Brian reviews Mariah Carey's "Whenever You Call" but mostly he talks about her boobs.

My brother Dan is a tough guy. He is a straight talker (that means he will give an honest opinion) and is very clear with what he likes and dislikes. He loves sports, women in bikinis and food. Probably in that order. Because he is such a man's man, it always cracks me up to hear him singing Mariah Carey tunes while listening to her on his iPod. That boy is such a contradiction!

He has had a major love for Mariah ever since I can remember so it'll be interesting to me to see his reaction when he reads Brian's review of Mariah Carey (I'm predicting he'll threaten to kick him in the nuts):

I had, of course, heard of this week's featured artist, Mariah Carey, though I'm pretty sure I'd never listened to her music. I knew about her silicon-enhanced charms, about the inadvisability of being on the same flight as her, and I would recognise her in a line-up. Sometimes I've seen pictures of her and thought she looked good, and other times thought "yuck". You hear about people having "good sides", and Mariah doesn't look so great when seen from certain angles (the front, for instance).

None of that was good preparation for this review, since it's all completely irrelevant when it comes to considering her songs. I was given "Whenever You Call" to listen to.

This is soul music, something I'm not very familiar with. It consists of fairly simple melodies that are embellished with extra notes around the main ones, a bit like Baroque, and a lot of emphasis is put on feeling, which really does come through in the singing. When you watch someone perform it, though, they have really pained expressions on their faces, like they're shitting broken glass, right before they go "mmmmmmm mmmmmm mmmmm yeah!".

The first time I listened to "Whenever You Call", I was pretty much ready to stop there and write about how much I hated Mariah Carey, but after spending some more time on it, I'm not feeling quite so negative. Her voice in the quiet passages sounds thin and really breathy. Sometimes she overdoes it a bit so that you could almost believe that she's unable to sing a steady note, though that's clearly not the case. And the "mmmmm wowowo" stuff can get a little OTT. I really did think at one point that she might have been having a crap or giving birth or something. On the other hand she manages to get a lot of colour and feeling in there that sounds convincing - a lot more so than singers in other pop genres who just sound false.

At work I have some ear defenders that I have to wear in certain areas, and I wish I'd brought them home for Mariah's loud sections. She belts out the notes, hitting the resonant frequency of my poor eardrums and prompting me to move all glass items away from the speakers, but I suppose that the emotion of the song requires that.

"Whenever You Call" was also released as a duet with Brian McKnight. I preferred it because you get a break from her voice. Not that I particularly liked Brian McKnight's singing.

I haven't really talked about the music itself. I don't think that you're really supposed to notice it, and I certainly didn't. The focus is really all on the vocals, and in that respect the song works.

I don't think that I could ever get to like Mariah Carey's music, or soul in general, but I'm glad now that I know more about her than what her breasts are made of, and to find out that she sounds a bit better than she looks. Not good enough to tempt me to become one of the millions who buy her records, though.
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Me? I'm a fan of her older stuff. The new songs not so much.

Brian reviews Kelly Clarkson's "My life Would Suck Without You"

So... it's music review day with the brilliant Brian from Brian o Vretanos. Why am I being so nice to him you ask. Well, we seem to agree on the sucketude of Kelly Clarkson's new song. Although I do enjoy some of her other music, this song makes me want to go look her up and ask her why she agreed to sing this song and then smack her upside the head (do people still say that? I guess they do.)

She is destroying everything Gloria Gaynor did for womankind when she told her loser guy to "walk out the door, don't turn around now cuz you're not welcome anymore". Instead Kelly Clarkson says it's okay to take back a guy who tells her he wanted anyone but her and then "Being with you Is so dysfunctional I really shouldn't miss you But I can’t let you go"

Screw you Kelly Clarkson. Screw. You. The new batch of women do not need to hear doormat songs.

I wouldn't care so much but I listen to the radio about 14 hours a day (I lay awake tossing and turning listening to the radio) and probably more now that we have the radio on instead of the TV when we're having dinner. I got tired of watching big breasted latina women talking about celebrities I've never heard of. I know it really disturbed Andy too so out of respect, no more TV. They play this song every hour on the hour.

Anyway, here's Brian's review:

This week we turn our attention to Kelly Clarkson and her delightfully named song "My Life Would Suck Without You". I think this is supposed to be romantic or something. Kelly was apparently the winner of one of those endless "talent" shows that are best watched with the sound turned off. Unless you're deaf. Personally I prefer to have the television turned off when these things are on, though some people seem to feel they have an addictive quality and watch them with the same morbid fascination that makes crowds hang around fatal traffic accidents.

I can never understand why people think that the life of a famous pop star is likely to be good. Months on the road doing one gig after another (if you're lucky enough to be in work), having to do what your record company and publicist and manager tell you, paparazzi just waiting for you to pick your nose, lots of money, groupies throwing themselves at you. Well, all right, maybe it's not all bad, but I still prefer anonymity. Not that I couldn't have become rich and famous if I'd wanted to, of course...

Anyway, Kelly was one of the lucky individuals who are picked either because they can actually sing, or they're neurotic, or have some other newsworthy quality that will generate headlines in the tabloids. Kelly seems to be able to sing, although the songs they give her don't really do her any favours. I'm really not sure what this particular genre is called but it goes something like this:

You start off with a fairly subdued repetitive bit, possibly meandering around tonally, but generally fairly formless, and with no real sense that it's going anywhere. Sometimes Kelly adds some "feeling" in the form of heavy breathing. Then just before all this drives you totally bonkers we come to the loud section. This seems to often be in a surprising key, though that may just be my impression because (a) the quiet part is so formless, and (b) the loud part is brash with a lot of emphasis on drums and you can't make out the chords that well. This could (as always) be because I'm listening to crappy youtube videos. The vocals in the loud section are, well, loud. They then go back to the start and do this a few times, possibly with the quiet bit being just instrumental one time round.

The lyrics are poetic, rather than natural. This is not a criticism. I'm sure it's my loss, but poetry leaves me totally cold. As did the music.

"My Life Would Suck Without You" is reasonably tuneful, and if it hasn't already been used for an advert, I think it ought to be - perhaps for Coca Cola or tampons or something. It isn't a bad example of this genre, and I preferred it to several of her other songs. By which I'm afraid I mean I didn't dislike it as much.

Sorry Kelly, but my life won't suck without your music...

 

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Well said Brian, welllllll said.

Stay tuned tomorrow for my post on Kinky Grandmas and friends who don't acknowledge my existence. ::cries::