The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #159

#159: "Good Luck" (2003) - Basement Jaxx featuring Lisa Kekaula

And as he's walking out the door, and she realizes that she can do this, she gains confidence. With this renewed vigor, just as he's about to drive away, she tells him to kiss off in the most fasicious way she can, and to be able to do this, she transforms herself into Lisa Kekaula (current singer of the L.A. neo-soul/punk the BellRays, whose sound is kind of like an American version of the Clash, except the BellRays use soul as their mixer instead of ska and reggae), and she brings the electro DJ duo Basement Jaxx with her, and together, they channel the spirits of Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer and Chris Stein and Giorgio Moroder and Prince in order to give our heroine the backbone she needs to shut the door on him, put on her boogie shoes and her punkified wighat and go dancing with her sistas 'cause it's Spring Break people, and it's time to kick out the jams.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #160

#160: "Irreplaceable" (2006) - Beyonce



...in which the most ubiquitous singer of the past decade plays a reluctant Mack the Knife, but this time the line forms on the left, babe, as that's where her all her boyfriend's possessions are...except for Beyonce. She's kicking him to the curb, man, and if he can't take his stuff, then he better call Tyrone, 'cause she's empowered now.

The strain of pain and vulnerability linger just beneath the newfound independence, though, and it's that uneasiness in Beyonce's vocals here, that shaky quality that shows the protagonist is convincing herself to be confident, that tells the tale and sells the song to anyone who ever had to face his or her fears and set out solo into an unforgiving world. Beyonce's vocals turn this song of female empowerment (whose lyrics were written by Ne-Yo...a man!) into something much more than the lyric entails, making it into a character study rather than an "I Am Woman"-type manifesto, and all the better for it, for Beyonce strikes at the heart, at the fears and the hurt, and that humanism makes us rally for her all the more.

This song cuts across musical genres as well as genders, as not only did it hit the top ten in the pop, hip-hop/R&B, adult contemporary, dance, and Latin charts, but it also garnered airplay on country radio stations (!) as well (much credit should be given to Ne-Yo for the latter, if simply for strumming the acoustic guitar). When's the last time a record struck in all those markets? Dunno, but it's been a long time...maybe since either Ray Charles or Elvis or the Everly Brothers.
BTW...you know why she's leaving, don't you, why she's kicked her man out da house? She found his porn stash.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #161

#161: "Turn My TV On" (2007) - Van Hunt

Two nights ago, my wife and I had just finished watching Bret Michael's VH-1 reality show, Rock of Love Bus, and my daughter came in the room wanting ol' Foot Foot to rock her. I began manually* changing the channel to the Baby Show network (I'm not sure if that's the actual name of the network, but it's close, and that's what we call it anyway), and I came across the very beginning of Purple Rain on VH-1 Classic (I'm not sure if that's the actual name of the network, but...you get the picture). Wow, instant flashback to 1985, the year after Prince's movie debut was released in theaters.

I--like Ricky Schroeder in Silver Spoons--was never allowed to see Purple Rain on the big screen,** but when the movie was released to HBO, I thought that my parents would let me stay up late and see it because I was now a year older and more mature (or so I thought). They didn't want me to be exposed to so much sex and nudity, and I informed them that my friends told me that wasn't any graphic sexual stuff and only brief topless nudity. They looked at each other, and...I don't remember if they actually said, "No," but I do remember being disappointed. A few months later, it was on again during primetime, and I bugged them again, and maybe some of the PMRC Prince outrage had died down, and they acquiesced. So I turned it to HBO, and the movie had already started, and Prince was riding his motorcycle down through the weeds and reeds to a pond, and there stood Apollonia, wearing something close to nothing***, and my parents freaked, and they changed the channel, and to this day, I've still never seen the entire film.

What's the big deal, people? What's wrong with nudity? We all see it everyday, multiple times...I mean, just look down and...see what I mean? It's natural. It's our bodies. A naked body shouldn't be considered disgusting or repulsive (though, if you're talking about mine, then my wife might disagree with you), because, man, it's who we are. Why should a woman's breast--other than purely aesthetic reasons--be considered more erotic and alluring and evocative than, say, her hand or her arm? It shouldn't, should it? A woman's breast serves no sexual function, not really. Its only useful utilitarian function comes after sex. If this is the case, why are naked breasts**** considered pornography? And why is pornography such a bad thing?*****What's wrong with watching naked women on television? What's wrong with watching some filmmaker lavish visual praise on the female form****** in all its glory? Nothing, I say. In his scintillating single, "Turn My TV On," neo-soul singer Van Hunt says the same thing.

