As a preamble to my favorite songs of the year, here we are with my least favorite song. Overall 2014 wasn't my favorite year in music as you'll see once we get to my favorites (spoiler: it's all Top 40). There was nothing that really swept me away. That being said, there sure was a lot of shit out there. Even then, it was pretty easy for me to choose which song annoyed me the most. After consulting with PricewaterhouseCoopers the winner is....
Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" is a textbook example that just because a song is catchy doesn't mean it's any good. Don't get me wrong, it is quite catchy, but dear god does it annoy me. To begin with, Ms. Trainor's vocals are gratingly nasal. It's like she had a cold the day the went to record the vocals. The throwback doo-wop motif is a novelty that quickly wears thin. Her white-girl-rapping is just annoying as hell. The lyrics are about body positivity, which I don't have a problem with per se, but as others have pointed out fall completely flat when put under scrutiny. To top it off, her follow up song sounds almost exactly the same. Finally, as for the video, they went way overboard on the pastels, ugh. Ladies and Gentlemen, here's your one hit wonder of 2014.
Now for something more positive...
Favorite Song/Video Combination
You may remember Kimbra from Gotye's massive hit "Somebody That I Used To Know". Kimbra is kind of like the southern hemisphere version of Bjork. She's from a small island nation (New Zealand), has an eccentric sense of style and taste, it's difficult to pin her to any specific genre, and her music works much better in tandem with her music videos. Not to diss Bjork but I've always found when listening to Bjork's songs on their own that they never enchanted me as much as they did when accompanied by one of her zany videos. I feel the same way about Kimbra. Watching her video for "Miracle" I can't help but feel the good vibes (she's effervescent in the enthusiasm she shows in this video) but when taken on it's own the song doesn't quite have the same pop as when it's accompanied by the video. And she really does pop in that bordering-on-risque red outfit, but once again, she really looks like she's having fun. The choreography reminds me a bit of fellow southern-hemispherian Kylie Minogue's video for Love At First Sight. Go ahead, watch, and have fun:
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2 comments:
I think you might be on to something here Zrbo. Maybe I'd heard this song in passing somewhere, but now I really gave it a concentrated listen. I feel like it's about 70% of a great pop song, but the other 30% sort of cancels the rest of it out. Yes, that is an unfortunate vocal performance. It sounds very affected and contrived. There's not merely some "white girl rapping" in there, but I also detect an attempt at kind of a "reggae toasting" thing. She sounds like Macy Gray with rabies.
I do like the production and certain sections of the melody (one of them reminds me of Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell"), but the title line, with the jazzy acoustic bass ... as the Italians would say, "It's-a no good-a."
It's funny how a song can be almost great, and yet you can blow it at the finish line. It seems to me that, until roughly the turn of the millennium, artists used to be able to come up with at least 50 songs per year which got about 95% of it right, if not 100%. But just because someone can come up with 70% of a good song, doesn't mean they win the damn trophy.
She looks like Carly rae jepsen to me.
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