Soul Sisters—Adele and Beth Ditto -- By Tara Bowen

Image from sweetslyrics.com

I've been listening to a lot of Adele lately. My interests/tastes range from indie, all the way to-pretty much everything, but mostly indie. In the way of mainstream pop, though, Adele is where it's at. She's consistently putting out great stuff, far ahead of its time-since 2007. When the track 'Tired' came out. I just heard this the other day, and thought it was her 'new' single-little did I know..it was actually from 2007.

Adele is, to me, the embodiment, of this ‘soul’ movement happening in Pop. A ‘Neo-soul’ if you will.  A lot of it’s coming out of the U.K. in general-what with Amy Winehouse, Duffy...Joss Stone...but (I think), Adele, is doing it best. She’s reinvented the genre so to speak-taken it to a whole nother level. There’s a lot of that happening, this ‘mo-town’ Americana thing, that the U.K. has sort of taken by storm/’adopted’...but among them all, Adele stands out most (to me). She is a master of her voice/her vocal style, which to me, is some variation/form of bel canto. Her voice is a treasure unto itself. She should, one day, do an acapella album. Adele, is basically, what it means to be a ‘soul’ artist, today. She’s the whole point of this ‘movement’, taking one genre, and furthering it. Extending onto it. Modernizing it. I never felt the ‘Mo-town’ ‘soul thing’, was ever done.  My Same, Tired, Rolling In the Deep and Cold Shoulder-are my favorite tracks by her.  Her album, 21, was just released in the U.S., on Columbia Records.

Image from jezebel.com

Where Adele corners the ‘pop’ version of this soul movement—Beth Ditto (on the other hand)-captures ‘soul punk’—(I think, best).  Two sort of similar, voices, vocally, their styles compare, but Beth is the pop-punk of soul, and I love her band, the Gossip. So, the pop version of this-is happening mainly in the U.K.-where, the punk, seems to be happening here. I think it’s ‘our’ way of extending on to it, and I love and am excited for them both. Adele and the Gossip should one day collaborate I think-that’d be a dream duo.

Vive ‘soul-pop’!

Check out Tara's Blog: http://hmmdiddlydum.blogspot.com/

and follow her on Twitter! @bowentara 

I Like It!

Once I hear those descending fast notes in a flashy rhythm, I get excited. Enrique Iglesias’ ”I Like It” is about to come on and I’m about to majorly jam out for 3 minutes and 52 seconds.

Despite the fact that this song is ridiculously catchy and that it has that “feel good” quality about it, I’m not convinced that its musically worthy of much praise. Criticized for its over use of autotune, the song has little variety to offer. And don’t even get me started on the unmistakably ”Enrique”-cheesy-as-hell lyrics.

But isn’t that what makes people love it? Nah.  Its got the beat of the summer, a melody that hard to resist, complete with the undertones of Lionel Ritchie’s “All Night Long”. Not to mention it features Pitbull (am I the only one that has noticed that Pitbull is featured in like EVERY song nowadays?) to add that extra “collaboration” dimension that obviously is required for success. I mean, when do people do songs by themselves anymore?

Oh um and speaking of the terrible lyrics, what exactly is this song promoting?

“My girlfriend’s out of town and I’m all alone, your boyfriend’s on vacation and he doesn’t   need to know"

Is this talking about condoning infidelity? Not sure if that's the best message to send to America. The rest of the lyrics to the song are so vague, I can’t really tell. Sketchy.

Congrats to Enrique for making another chart-topper, its about time. It’s been like, what, 8 years? Took you long enough. Maybe you should spend less time water skiing naked and more time spitting out songs (http://www.tmz.com/2010/08/04/enrique-iglesias-naked-waterski-world-cup-spain-miami-july-video/). Just sayin'.

Bottom line though, baby, I like it.

California Gurls are Unforgettable

Fine, Fresh, Fierce, they got it on lock.

As much as I HATE to admit it, Katy Perry's "California Gurls" kinda makes me wish I was from the Golden Coast. I mean, how awesome would it be to drive along the gorgeous beach, top down in your Jeep, sporting daisy dukes and bikini tops with your super hot friends, and bumping this tune? Pretty freaking awesome. New York people have "Empire State of Mind" and people from Atlanta have a bunch of songs that feature the southern city. Can I get a DC song please? I mean, we do have Wale and all, but I need something to jam out to and rep the east cost/DMV area. Go go is not gonna cut it. At all.

But back to the song, clearly Perry was limited in her selection of collaborators since Snoop Dogg was chosen. Before the song came out, could you ever imagine "Top Dogg" rapping in a song where girls is spelled with a "u"? Me neither. I'm pretty sure that Katy Perry even admitted to simply Wikipedia-ing "west coast artists" and scrolling down the list until she found someone suitable for her song.  No talent required, just a California license please. Lucky for her, it ended up working out for her since the song hit #1 on Billboards Hot 100 in the United States as well as topping the charts in 11 other countries. The almost-lawsuit from the Beach Boys was just a minor blip in her success. Cali will no doubt be repping this song for years to come, even if it fades from the rest of the country. But at least for the rest of the summer, I will for sure jam out to "California Gurls" and just pretend I'm in Beverly Hills

Sources:

1. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/08/beach-boys-katy-perry-a-warning-not-a-lawsuit.html

Travie McCoy wants to be a Billionaire

Might want to rethink those ambitions, Travie...

Sources:

1. http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/singers/katy-perry-net-worth/,http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2120351
2. http://www.geminisignletters.com/08channelletters.php
3. Estimate
4. http://askville.amazon.com/cost-produce-half-hour-cable-talk-show-episode/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=50236351
5. http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/holiday/
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brady_Bunch, http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator
7. http://www.examiner.com/x-32892-Automotive-News-Examiner~y2010m3d31-New-York-Auto-Show-Mercedes-SLS-AMG-to-cost-183k
8. Estimate
9. http://www.fema.gov/media/fact_sheets/cost-share.shtm
10. http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/116/Composer.html, http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator
11. Estimate
12. http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm
13. Estimate
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn, http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/

Quality Jams

So I’m an avid listener of a top 40 radio station in DC. It’s actually kind of ridiculous how many songs play multiple times in a single hour, but yet, I still have this station programmed as number 1 on the presets in my car. The music? Mediocre. And that’s being nice. It’s typical popular hits that go number 1 for awhile and the fade into the abyss of bad music from the past (along with “Tubthumping”, “Achy Breaky Heart”, and “Good Vibrations”). As I drive along and jam out to these tunes, I start to wonder why I never reach out for better music and why I settle for the crap that they play. I think Ive figured it out; I’m straight up addicted. There’s something about those auto-tuned voices, techno-pop backgrounds, and shallow-at-best lyrics that just captivates me and keeps me coming back for more. Call it my guilty pleasure, if you will. But as I continue to hear top 40 music, I develop opinions and think certain things about the different songs that they play. That’s what I want this blog to be about, the terrible music that we all know and love (sort of….).

Why, yes, I do know all the words to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” and I’m damn proud of it.