Time for new pop music!

Last week, I complained that MTV's TRL seemed to be having a clearance sale of odds and ends. This past Thursday's TRL was even more peculiar, as they featured music videos "that changed the world". I'm not gonna review them here, they're too old, but you might be interested to see what they promoted as world-changing:

• A-Ha: Take On Me
• Michael Jackson: Black Or White
• Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc.
• All-American Rejects: Move Along
• Fatboy Slim: Weapon Of Choice
• The White Stripes: Fell In Love With A Girl
• Jamiroquai: Virtual Insanity
• OK Go: Here It Goes Again

But here's what really entered the spotlight this week:

• Kelly Rowland managed to put two different songs on my list this week, one featrued on Fuse's Oven Fresh and the other on the BBC top 20. Work (Put It In) is the Fuse feature and it leans heavily on the same styles that Destiny's Child used for so many years. While she lacks Beyoncé Knowles distinctive voice and persona (hence, the backup singer job), Ms. Rowland is a strong performer and this is a good tune.
• I don't know why Mario isn't a bigger star. It seems like every hit song he produces is first-rate and Crying Out For Me is no exception. This is pretty much a slow jam with a tear-jerking theme and there aren't many singers who can make this work as well as Mario.
• Bullet For My Valentine arrives to pummel you with Scream Aim Fire. Built around a vintage thrash-style jackhammer rhythm (complete with half-time sections) and guitars that smooth out the thrash with simplified riffs, you won't forget the giants of speed metal, but this is a pleasant, if lightweight, diversion.
• It's been a while since we heard from Dashboard Confessional, but I suppose all good things must end. This was always an act that had all the classic Emo-style elements, but not a lot of real, solid, honest music-making. The lyrics were always the show and it seemed like every DC song had at least one line that was amazing. Bad news: Thick As Thieves doesn't even have that one lyric that stops you cold.
• The other Kelly Rowland hit is Daylight and it debuted in the UK last week. It almost seems like it was specifically created as a product to sell in the British market, plucking soul and R&B from the classics grab-bag and cobbling together something that sounds vaguely familiar (I suspect that the Gym Class Heroes' presence is as much cause as symptom). It's pleasant enough.
  
• Speaking of artists that mine classic pop, Lenny Kravitz follows a heavy barrage of advertising and promotions with his latest, I'll Be Waiting. I've always found him easy to enjoy, but hard to love. His classicism skirts on the edge of a massively conservative attitude toward pop music and I think part of the reason I can't fully enjoy Mr. Kravitz's work is that his most enthusiastic fans seem to embrace his work as much to reject more contemporary pop-music movements like hip-hop as to actually enjoy his tunes. In another time, he would have been called a "safe" singer and that makes me uncomfortable. This is a tepid, shuffling power ballad that only a ten-year-old who's never heard a power ballad will like.
  
• I was surprised to see that critics' darling M.I.A. was featured on Oven Fresh. Her Paper Planes is probably the most conventional pop track I've heard from her, with sing-songy verses, but even this has an edge of aggressiveness, featuring an accent of gunshots echoing the chorus. Boy, it's sure refreshing to hear a unique voice like hers in pop music, but I'll bet this tune won't be a huge hit.
• Matt Costa's Mr. Pitiful is a nice effort. Based on a bouncing piano rhythm and an anthemic melody, I can't imagine it'll ever be a huge hit.
• Ride It, by Jay Sean is some extremely smooth R&B. In fact, it's so smooth, it's nearly devoid of personality. Enjoy it if you can.
• Last up is one of those hip-pop party anthems with shouted choruses and little more than a good-time vibe. This one is Webbie's Independent and it's hardly of the same quality as the classics of this type, like Mim's This Is Why I'm Hot or Nelly's Hot In Herre.
  

CDs listened to today:

• Ottorino Respighi: Feste Romane
• Slow Dive: Just For A Day
• Kevin Puts: Dark Vigil
• Roger Sessions: Symphony No. 3
• Tripping Daisy: I Am A Elastic Firecracker
• Arild Plau: Concerto For Tuba And Orchestra
• Various Artists: R & B Life No. 15