Cardi B's "Money Bag": Half-time triplets and hard work

“We were in LA. [Cardi B's breakthrough hit] ‘Bodak [Yellow]’ was already out, we were probably No. 8 on Billboard now. The goal was to keep feeding the streets, just keep making records," producer J. White recently told Billboard about making Cardi B's "Money Bag," a deep cut on her fine debut album Invasion of Privacy. (White also produced "Bodak.") "Nobody really said in the studio, ‘we gotta do another Bodak.’ We just gotta do another record that’s dope. That’s what I preach in the studio period, to anybody that I work with. Don’t worry about what we did before, that record is done and out there to the public. We gotta worry about another record. Let’s stay in that grind mode, let’s stay hungry, and it’ll show on the track."

Earlier this year I wrote, "From Southern capitalist rap to corridos alterados to Bach cantatas, sometimes I think 'music about musicians' tireless work ethic' is my favorite genre." There's an urgency to music like this -- a sense that the musicians are using all the tricks at their immediate disposal to communicate with an audience hungry for more. It's not artlessness; more a confidence that, if the musicians can stay out of their own way, the art will simply happen.

This aesthetic also lurks behind plenty of music about love, dancing, unexplained Appalachian murders, demands to pour sugar, you name it. But when musicians make hard-working music about how hard they work, they work a thrilling, nerve-jangling alchemy on listeners. They suck us into their art without any meta-artsy fuss. We all become part of the musicians' grind.

(This aesthetic is also central to Bach's cantatas, churned out weekly based on the musicians and appointed texts he had to work with, for a regular audience who knew his work and could possibly pick up on recycled themes and minor variations. Because the cantatas were settings of texts scheduled for specific liturgical dates, they foregrounded their composer's deadlines. But that's a topic for a different post.)

On "Money Bag," Cardi raps over a hastily assembled collage from J. White's craft cabinet. The focal point is a five-note synth riff, larger than life and pulsing with the echoes of your empty skull. The bassline is gigantic; other weird synth vwoops periodically arrive, make their cases, and vanish. The beat is equal parts percussion sounds and effects; gun shots stand in for snares, while precise screams and growls conjure the image of a studio packed with people. I'd describe the track's overall affect as "sparse and doomy," but as with most rap beats, once you start examining everything that's there, you realize how full and complex it is.

Cardi's flow is equally complex, without ever grabbing us by the shoulders to insist, "Look how complex I am!" Her most notable rhythmic technique is dividing the beats into triplets, a technique also favored by Migos, Kevin Gates, and others. Triplets are OK, but they get wearing over the long haul because there's only so much rappers can do with them. The thrill of "Money Bag" lies in how Cardi switches up her normal triplet flow with half-time (slower) triplets; and how she makes different sets of half-time triplets sound completely unlike one another.




The first verse begins at 0:58; Cardi opens and closes it with different patterns built from half-time triplets.

[Esoteric music theory aside: You might call these patterns triplets, or you might call them "the first half of a clave rhythm." To help illustrate this, here's The Flowtation Device with the scenario.

Classic Clave Rhythm: ONE.*and*.FOUR./*.TWO_THREE_*. Think the Bo Diddley beat; or, you know, a clave rhythm.

A triplet rhythm at the same tempo is currently impossible to flowtate, so we have to approximate it with the clave. Basically, you'd take the first bar of the clave -- ONE.*and*.FOUR. -- and move the hits on "and" and "FOUR" a smidgen earlier, so that each of the three hits lands at equal intervals. If we were playing classical music, this would matter. But we're not. This is a slapdash attempt to notate a partly improvised vocal line, similar to a transcription of a jazz solo or a praise song. For our purposes, half-time triplets and "the first half of a clave rhythm" will function the same, and the phrase "half-time triplets" fits better into Cardi's triplet-heavy aesthetic.]

AHEM. Cardi's bars at the beginning of Verse One actually do sound like a clave rhythm, as though she were vocally conjuring the percussion pattern from a mambo or Bo Diddley's guitar pattern. Her pattern:

PRO.*tein*.THICK./*.YOU_LOOK_LIKEa/
DOPE.*fiend*.SIS./*.HE_MAKE_SURE/
HE.*put*.CARDi/*.DOWN_ON_HIS/
GRO.*shry*.LIST./*.NOW_WHY_THIS/

-- is the same as the Classic Clave Rhythm flowtated above, only with an extra beat four in every second bar. ("LIKE," "SURE," "HIS," "THIS.") The effect is spare and forceful. From there she goes into her standard, common-time triplet flow, before returning at verse's end to a more complex derivation of half-time triplets.

LIPS.*like*.AN./GElin*.A_-./
BENTley*truck*.TAN./GErine*.UH_-./
TRAMPS.*jump-in'ON_/MYdick-_*.THAT’S_/
WHY.THEYcall-itTRAM_/POline*.UH_-.

Notice how the odd bars here -- LIPS.*like*.AN., etc. -- are the same rhythm as the odd bars at the beginning of the verse -- PRO.*tein*.THICK., etc. On first listen you'd never pair these two rhythms, because the even verses are doing something completely different, reframing how we hear the half-time triplets around them. Crucially, notice the long words "Angelina" and "tangerine uh." (Has anyone cited Mark E. Smith as a Cardi influence?) They extend the final syllable of the triplet and turn the beat around, accenting unaccented syllables and vice versa. The result sounds off-kilter and tongue twisty, even though these phrases are rooted in the same half-time triplet feel Cardi used to open the verse.

Cardi returns to alter this rhythm again in Verse Two, in perhaps the song's most quoted lines:

(these bitches)
SAL_-ty*.THEY./SOD_Ium*.THEY_/
JEL_-ly*.PET_/ROL_Eum*.*./
AL_WAYStalk-inINthe/BACK.*ground-_DON’T./
NEV_ERcome-toTHE./POD_Ium

Once again, the odd bars here -- SAL_-ty*.THEY., etc. -- are essentially the same as the odd bars above, while the even bars change their character. Here, Cardi accents beat one of the even bars (SODium, petROLeum, etc.), mirroring the odd bars and giving the whole passage a tone of relentless aggression. In the second passage, Cardi was accenting unaccented syllables by placing them on the downbeat. Here, she's accenting accented syllables, making everything much more on-kilter and forceful.

That's three different passages scattered throughout the song; three different variations on half-time triplets/clave rhythms; three completely different feels.

