HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
Cutting Crew
“(I Just) Died In Your Arms”
1986 | Virgin Records

When I think about what’s wrong with the 80s, the first thing that pops into my mind is Cutting Crew and their biggest American hit, 1986’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms.” I was seven years old when Cutting Crew’s first album, Broadcast, dropped and ascended immediately to the top of the American pop charts. I can, very vividly, remember hearing the tune, its staccato synth strings, and Nick Van Eede’s declaration that, “I just died in your arms tonight.” I can also remember, very vividly, thinking that Van Eede’s grammar was awful.

Think about it: One man is so shaken by a lover that he suffers a fatal collapse, is reborn, only to write and record a mawkish ballad about the night? Lovemaking included? I can think of multiple scenarios as to how this could all have happened in one night. One, Van Eede (or his narrator) is a piss-poor lover. It was over so quick that he had time to take a shower and write a song about it. Kind of pathetic (though it happens to everyone, to be sure). Two, lovemaking was not even a factor, and he wrote this song about a hug, or maybe someone administering CPR, in which case, who cares? Sex is always implied in good pop music. Always. If we’re discounting sex between these two, we can safely declare this not a good pop song. Third, this is one of those Dark Tower-esque nights, where the Gunslinger has a story to tell, and time bends sympathetically, lasting until the story’s conclusion. As it happens, Cutting Crew’s Broadcast predates Stephen King’s Wizard and Glass (the Dark Tower volume in which time bends sympathetically to allow Roland to tell his backstory) by twelve years. Fourth, Nick Van Eede is a liar. His titular night never happened, and he’s making up a story to preserve face. It’s fine (it’s occasionally required) to lie within the confines of pop music, but what’s the point of making up a bad story?

Of those four scenarios, none of them change the fact that “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” makes me want to puke in my hat. Nick Van Eede sings like a howling, boring dog. Guitarist Kevin Scott MacMichael sounds like he’s playing in another room, with no monitor to hear what everyone else is playing. The lyrics are inane to the point that I can’t remember anything beyond that dumb, dumb hook. I have just listened to “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” five times in a row, and I cannot find a single redeeming factor about it. Inane dreck is just as harmful as carcinogens and free radicals, and “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” is, indeed, purely inane dreck.

by Brook Pridemore

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
Goo Goo Dolls
“Name”
A Boy Named Goo
1995 | Warner Bros.

Do you remember that 90210 spin-off/hopeful viewer-catcher The Heights? You know, that show about the titular, California-based rock band poised for stardom, which seemed about as authentic as that episode of Saved By The Bell where the Bayside Kids’ band almost make it big before ego issues tear them apart?

Yeah, I remember some really, really stupid stuff.

Anyway: When I first heard Goo Goo Dolls’ “Name,” I immediately assumed that it was somebody playing a sick joke. Some jock on 89x (Windsor-Detroit’s only New Rock Alternative) thought it’d be funny to throw on that bullshit Heights track in between Cracker’s new single and The Violent Femmes’ first one. I about drove my car off a cliff when I heard that shit for the first time. And if I hadn’t been living in the Great Plains, I’m sure I would have.
More on Goo Goo Dolls | “Name”

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Life is a Highway”
Tom Cochrane
Mad Mad World
1991 | Capitol Records

Once in a while, a song so permeates the American musical landscape that it seems to clog every pore of our culture. You see it in ads and movie trailers. You hear it on the radio, first as a hit single on the “edgy” station in your town, later on the “lite” station, and then in commercials for local auto dealerships and furniture stores. The song eventually becomes not a song (with lyrics, melody and rhythm) by an artist (with integrity), but a series of ads for the products it’s been attached to. Tom Cochrane’s main contribution to American culture, the 1991 smash hit “Life is a Highway,” is an ad for Colgate, for Honda, for Disney, and for Applebee’s, before it is a song.
More on Tom Cochrane | “Life is a Highway”

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Life is a Highway”
Tom Cochrane
Mad Mad World
1991 | Capitol Records

