ON ‘THE FAME MONSTER’ LADY GAGA SEARCHES FOR A SAVIOR

: Lady Gaga is the Red Queen of the Monsters

Vampires, werewolves and even Cookie Monsters all claw their way through Lady Gaga’s second album The Fame Monster. Gaga uses a monster motif as a platform to express her deepest fears, whether they’re fears of sex, love and life in general. Many people think fame, fortune and beauty solve all problems, all insecurities, but often those things only ease problems. Growing up insecure and still harboring insecurities, Gaga intends to show her fans that insecure people can achieve their dreams just as she did by conquering her fears, her monsters. She says that her fans (who Gaga lovingly refers to as “little monsters”) can be the people they’ve always wanted to be.

In today’s world of celebrity, reality shows are the main media that turn unknowns into instant celebrities. After these instant celebrities (more like pseudo celebrities) realize that their time in the spotlight is almost up, they become obsessed with extending their time in the spotlight. Like any addiction, an addiction to fame is a disease. Gaga used her first album The Fame to show how she, like many, viewed fame as the road to riches and diamond rings. The Fame Monster is a reminder that fame and fortune don't cure low self-esteem or pain, but instead they make a person more at odds with his problems. Instead of getting diseased by the falsehoods of fame, Gaga seeks purification and the truth.

On the humid “Teeth” Gaga seeks the truth in the supernatural land of New Orleans. “Teeth” conjures images of ghostly Plantation homes, alligators, gospel choirs and Anne Rice’s vampires. Like many of The Fame Monster’s songs, “Teeth” is a rallying song that acts as a call to arms to all the people in the world who seek the truth. Gaga looks to the vampire as an antidote for lies, and she seeks a savior. As she states in the song, she seeks someone who can be her religion. Once those fangs penetrate the skin of her neck, she will be bitten by the truth because as Gaga said, “the truth is sexy.” On all of The Fame Monster’s songs, Gaga is either searching for a hero to save her or turning to a vice to deal with the disappointment of not finding her hero. She’ll take anything she can find to cope with the often cruel world. Even on the Mexican lament “Alejandro” (the rare song on Monster that doesn’t sport a triumphant hook), Gaga is scared of love and sex, but she still looks at her boyfriends as father figures, and apparently these various boyfriends are disappointments. Her disappointments are all set to a coasting track designed by Gaga’s Swedish producer RedOne, paying homage to 90s group Ace of Base.

Instead of hoping that some Prince Charming saves her, Gaga hopes that monsters will save her. On “Monster” she dumps the bloodsuckers in favor of hairy beasts. Gaga becomes entranced by a “wolf” or a werewolf. On the last line of the first verse she sings that she “can’t stop staring in those evil eyes,” cleverly pronouncing the word “evil” like “hero” (Who even knew that was possible), so the sentence sounds like “hero’s eyes.” Once again, Gaga is searching for a hero to save her. During an interview, Gaga revealed that the monster of the song’s title refers to a guy’s manhood, the pinnacle of the male anatomy. That’s not such a clever metaphor, but her references to werewolves and even allusions to Little Red Riding Hood (“Girl you look good enough to eat”) make “Monster” colorful and theatrical. Sonically, “Monster” is a tapestry of earworm hooks just bubbling with melody set to a backing track that sounds as if it time-traveled from the mid to late 1980s, specifically from Janet Jackson’s 1986 blockbuster Control.

The murky first single “Bad Romance” is like Gaga’s Want Ad for a hero, a hero that’s “leather-studded” who’s a diseased “psycho.” It sounds like she wants the S&M killer from the 1980 movie Cruising or any of the kinky killers from Brian De Palma’s Alfred Hitchcock tributes. Speaking of Hitchcock, Gaga manages to reference three Hitchcock movies, Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, and just like those films Gaga casts herself as a Hitchcock blonde wanting and needing to be saved. Ideally, Gaga wants to find someone like herself who she can share “lovers’ revenge” with. “Bad Romance” is armed with a statuesque chorus and aggressively catchy hooks. Gaga is like a world-class chef when it comes to cooking up some of the greatest hooks in pop history. The standout hook on “Bad Romance” is the chant, “Ra-Ra-Ah-Ah-Ah/Ro-Ma-Ro-Ma-Ma/Gaga, ooh-la-la-la/Want your bad romance.” The words are nonsensical and work more as sounds, but it’s Gaga’s delivery that makes it memorable: she sounds like Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, as if the nonsensical words she sings are garbled because she has a mouth full of cookies. Maybe Gaga is deliberately referencing Cookie Monster, and if so it would be a clever tie-in with The Fame Monster’s monster motif.

