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28 May 2012

Summer Jam Week 3: Carly Rae, Drake, and T.I. make a Memorial Day Splash

As the Final Summer chugs along we come to Memorial Day. With the sun shining and beaches open the hottest tracks of the season are just getting ready to blow. We still have quite a ways to go but there's been a nice upsurge of some great tracks.

Hot Track of the Week #1:"HYFR" by Drake ft. Lil Wayne



This is a pretty legit song considering it comes from the usually talentless Drake. It's got a fairly chill smooth beat and rhythm and a pounding cheer for a chorus that you can really call out and get into. The vid is where it gets weird - apparently Drake has had the most insane Bar Mitzvah ever, with champagne flowin, bitches blowin, and everything crunk. Works for me - I've never been more excited to hallel.

Hot Track of the Week #2: "Love this Life" by T.I.

T.I. hasn't really done anything substantial since he hit it big and suddenly his hard, street-centric verses seemed so shallow (sort of like DMX). His jail time didn't help his lack of good output (although he still appeared on a fair number of songs somehow). This track is pretty cool though, a sensitive soothing chorus you can jam too with a steady beat and competent rhyming filling the rest of the song. I think "HYFR" has a better chance of blowing up but this a legit song for the Week.

The New Rockers: "Gold on the Ceiling" by The Black Keys

It helps that this track has shown up everywhere from commercials for Dark Shadows (2012) to Battleship (2012). What doesn't help is that these flicks have absolutely bombed. If only The Black Keys could have gotten into The Avengers (2012)...Oh well, they're track is still lively and jamworthy and as the only really rock track on the Week's List, it's worth another listen.

Crapfest of the Week: "Payphone" by Maroon 5 ft. Wiz Khalifa

Maroon 5 has completed their descent from an emerging super rock group like Green Day to a shitty pop-rock outfit like Train. The video is atrocious, and it seems more and more that they're just a load of crap. That said, they're gaining popularity and this track is blossoming. Even Wiz's verse seems disjointed and lacking of his normally majestic flow. Nothing here works.

Oozing Summer: "Wild Ones" by Flo Rida ft. Sia

This track comes back after being absent last week and tho it's been out for a while it's still making a good dent in Summer. It's a great track to jam to before a party or even after a night of heavy Summer Drinking. Flo Rida is made for Summer Tunes and Sia really oozes all over the chorus, making it better than Flo ever could. I'm glad he realizes that he can't sing choruses for shit and consistently gets chicks who sound really hot, all the way back to Ke$ha.

Finally an Appropriate Season: "Starships" by Nicki Minaj

"Starships" finally landed on the map this week, and with a month full of movies that featured alien invasions it's about time. With a little better timing this should have been the greatest Summer Jam of all time. It's an incredibly fun and engaging tune, one where Nicki lands and shouts at everyone that she's a fucking superstar already - in case no one had gotten the picture already. She's all-encompassing - pop, hip-hop, club and beach banger - you got to give in. Still, if this song was going to be big, it'd be big by now, although who knows, maybe the sunshine the next few months will give it some new life. I also have no idea what the hell this fucking song is about.

Still Going Strong: "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye ft. Kimbra

This may have faltered a bit this week, but there's no doubting that Gotye's signature song is still one of the biggest in the nation. It's also getting to be an excessively old track but then again, Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" had a similar meteoric rise last year and plunged deep into the Hottest Months. Needless to say, things are looking good for the Aussie Gotye.

Hey Boy, I Just Met You! "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen

Undoubtedly the Song of the Week, Carly Rae has taken over. This song is so stupid yet catchy, poppy, and bippy. It's unstoppable. It's the kind of song that everyone somehow knows instantly. The lyrics are so insipid, easy to remember and digestible, it lodges itself in your brain, burrows deep down to the cortex and refuses to let go no matter how much Slayer is played. It's such a puppy love high school song, fitting for all the proms, Memorial Day on the beach, and whatever else those youths do these days. I'd say it has a bright future - unlike all those new graduates.

Next Week...

There was certainly a bit of a shake-up this week but I don't think anyone mentioned here beyond the Hot Tracks of the Week are going anywhere. We'll keep an eye on the Biebs as well as Wiz's other new emerging track, "Work Hard Play Hard" for sure.

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