Ummmmm…………. FUCK YEAH. Sampling Ashanti?! Now there’s a fresh person to sample and build a sick electronic beat around. Perseus, keep workin’ it like a champ. AWESOME.
Speaking of Ashanti, whatever happened to her? Just a voice behind some good production or what? That’s normally the case. Ashanti: Find some good producers and come back.
God, I wanna get my freaky dance on to this song. This should be the summer of the strict dance party. “If you’re not dancing, get the fuck out or start movin’ yo bod like any god you like intended.” The funky fun instruments in this song remind me of Yelle’s “Safari Disco Club” and I’m diggin’ it SO much.
Check out some other funky, dance-y hits at Moon Boots’ soundcloud page.
I take pop music seriously. Not creepy serious to where I’m sweating while imagining that Joey Fatone (someone recently pointed out to me that his last name is literally ‘fat one’ and I died laughing) is feeding me fruit while quoting NSYNC love songs and poking me in the eye with his dangerously pointy frosted tips. I don’t have fantasies about these people.
I mean that I take pop music seriously to the point where the songs are well crafted, feel-good, emotive and filled with choreographed dance. The compilation of choreographed dance while singing amazingly solid pop music is probably the single greatest entertainment thrill of my life. So when it comes to my favorite era of pop music, I like to take a step back and examine which albums were the best of the best.
The best NSYNC album for me was No Strings Attached. I still remember dancing for hours in my room to all the fast songs on that CD (and then slow jamming to the ballads when I was feeling vulnerable). They had some awesome dance hits on there. The title track was never released as a single, but No Strings Attached is SUCH a good early 00’s dance song. Most of the dancey songs on NSA seem like they were tailored for sick dance breakdowns. They had so many punches, dramatic pauses and fast beats that it’s impossible even as a listen to stay still.
In terms of album theme construction, NSA was an album about cutting ties with their former business partner Lou Pearlman who Ponzi-schemed the shit out of their success and finances. They got into legal battles with him and his record label and eventually were freed of contracts with shady Pearlman and moved on to Jive Records (home of B. Spears at the time.) Bye Bye Bye is written about a relationship thats totally fucked up, and in the beginning of the vid the dudes are held up by puppetmaster strings until they’re cut free.
The second release from the NSA album was It’s Gonna Be Me, in which the dudes are packaged and lined up in a store, mass produced and ready to be sold, just like they were in real life! Either it’s a scathing review of modern capitalism or an amazing product placement. Probably both. Nonetheless, NSA sold 2.42 million copies in its first week. Then on to 9 million by the time 2000 ended. The last great era of record sales for sure.
The other notable thing about NSYNC and others alike from this era of pop music is that it’s more like pop performance music. If you go back and watch videos of New Kids on the Block, they are singing live, dancing, sweating and flirting with the crowd. It’s a lot to do at one time. Throw into that mix heavily choreographed routines and often times ridiculous layers of costumes plus themed songs where you need to act as well, and you my friends have got a nice, thick piece of pop performance art.
So many times I hear from people that this sort of pop music is lame or unworthy of its success because most of the time-but not all of the time– the performers don’t write their own lyrics or music. But if you look at pop performance art like actors in a theatrical performance, it starts to shine a different light on the honest talent that it takes to be a pop performance star. Music preference and personal opinion aside, it’s always good to respect talent.
Bye Bye Bye
Digital Get Down
It Makes Me Ill
It’s Gonna Be Me
Just Got Paid
Fuck, now I want to go learn all these dances. (YESSS!!!!!!!) Check out the good ol’ days of amazing choreography and solid as fuck pop songs from the best dancers and singers of the boy band era.
Follow 20poorandfabulous on Facebook and Pinterest. Just do it. Do it for pop music.
EDITORS UPDATE:
I just came across this song off the European version of NSYNC’s first album called “Riddle” and it’s a TOTAL clubby european electronic. So obvious it wasn’t released in America because apparently we could handle clubby hits until this decade.