By all accounts, Cardi works fast. White tells Complex, "All she does is work on her craft... She has those headphones on and she be engaging beats. She’s treating it like she’s in the dang NFL or NBA." It's an open question if, per White's earlier claim, an artist's hunger actually can "show on the track" -- and, if so, how exactly that aesthetic alchemy works. Using her own unique musical toolkit, Cardi offers one possibility. Mix things up; don't let your flow stay in one place for too long; use rhythms as signatures; and trust that listeners will see you, and themselves, in your grind.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Diane Renay doing "Kiss Me Sailor"

Imagine a world in which "Judy's Turn to Cry" is better than "It's My Party," or "Bristol Twistin' Annie" beats "Bristol Stomp." This is the weird scenario occupied by Diane Renay's two great hits, both from 1964: "Navy Blue," #6 the same week some Beatles hit was #1, and its superior sequel "Kiss Me Sailor," #29 during the week ruled by either "Hello, Dolly!" or "My Guy." (I'd research but I'm typing this from aboard a submarine.)

Like Len Barry and the Dovells, Renay was a Philly gal, but she fell under the tutelage of Bob Crewe rather than the Cameo-Parkway guys. Crewe has an amazing writing/producing resume, everything from the Four Seasons to "Lady Marmalade," and he co-wrote "Navy Blue" with Bud Rehak and noted Vietnam POW liberator Eddie Rambeau. For the sequel, Rehak and Rambeau were writing on their own, and they somehow managed to shamelessly imitate and improve upon the original. "Navy Blue" mourns the absence of Renay's sailor boyfriend and looks ahead to his 48-hour shore leave; "Kiss Me" takes place during the horny fulfillment, when Renay and her boy stay up and watch The Late Late Show and kiss as much as they can before he walks out the door to serve his country or whatever. Renay, on other occasions capable of pristine high notes, spends a decent portion of "Kiss Me" growling. Along with the feral vocal and sense of desperation, there are catchy horn riffs (plagiarized, but don't ask me where from, unless it's from "Navy Blue") and a wordless "ba-ba-ba" bridge from the background chorus. True, "Navy Blue" has more sociological detail; its Drive-By Truckers cover is forthcoming. But when she rips into "Kiss Me" by ripping off the hook of her previous hit, Renay sounds even better. She's insatiable, and she'll make damn sure her boy gets teased for the hickey she's about to give him.

 

Renay's compilation Navy Blue: 25 Super Tracks is highly recommended. It's got a few too many slow bleh songs, but she tears into "Soldier Boy" like the Shirelles never dared, and whenever I hear her melisma-crazy ballad "Maybe," I'm surprised nobody's covered it. This post was inspired by my surprise at hearing "Navy Blue" overhead in Wal-Mart; I'm sure there are other Top 6 hits I've heard less in the wild, but few of them -- or their sequels -- deserve to be heard more.

Recent (ahem) Jukeboxing

Raiders of the X-Crossed Ark

Here are some of my recent blurbs from The Singles Jukebox, which continues to inform and delight. Click on over there and read what other people wrote, too!


Bon Iver - "Holocene": Nice drumming, I guess. Justin Vernon seems like an upstanding Wisconsin homesteader, but his fans speak a different language, or are ruled by different physical laws, or something. I learn from Pitchfork that “Holocene” is a “virtuosic vocal performance”, when in fact Vernon sounds like Peter Gabriel trapped in a cistern. Christianity Today loves his “rich soundscapes” and impressionist poetry, his “palpable vulnerability and reliance on love’s redemptive power”, but I’m pretty sure they hear that stuff everywhere, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t move me even if Vernon suddenly learned to enunciate. “Hydroponics lifestyle” mag Rosebud says the Bon Iver album makes you “stop what you’re doing and just let your jaw hang” — well, that makes sense. Teen Vogue says the album’s “incredible”, if you can believe it. Most endearing is my wife’s fraternal magazine Pan Pipes, which called the album “a recommended listen if you’re looking for something new and relaxing”, but did complain that the song “Wash” is “a bit too much at times”, with “many things going on at once”. I eagerly await their feature on K-Pop.
[3]

Rihanna - "Cheers (Drink to That)": It’s about time somebody captured the depressing slog that is obsessive barhopping. Your mind’s always on your money, everybody just sits around complaining about the bastards at work, and some idiot keeps singing the same line from that stupid Avril song OVER AND OVER. Cheers to the freakin’ weekend.

[9] (CONTROVERSY!)

X-Cross - "Crazy": During my first hapless attempt to transcribe “Crazy” I became convinced I’d uncovered a murder, John Travolta Blow Out style. Coming out of the first verse I heard Mr. X-Cross say, “Hey girl, sexy girl! Dehdehdehdeh deh- deh- DEAD girl!”, and suddenly everything became clear. THAT’S why people are getting shot in the prechorus, and why that damn Crazy Frog voice keeps mocking X-Cross’s lovelorn entreaties as “CRAZY!” It especially explains why X-Cross hit their lovelorn peak singing, “We can make it out, baby, you and I” — the only way they escape this song together is in a closed casket. The lovely pop!gasa website informs me my transcription’s a little off, but even the pop!gasa translation features eyes getting wider, legs shaking, hearts exploding, people turning into dynamite. In 1981 movie terms, it’s the next-to-last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, yeah, bom-bas-tic.

[9]

Pitbull ft. Marc Anthony - "Rain Over Me": So many good lines! Not in this particular Pitbull song, mind you, but in Mikael Wood’s wonderfully droll Pitbull article in June 17th’s Billboard. He really takes you behind the sausage. “‘We wanted somebody to embody our brand who’s one of a kind — who’s a real pioneer,’ Dr. Pepper director of multicultural marketing Olivia Vela says,” right before Wood lists Pit’s other partnerships with Kodak, Zumba, Sheets Energy Strips (??), and “Voli, a line of low-calorie vodkas” prominently name-checked in “Rain Over Me”. Says one DJ of Pit, “This guy is printing money.” But lest you get too cynical about the music, Pit’s manager assures you, “This was never about calling up RedOne and scheduling an appointment to hook into the RedOne sound.” Yeah — that’s why RedOne’s track for “Rain Over Me” sounds so LATIN. On the other hand, it’s sort of impressive that this inevitable smash, featured on The Today Show, is the bilingual tale of a diet-vodka pitchman who has a threesome with his buddy, recently separated and desperate, and some anonymous but classy broad. It’s the kind of surreal scuzz Warren Zevon might’ve gotten away with. How far we’ve come.

[5]

Ke$ha - "Shots On the Hood of My Car": This starts as standard-issue, if pretty, transgre$$ion — K goes joyriding with her friends and jumps the fence to the Hollywood sign, just like when she snuck into the Stones concert with Harold. Only this time — what else? — she’s consumed with a vision of Garveyite apocalypse. She’s 10 miles (or wherever) from the city, watching (Hollywood) Babylon burn, just like Louie Culture and Capleton and U-Roy before her, only with no hint of judgment; she’ll be blown into oblivion with everybody else. All the burbling polyphonic euphoria at the end sounds so communitarian, it’s easy to forget all those suffocating suckers downtown who aren’t blessed with friends and Scotch. But that’s OK — this is the apocalypse from inside the Scotch-haze, and as such, it chokes me up. And here’s the other me-choker: How long can she keep this up? Where “this” equals “exploring wildly different facets and implications of a coherent persona”? I suppose the end-times imagery might be a portent that she’s running out of ideas, because where can you go from there, but at this point point I’m holding my breath with every new Ke$ha song, and “Shots” makes it feel really good to exhale.

