From time to time, we here at 40goingon28 like to take a sample of our national zeitgeist by checking out what the 3 most popular songs in the country are, according to Billboard. We don't listen to the radio or watch the MTV or download things on BitTorrent or buy ringtones or hang out with teens or however it is that songs get propelled onto the Billboard Top 100. We also don't refer to ourselves in the first person plural, so we'll stop doing that now.
ANYWAY, it's Friday, and it's nice out, and that means it's the weekend and it's time to put the top down on the convertible and drive around listening to Hot Summer Hits so let's see what we'll be listening to.
Coming in at #3 is a song called "Stay" by Rihanna (and "ft. Mikky Ekko" because you can't really have a hit song with "ft-ing" someone anymore). It has a very sexy video involving Rihanna and a bathtub.
Mikky Ekko perches on the side of a different bathtub, not the bathtub Rihanna is lounging about in, and sings a verse. His voice is about as high as Rihanna's. A little Googling reveals that the oddly-spelled Ekko is an "American singer-songwriter and record producer from Louisiana." It appears that he co-wrote "Stay," so I guess that earns you a ft. Anyway, I got to 3:28 out of 4:08 of this song before I got bored and quit so I don't know how it ends up. Maybe they end up in the same bathtub. If so, LOOK OUT, MIKKY EKKO! CHRIS BROWN IS COMING FOR YOU!
At #2 we have white rapper Macklemore (who is always "Macklemore & Ryan Lewis," I guess Ryan Lewis is part of the act) feat. Ray Dalton in a song called "Can't Hold Us" with a punishing over-7-minute-long video. I thought kids had short attention spans? What's up with these endless fucking videos?
The video involves Macklemore wearing a wolf suit and then flying a plane and there's a team of wolves and then he's rapping on a square-rigger tall ship and then there's some camels and desert and shit. Ray Dalton must be the guy who sings the chorus, I guess. I quit at 3:32. It's fine, I guess. It's certainly better than a lot of the other songs I've listened to for this project.
THE NUMBER ONE SONG IN AMERICA is P!nk "Just Give Me a Reason" ft. Nate Ruess, that creepy little guy from fun. who has been relentlessly earworming America for a while now. P!nk has apparently replaced the "i" in her name with an exclamation point. Way to go, P!nk!
First of all, hats off to P!nk for writing her own stuff, including this song, and for the teddy bear with the glowing eyes in this video. The song isn't very good, but at least it's not violently objectionable, like a lot of other #1 songs have been.
IN SUMMARY, meh. Nothing that I loathed, but nothing I would ever listen to again. Now go stream the new Mikal Cronin for free on NPR. Have a great weekend!
Finally heard Macklemore's "Same Love" on Colbert the other day. Less a song than a blog post.
ReplyDeleteYeah, after I saw Same Love on NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, the guy can do no wrong IMO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrEJmvuKSwo That video, however, is very confusing.
ReplyDeleteSince KQED is doing their pledge drive, I listened to KMEL this morning for about 15 minutes and it sounded great, although it's hard to tell whether stuff just sounds or actually is sexier and more drug-related... I'm certainly getting old in any case.
Side notes: "featuring" is a noun in French. Like "Check out that sweet Rihanna song with a featuring from Mikky Ekko." Also, on Guam, they pronounce the 'h' in Rihanna.