The Songs We Can't Escape

A A A Comments By Ray Cummings Wednesday, Mar 10 2010

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Jason Derulo
"In My Head"

Oh. My. God. Please tell me you are not going home with this song. This groping, panting, over-stimulated rogue of a song. Ego-tripping on E. He'll go for it by the velvet ropes of whatever club you met in, in the cab, in the vestibule, shamelessly—and he'll finish before you've even had a chance to start.

B.o.B.
"Champion"

Not so much a rapper as an entertainer or outsize personality, this Atlanta MC should maybe have his own hip-hop radio show, but I have no idea why anybody would wanna hear him actually rap. He's more of a toaster or something; he doesn't project and lacks a technique that makes one want to return to his material.

Electrik Red
"So Good"

Packing vintage Paisley Park swagger and euphemisms that belie the fact that they're basically The-Dream's pet iteration of Pussycat Dolls—seriously, do ladies really make remarks like "Don't mean to be a hater, but ooh, shit, damn" in casual conversation?—these independent urbanettes demand a transition from "fling" to "thing" on a shoulda-been single nobody knew existed last year. (There was a Lil Wayne remix; that slipped under the radar, too.) "Now you got me crazy/I'm out here calling you baby," one delectably anonymous vixen admits, all incredulous.

Fred the Godson
"Theme Music"

"I brought the bricks to 'em, gladly/I'm MC Hammer, I spent a grip on them baggies," February Fred cracks—get it? Gladly?—sounding, as always, as though he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown or an asthma attack.

Ke$ha
"Your Love Is My Drug"

Man! Think of what a home run Animal, this 23-year-old's randy, electro trash debut, would've been if every song were about slutting it up and boozing and crashing parties and likening life-threatening crushes to drug addiction, and she hadn't succumbed to the common impulse to balance the thematic scales. "My steez is gonna be affected, if I keep it up like a lovesick crackhead," she whines on this winning cut, which is awesome partly because it rips off DNA from unspecified '80s Madonna/Cyndi Lauper hits without any shame.

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