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Murray Oke

AUSTRALIA


Joined May 28th 2008

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Give Me More - Britney Spears

June 19th 2008 06:53
Her earlier stuff was standard pop, but her stuff written after her 'episode' is just plain weird. Give Me More is a pretty darn good example of this kind of weird stupid pop sound that for some weird reason seems to be getting more evident on the charts. There's no other way to describe the song other than '4 minutes of torture'.
The album Give Me More


Melodically, the song is nothing too flash. Once again, the 'singing' (for want of a better term) is boring, repetitive and minimally decorated. She can sing in a string voice, but for some reason she always seems to swing towards the weaker, softer voice she has. This comes down to personal opinion really, but to save us all I'd like it if she just didn't sing.
The song opens with some spoken words which are laden with effects, and this technique is repeated several times throughout the song. The melody truly is boring. It has limited movement, particularly in the chorus'. The verse has a little movement, but not enough to make the melody even reomtely exciting. Lyrically, the song is more superior than most pop songs simply because of the fact that it can be interpretted on two levels: the literal and more subliminal level. But even so, the subliminal level isn't very subliminal at all. A primary school kid could probably see through the literal level like glass. My interpretation of the lyrics is plainly and simply sex. If you are ever bored enough to read the lyrics, you will see where I'm coming from in my interpretation. She makes mention to dirty dancing, but I see that as too literal to think the lyrics are about dirty dancing; she's more alluding to sex. Maybe she hasn't been getting much lately, who knows, but that's the impression I get from the lyrics.

Harmonically, the song is painstakingly boring and un-creative. It features the standard synthesiser pumping out a lame sort of bass line, but this time it's slightly distorted. There is another little synth effect in the background that sounds like a dripping tap kind of sound. This little synth layer is syncopated, so good on her for making it even slightly technical. (not that she probably knows it's syncopated, she doesn't strike me as the musically educated type). Then, in the pre-chorus, there is an added synth layer that plays the probably an octave above the existing synth layer. This has little effect really, other than to thinken up the song in build up to the chorus. The chorus then thins out and what you're left with is Britney singing, some heavily-effects spoken 'more's and some synth that lays out the harmony. The synth simply sustains it's on chordal progression.
Britney in her music video for this song


Rhythmically the song is embarrassingly standard. Wow, how creative, she's using the bass snare bass snare drum pattern. When will pop 'artists' learn, THERE IS MORE THAN ONE BLOODY DRUM BEAT IN THIS WORLD! This same drum beat continues throughout the entire duration of the song, except when it stops for a few beats leading from the chorus back into the verse. There is no more to say about the rhythmic layer in this piece because it is bloody useless.

In conclusion, Give Me More by Britney Spears is an embarrassment to modern music. It has a boring melody, standard harmony and an extremely basic rhythmic layer. The only thing going for it is the lyrics and the fact that it has a couple of layers, but this alone isn't enough to save a song. I give this song 3.5/10 and will be glad to delete the song from my computer. No more will this mp3 file put a stain on my hard drive.
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I Believe In You - Kylie Minogue

June 1st 2008 09:00
We're taking it back a few years today to the year 2004. Kylie Minogue is an interesting specimen. She is the so-called 'Princess of Pop', at least for Australians anyway, yet she hasn't written a decent song in her whole career. I mean, surely Locomotion should've been a heads up for the crap that would come out of this woman. One song of hers that gets on my nerves even more than the others in I Believe In You. Released in 2004, the song never had anything from the start, but for some reason the bloody Poms and the stupid Yanks embraced it, closely followed by us deluded Aussies.
'Ultimate Kylie'. The album this song is on

Let's get stuck into it. Melodically, this song is average. It's a good start to see that the song actually does have a melody, but it's a damn shame the woman can't sing for crap! The sound engineer did a good job covering up her out of tune singing (as they always do to pop songs), so we'll commend him for that *applause*, but that just ain't gonna cut the cheese I'm afraid. Heavy effects are employed combined with 'pitch bumping' as I like to call it to cover up any out of key notes. You hear it in the closing line when she says "I believe, I believe, I believe in you". What you'll notice with this line is that the vocals are very dry. She has little effects if any on her voice and you hear just how bad her voice actually is. What sounds like a violin is used to imitate her vocal timbre: nasal, whiny and really annoying. It can be assumed that this has been used to possibly cover up any bad notes in Kylie's now dry vocals. Now the chorus', oh man are they annoying. Simple enough, just "But I believe in you, and I believe in you". But why does she have to slur the bloody words together! The very first time I heard this song I was like "what did she just say?" and I still feel that way. The words aren't articulated very well at all. Sure, she was doing it deliberately for something different, but it really does nothing for the song. Sorry all you Kylie Minogue fans, she just isn't cutting it for me.

Alright, lyrically the song isn't all that hopeless. Sure, the lyrics are fine, BUT FOR GODS SAKE NOT ANOTHER BLOODY LOVE SONG ON THE RADIO!!!!! If i got a dollar for every love song that has made it onto the radio I'd be a billionaire! But in all honesty, if you ever take the time to read the lyrics, they are pretty sweet. But how much of them were actually her words I don't know because Jake Shears and Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters wrote the lyrics with Kylie. So going by the trend of pop artists being crap with lyrics, I think it's safe to say that Kylie wrote the chorus'. That's about the extent of her creativity I think.
Kylie in her film clip

Harmonically, the song doesn't get any better. Once again, the seemingly random bass line gets a feature. Just a bass synthesiser pumping out random chordal notes to match the rest of the harmony. Not a rare thing in pop songs, but it's downright annoying. So the song opens with some strings playing their chorus part. A standard way to open a song really, in any genre, so she's done nothing wrong here. But where she does go wrong in the intro is that stupid little 'synth stab' as I like to call it. Crops up a few times in each phrase but in my opinion, the song could do without it. And finally the drums have a staggered entry. And what other beat than the standard pop beat of 'Bass snare bass snare" with quavers on the hi-hat. Wow, that's original, haven't heard that one before. Then when the singing finally comes in, the string take a rest and sound effects come in with little effect. They are mostly there just to add some atmosphere to the verse, but at times they are used to add flavour to the song by reflecting the lyrics. We don't hit some variation until the bridge, but this is pretty standard across most genres. In the bridge, the strings play a different harmony to the vocals and the drums have a rest for a little while until it is required to start the beat back up again, simply done by playing the bass drum on every beat before we get back into that stupid, repetitive bass line which has been playing for the whole bloody song! THE BASS DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A BORING INSTRUMENT FOR GODS SAKE!!! Pop artists, they're so un-creative.

