"A bunch of insanely catchy hooks refusing to play together nicely, but they've been corralled against their will onto the same track anyway." If that had been my review of a Ke$ha single it would surely have been high praise, song meriting an 8 or 9 or higher. Three days ago when listening to Enrique Iglesias ft. Pitbull on "I Like It" those same words added up to a borderline pan (5 points, or 6 at the most). Then yesterday I decided that all that spurting cool whip and root beer frosting mess brought "I Like It" up to a 7 or even an 8, so "bunch of insanely catchy hooks refusing to play together nicely" etc. were now praise words rather than an explanation of failure (even if Iglesias does sound inexplicably disengaged in the track's first section). Now I'm backtracking and by tomorrow I may well hate the thing, for how the track's damn overload sabotages the catchiness of the individual hooks.
As every schoolkid knows, the
Boney-Joan Rule states that "any reason I give for liking a performer will also be a reason I give for disliking some other performer." The Iglesias-Pitbull corollary says that "any reason I give on a particular day for disliking 'I Like It' will be a reason I give on some other day for liking 'I Like It.'" (Surely someday I will come to see Enrique's early disengagement as a virtue that helps the tunefulness seep through - and then I'll change my mind.)
Half a year ago I was in a state of grumbles about the Latter-Day Dance-Pop Mess, Amalgamated, while now I think we're in a fascinating time for music, though the music itself is pretty much the same. "Blah Blah Blah" is what turned me.