Justin Timberlake
I'm quite ambivalent on the two new songs from JT that have been circulating. 'Suit and Tie' has many flaws that I can point to: Jay-Z rapping like he only cares about his paycheque instead of the song, the lethargic intro which keeps repeating the phrase 'shit tied' which just sounds ridiculous and the chorus comes across as really cheesy, but I guess that comes with the territory of a song called 'Suit and Tie.' Having said that I think I'm mainly disappointed that the catchiness of the first line of the first verse doesn't carry on.
The other song that has been doing the rounds is 'Mirrors' which is a much more laid back pop ballad and quite reminiscent of the soulful R&B songs that came out a decade ago. I see it as being a very pleasant listen, however considering the full version is 8 minutes long, JT doesn't make good use of the time he spends and could easily fit everything in 5 minutes or less. Had there been greater complexity to it I'd seriously be considering buying his new album.
Editors
So Editors, one of my favourite bands (so much so that the first header I made for this blog was taken from some of their album art) has a new song called 'A Ton of Love' released two Mondays ago. I have to say, it hasn't got me looking forward to their new album, their first without lead guitarist Chris Urbanowicz who left because of differences in 'future musical direction' which doesn't appear to bode well for the rest of their new material. A lot of people have commented that it sounds a lot like U2, which I thought the first time I listened to it as well, particularly with Tom Smith lifting his voice in the refrain in very similar manner to Bono. The other thing it sounds suspiciously close to is 'The Cutter' by Echo and the Bunnymen. While the intro I thought was a welcome return to the guitar work from their first two albums, it also kind of shows their lack of direction, alongside not really having compelling lyrics. One of the things I really liked about their earlier lyrics was the fact they didn't need to talk about love to sound interesting, whereas now their lead single from the album 'The Weight Of Your Love' is 'A Ton Of Love' and it appears there's nothing left for them to make songs about other than generic, rockish love songs. My final gripe (that ties in with how how I've just described the new song) is that its under four minutes long; there's only one song shorter on In This Light and two on An End Has A Start which again makes it look like they aren't exploring with their music like they used to.
PSY
As much as I loved the fun of 'Gangnam Style,' as it was a breath of fresh air after a summer dominated by 'Call Me Maybe' because of a noticeable lack of competition I'm struggling to reserve the same patience for PSY's new song 'Gentleman' which proves his success could only ever be a one-off. As a novelty song, it didn't matter that there's under five English words in it, because people enjoyed the childish humour of the video, the dancing and the lively beat, but the nature of novelty is it doesn't last. The awkwardity of the majority of the lyrics being in Korean is only matched by how awkward the English lyrics feel, almost wrestled in to make something recognizable for us Westerners. Not to mention him singing 'Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you wet' as if he's a rap artist from about 10 years ago. The video has PSY arsing about and dancing, presumably to entertain non-Korean viewers, and again, it worked the first time, the second it just seems like its begging for your attention to be held any way possible.
Daft Punk
So 'Get Lucky' has been top of the UK charts a number of weeks and will get a lot of spins by the end of the summer with its warm, lively, disco feel thanks to the contribution of Nile Rodgers. Its not too recognizable as a Daft Punk song as well with their ubiquitous, repetitive vocal style taking a backseat to Pharrell's singing, only appearing two minutes in, which to be honest I don't mind. The track to me feels very similar to quite a few other songs, mainly 'Don't Stop the Music' by Rihanna 'Say Say Say' by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney and it didn't surprise me that I found mashups with both of these with a quick google search.
