The Songs We Can't Escape

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More About

• United Nations
• Heidi Montag
• Bisquick
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Hip-Hop and Rap

Annie
"Songs Remind Me of You"

My biggest issue with Annie's voice—on Anniemal and Don't Stop alike—is that her frosted vocals threaten to melt into the Bisquick fricassee of whatever bubblegum Euro-pop production they're straddling, to the extent that whatever she's singing about almost doesn't matter. Which is okay when the lyrics are terrible, and sometimes they are, but "Songs" is one of those disco synapse-stabbers that deceives you into thinking you get what's happening off the bat, and it's too easy to miss its subtleties.

Heidi Montag
"Turn Ya Head"

A new anthem for professional paparazzi, and not much else. Seriously, is anyone really clamoring for more overexposed It Girl pop songs by and for overexposed anorexic It Girls right now other than the Twilight-twisted tweenettes who worship them?

Vanessa Hudgens
"Make You Mine"

So at my 11-year-old niece's birthday party, where the biggest hit was Ke$ha's "Tik Tok," why couldn't this have gotten play? I mean, this is one of those wholesome, universalist singles that you can watch your niece dance to without worrying that she's going to turn into an alcoholic chew-toy for roofie-dealing douchebags tomorrow.

Pill
"Pistol Packer"

The recent slate of unexceptional yet celebrated workaday rappers—let's call this hip hop's "new adequacy"—is profoundly baffling. I mean, I can totally hang with Playboy Tre's comedy-club hyperrealism, but there's next to nothing about dudes like Freddie Gibbs that sticks with me; ditto Pill, whose fiercely South street persona remains half-trapped in mythic/ethos clay. There's no reason to care, but maybe that's his strategy, his narrative, his emerging-by-degrees arc. Maybe.

The U.N. feat. Cam'ron
"Clap"

Remember that joke Lil Wayne made on "Got Money" about how he drives his Clapper crazy without using his hands? (Hint: This is achieved via vigorous sport fucking.) The U.N. have expanded that joke into an entire, humorless song-slog equipped with the kind of varsity cheerleader tryout, click-track beat that sounds cheap because it probably is.