[10] (ALSO CONTROVERSY!)

HyunA - "Bubble Pop": The beat is hard and severe like a row of brick walls, and HyunA’s job is either to squeeze between each pair of walls or, if she’s on a roll, to soar over the top of the walls and contain them, as though she’s being unfurled by Christo. Also there’s a dubstep interlude. None of this adds to the beat’s forward momentum, but all of it adds to the song’s energy, by turns invigorating and herky-jerkily frustrating, not unlike a real game of Bubble Pop! with a child who INSISTS on always being the bubble-blower and never the bubble-chaser. You know the contortions you gotta put yourself through to contend with one of those bubble guns? “OOH! AHH! OOH-ah-ooh-AH! ooh-AH! OOOOOOOHHHH” sounds pretty close.

[7]

Blake Shelton - "Honey Bee": I’d say he misunderstands the particulars of honeysuckle fertilization, but he backs off: “That came out a little Country / But every word was right on the money.” Of course, that contradiction flies in the face of the recent Corbin-Paisley hypothesis that Country Must Always Speak Truth About True Things. My sensible and, it turns out, eight-months-pregnant wife is now explaining to me about poetic license. Herself no stranger to lies about bees, she once suffered a debilitating sting WHILE HOLDING STILL.

[5]

The comments thread for Blake's nothing of a song erupts into a conversation about country music and The Voice, largely between Anthony and Brad and Katherine, that is one of the most entertaining things I've read this year.

Sheep/Goats 3/11: Featuring Some Stuff I'm Surprised I Liked

Unless it's the evil orphan-master asking where you're hiding the orphans, or something...

"I never imagined you could
Blow my theory apart
But now you're running away with my heart."
--Wilson Phillips

I've never been real interested in Nick Drake, but this new Alexi Murdoch is a slow still ringer for the guy, and it sounds really good. Similarly, a year ago I'd've never believed I'd end up digging a Chris Tomlin CD. It's all discussed over at the Burnside Writers Collective, along with Neil Diamond, Monotonix, Steel Magnolia, Weasel Walter/Mary Halvorson/Peter Evans, and Danielson. Here's the Murdoch review:

Alexi Murdoch
Towards the Sun
(Zero Summer)
The first two times I listened to Towards the Sun, I was doing other things: first folding laundry, then reading a bunch of Nick Drake reviews. It’s a testament to Murdoch’s solemn folkie power that both times I felt guilty about my fast-paced modern lifestyle. Next to Murdoch’s contemplative stillness, puttering around the house feels like day trading or being Lady Gaga. True, his songwriting skill rewards even background listeners. The beautiful guitar chord he plays to confess his fear of dying; the pointed puns that open up the language of “Slow Revolution”; the epiphanal phrase “And all around the light” — all these things stop me. But sit still and devote 40 minutes of your life to hearing this music unfold, and it’s like watching some patient natural phenomenon — a spider building a web, maybe, or rainwater rivulets subtly altering the contours of a ditch. When you take Murdoch’s pace as your own, his slow revelations are even more arresting.

Oh! and here's the Best Thing I've Heard All Year:




Brett Dennen
“Sydney (I’ll Come Running)”
Love overwhelms Law through sheer exuberance. The facts, ma’am: Brett’s friend Sydney has been accused of a crime, evidently something pretty serious, and Brett promises to stand by Sydney no matter what. As soon as Brett makes that promise he realizes, maybe for the first time, how blessed and lucky he is to have Sydney for a friend. Eureka! Suddenly Brett finds himself driven to discourteous musical joy, a glorious groove he never dreamed he could hit, and he soars away with the song — insulting the gossipy soccer moms at the dog park, cutting through the airport customs line, patching together “allegations made in the schoolyard” from two different Paul Simon songs, offering to help shop for lawyers (“There’s a lotta good people livin’ in L.A.”), but above all testifying testifying TESTIFYING.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Kataklysm doing "The Awakener" (DON'T WATCH IF HALLOWEEN STORES SCARE YOU)

Fans of low-budget horror take note: "The Awakener" is worth listening to for the thick guitar tone alone, but really, YOU NEED TO WATCH THE VIDEO:



This song comes as a melodic respite in the middle of Kataklysm's WORTH IT album Temple of Knowledge, which has something to do with the convergence of all knowledge and power, whether divine or infernal, in the year 1999 (WHICH IS 6661 UPSIDE DOWN whoa) at the top of Sigourney Weaver's apartment building. 

 
At least I think -- one of the songs is about beckoning Xul.  Really, it's better if I don't try to parse a song with couplets like

9 distincted letters were granted into a Word of Sovereignty
Then was graphed the 1st of the 9... Gates of Kataklysmity

But the video!  The video seems to concern one of those umpteen infernal powers possessing a pretty lady who emerges from a sand dune, only she resists his demonic tendrils, causing his rubbery flesh to smoke and bake.  Hairy Sylvian carries a torch, perhaps for the pretty lady, and mutters incantations with his eyes rolled back, while guitarist Jean-Francois whips his hair in the outline of a pentagram.  I'm pretty sure listening to this stuff is like playing Bloody Mary in front of the mirror, but you can't beat their maniac energy.

Last Week in Jukeboxing

Le bien:
The Ark: "Breaking Up With God"
My old youth group friend, with whom I’d lost touch for a while, said recently that one of the most freeing moments of her life came when she realized she’d always been an atheist. Even though “Breaking Up With God” depicts a slightly different situation — Ola Salo hears the call, he just opts not to follow — I can still imagine the song playing over that scene in the movie of her life, preferably a scene of quiet joy in a restaurant rather than a montage of her twirling and splashing in a big stone fountain or something. It does SOUND like a fountain montage song, with its New Romantic riff and wonderful vocal harmonies. Salo sings with giddy relief, like he just realized he was parched and surrounded by water all at once. And this is why I find the song tremendously moving. As with most great God celebration songs, this one burrows down into the singer’s core and comes up with remnants of inexpressible things. “Reach my heaven alive” — whatever that turns out to be, it’s a necessary goal.
[10]

