Tumblr

Hi, I have a Tumblr now, which I've been using.  It's called Voodoo Chili (a stupid yet clever pun on a Jimi Hendrix song).  I'm still gonna use Flawless Crowns for longer pieces like my year-end Billboard post, but I think Tumblr is gonna be my primary blog for a while.  Think of the tumblr as an extension of the stuff I'm doing here, I just needed an incentive to write more and tumblr is more interactive and addictive than blogspot.  Either way, I won't stop writing, cause I like doing it, and I'm thankful for the few people who actually read my stuff.  Hopefully, you'll follow me (literally and figuratively).

Strictly Commercial: Flawless Crowns' Greatest Hits

As college winds down for me, I've been a bit lackadaisical when it comes to posting. I've not been finishing features and I've only been posting about once a month. While I have no intention to stop writing, I think it's time for Flawless Crowns to change a little bit. I have a bunch of ideas, and when finals are done, they'll have my full attention. However, for now, I've been looking through my archives and finding some posts that I'm particularly proud of. Without further ado, FC's greatest hits.

Reviewing the Hits, my year end Billboard recaps:

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

Album Reviews:

Drake - Take Care

Rick Ross - Teflon Don

Analysis:

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

I Need the (old) Doctor

My essay on The Neptunes

Fun Stuff:

A Pictorial Analysis of Nicki Minaj's Verse on Kanye West's "Monster" (some of the picture links have expired, but the good ones remain)

Five Lost Characters Who Should Be An Album Cover

More Smacketology: East Baltimore Bracket

East Baltimore Region

#1 Avon Barksdale v. #8 Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski aka Mr. Prezbo

There's been a good amount of discussion on the Interwebs about what the value when judging these characters against each other. Do you evaluate characters by their bodycounts (Brother Mouzone, Wee-Bey), or do you value character development and tearjerking moments? Well, I'm on the fence. If you're into the whole badass thing, then this matchup is a wash, Avon takes it without a second thought. However, I have a soft spot for Mr. Prezbo, the hopelessly incompetent cop turned respected middle school teacher. Prez had one of the more complete arcs in the series. His time in the detail proved that he wasn't as worthless as he seemed initially, though he could be counted on for one colossal fuckup per season. Despite Prez's compelling story, it's hard to overlook Avon's effortless cool. He was cocky enough to taunt the cops when they couldn't catch him and savvy enough to reduce his prison sentence when he was caught. Avon was a grade-A BAWSE and his charisma powers his way through the first round.

Winner: Avon

#4 Tommy Carcetti v. #5 Duquan "Dukie" Weems

Dukie's a sweet kid born into the shittiest circumstances of any television character in recent memory. He and Michael provide the emotional core of Seasons 4 and 5, but his story is such a relentless downer that I can't really advance him here. Carcetti is an interesting character anyway, especially in the beginning of Season 4, when he is miserable about running for mayor. I also want to shout out Carcetti's campaign advisor Norman, who was not included in the bracket, but was the most under-the-radar comedian on the entire show. Sure, Cheese eats up the big laughs when he talks about midgets pulling guns from their nether regions, but Norman's sly irony deserves a special mention.

Winner: Carcetti

#3 Bunny Colvin v. #6 Serge Malatov

Here are the interesting things about Serge Malatov:

1. He's Russian (or something), so everybody calls him Boris

2. "Does he have hands? Does he have a face? Then it wasn't us!"

That's it. Bunny Colvin is one of the most charismatic and important characters in the entire show. Many characters, like Dukie and D'Angelo, are defined by their helplessness in the face of institutional power. Bunny is one of the few characters who routinely bucks institutional authority, with Hamsterdam in Season 3 and his special classroom in Season 4, and he gives a mean speech. Bunny is an honest police officer in a city full of careerists and corruption, honestly trying to make the world around him better. He doesn't even need to speak to be compelling. He breezes past the semi-anonymous hitman in the easiest match-up of the bracket.

Winner: Bunny

#2 Proposition Joe Stewart v. #7 Frank Sobotka

Proposition Joe was one of my favorite characters from the first moment he appears, in a basketball game between East Baltimore and West Baltimore (skip to 2:50). "Man, look the part be the part motherfucker!" Prop Joe is one of the smartest characters in the show. He's been around the game forever and he reached the top through his wits, not through muscle. He's respected by the Greeks, the Cops and the Streets. He's a shifty motherfucker, but he has his own code of honor. Prop Joe is always fun to watch, and he'd almost be cuddly if he wasn't a cold-hearted gangster. Frank is a decent working man trying to do what's best for his family and his union, but he is doomed by his retarded son and his inability to realize how dangerous his business partners truly are. It's a good story and a good performance, but it doesn't hold a candle to the awesomeness of Prop Joe. Also, this scene

