Summer Jam 2016 Week 14: Summertime True Sadness

We're crashing through late August like a freight train full of angry possums here and there's a hole slew of tracks that seemed to crawl up into my eardrums that I've either ignored or haven't heard all summer. This is the do or die time, people. The last ditch effort for any fringe jam to show its worth. That really didn't happen this week, so listen to this crap instead!

Hot Jam of the Week: "Bang Bang" by Green Day



Clearly with all the Blink 182 revival crap, their antecedent (and largely superior) pop punk group needed to launch their own foray into renewed relevance. I actually legit heard this this week and thought to myself, "Which one is this off of? Kerplunk?" Band seem to be getting good at replicating their style, and this isn't really a bad song, it's just totally a Green Day song. Could have used a bit more Nicki Minaj and that eerily wide-mouthed Jessie J if you ask me.

Summertime Blues: "True Sadness" by The Avett Brothers

I've weirdly had a lot of access to pop folk hits this summer, and so when the latest by The Avett Brothers hit my ears I had to rant about it. It's actually not a sad song at all. In fact it's damned upbeat. I'm totally going to look up this week sometime in 2019 and be like "What the hell, Bryan?" Yeah! Let's move on.

Olympic Anthem: "No Limit" by Usher ft. Yung Thug

Doesn't this also sort of feel like an old Usher track? Like something to companion "U Got It Bad"? Or any of his other "U" songs. Usher has so many "U" songs. Maybe that's because that's also the first letter of his name. Anyway, this is a nice track who somehow just got a music video this week. Doesn't it feel like this jam has been crushing it all summer? What are you doing to us, Usher?!

The Real Olympic Anthem: "Rise" by Katy Perry

I thought I might hear this more this week, what with my television turned on to the Olympics for 15 hours a day, but it's actually been largely absent. Maybe that's because it's really uncatchy, difficult to sample quickly, and not really a good pop song in any way, not even internationally. This is sort of a rare whiff from Katy, and the people have responded as well. The video currently sits at 24 million views, which is staggeringly low for a jam that's supposed to be the theme song for a massive International Sports Competition. I mean, "This Is How We Do" has 500 million views for fuck's sake.

Me Three: "Me Too" by Meghan Trainor

I have avoided citing this song, mostly because it's really irritating, but also because it didn't seem to get enough traction this summer. Naturally I highlight a lot of non-starter songs but that's mostly because I just dig them. This beat is crazy hot, actually, but it's pretty ruined by Trainor's complete inability to sing. I'm not really down for her "I never pay for my drinks but don't hit on me" kind of thing and this song is also totally narcissistic. But like I said, that beat, damn girl.

Don't Let Me Clown: "Don't Let Me Down" by The Chainsmokers ft. Daya

Yep. Back again. With a vengeance. This jam has never really gone away, but just hasn't been worthwhile enough to crack our list here. Well, in absence of anything better, here we go. This will probably mean that it actually gets some decent summer jam cred. Actually, even though you can never distinguish this track, doesn't it sound totally like Summer 2016? Totally, dude. Speaking of which...

RiRi #1: "This Is What You Came For" by Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna

Everything we said up there applies to this. Even moreso this week this jam has totally been in the background of every conversation, playing a the bar, on the radio, wherever. It's still not a very good song and I could take it or leave it, but whatever. It's there. It's also a weird spot to feature Rihanna. Isn't this more of a Daya thing?

RiRi #2: "Needed Me" by Rihanna

I was thinking about "Sex With Me", which found a spot with us last week, but "Needed Me" seemed like the go-to jam this time around. And the #1 spot! You'd think we were just giving this shit away for nothing. Well, you'd be very accurate. This kind of crept around everywhere this week and is just hot enough to grab that spot for this exact moment. We probably could have kept rolling with Adele, but this is up-to-the-minute hotness, people. You gotta grab that fire. Rihanna's like, the eighth-most selling music artist of all time for a reason (yes, it's always surprising to hear how much she BURIES Katy, Taylor, GaGa, and Queen Bey).

