bedsitter23

My biggest complaint for 2013 was “Royals”.  What a terribly boring song.  Still, that’s not my biggest issue with it.  I understand that kids these days are ingesting synthetic pot, prescription painkillers or BK SatisFries or whatever to make them like this stuff.  I am just concerned with how serious Lorde is taken.  This song got played on alt-rockstations and commentators said things like “This stunningly written satire on the whole materialistic aspect of 21^st Century  culture.”  Wait, what?  Terrible pop song, and nothing more than a pop song.

Moving from my ‘unfavorable’ list to ‘favorable’ list in 2013 was Bruno Mars.  Bruno was always the critics’ darling, but only this year did his music match the hype heaped upon him- “The next King of Pop”, the “multi-genre pop champion”.  His singles in 2013 were derivative to be sure (“Locked out of Heaven” isn’t a Police cover?  Let me check the song listing on Zenyatta Montdatta again.) but they were good.

Going in the other direction was Justin Timberlake.   JT has given us some great pop moments but his “black tie” phase was pure Pat Boone.  “The 20/20 experience” was the #1 selling album of the year, but Justin probably sepnt every 2013 night wishing he had done “Blurred Lines”.  At this point,  his music is less interesting than that other Justin, the Beebs.

Not sure why JT’s music has become so bland after once being a solid pop performer, but maybe it’s because the more serious these guys get, the worse the music gets.  I am hardly a Katy Perry fan, but she occasionally can put out a catchy tune.  “Roar” was hopelessly earnest, and one of the most annoying songs of the year.

I have always said that about Eminem, an artist who is better served to be Adam Sandler and not as Malcom X, Muhammad Ali,  Zig Ziglar, or whatever insightful and important personality that he aspires to be.  He seems to have resurrected his career, but his duet with Rhianna “Monsters in my head” is silly in it’s over-importance and like a typical shared Facebook post in its originality.

Of course, Eminem did well for himself, but no African-American went to #1 in 2014.  I would have liked to seen Lil Wayne do it.  “(B*tches) Love Me” was a pretty great song, even if Weezy has become harder and harder to defend.  Despite lyrics  much worse than anything Phil Robertson has ever said, it did go to #9.  It’s impossible to approve of the song’s content - which is offensive as pop gets, so I suppose that is why indie rockers who routinely love Lil Wayne have jumped off his bandwagon.  (They still loved Kanye, they fawned over him as much as ever- but for the first time in years, Kanye didn’t give us anything worth writing home about.  Love him or hate him, his music is usually pretty good, but it’s been awhile since he has had that great song).

On the positive side, Macklemore did make the pop scene a better place with his Outkast-style genre rap.  Pop radio did promote his song about ‘homophobia in rap’ (“Same love”) which was a message that needed heard, but was extremely heavy handed, and how anyone wanted to hear that song more than once is beyond me.

That’s about it.  I guess I should say something about Icona Pop (who I thought were the next in line of snotty British girl bands like the Spice Girls, B*Witched, Girls Aloud, Shampoo and dozens of others, but they are not.  I knew the song was just a bit”Waterloo” in its bad English translation)or the obvious - One Direction.  Still, I have less hate for 1D than I do “serious” bands like Fall Out Boy.  That band would be opening for Poison 20 years ago…I’m not saying I don’t see the appeal , because I do.  It’s just that it is annoying to me.  Know why Imagine Dragons sell as much as Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez?  Because it all sounds the same.  That’s the problem.  Van Gogh had the right idea.