Wild Heart - Single Review

Official Single Cover

You may know her as the girl that guys get "steaming like a pot full of vegetables", and "you make me feel the la la la la la", but that's just the tip of the iceberg for her. Jenice Dena Portlock, a.k.a. Sabi is the former lead singer of the girls group "The Bangz", which have since split up, and Sabi's wasting no time establishing herself as a solo-act, featuring her vocals on Britney Spears' "Beautiful (Drop Dead)" and Cobra Starships' Top 10 hit "You Make Me Feel...".

However, on this track, gone is the 'hard' rapping, or the shimmering multi-layered hook, and it's replaced with a moody, stripped, dubstep tune, not resembling anything on the radio. "Damn this wild heart of mine, it's goin' get me in trouble" Sabi sings, over a pounding beat, courtesy of the Dream Machine, a.k.a. Let's Go To War, a member of which is up-and-coming producer Cirkut, who has worked a couple tracks (notably co-producing new singles "Domino" by Jessie J, and "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida, as well as a remix of Ke$ha's "Blow"). The song's strengths are the vivid lyrics, while not the most original, it's not a cliche-ridden track, and it's stark production. The melodies on this number read like a rapper-turned-singer, and there's not a lot here for R&B fans, it's a moody, atmospheric, electo-fest. Overall, it's a great tune, with some good, ass-busting promo, it might catch on, but it's a bit complex for the current radio listener, so it'll probably stay a buzz-single. 

Sabi is currently signed to Warner Bros. Music and her debut album is expected sometime in 2012, featuring production from Benny Blanco, Diplo, Ammo, DJ Cirkut, and The Cataracs.

Femme Fatale - Album Review

Circus - Album Review

Till The World Ends - Single Review

Official Single Cover

So. It's out now, a couple days ahead of it's original March 14th release date, but I'm not complaining. The leak was part of a rather rapid slew of news about her upcoming album "Femme Fatale", including the tracklist, cover art and a snippet of the song.

As of NOW, the news from the Britney camp via Twitter is that she will be playing the final version of the song for Ryan Seacrest tomorrow and they are trying to get it on iTunes by tomorrow night, which has pro's and con's. Releasing the song is better for the label as they can control it's release more and make money off it, obviously. The downside is chart performance, thought I don't doubt, and actually predict, that it will hit #1 on iTunes within hours of it's release, it'll be missing out on Monday-Wednesday digital sales that would allow it to impact higher on the Hot 100 Chart, i.e. she may not debut at #1 if she releases on Friday.

With all that said, let's get down to the song, it's a dead ringer for a Dr. Luke radio banger, opening with a TiK ToK-reminiscent synth line, a stomp-clap beat and a sensual Britney moan. The verse is definitely Ke$ha-inspired, which is understandable considering she wrote the song, and has Britney sing-rapping about, what else, a man: "I notice that you've got it, you notice that I want it". The pre-chorus builds up with a flickering beat, leading to a staple in the Dr. Luke single production, an epic chorus. The beat drops and Britney rides humming synths before busting into a Ke$ha-esque "whoa-ohhh-ohhh-ohhh" produced to a digital flicker that "Blow" uses. You can head Ke$ha on the background vocals during the "ohhh"s and one can only hope that her demo of the song is leaked.

Some Britney fans have expressed concern that a Ke$ha-penned song released as a single may take away credibility from Britney as an artist, however I don't think that will be an issue, and unless you're a fan of either artist, you may not even hear who wrote it.

Bottom line; undeniable hit, "Hold It Against Me" kicked the door in and "Till The World Ends" is the throng of people coming in to party.

Pre-fame Songwriting

Ke$ha a.k.a. Kesha Rose Sebert and Katy Perry a.k.a. Kathryn Elizabeth Hudson have a lot in. common, they had similar musical beginnings, both started out in California chasing the dream of becoming successful singers. Though they had not formed their artistic personas quite yet, fast forward a few years, and they are now household names with distinct and different styles.

Ke$ha reportedly recorded over 200 songs for her debut album "Animal", which is not that surprising considering that track recording began 4-5 years prior, and Katy has had a number of projects before album "One Of The Boys", including a debut Christian album and a non-realized studio album. During the recording process for their albums, tracks that they had written or recorded that were not included on the studio album were given to other artists.

The Veronicas - "This Love"

Official Single Cover

In 2007, The Veronica's released their second studio album "Hook Me Up" and included on the tracklisting was "This Love", which was successful as a single in Australia. The song was written by Ke$ha and producer Toby Gad ("Big Girls Don't Cry", "If I Were A Boy"). 

Check their video and compare it to Ke$ha's demo.

Miranda Cosgrove - "Disgusting"

Official Album Cover - "Sparks Fly"

Miranda Cosgrove, known for her roles on Drake and Josh and iCarly, released her debut album "Sparks Fly" in fall of 2008. Included was a track called "Disgusting", co-written by Ke$ha and her mother Pebe Sebert, as well as the producers. Judging from the track, and comparing it to another written and produced by the same producer of "Disgusting" (proof), the sound if the songs doesn't sound like the rest of her tracks on "Animal", so I would assume that they were written and recorded by her, but not up to par. 