Winner: Prop Joe

Sweet 16

#1 Avon Barksdale v. #4 Tommy Carcetti

It’s the BAWSE vs. the Boss in this matchup. Tommy Carcetti’s introduction to the show was a significant moment. He opened up the world of City Hall and showed that people in City Hall are playing the Game as well, but a different kind of game where the decisions they make effect everyone in the city. Avon's a master of the drug game, but Carcetti mastered the political game, managing to get elected as Baltimore's first white mayor since the 60s. Carcetti has some funny scenes and brilliant speeches, but Avon is the epitome of gangster charisma and the main antagonist of the first season. He's the type of guy who Rick Ross claims to be in his songs, above the fray but not afraid to get his hands dirty. Sure, Carcetti is in charge of the City government, but Avon rules the streets.

Winner: Avon (I'm gonna keep posting this until he loses)

#2 Proposition Joe v. #3 Bunny Colvin

This is the hardest choice I'm going to have to make in this bracket. I'm gonna have to think about it for a while.

Ok I'm back. As I mentioned before, Bunny represents creator David Simon's idealistic vision on how the city should work. The war on drugs costs too much with too little of a payoff? Well, then stop fighting it. A class of many students is disrupted by a few trouble makers? Put them in their own class and everybody will learn better. Bunny Colvin is the character who is willing to change the Game, instead of exploiting it for its own ends. Robert Wisdom's portrayal of Bunny Colvin is so intense and honest that it never seems like he's preaching, just voicing his deeply held convictions. Bunny edges out Carcetti as the most effective speaker in the series. Prop Joe, also wants to change the Game, trying to convince Avon and Marlo to put aside petty gang violence in the name of bigger profits and he's smart enough to do it. He has the best product, and he knows that it gives him an advantage in the black market, so he leverages that into forming the New Day Co-Op. His one flaw is his belief that his druglord colleagues will put away street values in the name of profit. He speaks softly, but people listen, cause what he says is worth hearing and often hilarious. I know that if I don't pick Prop Joe here, I'll be a cadaverous motherfucker. It's too bad, cause I would've picked Bunny over all the other #2 seeds.

Winner: Prop Joe

Elite 8

#1 Avon Barksdale v. #2 Proposition Joe

East Side v. West Side. It's a rivalry as old as dogs v. cats and it's represented here by the drug kingpins of each side. Avon and Proposition Joe have very different leadership styles. Avon is a soldier who leans on his muscle and makes quick, often rash decisions. Prop Joe, on the other hand, is a strategist, who uses the type of dealmaking favored by the politicians in City Hall and high-level police officers like Burrell and Valchek to get his way. Avon spent the better part of three seasons as the main target for the detail's investigations, and while Prop Joe stayed on the sidelines, he was still compelling whenever he was on the screen. It's hard to debate semantics here. Avon was part of the most important character conflict of the entire series, but was routinely outacted by Stringer Bell. Honestly, this one comes down to which character I enjoyed watching more, and who I missed most when he left the show, and Proposition Joe takes both counts.

Winner: Prop Joe

And Prop Joe advances to the Final Four

More Wire-y goodness coming tomorrow

Smacketology Now: West Baltimore Region

Serious Wire spoilers ahead. Don't read too carefully if you haven't seen the whole thing (don't click on links)

On Monday, Grantland released a 32-man (there are two women in there, but they both like girls) March Madness style bracket for best characters on The Wire, the greatest program ever to air on television. Let me start by saying they easily could have made a 64-man bracket and still could have left off some memorable characters. Remember that guy who played Ashy Larry on Chappelle’s Show as Clay Davis’s drug-running chauffeur? Anyway, this 32 person bracket is far from comprehensive, leaving off some fan-favorites. Here are the most notable omissions:

Carver: They include Herc, but not Carver? Seriously? In the first three seasons, they were practically the same person, and what made them different in seasons 4 and 5 was key. Namely, that Carver had a brain and Herc did not. Still, Carver was one of the major characters of Season 4 and a member of the original detail and should have been included.

Slim Charles: “Murder ain’t no thing, but this here some assassination shit” After making a name for himself as a “rumble-tumble” hitman in the Barksdale Organization, Slim came into his own in seasons 4 and 5 as Prop Joe’s right-hand man, dropping pearls of hood wisdom and generally being cooler than everybody. Sure, Simmons said he would’ve won the NIT, but everybody knows the NIT doesn’t mean shit.

Rhonda: Meh.

Beadie Russell: Good character and good performance, but her role was a little slight. Still, she’s better than that Russian dude.

Jay Landsman: How can you leave out the funny fat guy?

Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all (shout out to Vondas, Nicky, Mayor Royce, the Greek, Butchie, Namond and Randy). And like everyone in the show is so fond of saying, it’s all in the Game. Moving on.

West Baltimore Region:

#1 Omar Little v. #8 Ziggy Sobotka

This is the second easiest matchup of the first round. Ziggy spent most of Season 2 as an annoying little punk, fucking up everything he touched, until he fucked up so badly that you felt sorry for him. It’s shocking to me that he beat out Carver in the imaginary play-in game. Omar is respected and feared by viewers and characters alike and he easily passes to the next round.

Winner: Omar

#4 Chris Partlow v. #5 Dennis “Cutty” Wise

It may look tough at first glance, but this is an easy one for me. The duo of Chris and Snoop provided many great moments in the fourth season, but Chris never had any great moments on his own. Chris was a cold motherfucker. He had one of the highest body counts of anyone in the series, but he barely even changed his stony facial expression (except this once). By all accounts, Cutty was as cold as Chris back in the early 90s, but it’s his transformation to mentor for troubled kids like Spider and Mike in his gym that really left an impression. The Wire is frequently bleak, but Cutty’s story is one of the few bright spots. Sorry Chris. Good thing he isn’t real, or I might find myself dead in a vacant house.

Winner: Cutty

#3 Snoop Pearson v. #6 D’Angelo Barksdale

Toughest matchup of the regional, one of the toughest overall. This matchup comes down to what you value when you watch The Wire. The Wire is the greatest television show of all time for several reasons, but the relevant ones here are its gallery of quirky and colorful characters and its ability to weave these characters into dramatically satisfying, often heart-wrenching story arcs. Snoop is one of the show’s most colorful characters, possibly because the actress is playing a barely fictionalized version of herself. She stars in one of the series’ best scenes (oh my God what is she gonna do with that nail gun?!) and her incomprehensible mumble is good for laughs and occasionally poignancy (“How my hair look?”). D’Angelo, however, is the heart and soul of the first two seasons of the show, a decent guy born into an evil family. His signature scene is another one of the series’ best (“Where the fuck is Wallace? STRING?!”), and when he died, the street scenes lost a moral center, which they didn’t really regain until the kids showed up in Season 4. Snoop is one the most fun characters to watch, but D’s storyline is one of the most complete and most tragic in the series, so I have to give him the edge.

Winner: D’Angelo

#2 Michael Lee v. #7 “Cheese” Wagstaff

Ohhh Cheese. Too bad this isn’t a bracket for “Funniest Wire Character,” cause if it was, Cheese would edge the Bunk in the finals (other two final four-ers, Jay Landsman and Prop Joe). The fact that he is portrayed by Method Man, which implies that Cheese had a monstrous off-screen blunt habit, significantly adds to the comedy factor. Respect to Meth, but Michael Lee is a powerhouse of a character. If anybody in this bracket has a chance to take down Omar, it’s Michael, his spiritual successor. Michael was the quietest of the four kids, but easily the most charismatic, dominating nearly every scene with his blank stares. Sorry Cheese, but there ain’t no nostalgia in this bracket.

Winner: Mike

Sweet 16

#1 Omar v. #5 Cutty

Poor Cutty doesn't stand a chance. Cutty's a great character, but Omar's a legend, Robin Hood for the hood. These two characters never shared a scene together, interestingly enough, the universe of the show is just so vast. Cutty doesn't care though, he's gonna just keep boxing, coaching, banging the mothers of the kids who come to his gym and listening to awesome soul music.

Winner: Omar

#6 D'Angelo v. #2 Michael Lee

Another tough one. But not too tough. D and Mike are two of the most well-developed characters in the entire show, changing more in two seasons than many of the cops did in all five. D's story is tragic and "Where the Fuck is Wallace?!" is one of the show's signature quotes, but Michael beats him out thanks to his pivotal role in one of the show's best episodes (season 5's "Late Editions," featuring this whopper of a scene), and probably because Mike's young age raises the dramatic stakes and makes Tristan Wilds' performance even more impressive.

Winner: Mike

Elite 8

#1 Omar v. #2 Michael

And here's where Michael's run ends. Michael is one of the most compelling characters of the show's latter seasons. Sure, Omar may not be the most subtle of Wire characters, but he's the star of so many great moments and has so may memorable lines that it's impossible not to pencil him into the final four. Plus, he's got a Presidential endorsement, which means it's my duty as an American to grant Omar a victory in this matchup.