When Gaga isn’t on the hunt for a hero, she’s spending her time in clubs introspecting. She reflects on topics ranging from not allowing herself to have fun (“Telephone”) to turning to vices like alcohol to cope with problems (“So Happy I Could Die”). With all the talk of monsters, death would be an inevitable topic. The piano ballad “Speechless” is probably the most personal song Gaga has ever recorded so far. It’s not dressed in clever metaphors, so it’s quite direct. Gaga said in an interview that “Speechless” is about fearing death and how death leaves her at a loss for words, as it did when her father was suffering from a heart problem that would kill him if untreated. The song emphasizes Gaga’s powerhouse mezzo-soprano voice. The lyrics “I’ll never talk again” and “I’ll never love again,” point to that paralyzing feeling, which death inspires of a person ceasing to exist. The person’s earthly presence is gone. Lady Gaga continues to introspect on “Dance in the Dark.” As the title states, Gaga is saying that she’s afraid of the light because light equals nakedness. She fears sex on “Dark,” which is the result of insecurity about her body. Ridicule causes shyness and shyness is paralyzing. Gaga says that she feels comfort in the dark shadows where no one can see her and she can just be free without being self-conscious. Gaga’s fear of light parallels with nocturnal monsters like vampires and werewolves. Using this parallel, Gaga casts herself as a bloodsucker that has a smile that is “a vampire grin” and a werewolf who’s “howling” at her boyfriend. “Dark” promotes feminism. Like the majority of The Fame Monster, “Dark” functions as a call to arms to females in the world suffering from the media’s obsession with beauty. Gaga is also speaking to males because males have to deal with weight issues and overall looks. When thinking of “Dance in the Dark” imagine the gloomy 80s New Wave band The Cure singing a song about feminism.


The monsters that live inside Lady Gaga’s head and around her actually help her. Mistakes can be monsters, as the phrase goes, are something to be learned from. If people don’t make mistakes they often don’t become stronger people. Mistakes or monsters give people character. Whether Gaga wants a guy with a “monster” in his pants or a “monster” she can pour into a glass, they all make Gaga the inventive musician that she is. Gaga had always hinted at a darker, more gothic side to her personality on The Fame, but on The Fame Monster she approaches her dark side head on.

KE$HA’S ‘ANIMAL’ IS A EUPHORIC RELIEF IN THIS WARZONE OF A WORLD

Warm skin that’s moist from the body heat. Ears are ringing from the music and everyone’s voices are inaudible. Eyes are blurry and your footing is off-balance. Confidence and euphoria overcome you and you feel like you’ll never get old and the night will never end. This is what it feels like when listening to Ke$ha’s debut album, Animal (RCA/Jive) A collection of rainbow-colored electro-pop full of punk-inspired hooks, Animal has the same effect as a bottle of Mike’s Hard Ice: Animal’s sugary intoxication is fast-acting. The album exists for the simple purpose of making people dance until their clothes come off and 22-year-old Ke$ha knows this. She’s young and she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Even on the more introspective songs she still makes clear life is her party, and in a cruel world full of layoffs and terrorism who wouldn’t want to be invited to her party?

Every song on Animal is up-tempo or mid-tempo making them always danceable. The album is a hybrid of electronic music and joyous pop-punk because of the futuristic synthesizers (that always lend themselves to thoughts of the future), and Ke$ha’s often Auto-Tuned vocals that have become requisite for pop-punk music and its emo leanings. Emo music is characterized by an emotional vocal style that includes a lot of belting. As much rapping as she does on her tracks like “Tik Tok” she also performs vocal runs that are definitive of pop music. Just think of Kelly Clarkson’s vocal gymnastics on “My Life Would Suck Without You” filtered through a voice similar to pop-punker Avril Lavigne’s and you have Ke$ha’s vocal performance.

