video review: 'confident' by demi lovato

And that's two tonight. Going to crash now, barely conscious. 

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then I will hopefully get to talk about one of my favourite ever bands - stay tuned!

album review: 'confident' by demi lovato

You know, throughout the course of Billboard BREAKDOWN I've come develop an odd dislike for a certain type of pop anthem, the sort that has only gotten more popular in recent years due to the return of sleepy, sanitized easy listening pop: the 'self-esteem anthem'. Now of course the broad concept can work and still have some emotional power: we all have low points and can be inspired by the right tune that pulls our spirits skyward, but there's a key element I've seen missing in so many of these songs that really bothers me: a sense of drama. In the best of cases, you get the feeling that the person who is singing is speaking with real purpose and populism to address a real wrong, or that they themselves have pushed through the crisis and are all the stronger for it. And what's even trickier is that there's no one formula to make it work: sometimes it's in the writing, sometimes the melodic swell, sometimes the expansive production, but most of the time it's in the performance.

And one of the things that tends to annoy me so much about many of these performances is how 'safe' they feel. There's nothing raw or fiery in the delivery, nothing that gets the blood coursing or show that the performer has ever been through the situations that might deserve such an anthemic response. For an easy comparison, let's take two songs from Christina Aguilera, an artist I don't even like: 'Beautiful' and 'Fighter'. Now you can argue that after Mean Girls you can't take 'Beautiful' seriously anymore, but there was a populist fervour to the song that's hard to fake, especially in comparison with far weaker entries like 'Firework' by Katy Perry. And hell, 'Fighter' is just awesome, half because it actually anchored itself in rock guitar and half because Christina sells it with a raw explosive energy that feels believable. Place a song like Rachel Platten's gutless and completely generic 'Fight Song' against it, and you realize a.) what real vocal charisma and power sounds like and b.) wow, Christina really has mismanaged her career over the past decade.

So let's talk about Christina Aguilera's spiritual successor: Demi Lovato, another former Disney starlet with a huge voice that unfortunately makes every song sound like hard work. Now it's taken me a long time to come around on Demi Lovato, because while I liked her 2013 album DEMI for the smarter-than-expected content and some solid hooks, there were way too many structural problems in the rushed composition, by-the-numbers production, and underwritten lyrics to really be excused. But DEMI has always felt like a transitional record to me, a stepping stone to when she's step out as the vibrant, fully-formed pop star that she is. And with the lead-off singles for Confident, I got the impression that Demi had not only grown as a more expressive vocalist, but had picked up the explosive, pop rock-edged instrumentation that's a natural fit for her vocal tone - and since a new Pink or Ke$ha album don't seem likely for the near future, I prayed we'd get something of quality to fill that female-driven pop rock slot that's been vacant on the Hot 100 for too long. Did Confident deliver?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 10, 2015 (VIDEO)

So this should have gone up last night, but apparently my upload freezes when the file is grotesquely massive or when my computer goes to sleep. Go figure.

Next up on a far lighter note, CHVRCHES! Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 10, 2015

For all of you who wanted me to cover Drake & Future's surprise collaboration release, you're going to get your wish - because it effectively crushed everything in its path and for I think is the third time this year, turned the Hot 100 into the Drake show. And please tell me that I'm not the only one who's starting to get a little sick of it at this point. Coupled with my suspicions that Views From The 6 will probably still end up dropping this year - and the fact that Drake was responsible for cosigning The Weeknd and helping him become huge - the hip-hop story has been dominated by Drake this year, and yet he got there by making some of the least interesting music of his entire career. And given the somewhat mixed critical response I've seen for What A Time To Be Alive, I'm suspecting we're going to hit the backlash zone any time now, because Drake is reaching dangerous points of overexposure. But apparently the mainstream public disagrees, because we had seventeen new songs this week and nearly half of them had Drake on them.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 18, 2015 (VIDEO)

Hmm, that episode turned out bizarrely well. Just going to roll with it, hope it continues, especially after how unbelievably shitty yesterday was.