Alright, so what's the final verdict I hear you asking? Well, melodically, the song is nothing too flash. It's not a very decorated melody, it's quite bland. Lyrically the song has some promise. Apart from it being yet another love song, the lyrics do have somewhat of an effect. Harmonically the song is standard pop. Synthesisers, synthesisers and more synthesisers. Not to mention the boring repetition of the same bass line and same drum pattern played consistently throughout the whole piece. So with all this in mind, I think I'm gonna have to rate this one a 4/10, mainly because of the lyrics in the verse, they're not too shabby.
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Wild Strawberries - PNAU

May 29th 2008 00:13
If there is one thing that gets on my nerves it's absolutely shocking songs getting publicity and praise they don't deserve. One particularly good example of this is Wild Strawberries by PNAU.

Firstly, the song doesn't even use instruments. Every sound is synthesised, even the 'vocals' have heavy effects on them in an attempt to cover up the blandness of the so-called singer. Melodically, the song is hopeless. It has no musical value, it is just merely some random guy saying "I''d rather go and pick some of those wild strawberries, wild strawberries, pick 'em up, come pick 'em up". I mean, come on, a pre-schooler could come up with better lyrics about wild strawberries than that. To make things worse (if that's possible) these are the only words featured in the song. A measly 13 words (including the joint phrase of "pick 'em"). Poor effort is all I can say, very poor effort. The lyrics don't even portray a message to the audience. I mean, isn't pretty much the whole point of writing songs to convey your thoughts to a wider audience? The only message I can gather from the lyrics is that he likes strawberries, particularly wild ones, or he enjoys going foraging. All in all, very poor effort lyrically and melodically.
The 'wild strawberry' PNAU is talking about

Now harmonically the song sinks even lower. A series of seemingly random synthesised notes arranged in a step-wise pattern repeated for the about half the duration of the song in total. Nevertheless, being only there for about half the song shows that the 'artist' (for want of a better name) has finally used some variation. I'll give him a fairy clap just for that. Other than this repetitive pattern on the synthesiser, PNAU also incorporates a different synthesised sound that follows the melody of the 13 words. Now, I know that i previously said that melodically this song is hopeless as it barely has a melody. I acknowledge that it does have a melody because he has to hit notes otherwise his voice wouldn't harmonise with the synthesiser, but being in the techno/pop genre I think it is safe to say that the sound engineer took the time and effort to bump the singers voice up and down in pitch to match the synthesised notes.

Rhythmically this song is pretty hopeless as well. Being a drummer myself, I am outraged every time I hear a synthesised drum kit. That is the main factor that brings techno and pop genres down: the inability to use REAL INSTRUMENTS. The drums in this song are boring, simple and repetitive, typical of the techno/pop genres. A simple 4/4 beat is repeated throughout the whole song. It does display some variation though, which is good to see, but this variation is very little eg. half time, fills (or at least that's what they're meant to be). Most of the notes too are just short quick notes which really doesn't add any flavour to the song. The only thing rhythmically that's keeping this song alive is it's tempo. It has a fast, driving tempo that I think is the only thing that makes this song feasible. Slow the tempo right down by say 30bpm and the song will be the most boring thing on earth, more boring than watching a rock erode. This driving tempo keeps the song flowing to satisfy it's stereotypically short attention spanned audience.

All in all, this song is hopeless. It has a boring melody that is lyrically clueless with no meaning, it has a harmony that is repetitive and overly simplistic and rhythmically it is just like every other techno/pop song: basic 4/4 backbeat repeated throughout the whole song with slight variation typically at the end of each section. The only thing going for this song is it's fast tempo. So to give it a rating, I'd have to give it a 2/10, just because I am a big fan of strawberries, they're a delicious fruit.
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Welcome all!

May 28th 2008 23:43
Here I will simply rip shreds of the lamest songs heard on the radio and TV today. I am passionate about music, but when synthesisers and drum machines replace guitars and drums, it really gets under my skin. So much so that i decide to whine about it on the net. Enjoy!
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Recent Comments

Comment by Murray Oke
on RUDD TAKES AUSTRALIA BACK TO THE FIFTIES

May 30th 2008 00:15
Amen to that. I saw those photos on the Today Show and what Rudd doesn't see is the artistic value of those photos. Who does he think he is to disrespect art when all he knows how to do is lie and ass-kiss his way to PM? He's not much of a PM anyway, all he does is talk and introduces policies that John Howard was gonna bring in anyway. He's nothing but a fraud in my eyes. Don't know what the majority of Australians were thinking.

Comment by Murray Oke
on Dear Editor, I forgot my meds…

May 29th 2008 00:58
Hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Too many crap bands get the good airwaves. All this pop/techno junk gets played rather than that good old fresh Aussie rock talent. Couldn't agree with you more on this one mate, the Australian music industry needs to invest more time into local talent rather than taking the quick and easy junk from America. It's a no brainer really, but people in powerful positions are often blinded easily.