Post by The Curmudgeon on Jul 9, 2011 22:05:28 GMT 2
No banana's, but just as cheap and unremarkable.
In the last couple of years the popular music charts have seen an influx of male, American R&B singers, all singing the same kind of generic, auto-tuned pop mush aimed at the sort of people who think writing "LOL" is an acceptable form of communication. These popstars are all largely forgettable, interchangable figures, with very little distinguishing features to actually tell them apart; this Jason Derulo idiot likes to sing his name in every song, Neyo likes to wear a hat in every video he's in and Chris Brown likes to beat the snot out of his girlfriends. It'll be a good few years before they all presumably upgrade to the sort of full-blown, urinate-on-jailbait lunacy R Kelly made hilarious. Can't wait for that.
So while none of the above have appeared in The Curmudgeon's Official Room 101 of Amazon, that's not to say they've appeared on anything even approaching good, it's just I could never work out who was singing what. Songs about clubs? Check. Songs about shawty's? Check. Instant desire to switch over to an artist with an actual personality? Check and mate. You can't blame a guy for being confused.
I guess some credit, then, must go to Jason Derulo, who's finally managed to break into The Curmudgeon's definitive list of all that's wrong with the world with a song that makes you want to put your face into your hands and softly weep. "Don't Wanna Go Home" is, surprisingly, a song about being in a club (honestly, where DO these guys get their mind-blowing influence from? Never mind all that stuff about something evil knocking on your door or doves crying, this is REAL pop songwriting craft right here).
So, what's the worst thing about this drivel? Simple. It's the utter unoriginality and no-effort of the song itself. As well as stealing lyrics from Lil Wayne and Lil John (and, really, when you're stealing lines from those two mental heavyweights it's time to consider changing careers), "Don't Wanna Go Home" has also cribbed the music from the Robin S 90's house track "Show Me Love". It's not so much an inspired sample as a "hey, that sounds good. Let's just use that instead of coming up with a tune ourselves." But the real crime, the most galling, "oh, God, tell me they haven't" thing about this (shudder) number one hit is the use of the chorus from the Banana Boat song. You know that "Dey.. they say dey-o" song? Yeah, that. But whilst that Jamaican folk song was centred around the workers in banana plantations who DID want to finish their backbreaking jobs and go home, instead we have some hateful rich kid who's popping champagne in a club and - heyyyy - does NOT want to go home. Ha ha ha ha. Isn't that just brilliant? Isn't that just SO clever? Isn't that just the sort of thing that makes you want to hit Jason Derulo with a car?
A lazy, charmless, insipid song with no passion and no point, merely an amalgamation of past songs, lyrics and melodies performed by yet another bland, who-cares singer. Yet it's someone who a generation are being fooled into thinking is a superstar. I think not.