Ke$ha sums up Animal’s theme in a matter of lines on “Tik Tok”: “I’m talkin’ ‘bout everybody gettin’ crunk, crunk/boys tryna to touch my junk, junk/and I’ll slap him if he getting’ too drunk, drunk.” Ke$ha splits up Animal into three subjects that are partying, obsessive love and invasions of privacy, but all the subjects revolve around partying. Ke$ha’s approach to music seems to always involve intoxication whether it’s becoming intoxicated by alcohol or obsessive feelings about love. This approach is executed perfectly on Animal’s opening song, “Your Love Is My Drug,” on which Ke$ha says she might “need some rehab” and her “heart is fried.” Maybe Ke$ha’s preoccupation with intoxication accounts for her tipsy persona, which she exhibits in interviews as well as her music. Since Animal is meant to be escapism for people to listen to when they want to feel carefree, the songs like “Drug” and “Hungover” seem like glimpses of the less carefree aspects of life that Ke$ha keeps to a minimum. She makes it clear that she’s aware that life isn’t always a party, but people should still try to party as much as possible. Ke$ha’s goal is not to remind people of their myriad problems, but to inspire them to be happy. On songs like “Tik Tok” and “Take it Off,” Ke$ha presents an image of herself as the ultimate party girl. The image Ke$ha presents of herself within these type of songs is of a party girl, but not like a Britney Spears who is the sorority girl type of party girl who gets dolled up in miniskirts and heels to party. Instead Ke$ha prefers to dress down to party in 80s memorabilia T-shirts, Doc Marten boots with her blond hair a mess. She’s the party animal who can out drink the guys and adopt their pimp logic and use it as a sort of female empowerment, but of course not in a too-serious way.

Throughout Animal Ke$ha channels her fellow female pop stars, who have all had #1 hits created by Ke$ha’s mentor super pop-producer Dr. Luke. Some of these pop stars include Kelly Clarkson (“My Life Would Suck Without You”), Katy Perry (“I Kissed A Girl”), Avril Lavigne (“Girlfriend”) and even Miley Cyrus (“Party in the U.S.A.”). Dr. Luke has made his career from always having big, urgent hooks that are maddeningly catchy, so it only makes sense that some of past hits would work their ways into Animal. Ke$ha is a songwriter in her own right writing a song on Miley Cyrus’ latest album. She even takes some “ooh-whoa-ooh-whoas” from Miley’s “Party in the U.S.A.” on Ke$ha’s somewhat melancholy “Blind.” Despite the influences, the perpetual facetiousness in Ke$ha’s voice keeps the Valley-born singer’s songs sounding distinct. The Max Martin-produced “Kiss N Tell” is very similar to Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You.” “Dinosaur” has that playground chant appeal that brings to mind Avril Lavigne’s Dr. Luke-produced “Girlfriend.” With its vocal gymnastics and urgency “Hungover” has a similarity to Avril’s “I’m With You.”

Animal’s coda is its title track, which Ke$ha uses to address her need to constantly party as a way to deal with life’s un-pleasantries. Lyrics like “I’m not asleep, I’m up for the fight/into the magic/and I don’t want the concrete, I am alive/comes with the tragic” make crystal clear that Ke$ha’s partying is essentially her fight for life. Maybe if she stopped dancing she would just become another victim of this warzone of a world. The title track has a driving pulse much like a heartbeat, and is urgent. It’s the song that steps aside from the other songs on Animal and reflects on what all the songs mean as a whole. As Ke$ha sings on the chorus, “the world is spinning at the speed of light” and time is not on anyone’s side, not even the young and people might as well enjoy life’s often fleeting moments of fun. Ke$ha’s Animal is not fleeting, but it is one of life’s rare moments of fun. Bring Ke$ha’s magical brand of party pop into your life and drink it up.

