Rewinding: John Mayer's 'Bigger Than My Body'

John Mayer. My all-time favorite male pop-rock vocalist period. His smooth huskiness voice and realness quality to his lyrics are what I’m drawn into about his music since the very beginning with his Room For Squares debut album. I use to listen to this song and album, Heavier Things, religiously to the point where it was Mayer season in my boarding school room for months. There’s one thing I applaud Mayer for is that he’s categorized in a generic genre of pop rock, but his music has always been pure genius and has been the top of the pack. He’s legendary for me and that explains his longevity. I mean, he won a Song of The Year Grammy for his song Daughters and won Pop Vocal Album for Continuum over Sir Paul McCartney and that’s something.

This song stays true to Mayer’s musical existence. It has this uplifting message and tone that you can play it any time, anywhere. The musical production also reminiscent a lot of what U2 has done with their sound, which is a simple pop rock universal appealing sound to every age group. This song could have been played on Top 40, Adult Contemporary, Rock and even country to a marginal extent. However, Mayer has his own tricks of subtly adding blues-rock to all his songs. With this reason there’s no wonder why John Mayer has create classics. The video itself was basic pop rock cliché 101, but maybe because the early 00’s all videos were crafted like this and today the video’s are more elaborate and theatric. But what I liked about it was that Mayer had this pure innocence and a sense of vulnerability even when he was already revolutionizing music to his own right. He had this friendly persona to him, which he fucking sadly became a self-loathing prick for the past few years trying to the bad boy talking about being a master of sex and bashing ex-girlfriends in tabloids. Sad. Sad when artists like him are eaten up by fame when he was on the road of being the next Bruce Springsteen.

What I would love to see Mayer do now is experiment with more sounds. I haven’t really seen him stepping out of his comfort zone with all the music he has released so far. Yes, he has done featuring on other artist in other genres, but his actual sound has been thoroughly the same. Maybe try a country twang to a song or a jazz Herbie Hancock fussed number or even inject some really mild electronic computerized sound, but still stay true to his own sound. There are many new artists emerging right now like Bruno Mars who’s taking Mayer’s place, which Mayer has to step up his game. Still, Mayer music catalogue so far remains supreme.

A Deeper Context: Femme Fatale = Britney's Elevation

Britney Spears. Femme Fatale. After listening to Ms. Spears’ seventh studio album, the world can rejoice that she’s back better than ever. Musically. Not visually. The disc is jammed packed with heavy feel good sounds merged with European dance vibes against light industrial and cheeky sonic sounding elements. I feel that Britney has a more eclectic mainstream dance sound comparing to Gaga where it’s more limited, but more classic sounding. With Britney it works for the moment, but not timelessly. Vocally, Britney also explored a wide range of variety like always. She has flirty moments. Bitchy moments. Seductive moments. However, her voice was heavily computerized and a ballad would have shown her ability.

The first song on the disc is the addictive Ke$ha penned Till The World Ends. I was reluctant to it at first, but have been listening to it like crack right now. It has this rejoice dance apocalyptic sound to it, which the video also portrayed. Both the video and song was down right a Britney classic. It played with what the world loves her for. It doesn’t sound or looked desperate of her trying to be unique. Britney is iconic because of this. Yes, her dancing in the video is still disappointing, but she shows hope. Britney’s management was also clever in releasing an official remix version featuring Ke$ha and the fucking fierce Nicki Minaj (Britney's Summer Tour special guest), which I must that it was a bold move and new marketing strategy to get the song even higher on the charts since it’s predicted to crack the Top 5 on Billboard Hot 100 for the first week of May. Still, the original is my choice.

Another standout track is the infectiously bitch-cute How I Roll. It’s actually my favorite from the album and it's somehow strange because I'm not a huge fan of album filler tracks and usually gravitate towards the singles because they catchy, but somehow this song worked its magic on me. Bloodshy and Avant produced it (Toxic and Piece of Me) and they created this soft electronic Robyn-esque meets diet Hip-Hop beat with Britney sounding really flirtatious even though she sings one line “You can be my thug tonight” when it sounds like “You can be my fuck tonight”. Sexual innuendos lyrics again from Brit-Brit. Clever!