Next week...

Yeah, probably Adele. I was also curious about Demi Lovato's new jam that's pretty awful and super-late, which is such classic Demi. There are plenty others. "Cheap Thrills" is #1 on the Billboard and "Don't Mind" is still hanging around. We ignored both this week. I was also curious about that Beyonce/Coldplay collabo which feels like it's really under-performed for the talent involved. And that will.i.am / Pia Mia track, which is really only good for Pia Mia, but has been totally off my radar for some reason. Probably lack of airplay and general consumer apathy. See ya next week!

The Dragon's Sausage Party

We are getting to the end of it, folks. The Summer Blockbuster season has just about concluded. While Suicide Squad (2016) was ostensibly our last major intellectual property adaptation (our new official word for "movie"), there are still a few big blockbuster-y attempts hanging out to close out our August Adventure. As always, our goal here is to attempt to examine the critical, cultural, and commercial potential of each major new release. This week we have three really different, really weird ones dropping, which is rad. Let's get started with Florence Foster Jenkins (2016).

Alright, so this flick doesn't have a lot of company. It's that kind of old person Academy-friendly kind of picture that typically drops in limited release in October or November. It's maybe acceptable as the mid-August release that it is, but with the creep of a lot of major July releases like Star Trek Beyond (2016) and Jason Bourne (2016) still in theaters, where is the room for this one?

What do we call this

Well, there are two things at work here. First is that aforementioned audience who has really been drastically under-served this summer. The closest thing to appease that huge boring section of the population looking for adult films (not that ADULT) is probably Free State of Jones (2016), which also seemed to drop at the wrong time of year. That audience is out there and could come out. It's not four quadrant stuff, but it's there.

The other underlying issue with my judgment is that it's filtered through a pretty jaded blockbuster-loving bro (Not really. This should prove that, but I'm currently between The Lobster [2015] and Summer of Sam [1999] on my Netflix queue). Still, for better or worse, I am hardwired with that sort of "fuck this shit" attitude whenever I see something like Florence Foster Jenkins. Of course, the movie tells an actual bizarre story of the eponymous rich heiress who took up a career in Opera singing despite any sort of obvious talent. Meryl Streep is apparently a revelation (what is that, nomination #58? 59?), but what else is new? It's an interesting enough story, but if I didn't go out of my way to cover this shit every week I'd also have no idea this was coming out this week. And my television has been on for 114 straight hours watching Olympic coverage.

I'd call its commercial prospects minuscule to the point of parody, but it could have some cultural weight if Meryl gets a nomination. It's already a decent critical success, but I also feel like we've seen this film quite a bit before. It really depends on if its actual tangible quality can elevate it beyond the typical biopic (subject matter says it should), and if it can find its niche. I'm tempted to say the release date is too early for even that, but weirder shit has happened at the Oscars.

So we move on now to what should look like the weekend's winner, although it's not nearly sexy enough to take down Suicide Squad. Pete's Dragon (2016) is the latest effort by Disney to bring back one of its old properties in a live action remake, although the original from 1977 was a hybrid live action / animation anyway, so does it really fall in that category? It's more like a straight re-make.

Yeah that's pretty sick.

This isn't exactly like The Jungle Book (2016) or Alice in Wonderland (2010) or any of the other dozens of live action remakes Disney has in the works, though, because frankly, the original Pete's Dragon (1977) wasn't all that good. It's not really a beloved classic or anything. It's that kind of film that sounds a little familiar; like you think "oh yeah, Pete's Dragon!" then you think and you're like "wait, what the hell is Pete's Dragon?" then you look it up and think "Oh, that's not what I was thinking of." For the record, I was totally thinking of this motherfucker. Pete's Dragon was not familiar to me at all.