BRITNEY CHANNELS HER TEEN POP PAST ON ‘3’

A platinum-blond Britney in her "3" music video

Britney Spears’ “3” is a feverish piece of electro-pop that is reminiscent of Britney’s virginal pop glory days despite its sexual innuendos. It’s the perfect pop song that sounds more in line with the Britney of ten years ago.

Swedish producer Max Martin provides “3” with a midtempo beat full of skittering synths that’s indistinguishable from any of the electro-pop songs on the radio ranging from Ke$ha to Adam Lambert, but the songwriting is “3”’s saving grace. Swedish songwriter/instrumentalist Shellback (man responsible for those catchy hooks on Britney’s “If U Seek Amy” and Pink’s “So What”) makes lyrical and melodic magic for Britney. Despite not having a muscular chorus that is usually synonymous with Max Martin and Shellback, “3” makes up for it by having a muscular melody.

Since its radio release in September “3” has been marketed as a controversial song about having threesomes and living sinfully, but ultimately “3” is a playful piece of glossy pop that possesses an effervescence closer to Britney’s teen pop past. She may sing rebellious lyrics like, “are you in, living in sin is the new thing,” but her vocal delivery of those lyrics is so peppy and cheerleader-like that the risqué lyrics have no weight. Sure, Britney used to be a Mouseketeer and she’s always sounded a bit Disney, but her last two albums, Circus and Blackout were surprisingly dark and mysterious. The albums sounded like a woman who’s had her share of partying hard and smoking cigarettes, but on “3” Britney sounds chirpy again. On the b-section (which really is a chorus/hook masquerading as a b-section) Britney moves in out of her head, middle and chest voices while singing “are you in, living in sin is the new thing” with a hopefulness on the words “new thing.” Britney even uses 1960s folk groups as sexual euphemisms citing “Peter, Paul & Mary” as a creative way of saying “a threesome.”

Despite its slightly pedestrian beat “3” has a starry-eyed bridge that serves as a period for people to slow their pace of rapid-fire dancing and catch their breath. The twinkling synths and fist-pumping bass are rave-like inspiring a vision of people waving glow sticks in the shadows of a club, and a DJ working the ones and twos. The marching bass winds “3” back up to its elementary chorus full of counting. There’s a sense of power-pop urgency about Britney’s pitched vocal delivery and as is “What we do is innocent” lyric, which sounds like a mantra for a generation or an era; maybe an era past like Britney’s glorious teen pop past back when the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync ruled the planet.

Maybe “3” is a sign that Britney’s music will take a brighter, more “innocent” direction. A change of pace might be just what Britney’s music needs.

RIHANNA TEMPERS HER ANGER WITH A MILITANT THEME ON ‘RATED R’

After singer Chris Brown reenacted scenes from the film, Fight Club on his former girlfriend singer Rihanna’s pretty face earlier this year, it’s no surprise that Rihanna is no longer in the mood to sing trancey dance songs with Michael Jackson chanting in the background. Instead of trying to make people dance, with her new album Rated R Rihanna has recorded cold, metallic songs full of military references and quiet anger.

Most of Rated R’s songs bring to mind images of Rihanna singing the songs while riding in an army tank. The industrial production inspires this image of Rihanna as a soldier of war. The album’s most militant songs are its best songs because they suggest an evolution for Rihanna’s music, while the remaining songs are from her poppy past and sound as if they were left over from 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad.