Next up, my album for my two year anniversary! Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 18, 2015

...ever have those days when everything you expected just goes wrong in spectacular fashion? You'd think that I'd have more of those days, considering that I have this show and attempting to predict the evolving tastes of the American public - or at least what the music industry thinks the American public wants - is an exercise in guesswork at best. But I thought after thirty weeks doing this show, I thought I had a reasonably firm grasp on it - and boy, did this week prove me wrong. And that would have been fine - I generally like surprises - except it went wrong in the worst possible way.

album review: 'demi' by demi lovato

You know, I tend to delve into the ‘deeper meaning’ of pop music more than most, and because of this, I tend to get hit with the comment that I ‘read too deeply into things’. And I can understand the reasoning behind that criticism, the point being that most pop acts don’t put nearly as much thought into the deeper meaning behind their songs, and when they do, it often appears haphazard and slapdash, excuses hurriedly pulled together to weakly rationalize questionable lyrics.

And I guess to some extent that could be true – I do tend to hunt for thematic elements and narrative through-lines more than most when I analyze albums, and one could argue that the pop artists aren’t paying as much attention to these elements as I am, if they even consider them at all. And as much as I’d like to counter that argument with the point that I might be picking up on subconscious elements that the artists themselves don’t quite know the best way to articulate, that does make me come across somewhat pretentious and up my own ass. And frankly, if I hold to my view that the artist’s POV is sacrosanct, I guess I have to buy the occasional poorly-articulated nonsense that some artists use to explain the merits of their music.

All of that said, I still believe that pop music, even at its most plastic, can say something of meaning, or can have emotional resonance like any other genre. For example, I recently relistened to S Club 7’s S Club album from 1999, and I was surprised how much the shallow bubblegum pop made me feel in a better mood. Sure, the platitudes they espouse aren’t particularly unique or well-defined, but they deliver everything with such energy, cheer, and exuberance that I can’t help but enjoy it (the superb production really does help here as well). For another example, I remain surprised at how well Britney Spears’ ‘Lucky’ works for me, a pop song that grows all the more poignant every year Britney’s career takes another wrong turn

Really, this emotional response can be extracted from any artist, whether they be a bearded indie rocker or a teenage pop starlet, and I’m not one to deny myself from liking something because of the performer (my unabashed love of Ke$ha is proof enough of that). And sure, while I can’t deny that somewhere inside of me buried deep down is a squealing teenage girl who is eagerly awaiting every new teen pop sensation (saying things like ‘OMG BACKSTREET BOYS ARE COMING OUT WITH A NEW ALBUM THIS YEAR AND IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME’), I’m not one to deny my own feelings towards a pop song or artist when things work. I’m definitely going to intellectualize and explain those feelings – because that’s who I am – but I’m not one for denying my liking for something just because of the artist’s identity or personal life.

And with all of that in mind, let’s talk about Demi Lovato.

Demi Lovato is the sort of pop act to which most music critics don’t pay a lot of attention, and it’s not hard to understand why. Like her fellow ‘teen Disney princesses’ Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, and newcomer Ariane Grande, Demi Lovato is – on the surface – reminiscent of the teen pop sensation of the late 90s, and was marketed as such. Attractive, making generic synthetic pop, one could easily say that she was as plastic as the brand of toys that undoubtedly accompanied her Disney roots.

And as a member of the three who have had the most impact on the pop charts (the other two being her friends Selena Gomez, who I’ll talk about in greater detail when her album comes out this year, and Miley Cyrus), Demi Lovato was probably the act I liked the least. It wasn’t that she was bad, but she lacked the sleek elegant production of Selena Gomez’s better tunes and the rawer edge of Miley’s stronger tracks. Compared to Selena’s ‘Naturally’ and Miley’s ‘See You Again’, Demi couldn’t really match that level of intensity, despite being arguably the best singer of the trio. And really, it grew all the more disappointing considering her public life had taken dark turns into eating disorders and self-mutilation, very little of which added deeper emotional resonance to her material. Now granted, this isn’t entirely surprising, given the severe drop-off in songwriting credits as her career progressed, but it does feel like a squandered opportunity to add a bit of ‘reality’ to the teenage pop starlet’s material.

And now Demi Lovato is the first of the pop starlets to drop an album this year, buoyed by the success of her hit single ‘Heart Attack’. How does it turn out?