New Good Songs for October 2012

Here are some of the highlights from October.


Here's a new good song -- "Carry On" by Fun.
Here's a new good song -- "Skyfall" by Adele
Here's a new good song -- "Here I Am Alive" by Yellowcard
Here's a new good song -- "Girl On Fire" by Alicia Keys f/ Nicki Minaj
Here's a new good song -- "A Little While" by Heather Headley
Here's a new good song -- "Move In The Right Direction" by Gossip
Here's a new good song -- "Mama Told Me" by Big Boi f/ Kelly Rowland
Here's a new good song -- "Popular Song" by Mika
Here's a new good song -- "Kiss And Run" by Jenna Andrews
Here's a new good song -- "Catch My Breath" by Kelly Clarkson
Here's a new good song -- "This Kiss" by Carly Rae Jepsen

New Good Song: Distance by Christina Perri f/ Jason Mraz

Here's a new good song -- "Distance" by Christina Perri f/ Jason Mraz

"Distance" is a sadder echo of another good Jason Mraz duet, "Lucky," featuring Colbie Callait. Mraz is doing quite well with his output in general, coming off the very nice "I Won't Give Up" earlier this year.

Perri's previous work hasn't exactly aligned with my tastes. She's clearly very talented, but "Jar Of Hearts" and "A Thousand Years" were over the top in vocal delivery and production while being underwhelming in their lyrical content. If as a singer you want to shoot for wringing out emotion, the bar is higher for lyrics. They need to be mature. Perhaps this a double standard. At 25, Perri is younger than, say, Carly Rae Jepsen, who is 26. But my expectations for Jepsen are different because she sings in a more juvenile way and is shooting for a younger target audience. The production of "Call Me Maybe" is poppy and cute, but it works with the delivery, the lyrics, and even Jepsen's clothes. Perri seems to want to be taken more "seriously," which is to say appreciated by adults, so when she's practically shouting at us about a metaphorical jar of hearts, some (i.e., women who are nurturing the wounds of a breakup) may cry, but others (like me) will roll their eyes. Perri co-wrote "Jar Of Hearts" and "A Thousand Years," so perhaps she is destined to be restrained by mediocre material as long as she insists on helping compose it.

These double standards for women go back a long way. Take Britney Spears than Christina Aguilera, who are basically the same age. Spears is cute and a nice performer, but seemed perpetually 13; her vocal delivery and production make it OK to sing about liking boys and being in clubs. Aguilera, on the other hand, has a huge voice and is wildly more talented, so the bar is higher for her output -- we want her to act like a woman, since she sings like one, and to sing songs that have some meaning and impact. I do not think Aguilera's body of work has risen to people's expectations, given her talent. Expectations for Spears, meanwhile, are low. We're just happy when she is not going insane before our eyes.

On "Distance," Perri seems to have elevated the content of the lyrics and relaxed a little with the production and delivery, and the result is emotional impact that to me was missing in her previous songs. She seems more comfortable here and, thus, mature. Mraz's harmonies are a nice addition. If Perri can channel her talent into work that seems more sincere, I think she can be the engine behind many future good songs.

Enjoy!

Can a guilty pleasure be a new good song?

Sometimes a new song may be good, but you're not sure you are comfortable saying so aloud. Example: "Want U Back" by Cher Lloyd.

If is a song would otherwise be good, but you are embarrassed to like it, is it necessarily not good? One might wonder if such a song possesses an inherently un-good quality -- some sort of "guilty pleasure" factor -- that stems from it being juvenile, corny, too simplistic or in some way tacky.

I would say that this is indeed the case. If someone today likes anything by Justin Bieber (i.e., is under the age of 14 or is over the age of 14 but has poor taste), he or she would probably preface his or her favorable opinion by qualifying the fandom with the phrase "guilty pleasure." However, there's a reason some pleasures are guilty -- the songs aren't genuinely good.