On Rated R’s best songs Rihanna establishes her new hardened musical persona sounding something like a gangster. She is at her most thuggish on “Hard,” in which she inspires listeners to simultaneously think of apocalyptic warfare and fashion runway shows. With lines like “they think they test me now/run through your town, I shut it down” and “and my runway never looked so clear/got the hottest bitch in heels right here,” it’s easy to see that Rihanna still has an ego after admitting in a Diane Sawyer interview that she was “embarrassed” to have fallen for a guy like Chris Brown. “Hard’s” scowling bass line, which guides the main hook “so hard, so hard” sounds like the victorious bass line from The Jackson’s 1984 hit, “Can You Feel It.” That bass line and the Thriller homage, the introductory “Mad House” are the extent of The Gloved One’s influence on Rated R. On “Wait Your Turn” Rihanna wastes no time sparking the wartime imagery stating in the first two lines, “I pitch with a grenade/swing away if you’re feelin’ brave.” It’s one of Rated R’s angrier songs where Rihanna’s rage boils a bit over the surface and the listener can hear the clenched teeth in her voice. Musically, “Wait Your Turn” sounds like a Star Wars theme anchored by videogame synths. And last and least is the anemic first single, “Russian Roulette” that sounds like music fit for a funeral. Ne-Yo wrote the song, but he writes his best material for Rihanna when Danish production duo Stargate is at the helm, which they are not on "Roulette." The beat of “Roulette” matches the warfare motif of “Wait Your Turn” and “Hard” to a lesser degree, but it’s still one of Rated R’s weakest songs even next to the pop-lite songs like “Rude Boy.”

Rated R’s worth rests on two statuesque songs written by talented songwriter James Fauntleroy (the man who wrote Jordin Sparks’ airborne hit, “No Air”). The songs are “G4L” (Gangsta 4 Life) and “Fire Bomb.” Both are songs that broadly address Rihanna’s incident with Chris Brown by way of her muted anger to the point that you can picture Rihanna’s heavily eye-lined eyes glaring. She spits with venom on “G4L” “I lick the gun/when I’m done/’cuz revenge is sweet” and you sense that Rihanna is definitely capable of going all Red Sonja on someone’s butt. She tries a couple flows and cadences Bone Thugs-N-Harmony-style across a sinister synth beat reminiscent of a track by electro-thrash duo Crystal Castles. “Fire Bomb” is Rihanna’s own swelling rock opera that is a ball of tempered anger. The song’s main bass line is a guitar loop that resembles a steady-flowing machine gun. The guitar chords have a crashing pace that add sound to Rihanna’s lyrics, “Where I’m going I don’t need my brakes/Can’t wait to see your face/when your front windows break/and I come crashing through” during the b-section that’s sandwiched between the verses. The b-section is the car set in motion and the chorus is the crash, the explosion. The static of Rihanna’s voice is ghostly and the buildup is ethereal. The references to needing masks to breath relate back to Rated R’s military theme.

Rated R is an album that is not Rihanna’s best ever album because none of her albums are her best, but it is certainly her most vocally strong. Her anger finally seems like it has depth. Her past albums have the dance-pop songs that made Rihanna a superstar, so they will always have their value, but Rated R represents something new for Rihanna artistically though it may not be commercially successful.

Britney Gets Slowed Down by Syrupy Euphoria on "3' Remix

Many songs are less than the sum of their parts, and Britney Spears’ latest single, “3” falls into this category, but it is by no means a bad thing because the parts are so sweet to the ear. It’s like eating a glossy, syrupy peach cobbler, but hating the crust. The original version of “3” with all of its arid synths and Lil’ Jon tendencies was nothing without the euphoric bridge that slow grinds its way into the mix. According to most of the people who have heard “3,” the bridge is the best part of the song. Taking that main ingredient of “3” and making it the sole beat for a “Slow Remix” is like taking the syrupy sweet peaches out of a peach cobbler and eating it by itself.

Presumably a fan of Britney is responsible for replacing the shrill synths of the original beat with the 7-note guitar loop that used to be the original’s bridge and the result is a thing of beauty. The beauty of the bridge was intensified on the original when heard in contrast to the aggressiveness of the rest of the original beat. Since the bridge has a larger presence on this remix, its trance vibe is even stronger bringing to mind glow-sticks lighting up a dark club full of horny, tipsy and/or drunk people. The bridge music conjures up that much beloved feeling of euphoria (usually alcohol-induced). When experiencing this euphoria, a person wants the feeling never to end, and doesn’t want the night to end; it’s a moment in time cherished through memory. People who partied in college know this feeling and people who party and go clubbing know this feeling too. This “Slow Remix” of “3” is a dance record, but it’s by no means a “club banger” because its purpose is not to get people energetic, but it’s more of song to dance to after you’re already intoxicated. It’s a song to listen to while basking in the blissful moment of intoxication when it feels like nothing bad can ever happen. This is the purpose of the “Slow Remix” of “3” and it is why I never get tired of listening to it; it inspires and exudes happiness.

