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Now, before I conk out totally for the night: Idolator deadline is tomorrow... er, today at 3 PM my time, including comments. P&J deadline is 9:59 PM my time, comments can come 13 days later. ('Cept I'm going out tomorrow evening, so the de facto deadline for P&J is about 5:30.) Singles will take care of themselves because I've been thinking about them hard all year and I've pretty much figured out why I like my number ten song (Keak Da Sneak's eerie, scraggly-voiced "That Go") more than my number eleven (Gwen's "Early Winter"). So unless a new astonishingly great single turns up at the last second (which isn't going to happen unless I look for one), that list is all set except I'm probably still going to spend ten minutes arguing with myself as to whether JoJo's "Anything" is better or worse than Britney's "Gimme More."
My albums list is a big mess, and anything from my number six to my number sixteen is about equally good/equally flawed. Maybe I could pick five of 'em for my Idolator ballot and a different five for my Pazz & Jop. (Last year I was torn between Eric Church and Alan Jackson for my tenth spot so I ended up giving Church to Idolator and Jackson to Pazz & Jop, though if I had to do it again I'd go Church for both.)
Travis Tritt: Strong singer, soul-blues stylings in country music, and this time he carries even the mushy songs (imagine if Michael Bolton had been good), and fortunately there's a good bit of nonmush as well.
When it comes down to it I'm pitting something like the top five on one album against the top five on the others, usually without penalizing artists for their terrible stuff if they're also making good stuff (though making a lot of good stuff is certainly a help). I made an exception by knocking out Tisdale. By the five-track rule she'd stand a chance, but I want her to suffer for her bad stuff as I suffered listening to it. Anyway, there's going to be something of a battle between good songs and good singers. The Veronicas album is way loaded with good melodies, far more than on their first alb. Yet they sing with this plastic hysterical desperation in song after song after song. Sometimes this works well, the plasticity undercutting the sentimentality and adding a cold violence to their piercingly sugary sweetness. But song by song it can get wearying to listen to, and they really do sound callow. Whereas LeAnn Rimes has this low dark tone that I consistently adore, but I'm realizing that even by the five-track rule she may not quite have good enough material to beat the Veronicas. But I might just go by feel, telling myself that LeAnn's richer voice carries her, and if I want to rate her over the Veronicas I will, damn it. It's my list, after all. (Still not sure I won't give it to the Veronicas, though. Or they both could fall out.)
I finally listened to Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad and it's definitely in play. My complaint has been that she, like the Veronicas, is too one-track in her singing, the same burnt sorrow in her tone no matter the mood or the melody. But she's expanding the voicings on this album, and there's a lot of ambition in the arrangements, a lot of dissonance and roughness, most of which works very well. I'm pleasantly surprised, given the somewhat mixed comments on the record from alexmacpherson and skyecaptain.
Rihanna's got a track where, just like on a couple of the Tisdale's, she's saying there's a difference between the entertainer and the person. But she pulls it off, telling us that sometimes she sucks as a human being, and making it sound like she really does think she sometimes sucks. She's three years younger than Tisdale and three years younger than the Veronicas, and she sounds about five years older, and five years deeper.
"Breaking Dishes" is the best-known of the roughneck numbers, but the one that's been grabbing me is "Lemme Get That," a deliberately stumbling shuffle, thick Caribbean harmonies, the accompaniment pushing up with ugly half steps, while some of Rihanna's phrasing is this half-detached, half-emphatic rhythmic style that could come right out of "Maybelline" or "Too Much Monkey Business." But it's not signifying rock 'n' roll at all. I'm not sure what genre this song is signifying, actually. I like that.
Oh yeah, and "Umbrella" is a slammer, as they say, and so is "Shut Up And Drive."
Ashley Monroe, another young one, a country singer, a voice that's fierce and wet, can be too much, but a lot of passion there, and good songs.
I remember the Brooks & Dunn as having a lot of good stuff on it. I'll listen tomorrow, and if it does well, everything'll be in even more of an uproar, and I won't know what to choose. And I can't forget M.I.A. and Vanessa Carlton and Gretchen Wilson and John Anderson.
My albums list is a big mess, and anything from my number six to my number sixteen is about equally good/equally flawed. Maybe I could pick five of 'em for my Idolator ballot and a different five for my Pazz & Jop. (Last year I was torn between Eric Church and Alan Jackson for my tenth spot so I ended up giving Church to Idolator and Jackson to Pazz & Jop, though if I had to do it again I'd go Church for both.)
Travis Tritt: Strong singer, soul-blues stylings in country music, and this time he carries even the mushy songs (imagine if Michael Bolton had been good), and fortunately there's a good bit of nonmush as well.
When it comes down to it I'm pitting something like the top five on one album against the top five on the others, usually without penalizing artists for their terrible stuff if they're also making good stuff (though making a lot of good stuff is certainly a help). I made an exception by knocking out Tisdale. By the five-track rule she'd stand a chance, but I want her to suffer for her bad stuff as I suffered listening to it. Anyway, there's going to be something of a battle between good songs and good singers. The Veronicas album is way loaded with good melodies, far more than on their first alb. Yet they sing with this plastic hysterical desperation in song after song after song. Sometimes this works well, the plasticity undercutting the sentimentality and adding a cold violence to their piercingly sugary sweetness. But song by song it can get wearying to listen to, and they really do sound callow. Whereas LeAnn Rimes has this low dark tone that I consistently adore, but I'm realizing that even by the five-track rule she may not quite have good enough material to beat the Veronicas. But I might just go by feel, telling myself that LeAnn's richer voice carries her, and if I want to rate her over the Veronicas I will, damn it. It's my list, after all. (Still not sure I won't give it to the Veronicas, though. Or they both could fall out.)
I finally listened to Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad and it's definitely in play. My complaint has been that she, like the Veronicas, is too one-track in her singing, the same burnt sorrow in her tone no matter the mood or the melody. But she's expanding the voicings on this album, and there's a lot of ambition in the arrangements, a lot of dissonance and roughness, most of which works very well. I'm pleasantly surprised, given the somewhat mixed comments on the record from alexmacpherson and skyecaptain.
Rihanna's got a track where, just like on a couple of the Tisdale's, she's saying there's a difference between the entertainer and the person. But she pulls it off, telling us that sometimes she sucks as a human being, and making it sound like she really does think she sometimes sucks. She's three years younger than Tisdale and three years younger than the Veronicas, and she sounds about five years older, and five years deeper.
"Breaking Dishes" is the best-known of the roughneck numbers, but the one that's been grabbing me is "Lemme Get That," a deliberately stumbling shuffle, thick Caribbean harmonies, the accompaniment pushing up with ugly half steps, while some of Rihanna's phrasing is this half-detached, half-emphatic rhythmic style that could come right out of "Maybelline" or "Too Much Monkey Business." But it's not signifying rock 'n' roll at all. I'm not sure what genre this song is signifying, actually. I like that.
Oh yeah, and "Umbrella" is a slammer, as they say, and so is "Shut Up And Drive."
Ashley Monroe, another young one, a country singer, a voice that's fierce and wet, can be too much, but a lot of passion there, and good songs.
I remember the Brooks & Dunn as having a lot of good stuff on it. I'll listen tomorrow, and if it does well, everything'll be in even more of an uproar, and I won't know what to choose. And I can't forget M.I.A. and Vanessa Carlton and Gretchen Wilson and John Anderson.