Femme Fatale - Album Review

The Singles Collection - Album Review

Circus - Album Review

Britney - Album Review

Oops!...I Did It Again - Album Review

 

...Baby One More Time - Album Review

Official Album Cover

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