Winner: Omar

Reviewing the Hits 2011: Party Rock is Everywhere Every Night

Though the end of days is popularly rumored to occur in 2012, a surprising number of major hits were concerned with going out of this world with a bang. Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” and Britney Spears’ “’Til the World Ends” urged us to keep dancing, even though an imminent apocalypse. LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” suggests that when there are no post-apocalyptic humans left for zombies to eat, they might as well start to dance. 2011 will forever be remembered as the year that Party Rock was in the house. Every night, all night. In fact, future historians might look back at the 2011 Billboard and reasonably believe that America was in a constant state of partying. Pop music’s embrace of techno and eurodance was teased in 2010, but came into full force in 2011 and it was impossible to avoid the thumping, four on the floor bass and drums and dubstep squelches on pop radio. The pop charts have been completely taken over by the club kids, who like to think they live each night like it’s their last. The two most notable harbingers of pop music trends, Britney and Rihanna, scored huge hits with techno songs, and “Hold It Against Me” even has a dubstep drop. Lady Gaga’s biggest hit, “Born This Way” shares the same relentless 4/4 as tracks by enormously popular French DJ David Guetta. If 2011 is any indication, pop music is going to continue favoring beat over melody, and artificial sounds over organic sounds until the creation of the first robot pop star in 2021.

Or at least that’s what I would think if it weren’t for the one woman beating relentlessly against the tide: Adele. Adele spent more time atop the Billboard Hot 100 than any other artist. Her album, 21, sold 17 million copies worldwide, which is roughly equivalent to selling a billion copies of a record in 1999 (probably an exaggeration, but it’s impossible to overstate how hard it is to sell as many copies as she has in this day and age). Adele’s music sounds nothing like any of the other number one hits and it’s chart popularity seems to defy conventional logic (which suggests that listeners want more electronic sounds). Adele’s success can mean three things: 1) there will always be a place for big, brassy divas with inhumanly excellent voices in pop music, 2) people requested Adele so much on the radio because they were sick of the high-volume, high energy aggression of every other song on the radio and needed a break or 3) both. Either way, good for you Adele, for adding some variety to my billboard experience this year and for making sure that your douchebag window-washer ex-boyfriend had the worst 2011 of anyone besides Moammar Gaddafi.

Now onto the list:
“Firework” – Katy Perry; (12/18/10-1/1/12, 1/15; 4 weeks)
Already reviewed this one for my 2010 edition.

“Grenade” – Bruno Mars; (1/8, 1/22, 2/5-12; 4 weeks)
Bruno Mars was a semi-pleasant chart presence in 2010, but in 2011 he took the turn towards unbearable. He’s directly responsible for two of the worst singles of the year, “The Lazy Song” and “Lighters” (the latter of which makes me want to channel Tyler, The Creator, and stab Bruno Mars in the motherfucking esophagus) “Grenade,” while not nearly as terrible as those two songs, is not a song that I would ever feel the need to hear again. Mars has a tendency to confuse grand romantic statements (“I’d take a bullet straight through my brain!”) with genuine emotion. I don’t think repeatedly screaming about the myriad ways he would die for this girl is the best way to get her to like him. As crazy as the lyrics are, Mars delivers a decent vocal performance here, and his soul-influenced performance of the song at the Grammys shows that there’s a solid track buried deep beneath Mars’s grandstanding. Unfortunately, Mars fails to find that track. Nobody is gonna remember this song in five years.
4/10

“Hold it Against Me” – Britney Spears; (1/29; 1 Week)
Interesting that this song is Britney’s only number one hit in 2011, considering it was probably the third biggest hit off her album. “Till the World Ends” and “I Wanna Go” got more radio play and are vastly superior to “Hold it Against Me,” a Dr. Luke/Max Martin track that buries Britney in an avalanche of studio gimmicks and heavy bass. The only notable thing about the whole song is the dubstep drop in the middle, and even that is relatively tame compared to Skrillex and other popular brostep guys (which makes it somewhat bearable). This is the only song that I could not recall when I started writing this, which makes sense. If someone typed “Generic 2011 Pop Song” into an automated song generator, this song would probably pop up. On a side note, can you believe Britney’s only 30? Doesn’t it seem like she should be on the wrong side of 50 by now?
4/10

“Black & Yellow” – Wiz Khalifa (2/19; 1 Week)
This is the only Hip-Hop song to reach number one on the Hot 100 in 2011. Though I’ve maligned rappers like B.o.B, Lupe Fiasco and countless others for compromising their sound for the sake of mainstream success, I don’t really think that Wiz Khalifa fits into that category. Sure, “Black & Yellow” is a glossy Stargate production with obvious chart aspirations, but Wiz keeps rapping about the same things he’s always rapped about (money, weed and bitches) in the same sing-song flow he showcased on the great Kush & OJ mixtape. “Black & Yellow,” a pop-influenced track that stays true to Wiz’s voice and persona, is the right way to crossover to the mainstream. It helps that the beat is an absolute monster, and a malleable one, with everybody, their mother and their mother’s mother recording a freestyle over the track. The hook is unstoppable, and even a seasoned Steelers hater, like me, can fuck with it.
7/10