...le mal:
Keyshia Cole ft. Nicki Minaj: "I Ain't Thru" 
I didn’t think Keyshia WAS thru until she started insisting otherwise; but then, I haven’t been paying attention, so I don’t know who all these “hatin’ ass broads” are that she’s battling. If she really wants to impress them, she shouldn’t neglect her more interesting upper range, with its strained and girlish desperation, almost totally absent here.
[2]

...et le mot juste:
Brad Paisley: "This is Country Music" 
OK, YES, it’s utter horseshit, at best an empty writing exercise, at worst a self-correcting sop to anti-government types who roll around on Medicare scooters and clamor for Obama’s birth certificate. The idiotic first line could keep us busy all day. The invaluable Leo’s Lyrics yields 1,019 songs that mention cancer, only two of which appear to be by country artists — David Allen Coe’s “Heaven Only Knows” and Travis Tritt’s “Bible Belt”, if you’re curious. Rap and metal artists get to say the word “cancer” in songs all the time; Neurosis, Carcass, and the Subhumans seem to have weird but unsurprising fetishes for the subject. He might as well say you’re not supposed to say the word “cancer” in a COUNTRY song, and there’s a good reason for that: aesthetically it’s a bad word for the genre, violating the usual subtlety and craft that go into country lyrics. If Tim McGraw had just plopped a “cancer” into the beginning of “Live Like You Were Dying”, it would have violated our subconscious expectations of country songwriting and broken the song’s spell. So Paisley’s a liar and a thief, but here’s the thing — he and Chris DuBois are good enough songwriters that THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT. It’s not breaking-the-fourth-wall momentous, but this “cancer” is a sign of Paisley tossing off undeniable skill, the same skill he uses to divide country subject matter into three neat verses, to stick all his rhymes like a gymnast, and to play a guitar that sounds more conscious than most singers on the radio.
[7] 

L'others:
Ke$ha: "Blow" [5]
PJ Harvey: "The Words That Maketh Murder" [8]

Last Week In Jukeboxing

If you wanna floss, go get your own!

Last week The Singles Jukebox reviewed a bunch of acts on the BBC's "Sound of 2011" list.  After weeping for BBC listeners in 2011, I became afraid that I was on the losing end of some impassable cultural divide.  Thankfully, the Jukebox's British contingent disliked most of the reviewed songs as much as I did.  Highlights:

Le bien:
The Naked and Famous: "Punching In a Dream"
There’s an appealing looseness about the whole thing — the singers “woo-OOO-oo!” along with the synth lines, Alisa Xayalith’s high notes sound unhinged, and every time you turn around there’s some new sound popping up. MVP is drummer Jesse Wood, who punches up some choice electronic effects while throwing a whole bunch of unexpected ratatats and cymbal crashes into his swingin’ disco beat. His fills at the end make me smile every time. As does this shirtless man drumming along to the song.
[9]

...les mals:
Warpaint: "Undertow" 
I call “Polly” reference! Never thought a song would make me long for the taut grooves of a Nirvana ballad, but there you go.
[2]

Yuck: "Rubber"
The opening chord reminds me of the Gathering’s stellar blast-off tune “Liberty Bell”; the rest reminds me of what I always imagined Spacemen 3 would sound like before I actually heard them, and Mr. Yuck sounds like he’s singing in a tin can, so I first assumed this song had something to do with space travel. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, it’s certainly as monotonous as space travel must be, but you’d think real astronauts with time on their hands would come up with more adventurous guitar parts.
[2] 

...et le mot juste:
Jamie Woon: "Night Air"
One of my most indelible musical memories comes from summer vacation when I was 10, hearing Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name” pouring out of boomboxes around the swimming pool. I had no idea what the song was. Somehow its exotic Caribbean lilt and stately melody got all mixed up with the image of a bunch of half-naked people soaking up oppressive Wisconsin sunshine, and I knew I was in the presence of a voice that possessed some esoteric adult knowledge. I was surprised my parents didn’t cover my ears. Thing is, I don’t even like “Sign Your Name” that much. And I don’t particularly like “Night Air” that much — it’s fine, whatever. But despite having little in common with “Sign Your Name”, beyond minor-ness and a tenor voice and a beat I could imagine Sade copping, “Night Air” seems authentically haunting in the same way. When Woon sings, “I’ve acquired a kind of madness,” I believe him, and I imagine that phrase could forever alter some 10-year-old’s vision of the world.
[7]

L'others:
Wretch 32: "Traktor" [8]

Last Week in Jukeboxing

Les biens:
Tye Tribbett -- "Fresh" 
(my pick!) 
The parts of “Fresh” that make it gospel — addressing God, quoting the Bible — feel like afterthoughts; this is really a song about Tye discovering the joys of Auto-Tune, or whatever voice-manipulator he used (apparently you can use it “straight out the box”!) He seems blissfully unaware that secular R&B has been doing the same thing for many years now, and that blatant Auto-Tune isn’t even unheard of in Christian circles — Marvin Sapp, a more traditional gospel singer, used it on a couple songs earlier this year, and the icky tobyMac has had a big A-T hit. So CCM’s lagging behind secular music again, what else is new? But apart from the synth-arpeggios and strutting beat and chord changes, all great, I love this song because Tye uses his new toy with such unbridled enthusiasm, mutating his voice in a variety of ways I don’t think I’ve heard outside Ke$ha. During the choruses he sounds like a whole P-Funk army. And if it weren’t for their chronology, Tye’s coda could be a minimalist riposte to Kanye’s overwrought Vocoder solo.
[9]

After School -- "Bang!"
Brings me back to the heady days of the Bring It On soundtrack, which I was convinced would illuminate some nascent bubble-underground and usher in a euphoric age of insanely shiny global pop supremacy. (Though I think B*Witched was as “global” as the made-in-USA BIO ventured). Probably my “euphoric age” will remain perpetually out of reach; probably it’d feel more oppressive than euphoric. But if history tells us anything, it’s that trying and failing to live up to such impossible ideals can produce some nifty side-effects. Speaking of: my word, is that a harpsichord? And then, after all the hot-stepping percussion and the smooth breakdown, we get ACTUAL STEPPING SOUNDS. I have no idea what this song’s about, but it SOUNDS like hot cheerleaders flipping through the air, competitively. It’s an image that might look oppressive to that portion of the student body who aren’t hot and can’t flip. But one of the joys of pop is that you don’t have to pass its practitioners in the halls.
[9]

