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)."
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.
How does the idea of JC Chasez singing something by the creator of Jennifer Paige and Nick Carter's charming duet "Beautiful Lie" from last year sound to you? Like not such a bad idea, right?
Swedish songwriter Carl Falk has an eclectic discography but has recently been delivering quality work in a way that gives you the impression he's just about to break out and get the credit he deserves soon (personally, I've got high hopes for his work with Darren Hayes). When he feels like it, he does a good job updating the Cheiron sound of the late '90s with the more electronic sound of today to create catchy, fun pop songs like this one, with its little percussion progressions sprinkled throughout the kicky, poppy beat. Unlike, say, "Beautiful Lie" or the Backstreet Boys demo "Fire & Water," "Don't Stop" is pure fun, an up-tempo romp without any real dark undertones (or any of the dirty funk of JC's own earlier work). Carl posted "Don't Stop" to his MySpace, so the safest bet is that he and JC wrote it together with the intention of selling it to another artist--it's just a demo, but it comes with the pleasant perk of being sung by JC.
Speaking of JC-penned and -sung demos, a few more have leaked this year: "Teenage Wildlife" is a "Mr. Brightside" imitator that AJ McLean recorded for his debut solo album and "Build Some Love" was a ballad Kris Allen considered using. JC has always been one of the more underrated American male singers and I still regret that his second solo album was never released. Schizophrenic, its predecessor, deserved more success than it found; it's a fun, sexy/ridiculous-in-an-entertaining-way summer album. I still carry the hope, no matter how in vain it might be, that he'll release music again in some way.
There's nowhere to buy "Don't Stop," but you can purchase JC Chasez's album Schizophrenichere (physical) or here (digital).
"Beautiful Lie," taken from an upcoming rerelease of Jennifer Paige's latest album, may just be my favorite duet in several years, and that's considering how much I loved James Morrison and Nelly Furtado's "Broken Strings."
Jennifer and her duet partner, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, have some of the voices that most instantly take me back to my formative music years in the midst of the late '90s teen pop boom. Jennifer's "Crush" slotted in right along the other radio hits from the early part of that period, but there was always something just a little more grown-up about it than the (equally great) "...Baby One More Time"s and "Candy"s that followed it; the hint of exotic seductiveness to "Crush" was like a peek into an underground world I was only barely aware of, and even then only in the most chaste way possible.
Backstreet's debut American album, Backstreet Boys, meanwhile, was the first album I can remember experiencing communally with a group of peers. To this day, if I close my eyes, the opening notes of "As Long As You Love Me" and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" instantly take me back to a barely-in-the-wilderness cabin, where my Girl Scout troop, temporarily without a chaperon, sits in a circle, one of us holding a boombox. It's maybe a few weeks before school will start up again and I am, typically for the time, clueless about any and all recent developments in the musical world. Admittedly, the audience couldn't have been much more stacked in favor of the Backstreet Boys--a bunch of late elementary school-age girls at what essentially amounted a sleepover? As if we stood a chance.
Still, this was still several years before I'd admit to myself that I had a celebrity crush (Mark Wahlberg in the remake of Planet of the Apes--book addict that I was, my parents didn't blink an eye when I ran out after the movie to buy the novelization, little expecting that for the first time ever I had more interest in those glossy photos in the middle of the book than the words that surrounded them), but even if puppy love had been on the table as an option, the CD case was too busy being held by too many other girls to make its way to my hands. I had no visual image to go with the music I was hearing. All I could think was, "wow, you can love music like this? You can love it this much, in this way? It can matter this much to you?"
I guess what I'm getting at is that, for me, "Beautiful Lie," brand new as it may be, is one of those instant nostalgia songs. It's a simple little heart-tugging mid-tempo pop song, but it's sung beautifully (those harmonies!), composed beautifully (the lyrically quick, string-featuring section right after the middle eight!), and takes me right back to the late '90s partially by virtue of who its singers are and partially because, despite heavier synths than you'd hear back then, there's something about its style and structure that seems like it would fit right in with that era of pop. Nowadays, I can't really see a song like this getting played on American radio, but I hope, really hope, that it can find some success in continental Europe.
Whether or not it does, though, I can promise you this: that girl sitting on that dirty cabin floor would love it. Who am I to begrudge her the enjoyment of it now?
"Beautiful Lie" by Jennifer Paige and Nick Carter will be released as a single November 20, probably in countries like France and Germany, in which case you should be able to buy it from digital music stores like this one and this one.