“Born This Way” – Lady Gaga (2/26-4/2; 6 weeks)
Though it’s admirable that Lady Gaga uses her considerable clout to stand behind a substantial portion of her audience, I think Gaga took a step back with Born This Way. I like the song, but Lady Gaga seemed to take critics who anointed her as the next Madonna a bit too seriously. With The Fame Monster, and especially on “Bad Romance,” Gaga appeared to be developing her own unique artistic voice for the pop charts, but Born This Way suffered from a lack of the inventive pop songcraft of that song and by an overreliance on genre pastiche like on the hair metal “You and I,” and especially on this track. I’m probably the 1000th person to comment on the uncanny similarity between “Born This Way,” and Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” but it needs to be mentioned again. Despite the lack of originality and cleverness that marked Gaga’s best songs, “Born This Way” is still enjoyable to listen to, just disappointing in the context of her more interesting work.
6/10

“E.T.” – Katy Perry ft. Kanye West (4/9-23, 5/7-14; 5 Weeks)
Kanye West has had a great couple of years, and it pains me to say that, much as I love him, he was a major part of the worst number one in 2011. Not only does “E.T.” feature my least favorite of Perry’s vocal tics (that breathless bleating delivery), but I can’t shake the feeling that the song is vaguely racist. I mean, when Katy is singing about having sex with an alien, she’s clearly talking about a black man, right? Kanye’s phoned-in guest appearance doesn’t help. Besides the reactionary racial politics beneath the surface (seriously read the lyrics and tell me the song is not about Katy wanting to get railed by a black man), the song is not even catchy or easy to dance to, which makes me think that it rose to the top of the charts based on star power alone, not because anybody actually likes it.
1/10

“S&M” – Rihanna ft. Britney Spears; (4/30; 1 Week)
Many of the songs on Rihanna’s Loud album are about her putting her violent past with Chris Brown behind her and showing that she will not be a victim anymore. “S&M” suggests that Rihanna is sexually excited by the idea of getting hit, which along with “Love the Way You Lie,” feels like a couple steps back for her. I know that a singer’s on-record persona and real personality do not have to be one and the same, but Rihanna, music’s most public victim of domestic abuse, should probably be a bit more conscious about the messages she sends. Pontificating aside, “S&M” is a decent song, with a catchy hook and a collaboration by two of the biggest pop stars of the last decade. It seems like the song is supposed to feel like an event, but the effect is more like standard radio fare, with nothing extraordinary, but nothing extraordinarily bad either.
5/10

“Rolling in the Deep” – Adele: (5/21-7/2; 7 weeks)
“Rolling in the Deep” is the winner of the 2011 “Hey Ya” Memorial Ubiquity Award, for song that you could not go more than an hour without hearing. I had a 3-week-long stretch in July where “Rolling in the Deep” would be playing on the radio every single time I started my car. It’s a weird feeling when you change the station on the radio and the exact same song is playing on a different station. It’s even stranger when it’s playing at the same time on four different stations, which happened at least once this summer with this song. Though undoubtedly overplayed, “Rolling in the Deep” was a refreshing break from the club-driven fare that sat behind Adele for seven weeks. “Rolling in the Deep” is impeccably arranged, with the build-up on the acoustic guitar during the first verse, the gospel back-up singing during the chorus and other subtle flourishes that enhance but do not distract from Adele’s voice, which is the star of the show. Adele’s vocal is typically impassioned, highlighted by the way she pours her heart into the words “all,” “deep” and “soul.” “Rolling in the Deep” is a great song, but I’m gonna have to dock it a point or two because very few songs are as good the 1000th time as they are the first, and this isn’t one of them.
8/10 (rounded up from a 7.5)

“Give Me Everything” – Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo, Nayer & Afrojack: (7/9; 1 Week)
Boooring. The only thing I feel when I listen to this song is the unexplained urge to drink Dr. Pepper (I know this song wasn’t in that commercial but damn if subliminal advertising doesn’t work! You win this round, Pitbull).
4/10

“Party Rock Anthem” – LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock (7/16-8/20; 6 Weeks)
Let’s take a moment to contemplate the bizarreness of LMFAO’s existence. LMFAO is an uncle-nephew duo. The two members, Redfoo and SkyBlu, are the son and grandson of Motown founder and pop music legend Berry Gordy. SkyBlu once accused Mitt Romney of assault, asserting that the politician put a “Vulcan death grip” on his neck. LMFAO are the evolutionary Black Eyed Peas, specializing in mind-numbing party music and absurd music videos. The thing that makes them slightly more tolerable, is that they perform with a wink at the camera, so at least they’re not serious. LMFAO’s sense of humor (“everyday I’m shuffling” sung by an old blues guy. Clever!) can’t save “Party Rock Anthem,” which sounds like what would happen if you made an entire song out of the Peas’ “Dirty Bit,” and a catchy chorus doesn’t make up for the completely dumb and forgettable verses.
3/10

“Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” – Katy Perry: (8/20-9/3; 2 Weeks)
I could probably think of something funny to say about this song, but Rob Delaney already tore it to shreds in this article, so there isn’t much for me to add. I’ll just say that “T.G.I.F.” is more “Teenage Dream” than “E.T.,” which means I like it, and if you look past the lyrics and the unnecessarily long and painfully unfunny music video, it was a fun enough anthem for the last couple weeks of the Summer.
6/10

“Moves Like Jagger” – Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera: (9/10, 9/24-10/8; 4 Weeks)
To be clear, they’re talking about sex moves, right? Because Jagger didn’t have very many dance moves, except for the occasional jumping split and prancing and jumping around like a maniac. Anyway, “Moves Like Jagger” is insidiously catchy, which makes sense because it’s basically a commercial jingle for NBC’s The Voice, albeit one that was played on every channel on the TV and Radio. I prefer Maroon 5 when they’re in their funky-music-white-boy mode than I do in their ordinary state, but I’d still rather listen to almost anything else so I can get that goddamn whistling out of my head.
4/10

“Someone Like You” – Adele; (9/17, 10/15-11/5; 5 Weeks)
“Someone Like You” is the first strictly voice and piano ballad to ever top the Billboard Hot 100. I don’t know if I’m more surprised that it took this long for that to happen or that it happened in 2011. Either way, it speaks to the universality and simplicity of the song and the strength of Adele’s vocal performance. The thing I like most about Adele is that her vocals, while amazing, are also a lot of fun to try to imitate and belt along. It would be hard to talk about this song without mentioning the SNL skit that doesn’t make fun of the song, but of people’s inevitable reaction to the song. So the next time you break up with somebody, your parakeet is sick or you barely miss out on half-price wings, put on this song and have a good sob.
8/10

“We Found Love” – Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris (11/12-12/31, 1/21/12-1/28; 10 Weeks, so far)
THIS is how you do a House crossover. People criticize Rihanna’s vocal ability, but it’s hard to argue that she can’t be compelling in the right context. Rihanna is probably the most prepared of the current pop divas to handle the imminent electronic era in pop music, as her voice complements but never overshadows the production. Considering how crappy most of Calvin Harris’s discography is, there’s a surprising level of attention to detail in “We Found Love.” There’s a subtle change in the instrumentation during each verse. I also like how they managed to avoid including a dubstep drop (must have been a struggle). It’s hard to imagine a more effective techno/pop fusion.
8/10

Recap: Three Katy Perry songs, two Rihanna and two Adele, plus chart-topping appearances by Gaga and Britney. The divas are taking over, everybody else might as well run and hide. Only one Hip-Hop song reached number one, which is almost shocking considering the genre’s mid-00s dominance. Rock is nowhere to be found. Is that a good thing? Probably. I’d rather listen to anything by Adele or Rihanna than re-live the ubiquity of the Black Eyed Peas or poor man’s Black Eyed Peas like LMFAO, and if Rock and Hip-Hop falter commercially, maybe it will force artists, producers and labels to think differently about the music they make. Or people will ignore those genres entirely and music will pound itself into an electronic oblivion until we are compelled to shuffle everyday.

Drake - Take Care: Shallow Hal Wants a Gal

In 2008, Kanye West released 808s and Heartbreak. Though 808s was initially written off as Kanye buying into the vocoder trend that swept Hip-Hop around that time, most critics conceded that the album developed a unique aesthetic, with austere synths and metallic drums, that successfully conveyed Kanye's despair over his mother's death and the end of his longtime relationship with fiancee Alexis Phifer. 808s is considered Kanye's purest pop album, but at the time, it seemed decidedly uncommercial. Gone were most of the elements that made Kanye's first three albums so successful, the buoyant soul samples, enthusiastic choruses and infectious arrogance, replaced instead by introspection and alienation, accentuated by his amateurish, auto-tuned singing. It's Kanye's most personal record, and possibly his most affecting. The album was a commercial success, thanks to Kanye's star power and the strength of singles "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless." Everyone realized that the success of the record meant that people would buy whatever Kanye would sell, but nobody could have predicted that it would be the single most influential Hip-Hop album of the late 2000s.

