freeform goodness

Of course, a scant few days after I pronounce the iTunes freebies too boring to bother with, they offer one of the best so far. I dont know if I’ll still like this song in a week — it’s got one of those so-catchy-that-it’ll-soon-annoy-me choruses, but I know a hook when I hear one, and this song’s got an irresistable one.

Judging from the other snippets I’ve heard, Jem (no last name) appears to be working the Beth Orton / Dido / Lamb axis: singer-songwriter-y female vocals over light electronics. How does it work over the course of a whole album? I have no idea, but this song’s nice enough to keep.

:: Dave Walker 18:15 (EST/EDT) [+]

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This week’s selection is pretty fun. It’s pretty much 80’s throwback new wave, which would be rather tough to screw up. Probably the most obvious touchstone here would be the B-52s, circa Whammy. Apparently the band has quite an interesting stage show.

:: Dave Walker 10:21 (EST/EDT) [+]

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The week of daily freebies is over. This is the first “free song of the week” series. I wonder if that means they’ll all debut on Thursdays? That doesn’t seem to sync perfectly with the industry’s new-release-Tuesdays, but I guess we’ll find out for sure next week. On to the song:

Meh. Inoffensive, unmemorable nu-soul. Competent singing, glory notes all in a row, friction-free arrangemen and production, and now-mandatory post-Erykah Badu “you wronged me now I’m not going to take it no more” lyrics. Next.

:: Dave Walker 15:25 (EST/EDT) [+]

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I fell on this grenade for you. For you. Never forget this.

Starts with a heartbeat and an acoustic guitar. I shit you not.

All I know
Is everything is not as it’s sold
but the more I grow the less I know
And I have lived so many lives
Though I’m not old
And the more I see, the less I grow
The fewer the seeds the more I sow

It mostly goes on like that, for what seems like about 63 years.

There’s about 96 overdubbed tracks worth of sparkly digital crap and the string sections and the American Idol-style oversinging and the rah-rah-radio supercompression and the maybe they’re backup singers or just a flotilla of sampled-autoharmonized clones and the oy please stop oh just please stop it someone.

:: Dave Walker 12:48 (EST/EDT) [+]

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I’m not sure why I assumed that all of the free tracks in the current iTMS giveaway would be rock and/or roll, given that there’s far more than that in the current inventory.

What I know about opera you could pour into a shotglass and still have room for enough booze for irrbody in the club to get tips’. I’ll try to get through te rest of this without making a fool of my philistine self. I can confirm that m4a/m4p’s metadata standard is apparently quite robust, since it managed to contain that whole mouthful in the subject line, avec Unicode and a rather fetching portrait of Ms. Fleming, all without breaking a sweat.

For what my completely unqualified opinion is worth, I enjoyed today’s selection. I really wish I could say something useful about it, but knowing one’s limits has its own value.

:: Dave Walker 09:44 (EST/EDT) [+]

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d.w.:

I know I said that I’d review all the iTunes Music Store freebies, but don’t I get a day off? A review sabbath, if you will?

d.w.’s conscience:

Heh. You just don’t want to have listen to a Counting Crows song. Multiple times.

d.w.:

C’mon, I’m a good guy, mostly. I love my dog. I help old ladies across the street.

d.w.’s conscience:

A promise is a promise. You said you’d review them all.

d.w.:

I know. But I’m scared.

OK, I guess it wasn’t that horrible. Counting Crows are in upbeat, joyous Van Morrison-ripoff mode here, as opposed to their dreaded serious, intense Van Morrison-ripoff mode, which usually makes me want to rip my ears off and hide in the storm cellar. It’s got a decent hook, and with a different singer I’d probably even listen to it with something approaching enjoyment. It’s taken from the soundtrack of the upcoming Shrek 2, and I can absolutely see it working in that context.

:: Dave Walker 08:24 (EST/EDT) [+]

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Not bad. I managed not to hear a single thing from last year’s Jane’s Addiction reunion record, Strays, which gives you an idea of the magnitude of the rock I’m hiding under with respect to current radio. I didn’t actively seek it out, either, becuase reunion records are usually, y’know, crap.

This track, unlike any of the others reviewed so far, actually does some interesting things texturally. It starts with a subdued electronics, (real?) strings and plucked guitar intro over which Perry Farrell, well, coos. This intro lasts for about 90 seconds before the second part of the song kicks in, a bass-led rolling thing with a circular guitar riff and a suitably frenetic chorus (points deducted for lyrical cliché). There’s an ambient breakdown after the second chorus that’s particularly effective.

The whole thing manages to stay interesting over it’s full five minutes and 27 seconds, and I guess that’s about all you can ask for, right? If anyone has heard the full album, I’d be curious if the record as a whole is up to the quality of this track (please use the comments.)

:: Dave Walker 11:02 (EST/EDT) [+]

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This one’s a little tougher to review properly, because hearing it makes me want to hear a different version of the song. I think the vocal is excellent — a full 20+ years after Sweet Dreams, Lennox still has a helluva set of pipes. What I’m not enthusiastic about at all is the lackluster commercial trance backing her up here in this remix.

In this sense, this free song has probably done its job more than any of the others so far in the series, in that it makes me want to buy other tracks by the artist: in this case, I want to find an arrangement that better serves the singer. Sadly, the perfect version doesn’t seem to be present on this EP, as the mixes, at least from the 30-second excerpts, they all seem to be decidedly lackluster. I’d love to hear her work with i:Cube, or Funkstörung, or maybe Kirk Degiorgio, for example.

:: Dave Walker 10:39 (EST/EDT) [+]

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Today’s iTMS freebee is Hold On To Me by Courtney Love, taken from America’s Sweetheart. Amusingly, the free track is drawn from the “clean” version of the album instead of the “explicit” one, so if you wanted to buy the full album you’d save 99 cents by taming yr. baser impulses, nyuk nyuk.

Now about the song… well, meh, maybe meh+. Courtney’s in her cracked-out Stevie Nicks mode here, I suppose. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the arrangement — it’s a little on the slick side, though the little soaring guitar figure in the chorus is nice. I’m going to be optimistic rather than negative and assume that that the multitracking in the choruses is a deliberate late 70’s / early 80’s AOR pastiche.

:: Dave Walker 13:20 (EST/EDT) [+]

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I don’t think anyone else is blogging these, so I’m going to start a feature where I review the free iTunes promos. (There’s one a day until the middle of next week, and then, apparently, there’ll be one per week.)

I briefly mentioned the first two songs in yesterday’s entry.

:: Dave Walker 13:18 (EST/EDT) [+]

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