Usually, I know exactly when a song is a disasterpiece, but sometimes, I get confused.

Last year, I couldn’t decide if “Boom Boom Pow” was a hot hit or a hot steaming pile. Since I’ve now purchased The E.N.D. and occasionally phased “BBP” into my workout mix, I’ve obviously put it in the “win” column, though I still like it less than recent Black Eyed Peas hits like “I Gotta Feeling” and “Meet Me Halfway.”

I felt similar uncertainty when my friend Collin tweeted me yesterday, asking if I would declare Young Money’s “BedRock,” currently #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, a disasterpiece. (Sidebar: Are you following me on Twitter? If not, won’t you join me for some bonus musings, links, and sass?)

My ambivalent heart… after the jump

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Ya got the New Jack SWING comin’ atcha!

If you listened to pop music in the early 90s, then I’m guessing you read the line above and immediately started tapping your toe. Maybe you considered adding exclamation points to your name, a la Tony! Toni! Tone! (That would make me Mark! Marc! Marque!)

And maybe, just maybe, you felt sad that the New Jack era is over. Lord knows that I certainly miss it. Those hard drum beats, bouncy piano loops, and harmony vocals are all just so much fun. The early 90s hits of T!T!T!, Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, and Bell Biv DeVoe have a full and aggressive sound, yet they’re also charming and accessible. They occasionally remind us that we are a part of a rhythm nation, but they’re mostly about dancing and having fun.

Let me repeat that: Having fun. As much as I enjoy the minimalist sexypantsing of Timbaland and the vocoded preening of Jay Sean, their music has a darker edge than “Do Me!” or “Miss You Much.” It’s partly the grimier beats and partly the explicit lyrics, but whatever the reason, their music occasionally makes me yearn for the sound of my adolescence.

Given that nostalgia—and I freely admit I’m doing the whole “back in my day” thing right now—I’m ecstatic that “Nothin’ On You” is tearing up the radio. The first single from Atlanta rapper B.o.B. (featuring vocalist Bruno Mars), it is the New Jackiest jam I have heard in ages. Take a listen…

Damn, y’all! That beat is straight Jam and Lewis, all hard drum beats and sweet piano undercurrent. And when B.o.B. drops that “nuh-nuh-nuh-nothin’ on you” line, I want to throw on a “Button Your Fly” t-shirt.

I’m glad this song is succeeding, because pop music needs this kind of breezy, sunny jam right now. It’s a nice balance for the robotic funk of Black Eyed Peas, the high-drama fever of Lady Gaga, and whatever the hell Ke$ha is.

What do you guys think?

If you were trying to launch a music career, and you decided to make decisions based on what the American Idol judges say while they’re commenting on the live performance episodes, then you would implode.

Because, seriously… I’ve been digging through the archives, and in the entire history of the world, there has never been a group of people more fickle than these judges, up to and including the 19th-century French monarchs.

Need proof? Take a look at this lesson I learned form last night’s episode, when the Top 12 men boys guys performed for our votes for the first time:

Don’t reinterpret a song, but don’t do a soundalike version, either. Except when it’s the right thing to do.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

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If I were prone to street preaching, then I’d be down on the corner this morning, shouting to the world about Mumford & Sons.

And no, despite what its (kind of terrible) name implies, Mumford & Sons is not North America’s number one distributor of reasonably-priced winter wear. It’s a British folk-rock band fronted by Marcus Mumford.

Check that: It’s an amazing British folk-rock band.

Sigh No More, the band’s debut album, has the grandeur of Arcade Fire, the raw emotion of The Swell Season, and the muscular melody of R.E.M. during their Out of Time and Automatic for the People years.

Their music is passionate, authentic, beautiful. I don’t know how to say this without hyperbole, so just indulge me… their music makes me feel more alive. It fills me with emotions so strong that I can’t really define them. At least not yet.

But I want to share this music before I “understand it.” I’m still in the “pre-critical” phase of my enjoyment—I’m still just feeling the rush of each song—and I want to spread that feeling far and wide.