Kid Cudi's Man On the Moon was the first mainstream rap debut to liberally crib from the 808s aesthetic, foregoing the more traditional Hip-Hop stylings of his mixtape in favor of half-sung, hazy drug ballads, that adopted the "woe is me" posturing of 808s without capturing the raw emotion. To be fair, Kid Cudi has real people problems. He suffers from depression and severe drug addiction and could easily have made the subject matter compelling if he weren't so insufferable. The most significant result of 808s influence was the rise of Drake, whose debut album Thank Me Later, owes its existence to the new genre Kanye inadvertently created. Producer and engineer Noah "40" Shebib cultivated a familiar metallic synth sound as a backdrop for Drake to whine about how awesome his life is. The overriding theme of Thank Me Later was, to put it simply, "fame, while often awesome, sometimes sucks." This is not a real person's problem. Poor Drake drinks expensive champagne and has sex with supermodels and Rihanna. Sure, it's lonely at the top, but there's probably a thousand more compelling themes to base an entire career around. Yeah, Kanye talks about this shit, too, but at least he waited three albums before he retreated into the cold depths of his inner soul. With Drake, all we see is the cold depths and there's nothing that we can relate to.

Drake's new, highly anticipated second album Take Care is more of the same, as Drake manages to talk about himself for 79 minutes without saying ANYTHING. After listening to both of Drake's albums, this is what I know about Drake:

1. He's a famous rapper. Because he is a famous rapper, he has a lot of money and bitches and knows Rick Ross.
2. Before he was a rapper, he was an actor in Canadian teen soap opera Degrassi where he played a wheelchair-bound character named Jimmy, who had actual problems unlike Drake.
3. Drake loves having sex with women, but sometimes feels bad about how many women he has sex with. He tries to make himself feel better by having sex with more women.
4. He loves to sing in a semi-compelling, monotonous over 40's beats that sometimes bang (see "Headlines, "I'm On One"), but usually just sound like Kenny G ("Doing It Wrong," indeed. There's a reason why nobody likes anything Stevie Wonder has done since "Ebony and Ivory")
5. His greatest skill is the ability for him to appear deep and introspective when he's really just selfish, arrogant and shallow, or maybe it's his ability to somehow make a song featuring both Lil Wayne and Andre 3000 incredibly boring.

I could have found out all of those things, except maybe number 5, by glancing at Drake's Wikipedia page. There is still a hell of a lot that I don't know about Drake. I don't anything about where he comes from. I mean, he talks about "his city," but never mentions Toronto by name. He never talks about his family, his (non-famous) friends, or his childhood unless he's trying to justify his vices. Honestly, Drake doesn't say anything that makes his entitled arrogance more palatable or makes me care about him as a human being. Take Care is one austere, overlong humblebrag ("Ugh, it sucks that I have sex with all these beautiful women")

Take "Marvin's Room," the lead single from the album. In "Marvin's Room," Drake drunk dials his nameless ex-girlfriend and complains that she could do better than the new guy she's dating (read: him) and basically brags to her about how he has sex with four women a week. Heartwarming. Everyone drunk dials, true, but Drake manages to spoil even his most vulnerable moments with his self-centeredness. "Marvin's Room" reeks of unearned hubris. He recorded the album in the same studio that Marvin Gaye recorded Here, My Dear, a classic breakup album, but he doesn't seem to understand that standing in the same place as Marvin Gaye does not make them artistic equals. Marvin had a beautiful, soulful voice, which is the polar opposite of Drake's flat, unfeeling croon. On "The Real Her," Drake further proves that he is a singularly boring, unemotional R&B singer, inspiring the least energetic verses in the careers of Andre 3000 and Lil Wayne.

The weakest moments of Take Care come when Drake enters his full-on R&B mode, but Drake can be fairly entertaining when he puts on his rapper face. "Look What You've Done" is the most honest track on the album and is the closest to showing where Drake comes from and why anyone should care about him in the first place. "Headlines," produced by 40 and Bo-1da, genuinely bangs, and Drake keeps his sensitive-guy posturing to a minimum. The best track on here is probably "Lord Knows," featuring Rick Ross, because Drake doesn't sing at all and just rides Just Blaze's old school, children's choir instrumental, dropping some clever lines in the process ("In this bitch all drinks on the house like Snoopy"). Then again, even on "Lord Knows," Drake's arrogance rears it's ugly head. Drake says "I don't make music for n****s who don't get pussy," as if the people who don't like his music are jealous of the quantity and quality of women he sleeps with. He compares himself to Marley and Hendrix, two universally beloved artists who forged their own spaces in music, by refining and perfecting a unique sound. Drake liberally borrows from 808s Kanye and his trademark "hashtag" flow has been around since the late 80s (listen to Ludacris if you don't believe me).