Check out Ke$ha's demo and Miranda's version.

Miley Cyrus - "The Time of Our Lives"

Official EP Cover

Bridging the gap between Miley's debut album and her latest effort was the EP "The Time of Our Lives", which was a Platinum-selling EP released in fall of 2009 preceded by the immensely successful "Party In The U.S.A.". Written by Ke$ha, her mother Pebe, Dr. Luke and legendary songwriter Claude Kelly ("Circus", "Take It Off", "Grenade"). When asked about the song, Ke$ha said that she was writing specifically for Miley and it wasn't necessarily a left-over track.

Though a demo hasn't leaked (yet), you can clearly hear Ke$ha's lilting yodel on the chorus.

Girl's Generation - "Run Devil Run"

Official Album Cover - "Oh!: Run Devil Run"

Asian group Girl's Generation (presumably) re-recorded a Ke$ha track as the first single for the re-release of their second album "Oh!", also borrowing the title from the song naming it "Run Devil Run". Judging from the demo, it sounds like it was a part of Ke$ha's initial album plans and is a decent leak.

You can check out the Girl's Generation video, though it's in Korean, and Ke$ha's demo.

Charlee - "Boy Like You"

Official Single Cover

Austrian singer Charlee released "Boy Like You" as the lead single from her debut album "This Is Me" in Fall 2010. Only the back cover of the single reveals Ke$ha as the writer, and it's lyrically similar to her other songs, though it's different "Animal" so that and the fact that the demo is quite polished and identical to the single version leads me to believe that it was never intended for Ke$ha's album.

Check out Charlee's music video and Ke$ha's demo.

Fun-facts: Just because she hit the big time, doesn't mean she stopped writing song for other artists; Ke$ha revealed that she had written for "Loud", Rihanna's latest album, however the song was not included on the final tracklist for the album. Ke$ha has also recently confirmed that she penned a track for Britney Spears' 7th album "Femme Fatale", not surprising considering that Dr. Luke, who produced all of Ke$ha's studio album releases, is co-producing "Femme Fatale". The title is "Till the World Ends" and is about "imagining her and nay female musician touring the world, you know, when you go out, and you're having an amazing, magical night and you don't want to go to sleep and you want it to last until the world ends".

Ashley Tiasdale - "Time's Up"

Official Album Cover - "Guilty Pleasure"

In between Christian-rock "Katy Hudson" and "One of the Boys", Katy had recorded an album with songwriting/producer team The Matrix, known for their work on Avril Lavigne's debut album "Let Go". She was just to be a featured vocalist, think Timbaland, but with just her and Adam Longlands (couldn't find any info on him). One of the tracks "Love Is A Train"/"Time's Up" was taken from the album sessions and given to Ashley Tisdale to record for her second album "Guilty Pleasure", released in Summer 2009.

Check out Ashley's version and Katy's version, both are studio versions, not demos.

Kelly Clarkson - "I Do Not Hook Up" & "Long Shot"

Official Album Cover - "All I Ever Wanted"

Kelly Clarkson's latest album, released in Spring 2009, saw 2 recycled Katy tracks, "I Do Not Hook Up" and "Long Shot", the first becoming a successful single. Both tracks are leftover from Katy's unrealized debut album, and both the Kelly versions are produced by Howard Benson, who has a mostly Rock background (Daughtry, Flyleaf, Reliant K). "I Do Not Hook Up" was originally titled "Hookup" and was co-written with Kara DioGuardi and Greg Wells while "Long Shot" was co-written with Glen Ballard (Annie Lennox, Michael Jackson) and Matthew Theissen, lead singer of Reliant K, who also worked on Owl City's studio album "Ocean Eyes".

Long Shot: Check Katy's music video and Kelly's track.

Hookup: Compare Kelly's video to Katy's original version.

Selena Gomez & The Scene - "Rock God"

Official Album Cover - "A Year Without Rain"

SGaTS' second studio album "A Year Without Rain" was released in Fall of 2010 and included "Rock God", a song co-written by Katy Perry, Victoria Horn and Printz Board (The Black Eyed Peas, Fergie). Selena confirmed that Katy had given her an old track and was also featured on the background vocals, which you can hear clearly when you listen to the chorus.

Katy's version and Selena's track.

Fun-facts: On Miley Cyrus' debut album "Breakout", 2 songs were included that had been recorded by Katy Perry, "Breakout" and "The Driveway". Now, checking the album booklet for the writing credits, both "Breakout" and "The Driveway" don't list Katy as a writer, but do include her as a background vocalist. I've read some fan comments claiming that Katy recorded the vocals after Miley had been given the song, but Katy recording a full version wouldn't make sense, especially since her version "The Driveway" has different lyrics than Miley's. I'm not sure if Katy had a hand in writing the songs, but she always writes her own music, besides these songs, I've never heard Katy record a song she didn't write (unless it was a cover obviously) so it's a mystery to me.

Check Miley's "Breakout" and Katy's version and you can also check Katy's slightly different "The Driveway" and compare it to Miley's.

