TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2010 MUSIC
Young Jeezy 1000 GRAMS
Young Jeezy has never sounded MATT SAYLES/ASSOCIATED PRESS CALIFORNIA GURL:Perry crams hard-partying lyrics into tidy three-minute songs on her latest.
Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’: Growing up too quickly
recordings from C1
hard-partying lyrics remain so deeply at odds with her taut and tidy pop songs. She tries to cram the messiness of 20-something bacchanalia into neat, confec- tionary, three-minute song-cha- rades. It doesn’t work. Sure, the hooks are consistently grabby, but even Perry’s catchiest re- frains quickly start to chafe if you actually pay attention to the words.
So don’t. Especially on “Pea-
cock,” a tune that comes stomp- ing out of the same pep rally that birthed Toni Basil’s “Hey Mick- ey” and Gwen Stefani’s “Holla- back Girl.” The chorus is an ear- worm of the highest order, and includes a crude double-en- tendre where Perry propositions a lover, threatening to “peace out” if he doesn’t deliver the goods. You’ll be singing along as soon as you unclench your teeth. And while innocence-crush-
ing party fantasies are central to the persona Perry so desperately tries to espouse, they feel flimsy and irksome during “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” Over strummy guitars and zigzagging key- boards, Perry recounts an eve- ning of debauchery with no re- percussions, her innocent trans- gressions (streaking, skinny-dipping) mentioned in
the same breath as more serious trouble (mysterious bruises, a blackout).
But concerned parents of young Katy Perry fans, don’t fret — this woman might have more in common with you than with your kids. When it’s time for Per- ry to reflect on her 3 a.m. follies, she stiffly sings, “That was such an epic fail.” It sounds like a clue- less parent’s attempt to speak teenager. (And the song only gets stranger with a rally chant of “T- G-I-F,” as if she were trying to raise the ghost of Steve Urkel.) “Teenage Dream” is Perry’s second album, but technically her third. In 2001, she released a self-titled gospel-rock album un- der her birth name, Katy Hud- son. Seven years later, the preacher’s daughter pulled a 180 and scored a massive summer hit with “I Kissed a Girl.” Later, she confessed to having never kissed a girl in her life. The world kept spinning. Is she still a phony? Does she actually drive a Jeep? Or listen to Snoop Dogg? Those nagging suspicions be- come a problem with “Teenage Dream” whenever Perry ap- proaches anything resembling seriousness. “Do you ever feel like the plastic bag drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?” she asks in the opening verse of the too-mushy
“Firework.” (No more “American Beauty” references, America. Thanks.) Later, Perry lashes out at a drug-addled lover during “Circle the Drain,” offering cau- tionary advice that’s impossible to take seriously from someone who had bragged of smelling “like a mini-bar” just a few songs earlier.
And that’s a pity because Perry has a pliant, powerful voice that’s capable of carrying the dramatic stuff. It’s much stron- ger than the breathy coo of a Britney Spears and far more tightly controlled than the over- wrought bluster of a Christina Aguilera. Hey, remember them? The reign of Spears and Aguilera sure feels like ancient history since Perry and kindred Califor- nia troublemaker Ke$ha took up permanent residence on the ra- dio. Where Britney and Christi- na peddled an exaggerated sex- uality to American teens, Katy and Ke$ha are upping the ante, adding an exaggerated reckless- ness that’s quickly making those former Disney stars obsolete. Farewell, Florida gurls.