Britney’s vocals are processed, but they reach a level of smoothness that fits the lushness of this “Slow Remix” perfectly. “3” is a set of melodic parts that work as a team, ironically a team of three, or maybe not ironically. The strength in melody can be credited to the song’s Swedish songwriters, Max Martin (the man responsible for “Baby One More Time”) and Shellback (wrote Britney’s controversial “If U Seek Amy”). The three parts are the chorus, the b-section and the bridge. The verses are good, but not nearly as melodic and catchy as the other parts. There are a few lyrics on “3” that makes one scratch their head because they seem so left-field. Most critics have said that “3” is a return to Britney’s bubblegum roots and is surprisingly wholesome, despite the whole threesome thing. However, on the b-section, Britney croons, “Are you in/living in sin is the new thing,” which seems like it would offend people—people have expected that it would since they have censored the word “sin” on some radio stations and in the “3” music video—but the whole “living in sin” thing is just another way of saying “I’m not that innocent,” which was Britney’s mantra when she debuted on the music scene in 1999. The fact that songwriter/producer Max Martin was involved with “3” makes sense of the reference to innocence since the song is a slight departure from Britney’s grimier (if that word can even be associated with Britney) songs on Blackout and some of her Circus album. “3” is sort of a blast from Britney’s past. Britney has always been a walking condition where she’ll perform a striptease on stage, but immediately after she will seem almost embarrassed by the striptease. It’s like Britney knows that the image she’s built for herself over the last ten years has been what people expect from her, so she stays true to that image in an almost workman-like manner. When Britney sings on the bridge on “3” that, “What we do is innocent/just for fun and nothing meant/if you don’t like the company/let’s just do it you and me,” she’s contradicting herself. She’s saying that if threesomes offend people then she wants to make sure they know that she also likes the more traditional one-on-one sexual encounter, and that she’s not really that much of a sex freak. Britney’s conflciting image of wholesome and devilish is her trademark, and it truly has become uniquely hers. The original version of “3” is the more sinful side of Britney and the “Slow Remix” of “3” is the angelic side, and ultimately the best and truest side.

The-Dream Touches Rihanna's "Hard" Single With His Oddball Magic

One of the many outstanding characteristics of Rihanna’s latest single, “Hard” is that The-Dream’s songwriting is the star of the show and acts as the thread that keeps the song sewn together. The brilliance of “Hard” proves once again that songwriters really are the unsung heroes of pop music.

The-Dream (born Terius Nash)—he wrote the No. 1 hits, “Umbrella” for Rihanna and “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” for Beyonce—uses every centimeter and inch of Christopher “Tricky” Stewart’s unremarkable instrumental to fit in an abundance of hooks. The-Dream’s ability to create multiple hooks that support a big chorus has become his trademark. The “I’m so hard, so hard…yeah-yeah-yeah…” is immediately recognizable as a hook. Technically, there really is no chorus on “Hard,” but instead a barrage of hooks. The rest of the hooks are scattered around the song; for instance, the “and while you’re gettin’ your cry on/I’m gettin’ my fly on” line is only uttered once, yet it stays in the ear for a while. In contrast, the “I see you aimin’ at my pedestal/I better let you know” line is used twice, once at the end of the first verse and once at the end of the second verse, yet the “cry on/fly on” line is a bit more catchy, despite only sung once. The minimal repetition of the “pedestal” line is the sole conventional part of The-Dream’s songwriting on “Hard.” There also are no b-sections, no real bridge and no ad-libs. The-Dream just doesn’t follow the traditional verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus song structure.

Lyrically, “Hard” is a bragfest for Rihanna that acts to further affirm her as a fashion icon. She talks about having “all black on” and “black tall shades” and a “black tall Maybach.” We already knew Rihanna was a baller, and she has no problem reminding us. Rihanna even makes references to the song that changed her career, “Umbrella” when she sings one of the more subtly catchy hooks on “Hard”: “That Rihanna rain just won’t let up.”

