Pop Shots - A Look At The Charts
Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with some Billboard singles chart analysis. Yes, it's time to take a look at the charts again, see what’s hot, and dissect why we love what we’re loving right now. The chart positions I'm using are from the Billboard Hot 100 as it was listed on Billboard.com on Monday, September 19th, and since it's Pop Shots, you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.
Maroon 5 didn’t just tip their collective toe into the disco waters, they completely dove in, and something funny happened when they did - it worked. “Moves Like Jagger” takes a page from Jamiroquai (could we get Jay Kay on a remix?), and although disco normally doesn’t climb up the charts in 2011, the combination of Maroon 5 being a great band, Adam Levine being a dynamic, personality-filled, lead singer, and a guest appearance by Christina Aguilera where she reminds everyone that she’s Christina f*cking Aguilera and she will blow everyone away on the mic, makes for an enormous, undeniable, hit. It also makes for me shaking my ass. Sorry for that visual. My moves aren’t quite like Jagger’s. I’m workin on it!
Raise your hand if you thought Cobra Starship was ever going to have another hit song after “Good Girls Go Bad.” No one? Yeah, didn’t think so. Me neither. VH1 is going to have to pull them from any “one-hit wonder” programming they may have had them slated for, though, as “You Make Me Feel” sees the boys back with something fun for the dance-pop world. The vocals are dripping with Auto-Tune, but it doesn’t matter, the chorus is catchier than herpes at the Jersey Shore’s smush room and you won’t get it out of your head until sometime next millennium. Cobra Starship were also very smart to include a female vocalist on “You Make Me Feel,” a la “Good Girls Go Bad,” which featured Leighton Meester, because a lot of the fun of their hits is the back and forth between the guy and the girl. Finally, mad props to my homegirl Erica America for her cameo in the video. Get em!
There are a lot of dance music artists out there today, but very few of them drip sex quite the way Dev does. Dev is a very attractive woman, although not necessarily in what the media might call “the traditional sense,” as with her unique hair and assortment of tattoos she shows more individual spirit than many of the women held up as “beautiful” (and yes, I realize I’m “the media,” too). When you mix that spirit, and her looks, with her voice, lyrics, and delivery of those lyrics... well, let’s just say I’m not surprised her boyfriend got her pregnant, because I sure would have! Dev is grown up dance pop for those of us who’d rather be dancing “In The Dark” than “Till The World Ends.”
For more on Dev check out my interview with her from earlier this year.
Every summer has its distinctly seasonal hits, songs that only work during the time of year when the temps are hot, the drinks are cold, and all your windows are open. Every once in a while an artist makes a song that not only works for the season, but actually describes it and makes you feel the summer. Country artist Jake Owen has done that with “Barefoot Blue Jean Night.” It’s good time, summer night, vibe is infectious and makes you want to head out to the beach. Also, kudos to whomever did the casting for the video. Those are some fine women.
It’s a song about a horn sample with a horn sample that’s used to perfection. Yes, you read that right, the song is about the sample. The video adds a lot to “Mr. Saxobeat,” because there’s nothing like a little women in prison motif to drive home the point about the horn (no, don’t try to think about it. Everything is making less and less sense as we keep going with this). Also, apparently a roll of duct tape is all one needs to subdue an entire office full of prison employees. Honestly, who care if any of it makes sense, that damned sample is stuck in my head again! Damn you, “Mr. Saxobeat!”
And with that, my time is up for the week, but I'll be back next week with more shots on all things pop.
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