Received email with the top 10 Napster downloads and loaded the playlist into Rhapsody (except for the Nickelback tunes which aren't available there yet).
- "Hey Ya!" by Outcast? Yikes! It sort of reminded me of that song from the Shrek movie ("All Star" by Smash Mouth). As for "The Way You Move", the chorus is good but I do not like the rap-like verse structure.
- "The Scientist" by Coldplay is good, as well as "White Flag" by Dido which actually I heard a really good acoustic-only version on the Sharon Osbourne show in December.
- "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down is competent, but sort of more of the same we've heard from their first CD.
- "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera is a pretty song, but something about Aguilera's vocals are not right. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with her music to recognize her voice, but I'd have rather heard say Tori Amos doing this piano-heavy song than her. Not bad, though.
- Alicia Keys has a nice voice in the song "You Don't Know My Name" which has her working the scales pretty good, which reminded me a bit of an American Idol contestent song.
So these are the legal download songs that folks are downloading/buying? Am I missing something or is this really what's 'popular' today? Seems like a heavy dose of depressing music. Could any of this be reflective of the current political climate?
This entry originally appeared at makeyougohmm.com
Article comments
1 - TDavid
Wow, I guess nobody has heard any of these songs or disagrees that they are 'popular'. Where are all the music critics here?
2 - Mark Saleski
i've heard "Hey Ya"...that's it.
i listen to almost no radio and just bits & pieces of mtv/vh1...so i hear almost no new music at the pop level.
3 - Phillip Winn
Hey Ya! - love it. I suspect that most people aren't listening to the lyric, btw, but just like the groove.
The Scientist - as good as most of Coldplay's stuff. Nice, not groundbreaking.
White Flag - I don't know why I like Dido so much, but I like it.
Here Without You - I don't think it is their best song, but I note that my wife has bought exactly one song at the iTMS after hearing the band play on Jimmy Kimmel Live - this one.
Beautiful - disagree on Xtina. It was this song that I heard without realizing who it was that made me realize that she is a great singer. Good song, great voice. Too bad about the skank ho stuff.
I am ashamed to admit that I haven't yet heard the Alicia Keys song, though I liked her first album.
And don't worry about the nickelback songs. They're alright, but nothing super-special.
4 - BJ
I have no idea what the lyrics to Hey Ya! might be. But my ass is moving just thinking about that song.
5 - Eric Olsen
Love both Outkasts equally - freakish blends of '70s funk, soul and contemporary hip-hop.
Love Coldplay, but somewhat less than their last album. Same with Dido.
The rest is of the Great Pool of Blah, nothing I would notice one way or another. I must veer from Phillip's charity toward Xtina, however. I was so scarred by accidentally seeing the video of this song that I still flinch when I enter a room with a TV in it. Surely, she can sing to the extent that she can hit notes and project and whatnot, but her aesthetic choices in what she does with that voice render her a living self-parody. And then there's the skanky ho stuff.