But it isn't always clear whether something is a guilty pleasure. Some people assume that all music by or for teens is a guilty pleasure, but this surely isn't the case.  "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, I would argue, is not a guilty pleasure, and nor is "Love You Like A Love Song" by Selena Gomez & The Scene. These are just new good songs. If you think they are guilty pleasures, you're just a snob. Guilty pleasures are things like Milli Vanilli's output, which is terrible.

But some artists' output straddles the line, like Celine Dion. Is she a guilty pleasure? This is hard to answer. As I've said several times, I am song loyal, not artist loyal. So, in my opinion, "The Power Of Love" is a guilty pleasure because it's terrible, while "A New Day Has Come" is not, because it's good. "Love Can Move Mountains" is a guilty pleasure, but "My Heart Will Go On" is not.

I think if you are embarrassed by your tastes, you don't genuinely hold those tastes. There's some quality in the song that gives you pause. You may like it, but you know it's not good. There's a difference between something being good and something being liked; that's why some No. 1 songs (e.g., "Macarena,") are horrible.

In the end, I at first thought "Want U Back" by Cheryl Lloyd was a guilty pleasure, but I have decided it's not. It's a new good song.

When is a new good song not a good song?

It takes more for a new song to be a new good song than being good. Other qualities drive a purchase -- originality, appropriate maturity, a sense of sincerity. There needs to be some sort of essence of truth.

Take the clip above. "The Fighter" by Gym Class Heroes f/ Ryan Tedder is by many accounts a good song. The delivery and production are quite nice; it's catchy and has a good message. It's pleasant to the ears, for sure. Everyone involved is talented. But it feels phony. Expected. Calculated. As a result, it feels untrue and manipulative. Therefore it's terrible.

Even the mere fact of this particular collaboration seems inorganic. When I hear this song, between the lines I hear the murmur of producers, managers and record-label executives, seeking to produce a product with mass appeal. This is their job, of course. But the output should be independent of this objective, or at least disguise it better. When a song feels written, produced and performed for no genuine or artistic reason, it  cannot be good. This is what makes Justin Bieber's output particularly excruciating. He is talented, and some of his output has appealing musical qualities. But as a package, Justin Bieber's portfolio is American cheese.

This is the problem I had with "Payphone" by Maroon 5 f/ Wiz Khalifa earlier this year. It is right on the borderline of good. But there's something inauthentic about it. Listening to it does not feel like listening to music. It feels like listening to the result of meetings, not the result of feelings.

I have now presented a standard for goodness that many people will find naive, objectionable or impossible to measure. As a listener, I am sure I sometimes fail to detect authenticity. For example, is "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen borne from any authentic feelings? I don't know. I was not in the room when this song was conceived, produced, recorded and released. But I feels, at the very least, as though the song was written, produced and arranged by people who were enjoying their jobs, and were talented, and cared about quality. The vocals are delivered in a way that's perfectly appropriate to the material, which indicates some sense of sincerity or performance capability on the singer's part. This exact same song by, say, Madonna, would have a very different effect indeed.

Therefore, I realize that phoniness is a hard quality to identify accurately, but I think it is sufficient to say that if a song feels phony, that's reason enough to negate its otherwise good attributes.

New Good Song: All The Rowboats by Regina Spektor

Here's a new good song -- "All The Rowboats" by Regina Spektor

How I found this song -- Billboard.com. On the homepage, Billboard will display a snapshot of who's at No. 1 across various charts, and I saw Regina's face as having the No.1 album. "Fidelity" was a new good song in 2006, although it was offbeat enough that the odds of future good songs ain't great. Fiona Apple is a quirky singer, not unlike Regina, and she had a couple good songs 15 years ago (e.g., "Shadowboxer" and "Fast As You Can"), but her latest is less good. But when you see that an artist previously responsible for goodness is back, it's worth a quick check on Wikipedia and then YouTube. This is what led me to "All The Rowboats," which as it turns out is a couple months old. That's why you must stay on top of these things!