richardsc@washpost.com
Recommended tracks: “California Gurls,” “Peacock”
cheery. And thank God for that. He’s always agitated, and that’s exactly what makes him one of today’s most consistently engaging rappers. His shredded growl projects a built-in authority that reached new levels with 2008’s batch of crystal-ball street anthems, “The Recession.” Jeezy still sounds far from chipper on his latest mix tape, but he does sound pretty bored. Like “The Recession,” there’s a unifying theme on “1000 Grams,” and, like its predecessor, the title makes the topic very clear. Drug-dealing songs aren’t anything new for the genre or for Jeezy, but he’s always managed to bring just a touch of humor to match his hubris and intimidatingly cold, monstrous beats. Here he seems stuck on the 101 level, offering cheaply glorifying rhymes over the most predictable current backing tracks. Kanye West’s “Power” becomes “Powder,” Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag” becomes “Dope Boy Swag.” As a stopgap leading up to
Jeezy’s next proper full-length release, “1000 Grams” basically serves its purpose. It feeds the public’s insatiable appetite for new music as we keep waiting for “Thug Motivation 103.”He even managed to make a bit of news with the track “Death B4 Dishonor,” on which Jeezy raps over Rick Ross’s inescapable megahit “B.M.F.” “How you blowin’ money fast? / You don’t know the crew / Are you part of the fam? / [Expletive], I never knew,” he says, which was heard by some as a swipe at new star Ross. If it is — and Jeezy has denied it — it’s more of a slap than a forceful punch, which basically sums up this latest effort.
— David Malitz
Recommended tracks: “Powder,” “Porsche Music”
KLMNO
S
THE CLASSICAL BEAT Post critic Anne Midgette offers her take on the classical music world at voices.
washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat.
CLICK TRACK For more pop music news, reviews and features, visit ClickTrack, The Post’s pop music blog at
blog.washingtonpost.com/ clicktrack.
QUICK SPINS
C3
Usher VERSUS
We don’t tell pop stars how to
age gracefully, but perhaps we should. It’s been five months since the release of Usher’s sixth album, “Raymond v. Raymond”— which crossed the platinum benchmark just last week — and at 31 he’s at a curious moment in his career. Six years ago, his brilliantly vulnerable 2004 release, “Confessions,” became the last album to cross the RIAA’s 10 million-selling threshold, earning a diamond certification. But that was then, when the turmoil of young adulthood and falling out of love was rich and present. Today, Usher has crossed the 30 threshold and is divorced and enormously wealthy, if less popular. He should be transitioning to that very particular moment in a loverman’s career: smooth R&B. But “Versus,” a sort of stopgap
EP, instead finds him in Peter Pan mode, digging for remnants of a younger self that never existed. “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” is his first collaboration with Sweden’s teen pop overlord, Max Martin. He raps, perhaps inspired by young heir apparent Trey Songz, for the first time on “Get in My Car.” And what would a lunge for youth be without an appearance from Justin Bieber? The child-god’s “Somebody to Love” is remixed here with a new verse and “Get ’em, J.B.” encouragement from Usher, his mentor. These are crass moves, mostly, and they rarely work because Usher works best in emotional hailstorms, not candy rain. There is one song included from “Raymond v. Raymond,” the splayed “There Goes My Baby.” It’s a rare straight ballad for Usher, whose thin, high tenor wasn’t built for languor. But it’s an amazingly rending song, and a hit, too. So why does everything else here — excepting Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s adorably old-fashioned “Lingerie” — sound like it was recorded in an arcade? Maybe it’s best we don’t tell an aging man his business.
—Sean Fennessey
Recommended tracks: “Somebody to Love (Remix),” “There Goes My Baby”
Magic Kids MEMPHIS
On first listen, this debut from
Magic Kids sounds like a soda-fountain-sweet collection of breezy sock-hop ditties that draws heavily from the Beach Boys playbook. And while that is all accurate, the album is more than a simple exercise in retro charm. The very young Memphis quintet uses its ’60s obsession as a platform to show off a fully realized and immaculately executed pop vision. Orchestral flourishes sweep in and out but smartly never overpower or overdramatize the songs. Violins and occasional brass aren’t used as crutches for emotional heft but are vital elements in achieving a perfect equilibrium, comfortably nestled between Bennett Foster’s inviting falsetto, abundant hooks and girl-group harmonies. Whether dealing with giddy glee (“Superball,” “Good to Be”) or wistful longing (“Summer,” “Sailin’ ”), there’s nothing haphazard about the band’s concoctions, all as ebullient as they are efficient. Occasionally “Memphis” teeters on the brink of being precious. The almost onomatopoeic keyboards in “Superball” and some grade-school-worthy love lyrics (“Diamonds and pearls / My steady girl,” Foster coos on “Hey Boy”) make the sugar rush almost too intense. But the conviction with which the band delivers each tune proves impossible to resist. Perhaps Magic Kids’ best feat is
that “Memphis” successfully walks that fine line of achieving a signature sound — summer vacation stories that are carefree yet carefully crafted — without offering 11 variations of the same song. It’s the latter part of that equation that will likely make Magic Kids worth following once the season changes.