Ahh, the playful and often terribly misguided talent of a manufactured group. Dream! One or two hits, and then never seen again. Except I think the blonde one acted once or twice in something. Note to self: Anything Diddy touches literally turns to entertainment kryptonite. J.Lo and the club shooting incident, Dream, Making the Band everything, his own rap career, etc. He was probably even involved in every major oil spill of the last two decades. But we’ll never prove it. DAMN YOU DIDDY!!!!
Anyways, Dream had a fun song or two. The girls desperately lacked personality though. Having a good voice is cool, but not necessary. You need to be a STAHHHHHH. Sorry ladies. But we’ll fondly remember you always as that girl group that had that one okay song from around when Britney was an untouchable. Hugs!
This is roll down your windows on the highway en route to your friends’ barbecue on a Saturday afternoon. New summer jammy jam plus cute dudes to think about. It could only get better if there were free drinks involved, courtesy of youtube, 3D printing and the future. A girl can dream.
Fuck yeah. This song is such a good jam. ON REPEAT!
Also, you can almost run a whole mile if you listen to it twice in a row. Werk it bitches. The treadmill is your runway 3-4 times a week.
Remember waaaaay back when, when Justin Timberlake shed his pop music wings that carried him to the top of the world? His performance of Like I Love You was one of the most anticipated tween girl moments of my lifetime. Everyone was nervously thinking he couldn’t do it alone, or that his new song wasn’t poppy enough. But lo and behold, he danced into our hearts before he descended from the giant stereo set.
This video was TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO. Cripes. But still awesome. The dancing and singing is fab, and he ends the performance with a dance solo and the disappears into a life-sized tape deck. Pure brilliance.
Fast forward to now, with Justin Bieber’s latest release. It’s not like this song is anything super innovative, but at least it doesn’t sound like the eurotrash trend that hit America radio like 3 decades too late. It’s a little more R&B than we’re used to with the Biebs, but he makes it sound good and his voice is fucking spot on.
Way to go Biebs. Be our new JT, because it’s getting to be obvious that he’ll never return to us. A true sign of the impending apocalypse, I’m almost sure of it.
PS: SO many girls (and some diluted middle-aged, Twilight fan-type women) are gonna be creeping out to pictures of JB while listening to this song and probably plotting Selena Gomez’ death. Fuck off, they’re the new Brit and JT. Leave pop royalty alone, dicks. It’s not like child stars (even if they’re LOADED) don’t have enough problems on their hands without death threats and stalkers.
Check out Biebs’ new direction
GAGA. THE GAGA. Happy Birthday, you wonderful weirdo girl. You’ve made pop music something to be proud of, and you’ve definitely made me dance and sing a lot more than usual. I LOVE you so. Your style, fashion and performances are so entertaining and amazing. Thanks for being our favorite Mother Monster.
Take a look at our girl Gaga back in 2009 at the VMA’s. This will always be my favorite performance of hers, because it was, of sorts, her debut into main stream pop music. She sang wonderfully live (a feat for pop music, let’s be honest), danced, played the piano and scared the shit out of everyone in the audience and the world. And that, folks, is how the legend was born…
“I’m still I’m still Jenny from the block. Now, go get my fucking Evian and warm it to exactly 72 degrees. Then lightly spray in on my breadless sandwich, and stand 32 degrees away from me facing east. It’s best for digestion, peasant.” –Not an actual quote from Jennifer Lopez
I’ve been on the fence with J-Lo ever since her movie with Ben Affleck totally ruined my life. Remember reading Gigli over and over and pronouncing it “giggly” and then being forever confused for the rest of your life? Thanks J-Lo, you dick.
In all seriousness, there’s a lot of cool and not so cool things about Jenny from the huge-fucking-mansion-in-the-gated-community (new song?). Let’s examine.