Once in a while, a song so permeates the American musical landscape that it seems to clog every pore of our culture. You see it in ads and movie trailers. You hear it on the radio, first as a hit single on the “edgy” station in your town, later on the “lite” station, and then in commercials for local auto dealerships and furniture stores. The song eventually becomes not a song (with lyrics, melody and rhythm) by an artist (with integrity), but a series of ads for the products it’s been attached to. Tom Cochrane’s main contribution to American culture, the 1991 smash hit “Life is a Highway,” is an ad for Colgate, for Honda, for Disney, and for Applebee’s, before it is a song.
More on Tom Cochrane | “Life is a Highway”

Fresh Baked:
“Circus”
Britney Spears
Circus
2008 | Sony
F

Sincere kudos to Britney for surviving and moving on from her recent, all-too-public troubles. Considering how much the tabloid press, paparazzi, and, let’s face it, American consumers sadistically savor such misjudgments and meltdowns, it’s quite an achievement for her to start piecing her career back together. My only gripe is the vocal talent qualification for the career part. Britney, for all the hoopla surrounding her “comeback” album Circus, still cannot sing. (Though having been pimped out by her backstage mom since a child, she can certainly perform. I once watched in a nail salon a television special she did. The choreography and dancing were incredible, and, since the volume was on mute, the show was quite enjoyable. Or, maybe it was all those polish fumes getting to me.) “Circus,” the title track, has a couple of okay-ish points, but it’s really not so bad that it’s good. It’s below the guilty pleasure bar. What ostensibly is Britney’s voice is nothing more than a computerized suggestion of her presence. There are segments with cheesy computerized clownish laughs. All intimations of musical instruments sound borne of computer technology. Sorry, but, at least as a musician, Britney is still not a ringleader. Perhaps she is a robot.

by Alicia Dreilinger

http://www.britneyspears.com/

Fresh Baked:
James Morrison
Songs for You, Truths for Me
2008 | Interscope
F

“Have we come this fa-fa-fa to find a soul cliché?” Elvis Costello once sang in exasperation. Yes, once again we have. James Morrison surely has the raspy voice a blue-eyed soul man needs, and a three-chord descent punctuates the end of every weary line. The piano, more Bruce Hornsby than Ian Stewart, chimes along as the singer yowls like he means it: “Y-o-u make it real for me.” The whole thing – vocals, lyrics, arrangement – is grindingly familiar, but that’s how soul music should be, right? It’s not about inventiveness; it’s about whether you feel it. No one ever accused Joe Cocker of being original. He sounded like Ray Charles, and that was fine.
More on Record Review: Songs for You, Truths for Me

Fresh Baked:
Weezer
The Red Album
2008 | Geffen
F

Despite, or perhaps because of, their quirks, Weezer have always confounded their listeners. Their 1994 self-titled debut was an undeniable success. Quirkier and poppier than the sad, tenth generation grunge knockoffs of the day, the Ric Ocasek-produced “Blue” album yielded three top-ten singles and catapulted the band into household name status. Next, Weezer turned the knife inward, yielding the self-produced masterpiece Pinkerton, an introspective, warm, heartbreaking set of songs. The guitars squall, drums sit very forward in the mix, it’s a headbanger’s record for nerds. But the band got sued for copyright infringement by Pinkerton Securities, and couldn’t properly promote the record, so it flopped. Bad.

Weezer spent the next five years languishing in obscurity and legend. Rumor had it at one point that frontman Rivers Cuomo had turned Brian Wilson, spending days on end in the studio, bouncing a rubber ball and muttering to himself. Re-emerging into the public eye in 2001 with new bassist Mikey Welsh and the self-titled “Green” album, Weezer tried to give the people “what they wanted,” in the form of ten short, vapid, Ric Ocasek produced songs that sold very, very well, but lacked the gravitas of their first two albums. Since then, every few years the band releases another bland retread that makes the catchy parts of their earlier efforts seem like gimmicks they’re trying to exploit. The albums always sell very well, and yield a hit single or two, complete with a goofy, gimmicky video.
More on Record Review: The Red Album