The Fray – Heartless
The mournful vocals of Isaac Slade have returned to more balladry, if balladry meant slow songs that everybody can sing along to, even though you may not always like to. Not that the band are trip-breakers, but single after single, the band produces basically the same style of melody-making that won them a soundtrack on Grey’s Anatomy. Grimly speaking, even General Motors takes more risks than The Fray in their investments.
But the band does have one sweet fretboard ride that’s becoming a chart magnet, even after Chris Allen basically reinvented it in a Kanye-ego-shrinking package. The Fray’s acoustic rendition of Heartless sounds blissfully simple especially because of the, albeit monotonous, keyboard accompaniment that basically involves poking your index finger on a couple of keys alternatively and the haunting ‘ooh-ooh’-ing that shadows Slade’s plaintive singing. The rest of the song sounds a little like a jam session in your bedroom, but who wouldn’t want to have Fray feeling at home in your most informal living space.
[Play Now]
Black Eyed Peas – I Got A Feeling
Their albums explode with that beat-packed dance-a-holic first release and usually the follow-up keeps your car stereo worth its bass-booming speakers, but this time around the Peas have opted for a different kind of follow-up to their now overplayed, Boom Boom Pow.
Truth be told, the song I Got A Feeling has the kind of dance beat that sounds like a Euro anthem, served in a ready-to-play package for the clubs of Germany. And the lyrics are probably as exciting as German omelette ( we could’ve said as easy as…but let’s not disrespect the blonder sex). The chorus shares a similar attitude-clad chanting style as the Shut up and Let Me Go duo we loved to hear on TNL as the Ting Tings.
It’s very uncharacteristic of the Black Eyed Peas in that it’s probably their least creative music installment. When they’re not reciting the days of the week, they’re going on a Madonna-meets-Nike peer pressure chant of ‘just do it, just do it’.
But just because it’s a standard dance song with lyrics that Disney Channel star, Demi Lovato could learn, it doesn’t make it a bad song. Its standard-ness makes it easily familiar but nothing that screams BEP brilliance. That may also be due to the fact that Wyclef does most of the singing, in that while he is the shining star of production and beat-creating talent, and can spew politically challenging rap, he’s no Jamie Foxx vocalist. But who knows maybe this dance anthem may also be popular for some kind of football league premier…like the kind that St. Kilda would play.
And yes at one point, they do say Mozeltoff!
[Play Now]
Chris Cornell – Long Gone
There is a certain David Bowie style mystique in the entire song, but it’s hard to gather exactly where Chris Cornell is going with this one, much like his post-Soundgarden music career. Just like we can’t believe that the face Michael Jackson left behind is the same one that brought the first video by a black artist to our MTV-greedy TV’s, we can’t believe that the saggy arms and haggard look of Chris Cornell is all that is left from a man who forged the rock anthems of an entire generation with a band called Soundgarden. His collaborations have been as disastrous as that most expensive Jackson sibling promo called Scream – from pop-pretentious Audioslave to now Timbaland, who would’ve really thought they day would come.
Having laid it so unpretty on the poor guy, it must be said that his collaboration with Timbaland does have an Apologize vibe to it that is more than a little pleasant and refreshing to say the least.
[Play Now]