot In Herre". So I still don't really know what to make of this one. I was quite down on it when I first heard it all those months ago, but I've warmed up to it a bit now. Definitely not like the old days, but if I had to RCQS it...
RCQS: 6
And while we're on the subject,
I KNEW I couldn't be the only one!
I want a cookie.
Well then. I guess the next one better be good...
Eric Prydz - "Call On Me" video
(probably don't want to click on this at work)
Two weeks at #1 in the U.K., with perhaps even more to come. I really don't have much to say about the song itself. A satisfying, full thumping house beat with a rerecorded Steve Winwood vocal sample from the song "Valerie". That's about it. No really. That's it. Over and over and over again. There's been a heated debate on whether this was swiped from DJ Falcon and Thomas Bangalter, but I won't get into any of those details here. Regardless of it's origin, this is a great track, perhaps the best of the dance/radio crossovers from this year (wait no, "Lola's Theme" is probably better). Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was the video, specifically, how unbelievably brilliant it is. Seriously, this thing is hilarious! Talk about results oriented marketing, this just screams "we want "Call On Me" to make #1 and THIS is how we're going to do it". I don't think I've ever seen anything so blatantly lewd in mainstream entertainment. It's kind of like when comedies try to exploit or make fun of the selling of sex by having busty, scantily clad women do ridiculous things, except this is actually funny. List of laugh out loud moments:
1. The "let's get this thing started" look on the guy's face during the stretching/warmup routine.
2. Actually pretty much any of the guy's facial expressions. The "powering-up" look during the "same boy I used to be" vocal line, the mouth agape "I'm feelin' this" look when the beat comes back in.
3. Synchronized standing rhythmic pelvic thrusts.
4. Anyone lip-synching the vocals.
5. Knowing lustful glances between the dude and the instructor.
6. Various panning close up shots of people's crotches.
7. Synchronized horizontal rhythmic pelvic thrusts.
8. Random girl writhing around on the floor with a towel.
I mean, this thing is just one big WTF. Can't hide the fact that it puts me in giggle fits every time I see it though.