...le mal:
Luca Brazi -- "Wake Up"
Despite my weakness for Christian rappers who can actually rap and cuss and quote Jay-Z (are there others?), I may be even more prejudiced against underground rap with sucky beats and no hooks. What to do? Well, it turns out the words aren’t much either. He’s more smug than prophetic — correct me if I’m wrong, but Brazi’s totally raging against ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE who worship greenbacks and whatnot, without acknowledging the same tendencies in himself, like Kanye did in “All Falls Down”. This oversight makes him sound petulant, but more to the point it makes him less interesting than (say) “All Falls Down”, because there’s no way into his music. My heart’s probably not pure enough for him, so we couldn’t stand together against the infidels; but I don’t recognize myself as one of the people he’s railing against either, since, devoid of specifics, his attacks don’t really stick. The industry may well be full of “boot-clickin’ ass-kissin’ house niggas”, but absent any way of identifying with either Brazi or his strawmen, I don’t know or care whether that’s true. And, watery lyrics aside, that beat’s not gonna wake anybody up.
[3]
 
...et le mot juste:
Kanye West ft. Pusha T -- "Runaway"
Way to show the Primitive Radio Gods how it’s done! Although I will say this: if you title your song “Runaway” it’s bound to be good, sort of like if you call your song “Do It Again” (the conflicting implications of these phenomena will be fully explored in my forthcoming EMP paper, Should I Stay Or Should I Stay Somewhere Else?: Primitive Radio Gods and the Ineluctable Modality of the Transitive). Speaking of which, does anybody remember the Pearl Jam song “Who You Are”, which according to my copious research followed “Waiting To Use the Phone Except I Don’t Have Any Quarters” at #1 on the Modern Rock Chart? Well, don’t look it up. ‘96 was bleak, man.
[7] 

The Tallest Man on Earth -- "The King of Spain" [8]
Ke$ha -- "Cannibal" [8]
(review and comments include wonky choir director stuff) (and wonky K fan stuff) (it's really out of control at this point)
The Greenhornes -- "Saying Goodbye" [6]
Right Said Fred -- "This Love" [4]

Last Week In Jukeboxing

This did not end well.

Le bien:
Taylor Swift – Back to December
This melody is such an exemplary piece of text painting, you almost don’t need the text. She hovers around a very narrow range here — the first half of Verse 1 and most of the chorus span just four notes (C# to F#). She’s constraining her usual ebullience to convince whatshisname (I envision Taylor Lautner, fwiw) that she means business, that she really wants to make things right. The insistent chorus rhythm is her determined form of penance. But at key places she breaks out: her voice glowers low on “burned in the back of your mind”; she reaches wistfully for “thaaat night”, wishing she’d behaved differently, put the roses in water or something. Second verse she’s got her foot in the door, so she widens the tune’s range coquettishly, trying to remind whatshisname how great she can be — only to snap back shut for the chorus. To get him back she’ll forswear freedom, so much that she even assumes a chain on his door, subconsciously associating it with her voluntary imprisonment. Bonus: she and Nathan Chapman forswear power chords, leaving space around her voice. OK, maybe she’s as brilliant as you all say. Docked a point because the bridge doesn’t do anything for me.
[9] 

...le mal:
Margaret Durante – Mississippi’s Crying
If a state can cry, goes the argument, it has jurisdiction over rain and sky, formerly the domain of the federal government. National airspace becomes state airspace, militias start firing on Air Force One, and pretty soon we’ve got a Civil War 2 to rival Sudan’s, ostensibly over water rights. Great. As it happens, Mississippi’s governor is currently challenging the constitutionality of “Obamacare’s” individual mandate — which leads to my probably untenable hypothesis that, if a state song personifies its subject or depicts the state as a metaphysical sympathizer, rather than simply as a nice place to live, it’s about a Red State (with a few exceptions for California, which incidentally has its own water issues, but the Red States are much more common). Examples: “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Tennessee”, and “Rainy Night in Georgia” brashly extends its reach “all over the world”. Anyway, Durante’s from Maryland, not that it matters.
[5]

...et l'Underwood:
Carrie Underwood – Mama’s Song
Music for use! If people start playing this for Mother/Daughter dances at wedding receptions, because Dad’s not in the picture or whatever, I’m totally on board. I also like how Mama “gives away” the daughter, reclaiming the barbaric women-as-property tradition. Lovely and open-hearted, with a supportive crowd of background singers.
[8] 

Last Week In Jukeboxing

They only drink to hide the pain.

Le bien:
Eric Church – Smoke a Little Smoke
I imagine Eric’s one of those annoying people (like me) who blathers on and on about how his altered state of mind brings him closer to God and reveals deep universal truths and profundities, about how Jesus’s first miracle was making wine at a party, about how the Tao is in the piss and shit and anyway the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao (land sakes, I’m doing it now), when really he’s just drunk (and high? Online lyrics say “Dig down deep / Find my stash,” whereas in this version he finds his glass and strikes his match. Another reason to vote yes on Prop.19!) . The floppy opening riff, dramatic shifts in instrumentation, coda, and abrupt final chord all create the impression that he’s making up the song as he goes along. Not until the third verse do we discover that some absent “her” is behind all this Hakuna Matata philosophizing.
[9]

...le mal:
Akon – Angel
Forgive me, Akon. At first I didn’t believe you, but that was before I learned she has wings and a halo.
[1]

...et le mot juste:
Lauryn Hill – Repercussions
I welcome her voice back into my life like a warm hug; but while we embrace, she just keeps blabbering about karma, and I can’t tell whether this is supposed to be an apology or what, and THEN Beaker from the Muppets comes in and starts serenading us, and this is just the most awkward welcome back hug ever.
[2]

Others:
Alexis Jordan – Happiness [6]
Magnetic Man ft. Katy B – Perfect Stranger [3]

Last Week In Jukeboxing

Ain't thinkin' 'bout "U"...

Le bien, le mal, et le gamelan:

Chrisette Michele – I’m a Star
Sounds better every time I listen, because “I’m up in the sky tonight” keeps sounding sadder, lonelier. Chrisette reveals how emotional desperation can drive self-empowerment as subtly as did “Irreplaceable”, as abruptly as “What’s cooler than being cool? ICE COLD!” Of course if you tell someone “I’m not thinkin’ ‘bout you”, YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT THEM, pink elephants and whatnot; but I’m even more impressed that she’s ostensibly putting her chorus into some sad sister’s mouth (“Tell ‘em…”) — she’s afraid we’ll figure her out, so she builds barrier after barrier between us and the catharsis she can’t allow. Her voice puts it over with a lovely arsenal of cracks and hiccups; despite the best efforts of the bridge to smooth everything over, the whole effect remains as delicate as Chuck Harmony’s gamelan production.
[9]

That's all I put up (slow week), but there's a good discussion unfolding over the merits of the extraordinarily fun rapper Nicki Minaj, springing from her performance on Kanye's latest.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Roland Kirk doing "From Bechet, Byas, and Fats"

A Zen monk's take on modal bop. Even though it's most memorable as a hard-charging tenor blowout, "From Bechet, Byas, and Fats" has a quirky stillness about it, in the heads that open and close the song, and especially in the wind chimes:



Roland Kirk has a reputation for being avant-jazz (I first picked him up on the recommendation of a Sonic Youth album cover), and while some of his recordings might bear that out, here he stands squarely in the tradition with a song dedicated to sax players Sidney Bechet and Don Byas and pianist Fats Waller. In Kirk's most iconic image, he's playing tenor sax, manzello (a sort of soprano sax with a mellophone bell grafted on), and stritch (a straight alto) simultaneously. My favorite record store, Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis, apparently digs Kirk:

No horns were played simultaneously in the making of "From Bechet", but we do get to hear the manzello for the head, and then we're off! Kirk tears through a wild tenor solo (that's the "Byas" part) over a two-chord vamp, featuring long stretches of note flurries supported by circular breathing. After that, Jaki Byard plays what amounts to an abstract Fats Waller tribute, featuring spunky Walleresque figures and, shortly after the four-minute mark, a speedy take on Fats's "Jitterbug Waltz":


During Byard's solo, Kirk helps out by clacking some castanets at esoteric intervals; I'm sure he understood why. Richard Davis gets a brief bass feature, and then we're back to the head, which refuses to end the song boisterously. In fact, the ending of this song is notably less rambunctious than the stuff that's come before, and the band finally nods off to some wind chimes and long notes. Spellbinding throughout.

Last Week in Jukeboxing

"Hey... tú... estás conmigo..."

They're letting me write blurbs over at the Singles Jukebox now, a site you may have noticed in my blogroll. It's well worth checking out; the site features several writers I admire (some of whose blogs are also over there to the left), and while everyone at the Jukebox takes pop singles more seriously than most rational people, they're not afraid to horse around. Writing this stuff is pretty addictive.

Le bien:
Javiera Mena – Hasta La Verdad
Striking in its deliberateness, the song builds meticulously to its final string extravaganza (sounds like the James Gang, of all people) while refusing to get excited, and Javiera refuses to emote or provide vibrato or alter her long notes in the slightest. She contemplates each sound as she makes it, examining her vowels in the shimmering light of the synths. Her approach suits the lyric, which I THINK is about appreciating the truth that’s right in front of you. Revelatory spoken interlude — “Hey… you… you are with me… Hasta la verdad” — leads into a (synth?) French horn solo which announces the dawn of some greater Verdad. Strauss on a mountaintop or some shit.
[8]

...le mal:
Zola Jesus – Sea Talk
The voice and the beat have the misfortune to remind me of “Be My Baby”, which only highlights the song’s inferiority to “Be My Baby”. We need tympani rolls leading into the choruses, folks! Momentum, power, more than two chords, recognizable emotion! The song tries reaching out for connection; Ms. Jesus admits she can’t be everything we want and asks a bunch of questions, but you get the sense she’ll go her own way regardless of the answers. Which is fine. I’ll just be over here listening to “Be My Baby” or reading Zola, I’ve been meaning to get to him.
[2]

...et le mot juste:
Pissed Jeans – False Jesii pt. 2

NOno! NO! NO!NO! nononoNO! NO! NO!NO! noNO! NO!noNO! NOno!NO!NO! NOno!NO!NO! noNO! NO! noNO!NO! nobody can do… NIHILISM THAT’S KIND OF DRAGGY BUT MAYBE THAT’S THE IDEA!!!… like I do… except Mudhoney…
[5]

Others:
Black Milk ft. Royce Da 5′9 and Elzhi – Deadly Medley [7]
Tinie Tempah ft. Eric Turner – Written in the Stars [6]
KT Tunstall – (Still a) Weirdo [2]
Brad Paisley – Anything Like Me [3]
Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars [8]
Kylie Minogue – Get Outta My Way [8]

Best Thing I Heard Today: Jamey Johnson doing "My Way To You"

Watch out, Lee Ann, he's right behind you!!!

Jamey Johnson's new album is great; forget what I said about it here.  I was foolish then.  It's two discs of great songs, mostly originals, that are mostly straight-up honkytonk stuff, but that also touch on rock, soul, folk, scary threats toward rich people, and this atypically massive power ballad:



...which was apparently released as a single last year, though I sure never heard it on the radio.  (Never heard "High Cost of Living" either, an even better single from his last album.)  The recording is great -- every instrument is clear and occupies its own space, which is good since they take some pretty fine solos.  "My Way To You" is atypical precisely because most of the other songs are so loose-limbed and spacious, they rarely coalesce into the magisterial radio power you get here.  It's a great capper to a LONG (25 song) album.  Don't try to take it in all at once -- unless, you know, that's the sort of thing you like to do.

Here's a good ilx thread that I haven't formed cogent thoughts for.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Trace Adkins doing "Hold My Beer"

If you're willing to brave the wilds of Myspace, you can stream the whole pretty good Trace Adkins album, Cowboy's Back In Town.   Once there, or at least as soon as you buttress your computer against cookies and pederasts and pederasts named Cookie, you should play the widely-acknowledged highlight "Hold My Beer".  Says the nation's record-critic-of-record Jon Caramanica, "The comical 'Hold My Beer', this album’s high point, revolves around a day of drinking rudely interrupted by the wedding of those doing the drinking."  The song was cowritten by Casey Beathard, at one point BMI's Songwriter of the Year, who's also given us the ace novelties "Drinkin' Bone" (Tracy Byrd), "Cleaning This Gun" (Rodney Atkins), and the Sarah Palin theme song, "Don't Blink" (Kenny Chesney).

"Hold My Beer" features Adkins in the comic role of a bewildered preacher / JOP / nautical captain ("UhhhhI now pronounce you... Y'all."), who notably coins the word "monogamony."  He documents all the wedding's vital aspects, racing through the ceremony to get to the party, where even hillbillies do the macarena.  When the bride crashes into the groom's old flame (about as abruptly as Myspace'll crash yer Flash plugin), she cheekily turns her former rival into a cupholder.  Everybody has a great time, not least the band, who play some cool stutter chords during the final chorus while they shout along:

Hold my beer!
This won't take long.
I want it back, 
And I don't want it gone!

Those words are set to music of the most exultant yearning.  (Can you yearn exultantly?  Sure; you exult in the fact that you have beer, and you yearn for that beer while you're apart.)

Best Thing I Heard Today: Sleigh Bells doing "Riot Rhythm"

And it wasn't in a Honda ad!  (Although I tell ya, things being what they are, it's nice to see musicians getting paid.)  No, it was in the car, listening to album-of-the-year contender and future Kidz Bop cornucopia Treats.  The Sleigh Bells' appeal is so broad that a certain five-year-old who's supposed to be napping in the next room is instead singing the lead riff from "Riot Rhythm", which he heard emanating from my speakers:



That riff'll really cut through a crowd!  Sort of like Idina Menzel's voice.  (They should cast her in Les Miz, and then people wouldn't fall asleep.)  "Riot Rhythm" is one of the first four songs on Treats, none of which have any chord changes to speak of.  The guitar, vocal, and synth lines sometimes imply other chords, but everything hovers around that big TONIC, which, as often as not, is also only implied by the melodies.  Like Prince's "When Doves Cry", "Riot Rhythm" has no bassline.  The bass drum sound, which I assume is a synth, resonates enough that it establishes the key at the beginning, even before Alexis Krauss's vocal melody jumps in to help.

