Honestly, all I really want to say with this review is: I love Ciara. I think she’s the coolest, awesomest, tough as nails chick on the planet. And it’s not even a sexual thing, ok maybe a little, but it’s more like I want her to be my best friend, show me impressive dance moves and take me out partying. Read more…

Reviews

Really, are we this obvious?

Well yeah, but it’s not like Polow da Don left us much of a choice. Those cheap-sounding vibrating synths,  kind of like slowed-down trance music, made the perfect sleazy digitalized backdrop for Usher to proclaim how damn horny he is. What takes the song up another level (from the already vertigo-inducing heights we’re at) is how Usher’s vocals sound both aroused and melancholic at the same time. Who else in the world can pull that off? Not Celine Dion, that’s for sure.

Granted, the beat was essentially two readymade loops from the computer program Garageband, and the lyrics are about how Usher wants to pull his thing out on the dancefloor. But isn’t that a testament to how friggin great this song really is, that despite the borrowed beat and scandalous singing, nobody really cared?

Everybody just danced. In slow motion.

Usher ft. Young Jeezy - Love In This Club (prod. by Polow da Don)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Best of 2008, Songs

This is a depressing example of a great song disappearing in the music industry shuffle. Wynter Gordon’s debut single ‘Surveillance’ is a natural hit, but to our great dismay, Atlantic Records hasn’t realized what a gem they’re sitting on. In January, Wynter announced on her myspace page that the music video for ‘Surveillance’ had been shot. It hasn’t been released yet, which by the way is true for her debut album Wynter Time as well. Wynters profile at the Atlantic Records website is void of any information.

That’s hardly the back-up this song deserves, when the thing is just beautiful. The production works brilliantly with the lyrics, the synths going up and down like an EKG under the vocals, and the horns acting like exclamation marks after each line. And then, for the chorus, the whole thing simultaneously doubles in power and takes off into the air. Then it comes down again, only to repeat at the next chorus. An exhilarating ride, to say the least.

Let’s all hope that Wynter Gordon’s 2009 will be all that 2008 promised to be. With songs like this, she deserves all the success she can get.

Wynter Gordon - Surveillance

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Best of 2008, Songs

A welcome change of pace for the oft-miserable queen of hiphop soul when it first reached our ears in 2007. ‘Just Fine’ was a revelation of positivy that left me smiling, feeling reassured that Mary J. Blige was not in fact suicidal even after all those gloomy songs about heartbreak and generally feeling like shit.

Then, early this year, Swizz Beatz played the role of matchmaker when he took Mary’s uncharacteristically upbeat tune and introduced it to ‘Treat ‘Em Right’, an infectious 18-year old rap song with a beat resembling that Bmore stuff that the kids love so much.

The offspring from this pairing came to be one of the most magnificient beasts you could encounter on a dance floor in 2008, with Mary’s shouting, wailing vocals riding the frantic club music drums of ‘Treat ‘Em Right’ to an apex of ass-shaking awesomeness.

Mary J. Blige - Just Fine (Swiss Beatz - Treat Em Right Remix)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Best of 2008, Songs