Singles Going Steady


Carrie Underwood - Jesus Take The Wheel
[4.2]
Ian Mathers: I am not anti-religion by any means, but this is the sort of thing that makes me want to join the great Secular Humanist cabal. On the basis of “Jesus Take The Wheel” alone I'm more than willing to file Underwood as the worst Idol winner, to say nothing of her horrendous last entry here. Every time I try to sum up why I hate this I devolve into incoherency, but I will say this: Babies do not sleep like rocks.
[0]
Thomas Inskeep: I like this single anyway, but up against this week’s steaming singles pile, it sounds that much better, by which I mean quite a bit. For whatever reason, country artists tend to pull off Christian themes in their singles in a way that most popsters can’t/don’t, and this is no exception. Underwood’s fine voice wrings everything from a surprisingly non-mawkish story-song of the ilk that country does better than any other genre. Faith Hill should kill for a song this good, a song that’ll have plenty to do with Underwood becoming, like Kelly Clarkson and Fantasia before her, a star artist in her format, and like them, deservedly so.
[8]
Erick Bieritz: A title like that could be something in the hands of a different artist. I envision a banjo-fueled “Dukes of Hazard” style chase song, or at least a sequel to the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait.” What Ms. Underwood offers us instead is a paperback-thin story of redemption in three and a half minutes which is neither musically involving nor especially spiritually moving.
[4]
David Drake: In 2003, there were 6,328,000 car accidents in the United States. There were 2.9 million injuries, and 42,643 deaths (source: Car-Accidents.com). Jesus, please take the wheel! Or, you know, support public transportation infrastructure. The CTA just went up to two dollars!
[1]
Mike Powell: The autocracy of Jesus spills out on to the interstate as faith-based America frighteningly bleeds the line between religious fervor and pure fucking sorcery through the miracle of no-hands driving on patches of black ice; Underwood has her demographic so neatly wadded up in her well-moisturized hands it’s scary.
[6]
Alfred Soto: American idols have as much right to like Nebraska as Robert Hilburn.
[6]
Beyonce feat. Slim Thug - Check On It
[4.2]
Ian Mathers: Beyonce seems to think that if she just keeps singing words, as many as she can, this will become anything other than embarrassing. Slim's verse is fine, I guess, and the production is actually pretty neat, but it's hard to notice either because Beyonce seems intent on devouring the track whole. I never thought I'd say this, but can she please stop talking about her ass?
[2]
Thomas Inskeep: If I may, basically, quote myself: Allegedly from the forthcoming Pink Panther soundtrack (a film in which, whaddaya know, B co-stars), “Check On It” is a weak-ass Swizz Beats beat (I honestly didn’t even know he was still in the game) topped with some Beyoncé b.s. and a Slim Thug verse that sounds like it should’ve been left on the studio floor (“Keep my hands in my pants / I need to glue ‘em with glue”—as opposed to gluing them with what, exactly?). I have nothing more to add.
[3]
Erick Bieritz: Beyonce owes a good-sized chunk of her success to her collaborations, and Slim Thug, the Houston rapper most likely to create a long-term presence in pop, is an excellent addition. “Check On It” doesn’t have some of the obnoxious hamming in the chorus that “Soldier” did, but the Southern guest appearance here is not quite as great as the one that graced that Destiny’s Child hit. The two songs are roughly equal in the end.
[6]
David Drake: I like new revitalized Swizz Beats! For some reason that little background violin sounds like a fiddle. It's like Slim Thug is on the new Chieftans album! I do enjoy that, unlike Eminem, Beyonce does not feel the need for tearful, plodding farewells.
[7]
Mike Powell: Drone rap and hypno-nursery rhymes that come out of the gates galloping (“wanksters”?) only to asymptotically stumble towards zero after about one minute; face down, stoned, and slurping up a bunch of orange juice, this song is just massaging itself lazily until the screwed and chopped version gets here.
[4]
Alfred Soto: As uneven solo as she was when she and her papa were telling Flo Ballard and Mary Wilson –er, Kelly Rowland and the other chick – what to do, Beyonce is nevertheless Beyonce no matter what she does, even when she serves this cold fried chicken. Remember “Baby Boy”? I thought not.
[3]
Eminem - When I'm Gone
[5.2]
Ian Mathers: This has the same kind of gut-punch impact of “Stan” on first listen, maybe even more so; “Stan” was fictional, but here he's writing about his own family. It tips over into melodrama near the end, but especially in the first half we have Eminem really digging into the types of contradictions and emotions that make up much of his best non-flippant work (and his flippant work recently hasn't been good, so it's good to see him back to this). What do you do when you've spend so much time writing about your love for your daughter that you never see her?
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: Could you be more self-important, Marshall? I don’t care about your relationship with your daughter, or your wife, or fame. You’re a dick, and you’ve lost whatever spark you had, now left to record infinite versions of “Cat’s in the Cradle.” A plodding beat, a pathetically limp orchestral sample, and your now-tired voice? No thanks. I won’t miss you when you’re gone, not if having you around means more of this awful crap.
[2]
Erick Bieritz: Perhaps partially repairing the family drama “Mockingbird” failed to deliver, “When I’m Gone” still feels extraneous as a single and underachieving as a song. Eminem’s husband and father exegisis may have put him over the top in sales and critical acclaim at the beginning of the oughties, but five years later it feels like all the blood, sweat and tears have been wrung out of this sleeveless T-shirt.
[4]
David Drake: Yeah yeah yeah we get it, go away. I just wanna give you this coin!!!
