Ooooh, Motorboatin'
For the non-country listeners, there’s a new song called “Pontoon” that is pretty much as awful as it gets for Nashville-style summer anthem output. I was wondering how long it would manage to gasp and wheeze on the radio, only to find out that it hit #1 a while back. I read through YouTube comments and Amazon reviews, and people are just falling all over themselves loving it. Shocking.
Meanwhile, Taylor Swift releases something that finally has no perceptible country influence, but it still gets serious play on the country stations. I’m fine with it living on 96.5, but she’s really stretching her ability to stay “crossover” with some of this stuff. I’m normally a defender of hers, but I can’t defend this kind of claptrap.
While not specifically a summer anthem, this summertime gem from last year far exceeds this year’s slate, although the video does take the song in a cheaty direction that wasn’t really prescribed by the songwriting:
While I know that in real life the two kissers in the video are married (clever work there), it always seemed to me that there’s an invisible back story that in-character Josh Abbott is too tied up in his music to notice the obvious melting adulterous passion going on with his in-character girl. Anyway.
In other irritating music “news,” MGMT apparently refers to themselves as “musical terrorists.” Which I suppose would make me a “dance terrorist,” if terrorism now means being bad at something people want you to do anyway. They just hate our freedom, you see.
I for one am taking my bag of cookies and listening to Josh Abbott strum while his marriage burns, and to Peter Bradley Adams do pop-folk right. Humbug.