Actually, the best track on the album is the one track where Drake doesn't even show up. Kendrick Lamar's "Buried Alive (Interlude)" displays the MC's virtuosic skill and ability to pack more meaning and pathos into his short verse than Drake fits into his entire album. Kendrick's album, Section.80, shows how you can do the introspective thing right, by actually looking inward and learning about yourself and your generation. "Buried Alive" is tacked on to the end of "Marvin's Room," an interesting choice on Drake's part. "Buried Alive" illustrates a legitimate conflict created by the pursuit of fame. Kendrick must decide if he wants to leave his best friends from Compton behind and embrace his new famous friends. His image of fame as a coffin, with six feet separating you from the rest of the world, is evocative and exposes Drake's whining for what it is.

Whether or not you enjoy Take Care depends on if you buy Drake's schtick. There are some really interesting sonic elements in the production, especially on "Headlines" and "Lord Knows." The album is generally very well made and there's high production value throughout. I couldn't get past the fact that listening to Take Care means having to spend an hour and twenty minutes with Drake, who I find completely uninteresting. Maybe if Drake stopped navel-gazing and looked around he'd realize he wasn't the only person in the world, and maybe that other people's problems are more important than that one time he accidentally drunk-dialed his ex.

The Top Five “Me And...” Songs

5. “Me and the Major” – Belle & Sebastian: Belle & Sebastian’s 1996 masterpiece If You’re Feeling Sinister is the Indie Rock album that comes closest to approaching Bob Dylan’s mid-60s classics. Though Dylan’s snarl provides an edgy quality to even his prettiest ballads, Stuart Murdoch’s soft, pretty croon often belies powerful messages included in his lyrics. “Me and the Major” is particularly Dylanesque in with a driving rock beat and prominent harmonica and a metaphorical lyric reflecting on the difference between generations. Murdoch sings about his relationship with “the Major,” probably referring to then-Prime Minister of the UK John Major, a child of the 60s who did lots of drugs and is compensating for that by being extra authoritative with the youth of the nation. At the end, Murdoch dismisses the major and leaves to has some fun with people his own age.



4. “Me & My Uncle” – The Grateful Dead: “Me & My Uncle” has the distinction being the song most played by the Grateful Dead in many live performances. The Dead performed “Me & My Uncle” 616 times between 1966 and 1994, and I can understand why. The song’s loose structure and lack of chorus leaves a lot of room for variation. It’s a classic road trip song with a darkly comic twist, when Jerry leaves his dead uncle by the side of the road and makes off with gold they stole from some West Texas Cowboys.



3. “Me and the Bean” – Spoon: “Me and the Bean,” recorded for 2000’s Girls Can Tell, is one of the most eerily minimalist songs in Spoon’s catalogue and predicted the direction the band would go in on their most recent album Transference. People have speculated that the Bean in this song refers to Francis Bean Cobain, and it’s possible that the song is a tribute to Nirvana. Britt Daniel’s voice sounds remarkably similar to Kurt Cobain’s on the track and the song shares a similar verse structure and wordless chorus to Nirvana’s “Lithium.” Daniel posits himself as Cobain, who will be a shadow on his daughter for the rest of her life, and the Bean as his unwitting successor.



2. “Me and Bobby McGee” – Janis Joplin: Sure, the song was written by Kris Kristofferson, it’s impossible to think about the song without thinking about the way Janis’s warble gradually shifts into a wail and the trip to rock city with the key change in the last verse. Bobby can be a boy or a girl or something more symbolic, but Janis’s pleasure in recounting her time with Bobby and her pain when singing about how he left is so real that it doesn’t matter. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and without Bobby, Janis is just “me.” The song is a perfect metaphor for the good time idealism of the sixties fading into the harsh realism of the 70s.



1. “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” – Paul Simon: Is “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” the happiest song ever written? It has bright major chords, tales of youthful mischief gleefully delivered by Simon and a fucking WHISTLE SOLO! “Me and Julio” is among the purest 2 minutes and 45 seconds of pop bliss ever recorded. It’s full of nostalgia for a bygone time, when Paul and Julio could do what they wanted without a care in the world, but it isn’t bogged down by the knowledge that the good times would eventually end. The song was used to amazing effect in The Royal Tenenbaums, further canonizing the song as the premier anthem for youthful tomfoolery.

Honorable Mentions:
“Me and My Girlfriend” – 2Pac: Hint: it’s about his 45, not about a girl
“Me and the Devil Blues” – Robert Johnson: A legend-building delta blues classic
“Elevators (Me and You)” – Outkast: Sort of cheating, because it doesn’t start with “Me and” but it’s a classic.
“Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard” - !!!: The title says it all.