Bloodyshy and Avant also produced another amazing tune titled Trip To Your Heart. Britney goes really romantic here while the beat is really European house ambient electronic influenced. What she is able to capture here is a down-to-earth persona which is infectious and proves why she’s one of the most genuine singers. And don’t be fucking lame by using her crazy-antic past as excuses. She’s gone through a lot and this song gives fans like me tears.





Criminal is also a song where Britney prevails musically. Here she’s channeling her Nelly Furtado and her approach of going completely Top 40 without sounding like Britney. Don’t be confused. It’s just not a "Britney can only do this record", but rather a song anyone could do and get a hit with it. It’s an amazing song. Mid-tempo jams with a simple percussion bombastic beat are what top the chart these days and this song is one of them. Please release this Britney!





I was also excited to hear Will.i.am production of Big Fat Bass, which was so-so. It had this good BEP club feel to it, but it wasn’t too electronic for what Will.i.am has being doing for his group which is a positive direction because this song gelled with this album's vibe well. It was a Britney song made for Britney and not a Will.i.am song sang by Britney. However, it was very frustrating at times to continuously hear the same melody played over and over again since It’s the longest song in the album with 4:45 minutes. Recycling melodies isn’t going to change the world climate.





However, sadly, with tears, Drop Dead (Beautiful) is a stupid lame-ass song. It destroyed the disk cohesiveness for greatness. Firstly, to feature this unknown artist Sabi who isn’t special in anyway was fucking annoying and the beat was this amateur urban beat sound that I wanted to vomit. It’s call ear vomit. Ear vomit is when you want to ASAP take out your earplugs or change the song instantly before you have to enter music ICU. Britney or whoever really missed the mark here because all of her deluxe album version songs were a million times better than this song.





Overall, this album highlighted Britney’s iconography and why she’s pushing the boundaries with pop music. Executive producers Dr.Luke and Max Martin showed great chemistry with Britney in making the CD cohesive in most part, but that each song has it’s own identity. Plus, it was nice to see Britney in a positive state-of-mind throughout the disk and that she wanted to give the world a feel-good vibe with this disc. This is stepping to right direction for Britney. But a bit of more promotion for the album would generate the Britney-level sales (it’s gone platinum already, but Britney is triple platinum level) and please please please please just fucking dance. Do you want me to capitalize it to show the importance? DANCE. Do you need the extra exclamation mark? DANCE! Underline it? DANCE! You are known as a dancer and right now the world knows you as a lip-singer and I’m sure you’re not happy with that.  Here is my evidence and please not be bias if you're a Britney fan and make excuses after excuses for her.

Don’t give me death threats Britney fans. Just speaking the truth. Ok, I’ll stop now before this post will get more sour.

Under the Radar Obsessions: Kay's 'My Name is Kay'

MY NAME IS KAY from Kaymusik on Vimeo.

Kay. My name is Kay. Got it? It’s Kay. Kay with a K. Lets start. This singer has been busting her ass for the past two years trying to break into the music scene, but it’s about the right time for her to make her mark now when early 90’s music are making a big comeback and this record defines that era. 90’s for me was all about empowerment lyrics mixed with hybrid of sounds from all genres. Like this song, it has a modern funk beat mixed with Beastie Boys inspired New York Hip-Hop along with rap meets pop singing with some gospel sounds playing the supporting role. Kay also has this "I’m Barbie, but I can be a bitch" attitude like what many of her contemporary competitions in this industry plays with. Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry and even Gaga all has it. However, with this video, Kay shows to have more street credibility in her opting for Adidas tracksuits, plain silver jewelry, converse shoes and those iconic boombox as her accessory. Love it! But actually, Kay reminds me a lot of Fergie. I definitely see Fergie in Kay’s pop-rap breakdown. Listen to Fergie Ferg’s Fergalicious and you’ll get the picture. Tony Basil’s One Hit Wonder Hey Mickey also seems to be a huge influence on this song with the 80’s cheerleading chanting accents to the musical production of the song.