Apparently recovered, Brian Littrell joined the other three Backstreet Boys for a performance of their new single, the Max Martin-penned "Bigger," on Jimmy Kimmel.
As I've hinted at before, I love the song. That doesn't mean I don't have reservations about it as a single, though--much as it would make me happy to hear it on the radio, I'm not sure if there are enough nostalgics around and that its sound will appeal to today's radio programmers for it to make it into the upper half of the top 40. I'd be happy if they could get a hit the size of New Kids on the Block's "Summertime," though I'm not really expecting even that.
Speaking of Backstreet Boys single news, the new Jennifer Paige (you remember her--"Crush," an intoxicating, vaguely exotic late '90s teen pop song) single, "Beautiful Lie," co-written by Carl Falk, is a duet with Nick Carter that sounds pretty good. There's a strong electro-synth beat beneath it, but it's definitely not in the current electro-pop trend--it's more just pop.
Leslie Carter (pictured here looking substantially different than she did back during her attempted pop career) is probably best known as the sister of Nick Carter (out of the Backstreet Boys) and I guess Aaron Carter, but back around the turn of the century, her family made an effort at making her a popstar too, but, for what I understand to be several reasons, it didn't happen. At this point, if you've heard any of her solo musical output, you've probably listened to the Shrek soundtrack and heard her cute bubblegum single "Like Wow!" on it (if you're a fan of super cheery cheesy bubblegum from circa-2000, it's worth checking out). She actually recorded a whole album, though, which was promoed but never actually released to the public, I think.
I Need To Hear It From You--kind of the first single from that album, though it didn't get the exposure that "Like Wow!"did. Very 2000-sounding, very much pop through and through (even though, yes, it has some strummy acoustic guitars), though more on the sweet side of 2000 bubblegum pop than in-your-face attitude pop. The last minute and a half on, from the middle 8, is probably the best part--it's built up a little more there, though the song, until the last 45 seconds (OK, yeah, correction/specification: those probably make up my favorite part of the song), always feels slight, just barely hovering on the edge of existence. In kind of a nice change from the usual "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"-esque "just tell me the truth if you're seeing someone else," this is actually a cute song that finds Leslie saying that her friends have told her "that you've been talkin' 'bout me/how I'm your one and only"
As I said, I don't think Leslie's debut album was ever technically released, but you might be able to find a promo copy on eBay. At the least, you can pick up her single "Like Wow" from Amazon here.
Argh...the Internet doesn't like me today; if this post seems rushed, short, unclear, or off at all, it's probably because I've had to resort to some sort of unusual circumstances to actually find a working Internet connection around here.
Nick Carter's debut solo album, Now or Never, had enough good songs on it that, not only did it deserve to do better than it did, it's sort of a shame I'm not posting any of the songs technically on it. Still, I imagine a good number of pop fans already own the album. I might post some songs from it at some point (I know I've already posted "Is It Saturday Yet"?), but I thought I'd post a bonus track by him instead.
Scandalicious--OK, so that title, right? Well, I know it's sort of ridiculous, but I think it's kind of funny--probably because of how ridiculous it is. Don't expect the lyrics to make it any more grounded, either; when your opening line is "I entered the party ready to leave/When somebody offered me sex on the beach," you're probably not very concerned about actually being taken seriously. In fact, the overdone lyrics ("There's not any interest in touching our hearts/I guess we're just on to every other part") are probably tolerable to me because they never even come close to working as a come-on; they're honestly nothing more than laughable, which really makes the song all the more fun. None of that is to say Nick can't pull of some sort of real emotion when the song calls for it--somewhat surprisingly, he's very effective on the ballad "I Got You"--but especially given that this is a bonus track, I just can't help imagining this as the sort of track you come up with when you're just goofing around; no one could take a word like "scandalicious" or the lyrics in this song seriously, but I have a feeling that's on purpose, or at least it was all done tongue-in-cheek.
To buy the edition of Nick Carter's album Now Or Never which has the bonus tracks, go here (physical). Alternatively, you could buy a digital version of the album without bonus tracks here (you'll have to search for "Nick Carter").
Next up: probably that Mexican song. I had a bunch of blogs I wanted to point you in the direction of, but due to being short on time due to my Internet situation (hopefully that'll be remedied soon, maybe even later tonight), that should be tomorrow, too.
Your problems don't exist when music feels like this.
Songs are posted only for promotional purposes (I love them and want others to know about them, too)--if you like them, please "go out and buy the record"! If you are an artist, represent one, or are a songwriter/producer and would like your songs removed, I'll gladly do so (just let me know).
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.
(physical) or 
