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Summer has only just officially arrived and I’ve gone through the hate-love-hate cycle with at least three inescapable seasonal charttoppers. Fortunately, those songs — all available on iTunes and from most of the major download retailers — will be distant memories by the time the mercury soars and the big guns roll out, but the field is already packed with newcomers and veterans alike, all aiming to knock down my standards of good taste and respectability . . .
Rihanna, “Umbrella”
This particularly annoying charttopper combines terrible lyrics, insipid melodies, and 10 seconds of guilty pleasure (“ella-ella-eh-eh”) that would guarantee anyone a successful single. I don’t know who I hate more: Rihanna for making it or me for kinda sorta liking it.
Lil Mama, “Lip Gloss”
Novelty in the truest sense, this percussion-heavy offering has nothing new to offer, and yet its innocence and its energy are addictive. There’s a personal limit for tracks like this, a teenage rapper’s ode to her “poppin’ ” lip gloss, but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t change the station till Labor Day.
R. Kelly, “I’m a Flirt”
Probably a smarter choice than “I’m a Child Molester,” this big single from the R&B king would be easier to forget if it didn’t have such smooth melodies and that slight vocoder. All the same, its deep licks and ticking percussion have seen better days — why don’t they just re-release “Ignition (Remix)” every June?
Fabolous feat. Ne-Yo, “Make Me Better”
Production by Timbalake and a hook featuring Ne-Yo means we’ve finally got some guilt-free junk food. The soaring strings and atmospheric drips and drops here are the light at the end of the tunnel for a slow-starting 2007 in hip-hop. Let’s hope it’s a sign of better things to come in the second half of the year. And isn’t that what summer’s all about?
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2. Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Ne-Yo: Because of You, More 
- 2. Chris Brown
Seems like yesterday that Chris Brown was just another cute, precocious R&B comer with an unfortunate overbite and an uncanny knack for mimicking Michael Jackson’s choreography. Now this little punk is allegedly imitating Ike Turner’s worst traits — and bringing new meaning to the phrase “hit record.” And while the US is trying to exit painful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, morons like Chris Brown are starting international incidents — Rihanna is the cultural ambassador of Barbados. Thanks for opening another front for us in the Caribbean, asshole.
- Ne-Yo
Think Ne-Yo is bummed that his songwriting success of 2K5 (Mario’s “Let Me Love You”) got snubbed at the Grammys?
- Ne-Yo: Because of You
If Ne-Yo wants to make a real mark, he’ll have to toss that hat.
- The Big Hurt: Pop eroticism, faux sincerity, and sperm motility
I am a man who loves a good corporate doofus, and this week's glistening-prize-hog-doofus quote goes to TOM WELCH , Wal-Mart's senior music buyer, who manages to make Foreigner sound even squarer than Foreigner.
- Fabolous
Maybe he should spend less time spelling out his name.
- 80. Shia LaBeouf
The funny thing is that this (allegedly) drunk-driving clown-boy isn’t even the biggest fuck-up that Rihanna’s ever (allegedly) dated.
- Year in National Pop: New attitudes
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- The Soundtrack of Our Lives | Communion
In the mind of Ebbott Lundberg, who's led this Swedish psych-garage outfit for nearly a decade and a half, Who's Next posed a question in need of an answer.
- What can Brown do for you?
Our local alt-country renaissance continues this weekend with Gunther Brown's debut release, a five-song, 20-minute EP called Eustis Ridge.
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Some guitar teachers will tell you there’s a right way and a wrong way to play the guitar. But Davis Guggenheim’s rousing new documentary, It Might Get Loud, reminds us that that’s not true at all.
- The Big Hurt: Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks
What a lovely concept is mainstream rock : all that subversive stuff was fun for a while, but isn't rock much lovelier now that it's straightened up and joined the hegemony?
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