As bang-you-over-the-head simple as the Sleigh Bells sound, they're fairly canny composers.  Take our new friend the "Riot Rhythm" riff, which you'll now sing all day long.  The first two notes of the riff are the natural third and fourth of the key; later in the riff, we hear the flat third and flat sixth, which sound unnatural in the key.  If this song had any chord changes -- if that big resonant bass drum started sounding a sixth or a fourth or any other note in the scale -- those two flat notes would make the riff sound like a blues riff, or at least blues-derived.  (You can imagine performers from Irma Thomas to Robert Goulet scatting the first half of the "Riot Rhythm" riff, swinging it, maybe winking and asking about people's hometowns.)  But that doesn't happen, because the Sleigh Bells don't change chords.  Over their inflexible TONIC, the flat notes have no blues connotations at all, and neither does the riff as a whole.  Rather, the riff sounds severe, unbeholden.  It exists in a musical world inhabited only by the Sleigh Bells.

[Concerned parents note:  five-year-old is now asleep.  Soon I need to wake him for his first piano lesson.]

Mark Richardson in Pitchfork: "[A]n even greater source of [Treats's] appeal is how it doesn't sound especially referential...  [Sleigh Bells] gather up bits from all over and use them to create music that puts you squarely in the present moment."  I wish I could put a finer point on that statement because I think I see what he's saying, but we needn't create a dichotomy between "sounding referential" and "putting you squarely in the present moment."  Think of Britney's "Toxic":  a whole song full of blatant musical references out of the past, but it still sounded au courant in, what, 2003?  (Probably still would today.)  Like Sleigh Bells, "Toxic" "gathers up bits from all over and uses them to create music that puts you squarely in the present moment."  Unlike the Bells, "Toxic" does indeed "sound especially referential."  What's the difference?  I'm not sure.  Just as "Toxic" asks us to revel in its Bollywood strings and surf guitar, "Riot Rhythm" asks us -- blatantly, without disguise -- to revel in its metal lead guitar and drumline rhythm.  ("You gotta march!")  But "Toxic" actually sounds like fake Bollywood music with surf guitar, and "Riot Rhythm" sounds like Sleigh Bells.  One's not necessarily better than the other; I just haven't pinpointed the compositional technique that separates the two. 

So, you know, leave comments and whatnot.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Cathedral doing "Funeral of Dreams"

The human brain may be insufficiently developed to digest this song's grandeur.  Loyal readers, if you enjoy smokin' multipartite songs about secular humanist revelations imparted by scarecrows (!), here's your freakin' single of the year:



Here's the blow-by-blow:  our allegorical friend Lee Dorrian, ex-Napalm Death, sets off on a chugging Foo Fighterish journey through Fields of Innocence, when he unexpectedly encounters a Scarecrow (!!) who makes him recite Word Jazz (!!!).  Inspired by this meeting, Dorrian builds a House up in a Tree from whence he can view reality and either an "avatar" or "abattoir" of his mind.  (I totally hope it's the latter!)  He sees that we're all enslaved inside the Matrix, basically, and then the background chorus comes in to chirp "Laaaa, lalala Laaaa!"  How lovely to be enlightened.

Ooh, but then comes Verse 2:  THE EVIL PRIEST!  The priest, a slave to worldly wisdom, misinterprets the beatitudes and tells poor Dorrian that he should submit to the powers that be and sign up for the draft.  Or something.  It's all very "Fortunate Son" at this point, and I'm sure Dorrian would tell me that I shouldn't blame the priest, it's the flawed philosophy of Christianity that's to blame, and the priest is correctly toeing the party line.  Well, whatever.  (The point of "Blessed are the meek" is not that you submit to the first powermonger who tries to exploit you; it's not that you strive to be meek because if you're not meek you're doing something wrong.  No no no, Lee Dorrian--the point of "Blessed are the meek" is that, when you find yourself meek, AND YOU WILL, you also find yourself in a state of blessedness.  If you know where to look.  So next time you're feeling meek, AND YOU WILL, I don't care if you're, um, Bill Gates or whoever, just take a deep breath and read some beatitudes, relax your mind and let your conscience be free and watch blessedness reveal itself to thee.)  Whether you agree with Dorrian's exegesis or not, you cannot deny the searing solo that obliterates your very mind right after this verse, FOLLOWED by the thundering drums + riffs that rock like a mastodon herd.  And then the mastodon beat continues, WITH A MOOG.

In Verse 3 the Scarecrow returns to stage a war protest and pass around drinks.  (I think.)  The song ends with a real scorcher of a coda.  Aside from all the freakiness and multipartiteness that these dudes put into their music, the thing that really stands out is their devotion to great sound.  And not just one great sound, like "oh yeah that's Santana's guitar sound" or something.  No, in addition to their great guitar sounds, Cathedral add goofy sound effects during the Word Jazz parts--mallet percussion and a flourish that sounds like a sitar.  They also like background vocals and keyboards.  There's so much color and play on this album, it's really a worthy successor to Sabbath's Sabotage.  "Funeral of Dreams" is a standout, but the whole Guessing Game album is worth hearing, and possibly the best album you'll hear all year.  Just check out those Youtube comments:

"I can't stop listenning to this album. The only downside is that nobody, not even Cathedral will ever be able to surpass this."

"These guys must really like ELP. This is one of the weirdest songs i have ever heard and it is a work of pure genius."  [Come on, AN ELP COMPARISON!  What else do you need?]

"This album is incredible. May go over most people's heads, but I really dig it."  {Well, THAT'S a little smug.  Surfing in Babylon does not, of course, think The Guessing Game will "go over" your pointy little heads.  At least, not any more than does Ke$ha.  On the other hand, the human brain may be insufficiently developed to digest this song's grandeur--I do not exempt myself.}

Best Thing I Heard Today: King's X doing "Over My Head"

King's X had bigger hits, but "Over My Head" is their signature tune: it's funky and catchy, everybody sings, Doug screams, and Ty plays a killer guitar solo, split into two parts by a breakdown that demonstrates how impossibly tight they were. Naturally, they left all that off their Greatest Hits album, opting for an inferior live version that demonstrates how impossibly long-winded Doug can get when you let him talk.



