The Songs We Can't Escape

Kelly Clarkson

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More About

• Jamie Foxx
• David Lynch
• T-Pain
• The Strokes
• Lil Mama

KELLY CLARKSON
"My Life Would Suck Without You"

No, Kelly, our lives would suck without you. We're totally throwing this on our BFF's next mix CD, no joke.

DEERHUNTER
"Disappearing Ink"

Kind of like the Strokes trying to condense a shadowy, cryptic David Lynch flick into a two-and-a-half-minute indie-rock song, which isn't necessarily a diss.

JAMIE FOXX feat. T-PAIN
"Blame It"

The subtext here, I guess, is that brand-name intoxicants and cyborg-twisted vocals and T-Pain aren't what's luring you under Foxx's silk sheets—rather, it's the singer's very essence and the promise of what a future as his one and only could be like. Which is a tidy way of legitimizing a narcotically catchy hit single about bumping and grinding en route to what's basically rape in most states. Happy club-hopping!

PINK
"So What"

The longer Pink's around, the less likable she becomes. I want to root for her (like I did back circa "Trouble")—consistently invigorating chart pop with rock 'tude is laudable even if she isn't the only diva doing it—yet there's been a standoffish bird-flip streak to her every single and public action over the past three or four years that makes me wish she'd turn into her generation's Courtney Love sooner rather than later. Oh, and my wife and son love "So What," for whatever that's worth.

RYE RYE feat. M.I.A.
"Bang"

I puzzle over Rye Rye's name, really. How'd she arrive at that? Does she just really like rye bread, or is it supposed to be a play on a breathless/Ebonic way of pronouncing "right, right"? Anyhow, this is rapid-fire club rap from a hyped-to-shreds Baltimore-based teenager who's less disciplined than Lil Mama was, but there's an emptiness—a flatness—at the heart of her rattlin' gat flow that keeps "Bang" from registering as anything more than cheap chrome flash. Or maybe I'm just too old.