“Through the Fire and Flames”
by DragonForce
(Roadrunner)
This song is two years old. It is very fast. There are guitarmonies
played at warp speed, and even as a listener it’s almost impossible to
keep up, never mind trying to play the breakout hit of Guitar Hero
III. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and I went to
raves in the ’90s. It is currently climbing the Billboard charts. Let us all thank the heavens.
“Anyone Else But You”
by Michael Cera and Ellen Page
(Fox/Rhino)
There are other ways of getting hits, of course. Eventually the
writers’ strike will settle and Hollywood will be back to normal,
offering yet more conduits for lesser-known artists to be heard by
zillions—not that it usually happens that way, but there’s always
hope. This Hot 100 entry is a good example: “Anyone Else But You” was
originally recorded in 2001 by the Moldy Peaches for a self-titled
album that blended the sardonic with the sentimental, as if Adam Green
and Kimya Dawson neither knew nor cared where one left off and the
other began. Their solo work has been a lot spottier, which won’t
matter for the next few months, as they get a push from Juno,
whose soundtrack Dawson dominates. This reprise by the film’s stars
(and no, I haven’t seen it yet) is similarly lo-fi and tossed off, but
it misses the original’s warmth, not to mention that it sounds a lot
better in the midst of songs like “Downloading Porn with Davo” and
“Steak for Chicken” than it does on its own.
“Livin’ a Lie”
by The-Dream, ft. Rihanna
(Def Jam)
Terius Nash, aka The-Dream, is the R&B
writer-producer
behind Rihanna’s song-of-2007, “Umbrella,” so it stands to reason that
the by far best song on his debut, Love Hate, is the one
featuring her smash-selling voice. Over frazzled, vaguely futuristic
synths and a lightly syncopated disco four, both singers have been
treated with just enough Auto-Tune to give their voices a robotic
sheen, which just serves to amplify their secret-lovers routine: When
he glides into the first chorus by arcing into a falsetto “This feels
worser than cheating,” he sounds like he’s having the time of his life
because he gets to sing this song, an effect multiplied during
their ecstatic back-and-forth (from Rihanna’s “I wanna hop on the first
thing smoking”) before the second chorus. Sometimes a song just
deserves to be a hit, full stop. As soon as his “Falsetto” finishes its
run, please let this get as huge as it deserves. 