This all makes it a sort of weird choice for a remake, although to be honest, it has a crisp $65 million budget and a cherry 102-minute runtime. It probably has to clear at least $50 million to beat Suicide Squad (maybe $45 mill, apparently its decline is looking awfully steep), which seems unfeasible, but with a $30 million opening and a solid all-clear run through August with good critical word-of-mouth and suddenly it has its budget back, even if the lack of overt spectacle likely handicaps it in the global market.

And apparently it is pretty good. This is certainly a distinguishing feature from the original. It's amazing that that's really all we need. As much flack as this summer should get for the onslaught of truly terrible films, it should get some damned good credit for Captain America: Civil War (2016), The Legend of Tarzan (2016), and Star Trek Beyond (2016). Only the former really did great at the box office, but each one at least attempted to be an actual good movie. I'm all about good movies. I don't really care about the inspiration or intellectual property or anything. The only thing that matters is if the film is good or not. Pete's Dragon is a case where I could less than a shit about the source material, but I'm down to watch a good film that dares to be more Iron Giant (1999) than Age of Extinction (2014).

This again presents a lot of weird things to consider. It's apparently got a solid dose of Iron Giant (although this is only by staying close to the original - so who's ripping off whom?) with a mix of Tarzan, and other "wild kid" movies like, I don't know. Jungle 2 Jungle (1997)? Most importantly, though, it's actually a family film, which seems really rare these days. This distinguishes it from a child's film or an animated film (which, as we'll see in a few paragraphs, are decidedly NOT the same). That's also a decently under-served market this summer, and it could break out if people are feeling it.

That's the big question, though - because no one is really feeling it. We're all pretty exhausted. As for the cultural reverb, I don't really see it breaking out. It's got to really up its cool factor. It needs some kind of iconic scene or moment, which I'm not sure it has. There hasn't been a ton of compelling reasons to put this in our lives. The dragon (whose total dragon-like name is "Elliot") looks pretty cool, so there's that, even though he hasn't really been revealed that much. Sure that's a nice bit of mystery, but at some point you also need to make sure people actually watch your movie.

So at the end of the day we're left with Sausage Party (2016). There's really never been a film like this ever made before. Which is cool. I feel like I've been hearing about this thing forever, and it largely looks pretty damn stupid, although that could be in part because according to co-director Seth Rogen, there's not many clips they can actually show. Suddenly the fact that they've literally only ever shown that potato-peeling scene makes a lot of sense.

Gotta be better than Your Highness (2011), right?

This is apparently the raunchiest movie ever, and it comes disguised as a Pixar film. That's actually a fairly brilliant deconstruction of the "secret world of inanimate objects" bullshit that Pixar does in just about all of their films. Rogen and company are pretty reliable even if they're decently unproven in the animated business.

Commercially I can't see this doing well at all. Then again, most non-Neighbors 2 (2016) Rogen films somehow do pretty well. It's almost as if the more out-there the premise and more hardcore R he pushes it, the more success they have. What an amazing proposition...giving directors and stars creative control to make the original films they want... I saw this most with This Is The End (2013) which seemed so over-the-top and weirdly specific to its own meta-world but somehow banked $101 million at the box office. Then again...Sausage Party is really really out there. I don't have a clue how it'll do, but I'd guess it comes in behind Suicide Squad and Pete's Dragon.

Or maybe it rides the college crowd which STILL hasn't really latched on to any specific comedy this summer outside of Central Intelligence (2016) and makes it the late August smash in the vein of Knocked Up (2007) nine years ago. Knocked Up was nine years ago! Shit! I can see this going either way. It's also apparently very funny and inexplicably doing well with the critics.

That leaves its cultural hole, which I can see being pretty significant. It's already developing a reputation for its ribald humour and distinctive nature. It does fill that perfect gap of a really good natural idea for parody that's largely untapped. I might say it stays around for a while.

So that's that. We've got one more week of Summer analysis to take on...Ben-Hur (2016), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and War Dogs (2016)? What the fuck? Yeah, we better kill this after that. What are you seeing this weekend?