— David Malitz
Recommended tracks: “Candy,” “Superball,” “Hey Boy”
MUSIC REVIEW Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, mixing it up TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST by Aaron Leitko It’s not that Will Oldham is
trying to be weird; it’s just his nature. Sunday night at Rams Head
Tavern in Annapolis, the Louis- ville-bred songwriter, who per- forms under the stage name Bonnie “Prince” Billy, appeared barefoot, his eyes lined with mascara, a giant paintbrush mustache squatting on his up- per lip. His features seemed ex- aggerated, antique and out of proportion — a glam-rocker cap- tured via daguerreotype. Behind him, a five-piece band
played soft, lilting, Americana. It was pretty far out. Oldham got his start in the early ’90s, recording dark, will- fully primitive folk songs and touring underground rock clubs under the name Palace Music. During the past decade, how- ever, he’s edged impressively close to the mainstream. His song “I See a Darkness” was re- corded by Johnny Cash; he ap- peared in a music video for Kan- ye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Noth- ing”; and he collaborated with Icelandic pop-star Björk on her soundtrack for the film “Draw- ing Restraint 9.” His music has softened up sig-
nificantly — the lyrics are still given to abstract literary flare, but Oldham has developed an ear for ’70s-style soft rock and R&B-influenced chord changes. He’s also become a better singer — capable of swinging from gruff roadhouse proclamations to a willowy but distinctive high range. His records are arty, but not off-limits to your average
REMIX: The Blondes take over Rihanna’s “Rude Boy.”
SINGLES FILE A weekly playlist for the listener with a one-track mind
Rihanna featuring Mariah Carey: “Rude Boy”
Blondes, the analog-obsessed Brooklynites, turn Rihanna’s ines- capable hit into a stuttering, Ma- riah-assisted jam that, at the very least, will no longer remind anyone of M.I.A.’s “Boyz.”
J. Roddy Walston and the Busi- ness: “Don’t Break the Needle” If a “Toys in the Attic”-era Steven Ty- ler fronted a Southern version of the Black Keys in 2002, it would sound a lot like this raggedy, high- octane Baltimore band, whose self- titled new disc is one of the sum- mer’s slept-on gems.
JOSH SISK
IN HIS ELEMENT: Bonnie “Prince” Billy (right, with the Cairo Gang’s Danny Kiely) during his set at Rams Head.
James Taylor fan. His backing band — which in- cluded similar-minded duo Cai- ro Gang and Philadelphia-based songwriter Meg Baird — ducked from gloomy Southern Gothic tones to ear-rattling crescendos, fleshing out songs drawn from his recent record, “The Wonder Show of the World,” with grown- up rock arrangements. But Oldham’s outsider origins
have left an imprint. At 39, he has Jimmy Buffett’s looks but Glenn Danzig’s stage
moves. He leapt up and down and wagged his tongue. He puffed his chest and clutched at the air like a high school senior trying to vogue his way through Hamlet’s soliloquy. As if to echo these dramatic poses, the second encore closed with a country-fried cover of R. Kelly’s 2001 single “The World’s Greatest.” Oldham wants to write, perform and participate in popular music. He can’t help it if he’s freaky.
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Yung L.A. featuring Wale, Pill and JR Get Money: “Level Above” Wale! Pill! Superfluous laser noises!
Glasser: “Home” One-woman-band Cameron Mesi- row, the latest breakout blog star from the True Panther stable, makes like an electro-fied Joni Mitchell on this quiet riot of xylo- phones and loops.
Super Wild Horses: “Carolina” Wondering what Sleigh Bells would sound like if it were run by punk cheerleaders who’d never heard of ’80s metal? Something like this Aussie duo’s latest track — or at least, we’d like to think so. — Allison Stewart
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