As for the video, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Actually not thoroughly. I fucking loved it. Firstly, I’m a sucker for Black and White videos. Secondly, I’m a sucker for 90’s street vibe videos. Thirdly, I’m a sucker for a New York city-feel video, even though this was shot in Chicago. So overall, I’m a sucker for this video. It’s a fantastic debut video for her and really showed how she differentiates from other musical acts dominating the charts right now. She’s much more clean-cut then how Ke$ha or Gaga represented themselves in their debut video, but with Kay there’s a bit more tough love meets bratty attitude about her, which I’m sure people will love her for it. I also enjoyed her extra vulnerable side to her which is shown below.



I have high hopes for this lady. I think she can really make it big if she pushes for it. I think people are ready to embrace 90’s feel good music once again and Kay has the soul for it. Just don’t be eaten up by coporate major music label tactics of changing her to become more of a blonde bimbo because when that happens then it’s only one word left for her- Goodbye.

Rewinding: P.Diddy Feat. Faith Evans' 'I'll Be Missing You'

P.Diddy. Puff Daddy. Sean Combs. Diddy. Anymore? Ok. Let’s start. Going through my all-time favorites, I wanted to fuse in some classic hip-hop records. For me, my kinds of hip-hop records are the rappers rapping their lyrics and the woman singing the simple beautiful chorus. It’s just soothing. I can’t stand listening to hardcore rap songs. I need some singing in it and this song is the definitive answer. I just fucking love this song. Fucking, fucking love it. Till this day, I’ve never heard a better cover/ sampled song on this planet. For Diddy to have the genius to take an iconic Police song (Every breath you take) and mash it up to create a legendary hip-hop record is just inspiring. For me, I think Diddy was the first few hip-hop artists who embrace mainstream pop music. He wasn’t shy to use it as a key ingredient to his music, which is why I’ve appreciated his work for so many years. He did it for Jay-Z and Eminem. The song structure is certainly a prototype to the songs we hear today by hip-hop artist. Listen to Love The Way You Lie.  He should definitely be honored for starting this rap-pop movement years ago when people were still dividing the two and arguing some superior shit.

Even though this song was crafted in remembrance of Notorious Big death (that’s why his widow Faith Evans is singing the chorus), but it’s a song which can reach the masses with such sentimental conviction and let us dedicate it to anyone we have lost in our life. With Japan’s situation or for me Thailand’s flooding devastation, this song means a lot. I don’t want to continue in explaining my feelings because I think the music speaks for itself. Just listen.

Dad's Power: Eurythmics

Eurythmics. I don’t know how many fucking times my dad has put their Greatest Hits albums on heavy rotation in the car. I once suffered from Annie Lennox voice disorder, but unlike anorexia, I wanted to consume the great Lennox. Consume by my ear I mean. Eurythmics is a duo that musically goes against the grain. Their sound is so specifically that it can’t be stereotyped. Yes, production wise it’s very 80’s, but the instrumental sound itself is psychedelically mainstream orientated. It’s mixed with electronic synthesis on heavy guitar chords with Lennox wide vocal range and background sounds of whistle folk meet gospel accents. Their lyrics also has this great balance of love and sadness, but it’s not sloppy and sugary. It’s just amazing. Fucking amazing. Rad. I love when any musical act can be so diverse in their sound because it’s them who moves generation and receives iconic status.

Along with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, Annie created this fierce bitch image presentation that artists like Nicki Minaj, P!nk and Gaga have to thank them for. Yet, with Lennox she differentiated from the pack in the sense that she had this slightly scary quality to her which somehow drawn you in. It’s all about revolutionizing your image, but still put music in the forefront and your outfit as the complementary good. Plus, Lennox showed the importance of giving back to the society. Her work with AIDS is truly inspiring. Music can change lives because it’s a universal language that has no boundaries. A melody with no words can still make a person in Uganda appreciate it as much as someone in Austria.

For me, with Eurythmics, my dad gave me the maturity and the need in wanting to go back and listen to 80’s music and find its core essence. I must admit that I’ve always been stubborn in trying to only listen to music produced during the time I have lived on earth and not before, but with Eurythmics it changed three-sixty. Eurythmics also proved my dad’s eclectic taste in music. My dad opens countless music in the car or at home and may I say that the range is musically jaw-dropping. I’m talking from house music of Buddha Bar to rock music of 30 Seconds To Mars, ZZ Top and even classic music from Andre Bocelli. Also have to mention Sugababes with Enya, Pink Floyd and Bob Marley and The Wailers. This son can’t compare with him. I bow down.

