Category Archives: Music

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together – Taylor Swift [Single Review]

Welcome back the mega-successful Taylor Swift and her catchy tunes and lyrics.

That Taylor Swift was also 18.

If you expect some more maturity with Taylor Swift’s newest offering, you are vastly mistaken. If you expect a darker tone, such as her Hunger Games offerings (Safe & Sound, Eyes Open), you are immensely mistaken as well.

If you expect some country too, then you’re way off the mark. If you’re expecting some deep lyrics, you’re in the wrong place. Taylor Swift’s new single is about yet another relationship gone sour and it’s custom-made for the leagues of teenagers who will swallow the song up with its catchy chorus and radio-friendly status.

Simply put, there’s no way the song won’t get stuck in people’s heads, à la Call Me Maybe.

Going straight to the point with an overly long title, there’s no room for second-guessing and analysis on the song. Taylor is telling one of the many, many guys she has dated that they are, well, never – ever – getting back together. I have to ask though – why would anyone date her if they know they’d end up in song? Or is it because they know they’ll be immortalized in song that they date her?

But I digress.

“We are never ever ever getting back together,” she sings on the chorus. As if the title wasn’t evident enough. To the backdrop of “Woo-oh-oh,” she sings “You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me. But we are never ever ever ever getting back together.”

Yes, those “ever”s are very numerous.

At the song’s bridge, she goes into typical teenage girl phone talk: “Then he calls me up and he’s like “I still love you,” and I’m like this is exhausting, we are never getting back together – like ever.”

No, I’m not making this up.

As I said, the song is insanely catchy – her catchiest offering so far in fact. As I type this and after hearing it only a couple of times, I have the melody stuck in my head. And that’s what Taylor Swift is really good at: making a very catchy hook that does what a hook is supposed to do: hook you.

However, what’s demanded of an artist like Taylor Swift is less “OMG, it’s like OMG” in her songs and more seriousness. What’s demanded of her is less teenager-ish attitude and more soon-to-be 23 year old who shouldn’t be going all gaga over someone on the phone.

Moreover, the least that can be expected from one of country music’s leading artists is to have a country element in the lead single. Some artists keep the twang if they decide to drop the country elements of the music. Others choose to tell a story even if the melody isn’t country. With “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Taylor does neither.

Even the fact that pop hit-maker Max Martin produced the song isn’t an excuse because he has dipped his toes in country music before. The result was Carrie Underwood’s Quitter. How will country radio react to this? It will eat up the song. The fans will rush to buy this – watch it break sales records. But I, for one, really hope this isn’t indicative of the material quality on Red, her fourth album which she will release on October 22nd. Because after songs such as Enchanted and Back To December, this is definitely a let-down. Even Love Story was more mature than this. Go figure.

5/10 – just for managing to get stuck in my head after one listen.

Blown Away (Music Video) – Carrie Underwood

Carrie Underwood has released the music video for her second single (review) off her album of the same title (review): Blown Away.

After a few months of waiting and increasing hype, which culminated in a competition for radio stations for the right to hold a premiere for the music video, the video is finally here.

A few comments:

  • The video is very well done. The build up is intense albeit the ending was a bit disappointing and too colorful for my taste. A shot of the destroyed house to the backdrop of retreating storm clouds would have been more dramatic than the current way the video ends.
  • The Wizard of Oz inferences are present throughout: be it the yellow brick road, the tornado, plaid shirt, red shoes, scarecrow in the cellar and Carrie’s own puppy as Todo.
  • The relationship with the dad could have been illustrated a notch more. Instead of a history homework problem at the beginning, why couldn’t they take it to where the song clearly says the relationship is? The father looks like a drunk in the video – not an abusive father. You need to make that jump through the song but the video could have easily illustrated that.
  • There were small hints throughout the video that tie in very well with the song such as the main character touching a grave and walking through a cemetery around the lines “mama was an angel in the ground.”

Overall, one of Carrie’s best. Some of the comments above are merely being nitpicky about the video. But it’s truly, really, well-done.

The Voice is Coming To The Middle East: The Voice Arabia

I spotted the following poster while walking in Gemmayzé yesterday.

Yes! Another talent show imported to the region for insatiable crazed fans.

The Voice, originally a Dutch TV show, was taken up by the US and then many other countries followed suite. Now it’s the Middle East’s turn.

Because between Star Academy, Arab Idol, Arabs Got Talent and many other talent shows that I haven’t heard of, we still have a shortage.

The concept of the TV show from what I gathered is the following: it starts with blind auditions whereby candidates sing to judges who have their backs turned to them. If only one of the judges likes a candidate, he would choose for this candidate to be on his or her team. So each judge builds a team and then the teams go head to head against each other while people vote, obviously.

I have mentioned The Voice on my blog before when I spoke about a Lebanese contestant on the French version of the show. He ended up losing around the quarter finals.

Will you be watching this? Because I surely don’t have time for it.

The Notre Dame de Paris Concert in Lebanon

Tickets ready, car parked, we went ahead to Biel last night for the Lebanon stop of the Notre Dame de Paris concert. The ordeal to get tickets had caused any enthusiasm we had to get sucked out of us. But man how wrong were we not to be beyond excited for this concert.

Even though it was said the concert would start at 9:00 pm, it started 40 minutes later. I guess they must have accounted for Lebanese people who can’t be on time even if their life depended on it. At 9:40 some people were still trickling in. The seats were a little crammed. Perhaps it’s the venue but a few seats less per row would have made things much more comfortable, despite it being less financially-pleasing.

I had purchased the $100 tickets and thought I had overpaid. The concert proved to me that I had actually underpaid. The orchestra took its place. The conductor struck with the motion to play and Bruno Pelletier came from the crowds to give a brilliant rendition of “Le Temps des Cathedrales.”

And that was the start of two hour long goosebumps. Garou had a rough start in the first act but he brought it back in the second. Patrick Fiori, Julie Zenatti, Helene Segara, Luck Mervil and Daniel Lavoie all gave flawless performances of every single song they sang. They basically showed how a two hour vocal show can be done without a hitch, bringing some crowds to their feet with every note they hit.

I’m not a regular concert-goer because there are very few artists which are brought to Lebanon that I would pay to watch so saying this is the best concert I’ve ever attended wouldn’t be a fair comparison. However, a friend of mine who has attended way more concerts than me said this is by far the best concert she went to.

It’s not very difficult to see why. Each performer had his group of fans rooting for him. Some had even brought out a huge banner for Julie Zenatti which they put up when she sang “La Monture.” She looked at them and smiled halfway through the song.

As the performers left the stage, the crowds started shouting for an encore of the play’s most famous song “Belle.” And that’s what happened. The crowds rushed to the stage. Phones in the air, people singing the lyrics to the song as Garou, Patrick Fiori and Daniel Lavoie gave it their all, before being joined with the rest of the cast to deliver the song’s last chorus.

If you didn’t attend Notre Dame de Paris, let me tell you something: you missed out on a concert that will not be matched any time soon. And I’ve never been more thankful I know French.

PS: I would like to thank my iPhone 4S for filming 11GB worth of videos and pictures and the battery for lasting the entirety of the concert and then some. :p

Let me know in a comment if there’s any particular performance you want me to upload.

Carrie Underwood Covers INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” at Australian Concert

I admit I had never heard this song before but I think it’s great. And she delivers a pretty good cover of it as well.

This was part of a string of Australian concerts. She had covered Coldplay’s “Fix You” at her Royal Albert Hall concert in London.

Underwood did the song justice and proved yet again exactly how versatile a singer she is.