[4]
Mike Powell: An armless Eminem returns to wrestle with Karma (a dog) in a cross between a suicide note and a dream diary and wins. Despite being a little too morbid and downright surreal, it’s pretty captivating to hear Eminem shift from writing about himself as a vibrant kook to sounding genuinely mentally unstable; it’s like the “Ashes to Ashes” to the “Space Oddity” of “My Name Is,” the sound of Shady falling from the sky.
[7]
Alfred Soto: I’m sorry, Hailee, I didn’t mean to hurt you. There’s still plenty to clean in my closet.
[4]
Fort Minor - Petrified
[4.8]
Ian Mathers: Mike still can't write good rhymes, but he sounds fine and between the old school squeals and that neatly shivery descending tone in the back, the production isn’t half bad. The chorus is surprisingly effective, and I bet this would sound fine in a bar. Most importantly: He's not talking about what a worthless excuse for a human being he is.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Apparently Mike Shinoda’s rather influenced by – Jeru the Damaja? This is so much a rockish re-version of “Come Clean,” musically, it’s ridiculous. Unfortunately, it’s not as good, and as for Shinoda’s rapping, I’ll just be kind and say I don’t care for it. Suffice it to say I’m not petrified by his “talent”; wake me when it’s over.
[4]
Erick Bieritz: Mike sets out to make a Beastie Boys song, complete with Led Zeppelin reference, and ends up in Sage Francis territory. If this doesn’t endear him to the indie rap set, they should be ready to explain why, because this sounds like it could easily drop on Def Jux.
[6]
David Drake: Haha cool little squeals in a Cypress Hill stylee! This is more outright rap than Linkin Park, which may be too much of a compromise; it doesn't have LP's unique qualities when the production falls on one side of the divide. Dude still has lame lyrics from time to time ("Like children in a building you can't stand steady"?) but the references ("a crack in the levy," edgy topicalism) suggest Shinoda's awareness of pop music context could prove fruitful. Verdict's still out on Fort Minor.
[6]
Mike Powell: Yo, cue ominous synth-strings.
Yo, this is Mike, I do what I like, whether it’s riding a bike or making sub-par hip-hop that sounds like its knowledge of the genre is limited to “Insane in the Brain,” “Jump Around,” and “Slam” by Onyx, but with the charm systematically and forcefully beaten out of it.
[3]
Alfred Soto: The faux Timberland backbeat and House of Pain screeches enliven a song whose title makes a pretty good case for truth in advertising.
[5]
Lindsay Lohan - Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)
[3.2]
Ian Mathers: I guess I'm supposed to care that this is probably about Lohan's REAL LIFE OH EM GEE, but I don't. The verse lyrics can get a little clunky. But I really, really like the chorus. Lohan belts out the “daughter to father” lines where someone else might have just sung them, and the song is much better for it. I think this would be improved by a “November Rain” style guitar solo, though.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: She thinks she’s Alanis, or at least Avril, when in reality she makes Hilary look hardcore. How deluded do you have to be to not be humiliated by this, Linds?
[2]
Erick Bieritz: Lohan had carved herself a little mediocre niche with a series of indistinguishable one-word songs (“Rumors,” “Over,” “First,” remember those? No? Me neither). For better or for worse, the stormy, tear-soaked “Confessions” breaks with her past attempts to either play the Britney or Avril card, instead laying on all the piano bombast implied in the title. Points for ambition, if not execution.
[2]
David Drake: I'm no fan of the power ballad, especially not when it aims at Coldplay grandiosity and fails. Girl cannot sing, and her voice is too thin for this sort of thing. I think its funny how she always bites a popular trend. Does anyone remember what her rip of "Toxic" was called?
[3]
Mike Powell: WE ALL FEEL REALLY BAD ABOUT YOUR DAD’S INCARCERATION, BUT DON’T CHANGE THE FUCKING SUBJECT, LINDSAY LOHAN.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Now here’s the real lead singer of System of a Down!
[4]
System Of A Down - Hypnotize
[4.2]
Ian Mathers: Well, at least it's short. “B.Y.O.B.” worked because it married all the tedious political stuff (it's hard to be incisive in a single, and System Of A Down really can't pull it off) to an actual song; this one tries, and the “waiting in my car” bits aren't bad; they're also not as clever as the band probably thinks they are. Remember when this band sounded distinctive and strange and not the same as every loud rock band out there?
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Opening with the tiresome line “Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square?” is a good way to disinterest me immediately. Another is to make me listen to Serj Tankian’s voice. Agit-pop prog-metal doesn’t get much worse than this
[2]
Erick Bieritz: “Hypnotize” is something of a disappointment compared to “Cigaro” and “BYOB” from early 2005. Even “Question!” the band’s other slow single, had some tension to it. This just meanders, with the group’s overarching singing seeming out of place without the appropriate speedy instrumental breaks.
[3]
David Drake: Still have the occasional stilted lyric, and I wish the double-time groove that hits at the end would have come sooner and lasted longer, but on the whole this is a really really solid album track. Wait, you say it's a single?
[6]
Mike Powell: And tell me you’re going to bother trying to refuse another song from the most consistently interesting band in contemporary radio rock with vague, ineffective references to political turmoil and vocals that sound like their testicles have been in a c-clamp for six hours.
[7]
Alfred Soto: When this song’s immensely anticlimactic chorus begins, I remember that Alice in Chains used to make opaque metaphors involving roosters signify at a more impressive level of ponderousness. The glockenspiel is a nice touch.
[3]

By: US Stylus Staff Published on: 2005-11-21 Comments (6) |