Thursday, July 16, 2009

Two Songs I'm Loving, One More I'm Not

The Good:

Bad Habits
Maxwell

The thing is, Maxwell is brilliant and "Bad Habits" is everything it needs to be. The perfect follow up to "Pretty Wings," the song opens with Maxwell's signature falsetto pouring over a mellow intro before it builds toward a horn driven ode to infatuation. As always the lyrics are inspired, and Maxwell's vocals throughout are flawless. Really, Maxwell gets better with time, and BLACKSummer'sNight is arguably his strongest collection of songs to date. Or maybe everything else in music sucks right now, and I'm just THIRSTY for some quality.

Banging On The Walls
Cassie

I fully realize that juxtaposing Cassie so close to Maxwell may bring my credibility into question, but I'm fine with that. One song doesn't reflect the other, and that's fine. I'm a fan of any artist that recognizes their lane, and stays there. Cassie can't sing, and "Banging On The Walls" acknowledges that. Autotune is this girl's friend, and it works really well on this song. "Walls" is easily a suitable dance song, and almost dips into exceptional at the 2:55 mark, which introduces a synth-heavy bridge that compliments the song's overall production perfectly. If "Banging On The Walls" were recorded by Britney, folks would be ON it. Alas, Cassie is a joke and unfortunately "Walls" will suffer in response.

The Bad:

Obsessed
Mariah Carey

I'm not late with this, I was just REALLY wanting this song to grow on me. It hasn't. Mariah Carey is a study in regression. If 2004's "Shake It Off" was urban Mariah at her reformed best, 2007's "Migrate" along with the rest of the tragic E=MC2 went beyond urban to hoodrat, and that's not cool. With "Obsessed," Mariah becomes too comfortable in that lane. This is a Keri Hilson song. No, this is post-"After the Storm" Monica. This is bad.

Too gimmicky: "I'm the press conference, you a conversation." Too 20-something: "I'm in the A. You so so lame, and nobody here even mentions your name." Too out of touch: "You on your job, you hatin hard."

When Mariah Carey is too smart for this, I can't help but to think that she's insulting me with this song. The woman who wrote "Always Be My Baby," and "Breakdown" now expects me to ghostride the whip to circa-2002 lyrical laziness? She's not dumb, so she must think I am.

The best part of this song: "And I was like, why are you so obsessed with me?" And THAT was lifted from Mean Girls.

Checkout all three songs below, and tell me what you guys think:





2 comments:

aulelia said...

LMFAO @ your reviews.

Good to see more regular posts on here but have to disagree with your views on Mimi's release.

The album will be a banger.

Cassie's song is okay -- its mp3 material, not really buy a CD.

Maxwell is doing so well. Really happy he did 300K in the US.

Unknown said...

I agree Mariah is singing songs that are way too young for her. I hate hearing her mumble her way through songs when she has an amazing voice. I wish she would go back to songs like "Always be my Baby"

I have never heard Cassies song because ... well like you said, she is a joke.