Christopher “Tricky” Stewart’s overall sparse instrumental—which consists of a few tinkling piano keys, bass and a sinister groan that sounds sort of like a horn, but it sounds more like the product of a keyboard—would be a mediocre beat that sounds suspiciously similar to one of Young Jeezy’s past hits (who happens to spit 16 bars on “Hard”) without The-Dream’s oddball songwriting. Because of the beat’s sparseness, The-Dream is forced to create his own melody.

The official first single from Rihanna’s forthcoming album, Rated R is the Ne-Yo-penned “Russian Roulette,” but thankfully that dreary mess of a ballad slithered off and had a quiet death with little to no radio airplay, while Rihanna’s “second” single, “Hard” (the real first single) has had steady airplay, especially on R&B/hip-hop radio. I predict that audiences will respond well to “Hard” and its inventiveness. Plus, people don’t want to hear Rihanna’s sob songs, they instead want her to make them dance, which “Hard” certainly does.

Disembodied Soulfulness is What Has Made Songwriter James Fauntleroy Such a Gift

James Fauntleroy wearing those mad scientist glasses.

Link of James mixing it up in the studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x0BxAufH28

Ever wonder why Jordin Sparks sounded so elemental on “No Air” and why Chris Brown sounded so heroic on “Superhuman”? The answer is simple: James Fauntleroy. He’s the songwriter who makes anything he touches ethereal, as well as ghostly. The guy can write any kind of music, from R&B to Country. There's a lot about James Fauntleroy that suggests the purity and earnestness of a child. He has the cheeks of a baby and the smile of a Cheshire cat. He sings in a floating, otherworldly tenor, which contributes to his angelic charm. James writes songs of love like many songwriters, but he writes lyrics that transcend hackneyed song composition.

I always knew singer-songwriter James Fauntleroy was eclectic and could write any style of music to any beat, (he wrote a song called “Torn Down” for Brandy’s album, Human that has a subtle country vibe to it) yet still maintain his unique style, but it wasn’t until I heard his song, “Overhead” produced by hit country music songwriter/producer Luke Laird (the man behind Carrie Underwood’s “So Small”) that I knew James style was evolving. It’s no coincidence that most R&B singers and country singers come from religious Christian backgrounds based in the Southern states of America. With that said, God is a constant fixture of both R&B and Country and the presence of God gives each genre of music an organic quality, even if many of today’s R&B and country artists use a sizable dosage of reverb and studio effects on their vocals, the organic part might be only applicable to the ethos of the music. The music of Contemporary Country artists like Carrie Underwood is more pop-oriented in the way that Underwood’s vocals are slick, polished and melismatic, which makes her sound more like the Whitney Houstons and Mariah Careys. The more traditional idea of country music was that it was minimal, at times hokey and off-key. Country music producer/songwriter Luke Laird produced the sweeping midtempo, “Overhead” surprisingly sung by “No Air” songwriter James Fauntleroy. Fauntleroy primarily writes songs for R&B and pop artists—he wrote Jordin Sparks’ “No Air” and songs for Britney Spears, Brandy and Chris Brown—but now for the first time he’s worked with a country producer on a song that is recognizably country. The wobbly strings that sound like fiddle strings give “Overhead” a country vibe. Listening to “Overhead,” it’s assumed “overhead” refers to the almighty one above God who’s looking down on the world he created. During the bridge, James sings, “We try to find it in a backseat” (pickup trucks for all the country music lovers in cowboy boots and hats), “fast car on a long-end street/Put my hand to the ground/listen for the sound of a heartbeat…I found it in a blue sky.” Those lyrics are referencing nature and how people try to find God's presence within nature, as well as in human contact. The God theme of “Overhead” makes it a gospel song of sorts. The theme of nature and God also keeps in line with James’ overall musical style that is influenced heavily by the elements of the world.

