The Least Called-For Post In The History Of MP3 Blogs

Beyonce, "Deja Vu" (feat. Jay-Z) - It's pretty safe to say that once something's been covered by Oliver Wang, it's been covered period - there is, after all, a reason why there's a (very very very very very very excellent) Soul Sides CD and this very blog doesn't (well, okay, several reasons). Plus, it's not exactly like this song's going to be languishing in obscurity; it's Jay, it's B, it's summer, it's a fucking hit, end of story. Clearly it's not that I'm not aware of all of these factors - it's just that I don't care. This song is the end of the fucking world for me right now, and I absolutely mean that in the most complimentary way imaginable - by this point, I'm well aware that these compulsively listenable songs can't possibly hold up forever (and I'm sure that the endless airplay this song's about to receive isn't going to help things in that department), but fuck it - there is common sense, and then there's that 808.

Admittedly, this is a pretty stupid thing to boil "Deja Vu" down to, although the instance when boiling a song's success down to one instrument proves to be anything other than retarded may have yet to pass (well, okay, there's the theremin on "Good Vibrations"). Still, it really is one hell of an 808 - the last time I heard a single instrument render everything else on the track except perhaps - perhaps - the stars may well have been "Crazy In Love", fittingly enough. Of course, if we're talking about pure potential for fun-having, "almost-placeable Stax horns" > "world-erasing low end" every day of the week; it's like comparing apples to Beth Orton records or something. But I for one think that's the charm - "Deja Vu" is every bit as much of a summertime B&J mainstream radio fun song as "Crazy In Love" was, except that it gets your attention by beating you over the head boundless empty space instead of some torrential collision-fest between like forty different elements. It's the John Kerry to "Crazy In Love"'s Dubya - same thing, different packaging.

But it's the thing that's actually being packaged, namely "Beyonce and Jay fucking Z teaming up for a track", that makes "Deja Vu" something kind of spectacular to my ears, mostly because both of them are out of their fucking minds on the track in a way they just flat-out weren't on "Crazy In Love". By this point, it's become that bashing "Crazy In Love" for the performances is a little like saying you like punk rock from 1977 but could do without all the swastikas - after all, it's highly doubtful that David Byrne or the Magic not very great Numbers would have attempted it as a cover if that song were about anything other than the unfettered joy it has to push through yr eardrums, most of which has nothing to do with Jay or B doing anything other than show up. Well, not to belabor the point, but if you were to imagine the exact opposite of that take on their role as artists, you'd come up with "Deja Vu", because both of them just fucking murder the new song. Now obviously, the question of whether they're murdering anything that should have been saved in the first place is up for debate (and it's already looking like it's going to be the focus of the nascent backlash - "do we really need to hear Jay compare the rap game to the crack game again", "can't Beyonce sing about anything other than being in the moment of love-induced insanity", etc), but that's the future; in the present, we're left with a song that opens up with Jay rolling out "Used to run base like Juan Pierre/Now I run the bass, the hi-hat, and the snare". Again, I fully own up to my unrepentant Jay-Z fanboyishness, but that's fucking awesome no matter who said it - at the risk of Coeying the song for everyone, it just scans so well and twists so simply and it's like the fifth best couplet in the fucking song. I mean, I dunno - maybe I'm just a fanboy. Maybe I'm just glad to hear new stuff from Jay without needing to immediately fast forward after his verse to avoid the laughable awfulness of Young Jeezy. Maybe I need to broaden my horizons and look at it as more than a throwaway verse in a R&B crossover song. These are all possibilities. So is "Maybe it's a really, really great verse on its own merits."

AND THEN BEYONCE SINGS HER ASS OFF (or at the very least gets her ass auto-tuned off - I have resigned myself to the realization that that kind of thing was put here on this earth to fool dummies like me, but if I were a betting man, I'd go with "sings"). For real - I really never expected to write that; for one, I'm kind of legendarily inured to people sangin' they asses off (q.v. the complete and total absence of James Brown in my music collection - I REGRET NOTHING), but more to the point, it's Beyonce - I always kinda figured that if she was going to sing her way into my watchful gaze, she'd have done it by now. But god DAMN does she ever belt out that last verse - I mean god DAYUMMMMMMMMM. That "Whooo!" at the end - that's as much her celebrating her own nailing of the verse to the motherfuckin' wall as it's an expression of anything actually in the song. I mean, I hate to carve JC HEARTS JZ into a tree or anything, but seriously - here's arguably the most charismatic performance we've gotten out of Jay since his "retirement" (q.v. "BOUNCE"), but it's not his song. I mean no fucking way.

Anyway. Like I said, I have no idea how this song's going to hold up in the long run; I do know that as of this moment it's competing with stuff like "Maneater" and "Ghetto Story" and "Nextel Chirp" and "Bells" and "Fugitive" and (unless it gets destroyed on the final record) "W.A.Y.U.H." and "What You Know" in terms of Big-Ass Songs Of The Year, and that those songs, while not necessarily as compelling as they were when knife sank into flesh, are holding up mighty fine so far. I have a sneaking suspicion that "Deja Vu" will too. Call it a hunch. (Neither "Deja Vu" nor the album to which it's attached have a preorder date listed yet, but you can click here to order Dangerously In Love from Amazon.com if you're so inspired)

Susan Cadogan, "If You Need Me" - I'm pretty sure that my fandom of Susan Cadogan's Hurts So Good was pretty much assured right from the point of contact; most of my favorite reggae could either double as a particularly weird strain of American soul music or happens to have been produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Hurts So Good actually covers both of those to an extent. But I don't think I can say in all good conscience that I expected to enjoy it this fully - the album's got its weak tracks (most notably a cover of "In The Ghetto", although considering just how much ass that song sucks that's not really a surprise), but the strong songs, like "If You Need Me", are among the best reggae songs I've dug up in recent years. I get bored with a lot of reggae for the same reason that I get bored with a lot of funk, namely that I just get sick of the groove after a while without any crazy arrangements or weird-ass instruments to keep my mind occupied. Well, Hurts So Good is basically just that indomitable reggae bounce married to immaculate pop structure, and people, let me get this off my chest: that blissfully bleary-eyed head-tip that tends to show up whenever I find reggae songs that I like gets even more enjoyable when it's married to something other than a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, check out that melodica pepping the mix up - that right there is exactly the kind of thing I like to follow in songs, and it's like the fourth-best thing on this track (number one and the best being all the backup vocals behind the chorus, of course - that's some straight-up Gladys Knight and the Pips shit right there). And let's not even get into Cadogan's immaculately honeyed voice - this entry's long enough already. (Click here to buy Trojan's excellent 2003 remaster of Hurts So Good from Amazon.com)