Friday, February 11, 2011

Fired up

Call me a sucker for a pop vocal over a big ravey dance song and I wouldn't argue. We've had a number of those recently, ranging from David Guetta and Kelly Rowland's "When Love Takes Over" to Rihanna's "Only Girl (In The World)" to Alex Gaudino and Maxine's "I'm In Love (I Wanna Do It)."

01 Burning Up by poppostergirl

The vast majority of such songs, though, are sung by women. Sure, we've had a good number of male-sung songs on the charts that take some cues from pop-dance, but rarely do they go all the way into euphoric swooshes and instrumentals that would truly sound at home on the dancefloor. Usher's "DJ's Got Us Falling In Love Again" and Enrique Iglesias's "I Like It" show a restraint that positions them somewhere between pop and pop-dance on the music spectrum. They can be fun--a lot of fun, in the case of the latter--but they never have that same sense of lost-in-the-music release.

Nick Carter's "Burning Up" doesn't have the same stratospheric production as the aforementioned "I'm In Love," but it's one step closer to the sound I crave: the male-vocaled pop-dance song so jubilantly dancey that it actually makes you want to partake in all the clubbing cliches that seventy-five percent of these songs mention.

Blah blah blah "generic" blah "sounds like everything else in the charts right now," I know. Only it doesn't--"Burning Up" probably was inspired by post-Black Eyed Peas/whoever surge in dance-influenced songs, but it goes in a surging rave direction most male singers don't--and, more importantly, Nick's half-disinterested verses and the repetitive chorus are actually the perfect foil for a rave riff that, basic as it may be, never fails to make noon on Thursday feel like midnight on Friday.

"Burning Up" is taken from Nick Carter's second solo album, I'm Taking Off, just released in Japan. It can be purchased here or here.

3 comments:

Tom Q Public said...

Hmmm ... sounds a little iffy whether you're looking forward to Nick's new album as much as I am ... waited NINE FRICKIN' YEARS for it, after all! ;-) With any luck I'll have it by next weekend ... and incidentally I ordered it from ImportCDs.com, a nice source for Americans who like to buy imports ... can find some good bargains on there and they ship quickly!

-T

Damian said...

I'm soooo in love with "Burning Up", didn't hear the rest of the album, just some of tracks. "Burning Up" is my fave, Carl Falk can't do wrong. Don't know who are songwriters of "I'm Taking Off" but choruses smell like JC. Also love this song!

Poster Girl said...

Hi, Tom! Great to hear from you :) Poor Nick--"Blow Your Mind" was definitely the template for the style Kelly Clarkson made massive with "Since U Been Gone" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes." "I Got You" is such a precious ballad. I was interested to read on Twitter today that he's still recording songs for the European edition of this new album--odd, but, hey, if you only get an album every seven years, I guess I won't complain about more music! Thanks for the store tip--I don't order for Asia too often, so I'm never entirely certain where the best place to go is.

"Burning Up" is definitely my favorite, too, Damian! There are a few other nice songs. I hope we see Carl on the Backstreet Boys/New Kids on the Block album. I need to go check up on who's involved with that...