Flo Rida - Wild Ones

Flo Rida's currently made another big smash with "Good Feeling" and "Wild Ones" could follow on that moment. Personally I found that "Good Feeling" was a bit dull at first but warmed up to it, "Wild Ones" is the polar opposite, it's great at first, but has potential to get boring eventually.

The song starts out wonderfully. A smooth and catchy, yet still restrained, verse from Sia gets it started and the Flo Rida bursts in with his usual rap. It's a familiar structure, yet with Sia's voice and sound new to the industry it offers something fresh. The song continues like this for a bit, but eventually we run into a problem. Basically, Sia takes over the song. She has much more time singing than Flo Rida does, and by the end it's pretty much just her with Flo Rida only adding odds and ends. Sia's voice is amazing, but this was supposed to be a Flo Rida song, by the end it's a Sia song.

Like I said, it starts out very catchy and by combining powerful rap verses with a unique chorus. But once we get to the second half, and it's just the same thing again and again. Sia just repeating herself until the end. It's not atrocious but is this becomes a song that you hear a lot, then it is likely to get a bit tiresome. Flo Rida's raps always add life and the disappearance of them at the end takes away from the song sadly.

I won't bother saying too much about lyrics because dance-rap just isn't something that puts any effort into meaning. For the parts I can understand it's a pretty simple idea and nothing too special.

I think that people will like this song and it will be a big hit for Flo Rida. Who knows? It might be a number one for a while. But the problem is that it's not the kind of song that's going to be remember much once it's gone. And it certainly won't be remembered as a major Flo Rida song because it was most certainly a Sia song.

Will.i.am. - T.H.E.

Will.i.am. seems to love acornyms, earlier the Black Eyed Peas had the abum The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) and now he's giving us The Hardest Ever. The Black Eyed Peas may been taking a break for now, but by this point the Black Eyed Peas aren't really much more than Will.i.am. and Fergie, and if you get Jennifer Lopez to replace Fergie than you can still turn out a hit dance tune.

This song has all the qualities to be a smash in the world of dance and by extention pop. JLo gives us a catchy, repititive hook throughout the song, while Will.i.am does his rap/singing thing. Combine that with a killer beat and it's easy to get pulled into a dancy mood with the song. The song goes back and forth between Will.i.am and JLo which keeps the energy alive and keeps the song very catchy. The only odd thing is the addition of Mick Jagger. It seems like a strategic move, combine the smash of dance with the rock sound of Mick Jagger, but it doesn't quite work out that way. Jagger's verse at the end of the song really doesn't fit and just throws off the whole feel of the song. It's like they just wanted to cram him someone to make the song seem special, yet it only ends up making it sound cluttered.

Another problem is the lyrics. Jennifer Lopez is just offering the same thing over and over and over again. The same sentence on repeat isn't too interesting. But Will.i.am's verse are just plain weird. I mean, I know that a lot of his songs have an abstract meaning in them, but those are usually clever and understandable. They're are just so many crazy lyrics throughout the song that it gets annoying. "I woke up in the morning, hard like morning wood in the morning," What the hell is that?

The song has qualities, but it also has faults. I don't think most people care about lyrics too much today and especially not when Will.i.am's involved. The song sounds like it's combining a lot of good sounds, but when you hear it, it's nothing super. I don't see this song becoming huge, but it might gain some success. Let's wait and see.

Selena Gomez and The Scene - Hit the Lights

Selena Gomez is an unpredictable artist. She has good songs that get popular, and bad songs that get popular; and vice versa she has unpopular good songs, and some that deserved to stay unpopular. But no matter what song she has, it's never number one material.

She was able to get her biggest hit with "Love You Like a Love Song" which was both catchy and unique. Now she has to follow that, yet "Hit the Lights" might not do that. She turns up the tempo on this song, so she'll still get people's attention with the dance style, but it's not a very interesting song.

Musically, it's just another dance song with nothing new about it. You've heard the same type so many times before, so when a generally boring artist does it again it's just not that intriguing. Then there's the lyrics, which I'm a little confused about. The verses sing about lost opportunities, the chorus is about dancing. I can see what they were aiming for, but it just sounds so disjointed. One minute she's lamenting the boy she didn't kiss, then it's just party, party, party.

Like I said, Selena Gomez is unpredictable and I don't know if this song will be a hit or not. Considering how she's still fresh off the success of "Love You Like a Love Song" I think that people will want to hear this song. But will they get bored of it soon? How far will it go before it drops? This may be Selena's last song for a while so let's hope she goes out with a bang.

Coldplay - Princess of China

I'm not sure if this song as actually been released a single, but it's been getting a lot of attention either way. Coldplay haven't been nearly as successful as they used to be, so it only makes sense that they would want to do a collaboration with someone more pop. But did it have to be Rihanna? Like I've said time and time again, I am getting sick of Rihanna and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Personally I preferred the more tender songs of "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" and "Paradise," but I can understand why they would want to try something different. "Princess of China" starts like a usual Coldplay song with just a little more dance feel to it. But as soon as Rihanna gets on board it just all goes downhill from there. For starters Rihanna's voice clashes with the Coldplay sound; their voices just don't work together. Another thing is that Rihanna really takes over this song once she gets started. While the Coldplay parts are softer, she's just doing her usual blaring sound. Which means, basically, we've just got another Rihanna song in the system.

Lyrically it's nothing too special. It's a breakup song with obvious metaphors. I can't understand where the "China" in the title comes from because they never mention China once in the song. The song also contains a bunch of non-lyrical vocalizing; this is one of my pet peeves, but sometimes it works, this time it doesn't.

There's nothing preventing people from liking this song and there's a good chance that it'll be a hit, but I'm just so tired of hearing the same thing from Rihanna over and over again. This is just another one of her songs, but it features Coldplay. And she's still not doing anything new or exciting. To me this song is just a bore.