E.T. - Single Review (EDIT: Kany West feature reviewed)

Official Single Cover

Sometime in May/June of '10, Katy Perry's demo for "E.T." then labeled "E.T. (Futuristic Lover) leaked and up until then, all I had heard from the singer was "I Kissed a Girl", "Hot N' Cold" and "Waking Up In Vegas". Though my friend had burned me her album "One Of The Boys", I actually never listened to it until that summer, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I ended up getting pretty attached to the song, the chorus especially reminded me of another song, not entirely sure which one, some say t.A.T.u.'s "All The Things She Said", the repetition in both songs is similar.

I don't need to say anything more about Dr. Luke, he for sure knows what he's doing, and he co-produced this with frequent collaborator Max Martin and newer producer Ammo, a.k.a. Joshua Coleman, who also co-produced "Your Love Is My Drug", "We R Who We R", and "Check It Out". The writing for the song has the same whimsy as many of Katy's others, but she pulls it off without being corny, which, for a song called "E.T.", is quite a feat. The single has a great *thump thump clap* beat playing over a bleeping melody followed by a powerful chorus driven by a rapid hi-hat beat, swooshing electro gusts and an unintelligible noise someone is moaning, appended by a simple synth and chord repetition on the bridge. 

In my opinion, the demo is better than the album version, listen here. Maybe because that's what I grew to love first, but there are pros and cons to both; the demo of course is not as produced as the finalized product, so instrumental wise, not as great, however vocally, Katy sounds over-produced and the singing is much simpler on the final version, they take out some of her distinctive voice during the verses, especially on the runs on the emphasized last words of the lines (could you be the devil, could you be an angel). The song did not initially cross my mind as a single choice, I would've expected "Peacock" or "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) as it is a rather dark-sounding song, but its is unexpected, which is something Katy loves to be, so we'll see how it fares on the charts, strong downloads when it was released as a part of iTunes Countdown to the album made it peak at 42 on the Hot 100.

EDIT: Katy has since released the single that will be impacting radios and it features a couple verses from Kanye West. This union is a good example of a couple things; the difference between a song originally intended to be a collaboration (California Gurls with Snoop Dogg) and one that wasn't, compromising morals in order to sell more records (wasn't it Katy who Tweeted after the Taylor Swift scandal "FUCK U KANYE. IT'S LIKE U STEPPED 0N A KITTEN." which has surprisingly not been deleted) and a good idea gone awry.

It's not that the +Kanyeezy version is totally bad, it's that when compared to the original, it falls flat. It doesn't sound like he really grasped the concept of the song, or he just didn't care. His verses consisted of him talking about, what else, getting girls, sex, wearing nice threads, sex, being a legend and sex. So he really went out of the box with this one.

Bottom line: it's interesting to see someone's artistic interpretation of the song's theme. But please play the album version.

Official Single Cover

Hold It Against Me - Single Review

Official Single Cover

If you haven't heard Britney's new single, or at least heard she HAD a new single out, you literally would have to be living under a rock. As a Britney fan, I was probably more aware of the progress of her latest album than the average person, and as the premiere date for the song drew closer, super-fans were foaming at the mouth for official news, surprisingly they were divided on whether they wanted the song to leak or not, some feared for the songs success if it leaked early (no one would buy it) and others, like myself, wanted to hear it. My policy on music is that if I want to support the artist, I will, and this was one instance where I wanted her to have a great start to her new album, which she did with "Hold It Against Me" debuting at #1, her 4th single to do so (Baby One More Time, Womanizer, 3). The demo, featuring the vocals of co-writer Bonnie McKee, leaked a couple days before the single, and was very catchy, but needed some refining, and boy did it get one.

Producer of the moment, and Grammy nominee for "of the Year", Dr. Luke is behind some of the biggest hits in the past 4 years (Right Round, TiK ToK, Circus, Party in the U.S.A.). Frequent Katy Perry and Ke$ha collaborator (executive producer of their most recent efforts), Dr. Luke a.k.a. Lukasz Gottwald knows how to craft a catchy pop song. With "Hold It Against Me", he has really outdone himself, if you've just been listening to it through speakers, you need to pop in a good pair of ear buds because thats when his effort becomes evident, the finished product is leaps and bounds better than the demo, from the oscillating bass, throbbing synths and piano chords on the chorus,  not to mention the dub step bridge, simple the production is not.

 Overall, the song was a great lead single for her album, proved commercially and critically successful, and showed several great steps forward for the artist; the first thing that I noticed was that it's her, her voice shines through and is not overpowered by the backup singers, dubstep is growing in popularity and for her to take that step on what is going to inevitably become the new "thing" was very smart. Some fans have brought up the point that the passion in her songs has been slowly declining in the last few cycles of Britney music (don't think that you can't sing with passion through auto-tune, check it). However, the #1 songs of late aren't exactly showcasing jaw-dropping vocals (if you say Firework, I will force you to watch her sing it live), so don't hold it against her :-)

Made by yours truly, as is the one below, in case you wanted a cover for the Funk3ed or Brian Cua remixes