It is a fact of my life that if your band either names your album after something related to adolescence, or mentions that an album was inspired/written about the age, I will be into it.
Beach House, Teen Dream
These are my 25 favorite songs of 2009:
25. David Guetta feat. Novel – Missing You
I discovered Novel this year and I think he’s the best in his field. What that field is called exactly, I am not sure – contemporary soul? I’d link him to Trey Songz and the like, but he is so vastly superior in both talent and intelligence that it seems silly to make comparisons. He has one of those ridiculously strong voices that makes controlling a melody as he does seem effortless. On “Missing You,” and perhaps more clearly on his unforgettable cover of Kid Cudi’s “Sky Might Fall,” I get the sense that he understands the technicalities behind crafting a memorable track as much as he feels the emotional components necessary to making it a personal triumph for both creator and listener. This is a piece of the What It Is About Justin Timberlake puzzle, the main reason why I think he is the greatest. True pop artists believe in manipulation – of both sound and emotion – as much as they believe in purity. They are not mutually exclusive, a pure sound can come from the twisting of something organic, and this is what I think Novel does perfectly. His voice is the most natural of gifts, but on a track like “Missing You,” he runs it through varying forms of anger, arrogance, and detachment to produce a pop song that creates as much technical texture as it does emotional depth: emotions are not just expressed through the music, they are seemingly purposely chosen to create rhythm and texture.
Jeremih – Imma Star (Everywhere We Are)
Jeremih gets melodies that are too good for him and every time I hear either of these two songs I think “why are YOU the person who got something that sounds so awesome?” Not that he’s not talented, because he kind of is I guess, but in that amusingly generic R&B dude way where they could all say they were the same person and it would take people a while to figure out that they were joking. This is why it’s so bothersome that Chris Brown is still pulling good producers – Chris Brown isn’t some one in a million talent with original ideas. Once the situation got out last spring Trey Songz should have taken over.
Every time I hear “Imma Star (Everywhere You Are)” I get forced into this weird state of conflicting emotions: 1) AH AH AH THIS IS SO AWESOME 2) UGH WHY IS THIS A JEREMIH SONG, it’s perfect for Timberlake. The hook is so incredible, guys. It’s SO. INCREDIBLE. It goes up instead of down when you least expect it, on (caps indicate upswing in pitch) “I thought I told you, I’m a star, you see that ICE?, you see the cars, flashing LIGHTS, everywhere we are, live TONIGHT, like there’s no tomorrow.” There is nothing more satisfying to me in the sonic realm than going up instead of down is. Well, maybe glockenspiel. Actually they’re tied.
But the rest of the song is so stupid, and even though Timberlake usually has dumb lyrics, they’re not THIS dumb, and they’re not so fixated on money and personal glory in such a narcissistic way. It devalues the melody when it could have been a masterpiece in more talented and experienced hands. BOOOOO.
“Birthday Sex” is more successful with respect to Jeremih’s talents because it’s the kind of silly song that garners immediate notice, and that was what he needed to stand out from the pack. But still, the melody on “girl you know I –” is so GORGEOUS, I wish it were part of a less comical song.