Summer Jam 2016 Week 13: Heathen Squad Rolls in Late

So we're a day late. We're bad guys. Stuff comes up. I know you're all waiting patiently for the hottest jams to drop each week, so apologies all around for that. But for real, let's get down to the gritty shit of the jam as we close out the first week of August and rally towards the Final Month of Summer!

Hot Jam of the Week: "Heathens" by twenty one pilots



Twenty one pilots seem to have a single dropping every other week this summer and after "Ride" and "Stressed Out" have become the Imagine Dragons of the modern day with a nice blend of punk pop rock to assault our ears. This track to Suicide Squad (2016) dropped a bit ago, but we pretty much ignored it. Even though the flick got a critical drumming, everyone everywhere went to see it, and the jam is pretty unique and haunting, even if it took me a second to recall what that weird "friends are heathens" song was I kept hearing this week. I bet this could bounce around for the next week or so.

Twice a Day: "Toothbrush" by DNCE

Speaking of pop rock...or maybe this is just pop? DNCE follows up "Cake by the Ocean" with this harmless track about shacking up and moving to that relationship stage where you leave a toothbrush at your lover's domicile. They really remind me of like a 2016-version of Vampire Weekend, except without any of the talent. Don't get me wrong, "Cake by the Ocean" is exceptional, but this is kind of whatever.

Rihanna At it Again: "Sex With Me" by Rihanna

Ah, Track 16 off ANTI, the clincher bonus jam to close out RiRi's fantasmic album. Rihanna's the only artist who has dropped more singles than twenty one pilots this summer, and although none has really caught on, none are as pop-y as "Work," which is kind of the whole point of ANTI. Still, I heard this jam quite a bit this week, and it could gain some steam these last few weeks. It does have an actual hook and thumping hypnotic beat that makes it damned interesting, if not necessarily radio-friendly.

Be Wary: "Dangerous Woman" by Ariana Grande

This is another track that's just sort of hung around for a while and although it's no where near 2014's "Problems," it's a true show that Ariana has got some talent. I don't really think this is the kind of song we're going to have nostaligic callbacks for come 2019, but it does a nice job for now swaying between sultry verses and a rising bridge that crescendos to a really epic chorus.

Cheap Date: "Cheap Thrills" by Sia

This is still my favourite song on the Winner's List, although it wasn't quite as ubiquitous as it once was all those last week ago. It's still made a nice run and any jam that can rule the #1 spot for a bit while also being #1 in my heart has proven itself relevant to the Summer Throne conversation.

Time to Have Sex! "All In My Head (Flex)" by Fifth Harmony ft. Fetty Wap

Fetty's incoherent rap-ramblings have really put this jam over "Work" in my book, as has the bizarre and quasi-non-sexual but also totally sexual lyrics. I like the idea of flexing, impressing, and then getting your hump on, but it's all in their head or something? It's vague enough to invite a lot of airplay while subliminally appealing to our sex-addled brain boxes. The island beat makes it perfect for summer.

She Tellin' Me That: "Don't Mind" by Kent Jones

Once your jam is lip synced by Jimmy Fallon, you know you've made it. This is a huge rise for Kent Jones who has risen from no where-land to this, the highest of peaks. Well, the second highest. It was a close call this week, but it's not totally the Hottest Jam in the Land. Somehow spitting out a ton of different languages and geographic shout-outs still works. This is MIMS all over again.

Down the Well: "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" by Adele

Adele finally takes over this week as her track has started to gain some significant momentum. I wouldn't call her the end-all of all Summer Digs right now, but it's worth it. The video is hot, the track is hot, and there's no doubt her impressive star and pipes power. I'd call her position pretty tenuous, though, and especially after leaving off the former two dueling powerhouses, JT and Drake this week, if Adele makes a late season run, the game is hers.

Next week...

I've been snubbing the Chainsmokers and Calvin Harris for like four straight weeks. Is it time to just admit they don't really have a shot here, despite being perennial 9 and 10s? I'm into a bit of new Avett Brothers and with the Summer O's in full swing, Katy's "Rise" is starting to creep everywhere. Keep an ear out!