So after the jump, I’ll embed my current favorite songs. I hope they speak to you, too.

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So I just saw the video for Rihanna’s new single, “Rude Boy,” and like a kitten with a dangling piece of string, I am fascinated.

True, this video isn’t doing something shockingly new. In her “Galang” video, M.I.A. uses the same Keith Haring/Basquiat/80s Graffiti aesthetic, and after seeing the set for the Broadway musical Fela!, I realize that Rihanna’s clip also has elements of AfroBeat style. And take a look at this 90s-tastic video from Vanessa Williams. There’s a total resemblance.

(And yes… that’s the second time I’ve written about that Vanessa Williams video.)

But despite its obvious influences, the Rihanna video, directed by Melina Matsoukas, has a little something extra. For one, the production design is flawless. It’s absorbing to notice just how carefully the creative team has stitched the clip’s various visual styles together, so that the stuffed lion and the animated crown and the black-and-white footage look like they exist in the same world. And then there’s the colors, which are so sharp and exciting they maek the screen feel alive.

Meanwhile, because people keep getting shadowed by screen-printed versions of themselves, the clip adds unusual dynamism to the familiar “stand still, look sexy” music video strategy.  It also seems important to me that this clip moves slowly, at least by music video standards. Isntead of frantic jump cuts, we get relatively languorous shots that let each surreal image sink in. This matches the tempo of the song, and it gives a sexy confidence to what we’re seeing.

I can’t discount Rihanna, either. Her intensity really sells the whole package.

What do you guys think of this piece of pop art?

Update: Props to my colleague Ginger (star of that silent movie I made) for pointing out that “rude boys” are a fundamental part of ska culture and that their iconography (including the lion) appears in this video. I learn something every day!

Can Laura Bell Bundy break the curse that plagues women in country music?

Let me tell you what I mean: In its early days, the country music industry ignored female artists, dismissing them as “girl singers,” refusing to book them for concerts, and declining to play them on the radio. Things improved, of course, but for every Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn who managed to strike it big in the genre, there were six or seven men who were doing just as well.

And then came the late nineties and early aughts, when it seemed things were turning around. There weren’t any female producers or anything, but more and more women were writing hit songs. Meanwhile, loads of female artists dominated the radio, the charts, and the touring market. “Legacy acts” like Reba McEntire and mid-career artists like Faith Hill and  Trisha Yearwood were maintaining their popularity, and new stars like Jo Dee Messina, the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, Deana Carter, and SHeDAISY were enjoying multiple hits.

And then… boom. The glass ceiling fell back into place, especially at country radio.

Consider this: Since 2005, only five women have had a number one single on Billboard’s country songs chart, which is based entirely on airplay: Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire, Hillary Scott, and Jennifer Nettles. (The last two are part of the coed acts Lady Antebellum and Sugarland, respectively.) Since 2007, only ten women have made the top ten—the five chart-toppers, plus Miranda Lambert (twice), Kellie Pickler, Faith Hill, Miley Cyrus, and Kelly Clarkson (all once.) And Clarkson and Cyrus are pop stars who were just doing one-off country duets, so their hits can hardly be considered breakthroughs for new artists in the genre.

That’s crazy, especially when you consider that women are almost always the country artists who crossover into the mainstream. A male country act hasn’t won an album of the year Grammy since 1969, for instance, but Taylor Swift, Allison Krauss, and the Dixie Chicks have all done it in the last five years. Swift and Lady Antebellum have had top ten hits on pop radio in the last few months , and a male country act hasn’t done that since Lonestar rode high with “Amazed” in 2000.

Even people within the country music industry seem to be feeling the love. Since 2007, Swift, Underwood, Lambert, and Nettles have all earned at least one of the top awards—album, song, and entertainer of the year—from the two major country music associations.

And yet despite this proof that there’s a hunger for female country artists out there, country radio continues its general freeze-out. It’s as though there are only a handful of slots for women in the entire genre, and until Carrie Underwood rejects music for Buddhism or Jennifer Nettles jumps ship for Broadway, no one else gets a chance.