People ask, “What is real music?” I still believe there’s no answer to it, but this duo gives is a valid hint.

Just Arrived: Katy Perry's 'E.T.'

Katy Perry. I’m over a week late posting this glam meets ecstasy meets space hallucination video.  Whatever. Perry really elevated her fucking usual bratty candy-land videography status. Props go to director Floria Sigismondi who continues to amaze people with her silent skill. Sigismondi continues to create her usual gothic alien-like world with hard-edge, but still fits with mainstream music like what she did with Aguilera’s Fighter. I just find it truly special when a female has this genius quality. We live in a creative music world dominated by testosterone, but when a female can actually elevate this world it just marks a history in the making moment.

The story line stays true to the song itself. Nothing special here considering that it referenced James Cameron’s Avatar heavily except for that fucking stupid Vogue sunglasses endorsement. That really killed the perfection mark for this video. However, I must applaud that they kept it 5 minutes long. With this sort of visual, Gaga would have made a mini-movie out of it, but an epic one that is. Also giving Kanye limit screen time was great. We wanted to focus on Katy and we got it.

We see Perry in amazing flowly queen alien dresses made by world renowned couture fashion houses. Her make-up is running for drag queens’ money and Perry is probably ready to endorse a full-blown MAC VIVA GLAM campaign.

Even though I’m going to hand it to Mrs. Brand for really pulling out all the stops with this video and is probably the most groundbreaking so far for 2011, but after watching it on repeat I kind of lost fait in its magic. I feel there’s so much reference in this video from Bjork, Boy George and Madonna that Katy didn’t really bring something culturally new to the table. It was more imitating something with flawless results. Maybe Katy should have Sigismondi use 100% of her vision and transformed Perry even more to the extreme. I feel in this video Sigismondi was pressured by major recording label heads wanting Perry to continue to fit into the top 40 mould, but why? The song is mainstream enough. Look at what Gaga did with the Born This Way video. At the end of the day, this was an okay risk for Perry and it push boundaries for her. Still, I want Katy to go back to her usual roots of being this hilarious Betty Bop character. She doesn’t need to prove herself and go all performance arts to get the validation Gaga gets. Stay in your lane and just enjoy the success. Rihanna never tries to go Gaga or Gaga never goes Rihanna because who wants to be a world where a cup of tea tastes the same?

Going Live: Fantasia's 'Collard Greens & Cornbread' at American Idol 2011

Fantasia. The American Idol season 3 winner has a voice that just resonates what a real solid R&B singer should sound like. I still don’t fucking understand why she has only won one Grammy after all of these years. Her voice is iconic level for me even if some compare it to a screeching cat. The power and conviction she puts in every note and in every words she sings is just….Oh My Fucking Buddha/God, the lord has just delivered an old-school Motown level-esque angel! Her phrasing is also immaculate with the mountain up-and-town singing dynamics. She may lived in the project, but babe today she’s a true star.

This performance equals perfection. Yes, many people will question her Michelin wheel figure wrapped in Diana Ross’ outfit bought at the local drag queen store, but she’s preparing for a movie role. Hey, her bestie Jennifer Hudson did it with Dreamgirls too and what happened? Maybe Fantasia will be the next spokesperson for Weight Watchers after filming wraps up? The smooth 1920’s lounge setting was a nice change for her from the usual ghetto R&B electrifying performances. You could just sit and appreciate her talent with a fantastic simple R&B tune perfect for any day and age. Her shout-out to Steve Tyler was also equally adorable and bought us back to the same old comical queen Fantasia once was on Idol during her season. I’m sure Simon Cowell will be nervous whether he’ll ever find a talent like this on X-Factor America, but with it’s $5 million award price I’m sure many struggling artists who’s trying to go the traditional route by banning the reality show will have a second thought.

Back to Fantasia, I really wished she came during the 80’s or 90’s where her talent would have been appreciated and gain more success. We live in a world now, urban music wise, where female singers needs to shake their hucci mamma assess and sing about finding man to lick his personal issue area(s). But still, the voice always comes first for me and Ms. Barrino certainly has it right center stage.