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I promised a few entries back that I would try my best to avoid writing tepid praise about songs that were neither fantastic nor dreadful. I have also mentioned several times that I have been trying to be more positive when it comes to critiquing music as I get very little joy from tearing down artists’ work unless it is truly terrible.

What I’m getting at is that I haven’t written for a while because there has been no good music lately and I don’t want to spend time saying “meh, it’s OK” about every song I’ve downloaded in the past month. I feel no need to write the same halfhearted semi-approval about the latest offerings from: Jimmy Eat World, Enumclaw, Imagine Dragons, Sharon Van Etten, or Broken Bells.

This has left me with precious little to dissect. So I am afraid I must get mean.

Continue reading “Music Thoughts July 4-8 2022”

It’s strange that in this age of constant consumption, when gigabytes of content are devoured whole every millisecond, that Pitbull hasn’t earned the dubious respect of the irony crowd. Heaven knows Mr. Worldwide’s given enough grist for the mill over the past decade, so why isn’t he being stanned?

Continue reading “In Appreciation of Pitbull”

I mentioned in my previous entry how Ava Max‘s potential chart-topper “Sweet But Psycho” bears all the hallmarks of this decade’s maximalist pop hits, found mostly between the years 2010 and 2012. While I’d like to save a full retrospective on those golden years for the end of this year, I do want to put the spotlight on some of those individual tracks. The first being Nicki Minaj‘s ebullient dance-pop monster “Starships”.

Continue reading “In Appreciation of Nicki Minaj’s “Starships””

Look at that waveform. It’s absolutely beautiful. You can see the intro, the verses, the choruses, the bridge (!!), and the final chorus all packed into a neat 3:05 package. This is, structurally speaking, a perfect pop song.

Continue reading “Is Ava Max Bringing Back Pop Maximalism?”

Recently my music commentary has been incredibly repetitive, harping on the same handful of points ad nauseum. In an attempt to be less negative I have decided to focus less on music I dislike and more on music I enjoy. However I have found this to be particularly difficult this year as I don’t like anything. So I will just write a bit about some noteworthy trends.

Continue reading “Assorted Observations”