Why is this song good? The music is beautiful, especially the instrumental breaks. The singing and melody are both OK, maybe just shy of good, although Regina's voice gets better upon repeated exposure. Now let's talk lyrics. Much of today's lyrics are bad, although to be fair, on average, they are not the worst ever. Sometimes, a popular song will have simple lyrics that are very good (e.g., "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye f/ Kimbra). But mainstream songs with lame lyrics are usually forgiven. Alternative songs with lyrics that try too hard can be difficult to swallow. Here, Regina is singing about how she feels sorry for the artwork in a museum because the pieces are trapped there and treated like prisoners. That this is an odd thing to sing about, I respect. That this topic is so narrowly belabored throughout this song, I do not. The lyrics sound written by a fifth-grade girl. But this still puts it a good four grades above most other songs today. And so I will not ding the song's goodness; I will instead be grateful that the music is beautiful and that it's at least trying to be interesting.

New Good Song: Co-Sign by SWV

Here's a new good song -- "Co-Sign" by SWV. The video is pretty shitty, though, so don't watch it. Just listen to the song.

How I found this song -- Believe or not, FM radio. For about three months, I was renting a car to drive to and from a client site. This gave me 2 hours a day with FM radio. I actually ended up discovering a few new good songs this way, such as "The Motto" by Drake, which as far as I am aware is the only new good song in the hip-hop genre released in 2012. When I caught "Co-Sign" for the first time, my reaction was complete joy -- it was an actual R&B song with instruments and vocals, and I suspected it was new because if it had been old I would have recognized it. I used Shazam on my iPhone to identify the song as "Co-Sign" by SWV, and I was elated to learn SWV was back. They are not particularly talented, but it made me feel good to know that there was at least some existing effort to put out '90s-influenced R&B. As it turns out, a lot of new good songs are by slightly bygone R&B artists who were not necessarily putting out good songs in their heyday.

The best example is Ashanti, who has released what so far is the second-best new good song of 2012, "The Woman You Love." (The best has been "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye f/ Kimbra.) "The Woman You Love" is a truly amazing song. The commonly found version features Busta Rhymes, who I generally respect, although in this instance I prefer the Busta-free R&B mix, which is available on iTunes. However, Ashanti's 2012 feat comes 10 years after this woman was ruining my life with the worst songs I've ever heard (e.g., "Happy," "Baby," and her many duets with Ja Rule, who I wish hadn't wanted to record his own voice.) However, some R&B artists who are attempting a comeback of sorts are on their own labels, or small labels, and are not putting out out new songs that are as good as they should be (e.g., Toni Braxton's "I Heart You.")

What makes this song good? "Co-Sign" gets off to a fantastic start -- this odd horn sound that says to me, "Here is a new good song!" There's an actual bassline, and actual drums, and capable vocals. The lyrics are cute. The arrangement is crisp, creative, a lot of fun and, most importantly, has durability. By contrast, there was another new good song I adored called "Put It Down" by Brandy f/ Chris Brown. At first, I thought this new good song would be an ongoing favorite, but after about three weeks I was pretty sick of it. "Co-Sign," by contrast, has been on my radar for nearly three months and I remain excited each time it comes on. "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen has this enduring quality as well. So does "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giant.

Is FM radio a good source for new good songs? It can be, if you're really out of the loop on music and don't like to spend the effort to hunt for songs and click on a lot of preview buttons in iTunes. There are limitations to FM radio, of course. They play the same songs over and over again, so you're not getting a wide variety/exposure to lots of songs you might like. DJs these days are asleep at the wheel, so they almost never tell you what you're listening to, so you will need another source of information, like Shazam, or Wikipedia. If you hear a song on FM radio that you like, and you don't have access to Shazam, try to memorize a few lyrics and Google them later. This has worked for me several times. Finally, you can't be sure necessarily that a song on FM radio is new, but you can quickly find out. FM radio is a good way to find new good songs if you're multitasking.