Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Perhaps the fact that a highly compromised version of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ already plodding and self-righteous “Wings” was being used as the official promotional song of All-Star Weekend should have been taken as a bad omen. And once the marquee acts of the weekend were announced, it wasn’t exactly the most exciting of lineups, so I don’t think any pop-leaning NBA fans were going into this weekend expecting three nights at Coachella. Still, I don’t think any of us could have expected a weekend quite this miserable in terms of pop music, a lifeless, uninspiring and occasionally downright unprofessional mess that dragged down the weekend on the whole.

To be fair, Saturday wasn’t quite that bad. Phillip Phillips was eminently respectable performing his one song, Ellie Goulding was striking as always performing hers, and though Fall Out Boy had some sound issues (and did they really all have to be wearing MJ jerseys? Yeah, yeah, 50th birthday and all, but c’mon, someone rep for Joakim) the surprise 2 Chainz appearance certainly went a long way to making up for any technical difficulties. Nothing iconic or unforgettable, but nothing all that embarrassing either. Hard to get mad at the NBA for too much of that.

Sunday got off on a bum note, though, with the NBA All-Star Pre-Game Concert on NBA TV — a pretty big misnomer, considering the hour-long special contained maybe 10-15 minutes of actual music, and far more of host Terrence J calling up famous annoying people onstage to banter awkwardly for a couple minutes. But when the music kicked off, it was expired rapper B.o.B playing most of his hits from three years ago, with his unmemorable verses overshadowed by the disembodied voices of Rivers Cuomo and Bruno Mars (neither present, unsurprisingly) singing the song’s far-more-memorable hooks, as he pranced about on stage waiting for his turn. He eventually got to his more recent and feature-free (though much less popular) “So Good,” but not before he half-heartedly rapped along to the hook to A$AP Rocky’s “F—in’ Problems” — the sparse, curse-free parts that he could get away with on live TV, anyway — for no discernible reason.

Ludacris, up next, was a little bit better — he also mostly played old hits, but they were better old hits, and they were all his — though the geographical implications of having two Atlanta rappers at a Houston All-Star Game remain somewhat confusing. At least the music and vibe felt appropriate, which could certainly not be said for the final pre-game performer: Ke$ha, whose brand of high-energy, higher-sleaze dance-pop could arguably be construed as Jock Jam-ish in the right context (Russell Westbrook would probably say so, anyway), but whose goth-y, campy, possibly surrealist performance felt super out of place as pump-up music. It wasn’t memorable enough to be a catastrophe — the most striking things about K-Money’s performance were her backup dancers, one of whom looked like Cher from the “If I Could Turn Back Time” video and one of whom looked like Anthony Kiedis auditioning for the Black Eyed Peas — but suffice to say, it did not get the party started.

Ne-Yo, charged with providing the intro music to the game proper, was perhaps the most-maligned performer of the night, and not unjustly so. The EDM-influenced pop hits he performed, “Let’s Go” and “Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself),” weren’t bad choices to get the night started, but the singer sounded off throughout both songs, possibly plagued by monitor issues (read Questlove’s timeline for a practical breakdown of the part the mix and the stadium played in the performance’s troubles) but also just struggling to hit a bunch of the songs’ more challenging high notes. The fact that the performance lasted for a full two-and-a-half songs, plus player intros, in an “Entertainment Series” that was already pushing the game’s tip-off to about an hour after the game was scheduled to start (if you believe TV listings, anyway), wasn’t buying Ne-Yo much good will from increasingly impatient NBA fans, either.

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Truth told, I care not for the Macklemore. This is hardly a controversial position to take on the internet, as a rogue wave of music writers have made the Seattle rapper the whipping boy of the early 2013 pop season for his unexpected No. 1 single “Thrift Shop,” with SPIN’s Brandon Soderberg even calling it “the worst song in the country.” I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d go pretty far — the song is insufferable and grating and I don’t even like thrift shops that much (though hook singer Wanz is absolutely That Dude and I hope he gets a career out of it). Beyond that song, Macklemore is a little too preachy and humorless for my tastes, and both he and producer/collaborator Ryan Lewis have a nasty tendency towards cheap drama, no second-hand pun intended.

Still, I’ve tried to keep my criticism of Macklemore above the belt, since in theory, I respect the dude. He made it on his own, growing a cult audience without big label assistance, and while he’s perhaps a mite too willing to remind you of his proud independence at just about every turn, it is still a commendable thing. And even if his socially progressive jams lay it on a little thick, doesn’t a song like “Same Love” maybe do more good in the world than “Bandz a Make Her Dance”? Really, there are greater crimes to be committed in pop music than a dude breaking down t-shirt economics and making bad R. Kelly jokes over a skronky sax riff. I try not to lose sleep over it.

This, however, is where Macklemore becomes indefensible. If you’re wondering when and how (and possibly if) I’m gonna tie Macklemore into the NBA, it’s with this video, a recently released promotion for the upcoming All-Star Weekend:

Now, I broke this down in a little greater detail over at my music-writing day job — as a pop/hoops writer, this is the rare two-for-one news story for me — but basically, the sum up is this: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis appear in this promotion, lip-synching their song “Wings” in a church or something between your typical All-Star montage clips. All well and good, except that “Wings” is actually an anti-materialist (and more pressingly, anti-Nike) song that involves Macklemore referencing a time when his friend’s younger brother was murdered for his sneaks, and ends with him saying “These Nikes help me define me, but I’m trying to take mine, off.” None of these negative-leaning lyrics appear in the video, however, as the song is presented in a heavily-edited cut that focuses mostly on the blandly inspirational, out of context chorus “I’ll go so high / My feet won’t touch the ground.” There’s a children’s choir. You know how it goes.

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