Record companies keep trying, though, and talented women keep dropping records on us. Holly Williams, Julie Roberts, Sarah Buxton, and Meghan Linsey of Steel Magnolia all jump, though none of them have exactly broken through.

Given all this, I’m intrigued by the hat that Laura Bell Bundy has thrown into the ring. From what I can tell, she’s taking a different approach to making herself heard. Will it work? Should it? Let’s discuss it after the jump.

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By DOUG STRASSLER

Hello again! Today I am writing about some more of my musical forget-me-nots. This time they are a little different from my first column – by definition, one-hit wonders should be memorable, even if nothing else about their performers is. However, I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who has talked about these five songs from the 1990s or anyone who has played them in years. I’ve listed them below in no particular order – not chronological, not in order of preference, not even in length – just like they might appear on shuffle mode.

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Patty Griffin has long been one of my favorite singer-songwriters, but her last album, 2007’s Children Running Through, disappointed me. Smothered by overly lush arrangements and inaccessible song structures, it sounds like Griffin got in the studio and started thinking too much, like she started making dry, intellectual choices about how her music should evolve. This is a problem, since I listen to her music for its  no-bullshit assault on my heart.

This happens to a lot of singer-songwriters: They break through with raw, unadorned material—as Griffin did with 1996’s mind-boggling acoustic album Living With Ghosts—but as they evolve, they trade simplicity for sonic experiments and a twelve-minute song without a chorus.  Sometimes this works out okay (Fiona Apple, Ryan Adams). More often, however, it results in tiresome self-indulgence (Ani DiFranco, R.E.M.)

When I “lose” an artist this way, I always hope we’ll reconnect some day. It happened with Dar Williams, who bounced back from the soggy Beauty of the Rain with two of her best albums, and with her new album Downtown Church, it has happened with Patty Griffin. (You can listen to samples here.)

A collection of gospel and religious songs (both originals and covers), the album really was recorded in a church in downtown Nashville. It features guest vocals from gospel group The Fairfield Four, as well as alt-folk perennials like Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy and Julie Miller.

Mostly importantly, the album features the Patty Griffin I was missing: Immediate, emotional, unadorned. It’s like she tried on achoir robe, decided she looked amazing, and then just let go. No thinking, just feeling, singing, and hollering.

Now, obviously there’s craft on this album. Griffin and company didn’t just sit down and improvise on some magical afternoon. But you don’t sense their hard work.

You do sense Griffin’s complex relationship to religion. For every song about the power of faith, there’s a track about death, sadness, and anger. The balance makes the album feel honest, because let’s face it… religion brings up contradictory responses in almost everyone.

My favorite tracks are “If I Had My Way,” a lively traditional song that lets Griffin shout about tearing a house down, and “Little Fire,” a mid-tempo original with excellent lyrics and Emmylou Harris.

And then there’s “Waiting for My Child,” a cover of a Sullivan Pugh song about a woman trying to cope with her missing son. Is he dead? Or just gone? Hard to say… but the pain is clear. Griffin brings vivid ache to lines like, “Oh, my child may be somewhere on his sick bed with no one to rub his aching head. Oh, my child may be somewhere in some lonely jail with no one there to go his bail.”

This song alone would have brought me fully into Griffin’s church, but it’s just one of the testaments to her new album’s power.

I just noticed that my post on unjustly failed pop songs was entry #666 on The Critical Condition. Does that mean that post is eeeeevil?

In the interest of pushing my website past that unholy number, I will now feature this slightly demonic hit from the 80s:

Oh, Pop Music, you are a fickle mistress indeed! Sometimes you send a great song all the way to number one, but sometimes, just to remind us you’ve got the power, you let Britney Spears top the charts with the world’s most boring ode the threesomes. Even worse, you sometimes take a great song and let it fail. Flop. Crasharooski.

But today I stand up to you, Pop Music! Today, I declare that the following seven singles didn’t deserve to fail. Today, I resurrect them with a barbaric yawp!

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