Hunt had been writing, producing, and playing various instruments for various performers for about seven years before his debut landed in 2004. From that debut album, he scored a minor hit with "Dust," (which--if he's known at all--is what he's best known for), a slinky little Prince/Curtis Mayfield number (which, other than its superb production, is pretty nondescript). Two years later, he released another album, and it didn't move any hits, major or minor, though the quality was roughly the same.

The next year, in '07, Hunt switched labels from Capitol to Blue Note, released the digital-only EP The Popular Machine (from which hails the single "Turn My TV On"), and then lost whatever progress he'd made on his forthcoming LP when he and the label had a falling out. He tried to buy his recordings back from them, but their price was higher than he could afford, and he's...yet to release any new work.

Part of the reason for Van Hunt's lack of production comes from time spent in legal dealings with Blue Note/EMI, and part of the reason probably comes from angst/depression over the lost hours on this hassle, but maybe part of the reason lies in the fact that Hunt is not only an artist, but a lover of art as well, an appreciator, a critic. He surely spends his time assessing the work of some of the most beautiful art the world has ever created. What art, praytell? Why, porn, thank you.

How do I know this? The man tells me so. That's what this song's about...really! It's about a man sitting on his couch on watching pornography. That's it. Nothing else to it. Sounds dirty, does it? Disgusting? Not to me, bucko. Not with that music Hunt cooks up for it, the opening bass and guitar riffs worthy of the best of Bernard Edwards's and Nile Rodgers's (both formerly of the disco/funk band Chic). Then, Hunt lays on the squiggly, space-y keyboards, and what we've got is the best funky Prince track of the past fifteen-or-so years. Hunt continues with his Prince-like vocal mannerisms, the oohs and ahhs and breathiness, and they work, and they work well, and even if the work here is derivative, it's derivative of some of the best dance/funk/rock work ever recorded. Hunt's production is so pristine--so fresh and so clean, clean--that the record doesn't come across as homage or pastiche; it comes across as exciting, as a continuation of Prince's ideas--musical and lyrical--before his funky highness fully abdicated his throne fifteen years ago.

The music here doesn't just call to mind Prince, it also--and I believe deliberately so--mirrors the terrible funk soundtracks of so many seventies porno films...only it's better. This is boom-chicka-wow-wow music given form (it's already got its function), given a new do, a new pad, a new wardrobe, and a new outlet. Remember, this was a digital-only release, so if this record is porn music for the new century, then the porn for the new century can be found digitally as well. 'Cept for one thing: internet porn just doesn't have the same quality as porn films of the seventies.******* Why?

Seventies porno films--even the worst, cheapest ones--look better than iPorn because the seventies' pornos were shot on film, and iPorn is shot digitally. That difference is significant, because digital motion pictures--even those shot by first-rate directors--look too real. There's no sheen, no veil, no haze, no filter to elevate that which we see to something greater than what are normal eyes behold, and that's what film (I don't mean film here as movies; I mean film as in the actual material that records images) does that pixels don't. Film can provide a more heightened means of escape, as it provides for a distanced viewpoint; digital pictures can seem too real, and when dealing with pornography, believe it or not, most people (who watch pornography) don't want real--they want, as Billy Idol sang, flesh for fantasy. Van Hunt knows this. He sings, "Everyone loves a stranger/Nobody wants the danger," proffering the following hypothesis********: pornography as safe sex. It don't hurt no one that way.

NOTES*********

*Our remote control recently ceased operating. In a fit of nostalgia for the good old days of always having to rise from a place of rest to change the channel or adjust the volume, my wife has insisted that we live without a remote control.

**Further discussion of my parents' problems with Prince can be found here.

***Actually, removing the words something close to from that sentence would be more appropriate, for Apollonia was topless in that scene.

****Not counting women from either Africa or the Nazi concentration camps, I do understand that breasts are secondary sexual characteristics, and that the onset of breasts indicate that a woman is ready to bear children, thus stimulating the manly urge to procreate...but still....

*****Okay, I know the numerous ways that pornography can be a terrible, demeaning, criminal, criminalizing, and misogyny/violence-creating practice, but not all pornography is heinous.

******I also admit that if that female form happened to belong to my wife or daughter, I'd turn into a fundamentalist Christian in a second. Don't trust me for a second, folks.

*******Or so I've been told.

********I'm aware that this song's message is satirical; however, the music's too good to be satire, and that resultant quality changes the meaning and message, as--with this music backing him--no longer is Van Hunt laughing at those whose only new social and sexual experiences come through the television and the computer, he's a complicit participant.

