Grefter poked me into doing this. I feel very out of my depth with this sort of music, and make no guarantees about my opinions being useful or relatable to anyone for anything, particularly relatively normal people like this series is pitched to. Still reasonably fun though, maybe?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfWiAuJVKqMZac Brown Band
I can dig the vocalist, but the song seems very generic and repetitive; doesn't really go anywhere beyond "being a leader is hard!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmoTaylor Swift
Mixed feelings. Loved the opening, and then the music kicked in and
what is this? Okay, this is a great clip for not a great song, I want to just mute it and watch the video a few times. Love the names and the Leeloo expy. The song, though... why is this rapper even here getting splitscreen time in my chixploitation flick? What does the light rap beat of the song have to do with anything conceptually? But still: that video! That video is really good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_D6_DNsRWICascada
This is kind of in the opposite position, where I'm okay with the song but the video lowers its appeal a fair bit. I'm actually okay with a fair bit of sex-selling in music, but this... it just looks and feels trashy, in a bad way. And the music, while okay, never really rises above "okay" to me to compensate. Feels like it's missing something - Grefter's probably right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewmRSKDUQ8gChristina Aguilera
I tried to watch this four times to give it a fair shake and my brain glazed over every time. It exists. I can hear that the song is technically well produced and has more depth and motion to it than many of the other tracks. It just can't hold my attention whatsoever. What a fitting title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IrQHeDcMi8Lunch Money Lewis
Stark contrast to the last song, this track had me nodding and singing along immediately! The vocals and a lot of the instrumentation are obviously not the best, but equally obvious that this is deliberate and works with the song. It's funny, pleasant, has a good beat, changes up while keeping singable, all stuff I like in this type of song. Certainly my favorite of this selection as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XR7naZ_zZAGalantis
Also quite good. I couldn't really follow the attempted plot of the video, but I do like city skylines and random neon paths, and the animal masks are cute, so no harm done. This song possesses the phat-spelled-with-ph-and-z-beatz that the Taylor Swift and Cascada tracks felt like they suffered from lacking, and a good rollicking contrast of vocals that should sound annoying but don't to go with the beatz. Decent stuff.
Favorites: 1. Lunch Money Lewis 2. Galantis 3. Zac Brown Band. The more I listened to the Taylor Swift the less I liked it. Really a shame though, the video alone is good for a watch.