James’ unique style consists of a use of dissonance existing in James’ often off-kilter singing and unconventional melodies. James’ off-kilter singing (not to be confused with off-key) is the product of dissonance. Dissonance consists of different melodies that are abrasive to each other if not timed correctly, but if timed perfectly, the different melodies will find a tonal common ground or connect at a harmonious chord. James’ voice moves with each chord of a song whether the chord goes up or down, so he’s fully aware of what chords to hit with his voice; this is the reason his voice stays in sync with the beat of a song.

Regardless of musical genre, most singers perform ad-libs, which James does very well. It’s not surprising that James is able to twist vocals in new directions since one of his main influences is R&B singer Brandy; like James, Brandy also uses dissonance in her singing and creates vocal arrangements together to form a richly textured composition. Ad-libs are arranged usually during choruses to add variation to the chorus melodies that tend to be repetitive without the addition of ad-libs. Choruses are meant to be repetitive for the purpose of sticking in listener’s heads, but songwriters create ad-libs that are of a different melody than the chorus to accomplish a sense of harmony. Just as in a four-part harmony where there are soprano, alto, tenor and baritone/bass parts, dissonant melodies combine together to form a harmony that is greater than the sum of its parts. Julie Andrews explained all of this very well when she taught the Van Trapp children “do re mi” in the film, The Sound of Music.

Even though most of James’ vocals have a bit of reverb effect applied to them, even without the reverb, James’ vocals would sound dissonant. Reverb is a recording studio effect that adds some elasticity and resonance to a vocal, which sometimes makes the voice float and echo. It’s a combination of the dissonance and the reverb that makes James’ voice sound disembodied, which then makes James’ voice sound atmospheric. The atmospheric quality of James’ vocals and lyrics defines James’ songs. The definition of nature is everything that exists on the earth except humans, which includes animals, water, air, oxygen and trees. The fact that James’ voice sounds disembodied fits perfectly with the idea of his voice being something that does not belong to a human, but instead to Mother Nature. James’ voice is not something that has a flesh-and-blood face, but something that floats through the atmosphere with the birds and buzzing around with the bees and hummingbirds. This atmospheric style is what makes James sound truly soulful simply because he sounds like what a soul is supposed to be: a collection of feelings, thoughts and actions that can never die.

The biggest hit song that James has written so far is Jordin Sparks’ “No Air,” which soars through the atmosphere flying above the windswept beaches and shining oceans like a good James Fauntleroy song should. When listening to “No Air,” one does get the feeling that they’re submerged underwater gasping for air (with all those huge ad-libs full of big, blasting high notes, anyone would be gasping for air, maybe that was the intention to stay true to the song’s title). It’s not until the bridge—which acts as a sort of resting period, even though Jordin and her duet partner Chris Brown are still singing during it—that Jordin and Chris seem to rise up from the water, and with all the new air they have to breathe, they can sing their lungs out. James’ demo of “No Air” is just as elemental as Jordin’s version, but with the ghostly, Enya-like quality of his vocals James’ version sounds more tranquil. James doesn’t have the bombastic Mariah Carey notes that Jordin has, but that’s what makes James’ demo original, like himself. Chris Brown has worked with James numerous times, including two of Brown’s singles, “Superhuman” and “Take You Down.” Again, “Superhuman” has listeners envisioning skies and people flying across the skies looking down at the world because a superhero like Superman flies with his red cape blowing in the wind. On “Superhuman,” Brown duets with Keri Hilson who is an accomplished songwriter like James who makes good use of her skillful vibrato.

Since the success of “No Air,” James Fauntleroy’s star has definitely risen. He was nominated for a 2009 Grammy for “No Air.” Recently, James made Britney Spears sound ethereal on “Mannequin” and wrote a song for Ciara and Justin Timberlake to out-dance each other to on “Love, Sex, Magic.” Music is said to be universal transcending race, gender and geography and this belief also goes for the versatile James Fauntleroy. From Youtube to Internet blogs, many people have commented that they often prefer James’ demos over the final recorded version by another artist. This is saying something. With such an elemental style, James could be the shaman who connects the visible world and the invisible spiritual world.