*********I've currently reading the new Annotated Dracula by the noted and award-winning (deservedly so, for his work in this book is exhaustive) Leslie S. Klinger, and his annotations are (at least) equal in length to the text, so I think Klinger's work has definitely begun to influence my own (thus the lengthy notes).

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #162

#162: "Like Water into Wine" (2000) - Gretchen Peters

Gretchen Peters made her way down Music Row following the trailblazing path of songwriters such as Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, and Lyle Lovett, artists--like Peters herself--who refuse to let Nashville tamper with the songwriting process. While Earle, Griffith, and Lovett all gained fame with their idiosyncratic solo careers, Peters stayed behind the scenes writing hit songs for country artists such as George Strait ("Chill of an Early Fall"), Pam Tillis ("Let That Pony Run"), Trisha Yearwood ("On a Bus to St. Cloud"), Martina McBride ("Independence Day"), and Patty Loveless ("You Don't Even Know Who I Am"). Her songs weren't of the typical cookie-cutter variety, though, as they all showed great lyrical depth while still being able to hook the listener. The depth hails from one main lyrical theme: self-actualization.

The lyrical realization has come in the form of personal, spiritual, and sexual freedom as well as escaping repression of the personal, the spirtitual, and the sexual. Nowhere do all three of Peters's main motifs better conjoin than in "Like Water Into Wine," a song best known for Patty Loveless's version. Now, Loveless has a beautiful voice, and is a fine interpreter, but her forte is the overtly passionate and emotional; subtlety--though she's no slouch, no sir--isn't her strong suit, as Loveless's powerful voice has a tendency to overwhelm small, quiet moments. That's the case with her version of "Like Water Into Wine"--she oversings it, and she misses the nuances.

It's Waters's singing that perfectly captures the subtle, scintillating, and sublime mixture of the spirtitual and the sexual--the sacred and the profane--that oh-so-easily could tumble into caricature or vulgarity or blasphemy. Waters handles it perfectly. Her voice quivers slightly and her tenderness rises to the fore, and that tender quality--that vulnerability, that obeiscance to a force (alcohol or love or sex or God or all put together, probably the latter) greater than the self--is also an intimate one, and those qualities in her voice matched with the best lyrics of any love song this decade make for a record that open its heart and arms and spirit and, uh, libido to let us in and hold us until we--as "miracles of science" and "accidents divine"--come to know ourselves--as best we dare--consummately. Peters's record here can be our own personal Jesus; we just have to reach out and touch faith--and she'll be there.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #163

#163: "Would You Go With Me" (2006) - Josh Turner

Eight years ago, Josh Turner traveled from South Carolina to the Grand Ole Opry to sing a song he'd written, a gospel song with country stylings called "Long Black Train." Turner received numerous plaudits for that song, struck a record deal, and he's been recording gospel-tinged albums ever since, with the occasional nod to the traditional Music Row-type song. Turner had his biggest hit with "Your Man," a fine showcase for his deep baritone voice (whose quality is on a par with Conway Twitty's and Randy Travis's and George Jones's), but the song was standard Nashville fare with standard Nashville production. From the same album came a much better record (though not as catchy)--"Would You Go With Me."

This record not only showcases Turner's sonorous vocals, but it also highlights some particularly adept dobro and banjo work (not by Turner), and more importantly (okay, not more, 'cause Turner's voice is the number one reason to hear any of his records), "Would You Go With Me" displays the best lyrics of Turner's three-album (thus far) career. This song--and many of Turner's other songs share this quality, too--takes what at first seems to be a cheery outlook on life, but underneath that cheery demeanor lies a strong sense of impending death--call it optimistic fatalism.

Turner never comes across as a doomsayer; he just seems to be calling 'em as he sees 'em. All throughout this song, Turner sounds slightly desperate, as if he knows it's all going to end soon, asking his lover not to look down, and what's worse, he admits that he might not know the way to salvation. Coming from a Nashville song by a devout Chrisitan, that's about as chilling as it gets. Reach out to me, Turner seems to say, and I'll be there...but I don't know what else will be. It's as chilling a romantic song as "Stand by Me" or "In the Still of the Nite" or "Pledging My Love." As I've noted oft-times before, Cher once sang that we all sleep alone, and I think Turner's afraid that this might be the case, and--at least here, in this song--he wants to avoid what Jody Reynolds sang about in "Endless Sleep" as long as he can.