Today's Songs: Some Potential Songs of Summer from the Past Two Days
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" is the actual song of the summer, but Pink's just-released "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" is bound to be nipping at its heels on the Billboard Hot 100 in no time. What sounds like the product of tossing Modest Mouse's "Float On" in a blender with some stadium rock and a pinch of house, this is the most undeniable ear candy I've heard from Pink since her debut single, "There You Go" (back when she was R&B and of ambiguous ethnicity). The yelping she does at the end of the chorus ("I've had a shit day, you had a shit day, we've had a shit day") is the best, riskiest use of her pipes yet. Pink often irritates me for carrying herself like she's above her pop peers, but here she actually is, so hooray for her.
The past few days have seen an insane amount of essential singles released. At the very top of my list is one-half of Blur's two-sided comeback, "Under the Westway." Classic Blur down to the unabashed sentimentalism, it sounds like a mix of their own "End of a Century" and the Beatles' "Let it Be." The band sounds energized, but as idealistic about beauty and melody as ever — all this despite no real hook. The band has flip-flopped about whether their recent studio time will lead to a new album. "Under the Westway" (and to a lesser extent, its more uptempo companion track "The Puritan") makes me more eager than I have been in years to hear one.
Also of note: Kanye West and Pusha T's "New God Flow" has an old break beat (or at least, that's what the boom-bap is supposed to suggest) and it's fucking stunning. Kelly Rowland's "Ice" is, impossibly enough, catchier than her megahit "Motivation." Her guest on that track, Lil Wayne, also stops by Keyshia Cole's new one, "Enough of New Love," her best single in years and the extent to which she sings her ass of suggests she knows it.