It won't embed, but you should really watch the video they made for this song. Notice that during the guitar solo, starting around 1:30, there are no apparent overdubs. (Of course you can hear that as well, but it's especially clear when you watch them play.) Even so, there's no loss of momentum or texture; Doug's ringing bass tone covers the riff, Jerry crashes the cymbals strategically, and you don't even miss Ty's chords. They played that way all the time; my high school classmate David, a guitarist, singled out that strict three-part texture as their most salient feature. It reminds me of those amazing Led Zeppelin live recordings where the sound remains huge, even during Jimmy's solos. Except with King's X, all three instrumentalists also had to sing.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Janet Jackson doing "This Time" and "New Agenda"

Assisted by Kathleen Battle's vocal impression of a theremin, Janet gives one of her most forceful performances:



Janet's never had the biggest voice, and her production team, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, perversely bury her inside their enormous productions, so that it's often hard to understand what she's singing. (To their credit, those productions sound fabulous.) This time they let her soar; we hear a litany of complaints about Janet's cheating boyfriend and all his "nasty hoes." Team Janet enliven their unremarkable breakup song by letting Janet's voice pop out of the mix, and by setting the breakup inside some sinister concert hall, replete with an orchestra and Battle's "opera solo."

Here's how it went down: heartbroken Janet hired the ensemble for the sole purpose of humiliating her man. She rented out the hall, invited her unsuspecting boyfriend to join her for an evening of forbidden pleasure (maybe she sang him "You Want This" over the phone), and then ambushed him with a bunch of stern musicians wearing opera masks. (Wearing only opera masks?) Since this is Janet we're talking about, the boyfriend was also trampled by an exquisitely choreographed dance troupe. By the time she could say, "You're dismissed," he lay bloody on a stretcher. Don't cheat on Janet.

Because it's Friday and I can't decide and Jam & Lewis make the best drum sounds known to man, here's Janet's happiest social justice song, "New Agenda". At least, I assume it's a social justice song; her voice is buried inside an enormous production. (Sounds great!) The song features Chuck D and it's called "New Agenda", so what else could it possibly be about?

The Flowtation Device Prezentz: Kanye's "Gold Digger"

How do you get to be the second- or third-biggest rap song of all time?  That's the question the Flowtation Device will ponder today as we consider "Gold Digger", Billboard's 49th biggest hit.  Among raps and semi-raps, only Flo Rida's "Low" and the Usher/Luda/Lil' Jon behemoth "Yeah" have placed higher on the all-time list.  Without considering those two for now, the FD would like to propose that Kanye's rapping was an integral factor to the song's success.  Obviously FD is biased, but consider the argument while you listen.



First, let's ask this:  what rap songs do you have memorized?  If you're anything like the Flowtation Device--i.e., a casual rap fan for most of your life--the answer is probably Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" and Young M.C.'s "Bust a Move".  FD attributes this to a couple factors.  First, these songs hit when FD had way more time to devote to pop radio, and way fewer pop songs already cluttering the brain.  Second, their flows are in the simple "sung" style of most early rap--the couplets fall at regular intervals, and the syllabic patterns stay pretty much the same from one line to the next.  Obviously, Young M.C. raps with ease and authority:

"*.*.*.*this / =here's=aJAM_FOR_ / ALL.THEfel=las*tryin' /
=toDO_WHAT_THOSE_ / LAdies=tell=us="

--while Vanilla Ice sounds like one of the proverbial Retarded Cousins:

"TAKE.HEED.*causeI'Ma / LYRicAL.PO_ETmi /
AMi'sONtheSCENE.JUSTin / CASEyouDIDn'tKNOW_IT"

Oh, I kid Vanilla Ice!  He actually gets off some lovely syncopations in that song, whose complexity has been wholly underrated.  (Vanilla Ice, on the whole, has not been underrated.)  The point is this:  "Bust a Move" and "Ice Ice Baby" are easy to memorize because their rhymes occur at regular intervals, because their slang isn't terribly esoteric, and because, when they do alter their rhythmic patterns, they do so in ridiculously catchy ways.  Witness:

"WILLitEVerSTOP.YO. / *iDON'T.KNOW"

Chances are, if you're FD's age and someone near you says "Will it ever stop?", you'll have "Ice Ice Baby" running through your head the rest of the day.  Likewise this nursery rhyme sing-song cadence from "Bust a Move":

"O.K.SMART_Y. / GO.TOaPART_Y"

These songs are full of non-melodic hooks that dig into our brains and don't let go.  Both were big hits, though neither was as big as "Gold Digger".  Now, "Gold Digger" also places rhymes every two bars, but it's much more lyrically complex than those earlier songs.  Syllabic patterns change several times per verse; Kanye employs many more internal rhymes than did Vanilla Ice or Young M.C.  As the simplest and funniest verse, Verse 2 is closest to those precursors and also the easiest to memorize.  It contains several ear-puncturing hooks that break from their surrounding patterns, namely:

"EIGH_TEEN_YEARS_*. / EIGHteen=years=sheGOT. /
ONEofYOURkids=gotYOUfor / EIGHteen=years"

and,

"*.*.*.IFyou / AIN'Tno*punk*.HOLla /
WEwant*pre=nup*. / WEwant*pre=nup*yeah"

--which reprises Vanilla Ice's strategy of having a bunch of burly guys shout out a memorable line.  At verse's end, we get to hear "EIGH_TEEN_YEARS" again.  Catchy!  But then, virtually everything Kanye says in this song is catchy.  Other highlights include, from Verse 1:

"ASSlikeSERe=na=tri / =na*.JENniFERlo / =pez=fo'=kids"

--and from Verse 3:

"but / WHILE_YA'LL_WASH_IN'watch / *him"

Basically, anytime Kanye changes up his flow pattern, he adds another hook to the song.  This is why, when people complain about Kanye or Vanilla Ice being poor rappers, it doesn't really ring true--at least not as far as the aforementioned hits are concerned.  (As I say, Vanilla Ice isn't usually underrated.)  Even if they don't conjure up mindbending displays of lyrical dexterity, a la Nas or Eminem, they're capable of creating three verses full of rhyming couplets that people around the world have effortlessly memorized.  That's some kind of feat.

Kanye gets more credit for making tracks than for rapping, and this song is a prime example of why that's so.  His* beat bounces thunderously--how'd he manage that?--and the synth bari-sax under Verse 3 is funny and irresistible, as is usually the case with bari-saxes in pop music.  The Ray Charles sample is also gold.  Quite simply, there are more catchy elements in "Gold Digger" than you find in the entire Billboard Top 10 some weeks, and it hit #1 the day after FD's boy was born five years ago.  The Flowtation Device has no problem considering this the 49th best pop song ever.

"Low", on the other hand, is a different story--one that we needn't discuss today.

*see commentz