With You - Chris Brown 

Filed under: Chris Brown Songs, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Top 40 on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

I liked Wall to Wall, and it hit with a whimper. Kiss Kiss was so bad it made me speechless with rage and pity, and it was number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The third single from Chris Brown’s album Exclusive has charted very well, which make me kind of nervous. The way things have been going, the more successful a Chris Brown song is, the more damage I expect it to do to my brain.

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No One - Alicia Keys 

Filed under: Alicia Keys Songs, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Top 40 on Friday, March 7th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

I’ll be honest right now. I have never liked an Alicia Keys song. There, I got that off my chest. I acknowledge her considerable talent, but her overblown performing style and her tendency to squawk have always left me cold. And vaguely annoyed.

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Elevator - Flo Rida featuring Timbaland 

Filed under: Flo Rida Songs, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Timbaland Songs, Top 40 on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

You can almost drop anything with Timbaland’s name on it to the “fantastic” pile and get on with your day. But lucky for me, he stumbles once in a while, so that the excellence doesn’t have a chance to get samey. And Elevator, the second single from Flo Rida - it’s always dangerous, that second single, after the first was a smash hit - is a likely candidate.

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Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow - Paula Abdul 

Filed under: Paula Abdul Songs, Pop Songs, Pop Videos on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

A new Paula Abdul single, huh? I’m not sure how I feel about that. A former hit machine, Paula Abdul hasn’t had a Top 10 single since 1992’s Blowing Kisses in the Wind. (Which wasn’t a great song, actually, but it illustrates the time scale nicely.) Can sixteen years of low chart performance and ultimate retirement from pop music invigorate the talents of one P. Abdul? Or is it a mid-life crisis, the former diva’s version of buying a little sportscar and wearing a toupee?

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Feedback - Janet Jackson 

Filed under: Janet Jackson Songs, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, R&B Songs, R&B Videos on Friday, February 29th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

I’m almost too old to provide useful commentary on Janet Jackson. It does reach a point, when an artist has been around as long as Jackson has and you’ve listened to her on vinyl, on cassette, and on cd, that you have almost too many points of comparison. And she’s so, dare I say it, venerable, that you can’t judge her against the pop tarts of today either. Or can you?

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Touch My Body - Mariah Carey 

Filed under: Mariah Carey Songs, Pop Songs, R&B Songs, Top 40 on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

I had completely written Mariah Carey off before her triumphant return in The Emancipation of Mimi, so I hesitate to do so now. And I’m probably not alone; I would imagine that Mariah Carey has a huge store of goodwill left over from her last album. Whether the lead single of E=MC˛ is good or bad.

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Stop & Stare - OneRepublic 

Filed under: OneRepublic Songs, Rock Songs, Rock Videos, Top 40 on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

OneRepublic got a huge boost from Timbaland when he included their song Apologize on his Shock Value album. Their second single, Stop & Stare, is their first without the Timbaland golden touch. From now on, it’s life on their own as one pop-rock band among many.

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Love Song by Sara Bareilles 

Filed under: Pop Songs, Pop Videos, Sara Bareilles Songs, Top 40 on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

The words “songwriter-pianist” will feature in every mention of Sara Bareilles, and it remains to be seen if she will go the way of so many other ivory-tickling songstresses, who either fade into obscurity or devote themselves entirely to incomprehensible sung poetry. What is it going to be? A cute twinkle and then gone? Decades of paeans to her uterus? Or maybe something in between?

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Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) - Wyclef Jean featuring Akon, Little Wayne & Niia 

Filed under: Akon Songs, Hip-Hop Songs, Hip-Hop Videos, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Reggae Songs, Reggae Videos, Top 40, Wyclef Jean Song on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

You expect certain things from a new song by Wyclef Jean. You expect a vivid political awareness, spiky articulacy, broad vision. You expect it to be cool, but you also expect it to hurt your heart a bit. As the lead track from the album Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant, Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) has heavy expectations to address.

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See You Again - Miley Cyrus 

Filed under: Miley Cyrus, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, Top 40 on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

You can’t open a magazine without reading about Miley Cyrus, a Disney starlet from the television show Hannah Montana. Having no children, I have existed in a completely Miley-free bubble until this very moment. But I was forced to line-dance in high school because of her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, so I suppose that practically makes me family.

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Teardrops on my Guitar - Taylor Swift 

Filed under: Country Songs, Country Videos, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, Taylor Swift Songs, Top 40 on Friday, February 15th, 2008 by giulia m. | 1 Comment

A hit country song that has been tarted up and re-released as a pop single, Taylor Swift’s Teardrops on My Guitar is a song about personal experience being marketed to within an inch of its life to create the kind of crossover success previous female country artists have enjoyed. It’s all kind of seamy and obvious, but none of that matters if the song is good.

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Sexy Can I - Ray J 

Filed under: Hip-Hop Songs, Hip-Hop Videos, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Ray J Songs, Top 40 on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

The first single from his new album All I Feel, Ray J needs Sexy Can I to hit big. Big enough that he might no longer be referred to in every article written about him as “younger brother of singer Brandy“. Big enough that the first thought listeners have when they hear his name isn’t, “Didn’t he have a sex tape? Or several sex tapes?” Big enough that people will actually talk about the song.

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What Hurts the Most - Cascada 

Filed under: Cascada Songs, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, Top 40 on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

It’s so obvious. Take an American country music megahit… and cross it with German dance music. It will be fantastic. Or it might be the unholy demon spawn of a seriously diseased mind. It could go either way, really, and I’m not sure which I was hoping for when I turned on What Hurts the Most by Cascada.

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In God’s Hands - Nelly Furtado 

Filed under: Nelly Furtado Songs, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, Top 40 on Friday, February 8th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

I know where In God’s Hands by Nelly Furtado is aiming. I know it because it’s aiming at the same spot that her single All Good Things (Come to an End) was aiming at: poetic, ethereal, moving, vivid. But it doesn’t quite get there. Not at all.

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No Air - Jordin Sparks featuring Chris Brown 

Filed under: Chris Brown Songs, Jordin Sparks Songs, Pop Songs, Pop Videos, R&B Songs, R&B Videos, Top 40 on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 by giulia m. | No Comments

Never having been a fan of the Idol shows, I tend to approach any offering from winners and wannabes with extreme caution. I turn the song on with my brain wrapped in mental plastic wrap. I will not raise my hopes, in case it’s one of the Idol songs that sucks purple donkeys. And then I get to be especially pleased that No Air, by Jordin Sparks featuring Chris Brown, doesn’t suck donkeys of any colour at all.

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