The tagline for the movie Gigli is: “The violent story about how a criminal lesbian, a tough-guy hit-man with a heart of gold, and a retarded man came to be best friends through a hostage.” And you’re telling me that movie was a flop? GET OUT! It actually sounds kind of genius. Like, Tropic Thunder genius. I bet someone went full retard. I hear you’re not supposed to do that. Gigli makes me miss the days where Hollywood could literally produce pieces of excrement and not even care if they were successful. I say, kudos to J-Lo for picking a movie with that tagline. +1
She totally changed Ben Affleck into a suity kind of bourgeois guy that we know he is not. He’s a Boston-y dude who likes beards and plaid. Plus, we shouldn’t change our significant others so dramatically. Getting them to do the dishes or cut down on cigarettes is way different than making them dress and act different. Boo! Maybe Benny was into it, but seeing as the wedding never happened and he’s back to beards and plaid, I’d say Jenny had a firm wrist in that relationship.
-3
She’s known for being a diva, but who isn’t? 0
You can’t deny this bitch knows how to make some BANK. Celebrity clothing lines/perfumes (no matter how trashy) make a lot of money. Just look at Jessica Simpson and her billion dollar empire. J-Lo’s music career kind of revived itself with her clubby hit “On the Floor.” And who can forget her *amazing* acting career. She’s a stahhhh, so she gets s set amount of dough before each movie. That’s why you never see her in indie flicks. And lastly, her stint on American Idol, where pop stars kind of go to die. Right, Paula? Anyways, you can’t deny she is a successful and powerful lady who deserves the recognition for making a shit ton of moolah. +5
She picks really, really terrible movies to be in. -4
With the exception of Selena. +3
“On the 6” was fucking awesome. +3
She’s always handled her tabloid drama well. Divorces, marriages, rumors, etc. She’s got the media down. +5
Jenny represents her latino/a heritage well for an American born lady. It’s good to have a powerful woman around, not to mention a great, hot, successful latina running a bunch of shit. Good for her. +5
J-Lo got her start on In Living Color as a fly girl, which is probably the coolest start to a career anyone could ever have. +2
She wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her future silver spoon-y mouth. +1
She’s known for not drinking alcohol or taking any drugs. Which sounds boring (who doesn’t love a cocktail?!) but have you seen her? She looks amazing. Pretty much like 20 years haven’t gone by. Yeah she probably has some sweet-ass creams that are a million dollars an ounce. But her genetics and lifestyle also come into play. Jealz! +2
20
Omg, I think I like J-Lo. Not enough to buy her latest music (yet), but enough to play On the 6 while putting eyeliner on. Plus, she was a fly girl. Nuff said.
Inneresting!
My Google homepage recently revealed a new tab (or I just now noticed it): Google Play. Here at Google Play, you can buy music, books, movies and Android apps. Oh, no iPhone apps you say?! Shocking!
This will seriously only be interesting to me and probably a lot of other people if this creates some competition for the pricey shit over at the iTunes store. Because really, if we stopped renting movies from actual video stores for $3.99, what makes anyone think we’re going to ‘rent’ a 24-hour digital copy for that much?!
They need to lower their shit to Redbox prices. I think people would rather drive to Redbox and spend $1.29 on a movie than rent one for $3.99 at either iTunes or Google Play. Especially since there is barely any overhead cost in renting a movie online. It’s just downloading. At least with Redbox we get the actual video, and can keep it for longer than 24 hours (once we start watching it. iTunes has some pretty sophisticated rulez) with an extra charge (the beauty being that the extra charge is within our power, and we’re all power hungry mofos who love being in control). iTunes telling us we have 30 days to begin the movie and then 24 hours after that to watch the movie is bogus and self-harmworthy. It causes our brains to melt in judgmental disgust anyways from A) watching something presumably dumber than rocks that was made in Hollywood and B) vastly overpaying for it.
It’s no surprise people want the fuck out of our money, but come on. Sell it to us cheap and we’ll buy it. Otherwise that shit gonn’ get stolen. That’s what capitalism is, right?!
2PF 