Extremely irksome New York Times pop critic Kelefa Sanneh confesses to another inexplicable crush today....
A few years ago James Blunt was what Sara Bareilles is today: an emerging singer and songwriter with a big hit and a growing fan base...
For Ms. Bareilles, from California, that song is “Love Song,” a toothsome piano-pop confection that may well be stuck in your head by the time you finish reading this paragraph. The first three words — “Head under water” — are probably enough to summon up the Rhapsody commercial that helped make it a hit. And the chorus is a plea disguised as a dismissal: “I’m not gonna write you a love song/’Cause you asked for it, ’cause you need one.” It sits at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, wedged between radio favorites from Alicia Keys and Rihanna.
Toothsome? Actually, I think a more accurate word describing that song is...oh I dunno...undistinguished, maybe?
Seriously -- that stuff is dreck, and frankly it's getting harder and harder to shake the feeling that Sanneh's fondness for rampaging mediocrity may be bidding fair to finally and irrevocably jump the shark.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
To me, this is just Paula Cole a decade later. Bareilles does look a lot like Paula Cole, come to think of it. Between Alicia Keys and Rhianna is about where this song fits in. A step up from that Colbie Caillat song, but undistinguished just about covers it.
She can't sing.
I mean, what in the world.
No Protools, no pitch.
The girl can't sing.
Next.
Trey
Can someone please explain what "toothsome" means? I really have no clue.
Sara B. is no KT Tunstall!
Steve, please examine your obsession with Mr. Sanneh's shit for brains (and tin ears). He is pathetic but who cares!!! Yes he writes for the Times but they've had great and horrible Pop writers before. What makes you so crazy about him? He must really suck to make you this crazy!!!!
Return of the Plumber
Steve, it's only a matter of time before you won't have Kelefa to kick around anymore. Dood is going to the New Yorker.
And, if I'm not mistaken, that is one of the true signs of the Apocalypse, isn't it?
http://www.observer.com/2008/kelefa-sanneh-ariel-levy-join-i-new-yorker-i
The New Yorker?
What are they thinking? They already have a really good pop writer, Sasha Frere-Jones. Sanneh isn't even remotely in his league....
It's like if they replaced Anthony Lane with Jeffrey Lyons....
Seriously -- that's appalling news.
Well, to give Sanneh some modicum of credit, he blasted James Blunt in the same review. I hate that guy. I clearly would have needed massive amounts of alcohol to have been able to sit through that show.
And Sanneh is going to the New Yorker? Eeesh. But, I wonder ... does that mean there will be an opening at the Times?
You think Sasha Frere-Jones is good? It's bad enough when he complains that white boys just ain't funky enough, but when he writes about how great these lyrics (and specifically these lyrics) from rapper Clipse describing the manufacture of crack are: "Mildew-ish, I heat it, it turns bluish/ It cools to a tight wad-- the Pyrex is Jewish" - heh, heh, tight wad, Jewish, get it, heh, heh - it becomes pretty obvious that he's merely a slightly higher-brow version of Sanneh-boy.
mbowen:
I don't like a lot of the stuff that Frere-Jones likes, but he's a vastly better writer than Sanneh, for whom nothing is too trivial or shallow.
That said -- if F-J thought that lyric was brilliant, he's an idiot.
Sara Bareilles? I'd hit it™.
But, you knew that.
Post a Comment